Category Archives: News

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May 18 2013

The Bitcoin Bundle

Second Life and Linden Labs aren’t the only ones being affected by the rise of the Bitcoin. According to a press release from GamesPress.com, top indie game developers are showing their support for the virtual currency by creating a bundle that allows Bitcoin users to pay whatever they want for four award nominated Indie Games.

Supporters include 2D Boy, Omai Systems, Spaces of Pray and Broken Rules,. All agree that it is a way for players and creators to become a step closer together.

The Release states that “Unlike other bundles this is entirely based around the Bitcoin. Not only do users buy these products with Bitcoins but the developers are paid in Bitcoins.”

Alex Amsei, the director of the Bitcoin Bundle states ” We created this bundle to be special, it’s exclusively handled in Bitcoin. We didn’t just want to have it as a payment option , we wanted to promote the currency itself. “

Marek Pliche, from contributing Indie Dev company Space of Pray  comments: ” Digital distribution removed the need for publishers as the middleman between customers and game developers. Bitcoins might be able to do the same thing for all kinds of creative businesses and help them thrive.’

The Bitcoin Bundle will be available for 2 weeks starting on May 16th and ending on May 30th.

Those of you who have no idea what a Bitcoin is: It is form of virtual currency  much like the Linden Dollars of Second life, expect it has no central authority. It can be used to pay any one, anywhere in the world almost instantly and anonymously without having to pay any  bank charges.

To become a Bitcoin user, you can buy Bitcoins from any of the following companies Blockchain.info (International; not UK), Coinbase (US), BitInstant (US), and BitBargain (UK). The Bitcoin Bundle uses industry leading technology from Coinbase to handle Bitcoin transactions.

The games involved in the Bitcoin bundle are DRM Free, they are available for PC, Mac and Linux and can also be found on Steam (subject to availability). For more information about The Bitcoin Bundle check out the website.

There is no doubt now that Bitcoins are beginning to not only affect our virtual  worlds but our real one as well. Are Bit coins a good idea or just a waste of time? What do you think?

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Apr 24 2013

Gaming News: The Mid-Week Call [24th April]

Here are some of the news stories that have opened up this week so far.

XCOM Shooter Is Alive?;

With the game market dominated by first person shooters 2K Games thought they could get a slice of the pie with a remake/reboot and an old series called XCOM. Because the game took so long to develop, they cobbled together a strategy game based on XCOM called “XCOM: Enemy Unknown.” If Valve has tought us anything with a cobbled together game called “Portal” when “Half-Life 2″ spent long in development, I will be a smash hit. Because Enemy Unknown was such a hit, the FPS that it was meant to be its bigger brother may not happen. At the beginning of last week it seems that the FPS had gone into development hell with its site and YouTube videos being taken offline and 2K seeming like it was trying to sweep the whole thing away. But today it seems that it is still alike with 2K saying that it is still alive and in development. As long as they say it is. But I think people would want to have more Enemy Unknown as well as squad shooter.

A Ratchet & Clank Movie; Continue reading →

Apr 21 2013

Week In Gaming News: 15th – 21st April 2013

Hello Torch! Quite a varied week if I do say so. All I can really say about is quote the UK TV “QI” man Stephen Fry and say “Be lovely to each other.” Anyway, on with the news.

Arizona Police Investigate Box;

I may not seem like much, or it seems very serious after Boston. Police and bomb disposal were called to a box that was left in Arizona. Imagine what they thought when they saw this;

Super Mario Box Found In Arizona [Taken From http://www.escapistmagazine.com]

According to ABC News, events went like this; Continue reading →

star trek online - legacy pack
Apr 18 2013

Legacy Pack available for Star Trek Online (updated)

In preparations for the launch of Legacy of Romulus, where you get to play from the Romulan point of view in addition to the existing Starfleet and Klingon factions, Perfect World is releasing the Legacy Pre-Order Pack.

This pack does not contain the game or the expansion, both of those can be found for FREE here (note: Legacy of Romulus comes out May 21), but gives you a lot of goodies when you get those.

Legacy Pack comes in two variants, the Romulan Starter Pack and the Romulan Legacy Pack.

Starter Pack ($19.99): Continue reading →

Apr 17 2013

Gaming News: Mid-Week Call [17th April 2013]

Here is the call. Enjoy!

Developers Make Some Fake Gamer Pictures;

You see people in publicity shots and adverts for game/consoles. And most of them hold the controller wrong. Most people in the pictures are models not gamers so that tends to happen, but you think the guy (who is hired by a game company) could help them out in getting it right. So Miguel Concepcion did a series of pictures. “I’ve taken the following photos as reminders and suggestions of proper gaming expressions and postures. Take it from these pros; this is how you should look when you’ve mistakenly chosen to reload when you really should have just switched to your sidearm.” Check out the pictures here.

Bethesda Weirds Out Gaming Community;

Your guess is as good as mine to what these mean. The first went up around Monday and the second today.

The first.

The second.

“Fallout” game is due and people thought it was adverts for “Fallout 4″. This is the response: Continue reading →

Apr 10 2013

Gaming News: The Mid Week Call [10th April 2013]

Well a lot has happened. So let’s get right to it.

