First of all, I've said games, not AAA games. After all, not everybody makes AAA games. And then I have to wonder how much of those $50m for Darksiders 2 was for marketing.

Oh, and if Unity is really a $200m game, Ubisoft won't last long among us. That's a ridiculously high amount for such a broken game. Heck, CoD: Modern Warfare 2 had a total budget of $200m and of those "only" $40m-$50m went for the actual development of the game (source: here) and that was for a franchise that sells a lot more than Assassin's Creed does.

Well Star Citizen has a more ambitious scope than most AAA games. The $50m for Darksiders 2 doesn't include marketing

Net sales of $78.2m and they still lost of $500k on it. Which would put it's total budget including marketing at around $78.7m. As for your Call of Duty example sure, for a 4h campaign and multiplayer on a 2 year dev cycle, with ~200 devs plus Raven for the DLC. But about Advanced Warfare with it's 3 year dev cycle, ~225 people, plus a whole other studio handling the last gen versions, plus additional work from Raven. That is not even mentioning the full performance capture from Kevin Spacey. That would easily be $60-75m just for production. And for the real counterpoint $500m for Destiny including marketing and DLC is a hell of a lot of money.

AC: Unity will probably will hurt Ubisoft's bottom line this year. They were expecting that, they reported that they expect Unity+Rogue together would sell significantly less than Black Flag in their last financial call. But they said it was an investment into the future. I am sure the marketing deal with MS helped a bit. Tho having to cancel the Season pass really hurt them as they were banking on strong DLC sales to boost profitability per unit sold, they still have all those microtransactions tho. The much cheaper to make Far Cry 4, and stronger than expected back catalog sales should also help offset the losses.

^Well, I've said it many times and I'll say it again: the videogames industry is heading in a very wrong path if games like Darksiders 2, which in my humble opinion was more like an AA game rather than a triple-A, loses money. And the same goes with Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs for Square-Enix (tho by now they are profitable).

Videogame budgets are going insane, and so are publishers.

Only 50 teams have beaten Final Fantasy XIV's Final Coil of Bahamut raid

In the latest Letter from the Producer for Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, director and producer Naoki Yoshida revealed that only 50 teams across all servers had bested the games hardest raid. The Final Coil of Bahamut was released with patch 2.4 a month ago.

“For those of you still making your way through, or preparing to step foot into the Final Coil─only about 50 teams have cleared the entirety of the Final Coil across all servers,” said Yoshida. “So there’s no need to rush.”

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Ultra Street Fighter IV version 1.04 coming in December; includes Omega Mode, Edition Select and trials

Ultra Street Fighter IV is due to receive a new patch shortly after the Capcom Cup in December. Version 1.04 will bring with it some new features, such as Omega Mode - a mode where every fighter is re-imagined with new moves and abilities. Training Mode Trials that help you learn specific fighters will also be debuting for Ultra’s newest characters, such as Decapre, Elena, Poison, Hugo and Rolento.

Finally, Edition Select will be made available for online play, allowing you to select specific patch versions for each character.

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Broken Age Act 2 has been delayed; will launch in early 2015

Double Fine have announced to backers that they’ll have to endure a slightly longer wait for the second part of their crowd-sourced Adventure game: Broken Age Act 2. The game is due to be in alpha testing by the end of this year, with a release date coming early in the next year.

“The game is looking really good and the team is working super fast” said Double Fine. “but we just gotta give the game the time it needs to really deliver on everything we’re hoping it will be.”

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Wave your oversized wands in the air in Chaos Reborn's latest trailer

Harry Potter taught us that the key to using your wand is all in the motion: swish and flick as they’d say. A new trailer for Julian Gollop's Chaos Reborn shows off quite a few fancy swishes and flicks with even bigger and gigantic wizard staves. The results are fireballs, explosions, summoning giants and even the odd blunt club round the head.

It’s also really pretty, so you should take a look at the trailer below.

