Interesting info was posted on reddit today, according to one of the users he got banned by Mike Blaszczak (Valve employee) on the official Steam Forums for a suggestion he made towards his behavior on the forums, here’s the full story:

I’ll try to keep this as short as possible. Someone posted a thread in the Steam forums asking for help with an issue related to a game they had bought, asking for a response from Valve.

As it happens, and as everyone knows, Valve only responds to these problems in the form of support tickets.

Nevertheless, Valve employee MikeBlaszczak responded with absolutely no information, but moved the thread to the General Steam Forum.. without even mentioning that the proper way to handle the problem is a support ticket.

When the thread got moved, I mentioned that the only way it would get taken care of was through a support ticket. And, I did make a remark about how the Valve employee should have mentioned as much.

What I didn’t expect was that I would get my post deleted and an instant -2 point infraction from Mr. Ballsack for stating such a thing.

I admit, I was a bit annoyed after that, and I made another reply pretty much restating what I had said before.. that the only way they will find help is if they submit a ticket. And I did restate my surprise that the official valve employee response (which is quite a rare thing on those forums) failed to mention the actual helpful solution.

Bam.

Banned.

Am I right or wrong in wanting to stand up for this? I think this is the very definition of unfair treatment no matter how you look at it, but at this point it seems like I have no choice but to let it go.

What would you do?

Well if the story is real, that’s some bullshit behavior right there. Anyway, stay tuned for more giveaways today on our Steam group!

Some guy owns this Jeep and he decided to lend it to TellTale Games for the promotion of their new, Jurassic Park theme game.

Here’s the story:

“Earlier this summer I was contacted by a representative from TellTale Games.They informed me that they were developing a Jurassic Park adventure title for multiple platforms and were looking for a JP Jeep that they could use in a promotional booth at a Seattle gaming convention called PAX in August.

Last year they had produced a Back to the Future game and used the DeLorean that belongs to a acquaintance of mine. As I was unsure how to respond, I contacted my DeLorean owner friend and asked him what kind of deal they approached him with. He said he asked TellTale for insured, enclosed transport -both ways- for his car, airfare, hotel, con passes, and daily per diem. He also received several grand from them for the use of the car alone.

So I was all like "That sounds terrific! If you provide enclosed, insured shipping both ways, airfare, badges for the con, hotel, and per diem then you’ve got yourself a deal!"

They were pretty appreciative of me providing the Jeep to them for free, so they booked transport for my Jeep and we were on our way.

The morning of the pickup I walked aaaaaaall the way around my Jeep and took quite a few pictures of the condition I gave it to them in. Like these:

Then I was off to meet the enclosed transport! Except the transport showed up and was NOT enclosed! I could have been a dick and said, "No dice, friends" and not given them the Jeep. But unfortunately I’m not a dick.

The Jeep goes on it’s way and I fly out a week later. The Jeep was delivered that morning and signed for by one TellTale’s employees, a self-professed "person who doesn’t know anything about cars and in fact does not even own a car!"

Here’s what I saw during my walkaround:

After the walkaround, and before the convention, I talk to the guys at TellTale, among them Kevin Bruner, the company’s CEO. I tell them, "Look I could be "that guy" and throw a fit, threatening to take my Jeep out of here tonight unless you cut me a check right now, but I know this is a huge fuckinging weekend for you guys, that you need to promote your game and you’ve gone a ton of shit to worry about. So, we can but this on a back burner until the expo is over, but I’d like your word that you’ll take care of this immediately afterwards." They were pretty appreciative, and even though I received no per diem or additional badges, I decided to not be a dick about things.

Then the Jeep came home, I didn’t hear from TellTale. A week later I reached out to them, and it was a few more days before they got back to me, telling me that I’d have to file a claim with the auto transport company (Advance Car Carrier Corp.). I told them that I did not arrange for the transportation, and that I should not have to be the middleman. They insist that they are not responsible for the damage in any way, and that only the car owner can file a claim.

