EA’s popular face shooter Battlefield 3 has been banned in Iran. The game includes a fictionalised US assault on Iran’s capital Tehran, where many men must be shot in the face. Unfortunately, this has angered the Iranian government, and the game has been declared illegal, according to AFP.

Battlefield 3 has never been officially released in Iran as EA has no resellers there, but shops do sell pirated copies of the game. The ban marks the first time a game has been declared illegal, with police raiding shops and arresting owners, according to a local shop owner.

A group of “Iranian youths” have started an online petition against Battlefield 3, which has garnered over 5,000 signatures. “We believe the game is purposely released at a time when the US is pushing the international community into fearing Iran,” they say.

EA probably doesn’t care about the ban – after all, they have no official presence in the country. But the game certainly seems to have struck a nerve with the residents of Iran at a time when a little political sensitivity would have gone a long way.

News that Ubisoft’s latest game “I Am Alive” won’t be making it to the PC may be sad for some, but what’s even sadder is Ubisoft’s reasoning behind the decision to leave the game on the PS and Xbox platform.

According to an interview conducted by IncGamers with I Am Alive’s Creative Director Stanislas Mettra, it seems that the company has little interest in porting the game over to the PC platform due to piracy issues.

From the interview:
“We’ve heard loud and clear that PC gamers are bitching about there being no version for them. But are these people just making noise just because there’s no version or because it’s a game they actually want to play? Would they buy it if we made it? It’s hard because there’s so much piracy and so few people are paying for PC games that we have to precisely weigh it up against the cost of making it. Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC, it’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it,” he said.” — Stanislas Mettra

Besides his obvious lack of tact in approaching the question, and seemingly non-existent sense of respect towards legit PC based gamers, Mettra’s statement comes as a little hypocritical since Ubisoft has been caught with their pants down in the past when it comes to issues pertaining to piracy. TorrentFreak.com points out two instances where Ubisoft have been caught passing off pirated music (Assassin’s Creed) and cracks (Rainbow 6: Vegas 2) to their customers as legit.

Minecraft creator and Mojang studio head Markus “Notch” Persson said via Twitter that the popular indie sandbox title Minecraft has finally gone gold. The news arrives just four days after the team’s previously projected “gone gold” date of November 11, 2011, and three days before the game is officially released at the inaugural (and sold out) MineCon 2011 event in Las Vegas on Friday.

Minecraft was originally launched as an alpha on May 17, 2009 and then slipped into beta mode on December 20, 2010. In 2011, Mojang launched the “Pocket Edition” exclusively on Sony Ericsson’s Xperia PLAY Android smartphone during E3 2011, and then opened up to portable edition to the rest of the Android market as of October 8.

A version for the Xbox 360 with Kinect will reportedly be playable this Friday during the convention although it’s not slated to hit Xbox LIVE until next year.

As seen here, the first-ever Minecraft convention will take place on Friday and Saturday. Persson will kick things off with his keynote and the official launch of Minecraft, and will be followed by various panels including “Minecraft as a Tool for Education,” “Running A Server,” “YouTube 101″ and more. Attendees will supposedly receive a code that will unlock an alpha version of the studio’s next game, Scrolls.

According to Mojang, over 1 million units had been sold as of January, but that number quickly skyrocketed to over 4 million units at the beginning on November — a stunning 3 million units sold within ten months. Over 16 million gamers have created Minecraft accounts, 12 million of which are seemingly playing the “classic” free versions (single player / multi-player). The full version will supposedly sell for $28.95 when it’s officially released on Friday, but fans can still purchase the sandbox game for its “beta” price of $21.95 until then.

Last weekend, it seemed like all anyone could talk about was Skyrim and how amazing the game is. Still, Skyrim is not the only title that has gamers whipped into a frenzy as of late. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is also doing pretty well for itself, pulling in an astonishing $400 million in the first day of British and American sales.

Activision on Friday announced that Modern Warfare 3, which launched last Wednesday, had broken records to become the biggest entertainment launch ever with an estimated sell-through of more than 6.5 million units in North America and the United Kingdom.

This marks the third consecutive year that the COD franchise has set day-one launch records across all forms of entertainment. Last year, Call of Duty: Black Ops had estimated day-one sell-through of $360 million (again, U.S. and UK), and in 2009, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 raked in $310 million on the first day.

“We believe the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. “Other than Call of Duty, there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records three years in a row. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Lord of the Rings,’ two of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time.” Still, seeing Eiffel Tower crumbling down is one epic scene!

Let the smack talks begin!

We have seen video games make their way into therapy programs to boost cognition but scientists at the Florida State University’s Department of Psychology are now challenging existing claims as, basically, hogwash.

