After all the games and all the savings, Steam's Summer Sale is drawing to a close. Many of you have likely bought at least something. Just as many, though, have likely been holding out, waiting for good deals to get better.
As the sale winds down, you're left with a tough decision.
Steam sale strategy! [DeviantArt]
Wreckateer, the second offering in Xbox Live's "Summer of Arcade" rollout, highlights an otherwise slow week in the dog days of summer.
• Adidas miCoach (360, PS3)
• Prototype 2 (PC)
• Wreckateer (360)
• Planet Crashers (3DS)
• Decathlon 2012 (DS)
• Inversion (PC)
Twenty-seven million dollars is a lot of money. But it's not significant. Not in the case of the Madden monopoly lawsuit. In fact, I'm struck by how meaningless all of the terms are in its settlement.
Pecover vs. Electronic Arts generated enormous populist sympathy when it was filed in 2008 because it sought to nullify the exclusive license EA Sports had to make NFL video games—the deal that martyred NFL 2K5. The Madden Exclusive—let's go ahead and make it a proper noun—is hated like no other by hardcore gamers, whether they buy or even play sports video games, because of how blatantly it came to demonstrate consumer powerlessness.
However quixotically, Pecover at least took up a lance against that, to great applause. People just didn't know what they were really cheering for.
To reread comments on this case and its incremental developments is to see many expecting that a victory would return NFL 2K, or something like it, to shelves. This was bootstrapped to the idea that Madden's exclusive license amounted to illegal price fixing, allowing EA Sports to sell games for 70 percent over the $19.99 pricetag for which NFL 2K5 sold eight years ago.
2K5 is revered as much for its quality as it is its price, making it both King Arthur and Robin Hood. But if it was giving to the poor, the money wasn't coming from EA. Sega, then the game's publisher, elected to price NFL 2K5 at less than half the cost of a triple-A title in 2004, much less one with that kind of licensing.
It was purely a sales strategy, and given the vast majority of games priced above $20 in that year, it could hardly be taken to establish the market value for a title, licensed or otherwise. It's not like Madden was a $20 game when it went up against NFL 2K, and then jacked its pricetag to $50 when it was in the clear.
Further, unless you expect a nationalized industry of American football video games, no court or law could compel the creation of an alternative to Madden NFL. Even with the opportunity to obtain a license, a publisher would have to judge it a worthy investment. And development and publishing costs are much different today.
Friday's settlement makes all of that a moot point.
The agreement doesn't even dent the private deal that prohibited direct competition for the past eight years. In the proposed settlement, EA Sports has agreed not to strike exclusive pacts with college or minor league American football licensors—games in which no publisher other than EA Sports has shown any interest for 10 years.
As for Madden and the NFL? Untouched.
It doesn't matter that Electronic Arts will pay $27 million to establish a fund to pay—what do we call them, "victims"?—who bought American football titles over the past seven years. Not when they're getting a $1.95 rebate for every Madden NFL game bought and summarily declared crappier than NFL 2K5 between now and 2005. Not when the size of the fund is less than 1 percent of EA's market capitalization, even with a stock price at a 12-year low.
The most meaningful outcome of the Pecover settlement, I'd argue, is one that is emotionally symbolic. It still keeps NFL 2K, the ultimate clipboard quarterback, on the theoretical sideline. A court ruling that actually nullified EA's exclusive license with the NFL, for whatever reasons, would turn expectant, longing gazes to a Take-Two Interactive leadership that appears unwilling to meet them.
True, 2K Sports has a current-generation football engine, thanks to All-Pro Football 2K8. That was also a title developed before the current regime took control of the parent company. Since then, it has shed underperforming titles—particularly in sports—and publicly declared its focus to be on games it owns fully. Not games dependent on third-party licensing, in other words.
Pecover's monetary and contractual obligations might be pointless but the outcome still did everyone a big favor. It allows a claim of victory over Electronic Arts—even a pricetag attached to it—and preserves the mythological ideal of NFL 2K without requiring it, or anything like it, to compete in a drastically changed marketplace. Hell, if I worked at EA Tiburon, I'd want NFL 2K back on shelves, because a monopoly on the NFL market means a monopoly on reading Twitter spew and message board anger, too. Anything would beat the annual comparison to sports' video gaming's dead boyfriend.
For now, thanks to Pecover vs. Electronic Arts, NFL 2K can still be the backup in the pristine jersey, unjustly benched with so much to prove, and no chance to prove it.
Not that anyone, deep down, really wants it to.
Go ahead, see how much of this you can take. What's the matter? The clip is only 2:09 long.
Yeah, there's a reason I'm posting this live-action of the Slender video game in broad freaking daylight. It's a favor to anyone who isn't familiar with the creepypasta, which I'm also not linking to as a courtesy.