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Team LDLC overcome exploits to win Counter-Strike: Global Offensive finals at DreamHack

The Counter-Strike wing of French pro-gaming force Team LDLC claimed the top spot in the 2014 DreamHack CS:GO Championship this weekend - and with it, $100,000 of the tournament’s $250,000 community-funded prize pool.

It’s a surprising result - not because LDLC aren’t capable, but because they were briefly knocked out of the championship a day earlier.

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Chortle: The Beano commission official Dennis and Gnasher Minecraft mod

If you were to pick a cartoon archetype for the average Minecraft player, you’d probably wind up somewhere between Dennis the Menace and simpering perma-pushover Walter: knees grazed and outgoing, but with the patience required for wiki study and a penchant for flowers.

It's Dennis we'll soon be able to play as, however. Canadian game devs Frima Studios are working on a Minecraft mod with Beano publishers DC Thomson - with an eye to bringing more characters over from the comics if demand is there.

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League of Legends dragon champ Ao Shin "on hold"; "We do intend to make him someday"

The white, wispy mane of early Ao Shin concept art suggested a champion who was barely there, and so he has proven. Scheduled for release behind at least two other League of Legends champions, the storm dragon has never been anything other than the distant prospect of electrical abilities - and is now officially on hold.

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Dustforce DX update tidies up levels to make it easier for new players

Dustforce is almost three years old but that’s not stopped Hitbox Team from cooking up a massive update to expand and rework sections of the original game.

The free Dustforce DX update adds more than 100 new maps, fixes bugs, and redesigns the overworld system to make it friendlier for new players.

It does a stack more, too.

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EVE Online Input Broadcasting and Input Multiplexing become permaban offences

CCP have clarified their position on players using multiple accounts, saying what is and isn’t allowed. You’re still allowed to run multiple subscriptions - even playing them at the same time with the help of multiboxing software - but automating actions, using Input Broadcasting & Input Multiplexing, have been banned.

Getting caught performing either within Eve can result in a permaban.

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Hearthstone: Goblins vs Gnomes: all the new cards

It was a busy time for Hearthstone at this year’s BlizzCon - a new expansion was announced: Goblins vs Gnomes. It’ll feature 120 brand new cards themed around the fantastical, and often random inventions of both races. Unlike the latest Adventure, Curse of Naxxramas, you won’t need to buy the expansion as a whole, instead you’ll purchase a new Goblins vs Gnomes booster pack; or win them from the arena.

We’ve gathered all the cards that have been spoiled to date - 62 at the time of writing - so you can take a gander at them all, and start plotting your explosive decks today. Check back regularly as more cards are spoiled!

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Red 5 on fixing Firefall: “Usually the right decisions are the toughest”

Firefall was finally released in July this year, though work began on the MMO back in 2005. In that time the game changed radically, as did the studio making it: it’s dropped its Arena PvP, its eSports aspirations, and none of Red 5’s founders remain at the studio.

I gave Firefall 4/10 when I reviewed in in August, though an update released shortly after launch addressed a lot of its problems.

We recently sat down with Firefall’s lead designer Scott Youngblood and design director Scott Rudi to talk about the Firefall’s potted history and their plans for its future, beginning with how it could have been the Tribes MMO.

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I am Bread pops out of the toaster and onto Steam Early Access this week

I am Bread, Bossa Studios’ breakfast time physics-gone-mad simulator, will be leaping out of the toaster and onto Steam Early Access this week. 

Like a bizarre cross between Surgeon Simulator, Goat Simulator and QWOP, I am Bread gives players control over a slice of bread as they attempt to increase its deliciousness just in time for the most important meal of the day, by sticking to things and jumping around the place before evolving into lovely toast. 

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The Batmobile is integral to Arkham Knight: "Batman wouldn't use it if he didn't need it"

Rocksteady have posted the second part of Batman: Arkham Knight’s Ace Chemicals infiltration mission, with the Batmobile once again front and centre, and amid the flashes of gunfire and the battle between drone tanks and the Dark Knight’s favourite mode of transport, I started to forget that I was watching something that was related to the Caped Crusader. 

