Good morning! The time is [Redacted] and welcome back to Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku’s daily roundup of interesting news, shit you might care about, and [Redacted]. We hope you enjoy your visit and get to learn more about Valve’s newly revealed Steam Machines, Roblox face-scanning tech, [Redacted], and Shroud’s problems with the Game Awards. And remember, please don’t [Redacted] or you might [Redacted]. Have a great day!
Shroud claims The Game Awards are ‘rigged’
Popular video game streamer and content creator Shroud is a big fan of this year’s excellent extraction shooter Arc Raiders. And he’s not, apparently, a fan of the Game Awards snubbing the game for its Game of the Year award.
As reported by IGN, in a recent Twitch stream, Shroud watched the Game Awards nominees being announced and, upon seeing that Arc Raiders wasn’t in the running for the big GOTY award, expressed disappointment, saying, “The world is just not ready for AI in video games, not yet. They’re just not ready. But, hey, at least they nominated it for something. I genuinely thought they wouldn’t nominate it for anything because they were scared to get backlash. But at least they nominated it for something, so that’s good.” He then stated: “Once again, another year, another rigged year. That’s crazy.” Even before the nominees were revealed, he was claiming the show might be rigged.
It’s a bit odd to suggest the world isn’t ready for Arc Raiders, considering it’s one of the most-played games on Steam right now and has received heaps of critical praise. And there is zero evidence that the Game Awards this year or any previous year are rigged. The awards are voted on by a panel of members of the games media and influencers. IGN reports that later in the stream, Shroud expressed disappointment at the possibility of Donkey Kong Bananza winning, asking “who the fuck is playing” the Switch 2 platformer.
Roblox rolls out age verification via face scanning
Prepare to have your face scanned before playing Roblox. The extremely popular online free-to-play game has started rolling out a voluntary face-scanning system that will be used to check a player’s age and limit the ability for kids and adults to communicate. For now, you won’t need to verify your age by scanning your face with the Roblox app to play experiences online, but certain chat features will be locked behind the new process. And next year, age verification via a face scan will be required globally for all players to access the game at all. The company promises that it will delete all images and videos “immediately after processing.”
KPop Demon Hunters balloons will be included in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
Netflix’s hit animated movie KPop Demon Hunters continues to take over the world. Two characters from the cartoon, Derpy Tiger and Sussie, will be featured in the annual parade’s 99th installment next week as large, colorful balloons. I’ve still not seen the movie yet, so I don’t have much to add beyond the fact that the balloons look cool and oh god it’s almost Thanksgiving and I have done zero Christmas shopping or planning.
Close to a decade after launch, Epic finally adds gifting to its store
Seven years after launch, the Epic Game Store has finally added the ability to gift games to other players on the platform, a feature Valve’s Steam store has supported for years now. According to a blog post about the new feature, players can now buy and send games directly to people on their Epic friends lists. Gifted games can only be sent to friends and they must not own the game already. If they decline it, you get a full refund.
Steam Machines are more powerful than 70 percent of PCs that use Steam
Valve’s recently announced Steam Machine, a console-like PC device for your TV, is supposedly more powerful than the majority of computers using Steam in 2025. That’s according to Valve, as spotted by PC Gamer. In a recent video from Tested, the channel talked to Valve engineers who explained that for most Steam users, the upcoming Steam Machine will be an upgrade.
“Another thing that we actually looked at is the Steam Hardware Survey,” said Valve. “Basically, that just gives us a good benchmark of where people’s home devices are at in terms of performance. And the Steam Machine is equal or better than 70 percent of what people have at home.”
A good reminder that most people playing PC games aren’t running powerful rigs with cutting-edge tech, but are instead rocking budget builds with older, less powerful parts. So if the Steam Machine is priced smartly, it could be a big hit for those gamers looking to upgrade.
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