The Last Of Us Pre-Order Bonuses Detailed

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Sony has revealed that they will be offering the “Sights and Sounds Pack” pre-order for The Last of Us at participating retailers. This will include a copy of the game’s official soundtrack, a PS3 dynamic theme featuring the cover art and “Winter Joel” and “Winter Ellie” PSN avatars.

Additionally, those who pre-order at GameStop grants the Survival Pack. This pack will include bonus experience points for multiplayer, a multiplayer melee attack booster, some extra starting in-game cash, special customizable character items for multiplayer and two special bonus skins for Joel and Ellie which will be unlocked after your complete the single player campaign.

Source: Blog.PlayStation.com

En Masse Promotes Chris Lee To CEO

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En Masse Entertainment announced that Chris Lee, formerly the company’s vice president of publishing, has been promoted to CEO. Also Soo Min Park, formerly a vice president at Nexon America, has been hired as COO and will report to Lee, while Bryan Koski, formerly the group marketing manager for the Halo franchise at Microsoft, has taken the role of director of marketing, and Brian Knox, who oversaw the North American development of Tera, has been promoted to executive producer.

“The additions to our management team are all about building the foundation for a strong future in 2013 and beyond,” said Lee. “Publishing games in today’s marketplace requires a group of leaders with diverse backgrounds in order to succeed. Now, En Masse is in an even better position to bring fun and innovative games to players.”

Humble Indie Bundle 7 Raises Over $2.6 Million

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The Humble Indie Bundle 7 has finished up selling 395,940 bundles for $2,650,519.44. Broken down by platform, Linux users paid an average of $10.48 each, Mac users paid an average of $7.94 each, and Windows users paid $6.23.

Humble Indie Bundle 7 included Snapshot, Closure, The Binding of Isaac, Shank 2, and Shank 2. Those who paid above the average amount of $6.69 also received Dungeon Defenders, Legend of Grimrock, Offspring Fling, Cave Story+ and The Basement Collection.

Source: HumbleBundle.com

Make A Pact To Get Fit In 2013 And Get Paid Or Else Pay Up

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Not motivated to hit the gym Users of the app called GymPact get charged when they skip their workouts but earn cash rewards when they dutifully show up to the gym. And there’s no cheating: the company tracks you via GPS.

GymPact, which launched its iOS version last year, has announced that it has launched the Android version. The service lets users decide how much they’ll get charged via a credit card for missing a workout. For those who meet their workout commitments, they’ll get to reap the cash benefits from those who don’t. Make a Pact of how many days you’ll workout, set the Stakes of how much you’ll pay if you don’t, and check-in via GPS at the gym. GymPact partnered with RunKeeper this summer to integrate outdoor workouts into the system.

 

Tera Makes F2P Shift In Korea, Japan

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NHN has announced that Tera will be going free-to-play on January 10 in Korea and mid-February in Japan. En Masse Entertainment handles Tera in North America and Europe and indicates that they are not shifting the game F2P in those regions yet.

“As you may have read today, NHN (the publisher for Tera in Korea) has decided to change Tera‘s business model to be free,” said En Masse Entertainment community manager Catherine Park. “The industry has shifted in this direction and the Korean gaming market has always been on the forefront of this shift. NHN’s decisions are their own as is every territory that services Tera. Tera currently remains a subscription-based game in North America and Europe.”

“Regardless of the news from Korea, the good news is that Tera will continue to grow and improve with new game content in North America, and all content will be available for us should we decide to evaluate their use. We know you are full of questions but that is all we have for now. Enjoy the holidays and look to January for more information – 2013 is going to be huge for us and we can’t wait to get started.”

Source: Tera-Forums.EnMasse.com

Netflix Down During Holidays

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Over the Christmas holiday, the Netflix Instant streaming service went down. While it did eventually come back, it took over 20 hours — in the meantime, people came up with some clever quips relating to the service being down.

“So @netflix is down Great. Now everybody has to talk to their annoying family,” tweeted Chris D’Elia.

“So depressed about Netflix being down that all I wanna do is lie on the couch and watch Netflix,” noted Jess Dweck.

“Thanks to @netflix outage we can likely expect a moderate population explosion in nine months,” theorized Joel Braverman.

“Some kid probably asked Santa for #Netflix to be down so his parents would pay attention to him. Leave me out of your problems, kid,” sarcastically said George Jalloh.

Source: CNN.com

Zynga Listed In Top 10 2012 ‘Tech Fails’

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CNN listed the top 10 “Tech Fails” of 2012, numbering among them Apple Maps, Facebook IPO and SOPA. Also on the list was Zynga, describing it like a VH1 “Behind the Music” episode.

“Zynga was riding high. Love them or hate them, its games like Mafia Wars and FarmVille were everywhere, clogging up Facebook pages and spurring millions of bored casual gamers to pay real cash for virtual cows,” writes Doug Gross. “Then, it all came crumbling down.”

October saw Zynga announcing that 5 percent of its employees would be laid off, shutting down Zynga Boston and proposing the closure of other studios in Japan and England. The announcement was made during Apple’s iPad Mini event, and if the attempt was to bury the news, it failed wildly.

“Facebook, which gets a cut when people spend money on games such as FarmVille, said that income from Zynga was down 20 percent over last year,” noted Gross. “And, like unskilled mafia warriors, Zynga shot itself in the foot again in March when it bought the company that makes mobile game Draw Something for an eye-popping $180 million. But fascination with Draw Something dropped off fast. When’s the last time you played “

Source: CNN.com