News: Gaming and industry

[Shepard]

John Carmack and Gabe Newell Are Very Excited About This Virtual Reality Gaming Headset (Video)
http://kotaku.com/5930871/john-carmack-and-gabe-newell-are-very-excited-about-this-virtual-reality-gaming-headset

Valve Joins EA, Sony, Others in Trying to Block Class Action Lawsuits
Steam (and Valve) is joining Sony, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and other companies hoping to block any and all class action lawsuits. When you boot up Steam this morning, you’ll have to agree to a new set of terms, and that includes agreeing to bring lawsuits against Valve in a a one-on-one capacity, not together.

Your other option? Not play your games, I guess.

“We considered this change very carefully,” said the company as part of a larger statement on the change featured on its website. “It’s clear to us that in some situations, class actions have real benefits to customers. In far too many cases however, class actions don’t provide any real benefit to users and instead impose unnecessary expense and delay, and are often designed to benefit the class action lawyers who craft and litigate these claims. Class actions like these do not benefit us or our communities. We think this new dispute resolution process is faster and better for you and Valve while avoiding unnecessary costs, and that it will therefore benefit the community as a whole.”

“Some situations” of a class action lawsuit benefiting consumers isn’t enough, apparently, and Valve is removing the tool entirely. Unlike companies like Sony, Valve isn’t offering an opt-out clause. Sony allowed consumers to continue having access to class action lawsuits by submitting a letter of intent, though that option disappeared 30 days after agreeing to the new terms. You have no such option with Steam, and must simply click okay and move on.

Valve is, however, offering to front the legal costs of its preferred option, arbitration or small claims court. The company will reimburse costs “under a certain amount” no matter the outcome, even if it goes against Valve, but it requires the arbitrator to determine the claim “is not frivolous or the costs unreasonable.”

It’s not clear these changes will ultimately be enforceable, however. They’ve never been challenged, but by introducing the idea that consumers cannot use class action lawsuits, how many will consider it an option?

“Time will tell on that one,” said Washington attorney Thomas Buscaglia to me last September, back when Sony instituted the same changes for PlayStation Network. “The US Federal Trade Commission and various state consumer protection agencies could have a problem with it. Also, some courts might not allow it to be enforced due to existing state court precedent."

Again, time will tell on this, but I’m bothered by the response by most players to just shrug at this move, as they have in the past. You should carefully scrutinize the reasons your rights are being limited, even it’s by a company who has traditionally been exceptionally consumer-friendly in the past, Valve. There may never be a point in your life where a class action lawsuit benefits you, you may be tired of getting emails about being part of class action lawsuits you didn’t realize were happening, you may not understand why you received a quarter-sized check in the mail related to a class action lawsuit from a few years ago whose email notification went in your spam folder, but you shouldn’t be okay giving up your rights. One day, you may wish that right was at your disposal, and suddenly it won’t be.

The Expendables 2: Videogame Launch Trailer

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Games must achieve photorealism in order to open up new genres says 2K
2K Games boss Christoph Hartmann believes real-life graphics is a very necessary goal

With Halo, Medal of Honor, Battlefield, Crysis, Call of Duty, and countless other shooters coming, the market is a bit inundated. Unique and genre-bending games like Journey, for example, aren't easy to come by, but in order for this industry to truly reach the next level and expand into new genres, pure photorealism is needed, argues 2K Games boss Christoph Hartmann.

Speaking in a soon-to-be-published interview with GamesIndustry International, Hartmann noted that the film industry still has an advantage over video games in the sense that movie directors can easily portray strong emotions, like sadness or love. Because that's difficult to do in games, many developers go back to the action and shooter games, which are safer bets.

"Recreating a Mission Impossible experience in gaming is easy; recreating emotions in Brokeback Mountain is going to be tough, or at least very sensitive in this country... it will be very hard to create very deep emotions like sadness or love, things that drive the movies," he said. "Until games are photorealistic, it'll be very hard to open up to new genres. We can really only focus on action and shooter titles; those are suitable for consoles now."

He continued, "To dramatically change the industry to where we can insert a whole range of emotions, I feel it will only happen when we reach the point that games are photorealistic; then we will have reached an endpoint and that might be the final console."

Stay tuned for the complete interview in which we discuss next-gen gaming, 2K's portfolio, Wii U, and building up talent in the organization.

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QuakeCon 2012 - John Carmack Keynote


DOOM 3 BFG Edition - "The Lost Mission" Trailer


Why Valve? Or, what do we need corporations for and how does Valve’s management structure fit into today’s corporate world?
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/why-valve-or-what-do-we-need-corporations-for-and-how-does-valves-management-structure-fit-into-todays-corporate-world/

Άλλο ένα καταπληκτικό άρθρο του Βαρουφάκη! Είναι μεγάλο αλλά ρίξτε μια ματιά...

