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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Positive charge
PAX East this past weekend was indeed filled with revelations, but none of them had to do with City of Heroes or any other NCsoft game, really, so I can't even complain about one getting all the love while the others were ignored. And while I could probably try to spin a thousand words out of wanting to insert a Rock Band Blitz-style minigame into the game under discussion, I have the feeling I'd get some odd looks and a rejected column. What I did have opportunity to consider, however, is how pretty much the only thing I've brought up in regard to the Paragon Market has been the many, many choices made regarding it that I consider debatable. The Super Pack and the numerous power sets both have been targets for negativity, and I honestly haven't said anything corresponding about the positives. This seems unfair on many levels. Sure, I think the implementation is sometimes dicey, but there are a lot of parts of the market that are great, and I happily doff my hat to the team for them. So instead of burying the shop, let's praise it.
Sonic the Hedgehog store offers one-stop Jet the Hawk memorabilia shopping
Sega of Europe just opened a new online Sonic the Hedgehog shop, allowing you to get all the backpacks, school supplies, figurines and other hedgehog-bearing material you could possibly want. Need a figure of one of the robot bug enemies, or Jet the Hawk on a hoverboard? You got it! Need Sonic the Headhog? No problem! Right now, the shop is only available in Europe -- and offering 15 percent off almost everything -- but Sega plans to open an American version later, for those of you stateside looking to get a ring binder (for paper, not rings).
YouTube 'Merch Store' makes your artist channel a one-stop shop for the groupie goodies
Know what beats selling CDs (or USB sticks) and swag out of the trunk of your struggling band's party wagon? Striking a deal with Google to pitch those wares on the interwebs, that's what. Rolling out to official YouTube partners over the next few weeks, the newly created Merch Store will offer fans from all across the globe an opportunity to purchase MP3s, tickets for concerts and gatherings, and, of course, merchandise straight from your dedicated page. Helping ol' Mountain View make these coffer-filling goodies available are a handful of established online retailers like Amazon, iTunes, Songkick and Topspin. So, if you just can't wait for the Rebecca Black arena rock tour to blitz through your small town, keep clicking refresh on that artist channel for the inevitable slew of merchandising, merchandising.
BlizzCon preview sale opens at 10 a.m. Friday for virtual ticket holders
BlizzCon's merchandise preview sale has been going on for BlizzCon ticket holders for the past week, with lots of fun items. Mysteriously, the official BlizzCon T-shirts have absent artwork, signaling big announcements at the main keynote for the event. Virtual ticket holders will be granted access to the BlizzCon merchandise preview sale Friday, Sept. 23, at 10 a.m. Pacific. All you have to do is log into the Battle.net account that you purchased your virtual ticket under, hit the Blizzard store, and you have early access to all of the BlizzCon official merchandise for the 2011 convention. Probably the biggest surprise is the lack of T-shirt artwork for the official BlizzCon T-shirt, signaling a big, secret announcement that is important enough to revolve the entire convention around. New WoW expansion? Most likely. Cool new artwork to add to a shirt? That's a pretty big deal. Virtual ticket holders will want to get in on the sale quickly, as many items sell out quickly. The store will see you virtual ticket holders tomorrow. Check out our gallery of some of the items available this year at the preview sale. %Gallery-134119% Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
TGS 2011's shopping area, in (too many) pictures
We can't buy everything in the TGS merchandise sales area -- of course, some of the merch is, like, pillowcases with naughty pictures on them, so maybe we don't want to buy everything. Regardless, it's much cheaper to just take a bunch of pictures of the stuff there and remember it that way. So that's exactly what we did, to excess. Enjoy a super-sized gallery of the convention's shopping area, and try to imagine what your house would look like with that much Monster Hunter swag in it.%Gallery-134184%
BlizzCon 2011 presale merchandise now available
Just like last year, Blizzard has made certain BlizzCon-exclusive items available for preorder by BlizzCon 2011 ticketholders. There are almost 100 pieces of merchandise available this year, from designer toys to poker sets to calendars to Starcraft 2 Mega Bloks sets, and they're ready to be viewed (and purchased) right this very moment! Check out the presale on the Blizzard Store, but keep in mind that you won't be able to see the new merchandise unless you're logged into a Battle.net account with a BlizzCon ticket (or virtual ticket) attached to it.%Gallery-134120%
BlizzCon 2011 merchandise pre-sale begins early
After last year's BlizzCon merchandise presale delays, Blizzard is doing pre-sales early this year. The merchandise pre-sale will go live on Sept. 16 for BlizzCon ticket holders and Sept. 23 for digital ticket purchasers. If you'd like to avoid delays like last year and have your stuff available for the con, it is advisable to order early. We will have a gallery of the pre-sale merchandise available as soon as the store opens up for business. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Dragon Quest 25th anniversary merch features plushie slimes, business card cases
The legendary Dragon Quest series (originally published in Japan in 1986, and of course in North America as Dragon Warrior after that) turns 25 this year, and Square Enix is giving all of its gifts away. We've already heard about a Wii collection coming out, but as you can see above, some of the prizes are a little less practical. That's a pair of plushie slimes on the left, and on the right is a Smile Slime Crystal Mascot figurine, measuring about 6 centimeters tall. Both special slime items also have a DQ 25th anniversary logo on the back. Both of those will be 1554 yen, or about $19 US. Additionally, Square Enix is offering some special edition tote bags for the anniversary for about $26 each, and some Dragon Quest business card holders (with art featuring the first three games) for around $20 US. All of the swag is supposed to be available starting late July in Japan.
