So far the best deal this correspondent has been offered in San Francisco was a nice tramp who wanted to sell an electrical heater he was dragging behind him for ten dollars. It was amazing deal, a humble offer and (technically) would benefit charity – but was unlikely to come with immaculate customer support, or indeed a copy of Braid.

Opening this year’s fist-in-the-air indie movement at GDC was a detailed breakdown of the success of the Humble Indie Bundle – with the concept’s progenitors John Graham and Jeffrey Rosen of Wolfire games providing the masses with hot statistics amidst jpegs of Sad Keanu and a video of a man (labelled Ubisoft) falling into a pond while his dog (labelled Pirates) looked on disdainfully.

For the uninitiated last May’s Humble Indie Bundle was a downloadable game collection featuring World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Penumbra: Overture and Lugaru. It’s follow-up came in December, featuring Braid, Cortex Command, Machninarium, Osmos and Revenge of the Titans. All the above were made available over PC, Mac and Linux for a limited time, for whatever price you wanted to pay, with a charity donation and the (fulfilled) promise of some of the games being released open source if a million bucks in sales was hit.

Read on for the details...



The statistics that roll in from the project are fascinating, kicking off with the base-line fact that thus far the project has banked $3m dollars, and given a cool million to charities Child’s Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “I remember calling the EFF and gave them a complicated pitch” laughs Jeff Rosen during the presentation. “After about ten minutes they interrupted and said ‘so you’re asking us if you can give us money?”

Did you know that statistically Hotmail users are stingier than the cool kids on Gmail? Well, according to the Humble guys this is a rock solid fact. In terms of prices paid, the first Indie Bundle had 9000 purchases with people donating a measly penny, with 30,000 people plumping for a far more reasonable $10 or so – with a few stand-out heroes/crazies donating colossal figures like $3333 and, of course, $1337. In Wolfire’s own words “generous people overpowered the cheapskates”.

More distressingly, despite the underlined fact that “In general the internet is pretty nice”, the Humble Bundle was a target for both pirates and nasty-types willing to jump on its hype train. One chap bought 1000 copies of the initial bundle at one cent a go, and another bought the second batch 1736 times at the same insulting price-point - presumably with the potential of later eBay resales in mind. This was “pretty damning to the averages on the site, and pretty annoying” – especially when coupled in with the 25% of people directly pirating the download and more through activity on torrents. One nasty schemer even registered www.wolffire.com (note the two ‘f’s) with the intention of siphoning money into a personal paypal account – which thankfully was shut down before it did any damage.

A heart-warming result of the piracy, however, was the discovery that many pirates lived in countries where credit card transactions and paypal were hard to come by – leading to people actively buying the bundle for strangers in need. Rosen himself bought 25 copies for those wanting a slice of humble pie.



In fact, the lasting impression left on the audience during the Humble Pie talk was the sheer effort put into customer service. Under the motto ‘No Customer Left Behind’ a team of 18 operators, many of them the game devs themselves, pulled all-nighters – manning email accounts and directly responding to the 0.5 percent of people affected. There was even a tab on the site in which concerned punters could get in touch directly, the screens of the Humble customer service team cascading with chat windows. “It’s like Starcraft. You just feel it.” runs the explanation for how it feels operating in such a direct customer feedback loop. Wolfire also aren’t backward in criticising the services they consider to misunderstand the needs of the download customer – labelling the Good Old Games faux-closure of last year as “a stunt at the customer’s expense”.

Overall John Graham and Jeffrey Rosen outlined the strategies and ingenuities of their schemes in front of an assembled group of appreciative peers – their success something of a heart-warming triumph. As for Humble Bundle #3? No news as yet – but the bundle will be “cooler” and the customers “happier”. The wait starts now…

Speaking at GDC, League of Legends developer Riot Games have said that Warcraft III custom scenario Defence of the Ancients is 'needlessly inaccessible', and that League of Legends is a kind of spiritual successor that brings the DOTA experience to a wider audience.

Developers Tom Cadwell and Steve Snow explained how League of Legends took inspiration from DOTA, realising that the concept was "needlessly inaccessible" and unavailable to anyone outside its niche. With no large-scale promotion, DOTA still reached a vast audience, with over 10 million downloads of the Warcraft 3 custom map per release, without a commercial model. Riot Games took on the task of bringing DOTA to a wider audience with League of Legends and made changes to make the DOTA-style experience more streamlined. Read on for the details.



Riot also made changes to the DOTA formula to make the game a better player experience. For example, the beloved DOTA tactic of 'denying' (killing your own Hero character to prevent the enemy gaining XP) was removed, but Riot were careful to explain this to the community to ensure a positive reaction.

