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'Diablo 3' getting free-to-play features, but not in the US or Europe
Blizzard may have shut down the Real Money Auction House after contention from the community, but it's opening up a new way to potentially use real money for in-game items. The difference here is that it's doing it in territories that are pretty accustomed to this sort of thing already -- most likely China. On the developer's American and European forums, an employee writes that an upcoming patch will add a new currency ("platinum"), timed experience boosts, cosmetic items, character slots and a tweaked UI to handle all of the above. Basically, the type of microtransactions that are fairly common in free-to-play games. As Gamasutra notes, Blizzard already has a partnership with NetEase (a Chinese internet company that has a web portal and its own massively multiplayer role-playing game), which operates a version of Diablo 3 in the country. All that to say, this makes sense for Blizzard.
BioWare cancels 'Shadow Realms,' its first original game in six years
Well, that was quick. Six months after its debut, BioWare's announced it's canceled its online action-RPG, Shadow Realms. The Austin-based studio isn't moving forward with the four-versus-one PC game because, as the studio's general manager Jeff Hickman tells it, it's working on other things at the moment --including the next Mass Effect, add-on content for last year's Dragon Age: Inquisition and the team's Star Wars online RPG, The Old Republic. As GamesIndustry notes, that last title might attract new players given this December's release of The Force Awakens. Don't fret if you signed up for Shadow Realms' closed alpha, though, as BioWare says it's working on a reward for your trouble.
'Ultima Underworld' could resurface with your help
Before The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim there was Ultima Underworld, and with your help, a sequel to the highly influential role-playing game could happen. It's called Underworld Ascendant, and perhaps most importantly, the development team is comprised of former Looking Glass Studios employees who worked on the original -- including Paul Neurath and Warren Spector. The studio didn't get rights to the Ultima name, but everything else from the series is theirs to use.
Valve paid $57 million to users who make and sell content on Steam
Just how lucrative could it be to create and sell virtual items for free games like Valve's Team Fortress 2? Very, it turns out. Valve's recently announced that, since 2011, it's paid out over $57 million to folks participating in its Steam Workshop program -- the service that facilitates the creation and sale of user-generated items (think: virtual hats). That tally encompasses some 1,500 content makers 3D modeling items for Counterstrike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2 and Team Fortress 2 across 75 countries -- roughly $38,000 per person. If what held you back from making and selling your own custom gear is a white-hot burning hatred for first-person shooters and MOBAs, well, Gabe Newell and Co. have news for you, too: curated workshops are opening for Dungeon Defenders: Eternity and first-person slasher Chivalry: Medieval Warfare.
'World of Warcraft' is getting a selfie camera -- don't tell Leeroy Jenkins
Okay, so at last count World of Warcraft had a Pokémon clone built into it, an in-game web browser of sorts and even a tribute to the late Robin Williams. Now it has another way to distract you as the epic battle between the Horde and Alliance rages on in the background: selfies. Naturally. As our sister site WoW Insider reports, the camera is part of a rare late-game quest in the forthcoming update (6.1 if you're keeping track at home), and there's a follow-up mission that rewards virtual narcissists with a trio of camera filters for the self-aggrandizing new feature. Your toon'll even mug for the camera with duckface or perhaps something a little more charming and less 2009 as you show off that sweet new bit of armor.
Steam is region-locking PC games to thwart low currency value exploits
Apple isn't the only one making changes to how it deals with the Russian ruble. Valve is taking measures to protect PC game publishers on its Steam platform too, as spotted by NeoGAF's ever-vigilant eyes. The online storefront is region-locking games in an effort to prevent users from exploiting low currency values. For example, you could buy a Russian game on Steam for a few bucks as opposed to, say, $40 to $60 when purchased through the US storefront. Now, that's a little harder to do and it's causing a bit of an uproar because PC games have typically not been subject to region locks the way console games, on the other hand, have. The move has an impact on areas outside of Putin's backyard too, with reports that Brazil, Indonesia and their neighboring areas are affected too.
'Wolfenstein' remake adds cartoon violence, ridiculous physics
HD remakes are nothing new in the world of video games these days, but from the looks of it Super Wolfenstein HD isn't your typical revamp. The shooter that started it all is a bit more destructible now, and, as Kotaku notes, it bears more than a passing resemblance to Minecraft in terms of how it plays. How's that? Well, you're now armed with a shovel that's capable of busting through the game's trademark blue walls. Ragdoll physics play a pretty important role as well, helping contribute to... well, you'll have to see for yourself. And because it's a fan-mod originating from a game jam (basically a hackathon for video games), you can do that entirely free of charge. We've tossed a video that previews the action after the break if you're so inclined, too. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have some Nazis to kill.
