News: Gaming and industry

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Yakuza 5 Theme Song Announced
Kyousuke Himuro to provide a variety of songs for latest Yakuza game.

Sega announced today that Kyousuke Himuro will be providing music for Yakuza 5.

The game's opening theme song will be Bloody Moon, a new song created just for Yakuza 5 by Himuro's newly formed "Gospels of Judas" group.

Additionally, six current songs from Himura will appear in the game.

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Kickstarter Android console Ouya gets game line-up



As well as the games listed below, most Google Play games should work through the box providing they're compatible with Android 4.0, which the Ouya is set to launch with.

And if that's not enough to convince you, there'll also be OnLive support too.

Check out the current game line-up in the list below:

AR-K: A Dark Acid Adventure Comedy
Armored Tank Assault 2
Aura Tactics
Auro
Castle Conflict 2
Echoes of Eternea
Final Fantasy III
Gish (and more!)
Gravestompers
Gunblitz
Heroes Call and Ski Safari
Ittle Dew
Kaiju Combat
Kitaru
Legends of Aethereus
MANOS: The Hands of Fate
Megatroid
Mutant Mudds
Orbital Blaster
Quest for Infamy
Reincarnation: The Root of All Evil
Rival Threads
Rush Bros
Saturday Morning RPG
Spinferno
Super Retro Squad
Volgarr the Viking
Xenonauts

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/kickstarter-android-console-ouya-gets-game-line-up-1091413?src=rss&attr=all

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Sacred Citadel Announcement Trailer


Here's the first look at Sacred Citadel, a beat-em-up offshoot of the action RPG. Available for XboxLive, PSN and PC download.

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Valve to sell non-gaming software on Steam starting September 5th
Valve is opening up Steam to non-gaming software, the company announced today, bringing applications ranging from "creativity to productivity" to the digital distribution platform. The first software titles will be released on September 5th.

Non-gaming software sold via Steam will take advantage of the platform's Steamworks features, which include simplified installation, auto-updating, and the ability to save work to the Steam Cloud for cross-platform access from multiple computers.

"The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games," said Valve's Mark Richardson in a press release. "They have told us they would like to have more of their software on Steam, so this expansion is in response to those customer requests."

In July, the Steam iOS application leaked Valve's plans to add non-gaming software to its vast library, with application categories for accounting, animation and modeling, audio production, design and illustration, education, photo editing, software training and more.

Valve says that developers of non-gaming software titles will be able to submit applications via the company's recently launched Steam Greenlight initiative.

More Software titles will be added in an ongoing fashion following the September 5th launch, and developers will be welcome to submit Software titles via Steam Greenlight.

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Dead or Alive 5 “Opening Declaration” trailer calls fighters to battle


LOTRO: Riders of Rohan gets new screens and details
Lord of the Rings Online: Riders of Rohan expansion has received a new batch of screens from developer Turbine, as well as new expansion details.



A Warner Bros. statement explained the new LOTRO: Riders of Rohan content, “Riders of Rohan increases the level cap to 85 and introduces Mounted Combat to the game. Players can now take up arms alongside the lords of Rohan and ride their own custom steed in pursuit of Uruks and Orcs that are terrorizing townships and travelers.

“Rebuild & reclaim supplies for the small outposts and towns throughout the countryside, discover what happened to the Fellowship and stand in service to Éomer, Third Marshal of the Mark, as he seeks to counter the dangers that beset the Riddermark.”

LOTRO: Riders of Rohan is out September 5

http://www.vg247.com/2012/08/08/lotro-riders-of-rohan-gets-new-screens-and-details/

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OUYA Kickstarter ends with over $8.5 million in funding
It’s been a long and very exciting ride, but the Kickstarter campaign for the Android-based game console OUYA has finally come to a close. The last few pledges are still trickling in, but with the timer reading 0 seconds left to go, OUYA has attracted 63,308 backers and pulled in a whopping $8,584,440 in funding. And here we thought Double Fine made a lot of money with its Kickstarter.



