Gaming

Blizzard Newstravaganza: Diablo III Gets Release Window, Blizz Sues Valve over DOTA

Nathan Grayson — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:49:27 +0000

Blizzard's generally not so big on the whole talking thing, but the past 24 hours have given everyone an uncommonly good look at the powerhouse developer from all angles. The good news? Diablo III's almost kind of sort of but not quite here. And the bad? Try a no-holds-barred legal cage match with Valve over a name Blizzard's community – and certainly not Blizzard – invented.

So right, good news first. During Activision's Q4 financial call, Diablo III got pegged with a Q2 2012 launch – placing its no-longer-randomized drop date between April 1 and June 30. Blizzard's also expecting one more biggie to make its craterous impact this year, though it hasn't specified whether that means Heart of the Swarm's swarming gamers' hearts or WoW: Mist of Pandaria's doing... panda things.

Now then, onto the ugly business. The short version: Blizzard's suing Valve. Here's why:

“Valve has never used the mark DOTA in connection with any product or service that currently is available to the public,” reads Blizzard's statement on the matter. “By attempting to register the mark DOTA, Valve seeks to appropriate the more than seven years of goodwill that Blizzard has developed in the mark DOTA and in its Warcraft III computer game and take for itself a name that has come to signify the product of years of time and energy expended by Blizzard and by fans of Warcraft III.”

Blizzard also notes that the whole “Ancients” part of Defense of the Ancients is a reference to Warcraft lore, which – admittedly – gives it something of a strong case. But it'd be silly to not consider the business side to Blizzard's litigation barrage. Valve's team of immortal fun wizards is hard at work on DOTA 2, and Blizzard's got, er, Blizzard DOTA on the way. Regardless, watching excellent developers circle and nip at each others' throats like this is never fun – especially when it threatens to stunt the growth of a young genre that's just now finding its footing.

Tim Schafer Asks Internet to Fund New Point and Click Adventure, Gets a Million Dollars

Nathan Grayson — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:25:26 +0000

In under 24 hours, Double Fine made gaming (and Kickstarter) history. It all started when the funhouse that funnyman Tim Schafer built took to Kickstarter to ask for a few coins in the cup of a brand new point-and-click adventure game. And by “a few coins,” we mean $400,000. And so – no doubt fueled by fond memories of pirates who fight like dairy farmers – a legion of adoring fans buried the Kickstarter account in nickles, dimes, dollars, and priceless family heirlooms. The end result? It breezed past $400,000 in mere hours. And it's still going. As of writing, it reached $1,250,476, officially shattering Kickstarter's record for most donations in 24 hours and most backers. Which is all to say damn. Oh, and let's not forget that Notch is essentially playing Robin Hood to Psychonauts 2 – except with less arrows and more proof that there is justice in the universe after all. So yeah, all-in-all, we'd say Double Fine's had a pretty OK week or whatever, we guess.

Psychonauts 2 May Finally Get Funding... From the Creator of Minecraft

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:39:47 +0000

In videogames, anything can happen. And outside them, well, apparently the same rule applies. It all started when Tim Schafer lamented that he's “actually pitched [Psychonauts 2] to publishers several times and no-one has taken the bait so far." Sounds like the end of the line for the brain-bending, mind-invading cult hit, right? Not if Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson has anything to say about it.

And things to say about it he does... have. Like these ones, for instance:

"Let's make Psychonauts 2 happen,” he tweeted at Schafer. "I'm serious.”

Meanwhile, in a statement to Eurogamer, Double Fine gave its official (and extremely encouraging) response: "Tim and Markus are talking. Who knows what might happen?" So both parties are interested, and talks are under way. We, meanwhile, are prepared to buy every copy of the game ever printed and live in a house made of Psychonauts 2. We feel like that's how Notch -- looking down from atop his block-by-block empire -- would want it.