How does the World’s Greatest Detective deal with a bunch of futuristic tanks? He uses a gattling gun, apparently. 

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Put your hard hat on: Fortnite's alpha begins tomorrow

I don’t have enough pillows and blankets to make a really good fort, and that’s a crying shame. It’s for the best, though, as my otherwise well behaved dog, Max the Labradoodle, has a fixation on such things, and would inevitably savage every single pillow, knocking down the entire fortress. 

Max isn’t allowed to play Epic Games’ Fortnite, though, nor are the bases constructed in this sandbox made out of pillows. Fortnite’s alpha will be kicking off, sans Labradoodles, tomorrow, and running until December 19th. 

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Sledgehammer comes down on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare map exploits

Democracy? To paraphrase Spacey, people don’t want democracy - they want Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, especially when it’s going cheap for Black Friday. Sales of the gadget-laden shooter leapt 110% during last week’s festival of commerce, and Sledgehammer want to ensure they give the new lot a proper welcome - by squeezing out some of the bad vibes still affecting multiplayer.

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Project Zomboid is nearly finished; "final march" will introduce cars, stealth and NPCs

Project Zomboid has been shambling onwards in the public eye for nigh on four years now. Bits of it have fallen off in the process, but the game’s been sustained the whole time by an otherworldly undead force: the sheer strength of its central survival pitch.

The Indie Stone are now implementing endgame features like vehicles, stealth and NPCs - and shooting for a finished game in the first few months of 2015.

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Resident Evil: Revelations 2 to uncloak its secrets episodically from February 18

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To those of us not versed in the lore of Resident Evil, Barry Burton sounds like a TV entertainer under investigation by Operation Yewtree. But for players with first-hand memories of a ‘90s mansion with a snarling front door, he is the original BSAA investigator - now returned after the Racoon City incident to star in Revelations 2.

Or star across Revelations 2. The new Resident Evil will be episodic, released in weekly increments from the middle of February.

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Game of Thrones: Iron From Ice launch trailer features more Snow than snow

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Oh, crikey. I don’t know if you’ve seen our Fraser’s Game of Thrones: Iron From Ice review, but it’s not all winter sunshine and war of the roses. Apparently, Telltale have been overly cautious about laying the foundations for a new series and wound up with something much less compelling than Tales from the Borderlands.

Better have a look at the launch trailer, and decide for yourself whether you think Telltale will manage to scale The Wall and land more satisfying blows in future episodes.

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Trine 2 trailer highlights the best community maps

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Trine 2’s almost three years old but that’s not diminished the popularity of Frozenbyte’s co-op platformer. If anything, it’s grown.

Back in September, Frozenbyte released mapmaking tools for the community and in two months they’ve come up with some cracking creations.

Frozenbyte’s released a trailer showing off the best of them.

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Heroes of the Storm stimpacks let you buy experience boosts

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Soon after Heroes of the Storm’s next technical alpha patch you’ll be able to buy stimpacks from the game store. The stims double your experience gain and more than double the amount of gold you accrue in matches.

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The making of Watch_Dogs: money, manpower and Ubi Montreal

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Pick any two Ubisoft earnings calls from the past couple of years - they’re all public record - and you’ll notice a familiar refrain emerge. Every three months, the publisher’s investors would call on Yves Guillemot to slash Watch_Dogs’ R&D costs. And every three months, the mild-mannered but steely CEO would politely refuse.

Those R&D figures represented the cost of doing something new at the bonkers scale Ubisoft routinely work at. Between 2009 and 2014, Watch_Dogs wasn’t just about NPC manipulation - it was a hardcore numbers game.

Try 98 motion capture sessions with 64 cameras - at a rate of two working days a month for five years. Or two new consoles with 150-200 MB of memory - more than enough to dislodge the last generation’s cap on animations, and bring in ballooning team sizes and spiralling budgets to match.

