Get a free Xbox 360 4GB console with the purchase of a Windows 7 PC $699 or more, at participating retailers in the US from 5/23-9/3 or while supplies last. Verification of student status required. See participating retailers for full details.

You can use the PC scout to figure out what you want, but I wouldn't expect a top of the line gaming rig (or even a mid level one for that matter). If you are looking to get a gaming machine on a budget, I'd recommend Newegg.com and going the do it yourself route; it's really easy!.

If you are a poor college student and looking for some Microsoft hookups, I would totally recommend Dreamspark and hitting up your college's tech department. More often than not, the tech department will have free copies of windows products that they will install for you.

Lately, video game publishers have citied declining retail sales as how piracy is directly hurting them. Well it seems that retail sales are only suffering because the increase in digital sales. According to the NPD report, digital download sales trailed closely behind physical box sales (21.3 million vs. 23.5 million respectively). During that same period, PC digital download sales made up to 48% of unit sales and 36% of dollar sales. So while retail sales may be declining, it's not necessarily because of computer video game piracy.

The big problem with trying to correlate X million in illegally downloaded games to X million in lost sales is that it simply doesn't work like that. There is no quantifiable number or study out there that shows a direct correlation between those numbers. So when you see these "studies" that claim piracy costs an industry millions in lost revenue, it's simply a load of made up numbers. In fact the U.S. Government has basically admitted that most piracy estimates are bogus. The Government Accountability Office said that it is "difficult, if not impossible to quantify the economy-wide impacts". What video game publishers should be doing is stop blaming piracy for their lack of sales and look at from a different angle.

See, since a video game publisher can't link a download to a lost sale, they should instead start looking at how they can make piracy work for them. Obnoxious DRM like Ubisoft's-always need to be connected to the internet-only affects the customers who pay for the game. Remove the costs of developing that DRM and accept the fact that people will download your game illegally. Take that saved cost to make the game cheaper or find a way to connect with your fans and give them a reason to buy. Look at indie game developers who embrace the fact that DRM is a failure and still make money from their game (Humble Indie Bundle). How many legitimate users is it ok to inconvenience in order to reduce piracy?" The answer should be none. Fans want to support artists, so who is to say that video game developers can look at experimenting with a new model revolving about a CwF +RtB model. Pair the infinite goods-namely a video game or such- with a scarce good to give more value.

Bottom line, video game piracy does somewhere between zero and slightly nothing in terms of damage to a developer. Think of video game piracy as word of mouth advertising for a game (the best, since it's free); all those "millions" downloading it are going to play it and recommend it to their friends to pass it along. Outwards those others may pay for it, or they may not. But by getting the (hopefully positive) word out, there is a much larger audience to connect with to give a reason to buy the video game. Look at successful crowd sourced projects for movies and tv shows that use places like The Pirate Bay to distribute their shows for free, and then generate money for additional content from fans who want more.

Make something that fans want to support; this means games that aren't rushed out to meet a deadline and buggy as all hell. Times are changing, and video game publishers should change with the times or become extinct like the dinosaurs. They can look at piracy in a different light and how they can use it to their advantage.

Anyways, now things are back to normal and you should be able to view everything, so have fun!

As you can guess, I have been super busy handing out Heroes of Newerth Beta keys and I haven't had much time to actually play any video games. It looks like I don't even have to, I can now enjoy them being played for me. The Youtube video above is an entry for the Mario AI competition by Robin Baumgarten. Couple the Mario artificial intelligence program with automatically generated game levels and you have a sort of mobius strip. I was totally expecting the level to never end.

It's not as exciting watching the video when you know it won't fail, although there was a exciting wall jump sequence. I am thinking an art project involving this and a truly endless Mario level would be pretty awesome.

This is the kind of creativity I like to see with LEGO! Now if that LEGO MMO game would let a person build a vehicle like this.

As an artist, this would be something awesome to do! Maybe those sculpture classes will finally pay off? The biggest thing for me is looking at everyday objects in a different light, and being able to use discarded materials in a new and imaginative way. Now it is going to be like Tetris all over again...I will have to go through all the old and junked computer parts now at work and see what I can come up with!

Via the Make picture pool

"It's hard to gauge the effect of used game sales on Halo, but I'm sure it's big," O'Donnell commented. "Complaining about sales when you have a multi-million seller is somewhat difficult to justify, but it seems to me that the folks who create and publish a game shouldn't stop receiving income from further sales."

"It will be harder for smaller titles to be successful in the future if they can't fully realise a return on investment," he explained.

that the second hand market for game sales is negatively impacting their sales. The problem is that it is completely wrong in both a common sense and an economic viewpoint. It totally goes against everything I know about the First Sale doctrine, which has protected the second hand market for CDs ( the RIAA wants a cut of that market as well). So with the first sale doctrine, once you purchase a product you (as the buyer) have every right to re-sell that product.. WITHOUT paying the creator anything. So that plus the fact that it has been proven that used game sales really can help a video game grow in the market.

Thats only the first part of developers fighting used game sales; they now want to offer free downloadable content, BUT it is only a one time use. New copies of Gears of War 2 will come with 5 new multiplayer map, but it is a special code that only has a one time use. Even better is the fact that none of these maps will be offered as downloadable content.

Some people will say that by countering used game sales, the first purchases will get some added value. The problem is that they aren't really adding value, they are removing it and then putting it back in with restrictions for the sole purpose of crushing the used game market.

If it is anything like the DLC for Halo 3 for matchmaking, if I don't have the latest and greatest maps, I will get kicked or be unable to join a game. I ran into it ALL THE TIME in Gears of War when the DLC came out. I didn't pick it up right away and every other map on the servers I would join; I would be kicked. This means with the new Gears of War, I will be twice as screwed when the map changes, just because I wanted to save some money and picked up the game at a later date. It seems that just because they want a chunk of used game sales, the developers are willing to alienate their potential customers at the same time.

Hell, what happens if my Xbox Red Rings of Death or it completely dies? Does this mean I have to purchase a whole new game to get that DLC code again? I think not!

Coming from a gamer who doesn't always have the cash flow to purchase every game brand new, If they tried to kill used game sales, it means that I either buy it new, or not at all. And more often than not, I would just not purchase the game and just boycott the developer. At least you wont see these one time codes ( for the most part) in PC games, because somebody would soon find a crack to add it back into the game anyways.

I have talked to a few game center owners and a few of them are ok with this kind of decision, saying that it is way better than Digital Rights Management... thats like saying having the Clap is better than genital warts.. its all horrible. Now DRM is truly horrible, but that is another rant for another day.

So when somebody tells you that the developers just NEED to have a piece of used game sales, remember that the First Sale Doctrine says otherwise!

As for why I don't have any Company of Hero Videos this week is because of summer courses, it got really crazy with trying to get a six page paper and a twelve paper "final" for my Political Science 250 class.

I will do another post with some awesome pictures from a awesome Jeep goes Beep Beep game from a week or two ago. It was crazy, and Jeeps don't do much damage against Wermacht Headquarters, but they are fun .

So here is an awesome little banner for the Call of Duty 4 server in Aberdeen. It usally sees a lot of usage during the evening when all the local kid's play. All the info (IP address, port, etc) should show up in the image banner. The server primarily runs domination as the gametype (due to popular demand) So hit it up and enjoy!