Starbreeze Studios the developers behind the popular Payday series have announced a deal with former publisher 505 games that would see Starbreeze acquire the full rights of the Payday franchise in exchange for $30 Million USD of stock.
The next game in the franchise Payday 3 is currently under development as the terms of this deal will see 505 & Starbreeze split revenue from the console versions of Payday 2: Crimwave Edition until their [505’s] marketing / promotion costs have been recouped and Payday 3 released. Revenue generated from the Steam release of Payday 2 will be in the hands of Starbreeze retroactively as of May 1st.
For fans wondering about the horrendous micro transactions that received absolutely piles upon piles of criticism, they’re being removed from all versions of the game. Introduced last October, Payday 2 would present players with locked “safes” that contained skins & stat bonuses but could only be opened with a $2.50 USD drill item. Despite other games using a similar model for cosmetics – most notably Counter Strike: GO – the addition of stat boosters on skins caused an uproar within the community., especially since the developers previously said they would NEVER EVER INTRODUCE MICROTRANSACTIONS.
Now, those nasty microtransactions are gone and Starbreeze has pledged to add new content to Payday 2 for at least the next 18 months.
Check out the “E3 Teaser” released by Starbreeze for Payday 2 below:
The sacred Steam summer sale will return June 23 and run until July 4, at least that’s what reddit is tell us. In a leak that appears to originate from Russia and even says Confidential right on the image. Hit the read more tag to see the image, but the gist of it is simple, the whole thing is just a time, its half in Russian and half in English (something many people have been quick to point out makes this look fake) and it says that the sale will be from 23rd June till 4th July.
Take all of this with a huge grain of salt, but its the same manner that the sales dates leaked in last year. its all pretty shady, but hey we know there is going to be a sale, and we know its going to be in summer, so this is probably a good solid bit of information. Hit the jump to see the leaked image.
If you are a fan of anime at all, this sale is going to empty your wallet. Even if you are just a fan of anime style fighting games you may be in trouble as all of the guilty gear and Blaze Blue games are also on sale! It seems like steam has really pulled out all of the stop on their anime collection. The discounts are a bit all over though, 10% on Helen’s Mysterious Castle doesnt really feel like its as good of a deal as 75% off of Chantelise. I could nitpick a whole bunch including how some of these games aren’t really anime but I am just glad to see steam featuring anything developed out side of the west.
Here is the full list if you really want it highlights include Hatoful Boyfriend for $2.49, Transformers: Devastation for $24.99 and the Mega Man Legacy Collection for $10. But if you are anything like me, that is a giant anime nerd, you probably already own at least a few of these, and the rest may be sitting on your wish list. Interestingly, also included in the sale are several Naruto movies, and as far as i can tell only Naruto movies. I didn’t even know that steam sold movies, I guess I know now.
It looks like Major League Gaming, commonly known as MLG, the e-sports pioneer and tournament organizer has been sold to publisher Activision Blizzard according to esports observer. In a December 21st meeting MLG’s Board of Directors approved an asset sale worth $46 million USD essentially gutting the one time e-sports king.
Individual stock holders were notified via written letter sent out on December 22nd. If I’m reading the excerpt of the letter that has been released, $31 million from the sale has been used to pay off large debts that have been accrued by Major League Gaming.
CEO of MLG CEO Sundance DiGiovanni has also been removed from his role of Chief Executive Officer.
MLG Gaming was founded in 2002 by Mike Sespo and Sundance DiGiovanni and rose to prominence thanks to a deal with USA Network were their Halo 2 Pro Series was broadcast. Throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s the line-up of eligible “pro games” has changed with titles ranging from Halo: Reach, Halo 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Starcraft II and it’s expansions among others. MLG’s next major event is the 2016 Counter Strike: Global Offensive MLG Championship scheduled for this coming April.
Activision announced their own e-sports league for COD – the Call of Duty World League – last Fall. It is unknown how the acquisition of MLG’s assets will factor into the COD League.
Steam is notorious for its twice (and sometimes three time) annual sales. The sale always features deep discounts on popular titles as well as indie games you may never have known existed.
