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Gears Of War 3 Trailer Grinding Out May 28

Microsoft have revealed that a new trailer for Gears of War 3 will release on May 28. This new look at the game will come during two of the most matched sporting events of the year.

This action-packed trailer offers a riveting look at the epic-scale campaign in the Gears of War trilogy finale, and debuts on May 28 during the Champions League Final Match at approximately 9:45 PM GMT around the world, and during Game 6 of the NBA Playoffs on TNT in the U.S, reads the release by Microsoft.

 

Ravenstone Fair Has 10 Million Players, Expansion Planned

LOLapps has announced that they will be releasing Ravenstone Mine, an expansion to their Ravenstone Fair. The social game designed in part by John Romero has already accumulated 10 million monthly active users.

“We are using a traditional strategy in games,” said Arjun Sethi, chief executive of San Francisco-based LOLapps, in an interview. “Instead of focusing on how much money we can make from a user, we are focusing on how long we can hang on to that user. Here s a new world that interacts with the one the user has been spending a lot of time in.”

Source: VentureBeat

Nine Digital Trends For 2010

Writing for iMedia Connection, Nuri Djavit sees coming trends that could have a major impact on how people use digital technology and the web. Djavit sees fundamental changes coming in the next year, and not just from Web 2.0 and what he calls the integration of online identity and social activity. He does see ongoing effects from these trends, for instance the migration from email to Facebook and Twitter, and the mainstreaming of a do-it yourself online attitude. Beyond that, he says 2010 is a pivotal year where advancing tech and an evolving mindsets help bring promises such as mobile commerce and serious open-source development to fruition. He outlines nine trends for marketers to watch.

 

Read more at iMedia Connection.

AFK: Kanyemon

The Kanye West interruption of Taylor Swift at the MTV VMAa has been the story of the week, and many intrepid creative people have taken advantage of having Kanye show up in other inopportune times.

Since this blog has a little something to do about video games, we thought we’d share one of these spoofs as Kanye makes it into your Pokemon game. What a jackass.

http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php id=9687

Reimagining The Future Of Digital Games Distribution

From Technologizer:

For the most part, I’ve viewed this as a good thing, but an editorial by Jim Sterling at Destructoid today gave me pause. Entitled Fearing the future of digital distribution, Sterling argues that digital distribution, for all its convenience, will come at a price. Game publishers will dominate the marketplace, Sterling writes, offering no refunds, no used game sales and no accountability whatsoever, merely because they can. I disagree.

Author Jared Newman goes on to discuss how the argument doesn’t hold water when given the fact that the level playing field will allow for competition that will factor in the actual quality of those games when consumers are looking to purchase online. He also discusses the incentives retail shops have in their arsenal that just aren’t readily apparent through digital distribution.

Downloads won t dominate unless consumers endorse the idea, and that requires incentives. Without a reason to go digital for instance, better value over a hard copy, or rewards for loyalty consumers will stick with Gamestop. Publishers, in turn, won’t fully commit to digital because there s no market for it.

Unless those bonuses happen to be digital . . .

[more at Technologizer]

AFK: Borderlands Goes Christian Bale On You

The trend is continuing, with Internet memes being referenced heavily in viral marketing pushes for video games.  Today s AFK brings you Borderlands take on the whole Christian Bale episode several months back as he was berating a crew member on the set of Terminator Salvation.

Is it just a little late with this reference   Gotta give them props for trying.