Of Mods and Men: Skyrim Gets Creation Kit, High-Res Texture Pack, Portal 2's Space Core

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:54:38 +0000

Hey, Rest of the Gaming Industry, want to know how to support a PC game? Take a page (or a piece of mottled parchment or whatever they use around there) from Bethesda's book. For the low, low price of zero arms, legs, or firstborns (or dollars, we guess), you can now nab Skyrim's official mod toolset, a spiffy high resolution texture pack, and the Valve-created “Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1” mod. It's an incredibly generous gesture, and one that – in hindsight – makes that ugly horse armor business from back in the day seem like some bizarrely specific bad dream. On that note, we're now off to create our first mod: Everything Armor. Mudcrabs, Silt Striders, children – the works. Also, we're bringing back Silt Striders, because there's no greener form of transportation than a giant horrifying bug creature.

Special Edition Star Wars Xbox 360 Coming This Spring

Ryan Whitwam — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:07:06 +0000

On April 3rd of this very year, we know exactly where you can find the droids you’re looking for. Microsoft is releasing a special edition Xbox 360 console done up to look like the iconic droids from the Star Wars movies. The system was first teased at last year’s Comic Con. The bundle comes with the system and a few Kinect-related extras for $449.

Buyers will get a 320GB console painted to resemble R2-D2, and a controller with a C-3PO gold finish. The box also includes a Kinect sensor and two games; Star Wars Kinect and Kinect Adventures. The latter has been around for since the Kinect launched, but Star Wars Kinect has five game modes plucked from the Star Wars saga. There are podraces, lightsaber duels, Galactic Dance-off (for some reason), and more.

The Xbox 360 is coming toward the end of its life cycle, so the wisdom of getting a new console now is dubious at best. Although, if you’re going to get one, this might be justifiable for the Star Wars fans out there.

Ubisoft DRM + Server Switch = Unplayable Games Next Week

Brad Chacos — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:00:17 +0000

DRM sucks. You know it, we know it, Gabe Newell and CD Projekt know it. Ubisoft apparently never got the memo however, and in the process of switching servers next week, the company will offer up yet another reason for DRM sucktitude. Thanks to that nasty always-on DRM, six games won't be playable whatsoever during the move -- single player included. Plenty of other games will have their multiplayer capabilities "impacted" during the transition, including console versions of the games.

According to a statement by Ubisoft (thanks to the always-useful Slashdot for sending us its way), the transition should start on Tuesday, February 7th; there's no word how long it will take. Single player and multiplayer will both be disabled for the following games:

Assassin's Creed - MAC
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 - PC
Might & Magic : Heroes VI - PC
Splinter Cell Conviction - MAC
The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom - PC
The Settlers - MAC

Rather than try and list out all the games that will have their multiplayer nerfed, Ubisoft took the easy route and instead decided to list the small handful of games that won't be affected at all. The following will be fully playable at all times; any you don't see here (or above) will have their multiplayer "impacted."

Anno 2070 - PC
Assassin’s Creed Revelations - OnLive, PC, PS3, X360
Driver® San Francisco - PC, OnLive, PS3, X360
Just Dance 3 - X360
The Settlers Online - PC web-based

Isn't DRM grand? I think you may be driving gamers into Pirate Bay's arms, Ubisoft.

The Game Boy: Headcrabs, Deathclaws, and Bears – Oh My

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:24:11 +0000

Gordon Freeman is a coward. Or at least, he is when I play him. It's those damn poison headcrabs. As soon as they start hissing – shrouded in darkness, probably fresh off the assembly line from some Nightmare Factory – I turn into an orange-and-black blur and beeline for the nearest corner to cry in. When Alyx is around, I push her into the poison headcrab's Terror Lair and hide until she makes the bad things that can kill me in two hits go away. Meanwhile, in real life, I lean away from the screen until my spine feels like it's recently been on the receiving end of a Mortal Kombat Fatality. If you haven't gotten the picture yet, I really, really don't like poison headcrabs.

I love, however, that they exist. Half-Life 2's enemies in general are some of the most memorable I've ever encountered. In fact, I haven't experienced such a visceral reaction to any game enemy since.

And that's a problem.

