"Dude! We're all totally rich! We could soooo build a floating city like that if we wanted to!!"

The only other thing I'd say is when you spend so much time picking out every single negative aspect of games you play, and claim to want to be involved in making games yourself one day... well whatever game you make better be the best fucking game ever created.

Yea, I'm looking at you right now too Penny Arcade.

aka if you use a spell checker, or adhere to proper grammar then forget it! That's not the Kotaku way!

(I kid!)

"Gigolos get lonely too"

Really, really poor choice for a first quasi-announcement after jumping on board with the supposed PC Alliance thing Epic.

>.<

I heard it!

>.<

And really... it's not as though people hyped the games via posting the song lists long before launch - you know, so that people could see if music they know and like already is in the mix to make the GAME worth buying.

Thankfully Activision has absolutely no way of documenting a direct link to a song played by Player X on their games leading to an actual iTunes sale. Otherwise if this goes through, you can bet your ass that a LOT of bands will refuse to include their music in future releases. Just look at bands like NIN or Radiohead, who've opted to not work with major labels anymore due to the financial rape that occurs - I can all but guarantee that if Activision started asking NIN to pay them for being DLC for their game, Trent Reznor would tell them to shove it up their ass.

9.3 million subscribers.
$15 a month.
10 months into the year.

I'll let you do the math there. :P

"That content was not disclosed to the ESRB..." makes it pretty clear what the main difference / issue was with GTA.

If a hack to remove the blur in Manhunt were to somehow necessitate an AO rating, then I want to see an AO slapped on the Sims.

In both cases the people making those games should be lynched. That goes for the people who spend the money that supports their development as well. It makes me sick that people consider that type of thing entertainment. Hopefully evolution will eventually selectively remove them from the gene pool.

Then I found out that the thing's for display only and all of my hopes and dreams for a better humanity were crushed >.<

Then I see things like this and I realize we're not all doomed to an eternity of torture and suffering after all! HoHo!

That's all my opinion though, and would never assume to preach that as the gospel truth. Forgive me for having one though, just like I'll forgive you for making a personal attack on me based on a harmless comment on a gaming blog, OK? :D

So no, this isn't simply routine. It's more a case of them preparing to let UO die out quietly as they shift their focus to the WAR project which they stand to profit from, unlike UO.

As far as the ads go, it really just depends on the game and context in which they're used. In Hellgate each of the train station hubs has advert. posters on the walls, but they're entirely unobtrusive and all have a somewhat weathered look to them so they don't in any way shape or form stand out or look out of place.

In a game like Dungeon Runners, there's plenty of ways you could post signs on the various posts and shop boards around town that wouldn't be too overbearing. Really, I don't see what the big deal is.

p.s. It seems like a majority of PC games I purchase all have that damn Nvidea add play while the game loads, yet oddly enough people never bitch about that even though it's in game advertising.

Obviously it's all part of a grand scheme to ruin the lives of gamers across the globe, and will ultimately bring about the fall of modern civilization.

In other words this isn't just EB trying to screw customers over. There's every chance that they're simply following protocol and the listing will remain in place until word is given directly from someone at Perpetual that the game is no longer in production.

Or you can decide that EB is trying to screw people over and write alarmist articles without knowing all the facts.

If it's not ONLY EB still selling pre-orders then it's simply wrong to pin blame on them - If anything this is a management oversight at Perpetual. All you're doing here is shooting the messenger.

After checking with 5 locations in the area, not a single one of them have, or plan on ordering stock copies of the Orange Box beyond customer orders.

I asked the GameStop manager about this and he said "it isn't considered to be a big enough title". I heard similar statements at other locations as well. He then proceeded to spend 15 minutes trying to get me to pre-order Crysis, which he says will be a massive game.

I checked with EB, Target, WalMart, Best Buy, GameStop - not a single one of them planning to sell the Orange Box for PC.

Has Valve even bothered to market the thing to retailers? Or is this just their way of trying to push people into using Steam?

I'm all for open-source projects, and use quite a few of them on a daily basis. But if it were the future in gaming then why isn't GIMP the industry standard rather than Photoshop? Why isn't more effort being put into Blender to make it as highly polished and user friendly as the costly 3dsMax? People do in fact have all of the open-source tools they need currently to make entire AAA games, so why don't we see any being made and distributed for free?

I'm curious to see how the folks who bought Perpetual out are going to handle the fact that pre-order boxes have been on store shelves since August. Even if the Star Trek game has a green light all the way up until launch, I think there's going to be a fair few gamers unwilling to purchase another pre-order from them. And we all know what an angry, bitching, whining bunch the vocal minority of gamers can be. Speaking of...

@drunkentyger: I'm glad to see you're among those perpetuating (bad pun intended) the forum-jockey/troll, tinfoil hat wearing quasi-opinion that SoE = all things evil in the world.

The only game they've done wrong by is SWG, and if you'd bother to learn the facts the NGE was the idea of Lucasarts who forced the changes on SoE. SoE's only fault in the whole thing was not giving players warning before the changes took place, a mistake they've very vocally apologized for many times over.

Fallout Boy though? They're just a bunch of losers :D

I think there's a saying that seems to fit fairly well here, "Quality over quantity".

Turns out it's about a Plane of Fear raid gone horribly wrong within the first 2 minutes. The next two hours involve a Necro FD flopping their way into PoF to summon 72 corpses using life-sized coffins!

Sure.Fire.Hit!

Starcraft Ghost? Uses an existing IP but in terms of gameplay simply isn't a safe enough bet. Speaking of bets, anyone wanna bet on how many years until we see Blizzard create a new IP?

At any rate, I'd love to see Diablo 3 branch out and add to the gameplay in ways that Starcraft 2 doesn't seem to. I don't see that happening though since that version of D3 is already being released, only it's called Hellgate.

Good news! No need to wait! The flame wars already started the moment console-centric gamers read the article!

@mossberg: Don't forget all the scenes where the screen is blocked by a spell book for 5 minutes at a time while characters meditate!

Anyway, I'd be interested in seeing what they come up with - to be honest the lore of Norrath has a shit load more depth than the vast majority of video games out there, so at least the potential exists for a compelling story. They should hire Bill Trost at least as a consultant since he penned most of the lore way back when...

The new episode of Stargate:Atlantis had yet another mention of one of the characters being a WoW player as well...

I think the real question here is though - can you extend your credit limit on your WoW Visa high enough to customize the tailgate on your new Toyota to say WoW in true nerd fashion? Or get a custom Horde paint job complete with your choice of themed hood ornament(Forsaken, Orc etc...)? :P

What does this have to do with the topic o this post? I'm not sure :D But that's OK. Yep.