“We’d like to take a moment to address the recent reports that suggested that Battle.net and Diablo 3 may have been compromised,” Blizzard said in a statement.

“Historically, the release of a new game – such as a World of Warcraft expansion – will result in an increase in reports of individual account compromises, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing now with Diablo 3.”

That almost seems as if its denying there are any real issues? This isn’t people leaving passwords lying around, it seems to be nefarious individuals from overseas spoofing session ids to login without username or password, thereby giving full account access to someone that isn’t the owner.

“We know how frustrating it can be to become the victim of account theft, and as always, we’re dedicated to doing everything we can to help our players keep their Battle.net accounts safe – and we appreciate everyone who’s doing their part to help protect their accounts as well.”

It then went on to recommend the account authenticators. The app is free, but the hardware version is £10. Ontop of the £35 or so you’ve spent on Diablo III.

While the game itself is turning out to be a great experience, people are really disliking this new direction of forced gameplay that Blizzard is going. Its reputation as a stalwart publisher may be damaged for good.

Source: Eurogamer

Jumping on this, Blizzard has offered to give discounts to anyone that purchased the digital version of Diablo III and can provide a GAME receipt to show the pre-order was made. If you paid the full price when you reserved the game, you’ll get a digital copy for free.

“We’re aware that some Australian GAME customers have been left out in the cold on what should be the hottest night of the year — the launch of Diablo III. To help with this situation and get these players into the game as soon as possible, we’ve put the following process in place,” said the Blizzard release.

It also posted instructions on how to obtain your discount:

“Australian GAME customers with a valid preorder/prepurchase receipt dated before May 15, 2012 can do the following:

1. Purchase the digital version of Diablo III from http://www.diablo3.com now or anytime before May 21, 2012.

2. Download and start playing when the servers go live!

3. Submit your GAME Australia preorder/prepurchase receipt to us before June 30, 2012.

4. Receive a credit from Blizzard”

Moves like this really cement companies as “good guys,” as Blizzard had no obligation to do this, but has ensured that its fans won’t be left ouf of pocket just because of their choice of retailer. It’ll be interesting if we ever learn how much Blizzard has been willing to lose to make to this geture.

To celebrate this achievement, Valve has announced a weekend sale, bringing down the price of – of course – Portal 2 to just £5.09 for the next couple of days. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has also had a price cut, dropping to £23.44. Team Fortress 2′s Workshop items will also see their prices halved for the duration.

Portal 2 maps and test chambers can be downloaded and viewed in the Steam Workshop, where a rating system by fellow players will no doubt help you decide which to try first. The most popular at the moment are the series of 12 Angry Test maps, split into several parts. Each has a short story to accompany it, showing the extent some users have gone to, to perserve the single player experience of the original game.

Source: Eurogamer

Known as Legend of the Beast, the new downloadable content sees Sam taking on the ram god known as The Great Obelisk. This will take place over three new campaign levels. In terms of multiplayer, gamers can experience three new survival maps and three new versus modes.

Lots of threes.

If you’re interested in picking up this DLC, it’ll cost just $4.99. This is a nice respectable prices for DLC, considering in essence it’s just a map pack. It would be quite easy to point a dirty finger at some developers for their DLC pricing.

The developer behind the series of Serious games, Croteam, has also announced that the HD remake of Serious Sam the First Encounter, will have its multiplayer component made free to play. This will allow players to jump in and begin blasting each other, or work together in survival mode to fight off the alien hordes. This will be available as of the 15th May.

Describing the early days of the game as a true event, something that non-gamers could be interested in, EA’s Label boss Frank Gibeau said that now, “as the service evolves from here, what we’re seeing is that some of the initial casual customers have gone through a billing cycle and decided not to subscribe to the game.”

He countered this however by saying that despite the casual players fleeing the title, the hardcore MMO players have remained. He believes the current crop of 1.3 million players is likely to stay dedicated for some time.

EA’s top dog John Riccitello said that while the game wasn’t in the top five earners for the company, it was in the top ten. “So it’s a business contributor, while important, is not as important as Medal of Honor or Battlefield or FIFA or Madden or The Sims or SimCity, but it’s more important than Tiger Woods PGA Golf.”

“So while I understand there’s an enormous amount of interest, I don’t know that it warrants as much as what we’re seeing right now. But we love the franchise, we’re going to grow the franchise and just like we want to see Tiger Woods Golf grow or SSX grow, or Madden for that matter, we’re going to drive this one for growth,” he continued.

