Two stock market stories have captured the attention of the games industry in recent months - the weak post-IPO performance of Zynga, and the dramatic bellyflop of THQ, whose shares have lost 80 per cent of their value over the past 12 months. Against that backdrop, few people seem to have noticed what's happening to Electronic Arts' valuation - yet a quick glance at EA's performance reveals a worrying situation and suggests a tough time ahead for the company which used to be the industry's biggest third-party publisher.

Link to the source, check it out for the full article 

I can't be the only one, with work and life taking up a lot of time I have picked up games many times and never touched them. It’s shameful, it’s upsetting, and it’s a waste of money. But I still get a little excited when there is a new steam sale. This is one of my dirty secrets. Finally someone has actually put together a analysis program to take a look at your steam games and graph out how much you are playing them and most importantly, how many games have you never played. As you can see from my results, I really should just take the summer off and catch up. 

Take a look at the link below to check out your score as well, and then post them up here. I can't be the only one. Even then I wouldn't be shocked if I was the worst offender.  

http://www.lambentstew.com/webblog/miniproject/steamanalysis

If you are looking for a laugh this morning head on over to IGN, they posted up a whole collection of "Texts From Video Game Companies". To give you an idea of what to expect check this one out

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/20/texts-from-video-game-companies

Blizzard Community Manager Bashiok posted this tweet after initially poking a little fun at the two. They managed to power through with not only the stress of playing on the games hardest setting, but also in hardcore mode where if you die you never respawn again. On top of all of that they managed to do with while broadcasting both their faces and games to everyone. If you ask me, that's far to much stress to deal with! Congrats to them on their completion. For those of you who havn't completed the game yet, be careful going to our source link as it does have a few spoilers. 

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/20/world-first-diablo-3-hardcore-inferno-completion-confirmed-by-blizzard/

Over at the Valve blog late last week a new catagory and writer popped up. A guy by the name of Yanis Varoufakis has started a new blog called Valve Economics. After giving his introduction blob post a read I am excited to see what he will have to say in the future. Yanis is an academic economist and an author whom Gabe contacted and later hired to look at Valves in game economics. Specifically how things work when trying to combine multiple economys like DOTA 2 and TF2. It will be interesting to see how having him on board will effect things in the future. 

If you guys would like to read more, or follow what he has to say in the future you can check it out at the following link. 

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/category/economics/

Steam is planning hardware updates today. Because of that everyone can explace to see downtime at some point during the day. This means that a few people might actually see sunlight today as well. Here are all the details Valve provided. 

We'll be updating some of the Steam servers on Monday, June 18th, 2012 at approximately 15:00 PDT (GMT-0700) and we should be finished by 15:30 PDT.

We expect all users to be affected, but do not expect all users to be affected at the same time. Chat, game lobbies, and the community web site will be affected for a set of users for a portion of the maintenance. Some content downloads may be briefly interrupted. Game play should generally not be interrupted but may be impacted for some multi-player titles.

 

For those of you wanting to check out more about Dreamhack check out http://www.dreamhack.tv/. You can watch all of the events different streams. This is interesting for both people who enjoy LAN's as well as people who like watching e-sports. 

Most of you are aware but this weekend (and until tomorrow) is Dreamhack, the worlds largest LAN party. I came across an interesting page where you can track their live bandwidth usage. Everyone should take a peak at this. They are tracking a bunch of different variables. One that I find interesting is the breakdown comparing traffic between WoW, HoN, SC2, LoL, D3, and COD BLOPS. 

http://dashboard.dreamhack.se/

 I found this little tid bit of deleloper news to be interesting this morning. Activision is adding another developer to the list of teams working on Call of Duty games. As PC Gamer mentioned, I really hope they are brining on a team to work on redoing the series's engine as it is very overdue. 

"Working "in support" suggests they might be handling ongoing DLC content for an upcoming Call of Duty, in the same way that Sledgehammer are supporting Modern Warfare 3 with Call of Duty Elite content. Alternatively, they could be working on a new CoD title entirely, but will it have skateboards?"

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/15/tony-hawk-devs-working-on-call-of-duty/

I found this over on reddit, I found it interesting because I heard people make comments about her during the e3 press conference as well. 

Over at PCGAMER they pointed out that 4.7 million watched MLG Spring Championship, breaking records from previous events and showing that eSports are still growing. I myself , and I know Adam would agree, would love to see a high quality 24 hour stream of different esports. Something I could turn on at any point in the day and just watch without having to dig around to find out what is playing at that time or looking up previous events or games. 

 

eSports are exploding in popularity right now. While previous years have seen significant growth, the Anaheim event proves that eSports command a large and fast-growing audience. The year-end totals from MLG should be fascinating.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/14/mlg-spring-championship-posts-record-shattering-numbers-for-viewership/

Who's ready for some Super Monday Night Combat? It's ready for you. Download it now on Steam.

