Rob Gotham Blind

Setting the stage for the much anticipated The Dark Knight Rises, Warner Brothers is drumming up excitement with this game tie-in that lets players rob Gotham City blind during Bane’s powerful uprising.

The Fire Rises casts players as henchmen, out to get their own piece of Gotham’s pie. With lackeys of their own, players secure territory, spawn various crew members to take out a relentless stream of deadly security officers, and loot valuable gear from nearby buildings, all before Gotham PD shows up in full force and puts an end to your crime spree.

To pull off big heists, you will have to mix-and-match your squads, spawn them from sewer covers quickly and efficiently, and arrange them around the battlefield in just the right way to buy your looters valuable time. Steal enough goods and you will unlock more crew members, including Catwoman herself.

Google Tablet Nexus 7 Rumored

Reports are that Google is readying a new tablet called the Nexus 7. It is believed that the tablet is built by Asus with a 1.3Ghz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, GeForce 12-core GPU and 1GB of system memory.

It is rumored that the resolution will be 1280×800, and a full battery is expected to handle 9 hours of regular operation. The device would appear to be another swipe at Apple and their dominance of the tablet market, something that Microsoft is doing with their own Surface Tablet.

Source: Gizmodo

CCP Talks Monetizing Dust 514

The public beta for Dust 514 is beginning soon, an important milestone for the free-to-play PS3 shooter. CCP chief marketing officer David Reid said that they know that launching a game in the fashion that they are will bring in a lot of players, but not necessarily a lot of payers.

“We do not expect most of them to spend money, and we don’t need them to,” said Reid. “The vast majority of players in a game like this don’t spend money, but the game is much better for having them there.”

“I think console players have seen this, whether it’s Fallout or Call Of Duty map packs or Rock Band tracks, we know that console players are familiar with this idea overall,” he said of the monetizing system. “But not in the way that a fully free-to-play, micro-transaction based game is going to do so this an exciting opportunity for console people to sort of, in a pretty low risk way, try this stuff out. We think we’re kind of doing something fairly historic here, and we want gamers to feel excited about trying that without being worried about it. And I think we found a good way to do that here.”

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

Nintendo’s Reggie Talks Fan Expectations At E3

Nintendo’s E3 2012 press conference was a disappointment to many, some people expressing that they wanted something more unexpected and others wanting something specific like a new Legend of Zelda game on Wii U that just wasn’t there. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime struck out against the reaction and defended what Nintendo brought to the table for their press conference.

“One of the things that, on one hand, I love and, on the other hand, that troubles tremendously about not only our fanbase but the gaming community at large is that, whenever you show information, the perspective is: Thank you, but I want more,” noted Fils-Aime. “Thank you, but give me more.”

“I mean, it is insatiable. For years this community has been asking, where’s Pikmin Where’s Pikmin Where’s Pikmin ‘ We give them Pikmin. And then they say: what else ” he added. “For years this community has said: Damn it Reggie, when you launch, you better launch with a Mario game. So we launch with a Mario game, and they say, so, what’s more I have heard people say, you know, you’ve got these fantastic franchises. Beyond what you’re doing in Smash Bros, isn’t there a way to leverage all these franchises So we create Nintendo Land and they say: Ho-hum. Give me more. It’s an interesting challenge.”

“What’s the fan community reaction Ho-hum, until it sells millions of copies. When we showed Wii Fit on stage… go back and read your blogs, what was the reaction It’s a question of, as a gamer, is this for me and something I can get excited about And Wii Fit did not get that reaction. And yet it sold 43 million copies around the world. It’s a phenomenon. And so I would argue that the gaming community is unable to differentiate between a phenomenon and something that is ho-hum,” concluded Fils-Aime.

Source: Kotaku

Microsoft And Yammer Tie The Knot

Microsoft officially confirmed that it has sealed a deal to buy Yammer for $1.2 billion in cash. The social networking company offers businesses private social networks to foster communication and interaction among employees; it is used by 85 percent of the Fortune 500 and has attracted 5 million corporate users.

“The acquisition of Yammer underscores our commitment to deliver technology that businesses need and people love,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in Monday’s news release. “Yammer adds a best-in-class enterprise social networking service to Microsoft’s growing portfolio of complementary cloud services.”

“When we started Yammer four years ago, we set out to do something big,” said Yammer founder David Sacks. “We had a vision for how social networking could change the way we work. Joining Microsoft will accelerate that vision and give us access to the technologies, expertise and resources we’ll need to scale and innovate.”

Scrolls Beta Details

Mojang announced that they are approaching closed alpha for Scrolls, which will include multiplayer matches, single player matches vs AI and the Deck Builder and the ability to build decks out of 100+ scrolls from in the game. Similar to Minecraft, they will sell the game at a reduced price once it enters beta, “with some added benefits.”

“At that point, we will also look to include the single player world, where you can explore and do battle to earn new scrolls to your collection,” writes Mojang’s Jakob Porser. “Keep in mind, that the beta will not be feature complete. We will still have a big bag of goodies that we plan to include over time, such as an auction house where you may buy or sell scrolls from each other and additional features in the world such as character customization, items, quests and so on. If you’re wondering why we would release a game that’s obviously not finished, the reason is simple: We want your feedback in good time to help us shape Scrolls to be the next big online Collectible Card Game!”

Source: Scrolls.com

Iron Dragon Wins Activision Independent Games Competition

Activision today announced the winners of its Independent Games Competition, judged by IndieCade. Christopher Hui’s Iron Dragon, an action flight adventure optimized for touch-screen devices won first place and $175,000 in cash, while Michael Stanton’s Planet Smashers, a multiplayer action game, received $75,000.

“We were excited with the quality, creativity and diversity we saw in the submissions we received for the Games Competition,” said Dan Winters, Activision’s Vice President of External Development. “While the games themselves varied, the unifying theme for everyone involved in the competition has been passion. We want to thank the talented developers who submitted their work and our partners at IndieCade. The energy and enthusiasm of the indie community continues to inspire us and we’re thrilled to help make their dreams become reality.”