Iconic enemies can define a whole level – or even an entire game. The headcrab's a perfect example. Sure, it may (head) crib a few attack strategies from Alien's facehugger, but excellent art/audiovisual design and level placement elevated it far beyond a mere face-munching me-too. Among gamers, the cuddly-as-it-is-horrifying jumping bean from hell is basically a cultural phenomenon.

Meanwhile, what's our hyper-advanced modern gaming scene bringing to the figurative dog show? Well, let's see: We've got the generic terrorist from Modern Warfare 3, the generic terrorist from Battlefield 3, the generic steroid-addled thug from Arkham City, generic zombies from everything, and inferior headcrab rip-offs from Gears of War, Halo, Resistance, etc. Remember that one guy from that one level of Homefront? Hey, me neither!

So, what's the deal? Why have enemies suddenly taken a tumble in the whitewashing machine? And – more importantly – what aren't they doing that older-school baddies nailed so perfectly? Well, there are a few factors to consider. First off, there's the matter of mentality. Many of the enemies in today's big-name games are basically cannon fodder – and nothing more. They pop up, you wallop them with your whack-a-mole hammer (or multi-barreled rocket shotgun that also fires reminders that the Smurfs movie exists, as it were), and then you move on.

Games like Half-Life 2 and BioShock, meanwhile, are so memorable because of the multifaceted manner in which they present their most frightening foes. For instance, Half-Life 2 initially flings you crowbar-first into a world ruled by the Combine. I mean, if you ask me what my first memory of the basic Combine soldier is, it's not even a difficult question. And no, the answer isn't “shooting one in the face.” Instead, it's a simple line: “Pick it up.” And when I refused to drop that tiny tin can in the garbage out of sheer, I'm-Gordon-goddam-Freeman defiance, he smacked me in the face. That moment – and not when I was facing down a small army of gun-toting space oddities – was when I understood how bad things had gotten in Gordon's absence.

It's the little moments that count biggest. Similarly, there was also Lamarr the friendly headcrab and controllable Ant Lions to offset the sheer otherworldly terror of Ravenholm's special brand of headcrab zombies or retch-worthy clusters of ceiling-dwelling barnacles. They showed other sides to Half-Life 2's enemies. Somewhat paradoxically, I felt an attachment to the very things I was blasting.

BioShock, meanwhile, designed an entire ecology around Big Daddies, making them far more than diving-suit-clad foils for the business end of your shotgun. Over the course of the game, you discovered their origins, purposes, and – eventually – became one yourself. (Admittedly, however, it wasn't until BioShock 2 that the franchise really perfected that concept.) Sure, having a giant drill for a hand definitely gave the Big Daddy an upper hand... drill... thing in the memorability category, but a gradual trickle of information turned Big Daddy from a giant target into a crucial part of Rapture's existence.

There's also the matter of smart, measured build up and the air of mystique it creates. Wasteland denizens in Fallout 3, for example, whispered of Deathclaws in frightened tones long before I ever met one face-to-face. And when I finally saw one loping toward me, gangly limbs flying like vital-organ-seeking missiles? I turned tail and fled for dear life while attempting to write out my last will and testament. Lamentably, I didn't exactly make it far.

Indie horror hit Amnesia, however, really steals the show in that category. It's so terrifying not because boogie men pop out and shout “boo!” around every corner, but for the exact opposite reason: they don't. Instead, there's a constant sickening dread lurking in the darkness. Slight sights, unsettling sounds, perfectly placed shadows. Together, they create a mystique that other survival horror games simply can't match. And your character, of course, is hopelessly helpless, rendering the classic “fight or flight” multiple choice test fairly easy. The answer is D) Wet Yourself.

There's another factor, though, that I think has played a major role in the shift away from interesting, well-designed enemies: graphical fidelity. Madness, you say? Well, consider this: The more realistic graphics are, the easier it is to design enemies that look and move like people. However, as humans, we naturally fear difference. My poison headcrab phobia? I bet it wouldn't be nearly as bad if I wasn't also violently afraid of spiders. Point is, we're pre-programmed to fear things that are unlike us, because nature's creepy crawlies have a tendency to, you know, murder us with poison.

