Grand Theft Auto V topped Twitch viewership charts in 2024 with a staggering 1.4 billion hours watched, according to data released by the streaming platform. The 11-year-old game outperformed all competitors, including League of Legends, which also surpassed the billion-hour mark.

Competitive shooters filled the remaining top spots, with Valorant recording 804 million hours, Fortnite exceeding 500 million, and Call of Duty reaching 451 million hours watched. V-Tubers -- streamers using animated avatars instead of showing their faces -- saw viewership increase by 10% year-over-year, accumulating over a billion hours watched collectively.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Wizards of the Coast has released the System Reference Document, the heart of the three core rule books that constitute Dungeons & Dragons' 2024 gameplay, under a Creative Commons license. This means the company cannot alter the deal further, like it almost did in early 2023, leading to considerable pushback and, eventually, a retreat. It was a long quest, but the lawful good party has earned some long-term rewards, including a new, similarly licensed reference book. [...] Version 5.2 of the SRD, all 360-plus pages of it, has now been released under the same Creative Commons license. The major change is that it includes more 2024 5th edition (i.e., D&D One) rules and content, while version 5.1 focused on 2014 rules. Legally, you can now design and publish campaigns under the 2024 5th edition rule set. More importantly, more aspects of the newest D&D rule books are available under a free license:

- "Rhythm of Play" and "Exploration" documentation
- More character origins and backgrounds, including criminal, sage, soldier, and the goliath and orc species.
- 16 feats, including archery, great weapon fighting, and seven boons
- Five bits of equipment, 20 spells, 15 magic items, and 17 monsters, including the hippopotamus

There are some aspects of D&D you still can't really touch without bumping up against copyrights. Certain monsters from the Monster Manual, like the Kraken, are in the public domain, but their specific stats in the D&D rulebook are copyrighted. Iconic creatures and species like the Beholder, Displacer Beast, Illithid, Githyanki, Yuan-Ti, and others remain the property of WotC (and thereby Hasbro). As a creator, you'll still need to do some History (or is it Arcana?) checks before you publish and sell.

Nintendo has filed a request for subpoena in California's Northern District Court to compel Discord to reveal the identity of user "GameFreakOUT," the alleged source of last year's extensive Pokemon leak. The company is demanding the name, address, phone number, and email of the individual behind the "Teraleak," which contained claimed source code for upcoming title Pokemon Legends: Z-A, next-generation Pokemon games, builds of older titles, and numerous concept art and lore documents.

Court documents obtained by Polygon show Nintendo included a partially redacted Discord screenshot as evidence, where GameFreakOUT shared files in a server named "FreakLeak." The breach occurred around October 12, 2024, two days after Game Freak publicly acknowledged a hack affecting employee information without confirming game data theft.

Longtime Slashdot reader Qbertino writes: German public news outlet Tagesschau reports (source: YouTube) on an ESA video game that helps train a future moon lander's guidance AI to spot craters. Games have already helped collect visual data on millions of craters. The University Darmstadt developed the game, called IMPACT, to support ESA's efforts to establish a base on the moon. An older article from August 2024 provides further details on the project.

Nintendo's lawyers systematically dismantled Atari Games in a landmark 1989 legal battle that reshaped the gaming industry, killing off the Tengen brand until its surprise resurrection recently.

When Atari Games (operating as Tengen) attempted to circumvent Nintendo's control by reverse-engineering the NES security system, Nintendo's legal team discovered a fatal flaw in their rival's approach: Atari had fraudulently obtained Nintendo's proprietary code from the Copyright Office by falsely claiming they were defendants in a nonexistent lawsuit.

Though courts ultimately established that reverse engineering was legal under fair use principles, Atari's deception proved catastrophic. The judge invoked the centuries-old "unclean hands" doctrine, ruling that Atari could not claim fair use protection after approaching the court in bad faith.

