It is chilling to think that ours may be the last generation to consider the term “social” as primarily being outgoing. With the deluge of so called social apps flooding the market, I can only expect, in somewhat hyperbole, that the definition of “social” will soon change. Maybe, it will become something like “the act of sharing your location, pictures, videos, thoughts and activities (in 140 characters or less) leveraging one of these apps”.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in the emergence of a new generation of social games. This new generation is legion, climbing out of (the) Facebook  onto PCs and mobile devices independent of any one client. At its worst, this generation bears cookie cutter copies of the villes, Mafia Wars and even StarCraft. There is a glimmer of hope, however, as some developers are pushing the social platform forward through innovation and creativity.

Earlier this week, SweetLabs, Inc. and Kabam announced that they have brought the first line of “hardcore” social games to the PC. Leveraging SweetLabs’ Pokki platform, gamers can download four Kabam titles, namely Dragons of Atlantis, Edgeworld, The Godfather: Five Families and Thirst of Night. Despite the delivery being free from the totalitarian chains of Facebook, there isn’t much else innovative or exciting about this announcement.

“Innovative” and “exciting” can be subjective terms. However, if we focus objectively on the games themselves, they are no different than the ones on Facebook. Take The Godfather: Five Families for example. Look passed the trademark  and the flashy interface, it’s just MafiaWars in a new suit. Edgeworld is another example. The blue woman image alone indicates that the game borrows from iconic titles like Halo. The gameplay, it turns out, is a watered down version of StarCraft.

This sort of borrowing and copying is more prevalent in social games than one may think. Back in February, at the San Francisco Game Developer’s Workshop, John Romero and Brenda Brathwaite of Loot Drop explained that this is a go-to strategy for many social game developers. The reasoning behind it goes something like this — the average Facebook user plays x amount of games. They play, maybe, for five to ten minutes each game. If a game does not fit with the feel and gameplay of the other games, it will be skipped over. The idea is to copy other games in order to fit in the average Facebook-er’s library. For obvious reasons, while this may help gain an audience, it is not conducive to innovation.

It also explains Kabam’s mission to emulate, “Our goal? We are working to achieve in social gaming what Blizzard has achieved in PC games. We know that’s a high bar to clear, but we’re up for it. Besides, why would anyone want to aim to be mediocre?”. Ironically, mediocrity may be the end result if borrowing and copying is all a game company does. One may call this the reasoning behind the old generation of social games. Enter the new generation.

Sure, Idle Games’ upcoming Idle Worship picks up on the already explored theme of player-as-god. A key difference is that it’s not trying to be anything like the recent From Dust or the more dated Black & White. They are treading new ground in the social gaming space, given the player-as-god concept has not been tried to any avail with social channels built in. Indeed, Idle Worship can be seen as innovative as it takes a new look at what it means to be a social game.

Take your pick of any existing social game out there, and the main thing that makes it social is the ability to share gifts/resources or contribute to someone else’s iteration of the game. It’s a gameplay element that exists even though the game itself does not tie it in logically. For example, you may share some wood with a friend on Frontierville or tend to a friend’s lot in Ravenwood Fair, letting them know on their feed. After all is said and done, nothing is gained. It is just a cunning dynamic that encourages your friends to log on and do the same somewhat mindlessly, like pulling a slot machine lever.

Instead, Idle Worship takes special care to incorporate social in a way that makes sense for the gameplay, rather than conforming to what is in the player’s comfort zone. Case in point is the vast amount of things you can do to affect a friend’s game. Each player gets an island where they are tasked to build and rule over a civilization of mudlings. With faith as the game’s currency, you must make sure they are properly worshiping you. This is done by benevolently showering them with gifts like fluffy, pink bunnies, or malevolently striking them down with lighting and tossing them into volcanoes. It is in this way you get more power and more opportunity rule over your realm the way you please.

