General Gaming News II: Steam Helpdesk Site Leak

[6souls]

http://www.abload.de/img/retrocityrampage_logoecia4.png

[Edelweiss]

http://www.amazon.it/Zone-Of-The-End...dp/B008VRIYFW/
http://www.amazon.it/Zone-Of-The-Enders-3/dp/B008VRIY6Q



Pretty suspect, so probably just ignore it.

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http://www.zeldainformer.com/news/co...blic-relations

Former IGN Employee Admits Review Scores Are Skewed Due to Public Relations and The Almighty Dollar

Let me start off this breaking news report by mentioning that IGN is not the only review site or publication that does this, and it’s actually a rather sad, but common, occurrence across the industry. IGN is mentioned specifically so as to make clear how deep this runs, and how serious of an issue this really is. This is not an indictment against IGN, nor are we any less trust worthy of them for doing this. However, this is a harsh reality of the industry and something we have been fortunate enough to have not run into for ourselves yet.

The story goes as this: IGN, among several other publications, alter review scores, alter editorial pieces, based on who is paying the bills. Essentially in order to continue to get review copies of games, to get certain publishers to advertise on your site, things get altered to appear more favorable for certain games. This is not true of every game reviewed or talked about, and it’s hard to point to any specific examples, but ZI just received exclusive confirmation that this happens all the time.

According to a former IGN employee, who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons:

The truth is that marketing and PR and readers have a major influence on reviews. I can tell you that just about every preview and review you read spouts out a lot of marketing’s message. Journalists don’t get it, see it, realize it, or accept it. But that is the truth
Fact remains that this is something we have all suspected for some time. In fact, we know some sites have literally taken money directly for writing a positive review. In IGN, and other similar site’s defense, they are rarely paid directly for the review itself. Rather, the money, one can assume, is all related to marketing and public relations. The big money makers for any website that posts news. All of our income is produced off of similar methods, where companies come to our ad agency and offer certain amounts of money to display advertising. Naturally, if we talk negatively over and over again about a product it will make them less likely to advertise it to our fan base thus hurting income.

Setting aside our inside source, which even if you have a hard time believing us let me just say that if this was false I would sell this site to any fan for 1$ (that’s how confident I am), this entire story starting initially making rounds today off the words of Rich Stanton on twitter. Rich Stanton is a freelance writer who is known for his work with Future Publishing/PC Gamer. While he is hardly the elite of the elite, it simply adds a lot of weight to the ongoing problem in the industry that many Journalists, and fans, are just afraid to admit to.

I warn that there are some vulgar words used in these direct quotes off twitter:


Edge gave GTA IV [10] but the review didn’t “@CiaranMac90: @RichStanton Just give us the worst story on Future you have and get some rest!” I’m genuinely amazed that nobody has picked up on the fact that GTA4 got a 9 which became Rockstar’s much sought-after [10] in Edge.

They control everything “@theubermod: @RichStanton Do publishers/platform holders ‘pay’ for covers? In either ad spend or access.”

Yes “@helloimandrew: @RichStanton do review scores in future publications sometimes magically change before it hits the self”

Homefront, less obviously. Most is Driv3rgate “@Tim__Lane: @RichStanton game that got most obviously dodgy reviews?”

Rockstar, without question. “@LittleJuiceBox1: @RichStanton Who were the dodgiest PRs for doing deals (review scores etc)?”

Yes. Future will do anything to accommodate advertisers. “@LewieP: @RichStanton have you witnessed any dodgy deals?”

PC Gamer asked me to take some photos of something very specific. A wall of concept art. I asked permission, and did so. Valve went nuts. This wasn’t approved! Do you know what PC Gamer’s editor, Tim Edwards, did? He denied I had ever been asked to do it. Said PCG were merely the innocent recipient. Lied, in other words. Cunt.


In short, this is an industry-wide concern. Speaking from some of my own experiences, sometimes negative remarks about games are requested to be completely eliminated from an article, rather than directly lying, because the game developer is the one “paying for that article to exist” - and usually the freelance writer has no idea that is the case at the time they take the job. They are just offered a sum of money to create an honest review, only to have to alter it before sending it live so as not to “piss off” the people who paid for it.

It makes you really question the integrity of the internet, and really question every review you see anywhere. Is the site popular? Yes? Does that mean the reviews are skewed? Possibly. It’s hard to tell in today’s day and age what’s honest and whats not, and since the consumers are none the wiser it’s hard to know if this trend will ever change. All we can do at ZI is inform all of you as to whats really going on and then leave the debate and decisions up to you. This isn’t just IGN. It’s not just Future publishing… it’s… who even knows. This runs deep folks.

