Mad Dog Game

South Sydney superstar Latrell Mitchell is facing the judiciary tonight in a bid to get his grade two dangerous contact to the head/neck charge bumped down to a grade one, in a move that will have huge implications on both him and his club’s season.

There’s no question Mitchell’s season has been sensational so far. The Rabbitohs are flying high and he’s leading the Dally M vote tally – but the club has decided to take a calculated risk and challenge the grading of the charge. If they are successful, he’ll miss one week – had they taken an early guilty plea it would have been three weeks, and if they are unsuccessful tonight it will be four.

The stakes, for both the player and the club, are high.

TOUGH MONTH AHEAD ON THE SCHEDULE

Regardless of what happens tonight, Souths will be without Mitchell for their trip to the Gold Coast – but a tricky stretch follows, with a game in Canberra before they host the Melbourne Storm and then do battle in magic round with the Cronulla Sharks.

NRL Highlights: The Bunnies escape the Tigers in a thriller – Round 06

The Rabbitohs will have looked at those crunch ties against the Storm and Raiders and concluded that it’s probably worth risking Mitchell’s absence against the Sharks if the reward is that he’s free to play against two of the competition’s heavyweights.

DALLY M CAMPAIGN IN TATTERS

The rules state that any player who is suspended twice in a season is ineligible to win the Dally M, but if you are banned once, you’re docked three points for each game you miss.

Mitchell is currently one point ahead of Ryan Papenhuyzen at the top of the leaderboard, and while a three-point deduction would sting, nine or 12 would pretty much end that dream.

Only twice in the past decade has the award been decided by more than six points. Cameron Smith won by eight in 2017, and Johnathan Thurston won by a whopping 11 points in 2015.

ORIGIN AUDITION WINDOW SHORTENS

James Tedesco has a firm grip on the fullback’s jersey for the NSW Blues, but there have been plenty of rumblings about Mitchell potentially grabbing a centre spot in the team.

He’s been playing brilliantly, but if he were rubbed out for four games, he’d be left with just two matches – against the Eels and Panthers – to catch Brad Fittler’s eye.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE RABBITOHS’ SPINE?

Souths are blessed with a few options that they can shuffle around, with Dane Gagai, Alex Johnston, and Cody Walker all boasting experience at fullback in their NRL careers.

Given the Rabbitohs are already a winger short, thanks to an injury to Josh Mansour, we may see Benji Marshall come back into the starting side at five-eighth and Walker thrown the No.1 jersey for a couple of weeks.

Another potential option is Johnston goes to fullback, Gagai plays on the wing and two reserve grade players are called into the top flight. Fortunately for Souths, their NSW Cup team featured four former first graders in the 2-5 jerseys last weekend in Jaxson Paulo, Taane Milne, Stephen Marsters and Tautau Moga.

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!

By Tim Elbra and Zachary Gates

Paul Gallen answered one of boxing’s big questions when he faced notorious MMA knockout king Mark Hunt.

Yes, he can take a punch.

The NRL great was nailed on the jaw by Hunt during round two of their bout last December, albeit with boxing gloves rather than the UFC’s four-ounce mitts.

Gallen wobbled … but he survived.

Hunt took a moment to showboat and that was all Gallen needed for the fog to clear. He copped countless whacks during a footy career spanning more than 400 games for Cronulla, NSW and Australia, and then proved he had a decent jaw when Hunt dropped the hammer in the ring.

It was a display that earned respect and it gave him the confidence to step things up for his next fight: Wednesday night’s bout against former WBA heavyweight world title holder Lucas Browne in Wollongong. He’ll once again enter the fight with half the viewers on his side and the other half hoping to see his lights knocked out; the perfect place to be, promotion-wise.

“This will be my toughest test, without a doubt, and I’m prepared for it. This guy’s very experienced, probably been Australia’s No.1 fighter for the last 10 years, but I’m prepared and ready to go,” Gallen told Wide World of Sports.

“I knew [going into the Hunt fight] … I don’t want to say I’m a tough guy and I don’t want to be taking shots like that but if need be, I can take one or two of them.

“Lucas Browne’s renowned for his punching power, so I don’t want to be taking too many of those shots. I’m going to get hit, I know that, but I know I’m going to be able to take it and fire back.”

Hunt claimed that Gallen’s footy toughness would mean little in the ring and that he would easily knock him out, yet he lost to the former Kangaroos lock by unanimous decision.

‘Big Daddy’ Browne is making the same call, also predicting an early knockout of Gallen. Whether he fares better than Hunt, and whether he’s more ruthless if he rattles the NRL legend, remains to be seen.