This years first day of Holiday sale Features Skyrim for 19.99 and The Witcher Franchise for both of which are new and a great value. It also features Besiege which is crazy fun, for $5.59 (30%off) and Killing Floor 2 indie titles that for the price point they are at can not be passed up. This years steam sale as always will run for 7 days.
Valve has a horrid track record of concealing literally anything from anyone ever, so it really ought not to come as a surprise that the time and some details of the next steam sale have been revealed. Shacknews broke the story that an image had leaked out of a PayPal advertisement telling the public the date of the start of the sale.
We also know there will be no flash sales again, just as with the autumn sale just a few short months ago. I however think this is a good thing, as the sale is quite broken when everyone just waits for the lowest price. I actually wrote about that very thing recently and personally im quite all right with the new format.
I remember a time when you couldn’t get computer games any way but by going out to Funcoland, or another store to buy them. In those days places like Funcoland had bargain bins, whole large bins full of games that were often rightly called shovelware. Most of these games would have fit right in on todays overcrowded indie game sphere, with the one difference that they had a box. Digital distribution has killed the bargain bin box, but not what lived inside it, it’s found a new home on Steam, and to a greater extent the twice annual steam sale.
Deep Discounts
As I peruse the current steam sale a title catches my eye “Angels Fall First” is an indie tactical, infantry, first person shooter, set in space, where you fly your ship in first person too. Whoa, that’s a mouth full, all of that costs 14.39 (20% off today!) and that’s just one example of hundreds. This one happens to be in early access and absolutely screams feature creep, but it still caught my eye. Why? Well it had the right price tag (for me <15$) a laundry list of features and a flashy splash image that was featured in today’s deals. It’s that kind of exposure that can mean a huge infusion of cash to a developer and major media coverage for an otherwise sleeper game. This has created a get rich or die trying type of culture in today’s indie game sphere where a game can go from being unknown to a major hit in just a few days, with no publisher or PR. The end result of this is that we get a lot of games that might not have ever seen the light of day going up on steam and getting a lot of sales during these twice annual times of deep discounts.
The Sale Now
Steam sales started out as something great. Twice a year Valve thanked their users by throwing them some pretty extreme sales on titles. The result was a great way to get your hands on games you might otherwise never play. It also had the perhaps unintentional side effect of giving huge boosts to several indie developers. The steam Green Tags have become legendary 20% 40% 70%, steam even has a tab for games under 10$ and games under 5$. The psychology of the sale keeps us buying, but is it really worth it? Its clear that Steam is playing its audience here. Steam knows at what price point people buy, and how much they have to discount a game to get it out the door in quantity. I remember the first time I saw a game on steam listed at 50% off, it was normally a 50$ game, and that green tag was just too much resist, despite having never intended to buy the game for various reasons, I put the game in my cart and bought it. Why? Because it was 50% off, I played about 20 minutes of the game and then got bored, never to play it again. It now sits in my library with literally hundreds of other 10$ titles that I buy on impulse because they are 10% off, and then install and play for 30 minuets or an hour then never touch again.
I don’t think cheap games have to be bad, I got more play time out of Terreria that almost any other game ever, and it’s been on sale for as low as 1$! I also have plenty of 60$ games in my library that haven’t been touched. It’s really a question of quantity and availability. I have over 300 games in my steam library and somewhere in the neighborhood of half of those have never been installed. Now you chalk a few of them up to things like the full Valve pack which I picked up on sale (40% off!) and humble bundles (2$ for 5 games?|!!?!?!) but a lot of those games I would never have if it wasn’t for the steam sales. The sum total of those games represents enough capitol investment to purchase lots of new computer parts, or invest elsewhere.
On the other hand, I also have some games I doubt I ever would have noticed if they hadn’t been on sale. Dungeons of dreadmore, Recettear, and Oblivion fall in to this category. In 2011 I purchased all three of these in various steam sales for <20$ total for all of them. All three of these games have >100 hours of play time in my library. They all together cost about 15$ during that steam sale. That same year (the same sale even) I also bought Supreme commander 2 (>30$ and also 40% off) and that game never even got installed. It’s a great good and a terrible evil. While I have a lot of games, the more games that I have it seems the less inclined I am to play some of them.
