In an interview with PC Play CryTek boss Cevat Yerli has claimed that due to PC piracy the company behind Far Cry and Crysis won’t be making any new PC Exclusive titles.

We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable. I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy. To the degree PC Gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we wont have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore.

Which is a sign that piracy really is having a big factor on the PC as a gaming platform. But I am not sure what CryTek expected from a game boasting pretty high system specs. I am not condoning piracy but I can see that many people are going to have pirated because they won’t be sure that it will run on their PC.

As ever the piracy issue leads back to at times to the PC being a confusing platform for gamers due to all the different hardware combinations. Time then for the developers to start making games which are playable on the majority of PCs!

Well at least according to CVG who have received a ‘No Comment’ from Rockstar UK regarding the GTA IV on PC rumours.

Following up from yesterdays news regarding a German retailer listing GTA IV for the PC the game listing on CityDisc has been changed.

The release date is now for 30th October and this has appeared in German for what I assume is the product description.

Das Spiel GTA 4 für PC ist vom Publisher Take 2 noch nicht bestätigt.

Releasedatum noch offen!!

Which translated on Babel Fish comes out with this.

The play GTA 4 for PC is not yet confirmed of the Publisher Take 2. Release date still openly!!

Which when translated again into proper English by yours truly comes out with something like this.

The release date for GTA 4 for PC has not yet been confirmed by the Publisher, Take 2. The release date is not guaranteed and is open to change.

As of writing this I have not had any response from Rockstar or Take 2 regarding this issue.

UK retailer of all things electronic, Currys are planning to set up a new games rating system (according to CVG) in an attempt to make the classification system more family friendly.

Currys will establish a customer panel to rate games on a variety of factors including suitability and the challenge they pose.

“Video gaming is now a mainstream form of family entertainment and we’ve seen a huge surge in the number of non-core gamers purchasing consoles and games,” Amanda Clift, head of brand for Currys, told Sky News.

It will be interesting to see how this is actually used. It is starting as a pilot scheme in five areas before being rolled out nationwide. It is not clear right now how this will be implemented considering the Byron review claimed that game ratings are already too complex. Currys using their own system is due to lead to furthe confusion.

Update

A Currys PR representative has just gotten back to me with the full Press Release (which can be read after the jump)

The main highlights are that this move has been made in a response to the Byron review and that OAPs are going to be involved in generating their own rating system for games suitable for the over 60s.

Read the rest of this entry

In a continuation of my series of Codemasters related ‘Love’ posts, here we have two LeMans 24 Hour drivers talk about how real Race Driver GRID is.

Awesome!

Thanks to a tip off from a forumite from Half-Life2.net I was pointed in the direction of GameRush which in turn linked me to German retailer CityDisc which lists a PC version of GTA IV for a November 30th release.

Considering previous GTA games have taken between 6 and 8 months to arrive onto the PC this does seem a plausable release date. It is also a date that sits well with the holiday game rush.

I am going to get in touch with RockStar to try to get some clarification on this.

The East Carolina University has very recently published their findings into a 6-month randomized study into casual gaming. PopCap games such as Bejeweled 2 and Peggle were used in the study.

The study revealed that Bejeweled 2 reduced stress levels by 54% compared to that of the control group. Peggle and Bookworm Adventures did not actively reduce stress levels, but did have a positive impact of other mood aspects of those people involved in the study.

The full press release from PopCap can be read after the jump. The results of the study are very interesting as it reveals that casual games are very benficial in reducing stress levels and in helping the gamer get in a better mood.

Perhaps it is these psychological benefits that are a reason behind the ever expanding numbers of casual gamers? It is very possible in my mind.

Read the rest of this entry

You may remember that a couple of days ago I blogged about a game known as Stalin vs Martians a Real Time Strategy being made by Dreamlore, BWF and N-Game.

The game immediately grabbed my interest for the obvious possibilities of playing as both Stalin and some Martians all set in a fun action packed environment. I decided that I wanted to learn and sent off an e-mail to the information e-mail address on the Stalin vs Martians site. To my surprise I received a reply from Alexander Shcherbakov the head of Dreamlore and Producer/Lead Designer of Stalin vs Martians.

I have been exchanging numerous e-mails with Alexander over the past few days and have been able to glean a lot of information regarding Stalin vs Martians, other Dreamlore projects and his thoughts on digital distribution.

Read the rest of this entry

My review of TrackMania Forever, both Nations and United has been published over on 411 Mania and I say some funky little things like this.

TrackMania is a whole load of fun, there is noting about this game that makes you think “oh this isn’t fun…” as you are constantly racing around outrageously crazy tracks making your car do stuff that shouldn’t be possible but that just is brilliant to witness. The actual driving is fun purely because you are not worrying about gears, downforce and all the other stuff that comes in racing games today. Without a doubt this is the most fun you are going to have with a racing game for a long while.

So go and check it out right here.

Portal was released last year and received great critical reviews and many gamers fell in love with the game, the Weighted Companion Cube became an overnight success, as did the game. Earlier this year it was let slip that Portal 2 was a certainty. Now Doug Lombardi has informed Eurogamer that we shouldn’t expect to see any more Portal this year.

“In typical Valve tradition, it won’t be Portal with different colours,” said Lombardi, dressed as a companion cube. “I think that when you hit something like that, you have two choices: you can quickly replicate it and stick it out there - do the opportunistic thing and cash in on it; or you can do the crazy thing like we did after Half-Life was so successful and go off and try and say, ‘Okay, that was revolutionary, so its successor has to be equally as revolutionary.’

“That’s the spirit I think we’re approaching it in,” he added. “You won’t see a new Portal at retail this Christmas because of that. That’s the trade off. People want more, but we don’t want to give them more of the same right away because that would just be boring.”

Read more.

A sad thing to hear that we won’t be seeing more Portal this year, but I guess that if Valve manage to do like they did with the transition from Half-Life to Half-Life 2 we will end up with a better Portal 2.