Signups now open for college esports tournaments featuring Blizzard Entertainment’s Heroes of the Storm®, Hearthstone®, and StarCraft® II

This year’s programs offer more opportunities—and scholarships—for college gamers across U.S. and Canada than ever before

IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Student gamers everywhere can now matriculate in a full schedule of college esports programs, as Tespa, Blizzard Entertainment’s college esports network, has revealed its lineup of tournaments and events for this year, including the fourth edition of Heroes of the Dorm™. With programs for Hearthstone® and StarCraft® II in addition to Heroes of the Storm®, Tespa will award more than $1 million in scholarships and prizing by the end of the 2017-18 academic year.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180122006267/en/

Now in its fourth year, Heroes of the Dorm is introducing regional play. More than $500,000 in scholarships and prizes are up for grabs in this premier collegiate esports competition. Regional winners and other top teams on the national leaderboard will be seeded into the 64-team National Championship bracket. The battle for the Heroes of the Dorm National Championship—and for the scholarship money each player receives for the remainder of their college careers—will be fierce. Fans can watch all the action on both www.twitch.tv/blizzheroes and www.mlg.com.

In a one-of-a-kind broadcast partnership with Raycom Sports, Heroes of the Dorm will have a dedicated, nationally-syndicated program during a five-week period of competition. Raycom will produce the weekly, one-hour Heroes of the Dorm program, featuring schools competing in the tournament’s Atlantic Coast Region. The original series, which will cover competition as well as spotlight player and team stories, will be broadcast across Raycom Sports’ syndicated network of affiliates in more than 50 markets in the United States.

“With intense student competition and an epic tournament bracket featuring schools across the United States and Canada, Heroes of the Dorm showcases the kind of excitement that can only come from college esports,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We look forward to cheering on all of the talented players who will be competing in Heroes of the Storm, as well as Hearthstone and StarCraft II, for their share of Tespa’s biggest scholarship prize pool ever.”

Starting today, eligible college gamers in the United States and Canada can sign up to compete in Heroes of the Dorm at www.heroesofthedorm.com. See the full schedule below:

Hearthstone Collegiate Championship

Teams vying for the 2018 Hearthstone Collegiate Championship will have their hands full as they battle for their share of $150,000 in scholarship prizing. Each team of three will have to battle through a seven-week regular season and the regional playoffs to make it to the single-elimination championship bracket. Fans can watch the tournament live on www.twitch.tv/playhearthstone.

Eligible college gamers in the United States and Canada can sign up to compete in the Hearthstone Collegiate Championship at compete.tespa.org starting today. See the full schedule below:

Tespa Collegiate Series—StarCraft

The first ever Tespa Collegiate Series—StarCraft will award $35,000 in total scholarship prizing to the top performers in the 16-team league. Teams of three players will battle it out in StarCraft II twice a week during the eight-week regular season, with four teams joining the tournament via the open qualifiers. Matches will be broadcast on www.twitch.tv/starcraft and www.mlg.com. Eligible college gamers in the United States and Canada can sign up for qualifiers at compete.tespa.org starting today. See the full schedule below:

About Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

Best known for blockbuster hits including World of Warcraft®, Hearthstone®, Overwatch®, the Warcraft®, StarCraft®, and Diablo® franchises, and the multi-franchise Heroes of the Storm®, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed games. Blizzard Entertainment’s track record includes twenty-one #1 games* and multiple Game of the Year awards. The company’s online-gaming service, Blizzard Battle.net®, is one of the largest in the world, with millions of active players.

*Sales and/or downloads, based on internal company records and reports from key distribution partners.

About Tespa

Tespa is the premier college gaming network in North America, dedicated to creating a home for gamers on every campus. Recognized as the leader in college esports, Tespa cultivates student communities that host epic gaming events on campuses in the United States and Canada, and plans to distribute more than $1 million in scholarship prizing in 2018 through intercollegiate leagues. Tespa has had more than 5000 teams from more than 1400 universities compete in its college tournaments and has empowered student leaders to become entrepreneurs in the gaming industry.

