After a year of small sales of some great indie game titles, IndieGameStand is going big. The digital storefront dedicated to selling the best indie games becomes a full blown indie game digital store front, joining the ranks of Steam, GOG.com, and the Humble Game Bundle. The store now has a permanent and dedicated store front with a full catalog of indie games - in addition to the 96 hour indie deals it has become famous for.

Uplay, Ubisoft's middleware platform that became a full-fledged digital distribution platform a little over a year ago, will be rolled into its PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases. Ubisoft announced that Uplay will be available on all the titles in Ubisoft's next-generation lineup, including Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, The Crew, The Division, Watch Dogs, and the recently announced games Child of Light, Valiant Hearts, and Trials Fusion.

The Humble Origin Bundle is inching towards another milestone - the $10 million mark. As of this writing the bundle is at a little over $9.6 million with nearly 2 million bundles sold, and an average price of $4.91. The bundle includes Dead Space, Dead Space 3, Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Crysis 2 Maximum Edition, Mirror's Edge, and Medal of Honor. Paying more than the average price will get you The Sims 3 + Starter Pack, Battlefield 3, C&C: Red Alert 3 - Uprising, and Populous.

The Humble Origin Bundle has two new games to choose from, if bundle purchasers are willing to pay more than the average price - currently at $4.82. The two new games are C&C: Red Alert 3 - Uprising for Steam and Origin, and Populous for Origin.

These two new games join Dead Space, Dead Space 3, Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Crysis 2 Maximum Edition, Mirror's Edge, and Medal of Honor. Paying more than the average price will get you The Sims 3 + Starter Pack and Battlefield 3.

Electronic Arts announced a new initiative for its Origin digital distribution platform this week called "The Origin Great Game Guarantee." The new policy gives Origin users who purchase EA-published games on Origin "timed refunds" dependent mostly on when a purchase has been made.

The Humble Origin Bundle has generated nearly $7.2 million from the sale of nearly 1.5 million bundles. It is officially the best-selling Humble Bundle to date, beating out THQ's and Deep Silver's bundles and all those that have come before it. The average price of the bundle is up two cents (from Friday's average price) to $4.82, as of this writing. The bundle has 9 days left to go.

GOG.com has launched a new portal intended to entice indie developers to join its DRM-free PC games digital storefront. The new portal, found here, encourages indie developers to apply with GOG to have their games available for sale on the site. The site offers details on royalty splits and how developers who need a small investment can get some help from GOG.

Warner Bros. has confirmed with IGN that the PC version of Batman: Arkham Origins will use Valve's Steamworks for its multiplayer and achievements, distancing itself from Microsoft's Games for Windows Live service. Microsoft announced last week that it planned shut down the marketplace portion of the service at the end of this month.

On this week's show we talk about extreme developer harassment, GameStop's Xenoblade pricing, EA's Humble Origin Bundle, the latest poll from GamePolitics, and a whole lot more. Download Episode 65 now: SuperPAC Episode 65 (1 hour, 15 minutes) 69.3 MB.

Love it or hate it, the Humble Origin Bundle is on track to be the most successful Humble Bundle offering to-date if it keeps trending the way it has been in the last couple of days. As of this writing, the bundle has generated over $5.3 million from the sale of over 1.1 million bundles, with an average price of $4.80. The bundle still has a little over 11 more days to go before it is over too.

As of this writing, the Humble Origin Bundle has generated over $3.6 million from the sale of a little more than 764,000 bundles. The Origin-themed, Not-DRM-Free bundle features a total of eight games including Dead Space, Dead Space 3, Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Crysis 2 Maximum Edition (includes 4 Limited Edition unlocks, and the Retaliation and Decimation packs), Mirror's Edge, and Medal of Honor. Paying more than the average price will get you The Sims 3 + Starter Pack and Battlefield 3. The current average price sits at $4.74.

There is no doubt in my mind that this latest bundle from the fine folks at Humble Bundle is going to get a mixed reaction from the game community. On the one hand it is offering up to eight high-profile games on the cheap; on the other hand all of these games are from Electronic Arts and use its Origin digital distribution platform - and at least three of the games require the bundle buyer to install Origin on their system in order to play.

Codemasters revealed today that it will drop its plans for an "online pass" in its upcoming Formula One racing title, F1 2013. Earlier this year EA announced a similar discontinuation of its online pass system, prior to the reveal of the Xbox One and PS4. Codemasters did not say if it would drop the online pass system for its other racing franchises Grid and Dirt. Typically online pass systems require consumers to enter a code that comes bundled with the game before they play it online.

Warner Bros. has secured the rights to publish CD Projekt Red's next game in The Witcher series in North America. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment will distribute and promote The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in North America. We assume this includes all versions of the game except on digital distribution platforms such as Steam and Good Old Games.