I watched only to the first sighting and wimped out. This whole series makes me jump out of my skin.
Live Action Slender Game [Jurassic Junkie, YouTube]
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, released in 2008, and its PSP counterpart MotorStorm Arctic Edge (2009) are losing their online play features on October 1. An announcement on Sony's UK PlayStation site said servers for those two games and SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3 (also PSP) will be closed on that date.
I really enjoyed MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. It was <e href="http://kotaku.com/5077556/motorstorm-pacific-rift-review-a-festival-of-mayhem"one of the first reviews I ever published here. Sugar Rush, Caldera Ridge, lots of good memories of white-knuckle finishes. Damn, I may have to go back and play that some this weekend.
Support for Online Game Features [uk.playstation.com]
Hey, facehugger, my face is up here, right? Rage Custom Creations just finished this corset that ensures no one will ever look its wearer in the eyes. It's being sold for $250 if you have that kind of jing, but it's fair to say few can pull off this look.
More pictures are at Rage's Facebook gallery page, with a semi-NSFW warning; the creator put the Facehugger exterior on a nude mannequin torso.
Facehugger Corset [Rage Custom Creations (Facebook) via Fashionably Geek.]
We have a special guest star in this week's 'Shop contest. None other than Sexy Mario has agreed to pose for you. That's-a it, Mario, work it, baby! OK, give me more pouty ...
Fresh off his latest shoot on the tennis court, Sexy Mario gave us permission to use one of his shots as the exploitable in this week's Photoshop contest. If you want to see more of this brilliant Facebook personality, head on over to his page and give it a like. His 500th fan will be in for a very sexy surprise, and I'm sure you want to be the one who gets it.
Source Image: Sexy Mario Tennis, by Sexy Mario (used with permission)
Reminder: There's a new forum for 'Shop Contest submissions that will display them in the chronological order familiar to the contest under our old comments format. I've gone ahead and set up the forum with one of our patented Kotaku block arrows showing you where this week's submissions begin. When I judge the entries for the roundup I'll close it out with another arrow later in the week.
Because of this, comments are disabled in this post to avoid confusion. You must visit the 'Shop Contest Forum to participate After you create your 'Shop, you'll need to post it there. Here are the rest of the guidelines for doing so.
1. Go to the 'Shop Contest Forum
2. Click "Add Image" in the upper right above the comment window.
3. Click "Upload an Image Instead." Then click the "Choose File" button. Browse your desktop, find the image, and click "open."
4. If you prefer, you can upload the 'Shop to a free image hosting service. I suggest imgur. Then click "Add image" in the upper right above the comment window. Paste the image URL into the field that says "Image URL."
5. You can add editorial commentary if you want, but then just hit submit and your image will load. If it doesn't, paste the image URL as a comment.
6. This is important: Keep your image size under 1 MB. Further, try to keep its longest dimension (horizontal or vertical) under 1000 pixels.
All set? Great. Now, Gentlemen, start your 'shopping!
Welcome to your Sunday read of the week's best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic.
Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik published July 16.—Read more of Penny Arcade
Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published July 16.—Read more of Awkward Zombie
Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published July 18.—Read more of Nerf NOW!!
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things by Kelly Turnbull published July 16.—Read more of Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
Brawl In The Family by Matthew Taranto published July 17.—Read more of Brawl In The Family
Virtual Shackles by Jeremy Vinar and Mike Fahmie published July 18.—Read more of Virtual Shackles
ActionTrip by Borislav Grabovic and Ure Paul published July 16.—Read more of ActionTrip
Legacy Control by Javis Ray published July 18.—Read more of Legacy Control
The first release of downloadable content for Street Fighter X Tekken's PC version has been delayed—on Steam. If you use Games For Windows Live, you could get it on Friday, says Capcom. What's the holdup? "An unforeseen error with the Valve submission process," according to the Capcom-Unity blog. The pack should release early this week.
SFxT DLC Now Available on Games for Windows Live, Coming Soon to Steam [Capcom-Unity]
That panel is a part of some sort, to be flown on a resupply craft to the International Space Station this coming Friday. "An anonymous tech at NASA," is responsible for laser-engraving Wheatley, the antagonist of Portal 2 the Space Core on the part, Valve said in its official Portal blog on Friday. "And please note that when we mentioned an 'anonymous tech at NASA' we weren't kidding," Valve added. "NASA in no way officially endorses secretly laser-engraving characters from Portal onto their spacecraft."
I'll refrain from making jokes as they carry a spoiler hazard (it's a year after release, but so what). You either know why this is ironic already or have the means of finding out for yourself. It's a clever tribute to the game and the character. The full size picture is available at the link.
[Correction] It's the Space Core. Both it and Wheatley end up in space in the game anyway.
Wheatley in Spaaaaaaace! [Portal Blog]
