If you've waited this long to finally play a game of Team Fortress 2, now may be the best time. Or at least the cheapest, as Valve is giving Team Fortress 2 away for free—forever—with the team-based first-person shooter now solely supported by microtransactions.

Valve's Robin Walker tells Develop that Team Fortress 2 won't fund its continuing development with advertising or subscription fees, just the things players spend their real-world money on right now (hats, new weapons, crate keys and other virtual goods). Walker says that free drops of in-game loot will continue as it has, now that the game is free to play, as will the sharing of profits with community members who create content for TF2.

One of the bigger benefits to Valve of TF2 going F2P is attracting more people to Steam, the developer's digital distribution and community service. And more players means more people willing to invest in items from the game's Mann Company store, more people willing to put cash in their Steam Wallet and spend elsewhere.

While other games in Valve's catalog have in-game stores, like Portal 2, Walker downplays the notion that other games from the developer will adopt a free to play model.

So, who's finally jumping in? We could use a few more Medics.

Update: The official Team Fortress 2 site lays out some of the changes in store for the transition to free to play. Perhaps the most notable change is the distinction between Free and Premium accounts. A Premium account, according to Valve's FAQ, is for anyone who has ever spent money on Team Fortress 2, whether it was an initial purchase or buying something from the in-game Mann Co. store.

Premium account holders have benefits that Free accounts don't, like larger backpacks, access to all crafting blueprints, the option to wear rare and cosmetic items, and the ability to give items as gifts. More at TeamFortress.com.

Team Fortress 2: Free-to-Play FAQ [Team Fortress]

It appears that video hosting service Viddler lost some data centers this evening just in time to knock our premiere of Retro Game Master offline. We're standing by to see how quickly they can get the service back up an will return RGM to our front page as soon as the video goes live. Sorry for any inconvenience.

In 1991, before the company realised it was a good idea to pay closer attention to the shit it was licensing its name and characters for, Nintendo gave its blessing for the release of a CD called White Knuckle Scorin.

While the name and the cover art give faint hope that this might be a collection of Mario-inspired thrash songs from amateur metal bands, it's sadly nothing of the sort. It's something far better. And far worse.

As posted over on Negative World earlier this week, White Knuckle Scorin was in fact a regrettable attempt to promote literacy amongst kids. Because nothing screams literacy like a man whose tagline has the word "itsa" in it.

Featuring songs from bands like Trixter and Flesh For Lulu, the disc also included a comic (literally, on paper, not on the disc) that was supposed to do...something.

I mean, I'm sure there was intent there somewhere along the line to make the comic about promoting literacy amongst young kids, but it ends up a story full of fighting, more fighting, the denigration of honest trades, sexism and, best of all, poor grammar. About the only thing tying the adventure together, which culminates in a fantasy involving Mario dressing up as a Knight, is that the dialogue contains the titles to each song on the album, prompting the characters to routinely pause mid-panel and annoyingly shout "SONG CUE".

In case you weren't of age in 1991, and were never blessed with similar cash-ins like The Simpsons Sing the Blues, below you'll one of the tracks, wonderfully animated for effect by Rootom9.

Bizarrely, only the very first song on the album (the one in the clip) actually has anything to do with the Mushroom Kingdom whatsoever. The rest of the package, which also featured songs by Roy Orbison and Dire Straits, was simply a compilation album by MCA Records, a dumping ground for nine completely unrelated songs.

Since the comic makes little sense, it's OK to view the panels at leisure, checking more for inappropriate content (like Peach stuffing stuff down her cleavage, shocking grammar or seeing Mario's turn ons) and weird art than any hopes of a coherent storyline. You can see most of it at Negative World, which has even helpfully highlighted the best/worst bits.

If for some reason you're looking to grab a copy, despite its age you can find it, yes, on eBay.

Whomever at YouTube banned Crosse Studios' account might want to reconsider that action. Inexplicably, the entire collection of trailers for the independent sports video game developer was taken out of commission yesterday, on the grounds that the videos violate YouTube's policy against "scams, spam and commercially deceptive content."

Well, NLL 11 (above) is an actual video game. Its Xbox Live Marketplace page is here. Crosse Studios has published three other lacrosse games on Xbox Live Indie Games, one of which earned a sports game of the year nod from Kotaku. The lacrosse series games are also among the highest-rated indie games by Xbox Live users.

