General Gaming Article

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• Dear Esther, Proteus, and Journey: Are These Truly "Games?"
• Steam Summer Sale: Day Two
• How to Stream Your Games on Twitch TV
• Microsoft Helps Retailers Dump Surface RT Inventory with $150 Price Cut
• BetArmy Gambles on Feedback System to Regulate Online Gamers Competing for Money
• EVGA's 500B Power Supply is 80 Plus Bronze Certified, Haswell Ready
• Newegg Daily Deals: Samsung 840 Series 250GB SSD, Kingston 8GB DDR3-1600 RAM, and More!
• Gartner: PC Industry Hit Its Lowest Point in History During Second Quarter

Dear Esther, Proteus, and Journey: Are These Truly "Games?" Posted: 28 Jul 2013 01:39 AM PDT Examining non-violent video games Like Dear Esther and Journey before it, Proteus has some pundits revving up their "is it a game?" arguments again. It's funny, but I don't recall a similar chariness when we started putting simulations—which arguably include most shooters and RPGs—under the rubric of "game." I've worked on an old-school game and puzzle magazine for most of my career, and our idea of "games" has a history measured in millennia, not decades. You can sketch a line from Senet to Skyrim, but it won't be a particularly direct one, and it will detour through so many other arts along the way that it becomes too difficult to recognize it as a "game." Proteus Trailer That's why games are already part of a subcategory called "interactive entertainment." To go all Aristotle on your ass, the "telos" (purpose) of Proteus may not fit the classical definition of a game, but its "techne" (craftsmanship) does. I didn't love Proteus (or Dear Esther), but I respect that it tries to do something different and stretch the medium a bit. In Proteus, you just kind of wander around on an island as it changes seasons to the accompaniment of an ambient soundscape. If you like the music of Brian Eno and a 16-bit approach to Impressionist landscapes, it might just scratch an itch. But if you scoff at the idea of a meditative, self-consciously "artistic" interactive experience, my guess is you won't be bothering with Proteus anyway. So why get all heated about what it's called? Dear Esther trailer Proteus is a tone poem, a mood piece. I'm not dialed into its particular wavelength, but that's more a matter of aesthetic differences than any real complaint about the experience itself. I like that the forms and tools of conventional gaming can be used to make such an individual statement and get it out there for the world to see. We can worry about what to call it later.

Steam Summer Sale: Day Two Posted: 12 Jul 2013 03:20 PM PDT Gaming's never been so economical  Steam's summer sale started yesterday with big titles like BioShock Infinite and Far Cry 3 receiving big discounts. Day two of the Steam summer sale is in full swing today with the hot deals being Call of Duty: Black Ops II Digital Deluxe Edition for $40 (50% off)and The Walking Dead for $6.25 (75% off). If you're looking for a steal, Steam has Just Cause 2 for only $3, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 for $4.50 and last year's KickStarter success Faster Than Light for only $2.50. Steam's flash sales include 75% off Legend of Grimrock and XCOM: Enemy Unknown making them just $3.75 and $10, respectively. While Far Cry 3 is still available on a flash sale for $24, GTA IV is currently the community choice and on sale for only $5. Continuing with Steam's community choice you can vote on the next game to recieve a 75% discount that includes Total War: Shogun 2, Super Street Fighter IV and Sleeping Dogs.