Friends can wreak havoc as they visit your island to turn your mudlings into theirs. This sparks friendly competition as to who is the better god. The game then takes a surprising turn as one power allows you to flick a mudling into the stratosphere, only to have it land on a random person’s island. This makes a social connection with a gamer you  potentially haven’t even met before, expanding your network and opening up new avenues to flex your god power. Idle Worship essentially introduces a new type of contextual social competition that has never been seen before.

Notice not once has there been a description of the game pausing to ask you if you want to share resources with a friend, or so you can broadcast your accomplishments.The game would instead let you know that someone messed with your island so you can log in to do damage control and maybe exact revenge. This definitely has more meaning as something you built, something you care about, is being threatened. It starts to sound more like game design 101, rather than the slot machine, k-factor mess of the older generation of social games.

Idle Worship offers a sensible goal, namely building your faith base while protecting it from others. This is vastly different from the villes — and in fact almost all other social games out there — where there is no clear goal, but only an endless amount of vapid mini-quests aimed at getting you to pull that proverbial slot machine lever.

Bear in mind that bucking the old trends has it’s inherent risks for the new generation of social games. As mentioned before, the Facebook gamer has a short supply of attention while logged onto the social network. Call it Social Network Onset ADD (my made up term). This is why those meaningless mini-quests have been recycled game after game — they are quick enough to make the player feel like there was something accomplished in that short amount of time. Idle Worship exposes that these are mostly empty accomplishments. At the same time, it introduces an alternative that may try to slow the player down, spend some more time on building something with more meaning.

Yes, it’s a risk. But, if the game is high in quality, it bears a much sweeter reward, namely more players playing for longer periods of time. Indeed, high quality is what this new generation of social game is bringing to the table. Many a Facebook gamer will see this quality once Idle Worship is released; and hopefully it is the start of a positive new trend.

San Francisco, Calif. is stirring this October with two great events. Both events are open to the public and focus on networking, sharing and learning new and innovative development technique. So, if you’re in the area and are trying to break into the industry, in the midst of your own project or just want to hang out with like minded individuals, clear some space on your calendar.

One event is free and one is not so free. So even though you’re a gamer on a budget, you will be able to get out there and mingle for at least one of these.

Here are the particulars.

10/18 Meetup (free) @ 8:00 P.M.

• Jillian’s
• Metreon, 101 4th Street
• San Francisco, Calif. 94103

Note, this meetup occurs on the 3rd Tuesday of every month. That is 10/18 this month, tomorrow. You never know who is going to show up at these events, from recruiters to industry vets the likes of Will Wright (Spore, The Sims).

10/25 SF Game Developer’s Workshop @ 6:00 P.M.

• G0ogle, San Francisco Office
• 345 Spear Street
• San Francisco, Calif. 94105

This workshop in particular will focus on cross-platform development. Speakers headlining are David Helgason, founder and CEO of Unity; Peter Relan, founder of YouWeb; and Rizwan Verk, CEO of Gameview Studio. The SF Game Developer’s Workshop is hosted by Yeti Zen, an accelerator specializing in consulting and delivering the tools to help boost startup success. This is a paid event ($10/15), but guarantees nothing short of another great networking, learning and fun opportunity — drinks, DJ and more included. Previous speakers have included Facebook game vets like Blake Commagere and hardcore developers like John Romero (Doom, Quake, Red Faction).

Double edge swords can be pretty cool. In experienced hands, they make short, bloody shrift of an enemy and, barring any phallus references, the sword can make the wielder look something of a badass. This ginormous blade with two sides is also a prime, well used metaphor of something which bears opposing qualities. Take, for instance, Siegfried/Nightmare from Soul Calibur.

Now, I’m going to be upfront with you — this article is a bit of a double edged sword itself. By that I mean it is a bit of news, and a bit of commentary, regarding the Entertainment Software Association’s (ESA) support of the U.S. Congress’s free trade agreements announced this Thursday.