So I send all my claim information (scanned receipts and delivery invoices, before and after photos) to the car carrier, and they reply with:

"We have completed our assessment of the above loss and have determined that this is not car carrier damage. After carefully reviewing the damage pictures that you have sent to us, we found that all the damages was noted on the Bill of Lading before transporting your vehicle. Also please note that vehicle was inspected in rain and possible that not all the damages were visible. For that reason the box, where it says that vehicle going ASIS was marked.

Enclosed with this letter is a copy of the Bill of Lading signed by "xxxx" on August 30, 2011 in where was noted that vehicle had pre-existing damages before transporting from WA to CO."

Now, the damage was done on the way TO Seattle, not FROM. And here’s a photo of it "raining" while they loaded up my Jeep. [12] http://i.imgur.com/IQLaK.jpg 
Sure is hard to see stuff with all that rain!

So TellTale hired the sketchiest-possible carrier company, and then one of TellTale’s employees(who admitted she doesn’t know the first thing about cars) signed the bill of lading upon delivery without inspecting the Jeep for damage, thereby releasing the car carrier from responsibility.

I’m disputing their decision, but I have the sinking feeling that I am going to be one of those cases that is just ignored until I go away. Bullshit man.

I guess my lesson is "next time get stuff in writing and be a big dick about everything."

I haven’t heard from TellTale in months regarding this issue, it seems to be resolved as far as they are concerned. Now, the Jurassic Park game is set to be launched this week. I don’t really know if there’s anything I can do, but it seems like if there was ever a time for visibility on this problem, it’s now.”

So if you’re touched by the story and feel like talking to TellTale Games you can do it here:

http://www.facebook.com/telltalegames

and here:

pr@telltalegames.com

Source: reddit

Update: TellTale Games replied http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/mceic/about_that_jurassic_park_jeep/

“Kevin Bruner from Telltale here. Today there has been quite the buzz about how Telltale reportedly damaged the Jurassic Park Jeep lent to us at PAX. Telltale has in fact been in regular contact with the owner of the Jeep and the last we heard, he was in the process of completing an insurance claim.

The Jeep was damaged on the way to Seattle, before anyone from Telltale every saw or touched it. Telltale used the shipping company that the owner asked us to use. When it arrived we just saw an awesome, well loved, but also well used, Jeep. We had no way of knowing that anything had happened to the Jeep in transport, as it appeared in reasonable condition. Anyone who came by the show and took a picture with the Jeep can attest that the Jeep looked pretty damn cool, and not obviously damaged.

The fact that the Jeep was damaged before we had access to it, and some dispute over the amount of damage caused in transport vs. existing damage has complicated the claim, which has made the process take a long time.

But, today I wake up to find that there is a campaign the day before our game launch to discredit Telltale. Since Telltale didn’t actually do anything negligent, we’ve been using the insurance we purchased to cover this, but it has been time consuming. Apparently too time consuming. To expedite this, I’ll be writing a personal check to cover what we understand the damages to be – this way we won’t need to hash this out publicly any longer.

Some people seem to think that Telltale has grown into some giant corporation that doesn’t care about people anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth. We started the company to make games that are about writing, acting and atmosphere and not about blowing shit up. Since we’ve gone out on this limb, we’ve had some successes (and failures) and earned the chance to work with great licenses like Monkey Island, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park and Walking Dead. All of our games are super faithful to the licenses, and lovingly crafted to make the best fan experience possible. Fans seem to enjoy them, which makes us super proud. We hate that most licensed games are a driver or a shooter with a license slapped on it, which we’ve never been about.

So I’ll fast track getting the Jeep fixed by paying for it personally, even though I don’t like the circumstances this is going down in. Perhaps some of you who are hating on Telltale might be inclined to check out Jurassic Park tomorrow and give us a chance to change your mind.”

From now on we’ll keep on posting every bad EA thing we find. This sums it up pretty well:

Source: Reddit and original image.

