UgLyPuNk writes "A few hours ago, Garry Newman – the creator of Garry's Mod – asked, quite innocently, whether anyone was unable to shade polygon normals. He received a few comments, mostly jokes, but a quick look at Google suggests that there are indeed a few people who are experiencing problems with their game. You can hear Newman's chuckling from here — not the normal response to a wide-spread bug report, but this is no normal bug. It seems that the developer has deliberately enabled an error in GMod, which will only affect people who have pirated the game."

supersloshy writes "The team behind last December's successful Humble Indie Bundle 2 (as well as the original Bundle of course) have launched yet another bundle, but this time it's comprised entirely of games by developer Frozenbyte, including Trine, Shadowgrounds, Shadowgrounds: Survivor, a pre-order of Splot, and the prototype Jack Claw (with source code). All games (except Jack Claw) are, as always, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux-based operating systems and are DRM-free."

An opinion piece at Rock, Paper, Shotgun questions whether the way we classify video games limits creativity and innovation in game development. "If the next Modern Warfare introduced dramatically different themes, there would be uproar. Sure, set it on the moon, but make sure I’m a grunt following the NPCs who get to play the game, or I’ll swear at you on the internet." The author suggests that the rise of casual games may in part be attributable to their creators' willingness to break with established themes and blend together different types of play. "There's huge risk to blurring. It makes the game more difficult to market, it defies customers’ expectations, and it requires educating the public. It’s safe to make yet another COD clone, because we all know them and what they do. And they're what we want! But like the child who's never tried a new food, refusing to eat it because it's different leads to a very limited and dull palate."

RedEaredSlider writes "The hacker who settled with Sony after the company sued him for modifying his PlayStation 3 console is getting a lot of flak for not taking the fight further. 'Night Breed' [wrote], 'So basically you settled for a job and took people's money, giving them a false hope of settling for their rights? What do you plan to do with the money that was donated to you to provide a cushion for the legal battle? I hope you will be paying all those people back since you obviously didn't live up to your word.'"

donniebaseball23 writes "Video game composers have been fighting for equal recognition at the Grammy Awards, and they've just taken another step in the right direction, as The Recording Academy has added video games to the descriptors of four awards, giving them equal billing with film and television. 'I think this could be viewed as a first step in the direction of video games getting their own category,' said the Recording Academy's Bill Freimuth."

arcticstoat writes "Independent retro games retailer Good Old Games has spoken out about digital rights management, saying that it can actually drive gamers to piracy, rather than acting as a deterrent. In an interview, a spokesperson for Good Old Games said that the effectiveness of DRM as a piracy-deterrent was 'None, or close to none.' 'What I will say isn't popular in the gaming industry,' says Kukawski, 'but in my opinion DRM drives people to pirate games rather than prevent them from doing that. Would you rather spend $50 on a game that requires installing malware on your system, or to stay online all the time and crashes every time the connection goes down, or would you rather download a cracked version without all that hassle?'"

matt_gaia writes "According to Sony Computer Entertainment America, they have reached a settlement with GeoHot (George Hotz), where Hotz has consented to a permanent injunction, but still denies any wrong-doing in the whole affair. Sony said, 'Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal.'" I wonder if Anonymous will proceed with their anti-Sony campaign.

The Guardian's Games blog reports on a survey from Google's Admob, which found that more people use tablets for gaming than for any other purpose, even viewing news or email. Quoting: "According to the survey (PDF), 84% of tablet owners play games, ahead of even searching for information (78%), emailing (74%) and reading the news (61%). 56% of tablet owners use social networking services on their device, while 51% consume music and/or videos, and 46% read ebooks. ... The survey found that 38% of respondents spend more than two hours a day using their tablets, while another 30% spend 1-2 hours. It appears that tablets are predominantly domestic devices, with 82% of people primarily using their tablets at home, versus 11% who say they are used primarily on the go, and 7% who said at work. 28% of respondents say their tablet is now their primary computer, while 43% say they spend more time using their tablet than they do their desktop or laptop computer."

Eurogamer has done an extensive evaluation of Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play device, a smartphone that's also a dedicated gaming platform complete with controller-style buttons. Here's some of what they had to say: "On the subject of internal parts, gadget fiends are certain to feel aggrieved by the lack of a dual-core processor. Although the Xperia Play's 1GHz CPU performs admirably in general tasks, it lacks the future-proofing of a more advanced chip. ... The negativity quickly dissipates once you slide open those glorious PlayStation-style controls, however. Although we've seen gaming interfaces on mobiles before (on the N-Gage and the under-appreciated Sagem MyG-5), they pale into insignificance next to what's presented here. ... One aspect of the Xperia Play's gaming portfolio that so far hasn't been bellowed from the rooftops by Sony Ericsson's PR is emulation. Such reluctance is perfectly understandable, given the shady nature of ROM-sharing and the like. ... However, the fact remains that retro gaming emulators are freely available on the Android Market, and they open up an entire world of gaming brilliance."

