Here at The Blogadin we like to think we have our finger on the pulse of the video and hobby gaming industries. As such, we like to bring you news of up-and-coming properties that show some promise or fill a niche. The first of these that we feel bears mention is Duelyst, a squad-based, tactical PvP endeavor by Counterplay Games that blends (what appears to be) 16-bit sprites and anime styling. Duelyst was posted on Kickstarter on March 8th and asked fans and contributors to pony up a total of $68k. That goal was met within 8 days, and as of the time of this writing, the current pledge total has swelled to over $75,000!

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In Loving Memory of the Diablo 3 Auction House. Image Credit: Zeevveez http://www.flickr.com/photos/zeevveez/

Diablo 3 Auction house, 22 months, of Irvine, CA, gave up the gavel at 3am on March 18th, 2014. The Auction House was born amidst a storm of controversy and raised the ire of the masses and the nations, but by the time it breathed its last, it had reached its way into the stashes and wallets of millions. It was the embodiment of a love-hate relationship; scant few were able to resist its promises of easy, cheap loot and thus a more rapid ascent through the halls of the High Heavens, but no citizen of Sanctuary can rightly say they’d never heard the name Auction House.

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ZeniMax’s promise for launch. Image by Eli Christman http://www.flickr.com/photos/gammaman/

There’s no shortage of dumb in this world – the fine folks over at Darwin Awards have documented some of the best dumb our species has offered up over the past fifteen years or so, and Daniel Tosh has made a hit TV show out of it. Game developers and marketing departments of AAA games tend to be of above average intelligence, however, which makes today’s declaration from ESO all the more shocking.

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No, not that kind of crack! Image Credit: AZRainman http://www.azrainman.com/

Generally I try to avoid using profanity in my writing, much less the headlines. It’s not that I’m a prude or that I have virgin eyes and ears, but I do my best to maintain at least a baseline level of professionalism which frequent swearing tends to dip below. In this case, however, I’ll make an exception, and in all reality that one exception is likely to become a plurality. It’s one of the few times where I think the shoe simply fits.

As you likely have seen by now, a neck-bearded, knuckle-tattooed young…um…model-of-sorts and a sidekick went around the Grand Prix Richmond tournament hall taking photos of our model posing piously behind men, usually obese, with the tops of their posteriors exposed, and presumably unbeknownst to the background subjects. These photos were then posted, of all places, on the internet. That’s right. A photo gallery of Magic crack posted for all to see. As I perused these photos I found myself laughing – sometimes heartily! – and with every chuckle I emitted, I confirmed myself an asshole.

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Image Credit: John Karakatsanis

The Wii U? It was essentially DOA, but that doesn’t mean Nintendo is down for the count. To the contrary, The Brothers Mario are standing toe-to-toe with the shiny new Xbox One and exchanging punches like a contender. Unbelievable, right? Well, how ’bout these apples?

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Seth MacFarlane. Image Credit – Gage Skidmore

Jon Stewart brought Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane on The Daily Show to talk about MacFarlane’s new book, A Million Ways to Die in the West. During the conversation, Seth drops a reference to the Kobayashi Maru – a standard-but-unpassable Star Fleet Academy simulation from Star Trek which Captain Kirk famously outwits. Video of their predictably hilarious conversation can be seen after the break.

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Sometimes Hollywood makes dramas, and sometimes in just makes drama. The latter is true in this case, as Watchmen director Zack Snyder counter-punches movie producer Joel Silver right in the arm – that’s right..the ARM! – after Silver made…um…not glowing comments about Snyder’s adaptation of the work.

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I work in the IT department (NERD!) for a large financial institution and do what most would consider some pretty boring work. I take information from one server and put it on another, and then when people ask for some of that data I give it back to them in a prettier format. The broader the audience or the bigger the title, the prettier it gets.

I once surrounded the data with sparkles before delivering it to a vice president.

I’m not kidding – there were sparkles. I didn’t get fired. Continue reading →

The fine folks over at MMOBomb have recently ranked their top 64 F2P games in a last-man-standing, winner-take-all, fight-to-the-death, gratuitous-use-of-hyphens MMA tournament!

Or maybe it’s just a set of brackets in the spirit of March Madness. Kinda the same thing.

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I’ve been thinking for a while how to kick things off here at The Blogadin. Do I rip ESO? Heap praise on Carbine Studios in anticipation of Wildstar? Geek out over the upcoming expansion for DC Deckbuilding Game? Upload a gallery of lady toons in their chainmail bikinis followed by a heated debate of said equipment’s practicality and effectiveness – and lack thereof?

(Mostly lack thereof…but who cares, amirite?)

Meh. There will be time for all that.

Instead, we begin in more general terms of why it’s awesome to be a nerd as explained by the Nerd King, Wil Wheaton.
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