According to a survey distributed to 1,000 videogame industry professionals, the iPhone has shaped videogames more than any other device or console, and Steve Jobs has shaped videogames more than any other human. The questionnaire was sent out to industry attendees of the London Games Conference, and asked participants to make a top five list of various professionals and hardware. Based on the answers received, the LGS ranked them according to the number of mentions.

The iPhone took top honors in the "products" category, earning an impressive 53% of voters claiming it belongs in the top five of all time, and 17% as number one. The full results were as follows:

• iPhone: 17%
• Wii: 7%
• Xbox Live: 3%
• PlayStation One: 3%
• Steam: 2%

As for people, Apple also took the throne, with Steve Jobs being mentioned in the top five list of 46% of survey takers, and as number one by 26%. Here’s how he stacked up against other industry giants:

• Steve Jobs 26%
• Gabe Newell 16%
• Shigeru Miyamoto 7%
• Tim Berners-Lee 4%
• Mark Zuckerberg 3%

Fuck everything about this.

Source: The Escapist

Source: reddit

It’s already known that Origin will be required to play Battlefield 3 on the PC, and at first, it seemed like just another digital download service, however, some might find it disturbing that, according to the Origin EULA, EA collects information about your computer, the software installed on it, its hardware, not only to “improve the service”, but they can also pass on this data to third parties, as the document states:

EA may also use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve our products and services. We may also share that data with our third party service providers in a form that does not personally identify you.

The last part, “in a form that does not personally identify you”, is a relief, but it’s scary to know that Origin will be collecting all sorts of information from your system, including your IP address and other, non-EA software that you have installed on your PC. You can read the full Origin EULA here.

It gets scarier. Another EA EULA, which covers EA Online and EA account privacy (which is requited to play Battlefield 3), has even more concerning legal speak. The scary part of the EULA, as pointed out by a user on The Escapist Forums:

When you use EA online and mobile products and services or you play our games on your PC or console, we may collect certain non-personal demographic information including gender, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, media, mobile device, mobile device ID, console ID, incident data, Internet Protocol (IP) address, network Media Access Control (MAC) address and connection. We also collect other non-personal information such as feature usage, game play statistics and scores, user rankings and click paths.

Since Battlefield 3 and all other EA Online games fall under this category, it gives EA the right to collect vast amounts of data on players, and to make matters worse, the beginning of the document states that you waive all your rights to be protected by law. Worse, EA reserves the right to share all of this information with any third party, including law enforcement agencies.

We’re not sure if this is common among other publishers in their license agreements (like Valve’s Steam service), but it definitely seems like EA is taking it too far, if not breaking the law. If you wish to read the EA Online EULA, you can find it here.

What the fuck world?

Source: bf3blog.com

PS here’s a real difference between PC and PS3 version (I had a chance to play both):

If I’ll ever hear some jackass from Sony saying that PS3 is still a powerful piece of hardware I will fucking punch my screen.

And before you comment on that read the whole thread.

Source: official Red Orchestra 2 forums.

At the moment everyone who already has the game knows that this is 100% bullshit, the game is almost completly unplayable, it crashes for many people and works like shit (just Google/look on Red Orchestra 2 forums for FPS drops, stability problems and “rogame.exe not responding”). I have no idea what happened, I thought a great developer like TripWire Interactive wouldn’t fuck this up but unfortunately they did. The game doesn’t even look like on the video above and it runs a lot worse even on very powerful rigs.

Here are some random shots (Medium mixed with Ultra settings):

How did they fuck up such a great engine like Unreal Engine 3.0+ it’s beyond me, most of the games on it work amazingly good even on consoles – Borderlands, Bulletstorm, Batman Arkham Asylum, Gears of War series and many more. So right now all we can do is wait…for another patch…

Oh and here’s a video from March 2011, look how drastically the game changed (looks a lot more like what we have today but the GUI is still better):

Fortunately it applies currently only to Nintendo 3DS game Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D.