How to Stream Your Games on Twitch TV Posted: 12 Jul 2013 01:50 PM PDT Become a live video streaming expert! You've bought the game, you've mastered the basics – or failed horribly – and you're ready to show off your exploits to the rest of the gaming world. Could you be the next Twich TV guru?  That, or you've officially thrown in the towel on your Starcraft II career and are ready to become a broadcaster instead of a Baneling rusher.  As Bronze Leaguers ourselves, we understand; multiplayer isn't for everyone.  Sometimes it can be more fun to watch than participate, especially if you catch a fellow Starcraft enthusiast throwing down the fabled Protoss Mothership as a last-ditch effort to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The biggest name in the online broadcasting game is Twitch TV — a spinoff of the lifecasting service Justin.TV that's become the place to go for match replays, streamed live broadcasts, and witty commentary for all walks of games.  But we're not here to tell you how you can watch the gamers' equivalent of a live YouTube; we're here to tell you how to participate. What does it take to get a live game stream up and running?  Spoiler: Not much.  You aren't going to need a bunch of technical wizardry or time to get going; just follow our simple instructions! Create Your Account To start streaming on Twitch, you'll need to have an account on Twitch.  Guess what that entails?  Hit up the Twitch website – Twitch.tv – and make an account.  Don't get distracted by the live video playing at the top of the site's main page; you might find yourself accidentally spending hours watching an Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 match. And, yes, you can even sign up for Twitch using your Facebook credentials; one-button login, here we come! Twitch TV settings If you want to get serious about broadcasting, make sure you click on your name in the upper-right corner of Twitch's main page (once you've completed the account creation process and logged in), and click on the "Settings" link.  If you want to check out Twitch's subscription feature – "Turbo" – which removes display ads from the service and gives you some extra chat colors and badges, feel free.  We're more concerned with the "Connections" portion of your Settings screen, which will allow you to link up your YouTube account (for easy uploading of stream highlights) and Twitter (to annoy the heck out of your friends when you're about to go live.) One more suite of settings to keep in mind: If you want to limit just who might be able to see your channel for whatever reason, you'll find a host of privacy options – where else – within the Privacy section of your Settings screen.  It's there where you'll be able to hide your broadcast streaming from Twitch's primary directory and search features, as well as preventing users from viewing any of your past broadcasts.  You can also give your account an access code, which you'll then be able to give to your friends if you'd like to limit, but not completely ban, access to your broadcast archives. Got it?  Let's get broadcasting! Broadcast Your Games Before we even show you the first thing about game broadcasting, let's get the tough talk out of the way.  You're going to want to have a decently powerful computer if you want to simultaneously game and stream your gaming accomplishments to the Web. Twitch itself suggests that you should be rocking at least an Intel Core i5-2500K CPU, eight gigabytes of DDR3 memory, and an operating system at least as current as Windows 7 Home Premium.   Note that we didn't say a word about graphics cards.  Frame rates are important for the simple sake of having a quality experience to stream, but the prowess of your GPU shouldn't directly affect your streaming capabilities. Ready?   Twitch doesn't technically offer any kind of broadcast software of its own; it provides the service.  You're on your own as to how, exactly, you want to translate your gaming to stream-friendly content. Our recommendation is that you grab a free app called Open Broadcaster Software — it's one of the latest and greatest apps you can use to get a stream up and running for Twitch, and many consider it an even better (and more user-friendly) app than Twitch's recommendation, XSplit. Hit up the Open Broadcaster Software website, download the app, and install it.  Once the installation process is complete, the app will automatically fire up.  If you're running a 64-bit version of your OS, you might not want to take the app up on this offer and instead launch it with administrator rights from your Start Menu.   Once loaded, you'll see that the app comes with a single "Scene" already preconfigured for you.  A word on that: A "Scene" is basically a single configuration setting, matching a single video source to a single set of options.  It's your game, for example; a second scene could be a video you want to play during your stream, or a switch to a different window that you want to feature, et cetera. Open Broadcast Software First, you'll want to make sure that you've fired up your game — unless you have a burning desire to stream the contents of your desktop to the world at large.  Alt-tab back to Open Broadcaster Software and right-click within the app's "Sources" box – currently empty – and highlight "Add" with your mouse.  Select the "Game Capture" option and give it a creative name, then click "OK."   Game Capture software Select the "Application" from the drop-down menu, which should be the title of your game that's currently running in the background.  You can also simply assign this input source to a hotkey, if you want to quickly jump around different streaming sources without having to manually toggle to a new input within the app itself – it saves plenty of time, trust us.   Manage your scenes At this point, we like to hit "OK" and head back to the main Open Broadcaster Software screen.  It's time to fire up a preview to ensure everything is looking correctly, which you can do by clicking on (aptly named) "Preview Stream" button.  If you notice a black border around your video – if you're running your game in a window, for example – you can always kick up your game's resolution, set it to full screen or, if you don't mind a slight degrade in quality, enable the "Stretch image to screen" option on the screen you just existed.  That screen, we note, you can get back to by right-clicking on your streaming source and left-clicking on the "Properties" option. Tweak Twich TV's bitrate Assuming everything looks good, click on the "Settings" button on Open Broadcaster Software's main screen.  Click on Encoding to take a look at the app's quality settings.  There's a careful dance that happens between the app's "Quality Balance" setting and its maximum bitrate setting — in other words, the quality of the stream itself and the maximum bandwidth the app should use to stream your game.  When in doubt, go as high as your system and Internet connection can support and test, test, test before you push your stream live to the Web.  When really in doubt, check out Open Broadcaster Software's estimator tool to get a sense of what your settings could be. Adjust your live stream settings Under "Broadcast Settings," you'll want to select "Twitch / Justin.tv" under the drop-down menu for Streaming Service.  You'll then want to copy your Twitch "Stream Key" to the empty section within Open Broadcaster Software – you can find said key by clicking on the big "Get Started" button underneath the "Become a broadcaster" section on Twitch's main webpage.  Click on the "Show Key" button on the subsequent page to reveal that which you must copy and paste. The Video sections of the app's Settings screen will allow you to define your source input's resolution (if that needs to change) as well as the maximum frame rate that the program should shoot for within the stream.  It defaults to 30, but feel free to kick it up to 60 if your system and connection can support it.  Audio will allow you to set up a supplemental microphone input in addition to your game's normal audio, if you want to offer a little bit of commentary while you stream. Click on "OK" once you're done fiddling around in the app's Settings menu.  If your preview is still running, stop it, and click on "Start Streaming" to do just that.  If you pull up your Web feed and notice that nothing's happening, don't freak out: If you're running your game full screen, you actually have to be within the title in order for the streaming to work.  Otherwise, you can always run the game in a window if you need to access other elements on your PC without interrupting the stream.  The Broadcaster Dashboard However, you should now have your very own PC gaming stream up and running!  Don't forget to jump back into Twitch's Dashboard (via the same, upper-right-corner drop-down menu that you used to access its Settings) in order to give your broadcast a title – and don't forget to switch it from "Not Playing" to "Playing."

