Valve’s Gabe Newell offers update on Steam security breach
Back in November, we learned that Valve’s online game-distribution service, Steam, had suffered a security breach. A letter to Steam users from co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell informed them that someone gained access to the Steam forums as well as the database containing user information. Valve began investigating the breach in hopes of learning whether any user information had been compromised. Today, the company offered an update.
It has hired outside security experts to … Continue Reading
Professional gamer explains why League of Legends has nothing to fear from DOTA
We sat down with professional gamer Carlos Rodriguez, aka Ocelote, to discuss the differences between the upcoming Dota 2, Blizzard DOTA, and League of Legends, his current MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) and profession of choice.
League of Legends, developed by Riot Games and inspired by the Warcraft III Defense of the Ancients (DotA) game mod, has rocketed to success since its release in late 2009. Running mostly unopposed up until now, League of Legends … Continue Reading
Steam game service doubles sales, reaches 5M concurrent users
Valve disclosed its Steam digital game distribution service has increased sales by more than 100 percent for the seventh year in a row. Steam now houses over 1,800 games for its consistently growing user base of 40 million accounts.
Bellevue, Wash.-based Valve pioneered the digital distribution of games via its Steam download service, and now it has turned into a formidable challenger to retail sales of games.
The infamous, wallet-emptying Steam Holiday Sale was responsible … Continue Reading
Crysis 2 leads the list of 2011′s most pirated games
Editorial ‘game of the year 2011′ picks favored the likes of Uncharted 3 and Skyrim, but the pirate vote went to Crysis 2. According to statistics published by BitTorrent blog TorrentFreak, the PC version of Electronic Arts’ first-person shooter was the most-pirated game of the year 2011 with an estimated 3.92 million downloads.
The fact that Crysis 2 was more popular in the bootleg department than the year’s biggest-selling game Call of Duty: Modern … Continue Reading
Interview, photos and video reveal how an impressive Left 4 Dead fan film was made (exclusive)
Northern Five Entertainment and Airsoft GI recently released their joint Left 4 Dead short film to the world.
Sporting Hollywood-level production values but produced on a shoestring, the video quickly surpassed half a million views on YouTube, and the teaser trailer alone garnered over 400,000 views.
GamesBeat sat down with Northern Five director and co-founder Adrian Picardi for an exclusive interview to discuss the film’s budget, concept, reception, and why Hollywood is so damn bad … Continue Reading
You could own every Steam game – if you’re the Grand Prize winner of the holiday sale
That’s right, as if you needed another incentive to make a few purchases during Steam’s infamous holiday sale, you now have the chance to win every Steam game ever. You read that right – every game that is on Steam will be free to download for one lucky gamer who wins the sweepstakes at the end of the holiday.
Here’s how it works. Every day from December 19th to January 2nd, there will be a … Continue Reading
Left 4 Dead short film rivals Hollywood production values (video)
As the gaming culture matures, a handful of impressive fan films paying homage to popular titles have continued to emerge. First, the “Escape from City 17” Half-Life shorts from two years ago set a new standard with their Hollywood-lite production values, then earlier this year Modern Warfare and Portal received similar treatments. Now another Valve-published game, Left 4 Dead, has been reimagined in this live-action eight-minute film.
Check back shortly for our exclusive interview with … Continue Reading
The DeanBeat: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception tops our list of the 10 best games of 2011
This year, with our ramped up our GamesBeat review team, we’ve taken our Game of the Year choices much more seriously than we have in the past. We asked our reviewers to select the semifinalists and then picked the final winners ourselves. But our vote on the best game of 2011 ended in a tie, so we had to hold a tie-breaker round to pick our winner.
And the final tie-breaker vote went — for … Continue Reading
The 10 Best Gaming Videos of 2011
This year has been a great one for gaming. To celebrate, here are 10 of the finest gaming related videos to have hit the scene in 2011. Some are fan made, some are by big game studios, but all are worth watching. Some are for mature audiences.
Dead Island: trailer of the year?
Few game trailers have elicited as emotional a response as this one, for Dead Island. Moody, subtle and emotionally rich, it … Continue Reading
Skyrim development tools being handed to gamers
Any PC gamers interested in playing with Bethesda Softworks’ development tools, as used to create their hit game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, will get their opportunity in the new year.
The official Bethesda Softworks blog has revealed that these tools will be released to the general public in the form of a Creation Kit, in January 2012. The tools will help users to ‘mod’ the game, introducing elements of their own, and tweaking existing features, … Continue Reading
Valve Steam service experiences security breach
Digital game distribution leader Valve just announced there has been a security breach within its Steam database. In a message sent to Steam users, Valve co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell said someone managed to gain access to not only the Steam forums, but to the database containing user information.
Newell adds that the passwords were hashed and salted, and credit card information is encrypted. Currently, there is no sign of data being stolen, but … Continue Reading
Outspark announces digital distribution platform for online games
Outspark, a publisher of free-to-play online games, is launching a new digital distribution platform today called Flint.
The platform will help third parties distribute their free-to-play, massively multiplayer online games or browser-based online games. The move makes sense and may get additional revenue for Outspark, which already has a popular portal for its own MMOs. With Flint, Outspark says that third-party developers will be able to reach more than 200 million players who are high-value … Continue Reading
Critically acclaimed shooter Team Fortress 2 goes free-to-play
Team Fortress 2, a colorful team-based online first-person shooter game, will be free to download and play and will generate revenue through in-game transactions, game developer Valve announced today.
That means the game will use the “freemium” model, which is usually designed to tease players with a free game and then encourage them to buy more powerful items. Team Fortress 2 is the first high-profile console and PC first-person shooter (FPS) game to go free-to-play. … Continue Reading
Team Fortress 2 free to play for a week ahead of huge update
If you’re one of the four gamers out there who hasn’t yet played Team Fortress 2, now is the time to do so. Game developer Valve is letting gamers play the game for free for a week ahead of a massive content patch.
The new “Uber” update features extra pieces of equipment for some of the character classes. The company is also teasing a “meet the” short video, which is a funny series that introduces … Continue Reading
Valve’s Steam online store launches micro-transaction games
Valve’s Steam service dominates the market for downloadable games on the PC. So it’s a big victory for the free-to-play market that Valve is announcing its first micro-transaction games on the Steam service today.
The company is releasing five games on the Steam store today that use micro-transactions. That’s a big deal because it shows that free-to-play games (where gamers can play a game for free and then pay real money for virtual goods in … Continue Reading
