Here's something you don't want to hear from developers: we didn't make DLC to give fans new content, we did it to combat used game sales. I'm paraphrasing, but that's sort of what a top Take-Two Interactive executive told a gathering at ThinkEquity's 8th Annual Growth Conference in New York City earlier this week. Concerning the first batch of downloadable content released for its hit game Red Dead Redemption, he said:

Dead Island developer Techland is having more trouble this week on Steam as a file inside the game reveals an anti-feminist slur. On Tuesday a Steam user was digging through the files for the game when he came across a hidden skill called "Feminist Whore."

The studio issued an immediate apology to the public via Eurogamer:

Newsmax has some rather slanted coverage of the Tea Party Zombies Must Die Flash-game we covered earlier, but what's noteworthy about the report is that it offers some comments from Glen Beck, who took issue with the game on his syndicated radio program this evening. On the show he said the following - according to Newsmax:

Earlier this week, we reported on an IGN story that the ESRB had shot down publisher Deep Silver’s first box art submission for its upcoming zombie title, Dead Island.  An alternate, ESRB approved version of the cover swapped out the silhouette of a hanging man with that of a shambling zombie.  IGN has updated its original story with comments from the ESRB:

“The video game industry has set guidelines about the types of content that are appropriate in advertising and marketing materials, which includes game box art. According to those guidelines the depiction in the logo was not compliant.

You might think something as innocuous the American Library Association’s third annual National Gaming Day, held this past Saturday, might be beyond the scope of criticism, but when you have an agenda (and a book) to push, logic, perhaps, goes out the window.

Psychology Today is hosting a column by Ryan Van Cleave, author of Unplugged; My Journey Into the Dark World of Video Game Addiction and the man behind the Video Game Addiction Awareness Week (VGAAW) website.

One component of a new initiative designed to draw visitors back to downtown Topeka, Kansas could involve a zombie-based videogame.

Students from the Washburn University Department of Art in Topeka are pitching a game that would begin with zombies, carrying anti-Topeka signs, overrunning a “boarded-up” rendition of the Kansas town. As the player wipes out the zombies, according to a story in the charmingly-named Alva Review-Courier, a “new, bright and revitalized downtown” would be revealed.

In addition to being censored in Germany, Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops will be receiving a few trims for its release in Japan as well.

A few weeks ago, Square-Enix, who is distributing the title in Japan, announce that in order to comply with standards set by the CERO ratings board, it would be removing “all scenes of dismemberment and ‘expressions of brutality.’”  These cuts would apply to the both the subtitled and the dubbed versions of the game but the publisher promised that the zombie mode would remain untouched.

Turns out, that’s not the case.

"Brains! Brains!" That is what seven plaintiffs must have screamed as police arrested them for dressing up as zombies in a sassy protest against mindless consumerism in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Star Tribune reports that the Minneapolis city attorney's office has decided to pay seven zombies and their attorney $165,000. The settlement, which was approved by the Minneapolis City Council on Friday, is the end result of a federal lawsuit the seven filed after they were arrested and jailed for two days simply for dressing up like zombies and shambling along the streets of downtown Minneapolis on July 22, 2006, to protest "mindless" consumerism.

You can’t fight city hall. Apparently it’s not too smart (or cost-efficient) to take on the estate of Michael Jackson either, as PopCap Games has modified a character in its Plants vs. Zombies game for the iPhone which formerly closely resembled the late, great gloved-one.

MTV got word from PopCap themselves that MJ’s estate was none too thrilled with the game’s Dancing Zombie, which was outfitted in a red jacket, short pants and white socks, resembling the way Jackson appears in his in-famous Thriller video. The Dancing Zombie is now said to feature more of a disco-themed look.

PopCap issued MTV the follow statement:

The dead will rise again in Australia, this time uncensored, as that country’s Classification Board has bestowed an MA 15+ rating upon the Capcom sequel.

So, the title will be spared the travails of another zombie gore fest, Valve's Left 4 Dead 2, which was originally refused classification twice, before a modified version was submitted and granted an MA 15+ rating late last year.

Dead Rising 2 carries the descriptors “strong horror violence” along with “blood and gore and sexual references.” THQ, who will distribute the title in Australia, told GameSpot that the game was not edited in anyway prior to submission.

A Canadian researcher (and conspiracy theorist), who focuses on the “causative forces behind major changes in historical development” and believes that culture is “created and altered by those in control, always to lead the people like sheep into the next pasture,” believes that videogames, of course, are a part of this process.

Alan Watt has written a series of books on the subject and operates a website entitled Cutting Through the Matrix. In a YouTube video, Watts says about humanity, “The average person is so out of touch, so incredibly out of touch, with the only true reality there is, that it’s a different world all together. They cannot tell fact from fiction anymore.”

On entertainment in general he offers, “You cannot be entertained today and enjoy it. If you watch any of these movies… as soon as you’ve identified with these characters, you’ve lost it and you’ve been indoctrinated. They are downloading into you.”

