Hasta La Gadget!

World of Warcraft publisher Blizzard has recently blocked Iranian fans of the role-playing game from being able to access its servers. The blockage comes as Blizzard makes moves to ensure that it is complying with US federal law having to do with trade restrictions and economic sanctions. Exactly why it’s taken so long for Blizzard to comply with US law is unknown.

What we do know is that Iranian fans of the game have started to pepper Blizzard message boards with complaints that they were unable to log onto game servers. These Iranian players were told recently that the reason they can’t get on servers has to do with US law. Blizzard hasn’t offered an indication of how many players were affected by the ban. However, Blizzard says that only a small percentage of its players were affected.

Blizzard wrote in an e-mail to affected players, “United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran,” the company said in an email sent to players. Blizzard tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access to Blizzard games and services.”

[via Telegraph]

Linux gamers are really just having the time of their lives right now. They’ve been embraced by indie game devs, by Valve, Epic and the increasingly popular Unity 3D. And, some of these properties aren’t quite ready for the big show yet, you can get a taste of what to expect from Unity 4 thanks to a pair of playable demos that have hit the web. AngryBots and Unitroids are both available as standalone executables for your open-source desktop. They’re not complete games, but they at least serve as practical demos of the progress being made in porting the gaming engine. They’ve both got their quirks at the moment, but it’s hard not to get excited about the prospect of plummeting through AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome on your Quantal PC. Hit up the source for download links.

Filed under: Gaming

Unity 3D for linux gets two playable demos originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fans of Mega Man will find this kitchen accessory as hard to resist as taking down Dr. Wily. It’s an awesome cutting board assembled to look just like the classic 8-bit gaming icon.

Jim Van Winkle of Prairie Oak Studios made this intricate cutting board from a whopping 504 individual blocks of wood. He used walnut, maple, cherry and purpleheart woods to provide the appropriate pixel shading of Mega Man. The 16.5″ x 13.25″ x 1.75″ thick cutting board is food safe, and finished with oils and waxes to protect it from damage, should Fire Man, Ice Man or Stone Man take a shot at you while preparing dinner.

Given its complexity, the Mega Man cutting board isn’t cheap – selling for $230(USD) over on Etsy – but with nearly 2000 individually glued joints, there’s a ton of labor that went into this amazing thing.

[via r/suatmm]

So you just sold your entire videogame collection and you’re swimming in money. You already bought the Space Invaders wristwatch, but you’re still Scrooge McDuck! What to do? I suggest you add the official Pac-Man watch to your shopping list.

Romain Jerome – the same company who made the Space Invaders watch – teamed up with Namco to make four ever so slightly different Pac-Man watch designs each limited to just 20 pieces. I’m not sure why they didn’t just make 80 of the one above, because the other three variants all look inferior to it on account of having fewer Pac-Man characters. But I guess if all of them have parts made of “steel fused with parts of the Apollo 11″ and “low oxidation silver fused with moon rocks”, 8-bit icons are just a quirky bonus.

The watches will be exclusively launched at the Colette store in Paris starting September 3, followed by a wider availability on September 10. Each watch will be sold for $17,900 (USD). Wakka-wakka-WHAT?!?

[via Romain Jerome & Perpetuelle via HiConsumption]

It seemed like the failure of OnLive came out of nowhere when we first heard of it a few days ago. Everyone was excited about OnLive being supported on the Ouya console that did so well on Kickstarter and then rumors started late last week that OnLive was in serious trouble. Shortly after those rumors started we learned that OnLive was in dire financial straits.

A large portion of OnLive’s workforce was laid off, and the company began restructuring that led to smartphone maker HTC losing its $40 million investment. When things go so badly for a company, I expect to see the CEO and other executives move on, and new blood come in. That assumes the company is still viable at all. Therefore, it is somewhat surprising to me to hear that OnLive is keeping their CEO Steve Perlman.

An official statement was issued by OnLive this week giving more details on what’s going on at the company and what fans can expect moving forward. OnLive said in the statement that it has a new investor and assured subscribers that all their purchases, achievements, videos, and other content were still there and would not be interrupted. The company says it plans to continue operating its service 24/7 just as it has since launch.

OnLive announced that Perlman will continue as CEO and was concentrating on the major transition. Once the company transition is complete, OnLive said that Pearlman would focus on the company’s next product releases and promised more major announcements large and small. Those announcements include the Vizio CoStar and the Ouya console. Other major announcements are promised to be coming soon.

[via OnLiveFans]

OnLive CEO stays with the company is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
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