“I’m a better fighter and better looking. I’ve got way more experience. I’ve got the reach, I’ve got the power, I’ve got the strength, the whole lot,” Browne told Wide World of Sports.

“He’s a fighter, not a boxer. He’s going to want to come forward with his aggression and his stamina but that’s all he’s got.

“He’s basically a very good stamina pub brawler, he’s relied on that. Once he has to get through me, get through my reach, get through everything else, then let’s see how he goes.

“I don’t think he’s underestimating me, I think he’s trying to play it up for everybody but I think he knows exactly what he’s in for.

“They (boxing and rugby league toughness) don’t compare at all, it’s very different. You’ve got getting punched in the face, then you’ve got running, cardio, all those things as well. You can’t say they’re anything alike.”

Gallen (10-0-1, 5 KOs) said he was undaunted by facing an opponent who once held a world title strap. Browne (29-2, 25 KOs) last fought in November 2019, beating John Hopoate by TKO. Gallen also knocked out ‘Hoppa’ that year, before a draw against AFL great Barry Hall.

“I’ve just got to worry about myself and take my training into the fight. If I do that, I’ll be OK; I know that,” Gallen said of Browne.

“The mentality doesn’t change. He’s an opponent, he’s a big, strong opponent, as everyone I played rugby league against was. I was never the biggest guy there but I survived for a long time and did well.

“I don’t look at the size of him or what he’s done, I just look at the person in front of me and do what I’ve got to do to get the job done.

“I think he’s taking me lightly, he’s thinking he’s going to walk through me; that’s why he’s planning other fights. He’s in for a big shock.”

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

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[The GameDiscoverCo game discovery newsletter is written by ‘how people find your game’ expert & GameDiscoverCo founder Simon Carless, and is a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s.]

Welcome to this week’s first GameDiscoverCo newsletter! We’re back in your general area, listening to the 25th anniversary re-release of Goldie’s Timeless album, feeling a little bit ancient, and musing upon the fundamental nature of things. Which brings us to today’s specialist subject…

Steam demos/prologues and your game loop

We actually wrote a pretty detailed column about game demos and prologues back in January, for anyone who remembers it! We analyzed a whole bunch of Steam prologues to compare their performance with the final game’s performance.

At the time, we showed that demo/prologue success can vary massively, just like final game success can vary. And we believe strongly that demos of overly ‘shallow’ games – or ill-considered demos which give away too much of the final game – can be a net negative.

But we also said that “we think the short, sharp playable demo/prologue – in both content and duration of availability – is the best bet. But.. this isn’t always the case, and the devs of The Riftbreaker, which has had a super popular prologue, would disagree with us.”

And since that column, we’ve seen other examples of breakout Steam titles where the demo really helped. So we wanted to better define the exception – when you should leave your demo up for longer – here. This is, in our view, if you have a demo with a standout (but short!) gameplay loop, where players don’t get bored of the demo and can play it many times, yet still want to buy the full version.

The most obvious recent example of this is Devolver’s Loop Hero. When the publisher asked how many hours people had put into the demo in late February, answers ranged from 2-7 hours (more ‘normal’), to, uhhh, 160 hours (!), for one response. That’s pretty crazy, and was a big reason for its sales breakout on launch.

The Loop Hero demo debuted in this year’s first Steam Festival (called Steam NextFest going forward!), and ended up spawning hit Northernlion videos like ‘Checking out 2021’s Hottest Demo’. So obviously, the hype was real here, because the title has a killer – and brief – gameplay loop. (Although Devolver did take down the demo a few weeks before the game came out, in this case.)

But doubling down on this ‘your game has a great, short replayable demo and people still want more’ concept, Paweł Lekki of The Riftbreaker creator EXOR Studios was kind enough to share some data from his studio’s base-building survival action-RPG title. It has both a free demo and a standalone Prologue version which are permanently available. And also seems to be ‘winning’ – the game is #23 of all 5,000 unreleased Steam titles in terms of wishlists.

Paweł comments of the demo/prologue: “They are physically identical, but exist on Steam as separate apps at the same time for increased visibility and technical reasons for the festivals. Right now we have 170,000 + 245,000 downloads of each respectively -> 415,000 total downloads. The demo is designed to be a 30 minute sample of the game. However some players tend to play it a lot more…”

So here’s the complete stats from the Steam back end for the Prologue. It has 3,300 reviews, so about 52 reviews per user – within the ranges for regular Steam games. The bottom axis uses time increments of 10 minutes, btw:

And here’s the play time stats for the demo, which are – as you might expect – similar. And also very impressive. BTW, both demo and prologue are translated into 9 other languages, which also helps:

What’s interesting here, as Paweł notes: “I took a dive into the playtime stats for each and it looks like there is a large group of players that play the demo for more than 200 minutes.” And some people a LOT more, apparently – if you believe this playtime number:

Anyhow, there’s 22,500 of these ‘long players’ for the Prologue, and 12,000 for the demo respectively, adding up to 34,500 super hardcore fans. The devs add: “We have seen this manifest in the form of a thriving modding scene for our demo on our Discord server (yes, people are making mods for the demo to extend the experience). I think that demos can be a great way to build up and nurture a community of super fans.”

