SOE drops games, announces All Access Pass

The Facts

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that they are dropping support for four of their minor MMORPGs. The games included are Free Reals, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Wizardy Online, and Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures.

SOE has released the following statement: "At Sony Online Entertainment, we are always evaluating our portfolio to ensure we're providing players with the best gameplay experiences. At times, as part of the commitment, we have to make the difficult decision to sunset a game so we can refocus our resources on other areas in the best interest of our company and the player community."

The final decision has been made that Free Realms and Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures will shut down on March 31, 2014. Wizardy Online and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will shut down on July 31.

To brighten up the news, SOE has also announced its new All Access Pass membership plan for all players. For only $14.99 a month, you can get premium acces to the entire Everquest series, DC Universe Online and Planetside 2. This new emebership plan will start on April 2. Oh, and did we mention that on this date the original Planetside will also be free to play?

The Opinion

None of us like seeing games shut down and cease to have support from the parents companies, but can you really blame SOE? They're making a good decision. They're trying to cater to an actual gaming community, not a bunch of children that play Free Realms. The decision to dissolve these games is in the best interest of the company and the gaming community as a whole.

The All Access Pass is also a bargain in my opinion, Its only $14.99 a month and you get premium access to all SOE games. The price of $14.99 is usually the fee of only one game. Not only that, but Planetside 2 players will receive 500 station cash a month, that $5 of in-game currency.

Companies Paying YouTube Personalities for Coverage

It's been reported that companies Microsoft and EA are paying YouTube personalities for positive coverage of their products. So, this article will probably be one of my more opinionated pieces, so prepare yourself.

In my opinion, EA is a greedy company. I have no problem with some nice DLC, but EA overcharges its customers for under saturated day one DLC. They also went as far as to release SimCity in an online only mode despite the outcry from its fans to do the opposite. EA did manage to redeem themselves in my eyes however by releasing almost all of the Content ID arguments form YouTube that used their gameplay.

So, I'll admit it, I've been an Xbox fan boy for as long as I can remember, but I will never forgive Microsoft for the way that they tried to release the Xbox One with an  online only mode and charging a fee for using used games. The only reason that they changed it is because it impacted their sales so much.

In conclusion, do I think it's wrong for companies to pay YouTube personalities for positive coverage? As much as I dont like the companies, I cant disagree with the decisions. It's merely an advertising technique.

GTA V For PC Soon?

With its much anticipated release on September 17th, 2013, GTA V broke record sales numbers and managed to impress its loyal fan base. The game contains a compelling story, great characters, beautiful graphics and endless activities.

Despite the server issues with the GTA V multiplayer launch, its fanase still remains strong and true to the game. Sadly, Rockstar is still neglecting a major part of its fans, the PC gamers. Rockstar released GTA V for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and refused to comment on a PC iteration of the game. Although information was leaked by Intel representative Chris Silva about a PC version of the game, fans have been rather foggy about the release for PC. Although unsure about the release of this game for PC, it hasn't stopped them from trying to convince Rockstar to release the PC iteration of the title by making a Change.org petition that has reached over 650,000 signatures.

Recently, information has been released that has given fans new hope for the release of the game. This includes the fact that Amazon France has released a sale offer for a PC version of GTA V and that a buglog was leaked containing information about GTA V for PC. The buglog contains pages of bugs that would only affect a PC version of the game.

Some people are unhappy with Rockstar for not releasing GTA V for PC, but I believe it's purely for business reasons. Just like EA released a online only version of SimCity for anti piracy reasons, I think
Roackstar decided not to release GTA V PC for the same reasons. If they were to release a PC iteration the same time as the console iterations, then gamers would flock to torrent sites (I can't blame them) to download the game for free.

Are you looking forward to the PC version of GTA V? Do you think Rockstar should have released it alongside the console versions?

Rust Sales Skyrocket

I'm sure any of you reading these articles have heard of the infamous Garry's Mod. The biggest sandcastle in the PC gaming world that been available for nearly 9 years and was produced by the famous Garry Newman. However, GMod seems that its going to eventually be beaten out by a new open world survival game. And I'm not talking about DayZ.