Here’s the news portion: the U.S. Congress has approved free trade agreements (FTA) between Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Among other things, it enables U.S. based game companies to sell their wares to these respective countries without the worry of such things as trade tariffs and (intellectual) piracy. ESA president and CEO Michael Gallagher applauded the government, saying, “[t]hese agreements mean greater market access and product protection for U.S. entertainment software publishers, which in turn boosts exports, opens prospects for new markets and grows high-paying jobs.”

On the surface, this sounds like a good thing. If I were the head of, say, Microsoft, I would want to get my goods in as many hands as possible without having to pay the tax man, no matter what language he spoke. More, the prospect of creating new jobs in such a down trodden economy makes me look like a white knight to customers and investors. Well, here’s the opinion part:

Who is to say free trade is the magical key to boosting exports and job creation? From what we’ve seen, the video game industry had cut more jobs than it has created lately despite record sales numbers. And I’m the last to say I know a thing or two about the economy, but, in a world where it’s not only people going bankrupt, but entire countries, I doubt video games are on the top of these countries’ to-buy lists.

Remember, just like the double edge sword, a no trade tariff policy works both ways. Yes, companies get to ship for free. This also means it’s cheaper to buy South Korean, Panamanian, Colombian goods since there’s no trade tax to jack up the price, compared to higher priced U.S. goods, higher priced because U.S. manufacturing companies have to pay taxes. If jobs follow the money, and if we’re shelling out most of our cash to other countries, where will the jobs ultimately wind up? Notice, Gallagher said the FTA’s grow high-paying jobs but didn’t mention where.

So I’m not waxing on the world economy or sounding like either a tea-bagger or an OWS fanatic, I’m just going to stop there. Just some food for thought. I welcome your comments.

The clouds we see in the sky come in all shapes and sizes. They can be fluffy, misshapen and flat, lined with silver or rainbows. With the recent announcement of Happy Cloud officially open for business July 18, the cloud gaming space is starting to look just as varied as the sky.

Happy Cloud, similar to OnLive and Gaikai, hosts games on their servers and streams them onto the player’s PC. This saves them from having to wait through long download times. However, unlike with the other cloud gaming services, players are downloading the game as they play and thus winding up with the full title on their PC’s.

With cloud gaming in a very nascent stage, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more services barreling over the horizon like OnLive or Happy Cloud, or another taking on a totally different model no one has ever heard of. Call it cloud growing pains.

At first glance, this may seem like a good thing. Players get a choice, after all. It’s like the console market — with the PS3, 360, Wii and soon to be Wii-U, there is enough to satisfy all gaming tastes. There’s OnLive, Gaiki and now Happy Cloud. There is a noticable difference, however.

While gamers get to choose between cloud services, they always play with the risk (no matter how small, it’s still there) that the game will be arbitrarily axed. This means that there is a potential that the $30 you dropped on the cloud version of F.E.A.R. 3 evaporates into nothingness as for some odd reason the game is no longer available. Remember, with cloud gaming you’re paying for access, not ownership.

Happy Cloud seems to buck this risk as you actually download the game while you’re playing. One can say that Happy Cloud is not totally cloud because of this. It’s more like a funner and faster way to download games on the PC. Still, there is digital rights management (DRM) in place, so it still may be good practice to read up on their end user license agreement, as with all other hardware and software you buy. Game safe, people.

Imagine your right hand got banged up in an accident. Say, you got too friendly with a hammer. The doctor says it’s nothing serious, but, you have to wear a cast for a month. Then, you have to rehabilitate lest it becomes a shrunken and emaciated version of your left hand. She writes you a prescription … to play a modded Street Fighter X Tekken for ten weeks.

You might be thinking, ‘Where do I get a doctor like that?’ At least that’s what I said when I saw the prescription pad mockup. This is one of the concepts put forth by Games For Health, an organization working to bring the video game and health industries together to provide a new kind of therapy to the infirm.