So, in some ways this is almost like an Early Access version of the game before it even launches. And if well harnessed, can really help discoverability. It only works with certain types of game, of course. But perhaps you should also be thinking of making that type of game?

To end, the Riftbreaker devs noted: “Our next step is to add UTM tracking links into the wishlist buttons that we have built into the demo/prologue. We have an average of ~500 daily active users in the past 7 days for the demo, so this should be enough to provide some interesting data samples.” That’ll be interesting to see, too.

The game discovery news round-up..

And after that graph-festooned first section, it’s time to get to a second section, featuring… yet more graphs. But also a whole bunch of useful information about platforms, festivals, and ways to get your game seen:

• What’s going on around E3 and not-E3 this year, ‘virtual press event’-wise? This Kotaku article attempts to round up some of the major confirmed showcases so far in the summer months, from the Wholesome Direct stream through Summer Game Fest/E3 events, Ubisoft Forward, the PC Gaming Show, PAX Online, (virtual) GDC & more. More detail to come here, but a good overview!

• There’s a big milestone coming up for cloud gaming: Xbox is opening up a ‘public’ beta for Xbox Cloud Gaming: “We’ll begin sending out invites to select Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members to start testing [via] Windows 10 PCs and Apple phones and tablets via web browsers. We’re launching xbox.com/play where invitees can play over 100 Xbox Game Pass titles through Edge, Google Chrome, or Safari.” You can use a controller or touch controls – the latter custom-configured for 50 of the titles.

• Microlinks: Superjoost points out re: Apple that “the upgrade to its Arcade service to include a bunch more titles and improve its value proposition required Apple to change its policies”; interesting to see a Stellaris DLC land at second place in the latest Steam weekly revenue charts; the Before Your Eyes devs get some Steam reviewer pushback for ‘short game’ reasons.

• Regarding the ‘busy’ release schedule for Nintendo Switch, this latest TouchArcade round-up of Switch debuts and sales literally has the author saying: “I am very, very tired. I know I said I would go over what was in the Indie World Showcase today, but that was before hundreds of sales dropped and several additional games hopped onto the schedule.” Well… the platform is getting packed. But Steam has been unsummarizable for years, so maybe Switch is just finally getting to that stage?

• Third-party cross platform mod platform Mod.io recently hit 500,000 unique daily users, as founder Scott Reismanis says, “thanks to the v1 launch of Totally Accurate Battle Simulator on April 1st. Amazing creator community this game has, with over 3,000 pieces of content submitted daily!” Interesting to see the range of titles and number of downloads for each on Mod.io – the front end is fairly transparent!

• Sony has ended up backpedaling on closing the PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita, due to outcry over access to digital games that would be ‘lost’ as a result. Sony’s Jim Ryan: “We see now that many of you are incredibly passionate about being able to continue purchasing classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future.”

• Core, the platform that hopes to help creators build games and players experience them “…has launched for free in early access. It’s available exclusively on the Epic Games Store and already includes over 20,000 free playable games across a wide variety of genres including team-based multiplayer shooters, RPGs, and side-scrollers.” Keep a close eye on this in an ‘adult Roblox’ stylee – Sullygnome’s Twitch stats for it look fairly decent, right now.

• Microlinks Pt. 2: so, Google Stadia “…isn’t perfect. But for plenty of players, it’s enough”; latest NPD U.S. game hardware (& select software!) monthly results, with spending at $5.6 billion, 18% higher when compared to a year ago; why Facebook is embracing subscriptions for Oculus VR titles.

Finally, Logan ‘Indie Wolverine’ Williams picked up Lars Doucet’s data from GameDataCrunch to create this very helpful graph of historical pricing on Steam games:

As Lars comments in his Twitter thread on the data: “This chart tells you nothing about performance, but it does indicate that there hasn’t been a collapse in prices of games on Steam.” Rather than a pricing race to the bottom, it looks like just… more games in general?

[We’re GameDiscoverCo, a new agency based around one simple issue: how do players find, buy and enjoy your premium PC or console game? You can subscribe to GameDiscoverCo Plus to get access to exclusive newsletters, interactive daily rankings of every unreleased Steam game, and lots more besides.]