Quality vs Quantity
The quality of the sale has also decreased recently, the most prevalent games get 10% discounts and the smaller indies get larger ones. Im not sure im ever going to play Doorkickers, but you can bet I have it in my library. Why? Because in 2014 it was on sale for 5$ and I thought it looked kinda neat. Turns out its basically a mobile tactics game, and really not up my alley at all. If I had bothered to do any research like I would have if I had spent 20$ (the games MSRP) I would probably have known this and been fine and not bought it. Instead I saw a green price tag with -75% on it, and decided I need the game regardless of the content.
And so dear readers we arrive at our conclusion, and that is Caveat emptor (buyer beware) because Steam is an amazing platform for equalizing million dollar PR budgets and 0$ PR budgets. That of course creates an obvious problem. Those games with million dollar budgets also had three year (or longer) development cycles, whereas the others might have been put together in 6 months or 6 years, and not subjected to playtesting or quality control. Quality of the sale has also gone down as the number of sales has gone up. When you have 4 sales a year you have to find at least 4 sales worth of items to sell. While I appreciate the recent abolition of flash sales, which were clear bait to get you to come back to the sale as many times as possible, but I honestly think its time for Steam to evaluate how its running its sales, and maybe cut down to one a year.
If you’re staying in this holiday weekend perhaps you might want to look into playing a few rounds of Blizzard’s addicting MOBA Heroes of the Storm. This weekend all of the mounts, skins and heroes in the Nexus are reduced by 50% (off of their cash purchase price, in game gold prices remain unaffected).
Blizzard has also released a limited time Second Chance bundle which allows you to gain access to some of the timed exclusive mounts from the game’s past. These mounts include the Lunar Tiger, Red Carpet mount and the Reindeer mount!
If you’re a really dedicated player within the Nexus then this is your only chance to grab the 365 day stim pack which grants you additional gold & experience for an entire year. Normally the stim packs are sold in 7 and 30 day allotments for $3.99 and $9.99 respectively. The 365 day stim pack is currently priced at $59.99 USD and will not be available after this weekend’s sale.
Personally I picked up the Ranger-General Sylvanas Skin for $3.99 – I just couldn’t resist the idea of having a living elf Sylvanas now that I’ve got her to a high level!
All Heroes, Mounts, and Skins will be on sale at a 50% real money discount
A new 360 Day Stimpack will be available at a deeply discounted price.
Please note: The 360 Day Stimpack is a limited-time item that will ONLY be available during the Black Friday Sale.
A new Second Chance Bundle will be available with the following items:
TheWitcher 3 Gets Biggest Price Cut Ever in New GOG Sale
The game is on sale as part of the retailer’s new “Only on GOG.com” promotion. GOG has been incredible recently about undercutting literally everyone else on the market in terms of price. This is holding true to their in house development project The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The most recent entry in the Witcher series The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, traditionally sells for 60USD. It is currently priced at 30USD a 50% discount.
This sale is a part of the GOG “Only GOG.com,” sale, which kicks off today. When asked about the sale GOG said in a statement about the “GOG.com’s team of digital archaeologists and detectives work tirelessly to track down favorite games that have been lost to time, but never forgotten Committed to restoring the classics, each game is fully compatible with modern computers, with the original manuals and supplements preserved in digital format.”
Also included in the sale are:
D&D: Classic Bundle (up to -80%): featuring the classic editions of Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights. 10 games in total.
D&D: Gold Box Bundle (up to -50%): featuring three tomes of Forgotten Realms: The Archives (with Eye of the Beholder, Pool of Radiance, Dungeon Hack, and more) as well as Al-Qadim, Dark Sun, Krynn, Ravenloft, and others. 18 games in total.
Warhammer Bundle (up to -50%): featuring 4 games: Final Liberation: Warhammer Epic 40,000, Warhammer 40,00: Chaos Gate, Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat, Warhammer 40,00: Rites of War.
Star Trek Bundle (up to -60%): featuring 4 games: Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, Starfleet Academy, Starfleet Command, Judgment Rites.
This sale period runs for five days, ending on November 29 at 5:59 AM PST. Head to GOG.com to see all the deals.
