Category: Gamespot

Call of Duty Online, a free-to-play PC spinoff of Activision’s blockbuster shooter series, is now available in China through a partnership with Chinese Internet giant Tencent. Chinese gamers can play the title today through its open beta. You can also watch a trailer for it featuring Captain America actor Chris Evans.

American studio Raven Software, which is owned by Activision, led development on Call of Duty Online, which is inspired by the Modern Warfare and Black Ops universes.

“Millions of gamers in the West have come to appreciate that white-knuckled, epic thrill-ride that only Call of Duty delivers. And now an entire new audience of gamers will experience this for the first time. We believe Call of Duty Online is going to be a game-changer for Chinese gamers,” Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said.

Call of Duty Online has been tailored specifically for the Chinese market, and Hirshberg said feedback from the game’s closed beta tests has been “tremendous.”

“We couldn’t be more excited and we look forward to winning the hearts and minds of a new community in China,” Hirshberg said.

Call of Duty Online may be free-to-play, but players will be able to spend real-world money to buy or even rent in-game items. In addition to a multiplayer mode, the game will offer a single-player mode called Hero Ops, as well as a co-op Survival Mode. There will also be a new PVE Cyborgs mode never before seen in the Call of Duty franchise and exclusive to Call of Duty Online.

Why is Activision bringing Call of Duty to China? In short, it’s a huge market. One recent study found that the number of Chinese gamers was greater than the entire US population.

Call of Duty Online has been announced only for PC.

China recently lifted its decade-long console ban, but Activision has not announced plans to bring Call of Duty Online to consoles in the country. The company might have a hard time doing so, too, as China’s heavy censorship rules could prove tricky to overcome.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

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Steam Machines will be “front and center” at the 2015 Game Developers Conference in March. That’s according to a Valve representative, who told Game Informer that, after skipping last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company has major plans for this year’s GDC.

“We’re planning a very large presence at GDC with Steam Machines being front and center,” a Valve representative said.

Valve officially revealed its Steam Machines hardware initiative in September 2013, and a number of third-party manufacturers showed off their designs at 2014’s CES. Most recently, Origin PC’s top executive told GameSpot last week that the term “Steam Machine” no longer means much of anything.

“I think that’s kind of pretty much dead,” he said of the term Steam Machine. “It’s like a living room PC–is now the new term. Living room PCs have been around forever. That’s not anything new either. But it seems like there’s a legitimate demand and push for living room PCs.”

In addition to Steam Machines, Valve may use its GDC 2015 showing to talk more about its brand new operating system, Steam OS, and possibly the unique Steam Controller. The Steam Controller design was recently finalized, according to Origin PC CEO Kevin Wasielewski.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

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[UPDATE 2] Now, after more than 80 individual bids from collectors, the eBay price has reached $100,000.

[UPDATE 1] After 19 bids from 14 different bidders, the eBay auction for ultra-rare NES game Stadium Events has now reached $40,300. We also spoke with the seller, who answered some of our questions.

You’ve had Stadium Events since the ’90s, so why sell now?

“Felt it was the right time to sell this item.”

Did you consider donating it to Nintendo for their archival purposes?

“I worked for Nintendo for 22 years and do not believe they have any interest in having this game…..they are welcome to bid on it if they do want it!”

How did you come to own this copy of Stadium Events?

“While working at Nintendo games are often available to employees at end of life cycles.

I did not realize the value until 2011, when a story came out about this game being sold on eBay for $44,000. I told my wife ‘I know I have that game.’ I collect a lot of different items, so after looking through several boxes I found it! Since I was still working for Nintendo I could not sell this item for profit, which is a smart company policy. When I left in 2012, it was possible for me to sell this game.”

The original story is below.

Just days after it came online, an eBay auction for ultra-rare NES game Stadium Events has reached about the price of a new car. Bidding opened on January 5 at $5,000 and quickly rose to where it sits today at $22,100. A total of nine people have submitted bids so far.