[Edelweiss]

Former IGN Employee Admits Review Scores Are Skewed Due to Public Relations and The Almighty Dollar

Doubt anyone is really shocked..

[6souls]

http://www.buy.com/prod/rockstar-gam...242319140.html
http://www.cduniverse.com/productinf...73&style=games

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http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7116/6...7875e025_z.jpg

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Mystery Omega Force game trailer + countdown site

http://www.gamecity.ne.jp/omegaforce/new/

One Piece: Romance Dawn Scan

Spoiler: show

http://www.abload.de/img/p016doaoc.jpg

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[6souls]

In the remote mountains of Colorado, horrors wait inside Mount Massive Asylum. A long-abandoned home for the mentally ill, recently re-opened by the "research and charity" branch of the transnational Murkoff Corporation, has been operating in strict secrecy... until now.

Acting on a tip from an inside source, independent journalist Miles Upshur breaks into the facility, and what he discovers walks a terrifying line being science and religion, nature and something else entirely. Once inside, his only hope of escape lies with the terrible truth at the heart of Mount Massive.

Founded in Montreal by industry veterans from some of the biggest game franchises in history, including Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, and Uncharted, Red Barrels is an independent game studio focused on creating unforgettable single-player games. Outlast is their first title, a true survivalhorror experience which aims to show that the most terrifying monsters of all come from the human mind. Outlast will be coming to PC digital download in 2013.

"There are already a lot of great games out there about terrifying monsters that eat brains; we want Outlast's to be scary because you'll know the enemies you face still have them," said Philippe Morin, cofounder of Red Barrels.

"Our team has a lot of previous experience creating big, blockbuster games," said co-founder David Chateauneuf. "We're all really excited to see what kind of fear-based emotional rollercoaster we can build on our own!"

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for the Murkoff Corporation responded: "Murkoff does not comment on speculation and rumors, especially ones started by conspiracy theorists and urban myth chasers."

http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/Ral...sion_Announce/

With just a few more days until the launch of Forza Horizon starting on October 23, the news for the game keeps coming strong. As if hitting the open roads of Colorado wasn’t enough, today we’re unveiling the first glimpse of the first expansion pack for Forza Horizon… and rally fans, this one’s for you. The 'Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack' is coming on December 18 to Xbox LIVE and will be available for 1,600 MS Points.

Delivering an immersive and authentic rally racing experience on the roughest untamed roads of Colorado, the 'Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack' will offer Horizon players an outstanding off-road racing experience with deeper ruts, higher jumps, and new surface types to explore. Players will experience authentic rally action behind the wheel of rally-tuned cars, complete with co-driver calls, and much more.

Look for further details on the 'Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack' in the coming weeks, leading up to the release of the pack on December 18.

[Kuishen]

Cool video, it touched briefly upon the biggest problem with the industry right now. They don't want to make games hard because the money they're putting into it is too high to not have the game be accessible to everybody or only have parts of the game accessible to everybody. They need to realize that most people don't fucking want these hollywood style games that come with absolutely massive budgets. We just want fun gameplay and the freedom to play the game how we want to play it. Sure some of the better games have had massive budgets but there is no correlation between the success of the game and the size of its budget.

[6souls]

The God and the Fate Revolution Paradox

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IGN is for sale

A post on GamesIndustry from yesterday reports that video game news and media network, IGN, will go up on the auction block in the very near future. Citing a report in the Wall Street Journal (behind a pay wall), News Corp has been searching for a buyer to take IGN and the associated UGO and 1up gaming networks off their hands over the past year, to no avail. Now, News Corp is working with investment bank Allen & Co. on auctioning IGN and its video game-related partner networks to the highest bidder.

News Corp—the company behind the Fox media empire—purchased IGN for $650 million in 2005. That was the same year News Corp bought MySpace (remember MySpace?), which they unloaded for a fraction of the purchase price last year.