Houston Rockets small forward Sterling Brown suffered facial lacerations during an assault Sunday night, the team said.

In a statement Monday, the Rockets said Brown “had no prior knowledge of or interaction with the assailants.”

He is expected to make a full recovery, according to the team.

The Rockets are in Miami for a Monday night matchup against the Heat. Brown is with the team but had previously been ruled out for the game due to a knee injury.

“Heart-wrenching. Rips your heart out,” Houston coach Stephen Silas said before the game. “It’s one of your guys, someone on your team that you care about, someone that you’re with every day. As far as how I’m feeling and how the team is feeling, we’re all just thankful, No. 1, that he’s going to be OK — and also down about what happened.”

It wasn’t immediately known if any incident reports were filed with police. The NBA said it was gathering information on the incident and was hopeful Brown makes a full recovery.

Brown, 26, is in his first season in Houston, averaging 8.2 points and 4.4 rebounds in 51 games.

He had spent the previous three seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks, averaging 5.2 points and 3.1 rebounds.

While in Milwaukee, Brown was thrust into the national spotlight when he alleged that police officers targeted him outside a Walgreens store on Jan. 26, 2018. He alleged that Milwaukee officers targeted him because he is Black. They used a stun gun when he didn’t immediately remove his hands from his pockets when ordered to while waiting for a parking citation.

Brown first filed a lawsuit against the city of Milwaukee in June 2018 after body-camera footage was released showing a police officer stepping on his ankle during the arrest while others mocked his potential civil rights complaint.

Brown reached a $750,000 settlement with the city in November.

Dillian Whyte says Andy Ruiz Jr has taken a ‘garbage fight’ against Chris Arreola and questioned whether the Mexican is truly ‘motivated’ to become a world champion again.

The Californian posed for photos with current WBC champion Fury last weekend, just two weeks ahead of his comeback fight against Arreola in Carson.

Ruiz Jr appears to have shed significant weight since his last fight, the rematch defeat to Anthony Joshua in December 2019, but Whyte insists he knows the real intentions of his rival contender.

“A strategic comeback fight,” Whyte told Sky Sports. “It’s a fight that’s going to make him look good.

“Make him look like, ‘Oh yeah, he’s this and he’s that,’ but on paper it’s not. If you run it on paper, it’s not, because Chris Arreola is shot. Chris Arreola has been shot for a few years.

“If he was fighting Chris Arreola a few years ago, people would be like, ‘No, that’s a garbage fight.’ Now it’s the same, if not worse.

“He was a decent fighter in his heyday but he’s been retired for two years since losing to Adam Kownacki.

“It’s a good strategic move from his team, him coming back and he’ll bash Arreola. ‘Andy Ruiz, yeah he’s back, and he’s motivated, and he looked so good.’

“Let’s be honest, it’s Chris Arreola he’s fighting. Typical joke fight from the fake Mexican.”

Ruiz Jr weighed in at 20st 3lbs, three stone more than Joshua, as he blamed a lifestyle of ‘partying’ for his points defeat in Saudi Arabia.

But Whyte raised doubts about whether the 31-year-old is genuinely committed to reviving his career.

“If he wasn’t motivated when he had the whole world at his feet…He had 80 per cent of the major titles, and he wasn’t motivated.

“We’ll have to wait and see.”

South Sydney superstar Latrell Mitchell is facing the judiciary tonight in a bid to get his grade two dangerous contact to the head/neck charge bumped down to a grade one, in a move that will have huge implications on both him and his club’s season.

There’s no question Mitchell’s season has been sensational so far. The Rabbitohs are flying high and he’s leading the Dally M vote tally – but the club has decided to take a calculated risk and challenge the grading of the charge. If they are successful, he’ll miss one week – had they taken an early guilty plea it would have been three weeks, and if they are unsuccessful tonight it will be four.

The stakes, for both the player and the club, are high.

TOUGH MONTH AHEAD ON THE SCHEDULE

Regardless of what happens tonight, Souths will be without Mitchell for their trip to the Gold Coast – but a tricky stretch follows, with a game in Canberra before they host the Melbourne Storm and then do battle in magic round with the Cronulla Sharks.

NRL Highlights: The Bunnies escape the Tigers in a thriller – Round 06

The Rabbitohs will have looked at those crunch ties against the Storm and Raiders and concluded that it’s probably worth risking Mitchell’s absence against the Sharks if the reward is that he’s free to play against two of the competition’s heavyweights.

DALLY M CAMPAIGN IN TATTERS

The rules state that any player who is suspended twice in a season is ineligible to win the Dally M, but if you are banned once, you’re docked three points for each game you miss.