The Kickstarter for OUYA has been a smashing success ever since the beginning. It was only a matter of hours before it surpassed its $950,000 goal, raising a record-breaking $2.5 million in the first 24 hours. Since that first day, we’ve been given announcement after announcement, as OUYA revealed partnerships with the likes of iHeartRadio, VEVO, OnLive, XBMC, and TuneIn. There are also the game deals, with developer Robomodo announcing that a prequel to its upcoming game Human Element will be exclusive to OUYA, and Square Enix promising that Final Fantasy III will be a launch title for the console. Just yesterday we were told that the OUYA team is in talks with Namco Bandai, so we’re looking forward to more details about that.

Naturally, pledges slowed as the Kickstarter campaign went on, but in the past 24 hours they’ve seen quite a boost. OUYA has managed to raise nearly $1 million in the last 24 hours alone, partially due to the last-minute backers who were getting in before everything wrapped up, but also because OUYA announced yesterday that backers can get four controllers with their console by upping their pledge amount by $90. It was obviously an appreciated option, and one that ended up making OUYA quite a bit more money in its final hours.

Now that the Kickstarter campaign has ended, the OUYA team will take the millions they’ve raised and get to work on making this console a reality. Should everything go as planned, the first OUYA consoles will be heading out to backers in March 2013, and after that we’ll see if OUYA sinks or swims. There are still plenty of people out there who think OUYA is destined for failure, while many others think that this console will be, for lack of a better term, a game-changer. Stay tuned, because the end of the Kickstarter only marks the beginning of the OUYA story.

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Cyberpunk ‘as mature as Witcher and just as brutal’ – CD Projekt RED
Cyberpunk is the next game from CD Projekt RED, taking the studio’s mastery of the RPG genre and plonking it in a futuristic sci-fi dystopia. Don’t go expecting colourful lasers, pink rifles and green-suited supermen, this is going to be a gritty take on sci-fi.



Speaking with VG247, CD Projekt RED’s Konrad Tomaszkiewicz discussed why the studio went sci-fi, “The choice of the game universe was easy. We still wanted to create games designed for the grown-up gamer, and Cyberpunk is the perfect setting which allows us to touch other important themes than those in The Witcher, because of its fantasy setting.”

“What you can expect from Cyberpunk is that it will be as mature as The Witcher and set in a realistic and brutal world.”

Creator of the original Cyberpunk RPG Mike Pondsmith has given CD Projekt RED his blessing. Tomaszkiewicz says he, “Likes our vision of the game and he cooperates with the Cyberpunk team a lot. Not so long ago, we answered some questions of our Witcher community about the new project. You can find the answers here.”
http://www.vg247.com/2012/08/09/all-grown-up-cd-projekt-red-and-treating-gamers-as-people/

https://thewitcher.com/community/entry/270

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The Last Guardian Trademark Abandoned, But Don't Worry



The Internet is buzzing today about the discovery that SCEA has abandoned the trademark for The Last Guardian. What does this mean? We spoke to Eric Chad, an intellectual property attorney at the law firm of Merchant & Gould in Minneapolis, Minn. to help break down the situation for us.

"Trademark law is pretty tricky because, while you don’t need to register a trademark with the government in order to sue others for infringing it, registering it does provide certain benefits that make enforcing your trademark earlier," Chad says. "The abandonment that has taken place here is not of trademark rights but rather of Sony’s trademark application."

He says that in order to register a trademark, you need to show the government that you’re either currently using the trademark in commerce or that you intend to use the trademark in commerce in the near future. This prevents someone from registering every word in the dictionary and then suing everyone for everything they sell.

"In this instance, Sony filed an 'intent-to-use' application, where they essentially told the Patent & Trademark Office, 'Hey, we’d like to register this trademark on certain classes of goods, and we’re not using it in commerce yet, but we will,' Chad explains. “Under the Lanham Act (the statutes governing most of trademark law), Sony then had to submit to the PTO, within a certain period of time (usually one year), a statement saying they were actually using the trademark. Obviously, they’re not doing that yet, so they couldn’t submit such a statement.”

