Electronic Arts is offering its popular online multiplayer game Battlefield 1942 for free to celebrate Battlefield series' 10th anniversary this fall. The only catch is that you'll have to install its Origin client in order to play it.

Teasing an upcoming interview with Hotline Miami co-creator Jonatan Söderström, VG247 offers tidbits on the developer's positions on piracy and making games "just for money." Recently made headlines when he offered support to players who had pirated his game over on Pirate's Bay.

First he talks about why he makes games:

Until now France's Hadopi system only took claims from the recording and movie industry, but apparently a new partner is about to join in on the action. According to French publication PCInpact (by way of TorrentFreak), next year France's Hadopi agency will get strong backing from the video game industry in the country.

The experiment continues over at the Indie Game Stand, where every 96 hours a new indie game is highlighted and put up for sale at the cool price of "pay-whatever-you-want." This time out it's Digital Eel's excellently trippy first person real-time spatial navigation game Brainpipe.

The newest Indie Royale Bundle is alive and kicking - offering five new games that consumers can pay-what-they-want for until October 21. The Indie Royale bundle is a little different than the Humble Bundle in that it has a starting price - in this case $5.

Riot Games has issued a final determination on those teams they alleged cheated this past weekend in the third day of the Season 2 League of Legends World Playoff Matches. Riot has concluded that Korean team Azubu Frost is guilty of unsportsmanlike conduct and will be fined 20 percent of its winnings. The fine will be donated to a Riot Games charity in Korea.

The organizers of the Humble Bundle sent along a note reminding everyone that the latest bundle, Humble Indie Bundle 6, will be done in less than 7 hours. If you haven't gotten in on the latest pay-what-you-want DRM-free bundle, the window to do so is getting very narrow at this point.

The Indie Royale has launched its latest bundle of indie games - the Oktoberfest Bundle. The Oktoberfest Bundle offers a handful of indie games, including three episodes of the adult-themed point-and-click adventure Hector: Badge of Carnage, puzzle platformer Adventures of Shuggy, musical puzzle game Chime, the popular and slightly controversial RPG adventure Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble, and The Network.

Nine of the developers who have games in Humble Indie Bundle 6 have gotten together to answer questions via an "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) thread on Reddit.

We've all heard the story about how the PC is doomed and PC gaming will soon be a thing of the past, so it's not surprising that a company like GREE (whose bread and butter is mobile games) says that the future of the traditional PC is basically doomed.

GREE CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka highlighted some of the changes that will be important to the gaming industry in his keynote speech at the Tokyo Game Show. He may have some valid points.

"The line between PC and mobile has blurred, and that's a trend for this year," he said at the Tokyo Game Show.

The Humble Bundle organizers have taken a break from offering mobile bundles to put together Humble Indie Bundle 6. The pay-what-you-want DRM-free bundle this time out is pretty impressive. It includes Rochard, Shatter, S.P.A.Z., Torchlight, Vessel and five game soundtracks. If you are willing to pay above the average price - currently at $5.51 - you can get Dustforce too. As always you can decide to give all the money to the developers, or to Child's Play or the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Sometimes if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. When From Software couldn't fix a graphical error after a year of trying one NeoGAF user took matters into his own hands and fixed the problem - in 23 minutes! NeoGAF user Durante was able to put together his own resolution fix within 23 minutes of release, and made it available online for everyone to boot. From an Escapist report on the story comes this quote from Durante describing his fix:

GamesIndustry International offers an interesting article expanding on the negative press Windows 8 has been getting from several high profile development studios including Mojang, Blizzard, and Valve. The article asks other developers in the PC game space what they think of Windows 8 forcing software makers to sell their products in a customized marketplace.

Bethesda has no comment on a rumor circulating this morning that it purchased the game rights to the popular action game series S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The rumor was started by Ukrainian blogger Sergey Galyonkin, who cited a "very reliable source" close to the situation. The reason that many media outlets have run with this particular rumor is because Galyonkin has proven to be a reliable source himself in the past when it comes to things GSC Gameworld-related. He predicted that trouble within the studio before it became public earlier in the year.

Today Sauropod Studio pitched its game Castle Story to the public for some much needed funding on Kickstarter. In the early hours of the campaign, the game has already met its goal. Sauropod Studios was looking to raise $80,000 to bring the game to the PC and Mac, but with the help of 3,348 backers it has already raised $95,055. If you watch the video (embedded to your left) you will quickly understand why this project has gotten early buzz.

Stardock Software announced that it will ditch boxed retail releases for two of its upcoming games, making them available only online through digital distribution partners. Their next two games, The Political Machine 2012 and Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, will only be available as downloads. This sea change is due mostly to the success of Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, which was not released at retail but managed to break sales records at Stardock anyway. The game became the fastest-selling title in the company's history.

In a short statement posted on the Saints Row: The Third forums, Volition acknowledges that there are still problems with the PC version of the popular over-the-top action game several months after it was released on Steam, and that they are still hard at work trying to iron out problems that still exist.

