Developer inXile has announced in its latest Kickstarter update for Wasteland 2 that the game will officially be released in August. Wasteland 2 was successfully funded on Apr 17, 2012 via a rather impressive Kickstarter campaign that raised over $2.9 million by its close and was backed by 61,290 people. The post apocalyptic action RPG - which was the inspiration of the Fallout series of games from Interplay (now owned by Bethesda) - was also released on Steam Early Access in December of last year.

Square Enix has confirmed that it plans to bring its classic RPG Final Fantasy 3 to PC platforms via Steam sometime this year.

Square Enix says that the new game will feature new and improved story sequences and 3D graphics, optimized browsing of in-game information such as the monster bestiary and other game records, new visual designs for the Job Mastery Cards, and generally upgraded graphics. Besides the cosmetic changes and the control optimizations for the PC, Final Fantasy 3 will be an identical experience to what has already been released on consoles and hand-helds.

Prague-based independent developer Keen Software House says that its space-based sandbox game Space Engineers has sold more than 500,000 copies on Steam Early Access. That's not too shabby for an indie game that has been on the market since Oct 23, 2013.

Valve Software is paying attention to users complaints about Earth: Year 2066. The Steam Early Access title, a "first-person sci-fi post-apocalyptic open-world game" developed by Killing Day Studios, has finally been pulled from the catalog, with Valve offering those who purchased the game a full refund until May 19.

Indie developer Digital Eel let us know that its crowd-funded 3D space exploration game, Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars is now available via Steam Early Access.

"Even as development continues, we're very excited to be able to share Sea of Stars early with Kickstarter backers and the gaming community at large," the company said today. "Steam's Early Access allows you to play work-in-progress versions of the game (new build updates are automatic), provide critical feedback and actually help shape its creation."

Ciro Continisio, the developer behind the successfully crowd-funded turn-based strategy title UFHO2, released his game as a torrent on Pirate Bay after the game failed to get approved via Steam's Greenlight program. The game was successfully funded by a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign in early 2012, and in August of that same year Continisio submitted it to the Greenlight program.

Curve Studios design director Jonathan "Bidds" Biddle has found himself in the spotlight today after tweeting that Valve will be making dramatic changes to its Steam Greenlight program. Biddle said on Twitter that the system, which lets users cast a "Yes" or "No" votes on pitches for potential products to be listed on Steam, will be gone by this time next year.

We met with Valve at GDC, and they say Greenlight will be gone within 12 months. They'll still offer curated space, but otherwise be open.

Indie developer Positech Games said via a new blog post that game sales (like the kind found on Steam and in the Humble Bundle) are providing the endorphin rush instead of the fun of actually playing the games players are purchasing at deep discounts. Positech Games' Cliff Harris says that these kinds of sales are insidious dangers that normalize huge price reductions.

"This is a big psychology trick that is being used to siphon money from gamers, and it's a bad thing," he said. "And if we can - and I think we probably can't - we should stop it."

A new feature on Steam (that has not been launched yet to our knowledge) will allow Steam users to report products that contain inappropriate content like pornographic material or themes, content that violates a law in certain jurisdictions, hate speech, child exploitation, is fraudulent or is some type of malware, etc. The news comes from an image posted by Steam Database.

OnLive isn't back because it never left, but it is making headlines today by introducing several new services that it hopes can get it back on top of the video game streaming heap. First the company revealed that former IGN chief Mark Jung is its new executive chairman, and that it has launched OnLive Go and CloudLift. It has been working on this new technology since 2012 when the company fired most of its staff, sold itself to an investment firm and reformed under the same name.

Uncovered by a user on Reddit, a page from Valve's private Steamworks community shows that the company will allow developers to set their own sales. In the past Valve and a developer would have to work together in order to set up a sale for a game.

A Reddit thread raising concerns over how Valve's anti-cheat system (or VAC) works caught the eye of Valve CEO Gabe Newell, who took the unusual step of posting a detailed response explaining how it all works and why Valve's system must access data sometimes to identify and ban suspected cheaters. Newell addressed head-on concerns in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive sub-Reddit that Valve was spying on players' internet usage.

Rust creator Garry Newman says that his game has managed to sell over one million copies through Steam's Early Access program. The game, which is still in the early stages of development started off as a clone of DayZ, but recent changes like the removal of zombies have made the game more about survival than survival horror.

According to the web site for law firm Osborne Clarke, the results of the German court case against Valve for not allowing Steam accounts to be transferred or the ability to sell pre-owned Steam games are in.

Game developer Bugbear Interactive has announced that its Steam Early Access initiative for its new racing game, simply called "New Car Game," is a smashing success. The company said on the official website for the oddly named game that they managed to generate $1 million in sales in its first week of availability. A free tech demo of the game is available to those willing to sign up for the company's newsletter as well - if you want to try the game before you actually pay any money for it.