Earlier games, though, were perfectly positioned to take advantage of that. A lack of detail became creepy, inhuman abstraction. Awkward animations became herky-jerky, unnatural movements. Enemies like Legend of Zelda's life-sapping Re-Deads and dungeon-crawling (literally) Wallmasters were – on some level – a product of necessity. Technology was limited, so developers had to be creative.

Ever played SkiFree? Yes, that SkiFree. Same idea. The yeti didn't trigger minor heart attacks just because it signaled insta-death. Its rapid, oddly terrifying movements gave Child-Me many a pixelated nightmare because it ambled ever forward in a manner that was downright wrong. Happily, Minecraft's enemies – Creepers, especially – carry that torch today to some extent today, but they're the exception, not the rule.

By and large, it's all hyper-realistic terrorists this, hyper-realistic zombies that. Oh, and there's the occasional hyper-realistic giant spider in there – just to make me feel frightened in spite of myself. I want more than that, though. Give me a love-hate, life-death relationship for the ages – not another shooting gallery. Press start. Find me a new challenger.

Seven Ways to Stop Piracy WITHOUT DRM

Seamus Bellamy — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:35:48 +0000

It’s a fact of life: Pirates be pirating. Last year, UK Interactive Entertainment estimated a 4:1 ratio of pirated games against those that were legally purchased. What do those numbers mean? A lot, when you’re talking about loss revenue. In interview with our own Nathan Grayson, CEO Marek Španěl of Bohemia Interactive admitted that for every legitimate player rocking a rocket launcher in ARMA 2, another 100 players with pirated copies of the game are turned away. That’s a whole lot of unrealized realized cash that should have wound up in Bohemia Interactive’s coffers. As most of our readers will be quick to point out, Bohemia Interactive’s not the only company to have their timbers shivered by digital piracy. As a defence against having their intellectual properties swiped, cracked and traded online like so many baseball cards, a lot of companies have turned to Digital Right Management; a move that seldom does more than temporarily slow pirates and enrage paying customers. Fortunately, there’s a growing number of non-DRM related options out there for developers and software vendors to explore that’ll stymy piracy while respect the rights of their paying users.

Bake in Deterrents

Instead of being Insidious, why not be hilarious when it comes to defending your wares from piracy? That’s what Serious Sam 3 developer Croteam did when faced with the problem of how to discourage the piracy of their creation without saddling their legitimate users with the frustrations that can stem from a healthy dose of DRM. Instead of crippling illegally obtained copies of the game, Croteam opted to make Serious Sam 3 a miserable experience for pirates by inserting an indestructible pink scorpion hellbent on destroying them into the mix. No matter where the players runs or tries to hide, the game’s hilariously powerful enforcer tracks them down and kills them, making it impossible to play the first-person shooter in peace.

Provide Higher Levels of Support & Quality Control

Rage, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim and Battlefield 3 all have one thing in common: They were all a hot, glitchy mess when they were launched. A lot of pirates justify their pillaging of digital goods by saying that they refuse to pay for a product that doesn’t perform as it was intended to. While release schedules and industry pressures will always be a factor that decides upon when a piece of software made available to consumers, software developers would do well to consider adopting Blizzard’s “it’s done when it’s done” mentality and sit on their products until they’re able to vouch for their performance. If that’s not possible, then employing a robust system for error reporting and resolution is a must: After all, no one wants to pay for something that’s broken right out of the box, and if they do, they want to know what can be done to fix it as quickly as possible.

Perks

In an effort to quell the second-hand sale of their software, a growing number of developers have been offering consumers premium downloadable content perks tied to a single-use code. The Catwoman missions in Batman Arkham Asylum and the cross-game weapons and armour offered by Electronic Arts in a number of the games from their catalog over the past few years are great examples of this. We’re betting gamers would like to see more of this sort of thing—with tastier options than a few cosmetic items for our in-game characters. By routinely doling out fresh in game content to paying customers, development houses would be providing consumers with a compelling reason to pay for their wares. It might not stop piracy dead in its tracks, but it’d definitely boost sales.