“Despite the hype, in reality, there is little solid evidence that games enhance cognition at all,” said assistant professor Walter Boot. “The idea that video games could enhance cognition was exciting because it represented one of the few cases in which cognitive training enhanced abilities that weren’t directly practiced,” Boot stated. “But we found no benefits of video game training.” Not only did some of his studies fail to replicate those earlier findings, but “no study has yet met the ‘gold standard’ methods necessary in intervention studies of this sort.”

Read more…

The German division of animal rights group PETA sharply criticized content in Battlefield 3 as animal cruelty. According to a press release, the offending content includes the possibility to “sadistically” stab a rat with a combat knife, pick the rat up by its tail and then throw the dead body – “like garbage” – away.

PETA noted that killing of virtual animals can promote brutal behaviour and impact the “young, male target audience”. There is an ongoing trend in which (German) teenagers torture animals and kill them in a cruel way. According to PETA, the inspiration is delivered by violent movies and video games. The organization also noted that, once a certain level of brutality against animals is accepted, people may be close to be considering violence against other people as well.

The organization asks the developers of the game to avoid such content in future.

Star Trek fans yearning for a little bit more of the TNG/DS9/Voyager action in the Prime timeline can jump into Gene Roddenberry’s universe for free via Star Trek Online starting January 17, 2012. Original parent company Perfect World Entertainment, which acquired the MMORPG and its developer Cryptic Studios from Atari for $49.8 million in cash back in May, planned to launch the free-to-play model by the end of the year.

“And also Star Trek Online, after the acquisition, in fact Cryptic is working on the free-to-play model for Star Trek Online,” Perfect World Entertainment’s CEO, Kelvin Lau, said in a recent earnings call for Q2 2011. “This is going to be launched by the end of this year as well. So I think free-to-play model we have a bigger potential in US market and also in China market.”

Currently there’s no reason given as to why the new free-to-play model has been delayed, but Star Trek Online executive producer Stephen D’Angelo indicated that its been in the works since the very beginning. However the game’s original publisher Atari didn’t want to launch the MMORPG with a free-to-play model, so Cryptic put it on indefinite hold. Perfect World Entertainment, which owns other free-to-play MMOGs, naturally gave the model the green light.

Thursday D’Angelo said that current subscribers will be rewarded with 400 free Cryptic Points each month starting December 1, 2011 as a “thank you” to loyal customers. “The stipend is granted on the ‘anniversary day’ for your account,” he said. “This is the day in the month which corresponds to the day after your subscription would renew if it was monthly. 3-month, 6-month, 12-month, and lifetime accounts use the day of the month in which they were started for this purpose. This means that you won’t necessarily get your stipend right at the beginning of the month, but it will be coming for you at the appropriate time during December and each following month. Stipend points from STO can only be spent in STO.”

On Tuesday D’Angelo told IGN that Cryptic is taking a different approach to the free-to-play model with Star Trek Online than it did with Champions Online. “We’re revisiting the game’s economy,” he said, adding that the high-end equipment will be more difficult to acquire and the low-end equipment will be extremely easy to acquire. Dilithium will also be the only item in the game that can be auctioned off for Cryptic Points.

“Dilithium buys you the cool gear,” he explained. “People who buy Cryptic Points can go to our store and can buy the cool ships, but they can’t get the cool gear. We’re going to let people sell their Dilithium to other players for Cryptic Points.”

There will also be a limit to the amount of Dilithium a player can acquire through normal means in a given day, he added. Players will also have access to Cryptic’s in-game cash store. “If you have no money and want to spend no money you can literally get everything available in our store,” he said.

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) originally launched the subscription-based DC Universe Online MMORPG on Windows PC and the PlayStation 3 console back on January 11, 2011. However as of November 2, the company introduced a free-to-play model (F2P) in addition to Premium and Legendary memberships, allowing casual gamers to enter DC’s comic book universe with an option to upgrade to the other memberships.

Three days later on November 5, SOE president John Smedley said via Twitter that the MMORPG saw a 900-percent concurrent increase since the launch of the F2P model. The next day, Smedley claimed that the number was well over 1000-percent of DC Universe Online’s pre-F2P concurrent numbers. “We’re very aware of the long queues and other issues,” he added, addressing lag issues stemming from the new model. “We’re on it.”

As indicated, the sudden influx of new users has bogged down the game’s network. SOE reports that servers are currently being added to the DCUO infrastructure, and that actual paying subscribers — those enrolled in the $14.99/m Legendary memberships, will be pushed to the front of log-in queues.

