Halo Wars sold very well with 1 million units in the first month which is pretty good for any non Blizzard RTS TBH. But that was mostly off the Halo brand more than anything I imagine. Age of Empires III a year and a half after release had sold over 2 million units for comparison, tho it came out during a very low period in PC gaming sales. The high point of the series Age of Kings sold 2 million units in three months. Age of Mythology took 4 months to cross the million mark. Tho the PC games had very long legs.

And while I am looking at wikipedia other fun RTS sales facts. The fastest selling RTS of all time Starcraft 2 sold 1 million units day one, and over 3m in the first month. The best selling RTS of all time is still Starcraft with 11 million copies sold (that number may include sales of the expansion tho I am not sure). Worth noting that it is a subscription based game in Korea. Also Sega just released it's financial report and Rome 2 sold 1.13m copies as of March, which is within the 10% margin of error of Arstechnicas Steam sales 1.22m estimate. Ars also estimated that Age of Empires II HD had sold 1.16m copies.

I've seen it cheap in a couple of stores. I may give it a try.

Wargaming's US and European director reveals the key to free-to-play success on PC: patience

Victor Kislyi may be Wargaming’s CEO, but Frederic Menou oversees the largest domain in the company - North America, Europe, the Middle-East and Africa. He knows his stuff - and the stuff he’s made of, apparently, is patience. 

Menou says free-to-play developers need to allow a “certain amount of time before monetisation” if they have a hope of replicating World of Tanks’ success.

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Play a pop horticulture landmark: Plants vs Zombies is now free on Origin

It’s difficult to imagine that today might be somebody’s first date with Plants vs Zombies. The original game was first released on Steam in 2009, and on every device imaginable thereafter. It became a floral-flavoured competitive shooter in 2013, and was adapted for cinema by Robert Zemeckis in 2015 (though devotees tend to cite 2017’s Edgar Wright-directed horror-comedy PvZ as the definitive entry in the series).

Oh, sorry, somebody’s been messing with the site’s timestamps again. Ignore that last.

The news is this: EA and Origin have stepped out onto the lawn for their latest On The House giveaway - Plants vs Zombies: Game of the Year Edition.

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Gameranger is set to take the torch from GameSpy: “every one of these games can continue on”

GameSpy’s been keeping our games’ multiplayer alive since 1996 but on 31 May it’s shutting down for good. With it goes the server support for a great many games, making them unplayable online. Or, that would be the case if it weren’t for Scott Kevill, creator of Gameranger.

His software is filling the void left by GameSpy but it does more than just let you play Grid online or boot up a match for Star Wars BattleFront 2. It can actually make the games better.

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EA about-face on VR - acknowledge Oculus are "making strong progress"

The last time EA CEO Andrew Wilson talked about VR, he didn’t seem to know whether his company would end up partnering with Oculus or the manufacturers of “some hologram that evolves out of your living room floor”. But his shareholders wouldn’t drop the issue during EA’s earnings call this week.

While Wilson made clear that EA were still waiting on a solid install base before backing VR, it seems Facebook’s acquisition has the publishers “eager to see how the headset evolves”.

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What the Farming Simulator lot did next: Water Park Tycoon

Rollercoaster Tycoon 4 hasn’t happened the way we would’ve liked. Built for mobiles first, it’s going to be retroactively converted into a PC game via Steam Early Access - and we’re not entirely sure the operation’s going to be a success.

In the meantime, lesser-known alternatives have suddenly taken on an optimistic sheen. Step up to the diving board Water Park Tycoon, destined for UK release by the end of the month.

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Former Civ IV Lead On Strategy’s Future, Making Another Civ

Once upon a time, Soren Johnson was the main brain behind Civilization IV. Now he has a mohawk. An indie mohawk. Also, he’s making a game about managing a crazy intricate (yet disarmingly accessible) economy on Mars. Last time around we talked about how a Mars economy simulator even works, boardgames, and the current state of strategy gaming, and today we continue that discussion with the future of strategy (and its alleged “death”), MOBAs, the advantages and disadvantages of working at a company like Firaxis, whether or not Johnson will ever make a game on the scale of Civilization ever again, and why Johnson is *glad* that big publishers aren’t paying attention to strategy games. It’s all below. 

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player gets headshots with a wheel controller

There are a number of small ways you can humiliate your opponents in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. A classic move is to knife your enemy even when it would be wiser to shoot him with a silencer, just because you can. It’s a way of saying you’re confident enough you can take him to have a little fun with it, like challenging someone to a fight with one hand tied behind your back. Yesterday, the folks at GameMuscleVideos took this idea to an extreme degree by playing CS:GO with a wheel controller.