"As a result of its lawyers' filthy hands, Atari was barred from manufacturing games for the NES. Nintendo, with its stronger legal team, subsequently 'bled Atari to death,'" writes tech industry attorney Julien Mailland. The court ordered the recall of Tengen's "Tetris" version, now a rare collector's item.

After a 30-year absence, Tengen Games returned in July 2024 with "Zed and Zee" for the NES, finally achieving what its predecessor was legally prohibited from doing.

Limited Run Games is releasing physical editions of Doom and Doom II, including a $666 "Will it Run Edition" that features a literal game box capable of playing Doom. Engadget reports: It costs $666, which is a nod to the devilish source material, and is being kept to a limited run of 666 copies. It comes with the aforementioned screen-enabled game box that runs Doom, but that's just the beginning. The combo pack ships with the soundtrack on cassette, a certificate of authenticity and a trading card park with five cards.

It comes with a couple of toys based on one of the franchise's most iconic enemies. There's a detailed three-inch Cacodemon that connects to a five-inch base, which looks pretty nifty. There's a smaller handheld Cacodemon that, you'll never guess, also runs Doom. This edition is available for Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. The PC version, however, ships with a download code and not physical copies of both games. Preorders start on April 18 and end on May 18, with a release sometime after that.

A new investigation reveals that children as young as five can easily access inappropriate content and interact unsupervised with adults on Roblox, despite the platform's child-friendly image and recent safety updates. The Guardian reports: Describing itself as "the ultimate virtual universe," Roblox features millions of games and interactive environments, known collectively as "experiences." Some of the content is developed by Roblox, but much of it is user-generated. In 2024, the platform had more than 85 million daily active users, an estimated 40% of whom are under 13. While the company said it "deeply sympathized" with parents whose children came to harm on the platform, it said "tens of millions of people have a positive, enriching and safe experience on Roblox every day."

However, in an investigation shared with the Guardian, the digital-behavior experts Revealing Reality discovered "something deeply disturbing ... a troubling disconnect between Roblox's child-friendly appearance and the reality of what children experience on the platform." [...] Despite new tools launched last week aimed at giving parents more control over their children's accounts, the researchers concluded: "Safety controls that exist are limited in their effectiveness and there are still significant risks for children on the platform."

Ubisoft has triggered fresh debate over digital ownership by claiming in court that customers who purchased The Crew never truly owned the game. The legal battle began when California plaintiffs sued after Ubisoft deactivated servers for the 2014 racing title, rendering it unplayable beyond a restricted demo version.

Unlike most delisted games where previously purchased copies remain accessible, Ubisoft completely removed The Crew from customers' libraries. The plaintiffs, who bought physical copies years ago, contend that Ubisoft misled consumers and point to competitors who provided offline modes for end-of-life titles.

Ubisoft counters that packaging clearly stated purchases only granted temporary licenses. The case has expanded to include claims about in-game currency qualifying as gift certificates under California law and activation codes promised to work until 2099.

It was already the best-selling videogame of all time, notes the Hollywood Reporter. And A Minecraft Movie just had the biggest opening ever for a video game movie adaptation. WIth a production budget of $150 million, it earned in $157 million in just its first weekend in the U.S., with a worldwide total of $301 million.

A Warner Bros. executive called the movie "lightning in a bottle," while the head of co-producer Legendary Pictures acknowledged the game is a global phenomon, according to the article. (About the movie's performance, the executive "said the opening is a both a reflection of the mandate to celebrate the world of Minecraft in a joyful way, and the singular experience that only theatrical can offer."

But an unfinished version leaked online before the movie was even released, reports Variety Screenshots and footage from the fantasy adventure were being shared widely on social media platforms this week, and were also available on file sharing sites. The images and scenes have uncompleted visual effects. Most of the footage was quickly taken down by the rights holders. Although pirated footage is a common problem for major film releases, it's rare to have a working print leak online in this way, raising questions about how such an early version of the movie was accessed, stolen and then shared.

