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The Tour de France deserves a better video game
The Tour de France is one of the toughest and -- in my opinion -- most exciting sporting events in the world. Every year, close to 200 riders saddle up and race across a 21-stage course that spans over 2,000 miles. Aside from the occasional rest day, it's a non-stop marathon that pushes competitors and their carbon bicycles to the limit. Lung-busting mountain climbs are punctuated with deadly descents and hard-fought sprints. Riders frequently crash, breaking bones and bending bike frames in the process. Only the fittest, smartest and luckiest athletes stand a chance of winning the tour's ultimate prize: the yellow jersey. With this year's race in full swing, I recently decided to try the official video game. My hope was that titles based on so-called "niche" sports -- anything that EA or 2K doesn't publish, essentially -- had improved since the original PlayStation era. As an adolescent, I spent many afternoons sinking hours into terrible cricket and rugby games. (I stand by Jonah Lomu Rugby, however.) By now, surely the industry had moved forward and figured out a way, both economically and technically, to do these smaller sports justice? Not in the case of the Tour de France, unfortunately.
EU probing Valve and five publishers for geo-blocking games
The legislative body of the European Union is launching an antitrust investigation into regional pricing and geo-blocking practices on Valve's Steam store. In a statement, the European Commission says it's investigating "bilateral agreements" between Valve and five publishers: Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax. The investigation is focused on activation keys, whose primary function is as an anti-piracy tool. After buying a physical copy of a game, users need to submit an activation key to prove they own it and add it to their Steam library. Once done, the game is then available on any device that the user is logged into.