Standardize International/Regional Releases

There’s plenty of excellent reasons to stagger the release of a new piece of software on an international scale: Doing so keeps servers from melting into pools of unusable silicon, and preserves the sanity of help desk agents, if only for a little while. That said, if a game’s not available in the states, even though the Italians have had it for a week, you know that someone, somewhere is going to be pirating that bad boy. By giving consumers what they want simultaneously on an international level, developers could strike another reason for illegally downloading an application from the the litany of excuses pirates have been employing for years.

Lower the Cost of Digitally Distributed Software

Placing a software product in a physical marketplace is a costly undertaking, matter how you cut it. Product production, art and marketing, shipping—they all cost a goodly sum of dollars that wind up getting factored into the retail cost of a piece of boxed software, thus forcing consumers to decide between buying groceries for the rest of the month or investing in a new application. For some reason—let’s call it crazed avarice—digitally distributed iterations of the same software often costs the same as their boxed up, marked up cousins. Were software developers to dramatically lower the price of their digitally distributed wares, it’d be an uphill slog for pirates to complain about the market value cost of what they’re swiping. Sure, lower prices for digitally distributed wares means a less robust bottom line, but some cash is better than none, and where piracy is concerned, no cash gleaned from the sweat of your programer’s brows is likely exactly what you’ll wind up with.

Make an Effort to Actively Engage Your Community

Friends don’t steal from friends. Friends have your back. Whenever possible, you want your customers to be your friends. It doesn’t pay to get locked into an adversarial relationship with the people responsible for giving you money. Developers would do well to get to know and understand the concerns of their market. Insomuch as it’s possible, uncover the reasons why your market base feels compelled to pirate your products and do your best to address them. Listen to your customer’s frustrations and concerns, and whenever possible, provide them with the help they need and deserve. As the old adage suggests: Respect earns respect. While you might not be able to obliterate the piracy of your products entirely, a modicum of concern for your customers could help to reduce it.

Nuke Them From Orbit (It’s the Only Way to Be Sure)

You’ve tried lowering your prices. You’ve opted to forgo Digital Rights Management measures in favour of introducing downloadable incentives to paying customers and tormenting pirates with a frustrating in-app nemesis. Simultaneously releasing your software across all regions? Been there, done that. Hell, in an attempt to curb pirating, you’ve even gone so far as to drastically reduce the online price of your software. Sadly, none of it has managed to make a dent in your company’s shrinkage you’d been hoping for. At this point, you can keep on keeping on and hope that your non-DRM related anti-piracy measures and hope that they eventually gain traction, or sue the bejeezus out of anything that moves. Sadly, neither solution will be the cure-all you’re looking for. DRM is, well it’s DRM. Hated by the masses and viewed as a challenge by dedicated hackers, it’s only a matter of time until any Digital Rights Management solution is circumvented.

What about lawsuits, you ask hopefully?

As with most legal matters, suing the individuals who pirate your products is more of a marathon than a sprint. Take CD Projekt Red, the development house behind The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, for example. Since it’s release in 2011, over 4.5 million copies of the PC game were illegally downloaded, putting CD Projekt Red in an ugly fiscal position, to say the least. In response to the rampant piracy they were being subjected to, the Polish development studio tracked down a large number of alleged pirates of the game and demanded they be paid for the the use of the software, or face legal prosecution. Great idea, right? Not so much: In the first few weeks of January, the development house announced that they would be discontinuing their legal crusade against those that would dare to pirate their game, chiefly due to the fact that the only thing that seems to enrage gamers more than DRM is the prospect of a shaky, difficult to support lawsuit based on the art—not science, mind you—of IP tracking.

If there’s a final, definitive solution to online piracy that doesn’t in some way involve Digital Rights Management, it has yet to be found. We can only hop that when such a solution is implemented, it’s one that’s as just to a product’s paying end users as it is to the companies that designed it.

