Contests

So the way Blizzcon ticket sales were handled was a bit of a bust for pretty much everyone. The Blizzcon web site got overloaded with traffic when tickets went on sale for the October 10-11 event in Anaheim, CA and as a result many fans who might have had a chance to purchase a ticket got, well, screwed. Thankfully, Blizzard has a partial solution to that issue.

In a new message on the Blizzcon web site by Blizzard president Mike Morhaime, he apolgized for how ticket sales were handled and announced that they have found a way to work with the Anaheim Convention Center to offer up 3,000 more tickets to Blizzcon. Those tickets will be offered up in a lottery with details to be announced later. You must have had a Blizzard account by 9 pm PT on Tuesday, August 12, when it was announced that Blizzcon tickets were all sold out, to be eligable to enter the Blizzcon ticket lottery.

If you tried to buy tickets for Blizzard's Blizzcon 2008 event but were unable to do so you are not alone. It looks like the web site got overwhelmed by requests to purchase tickets for the Oct 10-11 event. As a result no one has actually purchased tickets for the gathering.

Our sister site WoWInsider has a very funny and informative post as they "live blog" their various attempts to purchase Blizzcon tickets. At the time of this post it looks like the Blizzard online store still isn't working. We are guessing that Blizzcon will be a huge event this October . . . if people get a chance to get their tickets.

Update: The Blizzcon web site has posted up word that ticket sales are now working.

Update 2: And now the site has posted up word that the ticket sales are once again not working.

Replay Studios and Gamecock just released some new screenshots for their upcoming WWII stealth action game Velvet Assassin and they look, well, kind of weird. While we are still looking forward to the game's release this fall the action on the game's related ARG contest also continues.

In case you are unaware, the development team has placed "Nazi Gold" in locations around the world and left clues to their locations on the www.violettesdream.com web site. Several weeks ago, one person found one of these gold locations in Fredericksburg, Texas. Today it was announced that a second stash of gold was found in Victoria Station in London. The man who found the stash, Russell Kent, used clues found in a newspaper, finding a letter in a London bar and other locations to find the stash. There's no word on how much gold is still left to be found. Meanwhile, Velvet Assassin itself is due for release this fall.

Our favorite Star Trek episode has always been "Mirror, Mirror", where the evil Spock was still logical and had a cool pirate beard. Now the man who made one of the most famous fictional characters in history come to life, actor Leonard Nimoy, will be helping to promote the upcoming MMO Star Trek Online.

According to a note on the game's official web site, Nimoy will be part of the Star Trek Online panel at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas on August 10. This is the same panel that will be webcast on the game's official web site. It's currently unknown what Nimoy's presense on the panel will entail.

The Star Trek Online web site has also posted word that five people will be able to win not only copies of the Cryptic Studios developed title (when it's released of course) but lifetime subscriptions to the game as well. Deadline for entries is on Sunday, August 17 and details on how to enter can be found at the web site.

As some of you may know, Richard "Lord British" Garriott is currently in training to go up in space in October aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket to go to the International Space Station (he paid $30 million for the privilege via the Space Adventures company). However he isn't leaving Earth without remembering the last game he helped to create, the NCsoft MMO Tabula Rasa.

Today NCsoft announced that all players of Tabula Rasa during August will have their in-game character's data uploaded to the "Immortality Drive", a drive that will be sent into space with Garriott in October. In addition 8 players per week will be picked to have their actual DNA to be sampled and then stored into the Immortality Drive as well. More info on this program can be found on the Operation Immorality web site.

Even though it has been called by many who attended the worst E3 ever held, that hasn't stopped the Game Critics Awards from naming their picks for the nominees for their annual Best of E3 award. The awards, picked by a group of mainstream and game oriented journalists (including Chris Grant of our sister site Joystiq) had three games that will appear on the PC platform named as Best in Show (Fallout 3, Mirror's Edge and Spore).

The nominations for Best PC Game are Spore, Dragon Age: Origins, Warhammer Online, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II and Left 4 Dead. Indeed Valve's upcoming zombie shooter got three more nominations (Best Original Game, Best Action Game and Best Online Multiplayer Game). You can go to the Game Critics Awards' web site for all the nominees; the winners will be named on August 5.

Alan Wake has been spotted... in Tokyo. According to a Microsoft promotional flyer the highly anticipated psychological thriller will make an appearance at the Tokyo Games Show in September. But there's more.

Microsoft held a competition last year called "WOW - Win Experiences Money Can't Buy" that gave one lucky winner the chance to be "digitally made-over and inserted (virtually of course) into a blockbuster game!" That game being Alan Wake. Whoever the lucky winner was flew to Finland where they were digitally mastered and inserted into Wake's world. Well, a year is a long time to wait to see the finished product, but the second part of the prize will come to fruition in September when the winner will be flown to the 2008 Tokyo Games Show to finally see themselves on the screen.

It looks like the hype meter for Alan Wake is set to go red-line later this year.

Sometimes all you need is an easy-to-understand business simulation with a simple premise to engage you. Signal is that game. Combining some simple graphics and gameplay with many different nuances and play styles makes this a game definitely worth playing. The goal of Signal is to take over the board, reducing an enemy's ISP to dust by providing better service and by sabotaging their hubs and connections. You must place your own hubs, connect houses and businesses, and advertise to gain more prominence. It has a very shallow learning curve, but the strategy involved is anything but shallow. Another excellent entry in the TOJam 2008 competition.

