Full Glass Empty Clip

Kill Screen is the natural extension of a maturing games industry. Far from the sensationalist juvenilia that dots the web and more accessible than the lofty rhetoric and gamespeak of academics, we’re approaching a beloved medium on its own terms as fans and as critics.

-- Kill Screen Mag

Ludicrously expensive, but at least it’s aimed at thinking adults who also play games, and they may be right that the ‘premium product’ model is the way forward for print publications. [via]

The game is in the final stages now and we’re very happy with it, it’s got a ton of content and enough to please young and old. We’ll announce a release date shortly.

-- Martyn Brown

Interview with Team 17 about the upcoming Worms Reloaded. (Don’t forget to comment here for a chance to win one of three copies of the game…)

"The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game. This wasn't a game-specific mistake. Steam allows us to manage and reverse these erroneous bans (about 12,000 erroneous bans over two weeks)."

"We have reversed the ban, restoring your access to the game. In addition, we have given you a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 to give as a gift on Steam, plus a free copy for yourself if you didn't already own the game."

-- Gabe Newell, Valve President

Valve apologise for wrongfully banning innocent players of Modern Warfare 2 over the last week, which has been a major uproar in the forums. This is also the first time valve have admitted a problem with the valve anti-cheat system and the first time they have reversed account flags that stop people who have been accused of cheating from playing online.

"I’m lucky enough to be at a company that really values developer happiness, but there are some shops that view non-senior developers as disposable assets. They’ll work new employees until they burn out and then replace them with another fresh face who’s eager to prove themselves in the industry - working harder for less money. This is one of the reasons for the industry’s high burnout and turnover rates, and it means the developers that work their way up at these studios are either the most determined or the most stubborn – but not necessarily the most creative or the most fulfilled."

-- Fred Zeleny, narrative designer at Big huge Games

There’s an analysis article up at Gamasutra by Leigh Alexander looking at what’s rotten in the state of Gaming – peeling back the lid on an industry built around play, and finding problematic toxicity and unhappiness in the games business, from developers to media to the audience they both serve.

I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

-- Mike Morhaime--CEO & Cofounder, Blizzard Entertainment

The fact that this decision is being relayed by Mr. Morhaime of Blizzard and not Mr. Kotick of Activision is … verrrrrry interesting.

The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.

-- Blizzard Entertainment

It's no wonder that many of us often find solace in the high-concept games of the classical arcade era, that beautiful time in the 1980s when Pac-Man was god and Defender was thought to be too damn confusing. There is one game that towers above even those in my—admittedly minority—opinion: Robotron 2084.

-- Ars Technica

I could not agree more.

“...at some point, it may not make sense for us to have a subscription fee.”

-- Tom Chilton

Mr. Chilton thinks World of Warcraft’s market share may one day be cannibalized by another MMORPG.  Which one would that be?  World of Warcraft II?

"Hi Mr Jobs,

I love my new iPhone 4 (nice work) but when I put my hand on the steel bands I lose all reception. It appears to be a common issue. Any plans to fix this?

Thanks"

----

"Just avoid holding it in that way."

-- Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs responding to a user that discovered that the new iPhone 4 models lose all signal when held in the left hand.

"I would love to see us have an online Call of Duty world. I think our players would just have so much of a more compelling experience." He answers "hopefully" to their follow-up question of whether this is coming, and goes on to explain that their customers have been "clamoring" for the opportunity to pay a monthly fee for multiplayer support, as demonstrated by how much they play for free: "I think our audiences are clamoring for it. If you look at what they're playing on Xbox Live today, we've had 1.7 billion hours of multiplayer play on Live. I think we could do a lot more to really satisfy the interests of the customers. I think we could create so many things, and make the game even more fun to play. "

-- Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, in the Wall Street Journal

He went on to exclaim “I am so fucking high right now you couldn’t even believe it, man. I don’t even know where I am.”

In terms of revenue, Windows is far and away the largest gaming platform in the world, so it's an incredibly important part of Microsoft's business. From core games like "Fable III" to casual, social and Facebook titles, more gaming happens on Windows than anywhere else. Windows 7 is a world-class gaming platform, and you can bet Microsoft has a vested interest in using it as a platform for amazing first party content.

-- Microsoft

What’s that sound? Ah, yes, my bullshit detector going ah-woo-gah.

I asked Nintendo something that, though ridiculous, I know we've all wondered at some point: "Theoretically, could you ever imagine selling a Nintendo game in an app store—either Apple's or Google's." Their answer? No. From Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive VP of sales and marketing: "You know, I really can't. Our intellectual property like Mario like Zelda—those are just our crown jewels." While Nintendo could almost certainly fill the top 50 list of the App Store with their endless pile of IPs, their answer makes sense. Nintendo without proprietary hardware is not Nintendo.

-- Gizmodo