The guys at Fusible spotted the initial WhoIs listing that showed the domain avengersbattleforearth.com through brand protection firm Mark Monitor. The name was registered by Marvel Characters Inc. and is listed on Ubisoft’s Nameservers, so the link with the publisher and developer is clear.

What isn’t clear is when this game will be released, why it wasn’t debuted alongside the movie in the US or EU as it’s clearly very popular and going to do incredibly well financially – and this is the usual method of promoting a game based on a movie property.  It needs to be done too then too, as movie tie-in games usually stink.

If I was a cynical man, I’d bet that the game sees you taking on the role of each of the avengers, fighting very, very generic mutant robot enemies from the movie, fighting a boss and then finishing the level. Upon completion, you switch characters and do the same thing. There will be some awful driving and flying stages that will control terribly and there will be basically no writing beyond repackaging a few elements from the movie.

But hey I could be wrong. This could be a great game. Right?

Taking place 1000 years before the events of Skyrim, prince Molag Bal is attempting to incorporate Tamriel into his realm. However, Mythic isn’t the driving force behind the title, but fledgling developer Zenimax Online Studios. There are some former Mythic staffers there, including the head of the studio, but fans of the series might be worried that a first time developer is going to be handling the next title in a series they’ve loved for years.

Three factions are said to be at loggerheads in this title, giving players the change to fight over control of Cyrodiil and the Emperor’s throne. How that will work out, or how combat will be handled at all is still up in the air at the moment. However expect traditional RPG themes with the usual social gaming aspect of MMOs.

“It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years,” said head of Zenimax, Matt Firor.

“The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”

In the mean time, those wanting more of an Elder Scrolls fix can look forward to the new Skyrim DLC set to release this summer: Dawnguard. Rumoured to be included are a new race of snow elves and crossbows as usable weaponry.

Source: Eurogamer

There’s only English (and dragon) language support at the moment, with others including French and Spanish being added later. In terms of when they’ll be released, Bethesda simply said “We’ll share those dates as soon we know them.”

For now however, players can not only use the voice commands to perform shouts from within the game, but control followers, access the inventory, trade, look at the map, open enchanting or cooking menus and more.

There’ve been a few reviews of the voice feature for Skyrim, with most finding it a bit gimmicky in some instances. However there are those that can really get into shouting at their Xbox. It’s also been said that certain clunky functions, like inventory access are vastly improved by a simple voice command. A similar feature in Mass Effect 3 that let you command your fellow freedom fighters by voice makes a lot more sense than its traditional pause and point, click.

What are your thoughts on voice commands? Is it something you want in a game or see as unecessary?

Set to be released on 15th June the advenutre game will cost £34.99. This is actually 11 days before the US release in a shock turn of events. Charged with discovering a cure for the dying leader of Nexus, four heroes must travel and fight together or apart to confront a growing evil.

Reviews so far have the game as a game changer for the DS, opening it up for new types of gameplay thanks to it taking advantage of the handheld console’s social features.

Currently there are other companies that have pre-order options for the title, so it’ll be interesting if those disapear after this announcement from GAME. While there is no release date, Play has it £10 cheaper at £24.99.

GAME also has an upcoming special edition release of Assassin’s Creed III, with a bonus mission and weapons, showing developers and publishers do want to continue working with GAME. Hopefully it lasts this time.

Source: Games Industry

In a bit of a chicken and egg scenario, gamers claim that they buy used games because retail prices are too high, and developers and publishers claim that prices are so high because so many used games are bought. The latter also implemented horrible, horrible DRM like Always On and Online Passes, to combat the used game industry’s billion dollar success.

EK Gaming however is stepping out in front and saying enough of the sillyness, offering a unique and elegant solution that if adopted my many other retailers, could see the used game market endure, while allowing publishers to not bundle restrictive DRM with their games. It might even make them produce games that are unique, since they could afford to take a few more risks if they knew money would be made from the game for years to come, instead of just over the few months after release.

“Publishers are spending record amounts of cash on new game development. This increase in dev costs is steering them in directions that don’t necessarily jive with gamers, causing them to take less risks on new and potentially exciting IP’s or game mechanics and sticking with tried and true properties that are more of a guarantee,” said CEO of EKGaming Mike Kennedy.

“We want to share our used game revenue with them so they can continue investing in new gaming experiences without worrying about the negative effects used games could be having on their operations.”

EK has also promised to offer a higher trade in value for games, offering gamers up to 30 per cent of the original retail value of the title.