“We were as transparent as possible" explained Tom Cadwell, explaining that even the president of Riot Games would go into chat to answer player's questions.

"It was player tactics such as denying that made DOTA a bit of a rough game. DOTA has a reputation for being a ‘ragey’ community. Having your teammates toss racial slurs makes people not want to play the game. We thought the mechanics of the game incentivised negative interactions... positive team experiences make people want to hang around."

Google have just finished a talk at GDC where they highlight the potential of the Chrome Web Store and what it can do to help app developers monetise their ideas successfully.

The Chrome Web Store launched back in December, and since it's release has been gathering momentum. The system has been compared to Apple's iTunes App Store and Google's own Android Market, but rather than for portable devices the Web Store is - like it's name suggests - within your browser. From here in your Chrome window you can access a plethora of apps - including games such as RuneScape - which can then be run within your browser. Read on for all the details.

For apps within the Store, Google strongly support native HTML 5 and WebKit development, pointing out that plug-ins are a bad idea, and rely on software such as Flash which users may not have. They point out that Facebook has paved the way for browser-based games; the site has 125 million users who access it with HTML 5 browsers, all of whom can use the social network's many games. This demonstrates the vast audience for HTML 5 games, argues Google.

Google have also pointed out the possibilities that the Chrome Web Store provides for app developers, with the ability to generate income through paid-for distribute - both one-time and subscription based purchases - and to offer free content to encourage sales. The Store is soon to be able to support in-app payments, with a beta supporting this function available now.

The whole Chrome Web Store system is seamlessly integrated into the Chrome browser (which is seeing an continued rise in adoption over Internet Explorer and other alternatives), and can be synced across all your browsers.

During a talk at GDC 2011, Vincent Scheib, a software engineer at Google, has shown off the future of web-based gaming with impressive browser-based demos which don't require plugins or web players to work.

Speaking to PC Gamer live at the show he says: "A lot of the tech is available today but in a beta or test form. You don’t have to use flash. As we move forward, the browsers are dedicated to supplying new technology to support higher quality applications."

Hit more for a video, and to try out the demos.



First he showed off Quake 2 running in a browser, but with no plugins, no flash or players involved. Read more details here.



Then there was Google body, which let's you strip people down to their bones, all from the comfort of your browser without any annoying extras. You'll need to be running Chrome or Safari for it to work.

Earthquake visualisation has never been this effortless, or cool-looking as this.

It's also worth checking out this full-screen stress test of your browser's capabilities. Warning: involves hundreds of fish.

More demos will be available on Google's official portal for GDC. You can engage with the Google developer community via their Twitter feed.

In an early announcement at GDC, Paradox have revealed their newest title to the word: Sengoku. A grand strategy title set in 15th century Feudal Japan, Sengoku promises to be historically accurate and offer a deep political game experience. You can see the serene first reveal trailer above, and get all the details after the jump.

Sengoku focuses on deep character driven gameplay, with players heading an influential and powerful Samurai family. Starting in 1467 during civil war, the Ashikaga Shoguns' authority has collapsed and so it is every man for himself. Through honour, conquest, betrayal and combat, players will work towards the survival of their family and the capture of power.

Paradox have said that the games will feature a deep political system, where deals can be made with external powers in order to help progress your power struggle. In your bid to become Shogun, you'll be able to employ powerful Samurai soldiers and recruit Ninja clans as you wage war across a historically accurate map of Japan as it was during the warring states period.

Valve has just announced plans for a "big picture mode" for Steam that "will enable gamers to enjoy Steam and their library of Steam games on more screens throughout the house."

"With big picture mode, gaming opportunities for Steam partners and customers become possible via PCs and Macs on any TV or computer display in the house," says Valve spokesman Doug Lombardi in a press release.

What that means isn't clear yet - whether Valve wants us to buy new network-capable TVs and stream our games to them from our PCs, or simply plug our PCs directly into our TVs via HDMI and play games that way. The former would indicate some kind of hardware or partnership with a hardware maker is in the works; the latter would be something along the lines of YouTube's TV mode interface that's designed to be navigated with a remote.

Thoughts? Wild speculation? Let us know if this sounds like something you'd use in your home.

Earlier we mentioned the appearance of the first screenshot for Serious Sam 3: BFE. Croteam have since added four more screenshots to the mix, and announced that the game will be coming out this summer. It's a prequel that will be set in the ruined cities of 22nd century Egypt. It will also feature a co-op mode that will support a whopping 16 players at a time.