Games For Health has been promoting serious gaming applications in the health industry since 2004. Such a marriage of industries has spawned IP like ReMission by Hope Lab. The game follows Roxxi, a nanobot sent into the human body to battle cancer cells. Along the way players will learn about specific illnesses like Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. This third person shooter aims for patients to internalize the information in a more fun way, under the assumption that they will adhere to their treatment better. That’s right, an educational game.

Organizations like Games For Health and Hope Lab are focused on how games can function as training, an engine for nutrition, as physical therapy, etc. While this all amounts to a noble purpose, it is also a hot button issue for many gamers because it involves gamification.

As with any other argument, there are two sides to gamification. One side, best articulated by proponents like Jane McGonigal (Games For Change, Social Chocolate), believes that turning aspects of life into a game can help make serious, positive changes in society. ReMission is a mild example at best, influencing patients to stick with their treatment through education. Better known examples involve turning real life situations into games, i.e. creating a point system around eating the right foods to promote healthy behavior.

The other side of the argument can be articulated by the likes of Chris Hecker (Spy Party). This side posits that games for their  own sake is enough, that the industry has yet to scratch the surface of what games can do. Why try to turn life into a game when there’s still so much that needs to be done with the current medium? How lax are we as a society that you need a point system or badge system to be a responsible person?  That’s where Get Well Gamers comes in.

This latter organization recognizes that playing videogames can be just as therapeutic as traditional therapy. This is why, since 2001, Get Well Gamers has been delivering donated games and systems to hospitals throughout North America. More than 10 million children have benefited from their services.

They also cite other statistics — such as how children who game are less anxious before an operation, they call on nurses less while in recovery and generally have shorter hospital stays. If you have an old, unused console sitting around, Get Well Gamers is always accepting donations, an arguably worthy alternative to getting gouged by resellers.

So here we find several organizations on opposite ends on the gamification spectrum. Despite their differing approaches, patients win with real health points through video games. This is just something to think about the next time you’re sick and someone is telling you to stop playing and get some rest.

The United States Supreme Court ruled Monday, in the case of Brown v. EMA, that video games have a rightful place under the protection of the First Amendment. In other words, as the majority of gamers have known from the beginning, video games are free speech just like literature, film and music. The gaming world may know this case better as Schwarzenegger v. EMA, the case’s name back when it was heard in November 2010.

The Supreme Court’s ruling comes 6 years after the controversial law in question, banning retailers from selling so called ‘ultra violent’ games, was passed in the State of California in 2005. The ruling thus overturns the law rendering it null and void.

In addition to the free speech issue, those who opposed the bill claimed that its language was too vague, and would have caused developers to shy away from making games the likes of core titles as Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed and Battlefield. There was also an understanding that the bill was penned by politicians with election season in mind, and was nothing but political grandstanding in the end.

On the other hand, it has been stated by state senator and bill author Leland Yee, in a short interview with G4, that the bill goes a long way in protecting children from offensive material. Those for the law saw it as a necessary step to close gaps left by the ESRB.  No matter the argument, the Supreme Court’s ruling stands 7 to 2.

Today word got out that Activision will be launching a new subscription based service called Call of Duty Elite in conjunction with the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 this fall. Activision is still trying to determine the right subscription pricing for the service which is said to “provide extra content that isn’t offered on game discs sold in stores, including downloadable map packs.”

Aside from extra content, Elite will also provide gamers with stat tracking tools that analyze their performance and tendencies in game, in hopes of directing the player to guides and tutorials on how to improve. “These can cover things like the best way to employ a certain weapon, pros and cons for their attachments, or how to make the best use of different perks. Video tutorials will also be part of the package.”

Elite will have some features that are available to everyone, even those who don’t subscribe to the service. For example there will be a social media aspect that allows gamers who share similar interests to meet up online and blow each other away.

Gamers will be able to access Elite in several ways. Primarily, it will be built into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 as well as future CoD titles, so you can access the information in game. You will also have access via the CoD Elite website as well as on iOS and Android phones and tablets.