According to the post, the Wall Street Journal (which also happens to be owned by News Corp) estimates that IGN could sell for $100 million if it goes to auction. IGN has yet to make a public comment on the news of their possible sale. Either way, it can’t be too fun to deal with this kind of thing right now. Best of luck to everyone, and let’s hope that no one loses their job when the dust settles on this situation. There’s been too much of that going on lately.

http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/201...-by-news-corp/
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...up-for-auction
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-...15-712650.html

[6souls]

Digimon World

Spoiler: show

The God and the Fate Revolution Paradox

Spoiler: show

Saint Seiya Omega: Ultimate Cosmo

Spoiler: show

Summon Night 5

Spoiler: show

One Piece: Romance Down

Spoiler: show

[6souls]

Demon Tribe

[6souls]

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Spoiler: show

[6souls]

Silent Hill, let's face it, is in a mess. Once one of the most pioneering and narratively powerful series around - not to mention the most genuinely unsettling horror franchise in gaming - its decline has been a long, sad and winding tale of persistent neglect and eroded status.

Since disbanding original in-house developer Team Silent, Konami has passed the series around from new home to new home like some weird troubled orphan, never allowing it to find the right familial fit or long-term stability needed to really flourish. Thus, Silent Hill now resembles the kind of orphan whose adoptive parents have a habit of mysteriously disappearing just before their house burns down. And that's a tragedy.

But there is now hope for a happy ending. The perfect guardian for Silent Hill might - just might - be knocking on the door, in the form of benevolent old Uncle Hideo Kojima. Konami's most famous stalwart star, he now seems interested in helping Silent Hill.

He's potentially its most suitable, understanding benefactor yet, and what's more, he brings an extended family of friends who could be an unbelievably positive influence.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, the facts. According to his Twitter feed, it seems Koj recently watched the first (really rather decent) Silent Hill film in preparation for its incoming sequel. And it seems he was mighty impressed with the series' potential (aesthetically and atmospherically at least) in conjunction with his shiny new next-gen Fox Engine technology. Tweeteth Koj:

"Silent Hill movie that I borrowed from Murashu as the next sequel is coming out. It would be a scary game if we make Silent Hill game on FOX engine."

"Silent Hill is in closed room setting and doesn't require full action so that we can focus on the graphic quality. Enemy doesn't have to be a lot or move fast. It only requires scariness by graphics and presentation. As being a creator making action game in open world, such game is very enviously attractive. Wish someone could create this on FOX engine"

Simple thinking out-loud? Coded hint that he's working on something? I don't know, but either way this is a damnably interesting idea. Because when you extrapolate the (very real) possibilities around this one, the idea of a Kojima-managed Silent Hill project becomes one of those too-perfect-to-happen ideas that have a habit of actually happening when you least expect it. Allow me to break this down.

If the experimental excesses and granite-heavy pathos of the Metal Gear Solid series have taught us anything about Kojima, it's that he likes swirling, surreal, existential narratives grounded by affecting characterisation. He also loves screwing around with planes of narrative reality and royally messing with the player both inside and outside of the game. Philosophically, all of this is pure Silent Hill. At its best.

And while he doesn't have extensive horror experience himself, Kojima is friends with people who do. Namely Grasshopper Manufacture.

Moreso than that, he's already on development-buddy terms with them. He's already working with the studio on a radio-play prequel to his own early game, Snatcher, and has another, fully game-shaped Grasshopper collaboration currently in development.

So why are Grasshopper so important? Simple: whatever the failings of this year's Lollipop Chainsaw, studio head Goichi 'Suda51' Suda seriously knows how to do surreally-disturbing artistic horror, having directed the sublimely Lynchian brainsmash Killer7 back in 2005. And in 2010, he hired Akira Yamaoka. Akira Yamaoka is the most important person in Silent Hill history, having produced the series during its glory days and composed every soundtrack right up to 2009's Silent Hill: Homecoming. If our orphan has a long-lost biological father, it's Akira Yamaoka.

Given Kojima's success as a producer for external teams (see Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow for evidence of that - developer Mercury Steam's previous game was the rather wretched Clive Barker's Jericho), the idea of a Kojima-produced Silent Hill developed by Yamaoka and Suda51 is pretty much the perfect vision of a reboot for the series. Kojima's status and reputation could cement real triple-A quality for the Silent Hill franchise for the first time in years, while the Yamaoka/Suda51 dream team handle the creative heavy lifting.

If Kojima's desire for a Fox Engine Silent Hill game also means that he's eager to bring Silent Hill back to Japanese development after so long in the international wilderness, there's only one sensible way to do that. After so many years of disappointment, this could make us forget about the entire last decade of (entirely the wrong kind of) Silent Hill pain overnight. Persuasive post cards to H. Kojima, Konami Street, Japan, forthwith, if you'd be so kind.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...a-silent-hill/

tl:dr Kojima is hinting at making the next Silent Hill game.