New Mass Effect 3 Trailer Talks The Talk About Talking

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:22:51 +0000

In space, no one can hear you scream. Or squeak or squawk or make any sort of sound, for that matter. But man, even space has to make exceptions in cases of exemplary wonderfulness. Example A: Martin Sheen's intoxicating rasp. And hey, look! Seth Green. He, too, is saying things. And, of course, Jennifer Hale's reprising her role as The One True Shep. So that's all well and good and... wait. Freddie Prinze Jr's playing a burly soldier man party member? And Jessica “I licked a PSP and then became an IGN host and am failing to take advantage of the fact that my last name looks a lot like 'robot'” Chobot's in the game? How? Why? We demand explanation! Or a brief appearance by Keith David as Admiral Anderson to make everything all better again. Check out the full and extremely emotionally confusing trailer after the break.

Not Our Type: PC Version of Prototype 2 Receives Three Month Delay

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:06:57 +0000

Prototype's main character has a whole slew of off-the-wall abilities in his superpowered arsenal, and now it's time to add another to the list: super-snubbing PC gamers. While console players get to tentacle-stab hearts to their heart's content starting April 24, we're now stuck on the sidelines until July 24 for no apparent reason. Granted, if you've been even the slightest bit conscious for the past few years, this is in no way a surprising slap to PC gamers' faces. Usually, though, this is Ubisoft's shtick, so it's not exactly uplifting to see Activision – the world's biggest videogame publisher – taking a similarly ill-advised approach. Developer Radical Entertainment's promising more details “soon,” though, so maybe a perfectly rational explanation is on the way. You know, like... er, well, ummmm. A time travel experiment gone horribly wrong? Yeah, we've got nothing.

Razer's True 7.1 Tiamat Gaming Headset Delayed... Again

Brad Chacos — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:35:41 +0000

Bad news for surround-sound gaming headset fans; Razer's Tiamat 7.1 headset was already delayed from its original 2011 launch, and now it's been delayed yet again. The company recently announced that its January rescheduling was a little too ambitious and now says that the cans will ship next month, instead. (Maybe the name should have been a warning: Wikipedia says Tiamat was "the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos" in Babylonian mythology.) By way of apology, the company's offering some free Razer swag to early buyers.

"We feel our relentless pursuit of quality, and our refusal to ship a 'good enough' product will pay off when you plug in your pair and hear them for the first time," Razer wrote on its website. "We do not take delays lightly, and you can bet your ass we are busting ours to make this product perfect." If you add your name to the Tiamat's notification list, Razer will send you a coupon code for a free Razer t-shirt and flask, which you can redeem when the Tiamat goes up for sale.

A quick refresher: Razer pegs the Tiamat as a true 7.1 headset thanks to its 10 individual positional drivers, which it claims is a "world's first." Other gaming headsets use simulated surround sound. Are you thinking of picking one up?

Microsoft: No New Xbox in 2012, Rumors “Premature”

Nathan Grayson — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:58:29 +0000

In recent weeks, the Internet's exploded with rumors of a successor to the Xbox 360. Unfortunately, we've got some bad news for the armchair analysts in the audience. Microsoft, you see, has taken to digging through the charred post-explosion Internet wreckage, and it hasn't uncovered a single scrap of truth.

“We’re in an industry that talks a lot, that likes to tell stories,” Microsoft France director Cedrick Delmas told Lepoint.Fr (as translated by VG247). “I am not convinced things will happen this year. Xbox 360′s cycle is not at all finished. The proof is that we don’t see the logic in cutting the price this year. E3 is still premature. What’s certain is that there’ll be nothing new in 2012.”

“We’re not here to counter Nintendo and they’re not here to fight the other manufacturers. Nintendo has put itself in a different cycle, they’re advancing at their own pace.”

So then, that Blu-ray drive everyone's been so adamantly sacrificing Sony Aibos in exchange for? Probably not a thing. And an E3 announcement? Almost certainly out of the question. As for the other rumors, well, they sound vaguely plausible, but this industry doesn't exactly have the best history with vague plausibility. For example, the sentence: “Why yes, a product called 'the Xbox' is certain to achieve massive success.” Spoken by a Microsoft marketer, confirmed by reality. Expect the unexpected. Especially when it strikes you as really, really dumb.