The new survival game Rust has had sales skyrocket over the past month, it's actually earned 55% of the profit that GMod has earned in the past 9 years. Garry Newman himself told the public using his Twitter feed that "We never, ever expected anything to dwarf GMod's success". It really is hard to believe that this relatively new Early Access game is making all this money and outshining its new rival, DayZ.

So, do you guys think Rust is good enough to hold its crowning position at the top of the Steam sales charts?

Non-customization Steam Machines?

The digital distribution gaming empire, Valve,t announced the Steam Machine at the CES earlier this month in Las Vegas. The Steam Machine has been rumored to be manufactured by 13 different companies, each with their own models and prices.

The most famous one to come out of this haystack of companies is Alienware. The infamously overpriced PC gaming hardware company is making its own model of Steam Machine that they say will match the performance and power of the new next generation consoles.

Alienware also states that the machines will be non-customization types. Instead of being able to freely switch out the main hardware components (like in a PC), Alienware will instead release a new Steam Machine every year.

Do you think Alienware will be able to come out on top for the competition of Steam Machine sales? Are you going to buy a Steam Machine?

Nintendo Sales Numbers Cut, Stocks Fall

Earlier this week in a financial earning release, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has confirmed that the company's new expected sale numbers for the WiiU are 2.8 million by the end of March. These are after the original sales projections of 9 million. Nintendo has also said that they expect sale numbers t not reach original projections for their more popular platform, the 3DS. So, sales numbers for the 3DS have been dropped from 18 million to 13.5 million. However, the original sales predictions for the WiiU seemed too optimistic. How could Nintendo expect to sale 9 million consoles when the more popular PlayStation 4 has sold 4.2 million? Did Nintendo really expect to sell twice as many consoles as Nintendo?

If these newly released sales numbers turn out to be correct, then Nintendo will make a net loss of around 25 billion yen this fiscal year. These gloomy predictions for the teetering future of the WiiU has also caused Stock prices to spiral downward nearly 17%. With the falling sales predictions and falling stocks, the future for the WiiU and Nintendo as a whole seems rather rough on the road ahead.

So, whats your favorite Next Generation console? Tell us in the comments!

Thief system requirements

Eidos Montreal had finally released the PC system requirements for the reboot of the Thief series which will be released on February 25, 2014.

Minimum System Requirements

OS: Windows Vista with platform update
CPU: High performance dual core CPU or quad cpre CPU
RAM: 4GB
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon 4800 series/Nvidia GTS 250
DirectX: DirectX 10
HDD/SSD: 20 GB

Recommended System Requirements

OS: Windows 7/ Windows 8
CPU: AMD FX 8000 series or better/Intel i7 Quad Core CPU
RAM: Above 4GB
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD/R9 series or better / Nvidia GTX 660 series or better
DirectX: DirectX 11
HDD/SSD: 20GB

Valve Changes Steam Controller Design

Recently, Valve announced that they would be changing the design of their iconic steam controller and swapping out the touchscreen in the middle for something more practical. Yeah, you guessed it. Buttons.

Original Steam Controller Design

New design lacking a touchscreen

Although it seems Valve was extremely set on the fact that they would be developing a button-less controller, they decided that buttons are still the way to play games, not touch screens. The controller now has a new set of eight buttons with four placed on each side in a standard layout. The controller still has the famous touchpads instead of joysticks.

I do think that Valves decision regarding the touchscreen was a good one. Gamers are usually playing high paced games that require instant feedback, and some touchscreens are notorious for not providing any at crucial moments. Gaming to this day is dominated by buttons, no matter what platform you're on. However, the middle of the controller looks rather bare as if its lacking a set of buttons or a Steam Logo (Which will probably be added in later).

Do you support the decision that Valve made regarding the touchscreen? Are you looking forward to the Steam controller? Are you looking forward to the Steam Machines?