And in the face of it all, Ubisoft Montreal. A Canadian studio with a headcount of over 3000 and the audacity to make the maths work.

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Hearthstone players rally together to get Blizzard's attention on shop and arena bug

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Bugs can be a frustrating issue in any game, and the community of Blizzard’s simplistic yet fun collectable card game, Hearthstone, know all too well. After a bug has locked unlucky players out of being able to use the in-game shop and arena mode, the community plan to band together in an effort to raise awareness to Blizzard to fix the issue.

With the help Hearthstone’s most popular streamers, the mighty goal is to send over one million tweets with the “#FixOurShop” hashtag, tonight.

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Evolve trailer shows big men with big guns fighting bigger monsters

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For a strictly multiplayer co-op shooter I didn’t figure Evolve to tell much of a story. The latest trailer aims to prove me wrong, there are people talking about how doomed the world is, there’s epic music with gravitas, and asses are mentioned (the Hollywood seal of approval).

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Steam is looking twitchy: the broadcasting beta starts today

Valve continues its march towards making Steam as social as possible today, while probably hoping to take a chunk or two out of Twitch. If you jump into a game on Steam, you’ll be able to start broadcasting your in-game shenanigans, with commentary, of course. 

You can check it out now, but you’ll need to opt into the Steam beta client first. 

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The doctor is in: Alien: Isolation's Trauma DLC launches today

So you’ve survived Sevastopl, and perhaps you’ve even survived the Nostromo as well, but you’re the slick, but Creative Assembly isn’t quite finished scaring the hair off your noggin. A new bit of Alien: Isolation DLC launches today, Trauma, putting you in the shoes of a new character, wandering around in three new survivor mode maps set before the main game. 

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London is calling in Assassin's Creed Victory

After the boundless freedom of the high seas, the rough and tumble life of a pirate, and the sounds of my ship mates as they sang their shanties, I couldn’t spend more than a few hours with Assassin’s Creed Unity. Black Flag whisked me away on a proper adventure, one that Ubisoft’s Parisian outing failed to improve upon.

Has the lukewarm reception to Unity lead to Ubisoft Montreal heading back to sea? Nope. Kotaku has spilled the beans on the next Assassin’s Creed game, thanks to a video leak, and we’re back in another capital city, this time London. Development duties have been passed to Ubisoft Quebec, so we'll get to see how another studio handles the core series. It's time for a fresh start. At least they’ll be able to reuse all of this English voice actors from Unity. 

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Hearthstone: Goblins vs Gnomes will fill the game with over 120 new cards next week

Hearthstone’s upcoming expansion, Goblins vs Gnomes, is less than a week away, Blizzard has announced. The diminutive residents of Azeroth will get their time in the spotlight on December 8th in America, Oceania and South East Asia, and the 9th for the rest of the world, where they’ll be transformed into a multitude of cards. 

The expansion adds over 120 new cards, from gnomish contraptions to the demon lord Mal’Ganis. Our Nick’s shown off the new cards, so check the list out. 

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Hollow Knight – Challenging & Mysterious 2D Adventure – Gets New Trailer

The Crew – Day-One Patch Detailed

Path of Exile – Upcoming Standard Challenge League “Torment” Showcased Via New Trailer

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Saurian Is A Dinosaur Simulator, Powered By Unity 3D, Gets Pre-Alpha Gameplay Teaser

December 4, 2014 John Papadopoulos 2 Comments

Now here is a really interesting project. Saurian has released a pre-alpha gameplay teaser for its upcoming dinosaur simulator, Saurian. Saurian is powered by the Unity 3D engine, and will be coming to the PC. And as the team noted, it will give the player the first true chance to live like a dinosaur. Continue reading →

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Battlefield: Hardline – Here Are 14 Minutes Of Gameplay Footage From Hotwire Multiplayer Mode