Epic Games producer Tanya Jessen has said that the company has not ruled out the possibility of requiring that users always be connected to a server in order to play its upcoming zombie survival game Fortnite. While digital rights management is a factor, Jessen says that what the company does will be more dependent on gameplay and platform.

According to data gathered by research firm DFC Intelligence, League of Legends was more popular in Europe and North America than any other PC game - including World of Warcraft. This data comes from social gaming and matchmaking platform Xfire.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R-VA) and George Mason University President Alan Merten announced the creation of a series of interactive and educational computer and mobile phone game applications that teach youngsters about the risks and consequences of joining gangs. The goal of these programs is easy enough: to slow down gang recruitment levels in the state.

During the spring semester, GMU students used their programming skills and tapped into the attorney general’s office information of gangs to create several games and apps.

According to data gathered by Bungie, players have spent 235,182 years playing various Halo titles - Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach since 2004. They also say that over 20 billion Halo matches have been played on Xbox Live. Broken down by game titles, Halo 2 accounted for 5.4 billion games, Halo 3 / Halo 3: ODST were played 11.5 billion times (including ODST online co-op), and Halo: Reach matches were played 3.9 billion. Around 108,548,288,596 total kills were recorded across Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach.

The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) has revealed the findings of its third annual Horizons research report this week. Put together by research firm DFC Intelligence, the report tallies 2011 year-end PC game sales figures and offers some predictions about the industry through 2015.

Interplay founder and inXile boss Brian Fargo says that he will use Kickstarter to fund a sequel to the old school post apocalyptic RPG Wasteland. Inspired by the success of Double Fine's adventure game funding, Fargo put the idea out to the community with a tweet on Tuesday:

"Pondering bringing Wasteland back through this crowd funding. It's a world I have longed to work with again," he said.

Later he confirmed that he would use Kickstarter, telling IGN that the "process means we don't have to do it like the publisher wants."

Indie developer Jeff Vogel (whose Spiderweb Software studio recently released Avadon: The Black Fortress) writes an interesting article for GamaSutra today explaining his philosophy on the most effective method for dealing with piracy. The thrust of his argument is that players will pay for easy-to-pirate games because it makes them feel good about supporting a developer.

A petition urging Namco Bandai Games to bring the popular action-RPG Dark Souls to the PC has apparently caught the attention of someone at the company. Responding to it in the game's official forums, Namco Bandai Games' community manager Tony Shoupinou expressed his amazement at the accomplishment.

When it comes to Portal 2, it seems that most gamers prefer the game on PC and via Steam, according to Valve Software. That's according to Valve's Gabe Newell, who talked at length with Gamasura in a recent interview on a variety of topics. On the other end of the spectrum (and somewhat surprising), PC gamers didn't enjoy Left 4 Dead as much as console users did - at least when using sales as a metric for popularity.

Some sad news for anyone that wants to play Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition on the PC; it will have some pretty awful DRM enabled and ready to get in your way. Capcom announced via its Unity Blog that the popular fighting game will feature "always-on DRM" and described how it might be a little less draconian than Ubisoft's solution that forced players to stay connected to the internet in order to play - even in single player.

From the blog:

Eidos and Square Enix announced today that the Windows version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution will use Valve's SteamWorks DRM solution. The long-awaited sequel will support SteamWorks features such as auto-updating, Steam Achievements and Steam Cloud support. Square Enix did not disclose whether the digital version of the game would support SteamWorks across all platforms such as Direct2Drive, GamersGate, or GameStop's recently acquired Impulse platform.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is available now for pre-order on Steam at a special limited-time pricing of $44.99 (standard version) and $53.99 (Augmented Edition), for release on August 23 in North America. The Augmented Edition comes with a digital 40-page art book, a "making of" special, trailers, an animated storyboard of the CGI trailer, a motion graphic novel, soundtrack, and a free download of the Deus Ex Game of the Year Edition. Find out more here.

DC Universe Online subscribers, upset over Sony Online Entertainment's and Sony's security issues, will get some compensation in the form of a virtual item and some free play time in the super hero-themed MMO for PC and PS3. According to the DC Universe Online community site, subscribers will receive a 30 day subscription credit in addition to one day for each day the DCUO was unavailable. Subscribers will also receive a Batman-esque cowl. SOE is calling all this the "make good" plan. More from SOE:

Empire Avenue is now available as a Facebook App. The financial-social simulation game was developed by former BioWare employees and basically lets players trade in other people via a virtual stock market. Participants buy and sell shares in their friends, family, celebrities, etc. As you earn a higher stock price for yourself and others, you gather virtual currency and achievements. The goal of the game is to be more social and to show your appreciation for the social activities of others that use things such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and more.

Empire Avenue is at least worth a look if you haven’t checked it out already and it being on Facebook makes it easy to jump right in. Plus it doesn't hurt that the BioWare founders have invested in it. Anyway, you can check it out at apps.facebook.com/empireavenue or at its original location - empireavenue.com.