Ubisoft pulls 'Far Cry 4' from Steam, then puts it back (update)
What happened not too long ago with Electronic Arts and its Origin platform appears to be happening with Ubisoft too. As Kotaku has noticed, Ubisoft's trio of tentpole releases for this fall -- Assassin's Creed Unity, Far Cry 4 and The Crew -- are no longer available on Valve's game store, seemingly disappearing overnight. Curiously, older entries in each respective franchise are still available (and reasonably priced) on Gabe Newell's one-stop PC-gaming shop. Even weirder yet? VG247 has spotted that ACU and FC4 are now listed on Origin. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense especially considering Ubisoft has its own digital storefront. We've pinged the outfit's PR team for details about what's up and will update this post should we hear back. Update: As many in the comments have pointed out, all three games are in fact available on Steam once again. What was behind their removal? For now at least, Ubisoft isn't saying.
'Duke Nukem' and 'Wolfenstein' gaming house 3D Realms is back
The early '90s were a simpler time: Mullets were acceptable, everyone was wearing Zubaz pants and rocking your dad's flannel didn't make you a hipster. In an effort to bring us back to the era when grunge ruled the earth, the folks at formerly-defunct 3D Realms has bundled 32 of its classic games into one package and is selling 'em DRM-free over at its website. What's in the collection of almost everything the company produced? A killaton of games (and a remastered soundtrack, apparently), that's what; including, but not limited to: Duke Nukem 3D, Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy, Wolfenstein 3D and Wacky Wheels. The anthology will set you back $40, but if you act within the next two days you can get it for half of that. There's a video after the break if you need a refresher course on who the company is, too. 3D Realms also promises that in the coming months it'll have much more to talk about including its in-development games. Come get some, indeed.
Tube TVs, VCRs and magnets give 'Alien: Isolation' its signature look
From Halo to Dead Space and countless titles in between, the influence of the Alien franchise can be felt just about just about everywhere in video games. But hardly any of the releases starring the titular onyx xenomorphs actually capture aspects of what made Ridley Scott's beloved 1979 sci-fi flick so special -- a feeling that somewhere in space this could all actually happen. To do that, the team behind Alien: Isolation (out today for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One) had an altogether different plan of attack: a retro lo-fi aesthetic that limited them to not having any technology in the game couldn't have existed on-set in 1979. Achieving that took some creativity on the part of developer Creative Assembly, though. "Lo-fi didn't necessarily mean crappy," creative lead Alistair Hope tells us. "It's just that it's more of a stamp in time and an approach. We're doing sci-fi set in the future, but there's no sense that the crew on the Nostromo should be looking for a massive sci-fi gun... It's a disillusioned view of the future."
NVIDIA's Maxwell architecture brings desktop-class performance and improved battery life to notebooks
Read through NVIDIA's Maxwell desktop GPU announcement, and you might think you were looking at a feature set designed for laptops: lower power consumption, new anti-aliasing technology and a downsampling feature that can force any monitor to display 4K content. It sounds almost like a dream feature set for a portable gaming machine and, well NVIDIA agrees -- today it's officially launching the GeForce GTX 980M and 970M GPUs.
'Duke Nukem 3D' and leaked Yahoo passwords pass for art at this gallery
It wasn't all that long ago that the biggest argument surrounding video games was whether or not they should be considered art -- something that's given way to more distressing topics as of late. A German gallery has an opinion on the former, however, and with the "Hurt Me Plenty" exhibit, it examines the intersection of gaming and technology and their effects on the real-world. In the video below, artist Aram Bartholl gives a guided, first-person (naturally) tour of the exhibit, explaining the reasoning behind pieces based on the idle hands animation and that of the pistol firing from Duke Nukem 3D. As Make notes, the installation melds the pixely digital imagery with physical media like wood and halftone printing to pretty great effect.
Steam Music Player does exactly what it sounds like
Valve's game distribution service has been going through a lot of small changes recently: not only has Steam been given a fresh coat of paint and a completely redesigned storefront, but now it plays music, too. This isn't a total surprise, of course -- Valve has been testing music playback for months, and even rolled the feature out to beta users over the summer -- but now Steam Music Player is available to anyone running the latest version of the client. It's a pretty simple addition, too: Steam scrubs your PC's common (or manually defined) music folders for MP3s and, well, plays them.
Valve makes finding your next Steam game easier
When Valve debuted game-recommendation tags not long ago, it was apparently a precursor to something much bigger. Today the PC game-sales juggernaut has revealed a new look for its store that aims to put games in front of you that you didn't even know you wanted. By utilizing the tags, your gaming history and a few other aspects, Valve has redesigned the homepage so that it'll apparently make finding games you're interested in a lot easier. The Discovery Queue gives you a chance to browse through suggested releases, wishlist them or skip updates on titles completely. Valve says that the list will refresh daily, giving you a chance to possibly find the next killer indie before anyone else.
