Debates are raging right now whether the Harlem Shake is the new Gangnam Style or the new Rickroll. Regardless, it’s all over YouTube now: here are some of the better videos we found involving both games and nerdy people.
Check out the brand new Tomb Raider Scavenger Hunt live on your mobile phone, tablet or browser. Signup through the app, participate in the weekly trivia and scavenger hunt-style challenges themed around the brand new Tomb Raider and earn a chance at great prizes! You can find the Scavenger Hunt app on on mobile (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) / tablet devices and online now.
Check out the introductory video below:
The app opens access to five in-game DLC but also includes amazing prizes like TOMB RAIDER themed consoles, a life-size statue of Lara Croft, a Tomb Raider ATV and the grand prize of a trip for two to Fiji to experience true adventures just like Lara herself! The contest runs through to the release of the game March 5, 2013, and is open to U.S. and Canada.
Get more details on the official website at www.tombraider.com/hunt and join the hunt today!
To access the hunt, fans must first pre-order Tomb Raider at a participating retailer, or email a photo of your pre-order receipt to trcodes@trscavenger.com and get a Tomb Raider Scavenger Hunt access code.
Once they have registered their profile, fans will answer weekly trivia and photo challenges via the Tomb Raider Scavenger Hunt app and earn points to unlock DLC and enter into the sweepstakes.
Check out the official Tumblr to see some of the hunts and what fans have unearthed so far!
Artist Olly Moss worked with Gallery 1988Â to create the official “85 Years of Oscars” poster. The poster depicts all 85 Oscar winners using the statuette (here’s a list of movie posters of the Best Picture winners for reference.)
Source: Moss.fm
Not soon after Dead Space 3 launched, it has been confirmed that there is an area of the game where players can essentially get an endless amount of items so long as they kept exiting and reentering this one room and picking up a certain item. This has received widespread attention, considering that the resources for crafting in the game can also be bought via micro-transactions.
This “exploit” prompted an interesting response from IP expert Sara Ludlam. “If you go into a baker’s to buy a bun and they give you the wrong change and you walk away knowing you have been given more change than you handed over in the first place, that’s theft,” said Sara to the BBC. “So, arguably if you go into this game knowing you are supposed to be paying for these weapons and you notice a glitch allows you to accumulate them without paying, that’s theft as well. But it is arguable because it’s a new area.”
EA itself, however, do not take such a severe view of the ability to generate resources like this. “The resource-earning mechanic in Dead Space 3 is not a glitch,” said EA representative Jino Talens. “We have no plans to issue a patch to change this aspect of the game. We encourage players to explore the game and discover the areas where resources respawn for free.“We’ve deliberately designed Dead Space 3 to allow players to harvest resources by playing through the game,” he added. “For those that wish to accumulate upgrades instantly, we have enabled an optional system for them to buy the resources at a minimal cost ($1-$3).”If EA really wanted to remove the ability to generate resources like this, they could eliminate it from the game with a patch. However, as they are aware of the way players could generate resources and are perfectly fine with players taking advantage of it, no penalties will be coming down to anyone, if that was even possible.
Source: VG247.com
Gearbox CEO and president Randy Pitchford thinks that the future of gaming will be cross platform, where particular devices matter less. He cited the example of how for movies, you can stream it to your phone or pay for a movie ticket.
“It’s going to get even more diverse and more complex,” said Pitchford. “Some people look at a trend and think ‘that means it’s going to all end up wherever this line’s headed.’ We all know that’s not correct. We could take ourselves out of our industry to get more objective about it.”
“All of that will coexist, and that’s just movies. Then you add television into it, all the different ways we can get and access television, all the different ways it can be monetized,” he added. “That medium is already way more complex than the different angles we have in the video game industry, and that’s going to get more complex. And so will ours. That’s great. It’s just a lively ecosystem with a lot of choices and a lot of different ways to consume and deliver content.”