Grasshopper Manufacture hops on the iPhone case trend
No More Heroes and Shadows of the Damned dev Grasshopper Manufacture is ready to weird-up your iPhone 4, provided you live in Japan (or know someone who does). It has created two cases for Apple's smartphone: "Cockroach Maiden" (left) and "Hallo, Friends" (misspelling intentional, right). If the first one seems a little, well, creepy, that is one of the studio's areas of expertise, after all -- have you seen the stuff it's come up with? The cases are available for shipping within Japan from GhM's merchandise site and run ¥2100 ($25) apiece.
Capcom planning Resident Evil 15th anniversary merchandise blitz
It would seem that releasing five Resident Evil games in one year isn't enough to celebrate the series' 15th anniversary. Capcom has also added a zombie-filled boatload of merchandise to the Japanese Resident Evil 15th anniversary site. The highlight looks to be the airsoft replica of Chris Redfield's "Samurai Edge" pistol. It's scheduled to be released sometime this year and, at ¥20,790 ($245), the pellet-shooter certainly isn't cheap. Head over to the 15th anniversary site for more images of the planned goods, including lots of clothing, soundtrack collections and Jill Valentine figures.
Mass Effect 2 action figures delayed, second set potentially canceled
According to a now deleted forum post on BioWare's official site, Mass Effect 2's action figures have been once again delayed, this time until April. Google, however, caught the quote from a BioWare spokesperson, who said "Once we get the ME2 Action Figure shipped we will not be working with DC Direct again ... Their handling of this issue has been extremely unprofessional and disrespectful to fans." It also appears that a proposed second set of characters from Mass Effect 2 that were on-track for action figure treatment have been canned, as the figures have been removed from DC Direct's website. As such, the continuing battle for Planet Your Shelf will only be fought by Default Shepard, Grunt, Tali, and Thane when the figures launch on April 27. [Thanks, Ryan]
Valve Store offering deals on merchandise, adding new Left 4 Dead plushes
Today's batch of daily Steam weekend deals is pretty radical, decimating the prices of jams like The Ball, World of Goo and The Orange Box -- however, you shouldn't ignore the other big sale Valve is currently hosting. Dozens of shirts, hats and other pieces of merchandise from the company's titles are currently on sale through The Valve Store. Many pieces of apparel are temporarily marked down to just five bucks; that's some cheap holiday shopping for your more game-savvy acquaintances. If you can hold off from capitalizing on these offers, you might be interested in two new items which will soon arrive on the Valve Store's virtual shelves -- plushes modeled after Left 4 Dead's gnarliest foes, the Hunter and Tank. You'll be able to place these bad boys next to your equally squeezable (and upsetting) Boomer plush when they go on sale in late December.
NCsoft offering wall prints starting with City of Heroes
Readers, look at your wall. Now look at City of Heroes. Now back at your wall. Now back at the game. Your wall is not the video game. But if you purchase one of the new wall prints being offered by NCsoft, your wall could look like the game. Or at least the box art for the games, which is almost as good. And if you don't feel like purchasing one sight unseen, you can take a shot at getting one as part of a giveaway. During the previously announced meet and greet for City of Heroes players, the team at Paragon Studios will be giving away a select few prints as raffle prizes. While the superhero MMO is the first game to get the wall print treatment, other NCsoft games such as Aion and Guild Wars will be receiving their own prints within the near future -- keep an eye on the Facebook pages for the other games to see when the wall prints will be available.
