Gaming - Page 2015

What may come as a surprise with few gamers, free porn video website YouPorn is interested to sponsor an e-sports team who are playing either League of Legends, DOTA 2 or Hearthstone.

League of Legends, DOTA 2 and Hearthstone are few of the games that are played on the professional level in many countries, with a large userbase of players, spectators, fans and even sponsors. The prize pool is also equally large. Hearthstone Blizzcon Tournament had a prize pool of $250,000. Valve's 'The International' DOTA 2 tournament reached a prize pool of a jaw-dropping $10.5 million. Many smaller events were held in many countries, both as either a city-wide or a national tournament held every year.

YouPorn recently posted a Twitter message (NSFW Warning) asking opinion about the website sponsoring an e-sports team. As one would expect, this attracted a lot of comments, including those who have been asking if YouPorn would be interested in sponsored an E-sports team for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and even for Starcraft 2 team.

Battlefield 4 fans, get your trigger fingers ready for the month-long event that is Battlefest. This event is geared for all BF4 gamers, getting them read for the launch of Battlefield 4's new DLC coming this week, Dragon's Teeth.

The new Dragon's Teeth expansion rolls out this week with five new weapons, a new unlockable gadget in the form of a Ballistic shield, a new game mode, 10 new assignments, and a new Battle pickup. Gamers can now also submit their in-game screenshots for a daily contest known as Battleshots. Battleshots will see a daily winner taking home an AMD Radeon GPU (!), a $50 gift card to the DICE store, and a Battlefield 4 Premium membership for the platform of their choice.

The goodies continue, with the daily contest not the only thing that BF4 gamers have access to, but gamers will also receive a free camo in-game unlock each week, and another double XP weekend early next month. Battlefest also includes weekly community missions and a stunt video competition where the top 12 submissions get selected by DICE for some truly great prizes. These prizes include the nine finalists receiving an AMD video card valued at $300, while the top three winners get voted by fans, each receiving an AMD-powered PC worth over $3,000.

PDXLAN 24 - TweakTown is on the ground in Portland, OR, for PDXLAN, one of the largest LAN parties on the west coast. A little background: PDXLAN started back when CRTs were still in vogue and the whole LAN was run off of a 1.5 DSL connection. Since then, the LAN has grown in size, and they have added more and more events throughout the year. PDXLAN 24 is currently taking place and runs from 6pm on July 11 to 6pm on July 14. We've been taking video during the event, but my MacBook Air isn't the most capable video editing machine, so video will be coming later this weekend.

We're going to take you through the start of the event until around midnight using pictures as pictures are worth a thousand words. So, with that introduction out of the way, let's get on to the fun stuff.

The LAN takes place in the Holiday Inn convention center next to Portland's airport (PDX), hence the name PDXLAN. As you can see, the LAN has yet to open to the general public, but setup has already been completed. Shortly, this cavernous room will be filled with heat-producing PCs and gamers hungry to frag and win prizes.

Christopher Butler has taken to Kickstarter to fund his own version of Half-Life 3, as "Valve seems set on not re-creating a Half-Life 3" but then he adds that he and his fellow developers are "looking to steal the market for this ourselves".

Butler was asking for just $2500 or so for the development of the game, as he has "a small team of 6 people including myself". Butler said on the Kickstarter page for Half-Life 3 that "we all have our own funds in order to keep ourselves paid for the duration of the project, the main ask for pledges is literally just to keep up to date with the latest software and maintenance in a project such as this".

Butler claimed to have worked for both EA and Valve in the last ten years, admitting that he hadn't approached Valve about making the game. He added that he hoped to have a playable alpha build of the game for backers to play within 10 months. Butler was quick to pull the project from Kickstarter, with it now all but gone.

Microsoft hasn't even had its Xbox One on the market for over 12 months yet, but that shouldn't stop you from thinking the company isn't thinking ahead for its true, proper next-gen console. The company is looking for a new Industrial Designer for its Xbox team.

The company has posted an ad looking for a new Industrial Designer, with their responsibility being: "The Xbox Industrial Design studio is building a world class in house team. We love entertainment. We live for building transformative entertainment experiences that resonate with consumers. We are looking for passionate designers who want to help us create next generation entertainment hardware for Microsoft".

I think we're going to see a new console from Microsoft much quicker than previously thought, something I hope replaces the Xbox One as a proper next-gen console capable of at a bare minimum, 4K at 60FPS. This will pave the way for Microsoft to allow VR headsets like the Oculus Rift to work with it, as VR requires serious horsepower. The Xbox One has seen most of its games rendered at 720p, with most of the frame rates on 'next-gen' games locked at, or around 30FPS. This isn't really any better than the Xbox 360, and if the Xbox One is going to be here for another five years or so, it's simply not good enough.