About Raycom Sports

Charlotte, N.C.-based Raycom Sports is a leader for compelling storytelling, production, and content distribution across all platforms. With an award-winning production team, Raycom creates original feature programming such as Football Saturdays. Raycom is the syndicated rightsholder of Atlantic Coast Conference men’s basketball and football since 1982, and manages live television broadcasting, original programming, archival footage, mobile applications, social media, the official ACC website and the ACC Official Corporate Champions program. Raycom also serves as the digital content, marketing, video and broadcast production partner of The Basketball Tournament (TBT). Raycom manages client activations and hospitality at ACC FanFest at the ACC Football Championship and ACC Basketball Tournaments.

Raycom Sports’ parent company Raycom Media, owns and/or provides services for 65 television stations and 2 radio stations located in 20 states covering 16% of U.S. television households.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Blizzard Entertainment’s expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future, including statements about the dates and features of Heroes of the Dorm 2018, the Tespa Collegiate Series—StarCraft, and the Hearthstone Collegiate Championship, are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause Blizzard Entertainment’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this release include unanticipated product delays and other factors identified in the risk factors sections of Activision Blizzard’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to Blizzard Entertainment and Activision Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Blizzard Entertainment nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of the future performance of Blizzard Entertainment or Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180122006267/en/

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
Christy Um
Director, Esports Communications
949.955.1380 x61251
christy.um@blizzard.com
or
David Gordon
Global PR Manager, Esports
949.955.1380 x13506
dgordon@blizzard.com
or
Sara Zaidi
Global PR Manager
949.955.1380 x61091
szaidi@blizzard.com

Source: Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

News Provided by Acquire Media

Children of Morta is Now Available on Steam!

Children of Morta is a story-driven action RPG game about an extraordinary family of heroes. Lead the Bergsons, with all their flaws and virtues, against the forthcoming Corruption. Will you be able to sacrifice everything to save the ones you care for?

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Delighted you’re here!  I’m video game music composer Winifred Phillips.  Welcome back to our four part discussion of how game music can enhance presence in virtual reality video games! These articles are based on the presentation I gave at this year’s gathering of the famous Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.  My talk was entitled How Music Enhances Virtual Presence (I’ve included the official description of my talk at this end of this article). If you haven’t read the previous two articles, you’ll find them here:

In my GDC talk, I discussed Virtual Presence in connection with seven of the virtual reality games and experiences that I’ve scored, which have either released within the past year or will be released within the coming months.  These include Audioshield (Audiosurf LLC), Bebylon Battle Royale (Kite & Lightning), Fail Factory (Armature Studio), The Haunted Graveyard (Holospark), Life Hutch VR (Next Stop Willoughby), Scraper: First Strike (Labrodex Inc), and Shattered State (Supermassive Games).  Using examples from these games, I discussed a model for how gamers develop the psychological attachment necessary to most effectively achieve Virtual Presence. The psychological model consists of three stages:

In the previous two articles of this series, we discussed the roles of engagement and engrossment, so now let’s look at the third and final stage:

Empathy

As we all know, when we feel empathy we’re experiencing compassion towards other people. However, according to the researchers from University College London, when we’ve achieved empathy as a component of Virtual Presence, we’re not feeling compassion for other characters – but rather, for ourselves.

As the main character in our own virtual adventure, we feel empathy for our own in-game situation, and for the character that we currently inhabit. Once we’ve achieved that fullest expression of personal empathy, we’ve reached the final stage that enables Virtual Presence. As game music composers and game audio experts, how can we best help players achieve this specific form of personal empathy?

Music is great at triggering and stoking this emotion in some tried-and-true ways. We simply have to get players to root for themselves. We have to build them up, and make them feel emotionally invested in their own success. Let’s take a look at a couple of simple but effective examples.

