iGame Radio

Hosts Omaha Sternberg and Rob Benson talk about everything in the news about Valve, new competition soon to start against Kickstarter, and why game prices still win over tv. Plus, much more!
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Host Omaha Sternberg and co-host Rob Benson talk about the new iPad and its gaming potential, whether crowdfunding through Kickstarter is the new thing, and what’s up with the DOTA trademark dispute. Plus, much more!
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What do you do when you are pissed off at a game company and want to let them know how you feel? Get together in massive groups and play their games. Yeah, that’ll teach ‘em!
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We’re getting close to that all important date: gift giving after maxing out our credit cards. How spiritual! Anyway, here are the latest listing of holiday sales. Remember, if you want to keep track of some great Mac and iOS game sales throughout the holiday, just look for the #holidaysale tag!
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Valve Software has announced development of the second DLC for Portal 2. The in-game editor for Portal 2 is targeted for release early next year.

This easy-to-use in-game map editor will let users design, build, and share their own single-player and co-op test chambers with the community, who will be able to view, play and vote on them with a simple click. When released, the in-game editor will join the first content update Peer Review, which was released just two weeks ago.
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If you live in the Russian Federation and have been feeling a little lost love there from Valve, don’t worry. There’s some more lovin’ coming your way. Valve has teemed up with Xsolla, creators of the world’s largest payment network, to let you add value directly to your Steam Account Wallet via your local cash kiosk.
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Valve has announced the first annual Manniversary Update and Sale to celebrate the fourth year of TF2, first year of the Mann Co. Store, and the $2 million earned by community creators therein.

Released as part of The Orange Box in October 2007, Team Fortress 2 has earned numerous awards and one can definitely say has become one of the most popular online action games of all time. Read more

Host Omaha Sternberg and co-host Corey Tamas of MacGasm talk about the turnabout regarding Rage on the Mac and Gabe Newell’s comments about an Apple console. Plus, much more!
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What’s inside this episode:

• Host Omaha Sternberg and co-host Corey Tamas of Macgasm talk about the week’s news in Mac and iOS gaming. First up, Epic has finally brought Mac support to the Unreal Engine 3 SDK. Or at least a beta version of it. Corey and Omaha talk about the implications of this and what might happen now.
• Valve has launched something called Steam Trading. Corey and Omaha talk about what that is, and whether it makes any sense.
• CRTC, the Canadian government’s telecommunications regulators, has told Rogers Communications to stop throttling the bandwidth of online gaming. Rogers says they aren’t. Corey tells us his opinion…it’s a strong one.
• Square Enix announced at the Tokyo Game Show that they are bringing some of their classic console RPGs to the iOS.
• OpenFeint has a new CEO, and Corey needs a new mouth.
• Feral Interactive has been a busy kitty these past few weeks. Find out big news they’ve announced and what you can look forward to for Christmas.
• Blizzard has announced their Diablo III closed beta. Which means playing Diablo III can’t be far behind. And yet some complain it is late already?
• Poll: Wow, that many gamers haven’t upgraded to Lion?

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Pedro Camacho featured some of his game demo music.
• Rich Carlson featured music from Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space.

Valve has opened the doors to trading in-game items and game gifts with the official launch of Steam Trading. Right now, gamers can trade items from Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, and Three Rings co-op adventure Spiral Knights.

Steam Trading started its life with a four week beta, during which time over 1 million items and game gifts were traded. Although at launch only three games are available to trade items from, Valve is working on getting more games from third parties in the coming months.

Here’s how it works: Any game you’ve purchased from the store as a gift, or received as an Extra Copy, can be traded to other users. They can be used to trade for other Gifts, or for items in Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, or Spiral Knights. Valve has also added a new checkout option to the Store when purchasing a gift so you can save it for trading or sending later, to support users who want to save games for trade fodder.

Contrary to what you might think, this doesn’t include used games. The Steam Trading FAQ specifies that only games that have been bought as a gift and never played can be traded. Once the Steam Gift is opened and added to your game library, you won’t be able to trade it again.

Valve is working on privacy settings right now, so your Steam Gift Inventory may not be visible to others. But the rest of your inventory will obey your preset privacy settings.

Support for Steam Trading has been added to the Steamworks SDK, so game developers can add Steam Trading directly into their games as well.

In the same Steam Client update that houses the Steam Trading, Valve also included a new Friends Tagging feature. You can right-click on any friend and select ‘Tag As…’ to choose a category for them. Friends can be tagged in multiple ways and will then show up several times in your friends list, once for each tag.