Unlocks aside, Valve's Steam service works pretty damn well. One thing it's always been a little lacking in, though, has been its appearance. The latest redesign helped, but it's still a little cluttered, a little messy.

So designer Josh Collie thought he'd take a swing at redesigning the thing. I like what he's come up with. I like it a lot.

Not only has he refrained from making any dramatic changes, instead opting to just spruce up the existing colour scheme, but the way he's simplified things would make it a little easier to use, especially for those new to the world of PC (or, you know, Mac) gaming.

Best part? It would work on a big screen TV, something the current system struggles with (to the point Valve is working on a "big picture" mode just for them).

Steam Redesign [Josh Collie, via Reddit]

In 1999, Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto gave a keynote address at the Game Developers Conference. An address you can watch here in its entirety.

Remember, this isn't the quasi-executive, Wii Music Shigeru Miyamoto we know today. This is the designer at perhaps the height of his powers, with games like Super Mario 64 still fresh in people's minds.

The talk, which runs for around an hour, covers everything from the history of Nintendo to his ideas on game design. Or, at least how they stood in 1999. Which I'm sure some of you may prefer as opposed to how they stand today!

Shigeru Miyamoto 1999 [GDC, thanks Christine!]

If you're short on ideas for new wallpaper, and have a bit of a thing for old video game hardware, check out French artist Alan Cloiseau's collection of vintage Sega, Sony and Nintendo systems and controllers.

His personal site has plenty more great art.

Hello camp Kotaku, and welcome to another Open Thread. If you're reading this, it's probably 10:40 PM EST, which means only 5.3 more hours until Diablo III unlocks.

Well, 5.3 hours and one minute.

(Or yes, if you want to be "more accurate," 5 Hours and 21 minutes.)

While you're waiting, take some time to chat with each other. And before you chat, check out these things from around the internet.

• George Lucas does something both dickish and kind of rad - Such complicated feelings we must have for this man
• RIP Duck Dunn - You were in The Blues Brothers, and therefore you are somewhat immortal.
• Game of Thrones is running out of Unkempt old men to cast - Heh. (Spoilery.)
• Coach Taylor wants to tell you somehing - He does. He wants to tell you somethin'.
• Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived - This is so great.
• That super cute top image by Stacie Ponder - An inker/writer/etc who among her many projects is contributing the ongoing "Womanthology" collection.

And that's what I got! Have good chatting, see you tomorrow.

Blizzard certainly didn't skimp on the Diablo III collector's edition. It's a big honkin box, filled with an amount of loot appropriate for a game that is all about, well, loot.

Stephen's copy arrived at Gawker HQ… but he wasn't there to receive it, so our own Tina Amini opened it up and had a look. Sorry, Stephen! That art-book is as good as gone.

Come for the video game unveiling, stay for the hidden video game graffiti and lifestyle tips!

Poor Aussie Diablo III fans who pre-ordered the game then lost their money (and game!) when retailer GAME went into administration yesterday, you're suddenly in luck. Blizzard will be footing the bill, and getting you the games you paid for.

The company has issued a statement that basically says "if you kept your receipt, buy the game again and we'll give you your lost money back".

We're aware that some Australian GAME customers have been left out in the cold on what should be the hottest night of the year — the launch of Diablo III. To help with this situation and get these players into the game as soon as possible, we've put the following process in place.

Australian GAME customers with a valid preorder/prepurchase receipt dated before May 15, 2012 can do the following:
1. Purchase the digital version of Diablo III from http://www.diablo3.com now or anytime before May 21, 2012.

2. Download and start playing when the servers go live!

3. Submit your GAME Australia preorder/prepurchase receipt to us before June 30, 2012.

4. Receive a credit from Blizzard, for the amount you paid in advance to GAME Australia for Diablo III. This credit will be applied to the payment method used for the digital purchase.

We'll post further details here on how to submit your GAME Australia receipt to our customer service team as soon as possible. Stay tuned, and we look forward to seeing you in the Burning Hells!

Note that this is, in essence (assuming you had paid your preorder in full), a free game; the moment GAME entered administration, effectively going bust, those original preorders, and the money used to pay for them, was lost. Gone forever. This move is Blizzard, who didn't get a cent from the original lost payments, offering those affected a free, second copy.

Assuming those people would want to still get the game. I'm assuming the answer to that would be yes.

Even for those who only put down $10 or $20, it's still a great offer, because same story, until earlier today that money had been presumed lost. They're getting the game, and they're getting the money back they thought they'd lost, saving a few bucks they otherwise wouldn't have.

Seeing as they had no obligation whatsoever to do this, and are in effect paying for somebody else's screw-up, that's a swell move on Blizzard's part.

UPDATE - I've changed the headline because too many Americans and Canadians weren't familiar with the term "shout"!

Diablo III may have all the marketing and hype as far as the PC market is concerned, but I'll be damned if anything, Blizzard-developed or not, is going to keep me from playing more DayZ this week.

The zombie survival mod for Bohemia Interactive's military sim ArmA II has come out of nowhere to be one of the most interesting things to happen to PC gaming in 2012. What's most interesting, to me at least, is what it's done to the sales and profile of ArmA II, a very serious game and one that, while successful and prominent within a niche of PC gaming, is hardly what you'd call a mainstream smash.

Yet in the past few weeks more newcomers have been exposed to ArmA II in a short span of time than ever before, all because the game's ruthless approach to realism and survival now includes zombies. To find out how the mod has impacted the game, and how they're handling the overnight renaissance in awareness, I spoke with Bohemia Interactive's Marek Španěl.