First, let’s take a look at Fail Factory, developed by Armature Studio and released for the Oculus Go and the Samsung Gear VR. In Fail Factory, players assume high-stress jobs in a giant robot factory. Keeping up with the rapidly accelerating assembly lines and conveyor belts is a constant challenge, resulting in lots of wacky failures. While the pandemonium is a big part of the game’s appeal, it’s still important to keep players motivated to succeed. Players need to empathize with their own character’s accomplishments. Since this kind of emotional investment enhances Virtual Presence, it becomes very important to boost player assurance and self-esteem.

As composers, one way we can uplift player confidence is by musically reinforcing moments of success. In Fail Factory, I encouraged players to root for themselves by composing some overtly-confident music for those times in which players receive their gameplay results and view their scores. While the music still conveys the silliness we’ve come to expect from the musical score I composed for the rest of the game, the music I composed for gameplay results places the emphasis on confidence and swagger. Let’s see what that was like:

As another example of affirming music, let’s check out some gameplay from one of my other VR projects – the upcoming Bebylon Battle Royale game, currently in development by Kite & Lightning for VR.

Confidence is a running theme in Bebylon Battle Royale. That’s because the characters in the world of Bebylon are coping with a pretty humiliating fact-of-life – they’re babies. Immortal babies in the future, trying to assert their dominance, and become the epitome of cool. When composing the music for Bebylon Battle Royale, I focused on musical styles that emphasize self-assurance and swagger. Here’s some video that Kite & Lightning released of one of their baby characters getting his groove on to music I composed for Bebylon Battle Royale:

So now we’ve considered how empathy can contribute to the psychological attachment necessary to achieving Virtual Presence.  In our next article, we’ll consider the role of game music in regulating and attenuating mood in order to create the right psychological circumstances for Virtual Presence to take hold of the players’ consciousness.  Thanks for reading!

How Music Enhances Virtual Presence

(Game Developers Conference Session Description)

Virtual Presence is defined as a state in which gamers fully accept the virtual world around them and their existence within it. This talk, “How Music Enhances Virtual Presence,” will explore how highly effective game music can enhance the sensation of Virtual Presence in VR gaming.

The talk will begin with an exploration of both the Flow Theory of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the research of Dr. Paul Cairns on psychological engagement in video gaming. By understanding how the mental activity of players interacts with the way a game is designed, composers can create music intended to induce psychological states conducive with the formation of Virtual Presence.

The talk will include a discussion of techniques aimed at drawing attention to mission objectives, facilitating effective concentration, enhancing emotional empathy and intensifying player focus. The discussion will also include an exploration of some inherent drawbacks to Virtual Presence, including its fragility when exposed to negative emotional states, and its possible susceptibility to inducing the “event boundary” phenomenon. Musical solutions to these problems will be explored.

Phillips’ talk will offer techniques for composers and audio directors who seek to employ music as a tool to enhance Virtual Presence for their players.

Takeaway

Using examples from several games, Phillips will explore how music can influence the mental states of players through specific effects documented in scientific research. Study data will be discussed in regards to the interaction between music and cognition. Phillips will offer strategies and tips for composers seeking to use their music to influence the player’s mental state, thus facilitating the formation of Virtual Presence.

Intended Audience

This session is intended to inspire and stimulate composers seeking to employ their music towards enhancing player engagement and enjoyment, with a particular emphasis on VR games. Includes overview of Flow Theory and the psychological components of Virtual Presence, which may be useful to other disciplines within game development. Talk will be approachable for all levels (advanced composers may better appreciate the specific composition techniques discussed).

Popular music from composer Winifred Phillips’ award-winning Assassin’s Creed Liberation score is currently being performed live by a top 80-piece orchestra and choir as part of the Assassin’s Creed Symphony World Tour, which kicked off in June 2019 with its Paris premiere. As an accomplished video game composer, Phillips is best known for composing music for games in five of the most famous and popular franchises in gaming: Assassin’s Creed, LittleBigPlanet, Total War, God of War, and The Sims.  Phillips’ other notable projects include the triple-A first person shooter Homefront: The Revolution, and numerous virtual reality games, including Sports Scramble, Audioshield, Scraper: First Strike, Dragon Front, and many more.  She is the author of the award-winning bestseller A COMPOSER’S GUIDE TO GAME MUSIC, published by the MIT Press. As a VR game music expert, she writes frequently on the future of music in virtual reality games. Phillips’ is a sought-after public speaker, and she has been invited to speak about her work as a game composer at the Library of Congress, the Game Developers Conference, the Audio Engineering Society, the Society of Composers and Lyricists, and many more.