The game, which saw a very limited release in 1987 and was paired with the short-lived Family Fun Fitness pad, is considered one of the first exercise games. It’s incredibly rare on its own, but adding to the appeal of this auction is the fact that the copy remains factory sealed.

On top of that, the seller says the game–which is in excellent condition–has been verified by the Video Game Authority, a group that grades and authenticates older games. It’s also housed in an “archival” case that protects it from UV rays, ensuring its preservation for years to come.

Writing on the auction page, the seller says they used to work at Nintendo and have had the game since the 1990s. We’ve reached out to the seller, asking for more details about the auction, which officially ends January 15.

This isn’t the first time Stadium Events has showed up on eBay. In 2010, a factory sealed copy of the game sold for an incredible $41,300, according to a report from Kotaku. It’s also not the only Stadium Events game now on eBay, though it appears to be the only factory sealed copy.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

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Yesterday, more than one million people were playing Minecraft at the same time, developer Mojang has revealed.

“For the first time ever, we finally have the capability to see how many people are currently playing Minecraft right now. Holy crap,” Mojang developer Nathan Adams said on Twitter. “There are currently over 998,000 people playing Minecraft right at this moment. It is not even remotely close to being a peak time. I could have waited 5 minutes to say 1 million, but nobody would believe that.”

Adams said that this number counts PC, Mac, and Linux players with version 1.3 and higher who are online. The number would be even larger if Mojang was able to count offline players, players with older versions, and players who didn’t purchase the game legitimately.

A quick look at Steam Charts reveals that Minecraft is handily beating Steam’s consistently most popular game, Dota 2, which has yet to crack one million concurrent players.

Johan Bernhardsson, another Mojang developer, also revealed that the mobile version of the game, Minecraft: Pocket Edition, has sold 30 million copies to date.

In other Minecraft news, Mojang and Telltale Games recently announced a brand new episodic series based on the game, launching in 2015 for PC, consoles, and mobile.

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You can now play over 2,400 MS-DOS games in your browser for free thanks to the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that collects web pages, text, audio and other information that exists in digital formats.

Duke Nukem 3D, Sim City, Commander Keen, and Wolfenstein 3D are just a fraction of the great, though admittedly ancient games you’ll find at the Internet Archive’s MS-DOS Games Library.

They all make use of DOSBox, a program that emulates the older computer hardware and software you need to run MS-DOS games. This week, programmer and Internet Archive Software Curator Jason Scott announced that he’s made them available to play online.

“Some of them will still fall over and die, and many of them might be weird to play in a browser window, and of course you can’t really save things off for later, and that will limit things too,” Scott said. “But on the whole, you will experience some analogue of the MS-DOS program, in your browser, instantly.”

Scott also previously worked on the Internet Arcade, which lets you play over 900 classic arcade games for free in your browser.

Find any great gems? Let us know in the comments below.

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A new game based on the horror movie Friday the 13th featuring the hockey goalie mask-wearing killer Jason Voorhees is currently in development, multi-media production company Crystal Lake Entertainment has announced.

According to EGM, the game, tentatively titled Friday the 13th, will be an asymmetrical, cooperative and competitive multiplayer experience, where a small group of survivors will face off against a single player who takes on the roll of the iconic slasher antagonist.

“With a new television series on the horizon and plans announced for the thirteenth installment of the film franchise, we felt the timing was right to finally explore Jason, Camp Crystal Lake, and the rest of the Friday the 13th story in interactive form,” creator of the original film and CEO of Crystal Lake Entertainment Sean S. Cunningham said. “We have some exciting new ideas for a game that supplies plenty of replay value, while delivering the kinds of thrills and scares that fans of the franchise have come to expect.”

Crystal Lake Entertainment didn’t say who is developing the game, but Cunningham said that it’s an experienced game studio. The game scheduled for release this year.

Image credit: EGM.

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