In an interesting and lengthy interview on Games.on.net Trevor Longino, Head of Marketing and PR at GOG.com shares his personal opinions on piracy, file-sharing and game sharing amongst friends. The interview also offers a lot of casual talk about gaming in general, but the most interesting part of the interview has to do with whom Good Old Games considerers its competition.

Sony has quietly changed the digital rights management policy for its Video Unlimited feature on PlayStation devices. With the change in its DRM policy, consumers can now re-download purchased content from the company's Video Unlimited service. In a statement on the official website for the service, Sony detailed what this means to subscribers:

When EA launched its online-only, always-connected SimCity game earlier this year, they insisted that the game just wouldn't work without the ability to let the cloud have access to all the game's data and computations. But if that's the case, then why is EA asking people about the possibility of an offline SimCity game?

In a recent interview with Up At Noon Sony Computer Entertainment America boss Jack Tretton says that Microsoft 'finally got the message' on DRM. Responding to a question about Microsoft's decision to reverse its DRM policies related to Xbox One, Tretton said, "I guess they got the message" adding that Sony spent a lot of time carefully "listening to the consumers and to developers."

UPDATE: Looks like EA has changed its mind.  A new message on the Darkspore forums reads:

"Welcome to the Darkspore forums. Thanks for supporting the game. We recently resolved an issue that was causing some players to not be able to connect to the game. If you any encounter any other issues, please contact help.ea.com for customer support. We will continue to support Darkspore, so feel free to continue to discuss the game here. Thanks – Maxis."

In Episode 57 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about several GamePolitics polls, Microsoft's decision to pull a 180 on its various Xbox One policies, Cliff Bleszinski's public comments about the whole thing, and a whole lot more. Download Episode 57 now: SuperPAC Episode 57 (1 hour, 16 minutes) 69.5 MB.

If you are someone that will buy CD Projekt RED's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and are concerned about all the nonsense associated with DRM and used game sales blocking found on the Xbox One, and you want free DLC (that you likely won't get for free on the PS4), then your best bet seems to be found on the PC.

IndieGameStand is offering the cute voxel-based RPG, Vox for $10 or whatever you want to pay. Developer AlwaysGeeky Games describes Vox as a "highly customizable game where you can create, destroy, edit and build anything you desire. The whole world, every item and object within it, and even the characters and inhabitants of Vox are created using a custom 'Voxel Engine.'" The game is currently in the alpha stage but all future updates will be free and frequent, according to the developer.

Being that we strongly support any company that goes out of its way not to use DRM schemes to give them the false sense that they are somehow protecting their products from unauthorized use (and not impeding the pleasurable use of their products by legitimate consumers), we are happy to report that Good Old Games is offering a "No DRM Summer Sale."

Gears of War designer and former Epic Games developer Cliff Bleszinski has thrown his support behind Microsoft's Xbox One and its new DRM measures that seek to control the use and sale of used game discs. Speaking via Twitter, Bleszinski posted several comments expressing his support of the Xbox One's move towards a DRM-controlled used game market, saying that AAA development costs as they are now cannot be maintained in a marketplace that also supports used games.

Electronic Arts' President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau says that its online pass system was dumb, that it is dead and that it will never be coming back. EA announced back in May that it would wind down its online pass system. The system required consumers who purchased an EA game to punch a code in to get access to multiplayer and other game extras. If someone purchased that same game used they would then have to pay a small fee - usually around $10.

Last week, Microsoft revealed that the Xbox One requires internet access and that used game sales are subject to the whims of publishers.  You will not be able rent or loan your games at launch and there's no guarantee you ever will.  You can give a game to someone else but only if the publisher allows it and even then, the recipient must have been in your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

As I have indicated multiple times when discussing Microsoft's new system to enable or disable used games on the Xbox One, most publishers don't seem to have a clue about this new tool Microsoft has put in place for its console. At first we simply assumed they were playing dumb to avoid revealing too much prior to E3, but as more developers and publishers talk openly about the topic, it seems that they don't know an awful lot about it.

While Playstation 4 gamers will not have to worry about Online Passes for Sony's first-party games, it appears third party publishers are free to employ used game DRM as they see fit.

Got Xbox One questions?

Of course you do.  Microsoft's messaging since its console unveiling has been a confusing mess.  Does Xbox One require an internet connection to play offline?  Does it block used games?  Can the all-seeing eye of the Kinect be turned off?

In Episode 54 Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the latest GamePolitics poll, what all they would like to see from all the big publishers at E3 next week, and the stance of two publishers on DRM. Download Episode 54 now: SuperPAC Episode 54 (1 hour, 3 minutes) 58.5 MB.