As for the actual increase in DCUO active members, Develop reports that 330,000 new players have joined since the switch to the free model, suggesting that perhaps as little as 30,000 active subscribers were running around in their virtual tights before the doors were thrown open to non-paying gamers. SOE previously stated that the decision to go F2P had nothing to do with falling subscriber numbers despite the seemingly low count.

“We are confident that going free-to-play will expand the action combat experience of DC Universe Online by making the game more accessible to every type of player so they can choose to play the game their way,” said John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment. “With a portfolio that includes three successful free-to-play games – EverQuest II: Extended, Free Realms and Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures – we have extensive knowledge and experience to apply to DCUO and are thrilled to be taking the game free-to-play today.”

According to SOE, free access allows gamers to play the base game including Gotham City, Metropolis, and all current raids and alerts outside of DLC packs. Making an in-game purchase of $5 or more automatically upgrades the player’s account to Premium status which provides additional benefits like additional character slots, additional inventory slots and higher cash limits. Naturally the full-blown Legendary monthly subscription offers everything the game can dish out. However Free level players can purchase DLC packs, additional character slots, and more in-game.

To learn more about what all three plans have to offer, head here. SOE also provides instructions on how to download the game on the PlayStation 3 right here although console owners will need at least 25 GB free to install the game.

Wednesday in an interview with Joystiq, Bethesda VP of Marketing Pete Hines admitted that PC development can be a “headache,” especially when the team is trying to create a universal experience across multiple platforms. He states some of the obvious factors which have reportedly driven other developers completely (insane and) over to the console side, namely piracy and numerous hardware configurations.

“From a technical standpoint, yes, the PC is a headache,” he acknowledged. “It just is. A million different possibilities of hardware, drivers, etc. As you saw with Rage, all it takes is some bad video card drivers and years of hard work comes off as ‘buggy’ when in fact it’s a really solid, stable game.”

Naturally piracy is also a major factor to deal with in PC development. Other studios and publishers have claimed that services should be offered to convince gamers not to steal games while others force titles to remain connected at all times or come packed with heavy-duty DRM.

“Unless you decide not to make your games available for PC, it’s a problem and you have to deal with it,” he said. “So we do the best we can to protect it without resorting to Draconian measures, and we continue to enthusiastically support our PC fans with things like the Creation Kit and the ability to create and add unlimited amounts of mods and content to your existing PC game.”

Also during the interview, Hines was asked if he could see Bethesda developing anything else other than massive RPGs. He said that he’d like to see Todd Howard develop a modern NCAA football title because both men love the sport. Still, he would expect fan responses to be less-then lackluster given large-scale RPGs is what Bethesda does best.

“We do what we do best,” said Hines. “We make big, crazy RPGs, and fortunately for us the previous ones have done really well so there’s no reason for us not to keep making them. If that’s what we loved doing and nobody wanted to play them, we’d have a problem on our hands.”

Guess that means we’ll never see another Terminator title from the studio ever again? To read the full Joystiq interview, head here. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim lands on store shelves tomorrow, November 11, 2011, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC.

EA’s Battlefield 3 has only been on the market for a little over two weeks and the publisher is already talking about the fourth Battlefield installment. Heck, the first DLC isn’t even available and the publisher already has its dollar-sign sights set on an unannounced Battlefield 4.

According to Eurogamer, EA president Frank Gibeau confirmed the fourth installment during a keynote presentation at the University of California. The revelation isn’t shocking to say the least given that Battlefield 3 has already sold five million copies since its release. But his comment was tweeted by keynote attendees nonetheless.

“There is going to be a Battlefield 4,” he said.

Of course, an EA spokesperson performed a little PR cleanup immediately after the news escaped Twitter, saying that “Frank was speaking broadly about the Battlefield brand – a brand that EA is deeply passionate about and a fan community that EA is committed to.”

Weeks ago just before the launch of Battlefield 3, Swedish developer DICE said that it hoped to develop the fourth installment sometime in the near future. “This feels like day one now,” executive producer Patrick Bach said. “It’s exciting. The whole Frostbite 2 thing has opened up a big landscape ahead of us so we can do whatever we want.”

DICE claims that the new Frostbite 2 engine was designed to “future proof” the studio: meaning that the engine will even work on the next Xbox and PlayStation console thanks to its PC-based roots. “We know everything about multi-threading now,” Bach added. “We know everything about multi-graphics card solutions now. If someone built a console where the specs are that or more, we have the technology to do something. We could port the game to that console tomorrow.”

Does that mean we might see Battlefield 4 as a launch title for Xbox Next/720/Loop in 2013? Even more, will gamers be able to save the game on one Microsoft platform and resume on another (Microsoft platform)? Now that would be cool.