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Stiq Figures, January 21 - 27: Bo Knows edition

Welcome to Stiq Figures, where the sales data is after the break and the posts don't matter. Every week, we take a look at, uh, something – meanwhile, the previous week's Japanese hardware sales figures are posted after the jump, and a discussion of said figures takes place in our comments. It may not be conventional, but it's a time-honored Joystiq tradition.


Happy "Day of The Big Game," readers. To celebrate Super Bowl Sunday, we're looking back at one of the greatest virtual athletes to grace any sports video game: Bo Jackson. Jackson was a phenomenal athlete, whose mark in both baseball and football will be remembered for years.

But it's Jackson's impact on gaming that we're celebrating today. This iconic video shows 8-bit Bo at his finest: running out an entire quarter in one play in Tecmo Bowl for NES. Take a moment to imagine a real-life player scrambling around the field from one end zone to the other, evading an endless array of diving tackles. Yeah, people can talk about Marshawn Lynch or Adrian Peterson all they want, but Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl encompassed "beast mode" before the term ever existed.

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Omerta: City of Gangsters brings bootlegging to UK, EU territories

Image Omerta: City of Gangsters dropped on Friday for PC and Xbox 360 in the UK and European territories, likely causing havoc as any good 1920s Atlantic City crime boss would. Omerta hits North America on February 12, and a Mac version is "coming soon," as the above UK trailer says. ... Continue Reading

'Ice silver' Vita hits Asian markets on March 6

'Ice silver' Vita hits Asian markets on March 6
Asia will get an "ice silver" PlayStation Vita on March 6, Sony Computer Entertainment Hong Kong announced. While those dwelling in other regions contend with fits of jealousy, remember that Sony has a "PlayStation 2013" event scheduled for February 20, during which the Wall Street Journal said the PS4 will be announced.

In the meantime, Western players still have a referral program to take advantage of, which grants trend-setters $20 for convincing a friend to buy a now less-exciting black Vita system.

[Thanks, Mohammed!]

MMO Week in Review: Flaming and frost

GW2
At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO or WoW Insider story last week, you've come to the right post.

Having just kicked off the prelude to Guild Wars 2's Flame and Frost "multi-stage narrative" (code for "slow-trickle patch"), ArenaNet has been busy this week. Doing what? Oh, annoying you with password changes, tinkering with the dynamic leveling system, implementing a new achievement ladder system, testing a new PvP tourney mode, and adding bits and bobs to the living story for you to ignore in your quest to kill things. Ahh, MMOs.

Read on for a roundup of the rest of this week's top Massively articles.

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'A few too many' Resident Evil games in past two years, producer says

Past years saw 'a few too many' Resident Evil launches, producer says
Capcom learned a few lessons about market saturation over the past two years, Resident Evil: Revelations producer Masachika Kawata told Video Gamer. In terms of Resident Evil launches, Kawata said, "I think certainly looking at the last year or two, there probably were a few too many."

Additionally, Kawata said that Capcom "learned last year that putting on a lot of titles would not necessarily win over gamers."

Capcom dropped four Resident Evil games throughout 2011 and 2012: The Mercenaries 3D, Revelations, Operation Raccoon City and 6. Next in line is Resident Evil: Revelations, the 3DS game, coming to Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Wii U in May.

Kawata noted that altering the Resident Evil launch pattern alone wouldn't make the games better, but it could be part of a solution.

"At the same time, I don't think we should just stagger them out artificially because that's the solution to the problem we have." he said. "We should always start by asking how do we make the games better. And if the solution to making the games better is to have a more staggered release than we've had recently then that's something we'll do. But we'll do it for that reason and not just for flipping what we've done already."

Spot the differences in this Trine 2 graphics comparison video


This video for Trine 2: Director's Cut shows the graphics for the Wii U game before and after its January update. The update also added Pro Controller support and online multiplayer voice chat.

Since the game was updated, the graphics have to be substantially better, right? You tell us.

Four new Skylanders domains: Kaos Alliance, Nano, Super, Swap Force

Activision snags new Skylanders domains
The Skylanders franchise has become a beast of its own, bringing Activision $500 million in US retail sales since its launch, and there's more still to come. At least, that's according to four domains registered by MarkMonitor's DNStination, all to do with the Skylanders brand. MarkMonitor handles Activision's other Skylanders domains.

The new domain registrations, uncovered by Fusible, went live on January 30 and are SkylandersKaosAlliance.com, SkylandersNanoForce.com, SkylandersSuperForce.com and SkylandersSwapForce.com. We detect a hint of classic Power Rangers spin-off names within these domains, but no more information about them exists so far.

Activision registered the Skylanders Giants domains at the beginning of 2012, and that timing seemed to work out pretty well.

Crunch Magic game recommendation engine links to Steam


Figuring out which game to play or purchase can be challenging. Though its last update landed on January 15, Crunch Magic's goal to recommend new games to players is welcome during this troubling time (which we call "February").

