Headline RePLAY – 3.2.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Commentary on alleged DOOM 4 screenshots, Mojang employees receive a hefty bonus and Mass Effect 3 PC pre-orders are available for pre-loading!

Rumors about DOOM 4 being axed can be waved away by PR, but the alleged screenshots that came with them this week weren’t so easily dismissed. id Software has stepped up to the stage to respond:

“Those images have nothing to do with what you’re gonna see in DOOM 4,” said id’s Matthew Hooper via Twitter. “When we officially show things, you’ll see awesome.”

While Hooper’s statement is not a direct denial, he does assure fans that id Software is striving to meet their expectations.

“When we officially show things,” added Hooper, “fans will be happy.”

*Source: VideoGamer

Before tax, Mojang head honcho Markus “notch” Persson received $3 million in dividends—all of which he decided to distribute to his employees.  

“Before tax, my dividends from Mojang for 2011 was about three million dollars,” notch Tweeted. “I chose to distribute that to other employees.”

Many a Mojang employee went on Twitter to express their elation about the decision. Lydia Winters, Mojang’s Director of Fun, expressed how she was “happy for everyone @ Mojang” while business developer Daniel Kaplan was shedding tears in “shock and happiness.”

Congratulations to the hard workers of Mojang!

*Source: @notch, @LydiaWinters, @Kappische via Joystiq

Mass Effect 3 is just around the corner, but other than stockpiling on food and excommunicating the outside world for a week, what more can you do to prepare for the war with the Reapers? For PC owners that pre-ordered the title and don’t want to spend time watching a download and installation bar, EA is offering the option to pre-load the game via its Origin online service.

All PC-owners have to do is to launch the Origin client, sign in, navigate to their Game Library and click on the “Ready to Download” button on Mass Effect 3 and voila!

Mass Effect 3 is coming out next week on March 6th.

*Source: EA

Headline RePLAY – 2.28.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: DOOM 4 cancellation rumors strikes again, 600,000 PS Vitas are sold in the west and Justin Bieber gets sued over a Joustin’ Beaver app.

No news can be bad news in the videogame industry; it leaves openings for rumors like DOOM 4 being cancelled that sent Bethesda Softworks scrambling to respond. AllGamesBeta reported the latest rumor that DOOM 4 was cancelled, in addition to posting screenshots allegedly from the game.

“DOOM 4 isn’t cancelled,” Bethesda’s VP of PR and Marketing Pete Hines told Joystiq. “When we’re ready to talk about it and show it off, we’ll let everyone know.”

It’s not the first time that Bethesda had to fend off such rumors either, back in October the publisher had to fight back stories insisting that DOOM 4 was “indefinitely postponed.”

*Source: Joystiq

U.S. PlayStation CEO Jack Tretton got his wish two weeks ahead of schedule: 600,000 PS Vitas were sold in just one week since its launch in the west. Add in Japanese sales and worldwide sales equaled to over 1.2 million units sold!

According to Media Create sales data, PS Vita sales hit 578,812 units on February 19, which meant that around 600,000 units were sold in Latin and North America, Europe and Australia since last Wednesday.

“PS Vita was designed to deliver the ultimate portable entertainment experience,” said president and CEO of SCE Andrew House, “and we couldn't be more thrilled with the reaction we're seeing from consumers and the pace at which PS Vita is selling,”

“The market has responded and there is clear demand for a mobile device capable of providing a revolutionary combination of rich gaming and social connectivity within a real-world context.”

In order to sustain momentum, House assured that Sony is working with third-party developers and publishers closely and that there will be “something for everyone across the globe” for the remainder of 2012.

*Source: Edge

Joustin’ Beaver is innocuous as it sounds; it’s a Justin Bieber pun-inspired game developed by RC3 about a beaver superstar that “jousts” his way down a river to sign “Otter-graphs” to his fans. When I said pun-inspired, I sadly meant it.

It’s clearly a parody about the teenage superstar, but Justin Bieber’s attorneys don’t see it that way. The attorneys claim that the app infringes on the singer’s trademark and publicity rights. Bieber’s attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter that threatened legal action if the app wasn’t terminated.

RC3 countered by preemptively launching the very legal action they were threatened with: a lawsuit against the superstar for the right to release Joustin’ Beaver. The lawsuit claims that the game is a parody app, and is therefore protected by the First Amendment.

The developer wants a judge to determine that the game “doesn’t constitute misappropriation of Bieber’s name for commercial purposes and that Joustin’ Beaver is protected by the First Amendment.”

In light of the landmark 2011 Supreme Court ruling that videogames have the same free speech protection as other media (i.e. film, books, and music), this case can be an important litmus test on just how protected videogames are under the U.S. Constitution.

*Source: The Hollywood Reporter