A few games on the Nintendo 3DS eShop are on sale and another handful have seen their regular price dropped this week. Included in the drops are Konami’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate which sees its regular price reduced by $10!
The bulk of the other games are puzzle games with Puzzler World 2013 being slashed by 50% as well as Puzzler Brain Games.
On the sale front Groove Heaven is on sale for $2.99 through September 19th as is BIT.TRIP SAGA which is a full $10 off through the 15th of this month.
Are you a fan of RPG Maker VX Ace and really need some great music for your video game project? Well today is your day! Not only is the software itself on for a discount price of $23.79, but Joel Steudler’s music pack the Cinematic Soundtrack is available for only $6.79! That’s fourty tracks, looped and alternate mixes, royalty free!
I’m a huge fan of Joel’s music, and you just won’t find a better deal than this. He really brings every project he’s on to life. His music is the other half of what makes things awesome! You can listen to some of the tracks on the official website for RPG Maker VX Ace and hear for yourself.
It’s official! After a heavy load of visitors brought the store to a halt, it’s now somewhat working with occasional heavy load messages. Today’s big sale? Bioshock Infinite at 50% off! Scribblenauts Unlimited, which we’ve reviewed and we’re very much fans of is on for a meer $4.99! Current flash sales include Counter Strike: Global Offense for just over $5, Dragon Age Origins Ultimate Edition for $8.99 (A fantastic game if you haven’t already gotten into it), GRID 2 and Skyrim: Legendary Edition top out the current sales featured every eight hours.
Things do seem a bit rough, even for the wishlist page, so at current time you may want to specifically go to the Steam page of games you’re curious about to confirm if they’re on sale or not. I know I’m eagerly checking my list.
Steam has also introduced a large focus on the recent addition of trading cards to the site. They’re virtual cards that apparently can be crafted into Steam badges. These in turn give you marketable items such as emoticons, profile backgrounds, and coupons. Cards can even be dropped in games such as Borderlands 2 it seems.
Rumors have been circulating for weeks now about the potential date this summers Steam Sale would begin. Kotaku is calling for 1pm Eastern Time today, yes in just a few minutes really, based on a press release on the game Fortix 2. The press release claims the Steam Summer Sale will begin today, July the 11th to 18th.
Fortix 2 Summer Sale price cut! Fortix 2 will be 50% discounted during the July 11-18 Steam Summer Sale! We are cutting the price in half and, because of our recent permanent price drop, that makes Fortix 2 temporarily only $0.99 !
Summer isn’t typically a time when new releases are blazing the sales charts, why not beat the heat with some old favorites at a discount price? Sony will be launching their summer sale, Summer Blast, starting tomorrow and running until the 16th with the deals changing up the following Tuesday.
Some older games are available for $9.99 or less including Prince of Persia Classics Trilogy ($8.00 PS Plus/ $15 regular), Alice Madness Returns ($4.00 PS Plus / $7.99 Regular) and Fight Night Champion ($6.00 PSN Plus/ $11.99 regular). If newer games are your thing you can snag Call Of Duty Black Ops II for $41.99 ($37.99 PSN plus) or The Amazing Spider-Man for $29.99 ($20.99 PSN Plus)
There’s also a few portable titles including Mortal Kombat for the PlayStation Vita. Check out a complete list after the jump!Read More
EA wants to show you, the gamer, that they love you, buy offering you heavily discounted PC / Xbox 360/ PS3 titles for the next week. Over 200 titles are discounted up to 70% off including some big names from last year.
Some of the noteworthy deals include Battlefield 3 Premium for $24.99, Crysis 3 for $29.99, Mass Effect 3 for $9.99 and Hitman Absolution for $15.00. They’re also throwing in free shopping on physical item orders over $25. I couldn’t possibly list all of the games here, so check out the Origin Store Front for all of the deals.
Will this be enough to sway users to Origin after the disastrous launch of Sim City? I’m sure that EA will be a huge influx of cash from these deals, and Crysis 3’s inclusion is surprising considering the game came out only a few weeks ago. Although players who purchased Sim City and then were offered free copies of Battlefield 3, among other games, must be pissed off that the company is discounting the games used as an apology– effectively tarnishing it.