brumgrunt writes "A British paper is claiming that the Nintendo 3DS poses some kind of health risk. The claim sounds interesting, until you see how that conclusion was reached. 'On the 6th of April, the paper conducted a scientific experiment in which a 22-year-old member of the staff had his blood pressure and pulse taken after playing the 3DS in different situations – at rest, while walking, or while taking a ride in a car. The Sun came to the startling conclusion that the man’s pulse and blood pressure were higher while walking than while sitting down, yet concluded, apropos of nothing, “Children should not be left to play on it for hours.” The article neglects to point out that a raised blood pressure and pulse is perfectly normal, and you’re as likely to experience such a physical response while walking and reading a book as you are when playing the 3DS.'" Pocket Gamer posted a humorous follow-up, using the Sun's own methods against it.

tekgoblin writes "Minecraft has currently sold about 2 million copies and it's still only in beta. However, the developers have just announced that the game will officially launch on 11/11/11. The date 11/11/11 was actually chosen because it falls on the same date as other various game releases, the most notable being Skyrim."

coondoggie writes "If you have ever wanted to go torpedo-to-torpedo with a submariner, now is your chance. The crowdsource-minded folks at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency rolled out an online game that lets players try to catch elusive, quiet enemy submarines. According to DARPA the Sonalysts Combat Simulations Dangerous Waters software was written to simulate actual evasion techniques used by submarines, challenging each player to track them successfully."

A speculative piece at Kotaku looks at the release cycle of Nintendo games over the past 10 years, pointing out a current lull that's quite similar to the one near the launch of the Gamecube. They suggest this could be because first-party developers are busily working on games for the Wii 2. Quoting: "The spring of 2002 was the longest Nintendo game drought on record, and has a number of characteristics in common with the season we're entering now. Nintendo has launched a major piece of technology (the 3DS) and is initiating the gradual retirement of a console with a large and reliable installed base. While we entered into this data mining project with the presumption that we could recognize a pattern that presaged a new console release—the Wii 2, obviously—the last time there was a Nintendo game drought this pronounced was after the release of the Gamecube. Still, you can neatly overlay the release history of the Gamecube overtop the current release history of the Wii—they match that closely."

itwbennett writes "GameStop has been on a roll lately, purchasing both Impulse and Spawn Labs in the past week. Now it's ready to go after those casual gaming dollars, but first it needs to put a gaming tablet in your hands. GameStop President Tony Bartel told CNBC that his chain is going to start selling tablets later this year: 'If we can work with our partners and the OEMs and they come up with a great tablet that is enabled with a great gaming experience and coupled with a bluetooth controller, then there's no need to go out and develop our own. But if we can't find one that's great for gaming, then we will create our own.'"

Speaking with Edge magazine, Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford lamented the tendency of game publishers to force multiplayer modes into games that don't need them. Quoting: "Pitchford points to the likes of Dead Space 2 as evidence that decisions are often motivated by the desire to tick boxes on a feature list, rather than for the good of the game itself. 'Let’s forget about what the actual promise of a game is and whether it’s suited to a narrative or competitive experience,' he tells us. 'Take that off the table for a minute and just think about the concept-free feature list: campaign, co-op, how many players? How many guns? How long is the campaign? 'When you boil it down to that, you take the ability to make good decisions out of the picture. And the reason they do it is because they notice that the biggest blockbusters offer a little bit for every kind of consumer. You have people that want co-op and competitive, and players who want to immerse themselves in deep fiction. But the concept has to speak to that automatically; it can’t be forced. That’s the problem.'"

RedEaredSlider writes "Sony's upcoming portable gaming console, code named NGP, may be latest victim of the ongoing crisis afflicting Japan. Sony America president Jack Tretton told Bloomberg that Sony may stagger the global release of its next portable as the company is hit with disruptions to its production cycle."

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft seems to be turning a blind eye to the Xbox Live Indie game area. Certain indie developers have found a way to abuse the independent game ranking system in order to down-vote popular indie titles while up-voting their own. Due to this, games are falling out of the valuable top 20 slot and the value of the ranking system is jeopardized."

Daetrin writes "It was announced Thursday that Stardock has sold Impulse, the digital game store, to GameStop. Stardock founder Brad Wardell gave an interview to Joystiq talking about the sale and the reasons behind it. GameStop also announced their acquisition of SpawnLabs, a game streaming company. It seems that GameStop is looking to challenge Steam, or at least avoid being cut out of the digital distribution business entirely."

donniebaseball23 writes "Although there's yet to be a study that conclusively proves a direct causal relationship between video game violence and real-life violence, psychologists are continuing to examine the effect violent media can have on children. A new study in the Journal of Children and Media notes that violent video game exposure can actually hinder a child's moral development. 'Certainly not every child who continues to play violent video games is going to go out and perpetrate a violent act, but the research suggests that children — particularly boys — who are frequently exposed to these violent games are absorbing a sanitized message of "no consequences for violence" from this play behavior,' said Professor Edward T. Vieira Jr."

tlhIngan writes "Google has apparently pulled an Apple and pulled PSX4Droid (a PlayStation emulator) from the Marketplace, citing 'policy violations' for it reason. It's believed that Sony's Xperia Play (aka Playstation Phone) release was behind the move. Strangely, FPSE is still on the Marketplace."