Microsoft Helps Retailers Dump Surface RT Inventory with $150 Price Cut Posted: 12 Jul 2013 06:29 AM PDT Surface RT now available at a more reasonable price On hindsight, Microsoft overestimated the demand for its ARM-based Surface RT tablets and the willingness of consumers to pay $500 for an unproven slate. What made Surface RT an even tougher sell at the original asking price is that Android slates have been getting much more affordable in recent months. Stuck with all that stock, Microsoft is reportedly planning to slash $150 off the price of Surface RT. News of the impending price cut came courtesy of The Verge, which itself obtained the information from "sources familiar with Microsoft's Surface plans." As of this writing, Microsoft is still selling Surface RT for $499 (32GB) and $599 (64GB) on its website, though at least one retail partner has already confirmed the price cut. A Staples ad lists the 32GB Surface RT at $349 with no mention of this being a sale price or otherwise a temporary price cut. Expect more retailers to follow suit. When they do, you'll be able to find Surface RT 64GB for $449, Surface RT 32GB with Touch Cover for $449, and Surface RT 64GB with Touch Cover for $549. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

BetArmy Gambles on Feedback System to Regulate Online Gamers Competing for Money Posted: 12 Jul 2013 05:30 AM PDT Weed out sore losers based on user feedback Fancy yourself a competitive gamer? If you're willing to put your money where your mouth is at, BetArmy.com will help set you up in matches with other competitive gamers who want to play for cash. The inherent challenge with playing for money is that a sore loser can refuse to pay up as promised, and BetArmy's solution to this is to use a "sophisticated feedback reputation management system" to weed out such players. There are several genres available, such as sports, racing, fighting, and shooting, and on platforms such as PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Steam, Origin, Battle.net, mobile, PC, and more. Let's say you and a person agree to play a particular title. When your arranged game is finished, you receive a note, and if you both agree who won the match, money exchanges hands. If you don't agree, then no money changes hands and you both receive a negative hit on your feedback. As time goes on and more people play, you'll have a better idea of which opponents are worth playing against based on their feedback, similar to browsing Ebay auctions.' "Like us, gamers are competitive and we wanted to provide an experience were gamers could have fun, stay competitive, yet not break the bank with service fees," said John Jerney, president of BetArmy. "We kept hearing that gamers wanted a place to go where they could compete and play what they wanted and when and have a wider variety of games to choose from. This coupled with being able to play on a plethora of platforms gives our customers the positive experience they are looking for." BetArmy will also host online events and tournaments with entry fees and prizes. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

