Behold the games industry alignment chart (credit to BurtWolfie) that’s been making the rounds on the blogs. It’s cute and it might be fun to quibble that Carmac should swap places with Molyneux, but I think this little meme has a greater meaning. Let me navel-gaze for a moment (or rather gaze at greater navels [...]

Don’t panic, it’s just a fable. There’s a new startup in town with a brilliant, revealing, and stupid idea. It’s simple one too: Postal Gamer wants to cut publishers in on used game sales. It works like a hybrid between the Netflix and Gamestop models. When you want to sell an old game, Postal Gamer [...]

Heads up! Today (8/11/11) marks the last day for entry into the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador program, in which 3DS owners can sign up for 20 free games before the end of 2011. All you need is a 3DS that you’ve connected to the Nintendo eShop. The ambassador program precedes tomorrow’s whopping $80 price drop (from [...]

The Humble Indie Bundle 3 is doing some seriously cunning marketing. This morning the bundle added five games from the Humble Bundle 2, which you can acquire by buying into Humble Bundle 3. However, there’s a catch: to get the epic cache of games, you have to buy in above the mean price. That means every single time somebody buys into the Humble Bundle bonus, the price goes up. Well, unless you bought the bundle before 10:30 AM PST today, in which case you just get it for free.

It’s difficult to fault the bundle producers for their strategy, however: the Humble Bundle’s core games weigh in collectively at $50, and the average Windows buy in this morning was just over $4. The numbers are somewhat depressed by penny-buyers, who don’t pay enough to cover credit card fees, but that doesn’t do much to mitigate the overall shame. The fear of late buy-in pressures exactly this sort of miser, so I’ll grant the producers a pass for playing psychological hardball. The bundle producers are further exculpated because the bonus is optional, which leaves the penny option open to squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinners.

Editorial aside, the bundle bonus seems to be working, with the average buy in over $5 as of this writing. The total package has already hauled $1.2M, with 6 days to go. You just might want to get in there sooner than later. You cheapskate.

Blizzard invited journalists to take a crack at the Diablo 3 demo that’s slated for release this Q3, and the internet is abuzz. Small wonder, because it’s now apparent you’ll be getting a completely different game than you expected. There have been a lot of minor reveals, it’s really just three facts setting the intenet [...]

Summer is usually a slow time for gaming. There’s usually a handful of high profile releases, but most development houses are crunching to release during the holiday season. But you know what? Screw the summer doldrums, because there’s a new Humble Indie Bundle. The Humble Indie Bundle 3 is the latest in a series of [...]

Oh hooray. Another game cancellation means another useless petition from the diehard fans. But wait! The circumstances of the Mega Man Legends 3 cancellation make the idea oddly compelling. Shortly after MML3‘s cancellation was announced, the Capcom Europe twitter feed commented that, “…so few fans took part in the creation of the game. It was [...]

Remember waaaaay back when Shatter‘s Mario Wynands told us that, “The doors are almost closed for independent development on XBLA.” A year later, it’s starting to look like he was right. Ars Technica posted a while back about how several indies felt Xbox Live Indie Games was a better place to hone your skills than [...]

The Mega Man Legends 3 project has been celebrated by industry professionals and gamers for its transparent portrayal of the game development process, good and bad. However, the news was all bad on Monday, when Capcom executives decided to kill the project in a terse post to the development blog. Mega Man Legends died quietly [...]

It’s getting to be that time of year again. The days are long, the kids are out of school, and Penny Arcade just announced the PAX 10 on July 8. The PAX 10 has showcased excellent games from indie developers since 2008. Some devs go on to fame and fortune, while others fade away. However, [...]