Microsoft has created a real-time AI-generated rendition of Quake II gameplay (playable on the web).

Friday Xbox's general manager of gaming AI posted the startling link to "an AI-generated gaming experience" at Copilot.Microsoft.com "Move, shoot, explore — and every frame is created on the fly by an AI world model, responding to player inputs in real-time. Try it here."

They started with their "Muse" videogame world models, adding "a real-time playable extension" that players can interact with through keyboard/controller actions, "essentially allowing you to play inside the model," according to a Microsoft blog post. A concerted effort by the team resulted in both planning out what data to collect (what game, how should the testers play said game, what kind of behaviours might we need to train a world model, etc), and the actual collection, preparation, and cleaning of the data required for model training. Much to our initial delight we were able to play inside the world that the model was simulating. We could wander around, move the camera, jump, crouch, shoot, and even blow-up barrels similar to the original game. Additionally, since it features in our data, we can also discover some of the secrets hidden in this level of Quake II. We can also insert images into the models' context and have those modifications persist in the scene...

We do not intend for this to fully replicate the actual experience of playing the original Quake II game. This is intended to be a research exploration of what we are able to build using current ML approaches. Think of this as playing the model as opposed to playing the game... The interactions with enemy characters is a big area for improvement in our current WHAMM model. Often, they will appear fuzzy in the images and combat with them (damage being dealt to both the enemy/player) can be incorrect.
They warn that the model "can and will forget about objects that go out of view" for longer than 0.9 seconds. "This can also be a source of fun, whereby you can defeat or spawn enemies by looking at the floor for a second and then looking back up. Or it can let you teleport around the map by looking up at the sky and then back down. These are some examples of playing the model."

This generative AI model was trained on Quake II "with just over a week of data," reports Tom's Hardware — a dramatic reduction from the seven years required for the original model launched in February.

Some context from The Verge: "You could imagine a world where from gameplay data and video that a model could learn old games and really make them portable to any platform where these models could run," said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in February. "We've talked about game preservation as an activity for us, and these models and their ability to learn completely how a game plays without the necessity of the original engine running on the original hardware opens up a ton of opportunity."
"Is porting a game like Gameday 98 more feasible through AI or a small team?" asks the blog Windows Central. "What costs less or even takes less time? These are questions we'll be asking and answering over the coming decade as AI continues to grow. We're in year two of the AI boom; I'm terrified of what we'll see in year 10."

"It's clear that Microsoft is now training Muse on more games than just Bleeding Edge," notes The Verge, "and it's likely we'll see more short interactive AI game experiences in Copilot Labs soon." Microsoft is also working on turning Copilot into a coach for games, allowing the AI assistant to see what you're playing and help with tips and guides. Part of that experience will be available to Windows Insiders through Copilot Vision soon.

The Louvre Museum will discontinue its use of Nintendo 3DS XL consoles as audio guides by September 2025, replacing them with a new system. NintendoSoup reports: For several years the Louvre has been using specially dedicated New Nintendo 3DS XL consoles to give visitors an audio guided tour of the famous museum. According to the museum's official website however, it seems that the program will be discontinued in September 2025, to be replaced by a new system.

Presumably, this is due to Nintendo slowly phasing out the Nintendo 3DS line in general, having stopped supporting repairs for the console in a few countries. The consoles used by the Louvre would have broken down sooner or later, necessitating a change if they could no longer be sent in for repairs. At the time of this writing, it is not known what will become of the unique special edition consoles that were being used for this purpose.

Nintendo's Switch 2, priced at $450, launches June 5 with a 7.9-inch LCD screen offering 1080p resolution, HDR support, and 120Hz refresh capability. The device maintains the original Switch's 13.99mm thickness while increasing internal storage to 256GB from the previous 32GB.

