Virtually every person who's "done time" in Azeroth has begged for a portable Auction House application, a hunger which is being answered with a premium application - and may it be the first of many. I'm not a current player, though Gabriel made an honest entreaty yesterday morning to that effect. Even so, I'm intrigued by the idea of secondary screens as vectors of gameplay. Make no mistake: the Auction House is absolutely a game. For my part, I hope they don't implement this and then recline in satisfaction; harvesting and crafting in particular are open to a systemically valid manifestation.

You may have guessed that we'd feel it necessary to comment on the most recent local news offering about videogames. I'm of the opinion that we've already illuminated their general practices with this ancient comic, created almost two years ago to the day. If there's a better way to characterize the essential mendacity and debauched ethics of that format, I know it not.

Something I like about Mass Effect 2 (and this is a list which must be appended frequently) is that I have a personal assistant. In a continuing effort to physically twist off any game element that does not support their lean new thesis, there is a character in the game who will tell you if you have new mail. This is not something that you must wonder about, or check fruitlessly - a woman just tells you. With her mouth. And then you know.

It is Friday and that means we have a new episode of Penny Arcade TV. This is one of our "4th panel" episodes in which we show you the trials and tribulations of the writing process. Enjoy!

That iPad presentation had to be the worst thing I've even seen on on the Apple stage. There is a part where they - I am not making a joke - there is a part where they try to make creating spreadsheets seem awesome. Jilted may be the word. Of course, we're at the second wave of commentary now, the reflexive defense phase, but I've seen this practiced arc too many times to feel its pull. Apple didn't make a case for the device.

The story about a prisoner deprived of his Dungeon Master's Guide and custom campaign world resonated. It sucks when the guards are all coming down on your shit, and, like, taking your stuff, but it also sucks pretty bad to be beaten to death with a sledgehammer, which is what this guy did to get in there. Tends to dilute the sympathy.

The Washington Post has a poll designed to choose the best webcomic of the decade.

has something he would like to say to you.

You may know that Sony is putting together a reality show where human beings caper for our amusement. That's regular stuff. But the prize they're competing for - a testing position - is, to be clear, not the sort of thing one competes for.

The awesome shirts have been ordered, and I want to make sure that as many people get them as possible!  

Nueva BLAMIMATION es muy relleno aujourdhui!  Nous n'avons pas de poissons surgelees.  

I got my Zune a few days before the iPhone was announced.

Part of the reason we opened the Eastern Front of this convention was to relieve some of the pressure on the PAX Prime, but the show has its own momentum, and it's barrelling toward Boston with full force.  What this means is that if you want to attend PAX East at the end of March, you should preregister now.  We're already looking into an expanded venue for next year - we saw at a couple solid candidates when we were out there originally, so that's already being managed.  In the meantime, though, yes.  You want to preregister.    

I mentioned a while ago that I was pushing my D&D game into a new direction, that being more of a sandbox style adventure. I also said I'd answer your questions about it and now that I've got three games under my belt I feel like I can do that.

The Rock Band Network - a vector for gameplay authorship that recalibrates the rhythm title as a democratic platform - is imminent, if not available at this very moment. The idea behind it is fairly substantial, particularly on consoles, where as a rule user generated content is either impossible, thoroughly circumscribed, or considered a breach of the user agreement. There are exceptions, certainly. Well, maybe there are exception.

It falls to us to explain some pretty elemental shit on occasion, a task I relish. The version I gave my own son was (for lack of a better term) rendered at a substantially higher resolution.