December 4, 2014 John Papadopoulos 5 Comments

YouTube’s ‘jackfrags’ has attended a Battlefield: Hardline event in San Francisco and captured 14 minutes of gameplay footage from the game’s Hotwire mode. The goal in Battlefield Hardline’s Hotwire mode is to get to the marked cars and drive fast. This MP mode is described as a ‘high speed chase on the streets of Battlefield.’ Enjoy! Continue reading →

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Rumor – More Hints That WWE 2K15 Is Coming To The PC

December 4, 2014 John Papadopoulos 2 Comments

While 2K Games has not revealed anything yet the rumored PC version of WWE 2K15, we got today some new information hinting towards such a release. According to Gamepressure – a division of GRY-OnLine S.A. leader in Polish entertainment vertical portals rankings – WWE 2K15 now targets an April 2015 release on the PC. Continue reading →

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Dying Light Will Support Oculus Rift, Season Pass Detailed

December 4, 2014 John Papadopoulos 2 Comments

Techland today announced the Season Pass for Dying Light, detailing the line-up of three content drops that will deliver completely fresh and unexpected experiences to the players in the quarantine zone. In addition, Dying Light’s lead designer Maciej Binkowski confirmed to PCGamesN that it will support Oculus Rift. Continue reading →

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Dead or Alive 5: Last Round Coming To Steam, Steam Logo Appears On Official Trailer

December 4, 2014 John Papadopoulos 6 Comments

It appears that Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is indeed coming to the PC. After the recent rumors surrounding a possible PC release, here comes an official trailer showing the Steam logo at its end that basically confirms them. Continue reading →

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Blood Bowl 2 Gets New Gameplay Trailer, Coming To The PC In Spring 2015

December 4, 2014 John Papadopoulos Leave a comment

Focus Home Interactive has released a new gameplay trailer for Blood Bowl 2, and announced that Cyanide’s title is scheduled for a Spring 2015 release on PC. In this new gameplay trailer, we get to see the various iconic teams from the Blood Bowl world throwing both punches and the ball in an effort to score touchdowns – or simply to cripple and maim the opposing teams. Continue reading →

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Denuvo: SSD Rumor Is False, No System Is Infallible, Striving To Be A Step Ahead Of Pirates

December 4, 2014 John Papadopoulos 5 Comments

Denuvo has contacted us about our previous article regarding its protection system/technology. As the team noted, its solution is not basically a DRM but rather a Anti-Tamper technology. Moreover, its solution is called  Denuvo Anti-Tamper and not just Denuvo (Denuvo is the name of the company itself). Continue reading →

Adopt Argi the alien goat in World of Warcraft, and help the American Red Cross

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You probably never realised that you wanted, no, needed an adorable alien goat in your life. You woke up every morning thinking your life was complete, never realising that there was a tiny, cute hole in your existence that could only be filled by a cloven-hoofed creature from another world, in another time. But now you do, and I bet it’s eating you up inside. 

Argi, the space goat, has been added to World of Warcraft’s roster of pets, and you can purchase the cuddly wee creature now for $10 or £9, yeah, we Brits are getting the short end of the stuck. But! Oh, it’s a big but. From now until December 31st, 100 percent of the “adoption” fee will be donated by Blizzard to the American Red Cross, and the charity will use the money to aid in ebola relief efforts in Africa. 

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GOG's Big Winter Sale won't let your wallet rest

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If Black Friday and the recent Steam sale haven’t left your wallet empty of anything but moths, then I’ve got good news. You’ll have another opportunity to pour a jug of money all over some games in the GOG Big Winter Sale, which kicks off tomorrow. 

And if you are flat broke, then don’t worry, because GOG’s also giving away 250,000 copies of Age of Wonders. 

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Super Wolfenstein HD is a brilliant, silly homage

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Super Wolfenstein HD is very silly. It’s Id’s classic shooter, reimagined with physics that range from surprisingly realistic, where enemies can be disarmed with a well-aimed knife toss or bullet, to delightfully wonky, with foes flailing around as they try to stand up after being knocked down, sometimes getting very amorous with walls. 