Chad says Sony could file another application for the same mark, either a use-based application or another intent-to-use application. “They could keep this process going on without a time limit. Alternatively, they could release the project without a trademark registration. Even without a registration they could sue an infringer as long as they could prove they were using the trademark in commerce first.”

Lastly, Chad says “The Last Guardian” is available for others to use until Sony begins using it or files another intent-to-use application. While the abandonment of the trademark application doesn’t mean the game is dead, it bears watching. “If Sony doesn’t file another intent-to-use application in the next several months, that would be telling.”

When asked for comment on today's report, a SCEA spokesperson said the game was still in development. At E3 2012 in June, Sony worldwide studios president Shuhei Yoshida said, "There are some technical issues being addressed. There’s not much to show what it looks like," he told Game Informer.

The Evolution Of Ganon
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/08/09/the-evolution-of-ganon.aspx

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Blizzard's Battle.net Hacked; Company Recommends All Users Change Their Passwords




Players and Friends,

Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.

At this time, we've found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised. Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed.

Some data was illegally accessed, including a list of email addresses for global Battle.net users, outside of China. For players on North American servers (which generally includes players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) the answer to the personal security question, and information relating to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators were also accessed. Based on what we currently know, this information alone is NOT enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts.

We also know that cryptographically scrambled versions of Battle.net passwords (not actual passwords) for players on North American servers were taken. We use Secure Remote Password protocol (SRP) to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it extremely difficult to extract the actual password, and also means that each password would have to be deciphered individually. As a precaution, however, we recommend that players on North American servers change their password. Please click this link to change your password. Moreover, if you have used the same or similar passwords for other purposes, you may want to consider changing those passwords as well.

In the coming days, we'll be prompting players on North American servers to change their secret questions and answers through an automated process. Additionally, we'll prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software. As a reminder, phishing emails will ask you for password or login information. Blizzard Entertainment emails will never ask for your password. We deeply regret the inconvenience to all of you and understand you may have questions. Please find additional information here.

We take the security of your personal information very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this has happened.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime

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Levine: 'I'm not going to stop people' from leaving Irrational



Art director Nate Wells worked at Irrational Games for 13 years, beginning in September 1999 and the company's System Shock 2 days. Yesterday we discovered Wells and a handful of other people working on BioShock Infinite were no longer with Irrational, and Wells' Twitter briefly teased a job change before being deleted. While the bulk of people leaving Irrational can be chalked up to industry turnover, Wells' departure stands out for the public and Irrational Games founder Ken Levine.

"In a company of 200 people you're going to have turnover," Levine tells Kotaku. "We never like to see a guy like Nate leave because he's been here for a long time, but it's been 13 years and I think sometimes people want to spread their wings. I'm not going to stop people. We love Nate and I think we all remain friends. After 13 years he sort of finished his work on BioShock Infinite, as you will be able to tell when you see the game again... I think Nate's moving on to something else."

Replacing Wells is Scott Sinclair, the art director for the first BioShock. This rounds out the core BioShock team that has stuck with the franchise – which is an achievement all on its own, Levine says:

"As far as the team itself, the lead artist, the art director, the creative director, the lead effects artist, the senior sound guy, the lead programer and the lead AI programmer from BioShock 1 are all on BioShock Infinite. I don't think there's a single senior BioShock team member that isn't here, which I think is amazing and a testament to their commitment to the studio."

CD Projekt RED rolling out mod tools for The Witcher 2
CD Projekt RED has announced it will soon release the REDkit, a suite of tools that will set the modding community loose on the PC version of its acclaimed RPG, The Witcher 2: Assassin’s of Kings. REDkit will enable the creation of non-linear adventures, new locations and more, according to the CDPR blog post on the matter; expect some scamp to ensure that “more” equates to “mature content”.

The polish company will be providing behind-closed-doors media presentations of REDkit at next week’s gamescom in Germany.