A young Chinese couple has sold their two sons to child traffickers, all so they could fund their gaming habits. The couple sold their two sons on two separate occasions, to fund the purchase of in-game items such as armor, and weapons.

During an interview with Guangdong TV from a local detention center, the couple said that their first child wasn't planned. The father, A Hui, said that he had no intention of financially supporting the child, so they sold him to Fujian-based child traffickers. His partner, A Mei, fell pregnant again, where he explained: "[A Hui] likes buying items in online games, and he likes staying out all night at internet cafes".

This meant that most of their finances were being funneled into A Hui's gaming life, so it meant the second child couldn't be supported. They then sold him to traffickers. The traffickers in China sell children to couples who want to be parents, street gangs and street peddlers, and even to orphanages where they put them up for adoption overseas. A Hui's father was aware of what was going on, and in the end reported the couple to the police. The two were arrested, and are now awaiting trial and sentencing for the crime of selling children.

During Nintendo's annual investors Q&A, one investor admitted that he did not understand video games. Considering he owns shares in one of the most beloved video game companies in the world, it's quite strange to hear.

Here's what the investor said: "I do not understand video games and I even feel angry because, at Nintendo's shareholders' meetings, the shareholders always discuss things relating to video games or such childish topics as "what the future of video games should be," while I, for one, was flabbergasted that Mr. Iwata continues to hold his position although he had said that he would resign if the company's performance were bad".

"I hope that Nintendo's shareholders' meeting will become an opportunity where the shareholders discuss the company's business operations from the viewpoints of capital gain and dividends", the investor added. But don't worry, Nintendo executives were quick to fire back, with Genyo Takeda and Tatsumi Kimishima replying.

CliffyB, of Epic Games fame, has just announced he has formed a new game studio, Boss Key Productions. CliffyB has teamed up with Arjan Brussee, a former EA employee and Guerrilla Games co-founder.

Boss Key Productions' CEO is CliffyB, while the Brussee sits in the position of COO. Before Brussee founded Guerrilla Games, he was helping Bleszinski on co-developing the infamous Jazz Jackrabbit series. At the moment, Brussee's LinkedIn says he's working as an Executive Producer at Visceral Games, the studio that is working on Battlefield: Hardline.

Just what will Boss Key Productions be offering gamers? Well, according to a document filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Boss Key's goods and services will be "downloadable multi-player interactive computer game programs; computer and video game software; downloadable computer and video game software; downloadable electronic games via the Internet and wireless devices; downloadable computer application software in the field of games; interactive computer and video game programs".

QuakeCon 2014 is nearly here, but now we can start forming a plan of action thanks to Bethesda Softworks unveiling the schedule of events for the convention. The biggest part should be the reveal of Doom 4, id Software's next-gen Doom title.

The Doom 4 reveal will happen during the annual QuakeCon welcome ceremony, which kicks off at 6PM CT on Thursday, July 17, at the Ventrilo Main Stage. Bethesda has also said that this presentation will be exclusive to QuakeCon 2014 attendees, so we unfortunately won't see that footage. Other events that will take place during QuakeCon's first day include tournaments for The Elder Scrolls Online.

On Saturday, July 19, there is a "Designing the Perfect Game" panel that will see Obsidian Entertainment's CEO, Feargus Urquhart take the stage, former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, and others. This will be livestreamed over Twitch, running from 5-6PM. The full schedule can be found over on the Bethblog.

Before Ubisoft has even released Assassin's Creed: Unity, the company is teasing that its Quebec-based office is the lead studio on "a future Assassin's Creed" game. This breaks the norm of Ubisoft Montreal being the lead developer on the game.

Ubisoft Quebec Managing Director Nicolas Rioux talked about the history of Assassin's Creed with his studio, where he said: "We were involved in Brotherhood. We were involved in Revelations. We were involved in Assassin's Creed 3. With AC 3 we were working on the biggest DLC for the franchise - The Tyranny of King Washington. After that we were also involved with Freedom Cry. We have the confidence of the brand team and also from Ubisoft to take leadership of an upcoming Assassin's Creed title. The team is ready for the next big step".

One of the driving reasons behind the "future Assassin's Creed" game being developed at Ubisoft Quebec could be that the company is using $4 million of a $28 million investment to create a new workspace. From this new workspace, three entire floors will be dedicated to AAA game development. The city of Quebec is chipping in $500,000 to the studio, too. Ubisoft Quebec hires 350 people right now, with a goal of hiring a total of 425 before the end of 2017.