Morning DLC: Video Games News And Rumors 8/13/13
By Nick Tylwalk
"Do you remember what it was like to play video games before the Internet? Back when there were no online walkthroughs or YouTube videos, and you actually read the manual cover-to-cover before jumping in to play? One company wants to re-create that experience with indie games instead of blockbusters.Creative services firm Off Base Productions has set up a campaign on crowdfunding site Kickstarter to fund what will hopefully be the first in a series of high-end strategy guides for independent video games.The company is asking for $65,000 to produce and distribute a guide for Tribute Games’ 2D action title “Mercenary Kings.” The Mercenary Kings Master Codex will be an 8-by-11-inch full-color, 200-page softcover book with two Kickstarter-exclusive covers. It will feature comprehensive mission walkthroughs, boss strategies, crafting recipes, detailed maps, artwork, and more."
"UK games retail recorded its worst month on record in July, according to GfK Chart-Track data published on MCV.With consumers awaiting the release of next-gen consoles and making the most of the hot weather, just over one million boxed games were sold in July, down 40.4 per cent on June’s total and 33.3 per cent on July 2012’s.In a quiet month for releases, the only new titles to make the list of July’s top 50 selling games were “Mario & Luigi Dream Team Bros.,” “Pikmin 3” and “Dynasty Warriors 8.”"
"Spying must get boring sometimes. Identifying targets. Wiretapping unsuspecting citizens. Sifting through all that private data. It must get old. Maybe that’s why the NSA introduced gamification elements into its software to encourage a little bit of healthy competition between analysts.A new report from Der Spiegel offers fresh details about the NSA’s operations in Germany, a country that happens to be both a partner in and target of the agency’s spying operations. At the center of operations there is the NSA’s super snooping software XKeyscore which gives analysts the ability to monitor “nearly everything” you do online. Citing internal reports, Der Spiegel explains how the agency turned XKeyscore into a video game for analysts:"