What do you guys think about this? To be honest, I haven’t played CoD in a long time and generally stayed away from the multiplayer. Maybe I’m a gaming hipster or whatever, but I just always stuck with my old favorite Counter-Strike for multiplayer FPS action. I’d be curious to hear what the hardcore members of the CoD community think about this.

If you’re a big CoD fan, leave a comment below letting us know what you think.

Source: Shacknews

While E3 still remains an industry and press only event in the physical world, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is partnering with IDG Entertainment/GamePro Media to give gamers virtual access to 2011′s largest gaming expo. Announced Tuesday, the E3 Insider site will give players the ability to see exclusive E3 interviews, previews as well as tour the plethora of exhibitor booths.

ESA senior vice president for communications and industry affairs, Rich Taylor, said, “E3 is the leading computer and video game event in the world. Millions of enthusiasts who want to attend will now be able to have the same incredible experience as the attendees on the exhibit floor.”

What’s more, the public doesn’t need to wait until June 7, the official start date of the expo. Today*, E3 Insider will begin delivering pre-show content including industry announcements, screenshots of upcoming IP and trailers. While the day before the expo begins, the site will start hosting real-time news feed and press conference coverage. It also promises a virtual replication of each exhibitor booth where you can drill down and see exclusive content.

There was no mention whether the ESA plans on running the site for future E3′s. However, they are most likely going to gauge its viability through site traffic as well as the adoption of the voting feature that allows you to rate your “interest” in announcements and upcoming IP. Visit the website here.

*At the time of this writing, E3 Insider had yet to deliver content.

Jonathan Blow (Super Meat Boy, Braid), Chris Hecker (Spy Party, Spore) and Alex Neuse (Bit. Trip Beat, Bit. Trip Runner) touch down May 26 in the UC Santa Cruz Media Theater. The three indie designers will hold an open panel discussion for the college’s Foundations of Interactive Game Design course, or in college speak, CMPS 80K.

The special thing about this panel is that it’s open to the public and free. Aspiring designers and general gamers alike, if you ever wanted to attend a GDC panel but don’t have $200+ to spend, now is your chance to learn the nuts and bolts of meaningful and entertaining game design from tried and true designers.

“We’re excited to have Chris, Alex and Jonathan come and talk with our students about what it’s like to be an independent game designer. This class is many students’ first exposure to what it takes to make a video game and having three such original thinkers come and talk about life beyond the mainstream brings depth to their newly found knowledge” says Jennifer Mahal of UCSC’s Center for Games and Playable Media (G+PM).

The panel will be hosted Noah Wardrip-Fruin, associate professor and director of the G+PM group, UCSC’s proving ground for aspiring designers. The first of its kind in the UC system, G+PM delivers hands on experience to students; while the course in particular founds their game making skills with “technical, play-oriented, narrative, and artistic underpinnings”. In other words if this panel so inspires you, and you find your day trip to Santa Cruz extended for four years, you’ll be making the most of it by developing a game of your own.

Ubisoft’s press release Tuesday revealed the development of PowerUp Heroes, a game that combines the Kinect and your XBox 360 avatar for “the ultimate super power-infused full-body fighting game”. Turn your avatar into a superhero by having him or her don one of twenty super suits. After you defeat an enemy, you take his or her super suite and powers a la Mega Man; and if you’ve made your avatar a digital version of yourself, like I have, it’s as close as you’re going to get to fulfilling a childhood fantasy.

If you enjoyed Kinect Adventures, then this may be up your alley. Albeit, after watching this trailer, I can only hope I don’t look as silly playing the game as they did acting out their mock teen super hero drama. All lightheartedness aside, this exclusive title can very well serve as a sampling of Microsoft’s vision of a predominantly social gaming future.