Mitchell is currently one point ahead of Ryan Papenhuyzen at the top of the leaderboard, and while a three-point deduction would sting, nine or 12 would pretty much end that dream.

Only twice in the past decade has the award been decided by more than six points. Cameron Smith won by eight in 2017, and Johnathan Thurston won by a whopping 11 points in 2015.

ORIGIN AUDITION WINDOW SHORTENS

James Tedesco has a firm grip on the fullback’s jersey for the NSW Blues, but there have been plenty of rumblings about Mitchell potentially grabbing a centre spot in the team.

He’s been playing brilliantly, but if he were rubbed out for four games, he’d be left with just two matches – against the Eels and Panthers – to catch Brad Fittler’s eye.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE RABBITOHS’ SPINE?

Souths are blessed with a few options that they can shuffle around, with Dane Gagai, Alex Johnston, and Cody Walker all boasting experience at fullback in their NRL careers.

Given the Rabbitohs are already a winger short, thanks to an injury to Josh Mansour, we may see Benji Marshall come back into the starting side at five-eighth and Walker thrown the No.1 jersey for a couple of weeks.

Another potential option is Johnston goes to fullback, Gagai plays on the wing and two reserve grade players are called into the top flight. Fortunately for Souths, their NSW Cup team featured four former first graders in the 2-5 jerseys last weekend in Jaxson Paulo, Taane Milne, Stephen Marsters and Tautau Moga.

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!

By Tim Elbra and Zachary Gates

Paul Gallen answered one of boxing’s big questions when he faced notorious MMA knockout king Mark Hunt.

Yes, he can take a punch.

The NRL great was nailed on the jaw by Hunt during round two of their bout last December, albeit with boxing gloves rather than the UFC’s four-ounce mitts.

Gallen wobbled … but he survived.

Hunt took a moment to showboat and that was all Gallen needed for the fog to clear. He copped countless whacks during a footy career spanning more than 400 games for Cronulla, NSW and Australia, and then proved he had a decent jaw when Hunt dropped the hammer in the ring.

It was a display that earned respect and it gave him the confidence to step things up for his next fight: Wednesday night’s bout against former WBA heavyweight world title holder Lucas Browne in Wollongong. He’ll once again enter the fight with half the viewers on his side and the other half hoping to see his lights knocked out; the perfect place to be, promotion-wise.

“This will be my toughest test, without a doubt, and I’m prepared for it. This guy’s very experienced, probably been Australia’s No.1 fighter for the last 10 years, but I’m prepared and ready to go,” Gallen told Wide World of Sports.

“I knew [going into the Hunt fight] … I don’t want to say I’m a tough guy and I don’t want to be taking shots like that but if need be, I can take one or two of them.

“Lucas Browne’s renowned for his punching power, so I don’t want to be taking too many of those shots. I’m going to get hit, I know that, but I know I’m going to be able to take it and fire back.”

Hunt claimed that Gallen’s footy toughness would mean little in the ring and that he would easily knock him out, yet he lost to the former Kangaroos lock by unanimous decision.

‘Big Daddy’ Browne is making the same call, also predicting an early knockout of Gallen. Whether he fares better than Hunt, and whether he’s more ruthless if he rattles the NRL legend, remains to be seen.

“I’m a better fighter and better looking. I’ve got way more experience. I’ve got the reach, I’ve got the power, I’ve got the strength, the whole lot,” Browne told Wide World of Sports.

“He’s a fighter, not a boxer. He’s going to want to come forward with his aggression and his stamina but that’s all he’s got.

“He’s basically a very good stamina pub brawler, he’s relied on that. Once he has to get through me, get through my reach, get through everything else, then let’s see how he goes.

“I don’t think he’s underestimating me, I think he’s trying to play it up for everybody but I think he knows exactly what he’s in for.

“They (boxing and rugby league toughness) don’t compare at all, it’s very different. You’ve got getting punched in the face, then you’ve got running, cardio, all those things as well. You can’t say they’re anything alike.”

Gallen (10-0-1, 5 KOs) said he was undaunted by facing an opponent who once held a world title strap. Browne (29-2, 25 KOs) last fought in November 2019, beating John Hopoate by TKO. Gallen also knocked out ‘Hoppa’ that year, before a draw against AFL great Barry Hall.

“I’ve just got to worry about myself and take my training into the fight. If I do that, I’ll be OK; I know that,” Gallen said of Browne.

“The mentality doesn’t change. He’s an opponent, he’s a big, strong opponent, as everyone I played rugby league against was. I was never the biggest guy there but I survived for a long time and did well.

“I don’t look at the size of him or what he’s done, I just look at the person in front of me and do what I’ve got to do to get the job done.

“I think he’s taking me lightly, he’s thinking he’s going to walk through me; that’s why he’s planning other fights. He’s in for a big shock.”

