🎮"When Everyone Plays, We All Win" brought to life  January 25th 2020

NHS Mental Health Boss Condemns Games For "under the radar" Gambling

If you know me or have been reading Load Save for a while, you know that two things tick me off: crunch and loot boxes. Some of the first articles linked in this newsletter were about loot boxes and how some developers were replacing them with more truthful in-game purchases. I'd hoped that more companies would have caught on to this change, but money is just too good to give up.

Now, we have another sound off from the Mental Health director of the National Health Service saying that these "mystery mechanics" are detrimental to youths' mental health because it sets them up for an addiction to gambling. So now, thanks to greedy companies that refuse to get rid of these loot boxes, gaming is being targeted for causing gambling addictions. If this problem isn't fixed, we could see a future in which certain games are banned in some countries because of their similarity to gambling.

Last year, Rocket League made a smart move by replacing their loot boxes with in-game items that showed exactly what the customer was going to get. This way, Rocket League devs were still able to make money from their digital marketplace and also be truthful with their players. This is something that more video games should be doing and I'm irritated that it's not more widespread yet. Come on industry, we can do better than this.

What's the worst loot box situation you've seen?

Image credit: Overwatch

rockpapershotgun.com  

Rockstar and UKIE Respond to Taxwatch UK's £37.6 Million Tax Relief Report

Last year, I included an article about how a few big video game companies were saving millions due to the UK's Video Game Tax Relief program. This program was meant to help smaller creators save on taxes and be able to spend more on their craft, which would ideally lead to success. When the news of big corporations like Rockstar taking advantage of this program first broke, a lot of people were upset that they would be taking so much from from something not intended for them.

This week, Rockstar responded to this issue, highlighting how the money they save through the Tax Relief program has helped the economy, let them hire a lot of new employees, and put the UK as one of the top leaders of video game development. Check out the article to read more from Rockstar's statement

Does this justify Rockstar and other corporations seemingly abuse of this tax program? It doesn't appear that the UK government is doing anything about it, so should we just let it be? Let me know what you think.

Image credit: Colin Watts

vg247.com  

The Intensity of Voicing A Game Character

This is great look at the strain that Voice Over actors go through to bring us incredible performances. If you're like me, you're used to seeing fun behind-the-scenes peaks at voice overs and think, "Wow, that must be so fun to act like that character!" Before this article, I had never realized the intensity of these roles.

Just put yourself in their shoes. Imagine your favorite video game character and remember every time that they screamed in the game. That one scream probably took a couple of takes to get right. And that's a tiny bit of voice acting in a standard game. After reading this article, I have a new respect for voice over actors. I can't imagine the strain that the voice actors for Link had to go through, and there's a lot of them.

This week, VG 24/7 focused on actors in video games. Be sure to check out their other articles to see more about the effort that goes into creating these amazing games.

Image credit: Jens Kreuter

vg247.com