Perhaps most importantly, NLL 11 is the second video game produced under license by the National Lacrosse League, which likely has sales and promotional expectations for this product, served by the trailers hosted on YouTube. Crosse Studios had accumulated more than half a million views of its videos.

Carlo Sunseri, Crosse Studios' chief, has been unable to get any answers on the takedown, other than an officious form email.

The email suggests that someone flagged the content. Crosse Studios has been involved in a scrape with another indie developer, who accused Crosse of encouraging lacrosse fans to create bogus Xbox Live accounts to manipulate the ratings of games on the Indie channel. Sunseri publicly considered taking legal action. As this controversy boiled, Xbox Live altered its ratings policy.

Sunseri told Kotaku that the situation has cooled down since April, but figured that his videos might have been flagged repeatedly as a retaliatory gesture, which YouTube has only now gotten around to addressing.

"It could be possible that someone got mad and started flagging that video," Sunseri said, "but I can't think of why anyone would do that. I really don't think that's linked."

Regardless, he'd like to get the account restored. "It's a killer for someone like me," he said. "I don't have that strong of a marketing budget and all the videos I've put out are nowhere to be found now."

In this first episode of Retro Game Master, our hero, Shinya Arino, faces off against grueling Nintendo Entertainment System game Ninja Gaiden.

Released in Japan in 1988 on the Famicom to coincide with the release of an arcade game by the same name, Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden featured 20 levels spread over six acts and a final act that required beating three bosses without dying. It looks brutal, but Arino makes me want to go out and buy an NES just to give it a try again.

This classic hour-long episode comes from season four of the show, originally known as Game Center CX. This first official U.S. airing of the show uses dubbing for the announcer's voice and subtitling for Arino's.

Retro Game Master airs weekly on Kotaku at 8 p.m. eastern on Thursdays. The show and Kotaku reruns will remain on the site for viewing at your leisure throughout the season. Licensing prevents the show from being seen outside of North America.

Don't forget to expand the video above to watch it full screen.

Update: North American viewers in Canada and Mexico, the geotagging issue that prevented you from viewing it before has (hopefully!) been resolved. Sorry for the inconvenience, neighbors to the north and south. The rest of you, consider this an "encore presentation."

In the throes of the 23-day PlayStation Network Outage, when people were vowing they'd sell their PS3s and go join Xbox Live, Microsoft's most provocative comment was a low-key prediction that it would see more traffic on its service. Yesterday, though, Xbox's senior executive finally said what's bad for the goose is bad for the gander.

"It's bad for the industry that this has happened to Sony," Dennis Durkin, the chief operating officer of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, told IndustryGamers. "[W]e don't wish that upon anybody and you've seen we've been actually pretty quiet on the subject because we don't want to appear to even be looking to be taking advantage of somebody else's situation like that. That's just not in our DNA," he said.

It's polite and professional, and just plain sensible PR, to not revel in your rivals' multibillion-dollar misfortunes. But what probably inform's Durkin's there-but-for-the-grace-of-God perspective is the fact that Xbox Live is shifting its attention to "the cloud," i.e. to servers that the bad guys can (and, likely, eventually will) attack.

So while Durkin says Microsoft does "everything it can to be sure users' data is secure," he did say that "it is the consumer's responsibility also to do a number of things to try to protect their data," such as not using the same password across multiple sites, especially super-important ones. Like Xbox Live.

Xbox COO on PSN and Hacking: We Do Everything We Can to Protect Xbox Live Data [Industry Gamers]

Hey Game Club, so I almost forgot to mention when we we're supposed to meet for our first discussion! Please come to the Game Club post at 4pm Eastern to discuss acts 1 & 2 of Shadows of the Damned.

FALLOUT NEW YORK | I was going to include a photo of the Sonic cupcakes someone left at the front door of Gawker's NY offices. But I ate them before taking a picture, because I'm sort of like a dog when it comes to food. Sorry! (Photo by Jentern the Intern)

Wuthering Heights, Other Classics Eyed for Video Game Adaptation

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The First Sublime Seven Minutes of Shadows of the Damned

Shadows of the Damned is a visually rich, quirky, imaginative game about a guy and his demon out to avenge the death of his sweetheart. It's also about 10 hours of not-even-slightly subtle dick jokes. You probably think I'm exaggerating. More »

