There's been a lot of talk lately on how the PC game industry can grow and become more stable. One of the major solutions that has been mentioned is free-to-play game titles which can be downloaded and played for free but can be supported via micro-transactions or in-game ads.

Our sister web site Game Daily has a new editorial from Entertainment Consumers Association president Hal Halpin who advocates this new business model for games. In particular he is looking at how the upcoming Digital Illusions-Electronic Arts game Battlefield Heroes will do when it officially launches later this summer. Halpin seems to think that EA should have made the game browser based (he believes that would have opened up the game to even more audiences) but he seems hopeful that this new business model could work for other games.

In particular, Halpin believes that a move to a free-to-play model will solve an issue that hurts both PC and console games; games that retail for $50 and $60 or more tend to be rented or traded in more and more. Halpin doesn't believe that all games could turn into free to play (although he adds, "that is certainly a possibility in the distant future") he does believe more publishers should look to changing their ways in order for the games industry to survive.

While the NPD Group has a weekly list of the top 10 best selling PC games in the US, they also go back and look at the overall monthly chart as well. For April, the top 10 list is dominated by Blizzard; it has four games in the top 10 including the number one best selling title World of Warcraft: Battle Chest (which has the original MMO game and the first expansion pack Burning Crusade in one package). Electronic Arts also did well; it has three Sims 2 titles in the top 10.

Ubisoft's PC port of Assassin's Creed debuted at number two in April while Activision's Call of Duty 4 continues to sell well at number three. The sleeper hit of the year, Sins of a Solar Empire from Ironclad Games and Stardock, sticks with the list at number seven. May should see some major changes in the list with the debuts of Age of Conan and the PC version of Mass Effect, among others.

• 1 World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
• 2 Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut Edition - Ubisoft
• 3 Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision
• 4 The Sims 2 Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff - Electronic Arts
• 5 The Sims 2 Free Time - Electronic Arts
• 6 World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - Blizzard
• 7 Sins Of A Solar Empire - Ironclad Games/Stardock
• 8 The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
• 9 World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
• 10 Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard

[Via Voodoo Extreme]

It's so freaky! Ok, it's not that freaky but when you write about a game called Freaky Creatures you kind of have to start with something like that. Today it was announced that the upcoming MMO game from Abandon Entertainment will have a promotion with gaming PC maker Alienware.

Specifically people who sign up to beta test Freaky Creatures this summer will be eligible to win a number of prizes including an Alienware Area-51 m15x notebook. The game, which allows players to construct their own creatures and then have them battle other creatures online, is scheduled to officially launch sometime this summer.

We may have to wait until sometime in August to play the next Brothers in Arms game but the Gearbox Software-Ubisoft WWII tactical shooter series is about to debut as a comic book this Wednesday via publisher Dynamite Entertainment.

Newsarama has posted up a six page preview of the first issue in the series which is being written by David Wohl and Mike Neumann and drawn by Davide Fabbri. The 40 page first issue will center around D-Day as an American army squad is shot down by anti-aircraft fire over France. The first issue will feature two covers, one by Stjepan Sejic and the other by Fabbri.

It's really too bad that some muscular purple elf is already using this as his catchphrase, because, looking at the hardware recommendations for Age of Conan, a whole lot of folks are not prepared, at least when it comes to being able to turn up the bells and whistles when they visit Hyborea, whether it's just for 250 hours or a whole lot longer.

From the pre-release notes' FAQ (question 1.10):

Required

• 3GHz Pentium IV
• 1GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800
  

Recommended

• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (E6600) or better
• 2GB+ RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 or better
  

Sorry, Mom, that vintage eMachine I gave you so you could check your email just ain't gonna cut it. I don't think that iMac you got to replace it is going to work, either.

Last week, the big huge CBS Corporation announced it was buying web media company CNet Networks (owners of Gamespot among other gaming web sites) for $1.8 billion. Now comes word of yet another smaller, yet similar business deal, as privately owned Condé Nast has acquired the tech and gaming oriented web site Ars Technica for a undisclosed sum.

Ars Technica has been online for close to 10 years and is certainly one of the best tech oriented web site but it also covers gaming extensively with its own section devoted to gaming news and features. According to a news post on the web site this new Condé Nast purchase will not affect the current editorial team; they will remain an independently run site. In fact this new move will allow them to expand and grow. Condé Nast, who may be familiar to some of you as a major magazine publisher, also owns a lot of web sites such as Wired.com and reddit.com.

