Chris Remo, in an op-ed on Penny Arcade, takes on the righteous indignation heaped on publishers — notably EA — over the use of DRM. The anger over DRM might be principled bitching, but the point is it's still bitching. Writes Remo:

Though it's not a popular view, in my mind a lot of gamers are overreacting—look how many people buy music through iTunes, whose DRM mechanics are hardly lenient. That's not meant to be a judgment of right or wrong, it's just an observation that may illustrate the gulf between a certain gamer segment and the larger audience that seems to be continually more frightened away by non-casual PC gaming; I would submit their flight isn't based on activation limits.

Crysis and Warhead Available on Steam

Crytek and Valve have reached an agreement to bring both Crysis Warhead and Crysis to Steam this weekend. So if you drop 7 hundy on your Crysis-branded PC rig but don't want to shell out or drive to the store for a retail copy of its namesake, there you go. And if you're keeping your old setup and want to know what you need on board, check the specs. Valve says both titles are available for pre-purchase now, and will release "mid-September." Warhead's commercial street date is Monday.

Complete news release is on the jump.

EA Partners: DeMartini on the 'Renaissance'

Crysis Warhead is coming with a little bundled extra: Crysis Wars, a new take on Crysis' multiplayer aspects. This trailer, made from in-game footage, shows that it's looking both nice and fast, but if they don't fix it so the Koreans don't take 1,736 bullets to kill, it'll all be for naught.

Crysis Warhead System Specs

Video Games Live Brings Crysis Music Home

The Video Games Live concert series is adding Crysis to their amazing arsenal of audio artistry, and they'll be debuting music from the title on Crytek's home turf. As with any giant industry event, Tiny Tommy Tallarico's traveling tour event will be hitting the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany next week, where Inon Zur's masterful score will be performed, accompanied by game footage and lighting effects to drive the sound home.

Said award-winning composer Inon Zur, “CRYSIS is one of the most interesting and challenging games I have scored to date so I am thrilled that it is going to be featured in Video Games Live. I’m very proud and honored to have my music played in this groundbreaking concert series."

The concert is to be held at the 7,000 seat Leipzig arena on Wednesday, August 20th. Not sure if McWhertor or I will be stopping by at this point, but in any case we'll be there in spirit. Or nearby drinking the local spirits. One of those.

Some new Crysis Warhead screens (along with bigger versions of some old ones) have been released, courtesy of Japanese site 4Gamer. We know they're for Warhead, and not the same-island-same-bad-guys Crysis, because Crytek were good enough to stick Psycho's (the expansion's protagonist) in half of them just to be sure of it. Particularly #s 5 & 6, which should make for a great "spot the difference" print-out for your next children's birthday party.
[Thanks Chris!]

Crysis Warhead Sure Looks A Lot Like Crysis

Not that we were expecting the Crysis series to be turned on its head, but Crysis Warhead looks perhaps a bit too familiar. Maybe we're reading a bit too much into this action packed teaser trailer for the EA published shooter and, no, it's not a proper sequel and maybe Crytek has already spoiled us with the gorgeous original, but I can't shake the feeling of deja vu.

Crysis Warhead HD [GameTrailers]

Tucked into a wide-ranging interview with IGN is this nugget from Cervat Yerli, the CEO of Crytek, developer of Crysis:

It's crazy how the ratio between sales to piracy is probably 1 to 15 to 1 to 20 right now. For one sale there are 15 to 20 pirates and pirate versions, and that's a big shame for the PC industry. I hope with Warhead I hope we improve the situation, but at the same time it may have an impact on [our] PC exclusivity in the future.

PSP programmers take note—Crytek is hiring. The developer of Crysis and Far Cry is looking to bring its wares to the PlayStation Portable in some form, looking for experienced PSP developers to relocate to its Budapest studio to work on an unspecified project. Odd choice for a platform, considering Crytek president Cervat Yali said the company was "suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis" earlier this year, as piracy on the PSP platform isn't exactly rare.

Crytek is currently working on something for the PlayStation 3, which has been rumored to be an "enhanced" version of Crysis, that may also be multi-platform. Whether that's a PSP spin-off or something totally new altogether, we'll have to wait to find out.

PSP Programmer [Crytek - thanks, Andrew & EN!]