L.A. Noire Headed to the Computer

Rockstar's interactive detective story L.A. Noire is coming to the PC this fall, the publishers said this morning. "L.A. Noire is a new type of game that makes players see through a detective's eyes in 1940s Los Angeles," said Sam Houser, founder of Rockstar Games More »

Happy Birthday, Sonic The Hedgehog. Here's How Not To Suck

Twenty years ago today, Sega released the first Sonic the Hedgehog videogame. It was a joyous occasion-and it was also my dad's 41st birthday. (Happy 61st birthday, dad.) Ten years ago today, Sega released the worst Sonic the Hedgehog game - More »

Evidence That Someone Loves Playing Duke Nukem Forever Online

There's been a lot said about Duke Nukem Forever, not much of it good. But we're slowly starting to hear from people demonstrating how they love the throw-back shooter in their own ways. Last night it was a couple of buddies who popped open some beers and played the game side-by-side. More »

New Rainbow Six Might Be the Most Innovative Shooter in Years

While Ubisoft's still-secret, yet-to-be named Rainbow Six game skipped an E3 appearance this year, it is still very much in the works we're told. Here is our first look at early, rough images leaked to us from the game, a game that promises to mix the former glory of the hard-as-nails tactical... More »

Does Breaking Bad Now Star Video Game's Lost Hero?

This poster, recently slapped up on the walls of some of New York City's subway stations, advertises the next season of AMC's Breaking Bad. But gamers like me who look at it will probably see something else. Gordon Freeman, hero of Half-Life, is that you? This is Freeman as he appears on the box... More »

What Is America's Fetish This Week? Penises

Dicks. Cocks. Penes. Half the population has them, and they've been the object of fascination for centuries-whether that be the physical organ itself or the phallus. More »

Jamie Kennedy's Still Sensitive About His Trainwreck of an E3 2007 Hosting Gig, Apparently

Jamie Kennedy, star of Son of the Mask, Malibu's Most Wanted and Wii game Real Heroes: Firefighter doesn't always deliver brilliantly inspired performances. More »

Suspected Lulz Hacker Told Mom He Was Gaming, Not Hacking

The teen linked by international law enforcement to anarchist hacking group LulzSec told family he was spending his days and nights locked in his room gaming, not hacking, the Mirror reports. Ryan Cleary, 19, was arrested earlier this week in connection with a string of attacks on websites around... More »

It's not really a fantasy role-playing game unless it ships with a map, preferably cloth, charting the mystical, magical regions of such and such. Thankfully, Bethesda Softworks won't leave aficionados of the cloth map wanting with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

That is, if they pre-order. Bethesda has confirmed today that anyone who pre-orders Skyrim will "automatically receive a premium quality world map with their copy as a no-extra-cost-to-you bonus." The developer adds that the map of Skyrim is made of a "high-grade material that has a feel similar to burlap, and will be available in North America and Europe."

Those who don't pre-order the next Elder Scrolls will have to slum it with a second-class paper version of that map, a rather pedestrian way to look around the world of Skyrim. No one wants to settle for that.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim ships for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 11.

Get a premium Skyrim map with your preorder [BethBlog]

Over at the Paris Review, William Gibson has finally told the full story of how he invented the term cyberspace — partly by scribbling on notepads, and partly by watching kids playing videogames in early-1980s arcades.

Here's a really fascinating excerpt from a much longer interview with Gibson:

INTERVIEWER

Where did cyberspace come from?

GIBSON

I was painfully aware that I lacked an arena for my science fiction . . . I was walking around Vancouver, aware of that need, and I remember walking past a video arcade, which was a new sort of business at that time, and seeing kids playing those old-fashioned console-style plywood video games. The games had a very primitive graphic representation of space and perspective. Some of them didn't even have perspective but were yearning toward perspective and dimensionality. Even in this very primitive form, the kids who were playing them were so physically involved, it seemed to me that what they wanted was to be inside the games, within the notional space of the machine. The real world had disappeared for them-it had completely lost its importance. They were in that notional space, and the machine in front of them was the brave new world.

The only computers I'd ever seen in those days were things the size of the side of a barn. And then one day, I walked by a bus stop and there was an Apple poster. The poster was a photograph of a businessman's jacketed, neatly cuffed arm holding a life-size representation of a real-life computer that was not much bigger than a laptop is today. Everyone is going to have one of these, I thought, and everyone is going to want to live inside them. And somehow I knew that the notional space behind all of the computer screens would be one single universe . . .

Read more via io9