Read more here:

Buying used video games is great for gamers who don’t want to pay full price for the latest hits. You know who doesn’t like used video games? Game publishers. In a very sad twist, Capcom’s fighting back against the second-hand game market with a game that can only support one save file — for life.

It’s been confirmed that Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D for the Nintendo 3DS is a game that once finished, cannot be reset for complete replay. According to both the U.S. and U.K. game’s instruction manual “saved data on this software cannot be reset.”

Basically what Capcom has done is make Mercenaries 3D a one-time play affair. Once you’ve unlocked all the goodies and played the entire game, you will not be able to erase the game’s save data and start fresh as if it were a new copy. Consider this: lending Mercenaries 3D to a friend, a little brother or sister will be worthless because they’ll only be able to continue playing the game with your saved settings and create their own.

While it can be argued that used video game sales are actually more damaging than piracy, it’s still a lowball move for Capcom to make, especially with a franchise as large and significant as the Resident Evil series. Will other publishers follow in Capcom’s footsteps to take a stand against the lucrative market of used video games? We really hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.

Source: Dvice

Source

Source: reddit

As most of you know, EA recently announced an exclusive DLC for preordering BF3. If you don’t purchase the pre-order or limited edition version of BF3, you will have to pay extra for the Karkand Expansion Pack. Karkand Expansion Pack is some guns and ammunition, which will create an unfair advantage people who pre-order. As well, charging people extra to play maps available on day one.

This was a decision made by EA, and not DICE. DICE and all of us need your help to get EA to wake up and change their decision. Please remember to be POLITE in these emails. A bunch of spamming telling them what dumb asses they are probably wont help much. This already happened once – a boycott called by Sarcastic Gamer against BFBC1, that eventually caused EA to change their mind.

The point is that we don’t want paid DLC that is going to split the community into groups of who does or does not have that DLC. You obviously can’t join a server if its running a map you don’t have. Bad Company 2 gave all its users the DLC for free. Now, I can see EAs reasoning about it from a console stand point (So that they still make a little money off of used games), but there is absolutely no reason for this on the PC. Obviously, you can’t buy used PC games. EA, if you won’t do this for everyone at LEAST do it for the PC community.

Official Twitter/Facebook pages:

EA Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ea

BF3 Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/battlefield

EA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EA

BF3 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/battlefield

Important EA emails:

• John Riccitiello (CEO) – jriccitiello@ea.com
• Eric Brown (Exec VP, CFO) – ebrown@ea.com
• John Pleasants (COO) – jpleasants@ea.com
• John Schappert – jschappert@ea.com Chief Operating Officer
• Leonard S. Coleman – lcoleman@ea.com Director
• Jeff Huber – jhuber@ea.com Director
• Gary M. Kusin – gkusin@ea.com Director
• Barker, Ken – kbarker@ea.com Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer
• Geraldine Laybourne – glaybourne@ea.com Director
• Gregory B. Maffei – gmaffei@ea.com Director
• Vivek Paul – pvivek@ea.com Director
• Lawrence F. Probst III – lprobst@ea.com Chairman of the Board
• Richard A. Simonson – rsimonson@ea.com Lead Director
• Linda J. Srere – lsrere@ea.com Director

Copy and paste this to your "send to" bar to save time: jriccitiello@ea.com,ebrown@ea.com,jpleasants@ea.com,jschappert@ea.com,lcoleman@ea.com,jhuber@ea.com,gkusin@ea.com,

kbarker@ea.com,glaybourne@ea.com,gmaffei@ea.com,pvivek@ea.com,lprobst@ea.com,rsimonson@ea.com,lsrere@ea.com

Phone numbers for EA Games:

650-628-1500 – Redwood City

310-754-7000 – Los Angeles

EA support page: click

Link to original post on BF3 website: http://www.battlefield.com/uk/battlefield3/blog/battlefield-3-limited-edition-physical-warfare-pack-available

Link to the poll on EA forums: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/6801802.page

If ANYBODY gets a reply from EA, let us know what was said.