The console outputs at 4K/60fps when docked, with the dock featuring a built-in cooling fan. Two USB-C ports handle accessories and charging. The system supports microSD Express cards but not original Switch microSD cards. Joy-Con controllers now attach via magnets instead of sliding rails and feature mouse-like functionality with compatible games. Both Joy-Cons and the new Pro Controller include a "C" button that activates a chat menu for the new "Game Chat" feature.

Game cards for Switch 2 will be red rather than black. The system maintains backward compatibility with original Switch cartridges and introduces a "Game Share" feature for local game sharing between consoles.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A professional YouTuber in Queensland has been ordered to pay $350,000 plus interest and costs to the former world record score holder for Donkey Kong, after the Brisbane district court found the YouTuber had defamed him "recklessly" with false claims of a link between a lawsuit and another YouTuber's suicide. William "Billy" Mitchell, an American gamer who had held world records in Donkey Kong and Pac-Man going back to 1982, as recognized by the Guinness World Records and the video game database Twin Galaxies, brought the case against Karl Jobst, seeking $400,000 in general damages and $50,000 in aggravated damages.

Jobst, who makes videos about "speed running" (finishing games as fast as possible), as well as gaming records and cheating in games, made a number of allegations against Mitchell in a 2021 YouTube video. He accused Mitchell of cheating, and "pursuing unmeritorious litigation" against others who had also accused him of cheating, the court judgment stated. The court heard Mitchell was accused in 2017 of cheating in his Donkey Kong world records by using emulation software instead of original arcade hardware. Twin Galaxies investigated the allegation, and subsequently removed Mitchell's scores and banned him from participating in its competitions. The Guinness World Records disqualified Mitchell as a holder of all his records -- in both Donkey Kong and Pac-Man -- after the Twin Galaxies decision. The judgment stated that Jobst's 2021 video also linked the December 2020 suicide of another YouTuber, Apollo Legend, to "stress arising from [his] settlement" with Mitchell, and wrongly asserted that Apollo Legend had to pay Mitchell "a large sum of money."

Nintendo has announced plans to introduce Virtual Game Cards for its Switch console in late April, allowing users to share digital games across multiple systems, the Japanese gaming company said during its Nintendo Direct event. The new feature will enable players to virtually load and eject digital games between Nintendo Switch consoles, mimicking the flexibility of physical game cartridges.

Users can play a single digital title on up to two systems, requiring only a one-time local connection between devices. The company has also confirmed that Virtual Game Cards will be compatible with both current and next-generation hardware. The system will also feature a family sharing option, allowing users to lend digital games to family members for two-week periods before automatically returning to the owner's account.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: World of Warcraft Classic's Hardcore mode has set itself apart from the average MMO experience simply by making character death permanent across the entire in-game realm. For years, Blizzard has not allowed any appeals or rollbacks for these Hardcore mode character deaths, even when such deaths came as the direct result of a server disconnection or gameplay bug. Now, Blizzard says it's modifying that policy somewhat in response to a series of "unprecedented distributed-denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks" undertaken "with the singular goal of disrupting players' experiences." The World of Warcraft developer says it may now resurrect Classic Hardcore characters "at our sole discretion" when those deaths come "in a mass event which we deem inconsistent with the integrity of the game." WoW's Classic Hardcore made it a hotspot for streamers, especially members of the OnlyFangs Guild, who embraced the challenge that one mistake could end a character's run. However, as Ars Technica reports, a series of DDOS attacks timed with their major livestreamed raids led to character deaths and widespread frustration, prompting streamer sodapoppin to declare the guild's end.

Blizzard responded by updating its Hardcore policy to resurrect characters lost specifically to DDOS attacks. "Recently, we have experienced unprecedented distributed-denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks that impacted many Blizzard game services, including Hardcore realms, with the singular goal of disrupting players' experiences," WoW Classic Associate Production Director Clay Stone wrote in a public message. "As we continue our work to further strengthen the resilience of WoW realms and our rapid response time, we're taking steps to resurrect player-characters that were lost as a result of these attacks."