IGN's Top 25 PC Games - Teaser Montage

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Rambo: The Video Game details, screens, video released
Reef Entertainment has revealed further details regarding Teyon’s Rambo: The Video Game, for PC and consoles, and has sent along screens and a video.



The game will be a “fixed-perspective, first-person shooter and action game,” allowing players take on the role of John Rambo as he journeys through various scenes from the first three movies: First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Rambo III.

Gameplay will be comprised of shoot-outs, stealth killings, demolition, knife-play,destructible terrains, cover-based shooting, rag-doll physics and more Rambo stuff.

“I could have killed ‘em all, I could kill you. In town you’re the law, out here it’s me. Don’t push it. Don’t push it or I’ll give you a war you won’t believe.” – John Rambo, First Blood.

Great film.



Images
http://images.vg247.com/current//2012/08/Hope.jpg
http://images.vg247.com/current//2012/08/SovietBase.jpg
http://images.vg247.com/current//2012/08/Village.jpg

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Expendables 2 Videogame - Into the Fire Gameplay


Expendables 2 Videogame - Challenge Completed Gameplay


Expendables 2 Videogame - Get Back in the Killing Game Gameplay


Expendables 2 Videogame - The Signature Kill

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Linux Left 4 Dead 2 outperforms Direct X Windows version



Valve recently announced that it will be bringing a few of Steam's most popular games to Linux, the first of those being Left 4 Dead 2. But besides the novelty factor of running the now classic zombie simulator on penguin-emblazoned hardware, there may be another reason to try the new platform out: It'll be faster. Even now, during development, the Valve team has L4D2 running at 315 frames per second on the Linux text platform, as compared to the standard Windows speed of 270.6 FPS.

At that point, of course, the speeds are mostly arbitrary. But as Valve says, this speed shows the potential in customizing a game for the Linux operating system. This work on Linux is also benefiting the Windows teams - in working on the Linux version, Valve was able to speed up the OpenGL implementation on Windows to 303.4 FPS.

BlazBlue series moves 1.7 million units worldwide
Aksys Games has announced Arc System Works’ BlazBlue series has moved over 1.7 million units worldwide. The firm said 800,000 of those copies were sold in North American. Sales include the BlazBlue titles: Calamity Trigger, Continuum Shift, Continuum Shift II, and the latest, Continuum Shift Extend.

[Shepard]

Rumor: This Might Be A Screenshot From A New Prince Of Persia



The closest thing we've heard about a new Prince of Persia was a cancelled reboot in 2010. But today this screenshot appeared in a Ubisoft message board claiming to part of a re-reboot.

[Shepard]

SimCity Gameplay Interview


F1 2012 - Champions Mode Announced

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*405 Video Games: Top 10 Horror Video Game Music Themes
http://thefourohfive.com/news/article/top-10-horror-video-game-music-themes




*PlayStation Exclusive Agent to Become PS4 Exclusive?
Jack Tretton, President/CEO of SCEA, announced during their E3 2009 press conference that Rockstar Games, developer of Grand Theft Auto, was developing Agent, a stealth action video game exclusive to Sony's PlayStation 3. Despite just a logo being shown during the conference, speculation ran rapid and anticipation for the project grew immensely. Here we are more than three years later and we have yet to see any gameplay or hear more details on what Rockstar Games will be delivering with their upcoming project causing many questions to be raised.

While Jack Tretton was clear on stating Agent would be exclusive to the PlayStation 3, with the next-generation PlayStation hitting store shelves within the next 1-2 years, could Rockstar Games have transitioned to Sony's latest hardware to develop an experience that is not possible on the PlayStation 3? We all know the game is still in development as Rockstar Games has recently confirmed, but the platform in which Agent appears on may be a part of what Sony has planned for their next console.

Watch as I provide factual details to back up my belief that Agent may release on the PlayStation 4 rather than the PlayStation 3 as originally planned. I am personally an avid support of Rockstar Games' work and hope that when Agent does finally hit store selves, it delivers an experience that lives up to the Rockstar name.

[Shepard]

THQ Cancels Insane Trilogy



THQ said today it has canceled pre-production on Insane, the trilogy project from Volition Studios and movie director Guillermo Del Toro. The publisher said it has returned the rights of the game to Del Toro. The game was first revealed in December 2010. Since then, no other information has surfaced from the developer. THQ says Insane was in very early exploratory development and that no development teams have been affected by this announcement.

President Jason Rubin told Game Informer in an interview at E3 this June that Insane was still in production.

Previously, THQ also dropped publishing Devil's Third from Tomonobu Itagaki's Valhalla Game Studios.

Double Fine Brings Iron Brigade To PC
http://www.doublefine.com/news/comments/iron_brigade_is_coming_to_pc/



Double Fine released the cute tower defense/third person shooter hybrid for Xbox back in June of 2011. Now the company is finally bringing the game to PC.

Originally called Trenched, Double Fine's bizarre but intense take on an alternate reality World War I is finally making it's way to PC and Steam on August 13.