Big sites talking about it:

• Rock, Paper, Shotgun
• Kotaku
• Ars Technica
• Forbes
• Destructoid

Source of the whole thing Reddit.

Presenting – Ubisoft week – every day one special deal, and all Ubisoft games 33% off (excluding IL-2 Sturmovik Cliffs f Dover and Assassins Creed Brotherhood). Ubisoft is known as evil DRM distributor, so beware :) And also known with very bad geo-restricted pricings, be very careful and read the posts about the deals!

Sunday, 29th May – Tom Clancy everything –66%

Conclusion: awful prices for EU and UK, some even for AU & RU. But 2 offers have good price.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell®

US: $3.39
UK: £1.69 (18% lower)
EU: 1,69€ (29% lower)
AU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)
RU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent®

US: $3.39
UK: £3.39 (65% higher)
EU: 3,39€ (43% higher)
AU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)
RU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory®

US: $3.39
UK: £3.05 (48% higher)
EU: 3,39€ (43% higher)
AU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)
RU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction™

US: $6.79 (4,75€ / £4.12)
UK: £5.09 ($8.77 / 5,87€)
EU: 10,19€ (£8.83 / $14.53)
AU: $6.79 USD (0% higher)
RU: $6.79 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction™ Deluxe Edition

US: $8.49 (5,95€ / £5.15)
UK: £6.79 ($11.17 / 7,83€)
EU: 11,89€ ($16.96 / £10.30)
AU: $8.49 USD (0% higher)
RU: $8.49 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction Insurgency Pack

US: $3.39
UK: £1.69 (18% lower)
EU: 3,39€ (43% higher)
AU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)
RU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Complete Pack

US: $13.59
UK: £10.19 (24% higher)
EU: 11,89€ (25% higher)
AU: $13.59 USD (0% higher)
RU: $13.59 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s EndWar™

US: $6.79
UK: £5.09 (23% higher)
EU: 6,79€ (43% higher)
AU: $10.19 USD (50% higher)
RU: $10.19 USD (50% higher)

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X™

US: $6.79
UK: £5.09 (23% higher)
EU: 6,79€ (43% higher)
AU: $10.19 USD (50% higher)
RU: $10.19 USD (50% higher)

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.® 2

US: $16.99 (11,91€ / £10.32)
UK: £10.19 ($16.76 / 11,75€)
EU: 16,99€ ($24.23 / £14.72)
AU: $16.99
RU: $16.99

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.® 2 – Open Skies Expansion Pack

US: $3.39
UK: £2.37 (15% higher)
EU: 3,39€ (43% higher)
AU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)
RU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® Vegas

US: $3.39
UK: £3.39 (65% higher)
EU: 3,39€ (43% higher)
AU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)
AU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® Vegas 2

US: $3.39 (2.37€)
UK: £3.39 (65% higher)
EU: 5,09€ (114% higher) <- VERY AWFUL
AU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)
RU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Lockdown™

US: $3.39
UK: £3.05 (48% higher)
EU: 3,39€ (43% higher)
AU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)
RU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® 3 Gold

US: $3.39
UK: £1.69 (18% lower)
EU: 1,69€ (29% lower)
AU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)
RU: $3.39 USD (0% higher)

Saturday, 28th May – Assassin’s Creed series

Conclusion: This is very bad deal for EU. UK prices are almost Ok.

Assassin’s Creed® Brotherhood –33%

US: $33.49 (23,50€)
UK: £20.09 (1% lower)
EU: 33,49€ (43% higher)
AU: $33.49 USD (0% higher)
RU: $33.49 USD (0% higher)

Assassin’s Creed 2 Deluxe Edition –66%

US: $10.20 (7,15€)
UK: £6.80 (10% higher)
EU: 10,20€ (43% higher)
AU: $10.20 USD (0% higher)
RU: $10.20 USD (0% higher)

Assassin’s Creed™: Director’s Cut Edition –66%

US: $6.80 (4,75€)
UK: £6.80 (65% higher)
EU: 10,20€ (114% higher) – I WAS WONDERING WHEN THIS WILL HAPPEN
AU: $6.80 USD (0% higher)
RU: $6.80 USD (0% higher)

Friday, 27th May – Brothers in Arms series

Conclusion: Brothers in Arms Pack is even with almost reasonable price. So you may even consider this. UK should stay away from Hells’s Highway. Hells’s Highway prices are really strange – only EU price is not with “1$ = 1another-currency”.

