Blizzard launches an industry-changing feature in a mainstream title called the Real-Money Auction House. People are already making several hundred dollars on a couple of trades and this has drawn the ire of several Government consumer rights advocacy groups, namely in France, Germany and South Korea, with Blizzard having a small time frame to fix the problems or end up in court, and it's not going to look good. Also, a couple of new crowd-sourcing games have been put under the spotlight, including Hiro Fodder and Exodus Wars, and additional info on TimeSplitters 4 hints that it could be free-to-play. These stories and more in this June 16th, 2012 edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap.
Sunday
CD Projekt: RPGs Should Look Better Than Shooters According to CDP RED, RPGs should look better because they actually have something to say. Click the link and find out if what they say is something you agree with.
Diablo 3 Item Duping Videos Surface, Always-On DRM Proven Useless The very thing that was supposed to prevent these things from happening is the very thing being bypassed to allow item duping, hacks and exploits to exist. Bravo Blizzard, bravo.
Hiro Fodder: A Blue Hope Reaches Kickstarter Goal, 16-Bit Nostalgia Lives A throwback to the Golden Era of gaming finally hits its ceiling.
Wolfenstein 3D Graphics, Gameplay Updated Thanks To Wolfram A new, free shareware game is available that gives players an updated version of the classic Wolfenstein 3D shooter.
Watch Dogs Coming 2013? It's possible that Ubisoft is holding off this title until it's better polished.
Diablo 3 Hotfixes Nerf Monster Damage, Fix Quest Turn-Ins This is the hotfix that also fixes the item duping. Nice.
Video Game Revenue Expected To Top $70 Billion In 2017 Games have no means of slowing down.
Zelda Wii U Still In R&D Phase It'll be a while before we see the next Zelda game on a Wii console.
Monday
Call Duty XP 2012 Isn't Happening Why? Well, you'll need to click the link to find out.
Gears of War Judgment Features Smart Spawns It's to help ensure that enemy AI aren't as dumb as a door knob when piling out of spawn points.
Mass Effect 3 Earth DLC On The Way? Additional multiplayer DLC is headed to Mass Effect 3.
Gabe Newell Pops Cameo In Kickstarter Sword Fighting Game, Clang It's a game that wants to focus more on the art and micromanagement of sword fighting and they picked up a little help from Valve's Gabe Newell.
Diablo 3 Hacked Account Claims Instantly Stop, What Happened? We go over a few details on why the hacked account claims no longer persist.
Diablo 3 Account Hacked? You Need A Warrant To Find out How It's the law.
Tribes Ascend Paper Kraft Inspires Community Contest Check out a fun-loving look at the Paper Kraft of Tribes Ascend.
Retrovirus, $75k Kickstarter Launched To Finish Development On Six-Axis Shooter An interesting concept for an upcoming game. Check it out if you're looking for something unique in your gaming repertoire.
TimeSplitters 4 Free-to-Play? It's possible the popular Free Radical franchise could be turning into a free-to-play franchise.
PopCap Aims To Support Charity With Solitaire Blitz World Record Attempt If this sounds a little odd, you'll need to click the link to get the full details on how they plan to break a world record.
Treyarch: Black ops 2 Most Shocking Call of Duty Yet How shocking? Well, story-wise they won't be pulling any punches.
Worms 2 Armageddon Bolstered By Free Fan Requested Asynchronous Play Update Team17 was nice enough to include an update to allow for asynchronous play, which is pretty neat and nice of them.
Maxis Says Always On DRM For SimCity Is Necessary And so it begins...
Tuesday
Epic Mickey 2 Trailer Announces November Release Date This game will be going up against the holiday heavyweights, but apparently Disney doesn't mind.
Marvel Pinball Avengers Chronicles Drops Next Week, Shows Off Infinity Gauntlet Table If you're a fan of Zen's popular pinball mini-games then you might want to check out their new Avenger's table.
Mixamo Auto-Rigger Now Free For Character Models Under 10k Polygons You can make Gears of War quality characters and have them auto-rigged for free.
Blizzard Admits Diablo 3 Item Duping is Why Asia's Server Was Shutdown Oh snap, it looks like Blizzard admitted that one of the very things that the always-on was supposed to prevent is why the server was shutdown in the first place.
Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Coming To Wii U Activision sees an opportunity, and Nintendo accepts it.
Just Dance Greatest Hits Coming June 26th All the greatest dance moments bundled into one awesome package.
Tribes Ascend Makes Guns Deadlier, Quicker With Accelerate Update A new update for Tribes: Ascend makes the game more raucous, more fast-paced and more PvP-blasting than ever before.
Swipe Magazine Hits iPads, Focuses On Mobile Gaming This brand new digital magazine enables iPad users to enjoy a free ezine featuring all the latest portable gaming trends.
Diablo 3 Class-Action Lawsuit Underway That didn't take long.
Moonlight Online Available This Summer On Facebook Train up your vampire, werewolf or slayer in IGG's free-to-play, action-oriented MMO.
Splinter Cell Blacklist Contest Lets You Appear In Game Want your face in the game? Find out how with the brand new contest.
Capcom Overworks Ono, Says Famous Street Fighter Producer The horror stories of working in the industry are exposed by one of gaming's most well known fighting game producers.
Dragon Knights Announced, Closed Beta Registration Begins Demon-slaying dragon knights...do you really need another reason to play the game?
Gravity Rush Sports Three DLC Packs, One Free With First Week Digital Purchase A great DLC deal for the new PSN exclusive, Gravity Rush.
Metal Gear Online Rides Off Into The Sunset Farewell, and good game. You provided gamers with lots of fun, great, exciting, rage worthy and unforgettable times. You will be missed. Well played.