Big Download again thanks everyone for participating in the Spore Creature Creator Contest. Our judges picked their Top 10, all of whom with a free upgrade to the full version of the Spore Creature Creator. The readers have spoken, and there was a very close race for third place that came down to just one vote.

Without further ado, we're proud to announce the three grand prize winners of the Big Download Spore Creature Creator Contest!




Kyle from Minneapolis, MN wins the Wacom Intuos3 6x11 drawing tablet!




Roman from Mattawan, MI wins an EVGA NVIDIA e-GeForce 8800GT Superclocked video card!




Ian from Silver Spring, MD wins an EVGA NVIDIA e-GeForce 9600GT video card!

Congratulations to all the winners, and please be on the lookout for future contests hosted by Big Download.


Download the Spore Creature Creator Demo for Windows
Download the Spore Creature Creator Demo for Mac

We just love indie contests here at Big Download. They give the independent developers a voice and motivation to try out something new and different while keeping them from falling into the trap of "making a game perfect". People always work better with a deadline, after all. Eegra has just recently finished up the submissions phase of their first development contest and, we must admit, the games look amazing. From the trippy visuals of Chaos Wave to the shmupping of Go Beryllium!, the entries look absolutely incredible. As soon as the winners are determined, the games will be released for download. Look for our coverage as soon as the contest wraps up!

Sony Online first announced plans to offer women a chance to win a $10,000 game development scholarship last February at GDC. Today the developer/publisher has announced the first winner of the G.I.R.L scholarship as Julia Brasil of San Fransisco was awarded the tuition scholarship for the Arts Institute's game development program.

Brasil won the scholarship over 100 other applications. In order to win she submitted two essays along with concept artwork and a in-game design. She will also get a 10 week paid internship at one of Sony Online's development studios. Sony Online also announce that t-shirts with the G.I.R.L. logo will go on sale sometime later this summer.

The Big Download Team thanks everyone who participated in the Spore Creature Creator Giveaway Contest. We got a ton of fantastic, creative, creatures and had a tough time choosing our favorites, but we managed to pick out 10 lucky winners who will each get a free upgrade to the full version of the Spore Creature Creator.

Now we turn the contest over to you, the Big Download readers. Check out the Top 10 Spore creatures and vote for your favorite by replying to this post (one vote per person, please). Grand prize winner gets a Wacom Intuos3 6x11 drawing tablet. Second Prize is a EVGA NVIDIA e-GeForce 8800GT Superclocked video card. Third prize winner will receive a EVGA NVIDIA e-GeForce 9600GT video card.

So, check out the Spore Creature Creator Contest Top 10 gallery and cast your vote today! We'll tally up all the votes on July 14 and announce the grand prize winners on the 15th.



Review Spore Creature Creator Contest Announcement
Review Official Rules for giveaway

Download the Spore Creature Creator Demo for Windows
Download the Spore Creature Creator Demo for Mac

We are just a week away from the start of E3 but we are also just a few weeks away from the start of Quakecon 2008, the the 13th annual free LAN party-gaming convention sponsored by Doom and Quake developers id Software. Today the event's organizers announced that one lucky attendee of Quakecon 2008 will win a rather sweet prize; a 2008 Chevrolet Corvette Coupe valued at $55,000.

The Jetstream Blue painted Corvette will be given out thanks to Ventrilo, the well-know voice communication software that's used in a number of LAN tournaments and multiplayer matches. 250 Corvette lottery tickets will be given out during QuakeCon to attendees who win various events and contests as well as random drawings. Quakecon 2008 will be held in Dallas, Texas from July 31-August 3.

Last year, the organizers of E3 switched to a media invite format by moving the show from the Los Angeles Convention Center to several Santa Monica hotels. One other location used was the Barker Hanger at Santa Monica Airport which was almost universally loathed by journalists attending the event due to its distance from the rest of the show (over 20 minutes by shuttle) and the lack of interesting games show in its rather small building.

Now the Entertainment Software Association has made the good call to return E3 this year to the LA Convention Center and the Championship Gaming Series is trying to make E3 2008 work to their benefit. The pro gaming tournament organization is holding its world quarter finals during E3 week in LA and the tournament organizers know a ton of gaming journalists are in the area around that time. However, they are choosing to hold these events (on July 14 and 16) at the infamous Barker Hanger. Huh? There are a ton of locations in LA they could have used but making us media types go back to that awful place is sure to be not looked upon kindly by those same media reps. Still it might be interesting to cover. We just have to get those bad E3 2007 memories out of our head.

So when your mom comes into your room and finds you playing The Sims 2, does she tell you, "Quit wasting your time with that game," you can show this this article for proof that playing Maxis' people sim game can actually pay off. The game's publisher Electronic Arts announced that a person who designed an outft in the game will see that outfit in the real world and sold in over 1,000 H&M stores.

The outfit was designed via a contest where people were encourage to upload H&M inspired clothing designs into the TheSims2.com Exchange. The winning outfit, which was voted on by over 100,000 people, will begin to be sold in the US on July 31 and cost $14.95.