In Microsoft’s future, something called the Windows Gaming Experience (WGX), the avatar is one of the main focuses of gaming. Like a strange mantra, Microsoft says, “[m]y avatar is my online identity. It represents my style, attitude, and character.” One can’t help but hear a watered down echo of the U.S. Marine Corp.’s ‘this is my rifle’ line from Full Metal Jacket.

In line with the social experience, PowerUp Heroes lets you take the fight online against other avatars. Now, this is by no means a bad thing. It is just different — pitting cute, smooth skinned, costumed avatars in battle instead of hardened special ops warriors, or elves against orcs.

Ubisoft and Longtail Studios’ new game, which will release sometime in June 2011, doesn’t play into all the aspects of Microsoft’s WGX future, like the microtransaction part as we see in almost all free-to-play (F2P) games online. Rest assured, however, this is as big a part of WGX as much as the avatars are.

Now, you may be wondering where did all this mess about WGX come from. A while back, an internal Microsoft video leaked spelling out where Microsoft is most likely heading in the coming years. Amidst rumors of XBLA F2P and the emergence of PowerUp Heroes, it all seems to be coming to pass.

[source: TNW]

The premise is simple: you go to a bar and see a bunch of people playing this cow abduction game on the big screen. They’re using their iPhones, iPads and Androids as controllers, pressing on the screen to abduct, tilting their phones to move. You connect via your mobile device and you’re next in line. Consider it the 2.0 version of putting your quarter up.

Cow Snatchers was just one of several games demoed at D2S Games’ underground event last week. However, the event wasn’t really meant to demo their games more than it was showcase their platform, which is all about playing games socially without the likes of Facebook. As D2S chief visionary officer Donna Bonifield put it, “it’s all about taking people away from Facebook and into face time.” In fact, this event was more about redefining what a social game is.

Now, Bonifield and company are no newcomers to the game of making games. She alone has been at it for more than 20 years, with much time spent at Brøderbund, where she met chief technology officer Matt Siegel who led graphics conversion for such titles as Myst and Prince of Persia. Together with CEO Beth Rogozinski and designer Antonio Toro, they make up D2S Games, whose mission is to put “big screen fun in the palm of your hands”. Your mobile device is truly central to this endeavor.

Cow Snatcher‘s iPhone interface — elegant, stylized, a possible metaphor female anatomy. It definitely shows that two buttons can make for an complete gaming experience. Above all else, it represents the simplicity D2S is focused on in order to get the widest gaming audience playing. Sure they start in bars, but D2S aims to swing big with their platform. As Bonifield explains, “I see D2S in airports, movie theaters, restaurants, clubs, at home.  All around the world, communities of people playing together socially through games.”

Imagine you’re at McAfee stadium watching the Oakland Athletics sweep the San Francisco Giants. Between innings, instead of the announcer drawing your attention to the big screen to passively watch a silly cartoon train race, he tells you to pull out your iOS devices and Androids to play a quick game. Winner gets free tickets.

After seeing their technology work first hand, this is a definite possibility. D2S is truly making a social experience of gaming, where people interact with other people, rather than a viral slot machine where you harvest meaningless crops, collect valueless coins, only to post on a news feed where it gets swallowed in a steady river of status updates. In the ball game example, instead you’ve connected on a higher level with an entire stadium of people who are present, in the same place with you; and that lucky game developer just had tens of thousands of people playing his or her game in a matter of minutes. Such a beautiful concept this is.

The D2S loading and queuing screens. First you’re anticipating, then you’re connecting, then you’re playing. If I took that as a metaphor for D2S Games, I’d say they’re in the connecting stage. The platform has been developed, the API has opened this week and now it’s time for developers to go to town. Unlike the Facebook platform, developers are not tied down to making spin-off harvesting games or games super similar to the next in fear of losing an audience who doesn’t have the time to learn a completely new IP.