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!

South Sydney superstar Latrell Mitchell is facing the judiciary tonight in a bid to get his grade two dangerous contact to the head/neck charge bumped down to a grade one, in a move that will have huge implications on both him and his club’s season.

There’s no question Mitchell’s season has been sensational so far. The Rabbitohs are flying high and he’s leading the Dally M vote tally – but the club has decided to take a calculated risk and challenge the grading of the charge. If they are successful, he’ll miss one week – had they taken an early guilty plea it would have been three weeks, and if they are unsuccessful tonight it will be four.

The stakes, for both the player and the club, are high.

TOUGH MONTH AHEAD ON THE SCHEDULE

Regardless of what happens tonight, Souths will be without Mitchell for their trip to the Gold Coast – but a tricky stretch follows, with a game in Canberra before they host the Melbourne Storm and then do battle in magic round with the Cronulla Sharks.

NRL Highlights: The Bunnies escape the Tigers in a thriller – Round 06

The Rabbitohs will have looked at those crunch ties against the Storm and Raiders and concluded that it’s probably worth risking Mitchell’s absence against the Sharks if the reward is that he’s free to play against two of the competition’s heavyweights.

DALLY M CAMPAIGN IN TATTERS

The rules state that any player who is suspended twice in a season is ineligible to win the Dally M, but if you are banned once, you’re docked three points for each game you miss.

Mitchell is currently one point ahead of Ryan Papenhuyzen at the top of the leaderboard, and while a three-point deduction would sting, nine or 12 would pretty much end that dream.

Only twice in the past decade has the award been decided by more than six points. Cameron Smith won by eight in 2017, and Johnathan Thurston won by a whopping 11 points in 2015.

ORIGIN AUDITION WINDOW SHORTENS

James Tedesco has a firm grip on the fullback’s jersey for the NSW Blues, but there have been plenty of rumblings about Mitchell potentially grabbing a centre spot in the team.

He’s been playing brilliantly, but if he were rubbed out for four games, he’d be left with just two matches – against the Eels and Panthers – to catch Brad Fittler’s eye.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE RABBITOHS’ SPINE?

Souths are blessed with a few options that they can shuffle around, with Dane Gagai, Alex Johnston, and Cody Walker all boasting experience at fullback in their NRL careers.

Given the Rabbitohs are already a winger short, thanks to an injury to Josh Mansour, we may see Benji Marshall come back into the starting side at five-eighth and Walker thrown the No.1 jersey for a couple of weeks.

Another potential option is Johnston goes to fullback, Gagai plays on the wing and two reserve grade players are called into the top flight. Fortunately for Souths, their NSW Cup team featured four former first graders in the 2-5 jerseys last weekend in Jaxson Paulo, Taane Milne, Stephen Marsters and Tautau Moga.

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!

By Tim Elbra and Zachary Gates

Paul Gallen answered one of boxing’s big questions when he faced notorious MMA knockout king Mark Hunt.

Yes, he can take a punch.

The NRL great was nailed on the jaw by Hunt during round two of their bout last December, albeit with boxing gloves rather than the UFC’s four-ounce mitts.

Gallen wobbled … but he survived.

Hunt took a moment to showboat and that was all Gallen needed for the fog to clear. He copped countless whacks during a footy career spanning more than 400 games for Cronulla, NSW and Australia, and then proved he had a decent jaw when Hunt dropped the hammer in the ring.

It was a display that earned respect and it gave him the confidence to step things up for his next fight: Wednesday night’s bout against former WBA heavyweight world title holder Lucas Browne in Wollongong. He’ll once again enter the fight with half the viewers on his side and the other half hoping to see his lights knocked out; the perfect place to be, promotion-wise.

“This will be my toughest test, without a doubt, and I’m prepared for it. This guy’s very experienced, probably been Australia’s No.1 fighter for the last 10 years, but I’m prepared and ready to go,” Gallen told Wide World of Sports.

“I knew [going into the Hunt fight] … I don’t want to say I’m a tough guy and I don’t want to be taking shots like that but if need be, I can take one or two of them.

“Lucas Browne’s renowned for his punching power, so I don’t want to be taking too many of those shots. I’m going to get hit, I know that, but I know I’m going to be able to take it and fire back.”

Hunt claimed that Gallen’s footy toughness would mean little in the ring and that he would easily knock him out, yet he lost to the former Kangaroos lock by unanimous decision.

‘Big Daddy’ Browne is making the same call, also predicting an early knockout of Gallen. Whether he fares better than Hunt, and whether he’s more ruthless if he rattles the NRL legend, remains to be seen.