The info was revealed in a comedy Croteam press release, which promises that Serious Sam 3 will have the same over the top weaponry and mass alien blasting of the previous games. There will also be new "Serious" melee moves and creatures to fight, including the "legendary Headless Kamikaze," and hordes of "Turian Werebull."

Chief financial officer at publisher Devolver Digital has this to say. “Holy crap, I am going to make a boatload of cash of this game,” adding, “I mean that’s what this is all about, right? If this thing comes out in the summer my wife is totally getting the tit job she’s been asking for.”

The press release still doesn't reveal what BFE stands for, but does point the way to four shiny new screenshots of the game. Click on them to enlarge/ Imagine them moving, with lots more explosions, and fifteen friends. Mmmmm, that's good co-op.

The PC Gamer office has been spookily deserted today. Most of us have been out and about, looking at the many exciting games heading our way. Things have been relatively quiet on the news front too, though the new Serious Sam game sounds as though it's going to be mental.

This is the calm before the storm. The Games Developer Conference is about to kick off in San Francisco, which means everything's about to get very exciting indeed. Owen's warming up on the sidelines right now, ready to take over and bring you all the latest from the conference as it happens. Tim will also be liveblogging his way through today's announcements and revelations.

But here's something to tide you over 'til all that begins, a list of everything that's been going on in PC gaming in the run up to the start of GDC, and a clue as to what Tim Edwards got up to last night.



Vadejuegos interview the Magicka developers on the advantages of releasing games digitally, and the disadvantages of streaming game services.
King Arthur 2 is set to have bigger and more spectacular battlefields, according to this interview with Hooked Gamers.
Onlive are offering a free console and a copy of Metro 2033 with every pre-order of Homefront.
The Homefont devs think first person shooters should take more risks.
A new Shogun 2 dev diary has the game's creators talking about the history of Total War.
Painkiller: Redemption isout now.
TakeTwo have been buying up some domain names that might well have something to do with Grand Theft Auto V.
The Rift developers talk to Strategy Informer about the lessons they've learned from watching the disastrous launch of Final Fantasy XIV, lessons like "don't release a buggy game because we should have learned that twenty years ago." Burn.
Bioware say people shouldn't be afraid to give role playing games a try.

 

Last night an interdimensional portal to a nightmare water-world opened up above my head and vomited angry alligators at me. Rift's scary portals have a habit of popping up out of nowhere, and you never quite know what they're going to throw at you. My skeletal companion and I vanquished the alligators with a series of swift curses and the occasional smack with a magical staff, once again re-establishing mammalian superiority. What's the most unexpected thing that's ever happened to you in a game?

The 2011 Game Developer Conference starts in San Francisco today, and we're there to bring you every story as it happens or, more realistically, shortly after we've typed a post about it.

GDC started as a chance for developers to discuss ideas. But like any big gaming event, it's become a milestone in the calendar for publishers to release major new info and let people try their games. We can't complain - it tends to be really exciting stuff, and every year there are still fascinating and candid talks and panels from the industry's sharpest minds.

Stay tuned to PCGamer.com and check our GDC 2011 tag to follow all our updates from the conference.

Battlefield Play4Free will be a free-to-play Battlefield game with Battlefield 2's maps and Battlefield: Bad Company 2's weapons. Easy Studios have been talking more about how character customisation and levelling up will work in the game. Instead of Bad Company 2's linear unlocks, players will gain points that can be spent on a choice of skills to improve their character, unlocking different roles within each class. Read on for more information, and some hot skill trees.



Game designer Colin M. Clarke has been writing about the new system on the Battlefield blog, mentioning that Battlefield Play4Free will have four familiar classes: Medic, Assault, Engineer and Recon, but within each class there will be two skill trees. One will let you level up your equipment and unlock new weapons, the other will improve your character's physical abilities.

The aim of the skill trees is to allow players to find their "niche" on the battlefield. Easy Studios are trying to tune the skills on offer to allow different ways to play each class. Clarke uses Recon as an example.

"The recon that takes the point, scouts with his Motion Sensor and uses his Combat Training to find, outflank and eliminate enemies only has some similarities to the recon who unfolds his lawn chair and takes shots at enemies from 80+ meters away. They are the same kit, but each player has his own personalized combat experience within that kit."

"One thing I like is the amount of STUFF that I can choose from when spending Training Points. Sometimes I find I get a little bored of being a sniper and I want to get into the mix and see how well I do on the front line. Just by changing up my skills I can take my super sniper and turn him into a tactical infiltration recon that keeps my team constantly posted on enemy positions."

Battlefield Play4Free is currently running a closed beta. You can sign up to join in with future betas on the Battlefield Play4Free site.