BlizzCon 2010 48-hour sale merchandise gallery
After a little bit of a snafu earlier this weekend, Blizzard has finally opened up the BlizzCon 2010 48-hour sale for ticket holders. Getting in early is advised, as some items, like the sheet music to Lament of the Highborne, are already sold out. We've included a gallery of the official, exclusive merchandise from the site for those of you without tickets. Get your BlizzCon ticket-holding friends on the phone now, because this stuff is going fast. %Gallery-104714%
PrintWarcraft.com offers original WoW posters
It's time for me to put my money where my mouth is. A while back, I tweeted that if they released official prints of the Gnomeregan propaganda poster, I'd buy one. I'd like to thank Blizzard, because they are now offering a large selection of original posters through Printwarcraft.com. Selections include the Gnomeregan and Echo Isles propaganda posters, as well as artwork from many past major patches and in-game events, even as far back as the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj and the Shadow of the Necropolis. Most of the art is actually familiar, having appeared on various websites and art books long ago, but it's still pretty awesome stuff, and more than worth hanging on a wall. If your home or office has some bare walls, this might be a good excuse to fill them. You can check at the selection at PrintWarcraft.com.
THQ merchandises the Hell out of Darksiders
Sure, you might have liked Darksiders well enough, but we know what you really wanted from the game: your very own War to lead his own tiny Apocalypse into your living room. THQ is obliging this desire with a line of Darksiders merchandise produced in collaboration with partners in the publishing and toy industries. Udon Entertainment is producing an Art of Darksiders book featuring "a comprehensive collection of concept art from the game, including original artwork from creative director and comic book legend, Joe Madureira." And SOTA Toys will release a 14" doll action figure statue of War and his horse Ruin. SOTA says that this is just the first item in an eventual Darksiders line. Both of these items will debut at Comic-Con, which takes place from July 22-25. Preorders for the statue will open on SOTA's site at the same time.
EVE merchandise store gets an overhaul
The EVE Online merchandise store received a facelift yesterday to bring its visual style in line with CCP's new EVE Gate social networking tool. In addition to selling EVE game time codes, the store features a huge range of extremely nerdy internet spaceships paraphernalia. If you're looking for the latest issue of E-ON magazine, a model battleship, a new EVE poster or an EVE T-shirt, the EVE store is where you'll find it. In a new devblog, CCP has gone into detail on their future plans for the store. On top of the current cosmetic and layout changes, CCP aim to produce a variety of new posters, collectibles and clothing. Unfortunately for European players, CCP has been unable to reduce the massive shipping costs on items to the EU.
Rockstar store updated with Red Dead Redemption merch
If you're looking to recreate some of the parlor games played in Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar's store has been updated to include a wide variety of instruments you can use to do so with the utmost authenticity. Now available on the store are a handful of "Collector's Packs," which include Rockstar-branded playing cards, dice, TNT-shaped candles and "Eradicator Soap," which promises to be "Tough on Blood and Manure." We certainly hope those two aren't frequently a problem for you. There are also a few new shirts from Redemption and, of course, copies of the game itself available on the storefront. Sadly, there's no option to purchase Donkey-Lady action figures, but maybe we'll get those in a later batch of merchandise. [Thanks, Reinhart]
Mythic merchandising store closes
In a move that likely signals further cost-cutting measures for Mythic MMORPGs, the Mythic Store has officially closed it's doors to the buying public. Formerly an outlet for game-related apparel and merchandise relating to Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, and Dark Age of Camelot, the store is now nothing more than a solitary JPEG image. Head on over to the official Warhammer forums for a thread discussing the possible reasons behind the closure as well as a brief staffer comment from a Mythic question and answer session that attributes the closure to a 'business decision.' [Thanks UnSub!]
Batman: Arkham Asylum ... the action figures!
Holy late money grab, Batman! It appears that in the June 2010 issue of Toyfare magazine will reveal a cadre of the Batman: Arkham Asylum characters in action figure form (as pointed out by Previews). Though the issue will miss the May release date of Bats' Game of the Year edition, it'll arrive on store shelves by early June. June's issue is said to feature "a sneak peek at some of 2010's hottest video games and hottest video game toys," including the Dark Knight, among others. The listing also notes that DC Direct, makers of, well, lots of other video game action figures, will apparently be tasked with putting little Bats and crew together. It probably doesn't hurt that the "DC" in DC Direct is of the DC Comics variety, owners of the Batman IP. All will be revealed on June 9, so get your Bat Credit Card at the ready, folks! [Via Big Download]