The Facebook group Aus Gamers United is planning a public demonstration against the lack of an R18+ videogame ratings category in Australia which will feature a twist; all the participants will be dressed as zombies.

The same group conducted a similar event last year, but this year’s already looks to be monumentally bigger. The November 2009 march (video here) had 177 confirmed guests, while the new rally, scheduled for March 27, boasts 1,123 confirmed guests. The Epic Zombie March March is scheduled to kick off an Sydney's Hyde Park Fountain at 11:00 AM and run through 4:00 PM.

Urging people to “get your lurch on,” the event's organizer wrote:

…the serious reason we're putting the walk together is for the lack of an R rating for video games we have here in Aus. Someone needs to bring to attention how unfair this is to the gaming Industry and gamers ourselves.  So why not us?

The year is 2011. President Obama has just outlawed the private ownership of firearms, announced that the Constitution has been dissolved and revealed that the United States is going to be replaced by the North American Union, an amalgamation of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Revolution breaks out. Your part in this is to help capture Obama and the renegade Cong (former Congressional leaders).

This is the premise of a new online community and game calling itself United States of Earth. The extensive site is almost overwhelming in the sheer amount of information it provides, but centers around a browser-based war game in which a player can train and amass troops with the intention of taking over counties in Virginia. Players can also challenge other United States of Earth users in real videogames on Xbox Live or the PlayStation 3 network in order to win points to be used on the site.

Once logged in, users have access to a series of stories and videos that revolve around the fantasy setting, Stories include: Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck Found Dead in Camp, Barack Obama Retreats to Virginia With Wife, Former V.P. Joe Biden Captured Outside Arlington and The Cong Loses Control, Pelosi Captured!

Obviously setup by a right-wing oriented person or organization, the United States of Earth website domain is registered under contactprivacy.com, a service designed to protect the name of whoever registered the domain. The terms/contact page of the website lists what they call a “virtual office” in Brooklyn, New York.

Also from the terms page:

We take the Constitution of the United States seriously here and apply many if not most of the freedoms contained within to our own United States of Earth. It is a shame that America itself no longer safeguards its citizens freedom as we enter this next glorious age of collectivism and decay promised daily by those in power, Republicans and Democrats. Will America survive? Only time will tell.

Via: Phillip and Fark

The cringe-inducing video featuring Kurt Cobain’s Guitar Hero 5 avatar performing songs from the likes of Bon Jovi, Bush and Public Enemy has been taken off of YouTube due to a copyright claim from Activision.

The user who posted the video has had his account disabled as well reports Kotaku. corporalgregg3 wrote,  “Yeah, my last account was permanently disabled due to (I think) Activision. Right before my account was shut down, the Kurt Cobain vid was removed due to copyright claim by Activision Games Inc.”

Cobain’s widow Courtney Love had threatened to “sue the shit” out of Activision over his use in the game before Activision responded with a claim to have a signed document from Love for just such use. Unfortunately (fortunately?) Love’s main means of communicating, her Twitter account, has been deactivated.

Byteside has a video interview up with Australian film critic Margaret Pomeranz discussing the state of Australia’s classification system.

Pomeranz specifically calls out South Australia Attorney General Michael Atkinson, who is against adding an R18+ rating, as GP discussed earlier this week. She states:

You have one AG calling the shots for all of Australia. It must be very frustrating for videogame players who do want to play R rated games.

Pomeranz thinks that governments should act in an advisory role only when it comes to rating media:

“It’s the start of danger, where you have a government effectively saying this is what we will allow you to see. Fortunately, they have very little power these days because we can see anything we want, as long as we are prepared to break the law. What you are doing is turning middle class people into criminals.”

The unexpected gamer protest against Valve's E3 announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 has left more than a few obervers perplexed.

Add the name of G4's Adam Sessler to the list of those who don't get what the whining is about. On his latest Soapbox segment Sessler takes the L4D2 protesters to task:

We're going down that path again - this shocking, amazing sense of entitlement that always manifests itself in the gaming community... Valve does not have a habit of screwing people and if there was ever a developer out there I would just kind of give them the benefit of the doubt...

 

They don't owe you anything. It's a business... Where were you brought up and in what environment where you hugged so overwhelmingly that you feel that you need to be served as the only person that needs to be considered when other people are making commercial properties? It really is a little bit on the naive side and slightly embarrassing... It's kind of juvenile... The Internet, when it comes to games, can be such a nation of whiners...

Via: Gaming Today

If you've been up all night playing Resident Evil 5 and you're a little freaked out by the experience and you happen to live in Boston, fear not; the local constabulary has your back. The Boston Police Department has vowed to alert the public to any and all zombie attacks.

That reassuring news comes by way TruTV's Dumb as a Blog, which chronicles an exchange of tweets between @Boston_Police and another Twitter user. Here's how it went down:

Boston_Police:  INJURED OFFICER: Officer from district 4 transported to Beth Israel Hospital, human bite to arm, suspect in custody.

willcady:  @Boston_Police if that was a zombie bite, would you tell us?

Boston_Police:   @willcady Yes, absolutely

Via: The Consumerist