Source: IGN
Cryptic is celebrating the third year anniversary of their MMO Star Trek Online, also marking the first year since the game went free-to-play. Also included is a video recapping the past year in the game… and hinting at something BIG with the Romulans in May 2013!
http://www.youtube.com/v/OK0nRYq-vzo {video link inactive}
Source: STO.PerfectWorld.com
Electronic Arts chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen commented at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference about used games. While it’s rumored that Microsoft and Sony will find ways to prevent used games from being played on their next gen systems (and EA would rather not have a used game market) Jorgensen admits there are some positives coming from second-hand games.
“It’s one of these classic double-edged swords,” said Jorgensen. “In one way the used game business has been critical for the health of the retail channel, and having a healthy retail channel is an important thing for us. The business will probably never be 100 percent digital. Bandwidths are a constraint, and will continue to be a constraint for many years to come, which hold back the ability to do full digital downloads of some games.”
“Having a healthy retail channel out there like GameStop or Best Buy or others is important, and to the extent that used games is important to them, I think that’s a positive,” he added. “Would we like to sell everything at full price and not have a used game market Sure. But I think the used game market’s a little like any other kind of market where it creates liquidity. The fact is, that liquidity benefits us in some fashion. So if someone goes in and trades in a game, there’s a good chance they’re going to buy another one of our games. And so if there’s a liquid market, I think that that’s not a bad thing at all.”
Source: Gamasutra
Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor spoke at Casual Connect Europe about his company’s recent attempt at crowd-funding in Wildman. He pointed to Kickstarter fatigue and mentioned that times are tough in the world of AAA game development.
“People had spent a lot of money on other Kickstarters and were waiting for those games to arrive. We also started just after Christmas, when people had already spent money,” said Taylor. “Kickstarter is starting to wear itself out. It’s a numbers game. Someone has lightning in a bottle. This business is really, really tough. It’s turning into a lottery business, unless you work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and study gaming for decades. Now, it’s tough. It’s like going to Hollywood and saying I want to make films. You have to compete with James Cameron. I’m leaning toward there is no free lunch.”
“There was a heyday in the 1990s where you could burst in the door of a publisher and you could get a contract. You blew your budget anyway, and they dealt with it,” Taylor added. “That has locked itself so tight. Consoles are going to just hit the wall. The guys who wrote these big checks – that’s just gone. I have almost been driven out of business. I am still in business. I know everyone in the industry. They didn’t help me. It’s about whether you have a blockbuster that can ship 10 million units.”
Source: VentureBeat
An investor’s note by Citi analyst Glen Yeung says that the iPad is seeing its marketshare shrink in response to the smaller tablets. He notes that after the iPad Mini’s launch, fourth quarter sales of the iPad fell 9 percent and 29 percent in Japan year-over- year, showing more people gravitating to the smaller tablet.
“Beyond simply the overall share loss, the data reveals a particular slowdown in 10-inch iPad sales in mature markets,” said Yeung. “After analyzing the data, we have new concerns about the health of the 10-inch tablet market and, absent any material innovations (we do not count a Retina Mini or lighter/thinner iPad 5 among these), we remain concerned about Apple’s ability to maintain market share.”
Yeung also noted that 7-inch Android tablets, including the Google Nexus 7, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and Amazon Kindle Fire, took 41.2 percent of the tablet market share in Q4, up from 12.6 percent in the second quarter. Meanwhile 10-inch tablets fell from 67.3 percent to 40.6 percent during the same time period.
Source: CNet
Wargaming has announced they are launching a competitive gaming league for World of Tanks. The Wargaming.net League will launch in March 2012 and will have regional tournaments leading up to a Grand Final, with a total prize pool of $2.5 million.
“The scale and popularity of competitive gaming has been sky-rocketing over the last couple of years, and we have now reached the point where we can focus significant effort on advancing World of Tanks on to the global eSports scene,” said Wargaming’s global eSports director, Jonghyuk Baak.
“Now we have a sustainable tool to broaden our global eSports involvement in an unprecedented way,” added Wargaming’s VP of global operations, Andrei Yarantsau. “Stimulate the growth of the competitive community, organize bigger and better tournaments with larger prize pools than ever, and provide our best pro gamers with completely viable career opportunities.”
Find out more about Wargaming in this [a]list video interview.