"There's no doubt that the thrilling Day Z mod currently drives Arma 2 Combined Operations sales on Steam", he says with a touch of understatement. "Sales have increased almost fivefold from how they were before Day Z's Alpha release!"

"That said, we have always been proud to provide a PC exclusive type of game like Arma 2, with a strong emphasis on modding and the user community."

Asked whether the mod's success could lead to Bohemia Interactive actually lending a helping hand (the mod's creator is currently a little overwhelmed by the response), Španěl says that the developer is actually accommodating DayZ in ArmA II's next update.

"Bohemia Interactive has always tried to help community mod makers in many different ways and Day Z mod is no different", he says. "We're more than happy to assist DayZ in any suitable way and considering the mod's popularity we are committed to do some related work in the next Arma 2 update (1.61)."

"We are actively communicating about how we could best support the Arma 2 user community especially in multiplayer and Day Z players are right now a significant portion of people actively playing the game, so of course it's high on our priority list to support it the best we can. It's important to understand that DayZ was released just a few weeks ago as a tech demo/proof of concept and it's still at Alpha status so until we know where the project intends to go it's hard to commit to anything specifically."

And the future? "I personally find the combination of realistic Arma style gameplay and settings with survival zombie apocalypse so addictive that I believe it can stand as a gaming experience on its own."

"At the moment Rocket [note: the mod's creator] from DayZ is completely overwhelmed by the demand and we're also trying to support users as much as we can alongside our other projects, so it's impossible to think too much about what the future holds for us."

That said, I ask what this could all mean for ArmA III, the studio's upcoming sequel, one which looks to vastly improve on ArmA II's sometimes rickety engine. How hard would it be to get something like DayZ up and running on the company's new platform?

"There are many aspects involved, for example the environment and different assets in Arma 3, new engine features etc. It's important to understand that there is still a long way to go even after Arma 3 is out until mods are properly configured, ported and matured onto the new platform.

"So realistically we may be looking at one year or more from now until we can see something like Day Z based on Arma 3 technology."

The Polish game studio CD Projekt is hiring for two new games, at least one of which has nothing to do with The Witcher.

One of the franchises is described as "dark fantasy" (just like The Witcher), and the other sounds like something totally different. "Our mature dark-fantasy world is well known around the world, though if you can't stomach dwarves, elves or sorceresses who put their ample charms on display in Playboy magazine, we've got also something special that might be right up your alley!"

Initially, I thought this meant that they were saying this was a separate dark-fantasy game, but actually, it sounds like they could well be working on a new Witcher. Which makes much more sense. The other franchise, which is represented by a little gun on the help-wanted page, seems like… it has guns.

So: One franchise may well be The Witcher 3, the other is definitely not.

Whatever's next, I hope that there's lots of lusty sex and awesome costumes.

Set phasers to "wild prognostication!"

We are recruiting to Two Projects [CD Projekt via Gamerzines]

Comedian Nathan Barnatt, in his performing persona of socially awkward Keith Apicary, was removed from PAX East this year after interrupting the Rooster Teeth panel with a stage-rushing, trouser-dropping incident.

Barnatt's own compiled footage of Apicary's antics at PAX East is now available. In the first half, he wanders around the convention like a geeky Borat, bobbing through the sea of unsuspecting attendees who will help him make the joke. He goes to the Rooster Teeth panel, for his now-infamous underwear dance, around the 3:30 mark.

Diablo III comes out tomorrow. Which really means it comes out tonight at midnight. I'm excited to play it—more excited than I would have thought I'd be, to be honest. There's only one problem. At the beginning of my adventure, I'm going to have to make a choice—I'm going to have to pick a character class.

This game is doubtless many, many hours long. Will I spend those hours as a magic-slinging Wizard? A dead-raising Witch Doctor? A raging, smashing Barbarian, a whirling-dervish Monk, a crossbow-wielding Demon Hunter?

Man. I don't even know.

I've always been at something of a loss when choosing classes in Diablo-like games, from Torchlight to Demon's Souls to Dungeon Siege III. In most Bethesda- or BioWare-like games, games with nuance and conversation, I prefer to play as a sneaky character, but even then I get paranoid that I'm doing it "wrong."

With a slasher loot-fest like Diablo III, the action is the whole point, and the classes are much more varied. I'm guessing that, knowing Blizzard, all of the classes are probably pretty well balanced, and that there's a huge amount of customization that can be done with them. But all the same, doubts linger.

What if I play the game as a Wizard, and in a couple months it turns out that Wizards totally suck? What if I put a ton of time into being a Barbarian and when Fahey runs his review, he says that's the worst class? What if… what… what... if...

[Explodes]

I really am at a loss here. I'll probably start 2-3 characters and see what I think before really committing… even though that sounds like a lot of time to devote and I don't have that much.

I like the idea of playing as a Barbarian, since that seems simple and satisfying. I played as a Demon Hunter and as a Wizard in the beta, and found that I vastly preferred magic to crossbows and traps. But then again, while ranged combat is fun, it feels a touch unsatisfying at times.

I polled our fellow editors and didn't get many clear responses. I'm becoming convinced that even they don't know which classes they'll play.

Maybe I should just ask Kotaku. I put it to you, readers: Which class will you play first in Diablo III?

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Update: It's close, but it seems like Monk is getting the Kotaku edge at the moment. Huh, who knew? I just may have to give the old shavepate a go...