“I’m a better fighter and better looking. I’ve got way more experience. I’ve got the reach, I’ve got the power, I’ve got the strength, the whole lot,” Browne told Wide World of Sports.

“He’s a fighter, not a boxer. He’s going to want to come forward with his aggression and his stamina but that’s all he’s got.

“He’s basically a very good stamina pub brawler, he’s relied on that. Once he has to get through me, get through my reach, get through everything else, then let’s see how he goes.

“I don’t think he’s underestimating me, I think he’s trying to play it up for everybody but I think he knows exactly what he’s in for.

“They (boxing and rugby league toughness) don’t compare at all, it’s very different. You’ve got getting punched in the face, then you’ve got running, cardio, all those things as well. You can’t say they’re anything alike.”

Gallen (10-0-1, 5 KOs) said he was undaunted by facing an opponent who once held a world title strap. Browne (29-2, 25 KOs) last fought in November 2019, beating John Hopoate by TKO. Gallen also knocked out ‘Hoppa’ that year, before a draw against AFL great Barry Hall.

“I’ve just got to worry about myself and take my training into the fight. If I do that, I’ll be OK; I know that,” Gallen said of Browne.

“The mentality doesn’t change. He’s an opponent, he’s a big, strong opponent, as everyone I played rugby league against was. I was never the biggest guy there but I survived for a long time and did well.

“I don’t look at the size of him or what he’s done, I just look at the person in front of me and do what I’ve got to do to get the job done.

“I think he’s taking me lightly, he’s thinking he’s going to walk through me; that’s why he’s planning other fights. He’s in for a big shock.”

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[The GameDiscoverCo game discovery newsletter is written by ‘how people find your game’ expert & GameDiscoverCo founder Simon Carless, and is a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s.]

Welcome to this week’s first GameDiscoverCo newsletter! We’re back in your general area, listening to the 25th anniversary re-release of Goldie’s Timeless album, feeling a little bit ancient, and musing upon the fundamental nature of things. Which brings us to today’s specialist subject…

Steam demos/prologues and your game loop

We actually wrote a pretty detailed column about game demos and prologues back in January, for anyone who remembers it! We analyzed a whole bunch of Steam prologues to compare their performance with the final game’s performance.

At the time, we showed that demo/prologue success can vary massively, just like final game success can vary. And we believe strongly that demos of overly ‘shallow’ games – or ill-considered demos which give away too much of the final game – can be a net negative.

But we also said that “we think the short, sharp playable demo/prologue – in both content and duration of availability – is the best bet. But.. this isn’t always the case, and the devs of The Riftbreaker, which has had a super popular prologue, would disagree with us.”

And since that column, we’ve seen other examples of breakout Steam titles where the demo really helped. So we wanted to better define the exception – when you should leave your demo up for longer – here. This is, in our view, if you have a demo with a standout (but short!) gameplay loop, where players don’t get bored of the demo and can play it many times, yet still want to buy the full version.

The most obvious recent example of this is Devolver’s Loop Hero. When the publisher asked how many hours people had put into the demo in late February, answers ranged from 2-7 hours (more ‘normal’), to, uhhh, 160 hours (!), for one response. That’s pretty crazy, and was a big reason for its sales breakout on launch.

The Loop Hero demo debuted in this year’s first Steam Festival (called Steam NextFest going forward!), and ended up spawning hit Northernlion videos like ‘Checking out 2021’s Hottest Demo’. So obviously, the hype was real here, because the title has a killer – and brief – gameplay loop. (Although Devolver did take down the demo a few weeks before the game came out, in this case.)

But doubling down on this ‘your game has a great, short replayable demo and people still want more’ concept, Paweł Lekki of The Riftbreaker creator EXOR Studios was kind enough to share some data from his studio’s base-building survival action-RPG title. It has both a free demo and a standalone Prologue version which are permanently available. And also seems to be ‘winning’ – the game is #23 of all 5,000 unreleased Steam titles in terms of wishlists.

Paweł comments of the demo/prologue: “They are physically identical, but exist on Steam as separate apps at the same time for increased visibility and technical reasons for the festivals. Right now we have 170,000 + 245,000 downloads of each respectively -> 415,000 total downloads. The demo is designed to be a 30 minute sample of the game. However some players tend to play it a lot more…”

So here’s the complete stats from the Steam back end for the Prologue. It has 3,300 reviews, so about 52 reviews per user – within the ranges for regular Steam games. The bottom axis uses time increments of 10 minutes, btw:

And here’s the play time stats for the demo, which are – as you might expect – similar. And also very impressive. BTW, both demo and prologue are translated into 9 other languages, which also helps:

What’s interesting here, as Paweł notes: “I took a dive into the playtime stats for each and it looks like there is a large group of players that play the demo for more than 200 minutes.” And some people a LOT more, apparently – if you believe this playtime number:

Anyhow, there’s 22,500 of these ‘long players’ for the Prologue, and 12,000 for the demo respectively, adding up to 34,500 super hardcore fans. The devs add: “We have seen this manifest in the form of a thriving modding scene for our demo on our Discord server (yes, people are making mods for the demo to extend the experience). I think that demos can be a great way to build up and nurture a community of super fans.”

