PC Games

This year's Austin Game Developers Conference is adding a nice twist to their event. It's not just gonna be about games, it's also gonna be about charity.

Yep, gamers who'd like to participate in the Austin GDC will not only be having fun by testing their skills as gamers, but will also contribute to a good cause by making a charitable donation. How? Simple. There's a US 20 entry fee for the Level Up Charity Games Competition, and everything will be donated to the ESA Foundation.

Marc Mencher, CEO of competition sponsor GameRecruiter, says this about their charitable deed:

We have a long-standing commitment to supporting the educational needs of minority and female students who are interested in being part of the video game industry. By providing this support to the ESA Foundation's Scholarship Program, we hope to allow deserving individuals to further their education and expand workplace diversity within our industry.

Scheduled for the September 17 competition feature titles such as:

• Rock Band 2
• Madden 08
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl
• I-Play Bowling

The Austin Game Developers Conference will be running from September 15 to 17 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, Texas.

If you're bored with all the unicellular screenshots and videos of Maxis' upcoming life simulator Spore (PC, Nintendo Wii, DS, Mac, and Mobile), then feast your eyes on this latest trailer for the game. It features one of the more advanced stages in the game, where your beloved life forms learn one of the more "civilized" forms of social interaction: war.

The video also features Producer Kip Katsarelis and Software Engineer Soren Johnsen as they explain how the civilization stage of the game works. The phase will feature different diplomatic actions that your life forms can take, such as building new cities, trading with other civilizations across the planet, and even waging war against them.

Anyway, enough talk. We'll let you check out the new trailer for yourselves and tell us how pumped up you are with its release in a little more than a week's time (we know we are).

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The folks at Maxis and Electronic Arts have announced a new patch for the Spore Creature Creator, bringing it up to version 1.01.

Here are the patch notes for you:

Patch Fixes

• Improved thumbnail resolutions for saved creatures.
• Added five new animations, recorded when creating animated GIFs in Test Drive Mode.
• Fixed a randomly occurring system hang.
• Fixed a crash associated with EADM.
• Creatures no longer disappear from the Sporepedia when the save flow is interrupted.
• Corrected the Audio buzzing found on systems with nForce2 integrated audio.
• Updated Spanish and Polish readme files.
• Updated the EULA found in the installer.
• Fixed disparity between server and game complexity limit.
• Improves overall stability.
• Integrated the newest save creature PNG.
• NOTE: This allows creatures PNGs made with Spore to be drag-and-dropped into the Spore Creature Creator. Spore Creature Creator players who do not patch will not be able to drag-and-drop PNGs created in patched versions of the Spore Creature Creator or Spore.

Folks should take note that this is a PC-specific patch, with a Mac version set to be released in the near future. That said, feel free to check out the source link below for the actual download.

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Related Article:

• Spore Creature Creator rises to the top of US PC Software Sales
  

After the Federal Trade Commission gave its blessing to continue merger negotiations, Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive have finally begun its closed door meeting regarding the deal. However, it seems that both parties will be rather tight-lipped regarding the details of the meeting.

EA made a filing yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which mentions the "secret negotiations" that it will be conducting with Take-Two. Here is an excerpt from the said statement:

On August 25, 2008, [EA] and [T2] entered into the confidentiality agreement contemplated by the letter of August 17, 2008 from Strauss Zelnick, Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Take-Two to John Riccitiello, Chief Executive Officer of EA, and the letter of August 18 from Mr. Riccitiello to Mr. Zelnick.

The terms of the confidentiality agreement prohibit each of EA and Take-Two from, among other things, publicly disclosing the status or terms of any discussions or negotiations between EA and Take-Two unless EA or Take-Two notifies the other that it is terminating discussions. As a result, EA does not intend to make any further announcements regarding the status of any discussions or negotiations with Take-Two unless and until discussions between EA and Take-Two have been terminated or such parties have entered into a transaction. As previously disclosed, EA now requires due diligence to support any proposal to acquire Take-Two and there can be no assurance that any proposal, negotiations or transaction will result.

EA is also looking into Take-Two's three year game release schedule. Rest assured that another Grand Theft Auto title will definitely be included in the list, among other things. In any case, we'll just have to keep our eyes and ears open on any news regarding the outcome of the ongoing talks between the two companies.

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Related articles:

• FTC gives EA its blessing to go ahead with Take-Two takeover
• Pachter's nth take on Take-Two-EA takeover: T2 negotiating level down, EA with friendly terms