You can download the game jam created homage right now, for free. It’s an updated version with some kinks smoothed out, and you can watch me playing it for five minutes below. I killed many naughty Nazis. But also some dogs, which made me sad. 

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Team Fortress 2 Tomb Raider item contest (inevitably) puts the Heavy in short shorts

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Last month, Valve announced their Team Fortress 2 Tomb Raider contest for Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris - the first occasion on which tie-in items had been thrown open to the Workshop community to design.

At the time, Valve told potential creators that the only thing they didn’t want to see was the Heavy in short shorts. Many, many short short designs later, they’ve picked the best - alongside two other winners and three runners-up.

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Swamp Thing sprouts into Infinite Crisis

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The roster of DC heroes in comic book MOBA Infinite Crisis grows ever larger this month with the addition of Swamp Thing. Made famous by a phenomenal run of stories by Watchmen’s Alan Moore in the 1980s, Swamp Thing is a hulking giant formed of vegetation with a mighty fist but honorable nature. 

His inclusion in Infinite Crisis offers up a new hero with strong brawling abilities, and the voice of Star Trek’s Worf.

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Door Kickers promoted to version 1.03, perks include a new campaign

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SWAT simulator Door Kickers has received a promotion from developer KillHouse Games in the form of a shiny badge announcing its upgrade to version 1.03. The update comes with all the usual bug fixes that you’d expect, but also something much more interesting: a brand new campaign set out on a cruise liner.

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Another classic RPG resurrection may be on the cards at inXile

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Developer inXile has teased that it’s in the early stages of creating a new classic-style RPG. The studio has had solid success over the last year or so thanks to the boom in interest in old-style RPGs, with Wasteland 2 being critically admired and Torment spiritual successor Tides of Numenera picking up lots of cash on Kickstarter. But inXile’s new project involves an RPG that the studio’s fans have been demanding for some time 

Is inXile working on a new Bard’s Tale game? 

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Space Engineers may use player created content to help generate infinite space

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The developers at Keen Software House have come up with a plan to get their goal of infinite space in Space Engineers working. To add the thousands of new ships and stations required to populate the game world, Keen would have to put hundreds of designers to work, either producing ships from scratch or creating a software system that would randomly generate them. 

Or they could use the designs of the thousands of community members Space Engineers has accumulated. There are 50,000 of them sitting there on Steam Workshop, afterall.

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YouPorn eSports team revealed: Play2Win become Team YP

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YouPorn, creators and hosts of specialist gentlemen’s media, have revealed their Dota 2 team, Team YP.

Back in July, YouPorn announced they were looking for eSports team to sponsor and by the end of the month said they’d drafted a contract with a team. However, not a peep had been heard of them since.

Until yesterday.

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Runescape players donate $160,000 to charity

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Jagex opened Runescape’s Well of Goodwill throughout November, allowing players to donate bonds, coins and items to charity.

You might be thinking that charities have little use for the virtual pickaxes and piles of coal players were throwing into the Well, and you’d be right. However, the value of the items and coins thrown into the Well is converted into real money by Jagex.

Over 512 billion gold was donated in the month of November alone, raising $160,158 for the three selected charities.

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Wargaming.net dismiss eSports porn sponsorship: World of Tanks is "a family product"

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This weekend sees YouPorn’s Dota 2 team take part in its first tournament. It’s the first time a porn site has sponsored an eSports team. I recently spoke with Wargaming’s head of eSports in Europe, Nicolas Passemard, about the effect YouPorn’s sponsorship could have on eSports’ audience.

“When we see the audience coming to our events, a father with his son I find this personally really satisfying,” Passemard said. “I’m proud of it and I’d like it to stay like that. [... But] If we start adding YouPorn or whatever company which is very adult oriented then I expect the parents to be responsible enough not to bring their children.”

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zarx said: News Dead or Alive 5: Last Round Coming To Steam, Steam Logo Appears On Official Trailer

Great news! I hope that game works well with stereoscopic 3D.

DD in 3D! ;)