EVGA's 500B Power Supply is 80 Plus Bronze Certified, Haswell Ready Posted: 12 Jul 2013 05:15 AM PDT New PSU from EVGA takes home the Bronze Is your power supply (PSU) certified to work with Intel's 4th generation Core processor (Haswell) line without hiccups? Lest there be any doubt, EVGA specifically lists its new 500B PSU as being Haswell ready. It's also 80 Plus Bronze certified with up to 85 percent efficiency under typical loads, a feature that's not always found on PSUs aimed at users on a budget. The 500B utilizes a single +12V rail, which delivers up to 40A. It has braided cables, a quiet fan that supposedly runs "near-silent," and is backed by a 3-year warranty. As for cables, they consist of: 1 x 24 pin ATX 1 x 4+4 pin EPS12V 2 x 6+2 pin PCI-E 6 x SATA 3 x Molex 1 x FDD All that's missing is information about the price and release date, neither of which EVGA is providing at this time. Given EVGA's emphasis on budget builders, however, we'd peg this being around $100 or less. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Newegg Daily Deals: Samsung 840 Series 250GB SSD, Kingston 8GB DDR3-1600 RAM, and More! Posted: 12 Jul 2013 05:00 AM PDT Top Deal: Click! Click! Click! Hear that sound? It's your mechanical hard drive going bad. Your first order of business is to backup your precious data -- you know, saved games and the such. And secondly, swap it out with a solid state drive (SSD) STAT! No need to dial 9-1-1-, just click to take advantage of today's top deal for a Samsung 840 Series MZ-7TD250KW 2.5-inch 250GB SATA III SSD for $175 with free shipping (normally $190 - use coupon code EMCXNXM22). Other Deals: HGST Touro Desk Pro 4TB USB 3.0 Black External Hard Drive for $150 with free shipping (normally $190 use coupon code:[EMCXNXM22]) Kingston HyperX Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory KHX16C9B1BK2/8 for $57 with free shipping (normally $74) Adata DashDrive UV128 16GB Flash Drive for $13 with free shipping (normally $16 use coupon code:[EMCXNXM23]; additional $5 mail-in rebate) Asus VS248H-P Black 24" 2ms HDMI LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor for $180 with free shipping (normally $200 use coupon code:[EMCXNXL53]; additional $20 mail-in rebate)

Gartner: PC Industry Hit Its Lowest Point in History During Second Quarter Posted: 11 Jul 2013 11:28 PM PDT Fifth successive quarter of year-on-year shipment declines The ongoing decline in PC shipments simply refuses to bottom out, with the troubled industry slumping to its fifth successive year-on-year quarterly shipment decline during the second quarter of 2013. This is by far the longest period of decline the PC industry has ever witnessed. According to research firm Gartner's preliminary PC shipment estimates for the recently concluded second quarter, worldwide shipments fell 10.9 percent year-on-year during the period to reach 76 million units, making it "the longest duration of decline in the PC market's history." Further, the decline was truly global, with not even one of the major markets managing to buck the trend. Of course, some regions were more badly hit than others. "The fall in the Asia/Pacific PC market continued, showing five consecutive quarters of the shipment decline, while the EMEA PC market registered two consecutive quarters of double-digit decline," reads an Gartner press release announcing the preliminary data. "In the U.S. market, PC shipments totaled 15 million units in the second quarter of 2013, a 1.4 percent decline from the second quarter of 2012. This decline was less than the past seven quarters, and the market grew 8.5 percent sequentially." Considering how long this decline has gone on, we expect you to be fully familiar with its causes by now. In case you aren't, however, here's what Isabelle Durand, principal research analyst at Gartner, has to say: "The sharp decline in the second quarter of 2013 was partly due to the shift in usage patterns away from notebooks to tablets, and partly because the PC market was exposed to inventory reductions in the channel due to the start of the transition to new Haswell-based products. Touch-based notebooks still account for less than 10 per cent of the total consumer notebook shipments in the last quarter." Follow Pulkit on Google+

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