EA Voted “Worst Company In America”;

Last [almost] sunday I told you about EA COO Peter Moore pleading not to called the “Worst company in America”. He failed. EA managed to beat Bank of America to be crowned, for the second year in a row, “The Worst Company In America” by the Consumerist. Beating the likes of Ticketmaster (in the semi-finals) and Back of America (in the grand final) with a massive 78% of the vote to be crowned withe award “The Golden Poo”. The “SimCity” release and “Mass Effect 3” where pointed out as particular things EA had messed up. And on that…

Bioware Had Control;

Turns out that Bioware had creative control of the games they make under EA. That includes “Mass Effect 3″ and Dragon Age 2″. “They don’t second-guess you, they don’t say you shouldn’t do that,” said Greg Zeschuck, co-founder of Bioware. It’s good to know that EA is not that evil and some developers have moments of stupid. Continue reading →

Apr 8 2013

[Late] Week In Gaming News [01st - 07th April 2013]

Well its been in interesting week. Not just in the gaming news region. Look at the North Korea stuff. On a lighter note, hope you had a good “Pie Day“. What was I meant to be talking about? Oh yes, gaming news! Might as well start with the big news.

LucasArts Is No More;

You may have heard near the end of last year that Disney gave Mr George Lucas a lot of money and bought the “Star Wars” brand and everything associated, including LucasArts and LucasFilm. Disney said in a statement;

“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”

Some may remember the day when LucasArts was one of the big names in game development, back when they released series’ like “Monkey Island” and “Grim Fandango”. But the company as it is now is less like it was back in the day. “Grim Fandango” creator Tim Shafer has his own game company like many of the old team and most of the “Star Wars” games are made by 3rd parties now and LucasArts only signs off on the licence. “Star Wars: The Old Republic” was made by Bioware and LucasArts only published it. Continue reading →

Apr 3 2013

Gaming News The Mid Week Call [03 April 2013]

I said I was back. Hope Easter was good for all of you, and hope the pranks where sensible on Fools day. Any good stories you want to share? Go to the comments section.

Now, as it has been Easter, Not much would have happened between Sunday [Yes, it's a Sunday thing now. Makes more sence to be at the end of the week.] and now because all the game companies slow to while people take time off. It’s like parliament. So the call this time will be news that’s happened in the week. You lucky devils. Wouldn’t want Torch readers to miss out of the gaming loop would I?

More Thief News;

Last post, you may of watch the new “Thief” teaser that was released. For those not in the know, “Thief” was a trilogy of games that came out on the PC quite a few, but not many, years ago. You played as Garrett, a thief, in a gothic/steam-punk world where you had to stay hidden in the shadows and avoid the nasty men/women that wanted to have at you. So stealth was the name of the game at it did it well. 1st was good, 2nd best, 3rd dropped off. So it followed all the trilogy trends too. And now it is getting a new game. At first it seamed like a 4th game because a few images where they did the 90′s thing of changing the e with a 4 making it “Thifourf” Turns out it’s a re-boot. Lots of series’ are getting the re-boot boot and some turn out alright. Continue reading →

Apr 1 2013

Gaming News Back On Wednesday!

I’m Back!

After two weeks of nothing I am back with more gaming news. Well not yet. You may have noticed that it was Easter this week/weekend and so not much has happened. And the week before? I was making videos for Dark Dog Gaming Media. Yes, nothing is there at the moment [Damm You Jonn!] But there will be.  I will update when it does. And I sell stuff now too. [RedBubble]. So on there will be the return of “A Week In Gaming News” and all my other stuff.

I would not leave you without saying something about gaming news. So here’s some videos. Continue reading →

Mar 18 2013

A Week In Gaming News [12th - 18 March]

Well that’s another week done. So here’s more gaming news! Yay for you! Some may ring similar from last week… ehemm, SimCity… But other than that, standard week.

Here is the News!

Micro-transactions Come To COD;

On Wednesday a new menu appeared in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. In the menu you can by extra stuff. You can get a new camo-skin for 160 Points or the equivalent. (Was told that about $2, so work it out from that PS3 players. Don’t have BOII) And that’s pre camouflage and there’s a big list. You can also buy a Slots Pack which gives you 10 extra Create-A-Class slots, which (Least what DDGM Jonn) takes part of the point from presaging as you buy a slot with presage tokens. You can also get Personation Packs that give you 3 reticule’s anda calling card. With the recent arguments… I mean debates that have followed the rise of micro-transactions in AAA games. With people like EA saying hinting that micro-transactions might be in more AAA games, I might be time to get used to it and weld the Bacon Gun Of Death!

“Bioshock” Film Is No More;

In part game film news, Ken Levine (lead writer of “System Shock 2” and “Bioshock” and designer of the soon to be released “Bioshock Infinite“) said in an interview that he pulled the plug on the Hollywood’s adaptation to “Bioshock“. After the directors Gore Verbinski had dropped out and his replacement Juan Carlos Fresnadillo left the project everything seemed dim for the film. Levine hinted as well that he would only want the project made by his terms. With the history that Hollywood has with video games films I feel that he has every right to do that. “How many times in life do you not need to compromise? It comes along so rarely, but I had the world, the world existed and I didn’t want to see it done in a way that I didn’t think was right,” he continued. “It may happen one day, who knows, but it’d have to be the right combination of people.”

Capcom And Valve Crossover;

Not sure if fans of “Left 4 Dead 2″ and “Resident Evil 6″ would want to hear that characters will be crossing over to each others games. Rather then a spin-off or even a L4DxRE game it will just be a game mode. Well one game mode. In Resident Evil’s ‘The  Mercenaries No Mercy’ mode will feature Coach, Nick, Ellis and Rochelle from Left 4 Dead and a the zombies The Witch and the Mini-Tank. “Left 4 Dead 2″ will feature three new enemies from “Resident Evil 6″, the Lepotitsa, Napad and Ogroman. I’m not sure if I’m that impressed. It’s like Insomniac Games/Naughty Dog/Sucker Punch putting things from each others games back on the Playstation 2. If you a big fan that this is good news for you. But I have to say, I’m not lit up. Continue reading →