Brothers in Arms Pack

US: $9.99
UK: £6.74 (11% higher)
EU: 8,74€ (25% higher)
AU: $9.99 USD (0% higher)
RU: $9.99 USD (0% higher)

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood

US: $2.50
UK: £1.50 (1% lower)
EU: 2,50€ (43% higher)
AU: $2.50 USD (0% higher)
RU: $2.50 USD (0% higher)

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway

US: $5.00
UK: £5.00 (65% higher)
EU: 3,75€ (7% higher)
AU: $5.00 USD (0% higher)
RU: $5.00 USD (0% higher)

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30

US: $2.50
UK: £1.50 (1% lower)
EU: 2,50€ (43% higher)
AU: $2.50 USD (0% higher)
RU: $2.50 USD (0% higher)

Thursday, 26th May – Far Cry series – total ripoff for EU

Conclusion: EU – STAY AWAY!

Far Cry

US: $2.50
UK: £1.25 (18% lower)
EU: 2,50€ (41% higher)
AU: $2.50 USD (0% higher)
RU: $2.50 USD (0% higher)

Far Cry 2: Fortune’s Edition

US: $5.00 (3,55€)
UK: £2.50 (18% lower)
EU: 7,50€ ($10,55 – 111% higher) WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!
AU: $5.00 USD (0% higher)
RU: $5.00 USD (0% higher)

Far Cry Complete

US: $7.49 (5,32€)
UK: £3.74 (18% lower)
EU: 9,99€ ($14 – 88% higher) THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!?
AU: $7.49 USD (0% higher)
RU: $7.49 USD (0% higher)

Wednesday, 25th May – Trackmania

Conclusion: This deal is probably only EU’s chance to get something with almost fair price. Get it and show them, that we buy fair priced games!

Trackmania United Forever Star Edition

US: $10.00
UK: £5.00 (19% lower)
EU: 7,50€ (6% higher)
AU: $10.00 USD (0% higher)
RU: $10.00 USD (0% higher)

Remember Stunts? This games is almost like it. Very fast stunt-racing game. And you can create your own tracks and play with friends. Awesome. Try older, free version Trackmania Nations Forever. And also you can play it in anaglyph stereoscopic 3D when you have red-cyan 3D glasses (at least in TNF :)).

Tuesday, 24th May – R.U.S.E. & Settlers 7

Conclusion: UK, EU – STAY AWAY from RUSE, EU – ignore Settlers 7 unless you really-really want it :)

R.U.S.E.

US: $14.99 (10€)
UK: £14.99 ($24, 17€)
EU: 24,99€ ($35, £21) !!!!!!!!!! HATEMAIL TIME!
AU: $14.99 USD (0% higher)
RU: $14.99 USD (0% higher)

The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom – Deluxe Gold Edition

US: $19.99
UK: £14.99 (21% higher)
EU: 19,99€ (41% higher)
AU: $19.99 USD (0% higher)
RU: $19.99 USD (0% higher)

Monday, 23rd May – Prince of Persia

75% off from complete pack, 66% off from individual titles

Conclusion: If you are in EU or UK, you want to go only with Prince of Persia. Other titles are for ignoring and target of hate-letters. US, AU and RU are safe.

Prince of Persia Complete Pack

US: $15.00
UK: £12.50 (34% higher)
EU: 16,25€ (52% higher) <- NOT EVEN 1$=1€ PRICE! :P
AU: $15.00 USD (0% higher)
RU: $15.00 USD (0% higher)

Prince of Persia