Earlier this week Alienware said that its Steam Machines - custom PCs that sport Valve's steam OS, hardware to support it, and a nifty Steam Controller - were not upgradeable and that it would use a release schedule similar to the iPad to get new hardware out there. Today the company is saying that there was a bit of a miscommunication in its original message.

What the company meant to say, apparently, is that you CAN upgrade the Alienware-branded Steam Machine, but it won't be an easy thing to do.

Here's the problem with letting a bunch of different PC manufacturers make something and use a brand like "Steam Machines" - you are going to get some wildly different products and price ranges that can be pretty darned costly for rank and file consumers whose last names aren't "Rockefeller," "Bloomberg," "Trump," etc. That's what is happening with Alienware's version(s) of the Steam Machine.

On this week's show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the latest GamePolitics poll (SimCity's offline mode), the plastic surgery game that got booted off Apple App store and Google Play store, the changes made to the Steam Controller, and Nintendo's ongoing financial woes due to poor Wii U sales. Download Episode 84 now: SuperPAC Episode 84 (1 hour, 12 minutes) 83.3 MB.

In a thread on Reddit, Valve front man Gabe Newell said something that surprised a lot of people: that he's okay with EA's Origin digital distribution platform running on Steam Machines. While we don't know how Steam OS and Origin would cooperate within the same environment, Newell's comments continue to illustrate Valve's commitment to being an all-inclusive platform for all kinds of games and methods of delivery, etc.

According to information coming out of Valve's Steam Dev Days event from Steamdb, Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 content creators were paid a collective $400,000 in the first week of 2014.

"In the first week of 2014, $400k was paid out to content creators", noted Valve during the second Steam Day. The content in question is made by ordinary players in the community who then resell it to fellow players.

Ubisoft is the first major publisher to launch a major game via Steam's early access program. Is this the beginning of a trend where developers and publishers who make PC games take their games to Steam and let players play early alphas to shape the game before it officially launches? We're not sure but if it is, it looks like Ubisoft will be on the ground floor of the trend embraced by indies.

Two of the companies that had the biggest buzz coming out of the Consumers Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week were Oculus (for a new version of its Oculus Rift VR gaming headset) and Steam (for its Steam Machines and Steam Controller), so it is interesting that Valve has announced plans to bring the two PC gaming devices together. Steam is now testing an experimental mode that uses the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift in the most recent Steam Client Beta.

Valve's Steam Controller has been getting a mixed response from journalists who finally got to try out the hardware at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Valve recognizes that the controller still needs a lot of work and tweaking, but ultimately the goal is to make it work with all kinds of games - even games that one would think "require" the use of a mouse and keyboard.

Valve has launched a beta of the new "family options" for its Steam digital distribution service that makes it easier for parents to put limits on content for their children.

Last night at its Consumer Electronics Show press conference Valve Software revealed that 14 third-party hardware manufacturers were working on Steam Machines that would run its Steam OS operating system and would support the Steam controller. The prices among these manufacturers for the customized Steam Machines vary wildly, with a starting price of $499 all the up to the ridiculous price of $6,000.

Twelve more companies have lined up to build Steam Machines - machines meant to be used with a high definition television set in the living room that run Valve's Linux-based operating system Steam OS and support the Steam controller. This news comes from an Engadget report. Valve is set to hold its Consumers Electronics Show press conference this evening, where it will make a number of announcements related to these systems and its custom-built game-focused operating system.

Developer Bohemia Interactive recently revealed that more than 400,000 people have put down their hard-earned money to buy DayZ during its first week on Steam Early Access. The game, which began its life as a mod for Arma 2, was released on December 16.

While some people who might not otherwise be interested in a game like DayZ are taking note because of its popularity, Bohemia Interactive is warning potential customers that the game they are thinking about buying early is not finished and still contains a lot of bugs.

According to Valve's statistics page for Steam, the online service has set a new concurrent user record. On Dec. 29 Steam had 7.6 million of its 65 million members logged in at the same time, setting a new record for peak concurrent usage. This number is up slightly up from 7 million concurrent users recorded over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and the all-time high of 6 million concurrent users in 2012.

If you heard that Valve's hit Zombie shooter Left 4 Dead 2 was free for a limited time but didn't get it yet - don't fret, there's still time. According to Valve's Left 4 Dead blog you have until 9 am PDT, or 1 pm EDT. From the blog:

The standalone early access version of the zombie survival game DayZ has managed to generate sales in the $5.1 million range in its first 24 hours since launch, with new players joining the zombie survival adventure every hour (88,000 survivors joined in the first 12 hours), according to Bohemia Interactive's CEO Maruk Spanel.

He revealed on his blog that, after 24 hours of being made available, 172,500 copies of the game had been sold and 142,403 players were online. The early access version of the game landed on Steam earlier this week.