By many accounts, Payday 3 appears to be a disappointing half-step forward for the longrunning co-op bank robbery series. Unlike its predecessor, it also requires players to always be online, a seemingly grave misjudgement given Payday 3’s first-week launch woes. The problems with crashes, slow matchmaking, and disconnected servers were so bad the CEO of creator Starbreeze Studios began apologizing for the state of the game almost immediately.

“We are so sorry that the infrastructure didn’t hold up as expected, and although it’s impossible to prepare for every scenario—we should be able to do better,” Tobias Sjögren tweeted on September 22, just a day after Payday 3’s debut. “We work tirelessly until we have restored all services and our players can get back to heisting again without issues!”

“Early access” for Payday 3 began on September 18, but the massive influx of new players didn’t begin until its full release on September 21. In addition to PC and PlayStation 5, the multiplayer heist sim also hit Game Pass, where paying subscribers on Xbox Series X/S could download it for free. PC players complained about the game being stuck in “searching” mode when trying to find a match. Some Xbox players also appear to have faced unstable servers and crashes.

“No matter what you choose, public, friends only, invite only, it will just matchmaker forever,” wrote one player in a post that blew up on Reddit. “Release day is usually tough for studios. This…This is embarrassing.”

Players on PS5, meanwhile, began the week with an apparent wrong build of the game. Lead producer Andreas Häll-Penninger blamed Sony for pushing out an incorrect patch. “PS5 players: For reasons out of our control you are currently playing an older version of the game,” he tweeted. “Sony is working on rolling out the proper patch.” The right version arrived a day later, but it was still a bad omen for fans on PS5 who paid $30 extra for the Silver Edition to play the game before others.

Naturally, the outages have once again spurred calls for companies to move away from always-online requirements. Payday 2’s offline mode lets players run through missions with AI-controlled characters. While the allure of the series remains its real time online multiplayer antics, being able to still enjoy the game without an internet connection was a nice feature. An offline mod for the game is apparently already in the works.

A three-act play on the Payday 3 Twitter account (sorry, I mean “X” account) perfectly captured the mood of the launch. “HEISTERS! We’re number one on Steam!” the account tweeted on September 21. “Heisters, we’re currently experiencing slow matchmaking,” read its very next tweet. “We’re investigating and working on a solution.” While matchmaking was unavailable for many throughout the afternoon and evening, the studio reported that things were improving by early in the morning on September 22, only for outages to creep back in as the day went on.

The ongoing mess is another reminder of why so many people take a wait-and-see approach to new game launches, especially on PC, especially when they have stringent online requirements. “Payday 3 feels like the kind of game that is not meant for day-one purchase,” wrote one observer on Reddit. “But rather wait until they have a bunch of content released.”

This is effectively what IGN wrote in the very first paragraph of its Payday 3 review. “The usual horrible Payday bugs, a dinky pool of jobs to tackle, and a predictably weak story mean it’s not exactly the giant leap forward I was hoping for,” it reads. “Still, if Payday 2’s post-launch support is any indication, this is at least a very promising start for what could become another decade of happily pistol whipping cashiers and fixing drills.”

A promising start indeed!

In an open letter published on Friday, Unity’s president and general manager Marc Whitten apologized for the controversial changes announced on September 12 and announced that it was walking back some of the worst changes, including charging install fees for previously published games.

The controversial changes were revealed in a blog post on the company’s website earlier this month. Unity—a popular cross-platform game engine that powers titles like Hollow Knight and Pokémon Go—announced that a new Runtime Fee would take effect on January 1, 2024. The controversial fee, which many indie devs pushed back on, is calculated using game installs after a game crosses a certain revenue and installation threshold. At the time, Unity said the Runtime Fee would be applied retroactively to games that meet the revenue and install thresholds. But those plans have changed.

Whitten’s open letter starts with an apology and then the president continues, admitting that Unity should have probably, you know, talked to all the developers out there using their engine before announcing such massive changes.

“We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy,” said Whitten.

Then Whitten laid out new changes, which I assume Unity is hoping receive a better reaction this time around.

The new changes Unity is making following the backlash

First up, Unity confirmed its Personal plan will remain free. It also said that it now has no plans to charge the controversial Runtime Fee on games built with Unity Personal. It also is increasing how much revenue devs can make on games made using this free version of the engine. The old limit was $100,000 and the new limit is now $200,000. Whitten also said Unity is removing the requirement to have a “Made With Unity” splash screen appear when players boot up the game.