Guild Wars shook up the MMO scene with a radically different business plan, where game development would be funded with box sales instead of subscription fees. It also stood out as one of the best examples of PvP design, since players were allowed to create top level characters dedicated to competitive gameplay. The game was later followed by two campaigns that added new classes, new PvP modes and a slew of different skills. Factions introduced Faction Points and Alliance Battles, while Nightfall brought in computer controlled Heroes to assist in all areas of combat. Although certain aspects overlap between PvE and PvP game types, Guild Wars has a "separate but equal" way of dealing with the two. Competitors have dedicated arenas, away from the story based areas, where they can quickly jump right into a battle. As a result, strong communities have grown around both PvP and PvE gameplay, and fans eagerly await news about Guild Wars 2. We speak with game designer Isaiah Cartwright from ArenaNet, who specializes in PvP, skill balance and most other combat-related design to find out what it takes to maintain the balance between PvP and PvE gameplay. Read the interview after the jump.

The announced reason for the merger is interesting. Both companies have published PC games exclusively but now they want to enter other genres such as console, casual games and the MMO market. Russia remains one of the biggest markets for PC games so it will be interesting to see if this business deal will allow these two companies to expand into other markets.

Slate Magazine put up a humorous but educational article on the historical, cultural, and practical ramifications of the most popular computer game of all time -- Solitaire. According to a Microsoft Developer Network blogger speaking on behalf of a research team, the three forms of Solitaire that ship with Windows (Spider Solitaire, Klondike Solitaire, and Freecell) are not only the top three most played PC games, but they together make up "more than half of all game-playing time."

The Slate article walks through the history of the game -- digital and otherwise -- and its role in helping the masses adapt to a computer-centric world. There's also quite a bit in the article about the game's addictive properties, important government officials zoning out with their virtual cards, and allegations that the game costs the United States economy astonishingly tall mountains of money in lost productivity.

If you're a PC gamer, you should become educated on the game that in comparison makes The Sims and World of Warcraft look at best like short-term fads, and at worst like total flops!

[Via Kotaku]

BioWare's Ray Muzyka has a lot on his plate right now. To name a few: his company was recently acquired by gaming software juggernaut Electronic Arts, Mass Effect for PC has gone gold and will be on store shelves in just a couple of days, and BioWare's Austin studio is working on a highly-anticipated (if nebulous) massively multiplayer game.

All those subjects and more were touched on in Gamasutra's recent interview with Muzyka. He went out of his way to calm consumers' fears that the EA acquisition will rob BioWare of its soul, saying: "It's going to be a very healthy thing, because being a publisher actually really is about having a closer connection to your fans, in some ways ... and I think it's the philosophy of the new EA as well."

Casual games may come with thrifty prices tags, but according to Ubisoft's North American president Laurent Detoc, marketing costs cut into the company's bottom line. "The margins on these games are good when you look at development, but it takes a lot of marketing dollars," said Detoc.

Attracting casual gamers is its own breed of marketing strategy, according to Detoc. Citing the Wii as an example, Detoc stated that only 10 percent of Ubisoft's sales from 2007 came from Wii games. Overall, 25 percent of Ubisoft's 1.5 billion dollar revenue for the last fiscal year came from casual games.

Despite the constant challenge in learning how to market casual games to their proper audience, Detoc said he believes Ubisoft to be up to the task. "People want games that are more accessible and less intimidating. We have been exploring a lot in that space and we think we will have an advantage as that group gets bigger."

UMVD Visual Entertainment has decided to enter the high-definition arena with the Blu-Ray release of Postal, due out August 26 of this year. Postal is set to debut in theaters later this month, and will be showing on only four screens, a significant reduction from its original count of 1,500.

Given that the home release has been announced before the film's theatrical debut, one might suggest that prospective viewers hold out for a rental. The film, directed by maligned video-game-to-movie director Uwe Boll, follows in the vein of the PC games by favoring pure shock value over anything resembling a real storyline.

The Blu-Ray release of Postal is estimated to be priced at $34.98, which is most likely 34 dollars more than should be spent.

Download the Dead Space story trailer