A new way of looking at piracy

Last week, game dev and blogger Lars Doucet sounded off on his blog on the hot-button and ever-developing issue of piracy.

It wasn't another thinly-veiled rant a la TorrentFreak, mind you, but a open examination of the way content piracy is currently viewed.

Doucet's "four currencies" theory, which plans to differentiate the "cost" of pirated material from actual monetary cost caused quite a hullabaloo. As such, he's decided to expand a bit upon his little theory and turn it into a series of posts.

Read on and let us know if you agree with this new "model" of piracy.

[OMG] Is the Baldur's Gate series getting an HD reboot?

Strange rumblings out of the PCRPG realms today...


Kotaku reported that after 11 years of inactivity, the official Baldur's Gate series site has creaked and moaned back to life. It now sports a cryptic message:

"The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny, chaos will be sown by their passage.

So sayeth the wise Alaundo" 

Trent Oster, former BioWare developer and founder of Beamdog has accepted responsibility for this shameless fanboy-pandering. The line is an obvious reference to the BGII expansion pack, "Throne of Bhaal." What's even more curious is the hidden message inside the source code of the BG site. 

Hit the jump to read what it says and engage the Speculatron-9000.

Uematsu's music takes Benedum Center to Distant Worlds

The Distant Worlds Philharmonic tune their strings and set their keys in preparation of Saturday's Distant Worlds concert at Pittsburgh's Benedum Center.

On Saturday evening, Pittsburgh got a rare taste of choice pieces from Nobuo Uematsu's beloved Final Fantasy compositions - The Benedum Center along Liberty Avenue played host to Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy. 


The Distant Worlds Philharmonic Orchestra brought in dozens of local musicians and Grammy award-winning conductor Arnie Roth, who's traveled with the show since its inception in 2007, lovingly led the packed hall through a gamut of the most memorable FF tracks.

[RUMOR] iPad3 resolution higher than 1080p

 More leaked photos of rumored iPad 3 guts are making their rounds on the intarwebs. Among the speculation and rumor mongering going on right now, there's enticing details about Apple's new tablet - chief among them is a native resolution that makes 1080p look like a LeapFrog.

To put it in perspective - that's a crisper display than the TV you use to watch Dancing with the Stars.

[HOW-TO] Stop Google from tracking you

As per Google's new privacy policy, beginning March 1, all Google product users will be subject to some semi-alarming changes in the search habits data Google can collect on you and distribute to its other services.

This new umbrella policy means Google can treat you as one user across all its services, where collected data was previously withheld.

"This protection was especially important because search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more," says the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a web rights watchdog group that has a simple, four-step process that removes your search history and keeps Google from tracking it ever again.

After March 1, Google will have unhindered access to all that info so click here to see how you can protect yourself.

SOURCE: Boing Boing via Electronic Frontier Foundation

[SALE] Dungeons & Dragons titles Buy 1 Get 1 at Good Old Games

Roll for savings!


GOG.com is running a BOGO sale on PC D&D classics. Until February 27, when you buy one of a handful of some of the best CRPGs ever made, you'll get another role-playing gem for free!

Anonymous goes after Canadian MP Vic Toews

The hacker collective known as Anonymous has set its sights on Canadian MP and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews over a piece of proposed legislation that will require Canadian ISPs to report users' online activity to authorities, sans warrant.

They released a "communiqué" with all the Anon trappings (text-to-voice speech and a nerd movie score - this one's from The Dark Knight) to threaten Toews with "Operation White North," a large dump of incriminating documents that could spoil Toews' moral platform.

Anonymous' video and details inside...