#75: The road ahead

Hi folks,

Community Lead Lootbro420 checking in, bringing you the latest updates from the world of [LOOTMAN]™. Launch last week was a wild ride, and we know millions of you are now teaming up, taking down bad guys and plundering the Lootverse for powerful gear and filthy lucre.

Shipping a game is never easy. Throw in a global pandemic, a publisher antitrust violation, a Kotaku exposé of our working conditions and an employee class-action on which I’m unable to provide either an update or a comment of any kind, and shipping a game is even harder. We recognise that the [LOOTMAN]™ launch did not go as planned. We understand that many of you are not getting the experience that we have promised, that you have paid for, or that you deserve. On behalf of the team, please accept our humble apologies (though I have been asked to point out that this apology is not an admission of liability of any kind).

Our team is tirelessly working around the clock to put things right. We will not rest — or, in many cases, see our families — until [LOOTMAN]™ is the game of your, and our, dreams.

Here’s what we have planned for you all in the coming months1.

HOTFIX 1.0.19: November 27, 2021

• Bullets now travel at expected speed.
• Pets no longer attack player character.
• Add 25 new weapon skins to LOOTSTORE.

SEASON 2 LAUNCH: mid-December, 2021

• Cars exist.
• Fix an issue where final boss fails to spawn, making postgame inaccessible.
• Special Holiday login event! Head to the in-game gacha to begin.

MID-SEASON UPDATE: late Q2, 2022

• Fix for weapon-swap issue limiting player to using basic pistol.
• Add Performance Mode for next-gen consoles (45fps target).
• Characters now have faces.
• Add 150 new face skins to LOOTSTORE.

SEASON 3: Holiday 2022

• Launch first major expansion, [LOOTMAN]: THE HONKENING™2.

• Player no longer randomly falls out of bounds, forcing hard reset.

• Badgers.

• LOOTSTORE 2.0 launches.

We understand there is a lot in this roadmap that should already be online. (In hindsight, we regret the badger preorder bonus.) Once again, we apologise to those of you who expected more of us. We hear you loud and clear. Our love and respect for the [LOOTMAN]™ community knows no bounds, and we will not rest until your expectations have been met.

There is a lot to wait for, yes, and we humbly ask for your patience. But some precious treasures are coming down the pipe right now. We have pushed the following update overnight, and our publisher assures us it should be rolling out to players worldwide today, for free.

HOTFIX 1.0.18:

• Free Legendary LOOTBIRD cosmetic helm and ‘Day One Lootbro’ callsign for all players.
• Developer debug menu removed.
• Fixed an issue where pistol was doing double damage, causing players to clear encounters faster than expected.
• Increased grenade cooldown time by 5% (~22s).

Thank you so much for joining us on this journey. Pardon our dust, and we’ll see you lootside.

Best,

Lootbro420

MORE!

• Since Monday’s update both Nintendo and the Entertainment Software Association have joined Microsoft and Sony’s condemnation of Activision Blizzard’s conduct. Heartening though all this is to see, and wary as I am of being Mr Downer, this is all largely performative; more about reassuring their staff, fans and the wider industry that they do not endorse Activision’s behaviour. We’re not about to see Activision games booted off platforms, or kicked out of E3. As ever, the Activision board, and its majority shareholders, hold all the cards. I see little appetite for folding.
• Metaverse news! Who doesn’t love the Metaverse? Oh right, yes, of course. First up, Epic Games has acquired Harmonix, for apparently Metaverse-themed reasons — seems like the plan is for Harmonix to introduce audience participation to Fortnite’s in-game concerts. Meanwhile, Pokemon Go maker Niantic has raised $300m, at a $9bn valuation, to build a “real-world metaverse”. I’m not reading beyond the headline on this one but it sounds like they’ve just conned $300m out of VCs in order to build a shopping mall? With lots of adverts? Not sure. A fool and his money, and all that.
• Tencent has been temporarily banned from releasing new apps, or updating existing ones, by the Chinese government. Jeepers.
• Sales of videogame hardware will soar to $135bn by 2026, apparently. For comparison, this year’s figure is $86bn.
• The VR port of Resident Evil 4 is the fastest-selling app of all time on Meta Que- no, sorry, not doing that. On Oculus Quest.
• PlayStation is being sued by a former employee for gender discrimination and wrongful dismissal, built primarily on the claim that, when the employee filed a complaint with HR, they were summarily terminated. The reason the firm gave was that the staffer’s department was closing down (it was a different department).
• I enjoyed this Xbox Museum thing, which is a pleasant walk down memory lane to mark the console’s 20th anniversary. My five most played games across 20 years of Xbox? Two versions of Street Fighter IV, the first two Modern Warfare games, and Destiny 2. Sounds about right. Dad-games all.

You’re all caught up. We had a brief scare yesterday when the youngest was sent home from nursery with a cough and temperature; the PCR test came back negative just after 7am today and all is mercifully right with the world. Have an excellent couple of days, and I’ll see you all on Friday.