Wednesday is back again folks. After a week off after having the stomach flu on the way home from the LAN, I am ready to rock. We are having a special event on Friday afternoon. At 1pm EST I will be live on Twitch.tv streaming. Please tune in to get the big news. I still can’t say anything because of the NDA but it’s big and I think everyone will enjoy it. Microsoft Flight is now on the Steam store, Midweek Madness sales are here again, any Star Wars fans out there? The new Star Wars Xbox 360 bundle is out along with Star Wars Kinect and left field at the end. Grab your favorite webcam and let the streaming begin, Gaming News starts...NOW!

Welcome to Wednesday everyone! Only a couple more days till LanOC V10. Its right around the corner. Until then though we have Gaming News. Alan Wake received an update, Binary Domain is up for pre-order on Steam, two Midweek Madness games are on sale this week and a laundry basket full of news a the end. Strap yourselves in, Gaming News is a go.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/15/diablo-3-release-date-set-for-may-15/

Blizzard finally announced the launch date for Diablo 3 for those of you who have been waiting for years. May 15th is the day. Be sure to go ahead and put in for your vacation time now. Until then you can even pre-order on battle.net if you would like

https://eu.battle.net/account/activation/landing.html?product=D3

How’s everyone’s week going? Good I hope. Wednesday is here and that means Gaming News. This week, we have the Midweek Madness sale, Stacking is out on Steam, backlash on Metacritic over Mass Effect 3 and Left Field at the end. Get your F5 key ready, the iPad announcement is today but Gaming News starts now.

Sunnyvale, Calif. -- (March 1, 2012) -- KoramGame Ltd., a leading developer and publisher of free-to-play online games, announced today that the closed beta test phase for Spirit Tales, a cute 3D fantasyMMORPG developed by X-Legend, will launch on March 15. Players may register at the official Spirit Tales official Spirit Taleswebsite and the company has also partnered with several gaming websites to distribute beta keys with in-game prizes.

With an extensive character customization and progression system, as well as in-depth pet capture andtraining, Spirit Tales offers unlimited possibilities for players to interact with the world. Its unique horizonview adds a refreshing perspective on the vast and whimsical environment, drawing extra attention to characters channeling their Spirit Form ability.

"We want players to be immersed in the world of Spirit Tales," says Yann Wang, General Manager. "To that end, we integrated a wide range of customization options so that players can feel like their characters are truly one of a kind." 

In Spirit Tales, players will embark upon a journey across a colorful fantasy world, battling fierce creatures and capturing magical pets to call their own. Unlock a character's Spirit Form to unleash devastating attacks on monsters or opponents during exciting PvP (Player vs. Player) battles. With six unique character classes to choose from and over 40 million customization combinations, Spirit Tales is designed to offer players a high degree of in-game freedom and an "Epically Cute, Massively Fun" online gaming experience.

REGISTER NOW for Spirit Tales Closed Beta by visiting: Spirit Tales Closed Beta Registration

For updates and contest giveaways visit Spirit Tales on Facebook: Spirit Tales Facebook Page

Spirit Tales will be available in North America and Europe.

Welcome to the 29th of February everyone. That’s right, Leap Year! We get an extra day of gaming this year for being good, or something like that. First off is a small preview of Super Monday Night Combat Invitational since I can now talk about it, we have the Midweek Madness sale and news at the end. Get your game faces on. Gaming News is here.

Here’s your chance to show off your knowledge on all things Mass Effect. All you have to do is complete the five Mass Effect 3-based trivia questions for your chance to win. Just for participating, you’ll get access to an exclusive Mass Effect 3 digital asset. There’s a new one each week, so keep playing! Plus, you can win awesome prizes like graphics cards—or even a complete gaming rig. Make the right choice. Enter today and gear up for victory!

Week 1 is now over, but Week 2 just started!

Week 1 prizing: Zotac 560 Ti, 570 and 580 (1 winner each) Complete

Week 2 prizing: 3 GTX 570 (1 winner each)

Week 2 Grand Prize: A MAINGEAR gaming PC valued at over 3K!

Mass Effect 3 Trivia Sweepstakes Global Landing Page:

http://www.geforce.com/LandingPage/me3-sweeps

Mass Effect 3 Trivia Sweepstakes US Contest Page:

http://www.geforce.com/LandingPage/mass-effect-3-sweepstakes

Borderlands 2

I know many of you are Borderlands fans. Good news everyone. We have a launch trailer that came out today. Borderlands 2 anyone? Hopefully this will be just as good as the first. Can anyone say "MORE GUNS"?