Student-developed DigiPen games selected as finalists at Independent Games Festival

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There’s some serious talent coming out of Redmond’s DigiPen Institute of Technology and recent nominations for the Independent Games Festival confirms that fact. Two student-made games were selected as finalists for the 15th annual Independent Games Festival and will go head-to-head with real-world gaming companies. Perspective, an experimental first person puzzle game that allows players to manage… Read More…

Report: Valve letting go of several employees as part of “great cleansing”

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Valve hardware engineer Jeri Ellsworth made news this week when she tweeted that she had been fired, and now it looks like that was just the beginning of big changes happening at the Bellevue-based video game company. Gamasutra is confirming that potentially up to 25 people have been let go from the Valve Android and hardware departments…. Read More…

Check out Gabe Newell’s insane knife collection

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Apparently, Gabe Newell likes to collect knives. Sam Hulick, an award-winning composer for video games, Tweeted out this photo a few days ago from a time when he visited Newell’s office. I guess the Valve co-founder not only loves video games, but knives, too. Be sure to check out what Newell said at last week’s DICE 2013… Read More…

It’s official: PlayStation is back atop the console market

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PlayStation is once again the king of the worldwide console market. Sony’s latest earnings report, issued Feb. 7, shows unit sales for the PlayStation home consoles (the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3) beating the competing machines from Nintendo and Microsoft for the title of best-selling home game console for the 2012 holiday shopping season. Combined… Read More…

Consumers spent $14.8B on video game content in 2012, down 9 percent from last year

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Just like the newspaper, book and movie industries, the latest numbers show the video game sector quickly moving to digital and away from physical forms of content. The NPD Group is out with its latest video game stats and total sales of physical video and PC software in the U.S. dropped 21 percent from 2011…. Read More…

PopCap debuts first social hidden object game on Facebook with Hidden Agenda

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Seattle-based PopCap Games is back with another game featuring anthropomorphic animals, and this time it’s all about solving mysteries. Hidden Agenda is PopCap’s first ever social hidden object game on Facebook and is currently out for beta. You can test out the game, but the big launch with the full version won’t be out until… Read More…

Name that Tech Tune: Win tickets to the GeekWire Bash

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Updated below with answer and winner …  Longtime listeners to the GeekWire radio show and podcast may have noticed that we have a new intro for our weekly Name that Tech Tune contest. KIRO Radio’s Erynn Rose, who puts together the show each week, created the intro using a bunch of cool little tunes and… Read More…

Gas Powered CEO Chris Taylor: “We’ve regrouped and are focused on winning”

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We’ve been writing about how Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor had to let go of his entire staff due to the struggling Kickstarter campaign for GPG’s new game WIldman. And even though Taylor seemed pessimistic about the project in a recent video, he told GeekWire Tuesday night that the campaign is doing “much better.” In his most recent Kickstarter video update,… Read More…

17-BIT’s new ‘Skulls of the Shogun’ bridges Windows 8, Windows Phone, Xbox 360

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More than three years in the making, the new Skulls of the Shogun video game from Seattle-based indie game developer 17-BIT is a standout in the category of turn-based strategy games. The game has distinctive graphics, addictive gameplay, a wonderfully twisted storyline and a catchy musical score. I was up until the early morning hours… Read More…

Struggling Nintendo sells 3 million Wii U consoles, lowers forecasts again

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Nintendo’s quarterly numbers are out and the company managed to sell 3.06 million Wii U consoles worldwide during the holiday quarter, following the launch of the new console in November. Combined sales of the Wii and Wii U were about 5.3 million units in the quarter — together coming up short of Microsoft’s Xbox 360,… Read More…