Loading Screen: EA's Hacked Tournaments and Sony's Overconfident Hardware Predictions

Hacking on a global stage has wrecked a tournament and left players and pros alike scrambling to work out if their machines are safe. While Sony scramble to work out if their virtual reality machines are sellable, as stock piles up on the global stage.

The Hackers Who Broke a Tournament

The Apex Legends Global Series is on hold due to hacking - and absolutely none of it seems to be the fault of players.

The setting was the North American finals for the tournament - where multiple players encountered hacks being executed on their machines in the middle of matches.
If you take a look at the clip above, you can hear the sheer shock, panic and frustration that player Genburton is experiencing as this happens to him - with the in game chat providing the key details:

"Apex hacking global series by Destroyer2009 & R4ndom"

Shortly after this the official message went out, the finals had been postponed.
With no further updates on what might have happened yet.

Multiple players being hacked, as well as the way in which the message was presented suggests this was heavily targeted, with the biggest stage of the tournament being key to what the hackers wanted.
Of course, the big question that affects the public after a display like this is how does this impact me?

Initial analysis by community groups like the Anti Cheat Police Department suggested this was a Remote Code Execution attack - effectively giving the hackers a backdoor into the machine.
Which is a fundamentally scary proposition!
A lot of people play Apex which means a lot of people are concerned over whether their machines are vulnerable.

The ACPD account specifically refer to the idea this is coming from either the game itself or the implementation of Anti Cheat in Apex, Easy Anti Cheat.
Neither of which are good, because Easy Anti Cheat is used in a lot of places. Elden Ring, The Finals, even Halo Infinite just announced that the tool would be implemented in that game's multiplayer.
It's basically industry standard - but we haven't seen widespread reports of these executions happening anywhere else just yet.
And EAC say it's not on them.

So it's possibly worth thinking about the other potential vectors for this attack - and Apex has a big one.
Did you know Apex is built on a heavily customised version of the Source engine?
The same Source engine that has a history of being vulnerable to RCE attacks based on years of issues.
So that can't be completely discounted.

CS:GO has a years-old bug that can let a hacker take over your computer

Hackers are using Steam invites to exploit the bug.

The VergeTaylor Lyles

Right now, a lot of people at Respawn, EA and presumably EAC are all going to be reviewing data, digging through reports and presumably talking to the hacked individuals from the tournament.
We probably won't get any further statement until there's something concrete to say - or some way to actually fix the problems.

Playstation's VR Slowdown

Per Bloomberg, Sony's recent shift to get PSVR2 functionality for PC might be driven by more than just providing games to their existing audiences - it might just be so there's a reason to buy the hardware at all.

Sony Hits Pause on PSVR2 Production as Unsold Inventory Piles Up

Sony Group Corp. has paused production of its PSVR2 headset until it clears a backlog of unsold units, according to people familiar with its plans, adding to doubts about the appeal of virtual reality gadgets.

BloombergTakashi Mochizuki

It seems like the grand sum of three first party titles that Sony have put out in the year since the hardware released haven't been enough to entice users - with the reporting from Bloomberg suggesting that Sony have vastly overestimated the interest in the device.

PSVR2 shipments have declined every quarter since its debut, according to IDC, which tracks deliveries to retailers rather than consumers. The surplus of assembled devices is throughout Sony’s supply chain, the people said.

PSVR2 was always more of a prestige tool that Playstation had, keeping a hand in the high end VR pool.
It reinforced the premium aspect of the brand, and made sure they still had skin in the game against much more general tools like the Meta Quest.
But the problem is always the lack of games with hardware like this, and Playstation simply haven't given people a reason to upgrade from their PSVR.
With the testing coming for bringing the device to PC -maybe those few exclusives will follow too.

Weekend Recommends

One of the most valuable things in any critical thinking is trying to see things from outside your point of view.
If you're reading this, you probably feel ambivalently about microtransactions at best, but for a huge portion of the gaming audience they're just part and parcel of gaming.
For Gamesradar, Patricia Hernandez has tried to delve into the ways in which audiences are deeply attached to skins and the item shop in Fortnite - and how it's rotation means audiences are desperate to spend.

Fortnite players are begging Epic to let them spend more money

“When is Lady Gaga ever going to leave the item shop?”

GamesRadar+Patricia Hernandez

This Pavlovian urge is hardly unique to me, judging by the chatter on social media any time the shop happens to slow down. 
A couple of weeks ago, one thread on Reddit titled "Since we haven't got good item shops in a while, which single skin do you really want?" got over three thousand upvotes from people listing dozens of different items they were pining over.

Meanwhile as we prepare for the launch of Dragon's Dogma 2 - seemingly a victory lap on top of multiple years of utter success for the company with both long term franchises and new IP, at Polygon Mike McWhertor reflects on the 2012 period that gave birth to the title, seemingly at the nadir of Capcom's modern era:

The original Dragon’s Dogma arrived at a dark time in Capcom history

The action RPG was a bright spot among some Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and other failures

PolygonMichael McWhertor

Capcom seemed confused about what to do with its rich vein of properties in 2012 in particular. It’s the same year that it worked with FromSoftware to deliver Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, an abysmal, Xbox 360 Kinect-only spinoff of its hardcore mech action franchise — you know, the one famous for its dedicated 44-input controller — and reimagined the Lost Planet franchise as a manga-inspired shooter with EX Troopers, a deviation from the serious sci-fi presentation of the previous games.