So the Steam page for Final Fantasy 3 is up, and SE really want you to know it has Steam Trading Cards

There is a new poll up incase you missed it

Magicka: Wizard Wars to cast spell of open beta on May 27th

Air out your wizard robe and hat, because you might find yourself needing them come May 27th. Paradox North’s spell-flinging multiplayer wizard battler, Magicka: Wizard Wars is getting close to open beta. 

Gibs will fly all over the place, most of them singed, as wizards beat the living crap out of each other in MOBA-style lane battles or close quarters arena bouts.

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Lords of the Fallen developer says that its inspirations are a lot more diverse than just Dark Souls

I don’t know much about Lords of the Fallen beyond the fact that you can’t mention it without someone saying it’s basically Dark Souls. It isn’t out and doesn’t have a release date, but folk certainly seem confident about making the comparison.

Executive Producer Tomasz Gop has been having a hard time dealing with the comparisons, though he’s trying to look on the bright side of things. There are certainly worse comparisons. 

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Why do developers love making games for PC?

We think the PC is pretty great. We love how many different niche interests it caters to, we love how thin the barrier between developers and their communities can be, and we love how many utterly fantastic harebrained games are out there. But you could argue that we’re a little biased, we’re a PC gaming website.

So, to make our case for us, we contacted developers who choose to make games for PC. And they replied in their droves.

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Goat Simulator dev on Piracy : “My first reaction was ‘Hooray! We’re top on Pirate Bay’”

“I don’t know if you’ve seen but, over on The Pirate Bay, Minecraft is the most popular pirated game and Goat Simulator is number two.”

“Yeah, it’s really hilarious,” says Anton Westbergh, CEO of Coffee Stains Studios, and programmer of Goat Simulator.

It’s not the reaction I was expecting.

“I think it’s kind of an achievement,” he continues. “My first reaction was ‘Hooray! We’re top on Pirate Bay. From the launch up till last week we’ve been in the top. I don’t know how many copies that is but heck of a lot of copies definitely.”

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Jogging Dead: Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 3 is due out on May 13th

The Walking Dead Season 2’s third episode, In Harm's Way, is shambling its way onto Steam next week. Tuesday, to be specific. That’s only four days away until Clem gets back to kicking ass and taking names. 

And it’s bloody awful timing for me, as I’ll be on a plane to foreign lands when it launches. To help you get over the fact that you will have to wait a couple of extra days to read my review, here’s the official launch trailer. 

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Carbine on WildStar: "We have the best damn MMO that you’re going to play this year"

WildStar devs, Carbine, are feeling pretty confident about their upcoming MMO. With it moving into open beta, Mike Donatelli, product director, Chad Moore, creative director, Stephen Frost, producer and voice of DevSpeak, and Matt Mocarski, development director jumped onto Twitch to discuss the state of the game. 

The gents had some big boasts to make, a spot of trash talking and oodles of confidence. Carbine’s uploaded part I, which you can check out below.

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Black Desert Online – New Trailer Shows 115 Places In 24 Minutes

@Poll: Just my 2cents but, do it the way you feel more comfortable and the way it makes you work less.

Also, I'm affraid that even the MSI 290 is too long for my case. My 5850 with its reference cooler is about 24cm long and I already have problems with it and its rear power connections, so with the Twin Frozr being about 27cm (even thought it has the power connector on the side) it would be almost impossible to make it fit.

So my options now are

1-Put the money on a safe place and buy one of the mid-tier 20nm cards whenever they launch.

2-Dial back a bit and go for a 280X or 760 card, which are shorter and would fit.

3-Spend more money buying one of those NAS boxes so I can put there some of my HDDs (p0rn takes a lot of space, you know ) so I can remove the top HDD cage and leave room for the GPU.

4-Spend even more money and  buy a new case and power supply (I can't reuse the one I have now) so no compromises are needed.

And the truth is that I don't like none of those options

20nm cards probably won't be arriving untill the end of 2015, start of 2016, so it's a long way off yet, but you need to ask yourself, can you live with a 6-7 year old GPU by the time you go and replace it?
The 280X is still very potent, but even that is 2 years old, what about two of them? You would give any 290/290X a run for it's money.

Hey Batman Arkham Origins is on sale for only $8.99!!
http://www.getgamesgo.com/product/batman-arkham-origins

It was 7.50 on the Humble store a few days ago

Nah, X-fire is not an option.

Not only because I am one of those that don't update the drivers everytime there are new ones available (I tend to be slighlty behind the curve to avoid driver related problems), but the root of this problem, my case, is an Antec P183 so even with the extra pair of front intake fans that it has, cooling is a bit limited and 2x280 *may* prove to be a bit too much for it.