Check out Steam’s new toys

Valve announced a number of new Steam features and data this past week. Check them all out. Also, more on the Dr Disrespect story plus all the latest gaming news for your enjoyment. Let’s go!

A Steam-y week

It was a big week for Steam fans, as Valve announced a number of improvements to the platform, with the biggest being that Steam is releasing a gameplay recording tool.

Steam Game Recording allows players to easily capture and share gaming clips, and works with the Steam Deck. The new feature is in beta, but those interested in giving it a try can learn more at the Steam website. For those concerned about how recording your game will impact system resources, Vave says the impact should be minimal on computers with graphics cards:

Steam Game Recording has been designed with the goal of taking as little computer resources away from the game you are playing as possible. It takes advantage of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards to remove most of the performance cost of creating video recordings. When run on systems without those graphics cards, the system’s CPU is used to create video recordings which may cause a noticeable performance impact on those systems.

Valve released statistics about controller use in games. Since 2018, daily average controller use on Steam has tripled. Valve provided a breakdown of what people like to use:

• 59% of sessions are using Xbox controllers
• 26% are using PlayStation controllers
• 10% are on Steam Decks

With these statistics in mind, it’s no surprise a new Steam controller was announced last week as well. The part that is surprising is that Valve will not be making it, instead a company named Hori will produce the next generation Steam controllers. The good news: the new controllers arrive October 31. The bad: as of now, they are only slated to be released in Japan. 

Valve also announced a new Steam charts page that shows the most played games on Steam Deck. The chart will be updated on a daily basis. 

Finally, a writer for PCGamesN estimates that Steam users have spent $19 billion on games they have never played. While some may question the methodology of this assessment, that number will likely only go up with the Steam Summer Sale currently taking place.

Disrespectful

We mentioned in last week’s Side Quests that popular streamer Dr Disrespect received a lifetime ban from Twitch. The ban is the result of messages sent to a minor in 2017. Some of the details in this story may be triggering or make some readers uncomfortable, so please feel free to skip ahead. 

According to The Verge, a number of former Twitch employees say that Dr Disrespect - whose real name is Herschel “Guy” Beahm - messaged a minor about meeting up at TwitchCon, the company’s annual conference. Cody Conners, another former Twitch employee took to Twitter to discuss the ban:

Last week, Dr Disrespect posted his response on Twitter. The response is lengthy and uses a significant amount of colorful language, but one section discusses the allegations:

Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes. Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not. These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual. I went through a lengthy arbitration regarding a civil dispute with twitch and that case was resolved by a settlement. Let me be clear, it was not a criminal case against me and no criminal charges have ever been brought against me.

The incident has been costly for Dr Disrespect. In 2020, Twitch terminated its exclusive deal with the streamer, which was estimated to be worth $10 million a year. YouTube refused to offer him an exclusivity deal due to the chatter about the 2020 ban. More recently, the San Francisco 49ers cut ties with Beahm, accessory manufacturer Turtle Beach ended their partnership with the streamer last week, and Midnight Sun, the game studio he co-founded, cut ties with him. Also, YouTube demonetised Dr Disrespect’s channel due to violation of their Creator Responsibility policy, meaning he will no longer make money from his videos on the site.

Additional read: How to explain this whole Dr Disrespect situation to the normal people in your life.

Side Quests (more stories worth reading)

🐲 Despite being too difficult for some, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree sold over 5 million copies in three days.  A new update to the expansion that makes the game slightly easier should make those who purchased the game happy. 

📅 Originally scheduled to release July 25, Frostpunk 2 is now delayed until September 20. 

🧧 CD Projekt Red developers want to “push the envelope” on social issues in the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel.

🏆 The 2024 Gayming Award winners were announced, with Baldur’s Gate 3 taking home Game of the Year. See the full list of winners. 

🟢 Mattel is making many of its games including Uno more accessible for colorblind players. 

📺 A patent reveals what a streaming Xbox device might have looked like. Instead, Xbox is bringing streaming games to Amazon Fire TV for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. 

🪄 Magic: The Gathering created a new set called Foundation, specifically for beginners. 

🗡️ Ubisoft CEO confirms they are working on multiple Assassin’s Creed remakes. 

🏎️ Forza Horizon 4 will be delisted from digital storefronts December 15 due to expiring licensing agreements. Anyone who owns the game will still be able to play it. 

💻 Final Fantasy 14 producer Yoshi-P apologizes for the Dawntrail expansion's early access technical issues.

🦾 Roblox is working to add "4D generative AI" tools to its platform.

👍🏻 Bethesda Game Studios Montreal has filed to unionize. 

🚑 Atari acquired the Surgeon Simulator franchise from Tinybuild.

🧟 The original Resident Evil Trilogy PC ports are being released on GOG.

💧 Nintendo has taken steps to prevent future leaks on new game announcements. 

📊 Fortnite leads the gaming engagement and revenue charts for May.

😢 Chinese developer Perfect World lays off hundreds of employees after reporting a 64% drop in annual net profit.

🔫 The next Hitman Elusive Target event challenges players to kill MMA star Conor McGregor.

😸 Little Kitty, Big City: How a former Half-Life developer’s game for his kids became an overnight success.

🖥️ A ransomware gang claims to have hacked 1.5TB of data from Kadokawa, the owner of Elden Ring studio FromSoftware.

🧙🏽‍♀️ An interview with the head of Amazon Games studio about Tomb Raider, Lord of the Rings and more. 

🏃 An Olympic sprinter brings Yu-Gi-Oh cards to his races. 

🎸 You can now play as singer Post Malone in WWE 2K24. 

New Releases this week: 

Check out our article 11 New Games to Play in July.

7/2: Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail (PlayStation, Xbox and PC)
7/2: The First Descendant (PlayStation, Xbox and PC)
7/5: The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak (PlayStation, Switch and PC)

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