Follow her on Twitter @winphillips.

GreedFall is Now Available on Steam!

Engage in a core roleplaying experience, and forge the destiny of a new world seeping with magic, and filled with riches, lost secrets, and fantastic creatures. With diplomacy, deception and force, become part of a living, evolving world – influence its course and shape your story.

Fanatical have just entered the book market with a number of eBook bundles on a variety of subjects including Blender, Unity, Unreal and C++ development.  In the case of the Unreal and C++ books you can even buy individual books or smaller bundle packages to suit your needs.  Additionally there are bundles on machine learning, security, blockchain, WordPress, command line and more.

The primary bundles of interest to game developers are:

The books in this bundle are from Packt Press, which can vary massively in quality.  Several of the books have also been in prior Humble Bundles, so be sure to check your Humble library before making a purchase.  All of the above links contain an affiliate code that helps support the channel if you use them to make a purchase (and thanks if you do!). 

Learn more about the bundles in the video below.

GameDev News Unity Unreal Blender CPP

By Ian Boudreau 11 Sep 2019

TFTP, or Trivial File Transfer Protocol, allows users to transfer files between systems using the UDP protocol. By default, it uses UDP port 69. The TFTP protocol is extensively used to support remote booting of diskless devices. So, setting up a TFTP server on your own local network can be an interesting way to do Fedora installations, or other diskless operations.

TFTP can only read and write files to or from a remote system. It doesn’t have the capability to list files or make any changes on the remote server. There are also no provisions for user authentication. Because of security implications and the lack of advanced features, TFTP is generally only used on a local area network (LAN).

TFTP server installation

The first thing you will need to do is install the TFTP client and server packages:

dnf install tftp-server tftp -y

This creates a tftp service and socket file for systemd under /usr/lib/systemd/system.

/usr/lib/systemd/system/tftp.service

/usr/lib/systemd/system/tftp.socket

Next, copy and rename these files to /etc/systemd/system:

cp /usr/lib/systemd/system/tftp.service /etc/systemd/system/tftp-server.service cp /usr/lib/systemd/system/tftp.socket /etc/systemd/system/tftp-server.socket

Making local changes

You need to edit these files from the new location after you’ve copied and renamed them, to add some additional parameters. Here is what the tftp-server.service file initially looks like:

[Unit]

Description=Tftp Server

Requires=tftp.socket

Documentation=man:in.tftpd [Service]

ExecStart=/usr/sbin/in.tftpd -s /var/lib/tftpboot

StandardInput=socket [Install]

Also=tftp.socket

Make the following changes to the [Unit] section:

Requires=tftp-server.socket

Make the following changes to the ExecStart line:

ExecStart=/usr/sbin/in.tftpd -c -p -s /var/lib/tftpboot

Here are what the options mean:

• The -c option allows new files to be created.
• The -p option is used to have no additional permissions checks performed above the normal system-provided access controls.
• The -s option is recommended for security as well as compatibility with some boot ROMs which cannot be easily made to include a directory name in its request.

The default upload/download location for transferring the files is /var/lib/tftpboot.

Next, make the following changes to the [Install] section:

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

Also=tftp-server.socket

Don’t forget to save your changes!