Blizzard Auctions World Of Warcraft Server Blades For Charity

Brad Chacos — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:39:36 +0000

While Blizzard may taketh away with one hand, it giveth away with the other: disappointed Blizzcon fans are still smarting from news of the convention's 2012 cancellation, but hardcore WoW-heads now have reason to rejoice. Through the 30th, Blizzard is auctioning off hundreds of server blades used to house World of Warcraft in its infancy. All of the proceeds will be donated to the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

Blizzard waxed poetic in its description of the server blades: For a time, these servers were doorways into a universe of magic, mystery, and unlimited adventure. People vanquished mighty foes, they formed bonds of friendship, and some even found love in the game worlds that ran on these servers. If you listen closely on a starry night, you can still hear the ghosts of the past running through their circuit boards, recounting tales of epic conquest.

You're even be able to pick out which familiar ghosts you're hearing, as Blizzard is identifying which realm the servers housed. If you have strong memories of your posse rolling five deep to stop Al'Akir, you can pick up an Al'Akir server. The vast majority of the 347 blades being auctioned seem to come from Europe or Russia rather than U.S. data centers, but hey, this is still super cool.

Details from the product listings:

Display is approximately 28” x 10.3” x 1.7” and weighs 18lbs.
Each case is exactly the same for all of the servers.
Plaques will show the Realm Name and Mo/Yr of start and end date.
The copy on the plaque reads: Blizzard Entertainment has carefully preserved and archived our retired server blades, releasing only a limited number for a noble cause. To us, this server blade is more than just hardware: within the circuits and hard drive, a world of magic, adventure, and friendship thrived. From fishing in quiet lakes to defeating Arthas in Icecrown Citadel, this blade was home to thousands of immersive experiences across the world of Azeroth and beyond. We thank you for the safekeeping of this important part of history.
The signatures are printed on the plaque not original and include the World of Warcraft team.

Go check out the server listings at eBay if you have a couple hundred bucks to spare. It's for a good cause!

Nintendo Blames Poor Sales on Rocky 3DS Launch, Strong Yen

Paul Lilly — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:59:16 +0000

Nintendo offered a couple of excuses as to why it posted significant losses for the April-December period when one year prior the numbers were looking pretty rosy. The house that Super Mario built got beat up during the nine months ended December 31, 2011, with sales totaling 556.2 billion yen, or $7.2 billion, down nearly a third from the same time period in 2010.

Market saturation may be a contributing factor, but not for all of Nintendo's consoles. The game maker sold less than 9 million Wii consoles between April and December, down a big chunk from the 13.7 million units it sold one year prior, and Nintendo DS sales dropped from 15 million in 2010 to a measly 4.6 million in 2011. And while sales of Nintendo's 3DS console rebounded after a price cut brought the device down from $249 to a more reasonable $169, Nintendo is now forecasting 14 million unit sales for the fiscal year through March 2012, down 2 million from a previous forecast.

Nintendo also adjusted its earning forecast, which is now at 660 billion yen, or $8.5 billion, down from a previous forecast of 790 billion yen, or just under $10.18 billion, partially because of a "much stronger yen against foreign currencies."

You can view Nintendo's consolidated financial highlights here (PDF).

THQ Finally Confirms New Company of Heroes

Nathan Grayson — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:07:19 +0000

Rejoice, RTS fans and/or people who like good things. Relic's WWII real-time strategy has finally emerged from its bullet-time-like stasis. Well, OK, mostly. THQ hasn't mentioned the heavily rumored Company of Heroes 2 specifically, but a recent investor announcement saw it name-drop the franchise as one of its upcoming heavy hitters. On the downside, however, THQ continues to struggle with financial issues in much the same way someone who's spontaneously combusted in a desert searches for a body of water. The Company of Heroes focus, then, comes as part of a realignment to hone in on proven moneymakers like Saints Row and Warhammer. Which is fine by us, assuming they actually, you know, make money. Otherwise, Company of Heroes' triumphant return looks to be crushingly short-lived.