Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

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The Tuesday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Activision is making more money on PC than consoles for the first time, and the gap is widening
https://www.pcgamer.com/activision-is-making-more-money-on-pc-than-consoles-for-the-first-time-and-the-gap-is-widening/
The PC is about to get more important for one of the biggest videogame companies in the world. According to Activision Blizzard's latest financial report, the PC platform outperformed consoles by $27 million at the start of 2023, continuing a trend with the Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch 2 publisher that's been consistent for nearly a year now.
Between January 1 and March 31, Activision made $666 million on PC versus $639 on console. Its PC segment also outsold its console business throughout half of last year, though console did outsell PC overall for Activision in 2022.
This is a notable change: As far back as far as I can look at Activision's publicly available financial reports, console has always been king. This was the case in the early 2000s at the peak of Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero, in the 2010s when Call of Duty was on the rise, and even after Activision bought Blizzard in 2008 (WoW subscriptions were still big, but not Call of Duty big).
>> But PC gaming is dead, right?

GOG has launched a new sale: the GOG Staff Picks: Team Blue vs Team Purple, with up to 85% discounts during 7 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20230509_gog_staff_pick.

Steam has new deals, including new weeklong deals:

• The Sensational Stories Bundle will let you grab 4 games with a 42% discount until May 11, or pick only one of the games with discounts that go from 20 to 50%: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/beautifulglitch/sale/sensationalstories
• Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator will be 20% off until May 15: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1122340/Chef_Life_A_Restaurant_Simulator/
• The Early Access title Amazing Frog? gets a 25% discount until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/332570/Amazing_Frog/
• The Spellforce franchise goes on sale and puts its games up to 81% off until Monday, 15th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/SpellForceMidweekMadness2023
• The Dead Island Definitive Collection packs three games with a 86% discount until the 15th. The individual games go from 75 to 85% off: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/320/Dead_Island_Definitive_Collection/
• Team 17 puts its games on sale with up to 90% discounts until the 15th of May: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/Team17/sale/publishersale
• Hero's Hour will be 50% off until the 16th of May: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1656780/Heros_Hour/
• And here are some of the weeklong deals:
  • Void Scrappers gets a 20% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2005210/Void_Scrappers/
  • The old school Roar of Revenge doesn't look like it worked well (only 28 reviews), but because of the fact that it properly looks like a pixel era game, not a blocky mess, it deserves some love. Plus its 40% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1680500/Roar_of_Revenge/
  • Founders' Fortune is half its usual price: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1104330/Founders_Fortune/
  • Sacred 2 Gold is going to be 75% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/225640/Sacred_2_Gold/
  • And the last of this list, Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Remastered, gets an 80% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/312840/Fahrenheit_Indigo_Prophecy_Remastered/

Fanatical has five 24 hours Flash Deals:

• Master of Magic is 40% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/master-of-magic
• Steelrising gets a 62% discount: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/steelrising
• LEGO® Star Wars™: The Skywalker Saga Deluxe Edition is 65% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/lego-star-wars-the-skywalker-saga-deluxe-edition
• Ghostwire: Tokyo gets a 70% discount: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/ghostwire-tokyo
• And Jurassic World Evolution 2 - Deluxe Edition is 80% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/jurassic-world-evolution-2-deluxe-edition

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

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MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

It took 13 years but Doom 2 RPG has finally come to PC
https://www.pcgamer.com/it-took-13-years-but-doom-2-rpg-has-finally-come-to-pc/
Doom RPG is an oddball entry in id Software's Doom series. It was originally released in 2005 for the mobile devices of the day—the pre-iPhone era, remember—and instead of being a straight-up shooter it incorporated a number of basic RPG elements. It did pretty well for itself too, earning high review scores and several mobile game awards, and spawning a sequel, entitled (of course) Doom 2 RPG.
It took 17 years for Doom RPG to finally come to PC by way of an unofficial fan port, but fortunately the wait for the sequel hasn't been quite as long—you can pick it up right now courtesy of Gec.Inc, the team that ported the original game.
>> There's a 2.5 minutes video of the mod.

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's leak has turned into one giant mess for the emulation community
https://www.pcgamer.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdoms-leak-has-turned-into-one-giant-mess-for-the-emulation-community/
In just over a week, leaked copies of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have caused a degree of chaos that even Ganon would be impressed with.
In late April, I spoke with developers behind the Switch emulators Yuzu and Ryujinx about the likelihood of their emulators being able to run Tears of the Kingdom shortly after launch. The prognosis was optimistic. But then the game leaked well ahead of launch, putting the developers—as well as Nintendo—in a tense and volatile situation.
The emulation teams have forbidden all discussion of running Tears of the Kingdom from their Discord servers—Yuzu only allows vague discussion of the contents of the game, but requests for help or discussion of performance quickly earns chatters a deleted message and a warning or ban. To avoid being involved with pirated material, the emulator developers have vowed, at least publicly, not to release updates targeting issues with Tears of the Kingdom. "We are waiting for the game to release, so that members of our team can each legally dump their own copies of the game," Yuzu lead developer Bunnei told me on Monday.

GAMING NEWS

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Patch 4 will reduce traversal stutters
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/star-wars-jedi-survivor-patch-4-will-reduce-traversal-stutters/
Electronic Arts has announced that the fourth major update for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will release later this week, and Respawn has shared its complete changelog.