Month: January 2019

Enlarge (credit: Aurich / Various Games)

Yesterday's news that Deep Silver's Metro Exodus is moving from Steam to Epic's Games Store was notable for what it says about Valve's position running PC gaming's dominant online storefront. But for consumers, it was perhaps more notable for the impact it had on the game's pricing.

If you pre-ordered Metro Exodus though Steam before yesterday, you paid $60 (and will still receive that preorder on Steam). If you preorder the game today on the Epic Games Store or buy it there after its February 15 launch, you'll pay just $50.

And yet despite that price reduction, Deep Silver will be actually make more money per sale from the Epic Games Store than it did from Steam. The 88 percent revenue share Epic offers on a $50 sale ($44) is more lucrative than the 70 percent revenue share Valve offers on a $60 sale ($42; though that number goes up a bit after $10 million in sales).

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Jasmin Merdan)

Two Democratic senators have asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to explain why the social network apparently "manipulated children into spending their parents' money without permission" while playing games on Facebook.

"A new report from the Center for Investigative Reporting shows that your company had a policy of willful blindness toward credit card charges by children—internally referred to as 'friendly fraud'—in order to boost revenue at the expense of parents," US Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in a letter to Zuckerberg today. "Notably, Facebook appears to have rejected a plan that would have effectively mitigated this risk and instead doubled down on maximizing revenue."

Because parents didn't know that children would be able to make purchases without additional verification, "many young users incurred several thousands of dollars in charges while playing games like Angry Birds, Petville, Wild Ones, and Barn Buddy," the senators' letter said.

Enlarge (credit: TechBargains)

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list is headlined by a deal on Amazon's Fire TV Stick 4K, which is currently down to $40. That $10 discount isn't quite as large as the one we saw around the holidays, but it's still a good deal for those looking for a new 4K media streamer.

While plenty of people can get by with the streaming apps built into their TV or game console, the Fire TV Stick 4K is a solid value for those who can't. Its quad-core processor makes it a noticeably better performer than older Fire TV devices, and its support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi—something the competing Roku Premiere+ lacks—keeps streaming quality smooth. It supports Dolby Vision HDR, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos audio. Its remote finally has dedicated volume and power buttons, and its Alexa-aided voice controls are generally more robust than those on any other streamer.

That said, your tolerance of the Fire TV Stick 4K will come down to its software. Amazon's UI is fine, but it's neither as organized as Roku OS nor as clean as Apple's tvOS. The company also has a habit of pushing its own programming in search results, which is fine if you love Prime Video but could be an annoyance for others. Amazon's ongoing slap-fight with Google means that you'll have to use the Web version of YouTube instead of a dedicated app (which isn't so bad), and you can't access YouTube TV at all (which is definitely bad). There's no Vudu, either. If you can't live with all of that, Roku's Streaming Stick+ is an excellent alternative, but it also costs $20 more as of this writing.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

International gaming retail chain GameStop announced on Tuesday that one major save-the-company decision—to find a private buyer for the company and its subsidiaries—had been called off.

The announcement ushered in the public company's largest stock-value dip in over 10 years, seeing it plummet in one day from $15.49 to (as of press time) $11.28—a dive of roughly 27 percent.

The Texas-based gaming retailer had been linked to acquisition rumors, as The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that multiple private equity firms had been circling GameStop—and its subsidiaries, including the merch-focused ThinkGeek and the gaming magazine Game Informer. That report had suggested a deal might close by mid-February.

Enlarge (credit: Office of the United States Attorneys)

The notorious website xDedic, where online criminals offered access to compromised computers and more, has been shuttered by numerous law enforcement agencies.

According to federal prosecutors in Tampa, Florida, the site "facilitated more than $68 million in fraud."

Law enforcement agencies in Germany, Belgium, and Ukraine seized the site's domain names and servers in Europe. No arrests or indictments were announced.

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  The new Gmail. Also, wow, Google remembered that Android tablets exist. [credit: Google ]

Since the launch of Android P, Google has been hard at work rolling out its new "Google Material Theme" design language across all of its products. Desktop Gmail got its big redesign early in 2018, and this week is mobile Gmail's turn. On its official blog today, Google announced the new Gmail mobile design for Android and iOS.

We only have a few basic pictures to go on right now, but like every other Google Material redesign, the new Gmail app is best described as "white and round." Google's new design language uses the stark white Google.com homepage as inspiration, so its new apps are almost entirely devoid of color. The big red header from the old Gmail app has been swapped out for a white search bar, so the only touches of color are from contact pictures, labels, and attachments.

Besides the new color scheme, Google says you'll be able to "quickly view attachments—like photos—without opening or scrolling through the conversation." The top search bar promotes search more, and it also houses your profile icon on the right side, which lets you change accounts faster.

Enlarge / Fire burns around PG&E transmission towers on Monday, November 12, 2018, east of Pulga, Calif. The first report of the deadly Camp Fire was made near here. (credit: Karl Mondon/Digital First Media/The Mercury News via Getty Images)

On Tuesday morning, California utility Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (PDF), citing billions of dollars in potential damages and fines stemming from liability in several 2017 and 2018 wildfires.

The utility noted in its Tuesday filing that it has secured $5.5 billion in debtor-in-possession financing to continue operating while it restructures. PG&E serves 16 million customers, primarily in northern California.

PG&E announced that it would file for bankruptcy earlier this month, as investigations into some of California's deadliest wildfires pointed to sparks from PG&E's transmission equipment as the causes of more than a dozen fires over the last two years. Investigators have implicated PG&E in 18 wildfires that occurred during October 2017, according to The Wall Street Journal. The fires "burned nearly 200,000 acres, destroyed 3,256 structures, and killed 22 people," the WSJ noted.

Enlarge / Yahoo! Inc, Sunnyvale, California. (credit: Noah Berger/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A federal judge in San Jose, California, has rejected a proposed settlement that would put an end to the years-long lawsuit over the company’s 2016 disclosure that it had been hit by nation-state hackers that exposed hundreds of millions of accounts.

US District Judge Lucy Koh, who has presided over many tech-related cases, including the Apple v. Samsung trial, lambasted Yahoo for its lack of transparency over how it has handled the aftermath of the breach.

"Yahoo has not committed to any specific increases in budget for data security and has made only vague commitments as to specific business practices to improve data security," she wrote. "Yahoo’s history of nondisclosure and lack of transparency related to the data breaches are egregious. Unfortunately, the settlement agreement, proposed notice, motion for preliminary approval, and public and sealed supplemental filings continue this pattern of lack of transparency."