Skyrim Patch 1.6 Rides Onto PC The latest patch contains some nifty new additions and fixes, check it out inside.
Secret World Breaks Funcom Beta Records, Ready For Retail Surpassing even their highly regarded Age of Conan, The Secret World has a record-breaking beta test weekend.
Diablo 3 Cheats Banned By The Thousands Blizzard has officially dropped the ban-hammer. Watch those cheaters squirm like roaches.
Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM Exist Beta, Brings Card Duels To Facebook If you're a fan of the popular TV show and manga then you'll probably enjoy playing the game, right now, on Facebook.
EA, Danger Close Unveil Project Honor, Benefits Families Of Fallen Spec Ops A new charity donation was started by EA to help families of fallen special operations soldiers.
ASA Says EA Did Not Falsely Advertise Mass Effect 3 Ending If the Advertising Standards Association says EA is in the right, who is to say that they aren't?
It's Official: Mobile Gaming Is Not And Will Not Kill Console Gaming The stats say it all. Just read it and weep and don't buy into the bull.
Max Payne 3 Cheaters Quarantined Even better yet, they're dumped into only being able to play multiplayer games with other cheaters. I love it!
Diablo 3 Game Creation Limit Added Then Nixed Why? Because legit gamers get screwed.
Alien Fear Screenshots Showcase High Quality Visuals Doubtful the game will look this good on consoles but it's worth taking a gander regardless.
Expendables 2 Game Gets Rated, Ubisoft Takes A Vow Of Silence Could it be? All the awesomeness from the sequel of one of the greatest all-star casts could be getting a game? This is explode-worthy...times three!
Crystal Dynamics: Tomb Raider Isn't Like Uncharted Those gameplay trailers could have fooled me.
Indie Game: The Movie Now Available For Ten Bucks Grab one of the most celebrated indie films in recent years which covers...indie gaming.
Thursday
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Preview: It Could Make You A Fanboy A hands-on preview for the upcoming, highly anticipated Transformers game.
Thief 4 Cinematic Video Leaked I'm starting to think that maybe these videos aren't being leaked at all. How about you?
Dungeon Defenders Cancelled For PS Vita Trendy decides to forfeit working on a PSV version of the game, but their reasoning is a little weird.
American Idol Video Game Announced Tired of fixed competitions from the live TV show? Well, rig the game yourself with the new American Idol Video Game.
Moonga Brings Free-To-Play Card Game Action To Facebook Because obviously, Yu-Gi-Oh! just wasn't enough.
Transformers Fall of Cybertron Rolls out All-Star Voice Cast Peter Cullen leads an all-star cast of famous voices for the sequel to the smash hit, Transformers: War for Cybertron.
Last Us Confirmed for 2013 Hold onto your butts because you'll have to suffer through 2012 before you can get to the goods of 2013.
Exodus Wars Fractured Empire Brings Tabletop Wargame To Life A turn-based version of the popular tabletop miniature that allows you to blast opponents down using some nifty futuristic armament.
Dark Knight Rises Mobile Game Looks like Arkham City A surprising turn of events for the mobile gaming genre, enabling gamers to play console quality titles while on the go.
Logitech Announces G600 MMO Gaming Mouse A 20 button mouse that enables you to play MMOs like never before.
Ragnarok Tactics Making Jump To North American PSPs The famed Ragnarok game will finally arrive for the PSP.
Sims 3 Supernatural Expansion INtroduces Witches and Werewolves Things get spooky in the latest expansion for the Sims 3.
Friday
Amazing Spider-Man Developer Diary Discusses Open-World Exploration How open is The Amazing Spider-Man? Well, let the developers explain just how "open" open really is.
Star Wars The Old Republic Sinking, BioWare Eyes Free-To-Play Conversion After praising the premium model, it appears that the free-to-play conversion is going to be an option after all.
Borderlands 2 Commando Gameplay Walkthrough Check out the skills, stats and weapons of the Commando in this new E3 walkthrough video.
EA Says Dead Space 3 Has To Sell 5 Million To Survive EA lays out some stiff stipulations for the series in order for it to survive.
Blizzard Faces Legal Indictments From France, Germany Over Diablo 3 Yeah, things have finally gotten real, real nasty for Blizzard. Real nasty.
Neversoft Working on New Call of Duty Ready for whatever comes after Call of Duty: Black Ops 2? Neversoft thinks so.
Oniken 8 Bit Platformer Set For Release June 22nd This game looks really fun, a classic throwback to old-school action platformers.
Saturday
Diablo 3 Forces Korean Government To Ban All Virtual Item Trades *Slow Clap* Stay classy, Blizzard.
Minecraft XBLA Update Goes Live Today A new update for MineCraft adds a number of new additions to the game as well as a few fixes.
EA Dead Space 3 Must Be Broadly Appealing An alternate take on how Dead Space 3 will mostly be a cooperative shooter as opposed to a horror-survival title.
Randy Pitchford Talks Co-op Gaming, Borderlands 2 And Gearbox Software Co-Optimus has a brief sit down with the man himself, Randy Pitchford, as he talks all things gaming, including one of the most highly anticipated shooters this year, Borderlands 2.
Dishonored 12-14 Hours Long Good news on Bethesda's new shooter, it's not simple walk in the park.
Humble Indie BundleV Rakes In More Than $5 Million Gamers show that they really do care about indie games.
E3 Preview: What's A Bellator And Why Is It So Fun? A hands-on preview of the upcoming XBLA and PSN fighting game, courtesy of XBLA Fans.
That wraps up this edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap. The final trailer of the recap is none other than Snoop Dogg's "Knocc E'm Down", the brand new, original single for Namco Bandai's upcoming fighting game, Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