Not all of Samsung's curved displays are gigantic
Want a curved display from Samsung but don't quite have the scratch to bring one of its gigantic models home? Maybe try the 27-inch S27D590C monitor on for size when it releases at some ambiguous point in the future. The firm seems to be targeting gamers specifically with the monitor, saying that the curve creates a wider field of view (178 degrees horizontally and vertically, if you're curious) and gives the screen a "3D-like" effect when you're playing shooters and racing games, among other genres. There's even a one-button game mode that makes a few adjustments to compensate for motion blur, color and contrast too. Unlike Dell's not-flat display, however, this one's limited to a paltry 1,920 x 1,080 lines of resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio. This'll probably be fine for us commoners, sure, but it might not be enough for the PC Master Race. Update: Samsung's curved monitor will be hitting shelves on October 1st for $430.
Retro? Modern? This home-brew NES game is both
Retro gaming projects on Kickstarter are pretty common, but here's one that's a bit different: a game cartridge that, when plugged into the original Nintendo Entertainment System, plays an 8-bit game, and when plugged into a Mac or PC (via USB) plays a modern version of the same game. Perhaps the coolest aspect is that the two versions will interact with each other; an ability or weapon unlocked in one is available to futz with in its cousin. That is, if the project's Kickstarter is funded, of course. As Mystic Searches' project lead Joe Granato IV tells it, the concept comes from a design document he drew up, quite literally, as a seven year-old back in the '80s.
Hardcore PC gamers spend twice as much as others on their obsession
Take a gander through the comment section of any gaming-related article here on Engadget, and you're all but guaranteed to find at least one person espousing how much better playing games on a PC is compared to doing so on, say, a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. But just who are those people? Joystiq has spotted a new report from The NPD Group that should shed some light on the situation. Understanding PC Gaming: 2014 calls them "heavy core" gamers. They spend five or more hours each week playing the likes of shooters and strategy titles, and have dropped about twice as much cash on games in the past three months compared to casual gamers. They, perhaps surprisingly, make up the smallest group surveyed: 20 percent compared to casual players' 56 percent, while light core (the same demographic as heavy core, but spends less time gaming on a weekly basis) sits at 24 percent of those 6,225 people questioned.
'The Sims 4' turns into a pixelated mess if you pirate it
Media piracy likely isn't going away anytime soon, but a few game developers have designed clever ways to deal with it as of late. Take the newly released The Sims 4, for example. In series tradition, just before your virtual people shed their skivvies (for whatever variety of reasons), a pixelated censor cloud appears over his or her nether regions. As Kotaku spotted via Reddit, however, If you happen to illegally download the game, that tiny cloud will obscure more than just your sim's reproductive plumbing: it'll expand to cover everything onscreen. It makes the virtual ant-farm look a lot like Minecraft or Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, if you ask us. Annoying? Perhaps, but if you're bothered by this maybe you shouldn't be illegally downloading stuff in the first place. [Image credit: nihwtf / Imgur]
Dell says its curved monitor will help make you a better gamer
What good is having an ultra-powerful PC if you're still connecting it to a dusty old monitor? We reckon doing so would be pretty silly. Good thing that alongside the new Alienware Area 51, Dell's pulled the curtain back on its 34-inch Ultrasharp U3415W display then. It boasts a wider-than-widescreen 21:9 aspect ratio that's paired with 3,440 x 1,440 lines of resolution (just under 4K's 3,840 x 2,160) and a curved screen. Dell says that the monitor's wide field of view mated with its curves will give gamers a leg up on the competition because, compared to flat monitors, less eye movement is needed to take advantage of the player's peripheral vision. Intrigued to test that claim? You can do so come this December. We're hoping that regardless of size, though, a curved screen doesn't necessarily equate to an expensive screen -- Dell hasn't announced pricing for these displays just yet.
Inside Goodwill's game-filled tech thrift shop, The Grid
Thrift stores: better known for dusty shirts, potential Halloween costumes and used Jenga sets. Well, Goodwill wants to change that a bit with its recent launch of The Grid, a dedicated electronics and video game specialty shop located in North Carolina. The outfit tells IGN that not only will it sell video game hardware itself, but it's arranged a deal with vendors to supply each console (even retro units) with new power and A/V cables -- stuff that can often be a bear to source. Oh, and there's Raspberry Pi and a selection of flat-screens on offer too. But what if console gaming isn't your bag? The Grid also sells laptops and gaming PCs, and, as the video below shows, even has an Oculus Rift demo station set up.