Here is the completed /etc/systemd/system/tftp-server.service file:

[Unit]

Description=Tftp Server

Requires=tftp-server.socket

Documentation=man:in.tftpd [Service]

ExecStart=/usr/sbin/in.tftpd -c -p -s /var/lib/tftpboot

StandardInput=socket [Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

Also=tftp-server.socket

Starting the TFTP server

Reload the systemd daemon:

systemctl daemon-reload

Now start and enable the server:

systemctl enable --now tftp-server

To change the permissions of the TFTP server to allow upload and download functionality, use this command. Note TFTP is an inherently insecure protocol, so this may not be advised on a network you share with other people.

chmod 777 /var/lib/tftpboot

Configure your firewall to allow TFTP traffic:

firewall-cmd --add-service=tftp --perm

firewall-cmd --reload

Client Configuration

Install the TFTP client:

yum install tftp -y

Run the tftp command to connect to the TFTP server. Here is an example that enables the verbose option:

[client@thinclient:~ ]$ tftp 192.168.1.164

tftp> verbose

Verbose mode on.

tftp> get server.logs

getting from 192.168.1.164:server.logs to server.logs [netascii]

Received 7 bytes in 0.0 seconds [inf bits/sec]

tftp> quit

[client@thinclient:~ ]$ 

Remember, TFTP does not have the ability to list file names. So you’ll need to know the file name before running the get command to download any files.

Photo by Laika Notebooks on Unsplash.

One of the things we really like about Nintendo Switch is the fact that it keeps a record of how many hours you’ve played a game for, so you can add up just how much of your life you’ve poured down the metaphorical sink; time you will never, ever get back.

Sorry, where were we? Oh yes, that play time counter. It’s a great means of seeing which titles have captivated you the most, and we’re sure that many of you will have invested a fair number of hours into Zelda: Breath of the Wild – it was a launch game, after all, but it also helps that it’s one of the best video games of all time.

However, even if you consider yourself to be something of a Breath of the Wild veteran, we doubt very much that you’ve put as much time into the game as Samir AID:

That’s right – he’s clocked up so many hours in the game that he has maxed out the play time counter, which stops at 9,999 hours – or, if you prefer, 416 Days and 15 Hours (or 599,940 minutes). That’s equivalent to launching Splatoon 2 and watching Marina and Pearl discuss the current stages 448,107 times.

We can’t imagine many people will get anywhere near that total – even in an epic like Breath of the Wild – but does the fact that there’s a hard limit on the counter bother you?

Go on, admit it – it kinda does, right?

American gaming retailer GameStop has revealed that it plans to close “between 180 and 200 underperforming stores globally by the end of this fiscal year”.

The news comes from the company’s Q2 earnings call, where CFO James Bell noted that GameStop wishes to “de-densify” its chain despite 95% of its 5,700 worldwide stores remaining profitable. The move also includes plans to close more stores over the next couple of years (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz):

“While that is an impressive statistic, we have a clear opportunity to improve our overall profitability by de-densifying our chain. That work is well underway. We are on track to close between 180 and 200 underperforming stores globally by the end of this fiscal year. And while these closures were more opportunistic, we are applying a more definitive, analytic approach, including profit levels and sales transferability, that we expect will yield a much larger tranche of closures over the coming 12 to 24 months.”

This is the latest in a series of closures and cost-cutting techniques that have been taking place recently; approximately 170 employees lost their jobs with the firm in August including seven Game Informer staff members, a monthly gaming magazine published by GameStop.

It would appear that the changes won’t necessarily have an immediate effect, however. Bell went on to explain that the current timing of console generations and early next-gen announcements could have a negative impact on sales.

“We expect our year-over-year sales to be down over the next three to four quarters reflecting the end of [the console] cycle. Compounding this negative impact on sales is the fact that console makers have confirmed the launch earlier than they have in the past. We anticipate that this will lead to much lighter title slate through the rest of 2019 and early 2020 given the end of the cycle timing for current consoles.”

Apple Event News

• Apple iPhone 11 And 11 Pro Details And Prices Revealed
• Apple Arcade Price, Release Date Revealed
• Apple iPad 7th Generation Announced
• Apple TV+ Price And Release Date Revealed
• Every Game Confirmed For Apple Arcade So Far