Developed by a small team based in Norman, Oklahoma, Crunch Magic takes players through a series of personality quizzes. Each answer rewards players with a Legend of Zelda-like heart. The engine connects to players' Steam accounts to pull information on their game library, which it uses to force players to "save" games during a mini-game placed between sets of questions.

YouTube user ZackScottGames recently detailed the game recommendation engine in the video above. Unlike him, we found our hearts depleting right away as we began saving games, forcing us to make tough decisions as the mini-game went on. Carrying out the entire 10 to 15-minute game, even if you only have a few games in your Steam library, should still result in some fresh recommendations. It helps that the game itself is fairly enjoyable, and each listed game is linked to its appropriate page on the Steam store, making it even easier to spend money on Steam. Just what we needed.

[Thanks, Clay!]

Take control of an 80s arcade with Arcadecraft, out now on XBLIG

Arcadecraft is out on XBLIG
Arcadecraft, the 80s arcade management sim from Firebase Industries, is available now on Xbox Live Indie Games for 240 MS Points ($3). In Arcadecraft, players must dig themselves out of debt with the latest craze in entrepreneurship, starting an arcade. As owner and manager, players purchase arcade machines, position them around the space, name their arcade, paint the walls, change the floors, and add graphics and neon wherever they deem necessary.

Arcadecraft has almost 80 arcade machines of different design, each with adjustable difficulty and price settings, and some games will jam, break down and need servicing as customers use and abuse them.

Firebase Industries, the team behind Orbitron: Revolution, has Arcadecraft on Steam Greenlight and is working on a touch-based Windows 8 version.

Team Meat grants Mew-Genics Steam support, details project history

Team Meat grants MewGenics Steam support, details project history
As one of Team Meat's "Caturday" teasers, the team announced Steam support for Mew-Genics. The game was previously announced for iOS.

Team Meat also took a moment to discuss the history of Mew-Genics, noting that the project has been in development for 18 weeks. It started as a Ludum Dare 24 challenge under the "Evolution" theme, though Team Meat went with the "1,000 kittens" joke theme that the community attempted to vote in. After three days of development in Flash, the development duo realized it had a "monster mashup of many different game genres with an underlying theme [it] hadn't seen done in games before" on its hands. Mew-Genics then became the developer's full-time project.

The team also recognizes how obscure the "Caturday" teasers have become, saying it "will only do two more Caturday teasers after this then pull back and focus on getting the game done as well as officially announcing what the game actually is and how it plays."

Remember Me trailer goes behind the music

Image This behind-the-scenes video of Capcom's Remember Me discusses how the soundtrack fits into the game's "Neo Paris" setting. Remember Me is coming to PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in May. ... Continue Reading

Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is ready for the big game

One of my favorite, though somewhat absurd things in all of sports is that phrases such as "Super Bowl" and "March Madness" are trademarked. That means any commercial use of these specific terms in reference to the sporting events need to be authorized by the trademark holder, typically at a steep cost. In the case of this weekend's big event, that's the National Football League. When it comes to official licensing and trademarks, this also means big bucks for the NFL when giving advertisers and merchandise designers the approval to use official terms and logos.

So, advertisers often do their best to skirt the process and added budget, leading to a number of commercials that refer to "the big game," or "Super Sunday." Personally, I laugh at the terms every time, hoping that eventually a commercial will feature a late-20's male with a taste for cheap alcohol, wearing a plain, numbered t-shirt in the same colors as one of the teams in "the big game" that would turn to the camera and say the generic term with such conviction that it would break every fourth wall in the world.

While you prepare yourself for the big game this Sunday and lay down your predictions in the comments section, be sure to read last week's webcomics and vote for your favorite after the break!

Pawn system (Manly Guys Doing Manly Things)
We Can Help (Penny Arcade)
Marrow Escape (Kaku Jomics)
Ni No Nougat (ReadySoup)
Disaster in Sinnoh (Dorkly)
Gut Reaction (Awkward Zombie)
Bust a Graph in Yo' Ass (Virtual Shackles)
Starters (Brawl in the Family)

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PBS mini documentary covers eSports' many bases

Image Off Book, the PBS webseries that previously investigated what makes indie games so darn creative, has produced an eight minute documentary on the history of the eSports its four major facets: RTS, MOBA, FPS and fighting games, the latter of which are too cool for acronyms. ... Continue Reading

Street Fighter X Tekken PC gets character DLC on Wednesday, temporarily $5

The PC versions of fighting games are usually the last to receive any updates or content made for their respective arcade and/or console brethren, but that doesn't mean the developers behind said games don't feel super awful about it.

To wit, Capcom will be reducing the price of the Street Fighter X Tekken character DLC that hits PCs on Wednesday, February 6, from $19.99 to $4.99, at least for the first two weeks of its availability. The DLC pack contains 12 characters originally added to the console version back in July of last year.

Capcom has also stated that development on the PC version of SFXT's "ver. 2013" update is still underway, and while there is no set window for its release, "the team is very aware that the DLC for SFXT has taken longer than usual to be released and is working hard to try and reduce the amount of time you will have to wait."

