Headline RePLAY – 6.11.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: The producer of Street Fighter IV is back in action, Diablo III prepares for the Real-Money Auction House and League of Legends EU is the latest to be hit with a security breach.


Yoshinori Ono’s dedication to Capcom’s Street Fighter series is so legendary that it was instrumental in revving the franchise in 2008 with the release of Street Fighter IV—but was it the same devotion that arguably lead to his sudden illness and collapse in April?

In an interview with Eurogamer’s Simon Parkin, Ono recounts his journey from composer to producer, and his dogged persistence in proposing the fourth entry to Street Fighter to a reluctant company since the release of Street Fighter 3: Third Strike in 1999.  

“I was working on Onimusha 4 and during that time I repeatedly submitted my proposal for a new Street Fighter,” Ono recalled. “The company kept telling me: ‘It’s a dead franchise. It doesn’t make any money. We have series that make money like Resident Evil and Onimusha. Why bother with a dead franchise?”

Ultimately, Ono’s persistence paid off and he was given a small budget to create a prototype. Ono’s strategy was simple: “I had been asking all of the journalists to make noise about the series when out and about. I would always tell them that it was their responsibility to tell Capcom, not me as I don’t have the power. Journalists and fans have the power to move Capcom—not producers. With so many voices crying out for a Street Fighter game Capcom could no longer ignore it any more and so they gave the green light for a prototype and they asked me to create it.

“It’s a miracle that happened after a decade…”

Capcom was still not sold on the project, however. Fan demands may have forced the company’s hand, but Ono was constantly asked, “Ono-san, seriously why are you persisting with this? You are using so much money, budget and resources. Why don’t we use it on something else, something that will make money?”

“No one had the intention of selling it,” Ono concluded, “so I had virtually no help from other departments—they were reluctant, right up to the day of release.”

Ono’s dedication and his faith in the fans paid off in spades: Street Fighter IV was a huge success, single-handedly resurrecting the franchise.

And it probably overworked him into a hospital bed, but the producer vows that’s not enough to stop him.

“There have been rumors saying Ono is dead or retiring. None of that’s true. I want to support the next generation of fighting games. It’s my job. It’s my calling.”

|Source: Eurogamer


Diablo III’s long-disputed Real-Money Auction House is launching tomorrow, and in the wake of hacking reports that plagued the game’s release, Blizzard is requiring that players have an authenticator attached to their account in order to access the feature.

More specifically, players must have a physical or mobile Battle.net authenticator attached to their Battle.net accounts in order to use the RMAH. Players who already attached their account to Battle.net Balance, a feature that provides the option to buy and sell items on the RMAH, without an authenticator will continue to be able to do so—on the caveat that it is required to add to the balance in the future.

|Source: Blizzard


League of Legends EU is the latest to be hit by hackers, Riot Games reports that only personal player data in EU West and EU Nordic and East databases were accessed and “absolutely” no payment or billing information was compromised.

According to Riot, any personal data that was breached included e-mail addresses, encrypted account passwords, summoner [game ID] name and date of birth. The studio does note that for a “small number of players” first and last name might’ve been compromised along with encrypted security question and answer.

Riot does assure players that the security issue that hackers exploited was resolved, all EU West, EU Nordic and East players were notified via e-mail and that the investigation is still ongoing. Additionally, Riot has redirected teams to “quickly implement new security measures” to improve the safety of player data and will continue to “invest in security measures” like password hashing, data encryption, state of the art firewalls, SSL and security ninjas.

And lastly the company asks users to change their account passwords and offers steps on how to do so.

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