The other games they showed off, trivia game Smart-Ask and tap-racing game Stone Age Derby, were totally different from Cow Snatchers. More than the gameplay itself, the sheer difference in the type of games show that developers are only limited by their imagination with this platform. One can very well develop a core game that uses the iPad as the controller, a game you can very well play on a super huge HD screen. During the underground event, D2S shared one more vision for where the platform can go.

Imagine the D2S MoJoe app as a central hub, what Bonifield called the “jukebox”. Open the jukebox and you find an invite to a secret event. “You receive special secret invite, and passwords and clues along the way, but until an hour before the event you don’t find out where the event will be.  Then when you arrive, check in at the big screen with other players; you can only get in if you compete.” A game leading you to a game leading you to an event that most likely will have another game. Mind = blown.

If you were a hardcore gamer in the nineties, you may remember when just about every venue had an arcade machine. I myself remember many days biking to the 7Eleven on the corner to play Street Fighter II. Most times I got p’wned, but there was something special about playing alongside a real person, talking trash and making friends.

Of course you can still have that experience, but it’s limited to the Tilt at the mall or a 21+ venue like Dave and Buster’s (and I don’t know about you, I’m not at D&B’s mainly to get on the sticks); and all these places are static. You never go anywhere new. You don’t have that personal experience at the neighborhood pizza spot or bowling alley anymore, where anywhere you go, you can get into a fun game and meet new people. D2S changes that, essentially bringing the arcade-everywhere phenomenon back in a big way. Only this time, arcade-everywhere is truly everywhere.

Now here’s your +1. Why no sound fx? It’s because the sound would be coming from your phone.

The last news mash-up came like a real bad hangover right after new years. This one is somewhat of a hangover, if you’re the type to drink on a Wednesday (on which I pass no judgment; I’ve been there). Let’s begin, shall we?

Level One: Wake Up And It’s Terrible

Something close to  a hurling feeling you may feel when you find out that Capcom has canceled Mega Man Universe. That means no fan-made levels, no wacky original U.S. boxart costume, no Ryu of Street Fighter fame. The company is rather vague about the issue, only citing the title has been cut due to “various circumstances”.

This is truly disappointing news to wake up to. More disappointing than the news that Square Enix had canceled Gun Loco earlier this month. Here’s hoping that these cancellations don’t start an axing trend (Guitar Hero pun not intended).

Level Two:The Sun Can’t Hide The Legal Notice On Your Door

Now, add legal woes to this hangover cocktail. Bad blood had been stirring between Ubisoft and THQ ever since last year when Patrice Désilets, Ubisoft’s former creative director, suddenly packed up  and headed over to THQ’s new Montreal studios. The French site, Rue Frontenac, broke a story close to industrial espionage when it revealed that THQ had swooped up several other Ubisoft leads soon after, all from the same Assassin’s Creed team.  THQ’s Danny Bilson then bragged about it to Joystiq in January.

In short order, Ubisoft filed for two injunctions with the Superior Court of Québec, later confirmed by Gameinformer. In legalese, an injunction is a court order for an individual/company to do or stop doing a specified thing. The injunction is meant to stop the Ubisoft manager poaching in THQ’s case.  So reads the Ubisoft’s official statement:

Ubisoft has filed a request before the Superior Court of Québec for injunction orders against THQ Inc. in order to have them comply with the non-solicit clause included in Ubisoft Montreal’s employee work contracts. The Superior Court of Québec has granted the injunctions to the satisfaction of Ubisoft. This procedure aims to protect Ubisoft Montreal in a breach of contract situation, and to defend the long-term financial and creative health of the studio.

Level Three: A Little Water In This Drought

Maybe all you need is a shot to quell the pain. A nutshot. That’s what you get when you watch the latest Saints Row: The Third trailer. In fact, that’s all you get, preceeded and followed by a lengthy disclaimer and the standard company logos.

Twitter was lit ablaze with anticipation of this trailer and, once it finally reared its head, you only get a split second of in-game footage. Call it a prank. Call it hype. I laughed when I saw it. However, that made my headache hurt even more.