Unity also says no game with less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the runtime fee.

Next, the letter announces that the fee will only apply to software developed using the next LTS version of Unity, which ships in 2024.

“Your games that are currently shipped and the projects you are currently working on will not be included – unless you choose to upgrade them to this new version of Unity,” explained Whitten.

Unity also promises that developers will be able to stay on the terms that apply to their version of the Unity engine as long as devs don’t upgrade.

Runtime fees aren’t going away, though

However, Unity isn’t removing the runtime fee or reversing its plans completely and the last part of the open letter confirms this, with the company president referencing the runtime fee and explaining that developers will now have a choice.

“For games that are subject to the runtime fee, we are giving you a choice of either a 2.5% revenue share or the calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month,” said Whitten.

Unity says both of these numbers are “self-reported” from data developers already have access to and that studios will “always” be billed for the lesser amount.

“We want to continue to build the best engine for creators. We truly love this industry and you are the reason why. Thank you for caring as deeply as you do, and thank you for giving us hard feedback,” concluded Whitten in the letter.

Developers react to the new (new) changes

Some of the first responses from devs were cautiously optimistic and mostly positive. Developer Rami Ismail posted on X, in response to the open letter, “You know what, on first glance, I think this works?”

“It’s effectively a 2.5% revenue share for $1M+p/y earners? No retroactivity left, LTS stability, no black-box data, yeah? I think that works for every use-case,” said Ismail.

“This is looking reasonable,” posted game developer Dan Goodayle, “Though they’ve got a lot of work to do to repair the trust. Nothing stopping them from U-turning in another week.”

“Very happy that Unity removed the retroactivity of their new fees,” said Juan Linietsky, the creator of the Godot engine. “I happy for anyone moving to Godot but, as I said before, at their own pace and will. Doing it forced by a stressful situation can never be a good experience.”

Of course, none of this would be happening right now, and Unity wouldn’t have to be putting out all these fires, if it hadn’t created this massive shitshow in the first place with the original announcement of the runtime fee.

So while initial reactions to the open letter and its changes are somewhat positive, especially compared to the feedback Unity received from devs last time they announced changes, it doesn’t change that many feel like they can’t trust the company anymore. Partially fixing a problem you created isn’t a great way to win people back.

Doug “Censor” Martin got heated and started flaming his teammate during a recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Twitch stream. Things got so bad that he eventually called the other player a “f*****.” The former two-time national Call of Duty champion immediately took to social media to apologize.

Censor was streaming Modern Warfare 2 on his 283k-follower Twitch channel on October 16 when a particularly bad match saw him begin to berate one of his teammates on the open mic chat. “I don’t respect you period you suck dick at the game bitch fuck off p****,” Censor said during a clip of the stream shared online.” “Unfollow me on social media too you little fucking f*****.”

The current Boston Breach Call of Duty League team captain took to Twitter later that night to apologize. “I have to be honest with myself and say this now,” he wrote in a tweet sent at around 1:00 a.m. “If I was to wait, this wouldn’t feel right. If you understand I appreciate you, but if you don’t I understand too. Either way, I know this is the only way I want to move forward.”

The Call of Duty content creator, who first made a name for himself by winning the 2011 MLG National Championship for Black Ops, tried to explain himself further in a short video attached to the tweet. “I slipped up and I said a word I shouldn’t have said,” Censor said. “I let someone get under my skin and I said the F-word. I’m not proud about it. I’m not happy about it. I’m definitely disappointed in myself about it because regardless of what anyone is gonna think it’s absolutely not something I stand for or something I say in my private life ever.”

Online gaming chats are a well-known bastion of toxicity where the tenor can range from heated trash talk to explicit slurs and hate speech. Call of Duty is no different, and live chat in its online matches can often be one of the worst examples, in part due to the sheer breadth and depth of people who buy and play it every year. Censor, a long-time pro who recently suggested Modern Warfare III could be the best Call of Duty ever and is currently aiming to be the oldest Call of Duty world champion ever, said he hopes none of his fans think it’s okay to use homophobic slurs just because they saw him do it.

“That’s not okay, it’s not right, it’s just wrong,” he said. “If you feel some type of way about it I am sorry because it’s the truth.”

Update 10/23/2024 3:04 p.m. ET: Last week, Censor also said the n-word while arguing with a random player online. He didn’t release another apology, but his channel was temporarily banned from Twitch today. It’s unclear if the ban is for one of these incidents or a seperate one, or how long it will last.