Brownie Brown changes its name to 1-Up Studio

Nintendo subsidiary Brownie Brown is changing its name to 1-Up Studio, the company recently announced on its soon-to-be defunct site.

The developer is known for its hand in crafting games such as Mother 3 and Super Mario 3D Land, as well as its help with Level-5's Professor Layton and the Last Specter. Along with the name change, the studio also announced a new Mother game for North America... oh, it didn't? Well that's too bad.

Mojang revenue hits $237 million in 2012

We already knew that 2012 was a particularly legit year for Minecraft maker Mojang, what with its principle product being purchased over 15 million times and everything, but now we have a better idea of what success like that translates to in dollars. Well, technically in krona and then translated again into dollars, but whatever.

Overall, Mojang's revenue for 2012 tallied up at SEK 1.5 billion, or $237.84 million at current exchange rates, according to GamesIndustry's translation of Swedish publication IT24. Nearly half of that revenue (SEK 640 million/$101.48 million) was derived from the collection of license fees. Meanwhile, pre-tax profits were reported at SEK 580 million ($91.96 million), although no post-taxes/net income figures were provided.

One of Mojang's biggest hurdles is the non-universal nature of its online payment system, CEO Carl Manneh told IT24: "We have so many markets where we are not very strong yet," he said, "where many play Minecraft but few have bought it simply because you can't use our online payment solution there. That's something we'll get our hands to during 2013."

Rumor: Countdown site hints at Prey 2 reveal on March 1

Rumor Countdown site hints at Prey 2 reveal on March 1
The last time Bethesda said anything about Prey 2, it deemed the game as having "not been canceled," though it was no longer listed on the publisher's site. A recent teaser site sprang up with the URL "aliennoire.com" however, and much like any conspiracy theory, all signs from it point to whatever we want them to point to, such as the revival of Prey 2.

NeoGAF users grabbed supposed screens of the site's previous source code that flat-out had the key words "Prey 2" and "Human Head Studios" in it, though the teaser site has seemingly been edited since then to remove those phrases. The cryptic countdown timer (which uses a "South Venusian" font, by the way) is ticking down to March 1. WhoIs registration info on the domain owner lists a private registrant by the name of "The Collective," with a Tahlequah, Oklahoma address, which happens to be next door to the Cherokee Tribal Administration. Coupled with the phrase "Tommy needs your help," which is still in the teaser site's source code, these two clues would certainly hint at the main character of Prey, a Cherokee mechanic and former soldier.

The teaser site might not be associated with Bethesda or Human Head Studios in any way, even if the logo at the top of the page looks strikingly similar to signs from previous Prey 2 screens. We reached out to Bethesda just to make sure we're not too crazy, as there's still no definitive sign that this is entirely legit.

New Sherlock Holmes game announced, uses Unreal Engine 3

New Sherlock Holmes game announced, uses Unreal Engine 3
Focus Home Interactive recently announced a new game in the Sherlock Holmes series called Crimes & Punishments. In development by Frogwares, the adventure game will feature eight cases in which players will guide Holmes through "important moral choices instead of simply enforcing justice by the book."

Frogwares ditched its previous Sherlock Holmes engine in favor of Unreal Engine 3 for this game, and opted for a more modern-looking Holmes, seen above. Crimes & Punishments will launch on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 sometime in 2013. Yes, even the release date is a mystery.

Nation of Indies teaches Austin devs how to become indie

Nation of Indies teaches Austin devs how to become indie
The folks behind Austin, Texas' Juegos Rancheros initiative have taken it upon themselves to mitigate the damage caused by the absurd number of gaming layoffs that have affected this region over the last year, and they're doing so through education.

Nation of Indies is a free, single-day crash course in becoming an indie developer, with talks on different methods of funding procurement, small business management techniques, software tool investment and long-term sustainability. Indie developers Semi Secret, Tiger Style and others will be on hand, lending their expertise on how to transition from being someone's employee, to running your own studio.

The symposium takes place on Sunday, February 10, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central, and RSVPing is encouraged.

UK gets Injustice: Gods Among Us Special Edition with Red Son DLC

UK gets Injustice Gods Among Us Special Edition with Red Son DLC
Our UK friends get a Special Edition of Injustice: Gods Among Us for Xbox 360 and PS3 when it launches April 19. The Special Edition version comes with an exclusive "Steelbook" and the Red Son DLC pack.

The packed-in DLC includes 20 missions set in the Red Son timeline and three character skins for Superman, Wonder Woman and Solomon Grunday. North American players have their own limited edition options, as Injustice: Gods Among Us also has Collector's Edition and Battle Edition versions.

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What's In A Name

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/10/31/whats-in-a-name-red-barrels/

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I'm not afraid of any topic or I wouldn't walk away from any topic because it was controversial. And I wouldn't run towards any topic because it was controversial. There's a story I want to tell.

— Irrational Games (BioShock Infinite) creative director Ken Levine on tackling social issues in games.

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