dokasi.com

United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that looks to ban both TikTok and WeChat from operating in the USA if they are not sold by their Chinese-owned parent companies, ByteDance and Tencent, respectively.

As reported by CNN, the order for TikTok’s parent company states that after 45 days, “any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with ByteDance Ltd.” will be prohibited.

The order for WeChat’s parent company states that after 45 days, “any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with Tencent Holdings Ltd. (a.k.a. Téngxùn Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī), Shenzhen, China, or any subsidiary of that entity, as identified by the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) under section 1(c) of this order.”

While the ByteDance order could impact many around the world if a potential sale doesn’t go through within the timeframe, the order for Tencent could potentially have even greater ramifications for the gaming world.

Tencent has many investments in US companies, and fully owns League of Legends and Valorant developer Riot Games. It also has a major stake in Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite. Furthermore, Tencent has an ownership stake in Activision Blizzard, Clash of Clan’s Supercell, Ubisoft, and operates other such games as Call of Duty Mobile and PUBG Mobile.

As far as ByteDance is concerned, Microsoft and its CEO Satya Nadella have been in talks with President Trump about a potential purchase, and it mentioned it would begin talks with ByteDance with hopes of “completing these discussions no later than September 15.”

ByteDance’s order alleges that TikTok “automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

Tencent’s Order alleges that WeChat “automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information. In addition, the application captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the United States, thereby allowing the Chinese Communist Party a mechanism for keeping tabs on Chinese citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives.”

While it’s hard to currently guess what will happen with these companies and apps in the US, and how this will affect the gaming industry at large, it is a big development that IGN will be following closely over the coming days.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

A strike held by writers of the Lovestruck game platform has yielded great results. In mid-July, the writers of Lovestruck organized and went on strike to demand better work and pay conditions, as they were being “paid less than half the industry standard rate” for their work.

The striking writers, who “are members of marginalized genders and/or sexualities,” were originally presented with a dismissive statement from the company, which has since been removed from the Lovestruck website.

Now, after 21 days of striking action, the official Lovestruck Twitter account has posted an update, announcing that an agreement had been reached with the writers. You can see it below.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Update: LA Times reporter Sam Dean says that he has gotten confirmation from the White House that this executive order will, in fact, not impact video game developers. You can see his tweet below.

This is “pending updates,” though–we’ll be sure to keep following this story and updating as necessary.

The original article follows.

President Trump has issued a pair of executive orders to ban transactions with TikTok and WeChat, the latter of which is owned by Tencent, a company with a huge presence in games. It’s unclear as of yet what this could mean for various game publishers in the US, but there’s a possibility that they will be impacted.

For the full scope of these orders, visit our sister site CNET, which has an extensive breakdown of all the details. This article will focus on Tencent’s role, and what this might mean for the company.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Command and Conquer Remastered Collection has received a major new patch, adding a much-requested feature to the game. From today, the game supports LAN play, so you can gather together with friends and all play together in one location. This is a feature from the original Command and Conquer games, so it’s good to have it back.

Of course, if you’re planning a LAN party, you’ll want to make sure that you practice social distancing and adhere to local laws and common-sense rules regarding gatherings.

The officially implemented LAN play feature lets you use mods in multiplayer, and will allow fans to enjoy the game’s multiplayer in the future should the online play ever shut down. “Given the variety of ways people could play over VPN and with mods, we expect there still to be some quirks in the system,” the patch post on Reddit explains.. “Please continue to provide feedback so we can make any refinements going forward.”

This follows the recent addition of private lobbies, meaning that since release it’s gotten much easier to play with friends.

The update also includes adjustments to balance, and a few changes have been made to Community maps. The devs warn that previous mods may need to be updated to make them work with the latest version of the game, although it’s not too complicated a process to do so.

The Reddit post contains the full and detailed patch notes, and they’re worth a look if you want to know every single balance change made.

Command and Conquer originally launched in 1995.

It’s a strange year for sports games, with the COVID-19 pandemic shifting or shutting down seasons, and the latest NBA 2K21 trailer exists in the shadow of the current crisis. The trailer, which showcases the PS4/Xbox One versions of the game, is full of on-the-court action, and a general mission statement for this year’s entry.

The slogan for NBA 2K21 seems to be “everything is game”–not just the matches themselves, but everything around the culture of basketball. There’s been a big focus on the soundtrack in the marketing for this year’s entry, too, which continues in this trailer.

There’s only a little bit of proper gameplay footage to watch, with a lot of the video focusing on what it feels like to be in a busy stadium full of cheering fans, and how exciting that was before 2020 happened.

NBA 2K21 is also coming to Switch, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. If you want to get the current-gen version at launch and then upgrade, you’ll want the expensive Mamba Forever edition.

NBA 2K21 is looking very visually impressive on current systems, so it’ll be very interesting to see how the next-gen versions differ.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story writer Gary Whitta’s Animal Crossing talk show, Animal Talking, continues to be a goldmine. The show, which is set inside Animal Crossing: New Horizons, opened its most recent episode with a performance from Selena Gomez and Trevor Daniel of their new song, Past Life.

The song, which debuted in July, was performed here as an acoustic arrangement by the two quarantined musicians on the show. Meanwhile, their two Animal Crossing avatars adorably sang along to it.

You can watch the performance below.

Continue Reading at GameSpot