So, in some ways this is almost like an Early Access version of the game before it even launches. And if well harnessed, can really help discoverability. It only works with certain types of game, of course. But perhaps you should also be thinking of making that type of game?

To end, the Riftbreaker devs noted: “Our next step is to add UTM tracking links into the wishlist buttons that we have built into the demo/prologue. We have an average of ~500 daily active users in the past 7 days for the demo, so this should be enough to provide some interesting data samples.” That’ll be interesting to see, too.

The game discovery news round-up..

And after that graph-festooned first section, it’s time to get to a second section, featuring… yet more graphs. But also a whole bunch of useful information about platforms, festivals, and ways to get your game seen:

• What’s going on around E3 and not-E3 this year, ‘virtual press event’-wise? This Kotaku article attempts to round up some of the major confirmed showcases so far in the summer months, from the Wholesome Direct stream through Summer Game Fest/E3 events, Ubisoft Forward, the PC Gaming Show, PAX Online, (virtual) GDC & more. More detail to come here, but a good overview!

• There’s a big milestone coming up for cloud gaming: Xbox is opening up a ‘public’ beta for Xbox Cloud Gaming: “We’ll begin sending out invites to select Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members to start testing [via] Windows 10 PCs and Apple phones and tablets via web browsers. We’re launching xbox.com/play where invitees can play over 100 Xbox Game Pass titles through Edge, Google Chrome, or Safari.” You can use a controller or touch controls – the latter custom-configured for 50 of the titles.

• Microlinks: Superjoost points out re: Apple that “the upgrade to its Arcade service to include a bunch more titles and improve its value proposition required Apple to change its policies”; interesting to see a Stellaris DLC land at second place in the latest Steam weekly revenue charts; the Before Your Eyes devs get some Steam reviewer pushback for ‘short game’ reasons.

• Regarding the ‘busy’ release schedule for Nintendo Switch, this latest TouchArcade round-up of Switch debuts and sales literally has the author saying: “I am very, very tired. I know I said I would go over what was in the Indie World Showcase today, but that was before hundreds of sales dropped and several additional games hopped onto the schedule.” Well… the platform is getting packed. But Steam has been unsummarizable for years, so maybe Switch is just finally getting to that stage?

• Third-party cross platform mod platform Mod.io recently hit 500,000 unique daily users, as founder Scott Reismanis says, “thanks to the v1 launch of Totally Accurate Battle Simulator on April 1st. Amazing creator community this game has, with over 3,000 pieces of content submitted daily!” Interesting to see the range of titles and number of downloads for each on Mod.io – the front end is fairly transparent!

• Sony has ended up backpedaling on closing the PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita, due to outcry over access to digital games that would be ‘lost’ as a result. Sony’s Jim Ryan: “We see now that many of you are incredibly passionate about being able to continue purchasing classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future.”

• Core, the platform that hopes to help creators build games and players experience them “…has launched for free in early access. It’s available exclusively on the Epic Games Store and already includes over 20,000 free playable games across a wide variety of genres including team-based multiplayer shooters, RPGs, and side-scrollers.” Keep a close eye on this in an ‘adult Roblox’ stylee – Sullygnome’s Twitch stats for it look fairly decent, right now.

• Microlinks Pt. 2: so, Google Stadia “…isn’t perfect. But for plenty of players, it’s enough”; latest NPD U.S. game hardware (& select software!) monthly results, with spending at $5.6 billion, 18% higher when compared to a year ago; why Facebook is embracing subscriptions for Oculus VR titles.

Finally, Logan ‘Indie Wolverine’ Williams picked up Lars Doucet’s data from GameDataCrunch to create this very helpful graph of historical pricing on Steam games:

As Lars comments in his Twitter thread on the data: “This chart tells you nothing about performance, but it does indicate that there hasn’t been a collapse in prices of games on Steam.” Rather than a pricing race to the bottom, it looks like just… more games in general?

[We’re GameDiscoverCo, a new agency based around one simple issue: how do players find, buy and enjoy your premium PC or console game? You can subscribe to GameDiscoverCo Plus to get access to exclusive newsletters, interactive daily rankings of every unreleased Steam game, and lots more besides.]