Ever wanted to dominate the servers you play on with guaranteed results, but you were too afraid to cheat because of ban risks? Visit Fkn0wned It’s safe, secure and undetected.

Along with hacks, we’ve also got some general discussion sections, hacking tutorials and tools, porn, free giveaways and much more. This site has been conditioned to meet all your needs in terms of resources so be sure to take a look and tell us what you think.

Thanks again,
the fkn0wned team.

Steam Community Offline Message

Definitely do not visit that site mentioned (url removed)

As of 11/11/11 Gabe Newell has expressed his regret with the hack whilst providing further information that another separate database has indeed been compromised.  This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information:

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users,
Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.
We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.
We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.
While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.
We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.
We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.
I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.
Gabe.

• Update 7/11/11 2:26: forums.steampowered.com is completely down.
• Update 7/11/11 2:45: store.steampowered.com and client fine. Likely a vbulletin exploit.
• Update 11/11/11 9:46: Message from Gabe.

Binary Gamer now carries an original online game database of PC gaming goodness where you can find, compare and review digitally distributed games all in the one place.

But that doesn’t mean the site doesn’t work.  At the moment we are adding more digital games networks to our database in order for BinaryGamer to offer greater search results and become the ultimate online content distribution platform.

On the platform side, it’s sort of ominous that the world seems to be moving away from open platforms,” he said.

Platform providers that used to use their role to enable developers “instead view themselves as more rent guys who are essentially driving their partner margins to zero,” he said.

They build a shiny sparkling thing that attracts users and then they control people’s access to those things,” he said.

Upon reading this quote the letters EA followed by BF3 kept appearing in my mind though I’m sure Gabe was referring to physical gaming platforms, or was he?

I suspect Apple will launch a living room product that redefines people’s expectations really strongly and the notion of a separate console platform will disappear,” he said.

If Apple took the Ipod mentality and usability and applied it to a networked home device such as the Apple TV, this may indeed become a possibility for a lot of people who like to keep things simple. For the rest of us whether or not it could become a defacto standard remains to be seen.

I consider Apple to be very closed,” Newell said. “Let’s say you have a book business and you are charging 5 to 7 percent gross margins. You can’t exist in an Apple world because they want 30 percent and they don’t care that you only have 7 percent to play with.

This will and will always be an issue when a corporation like Apple creates a clever defacto monopoly.  Market to the people first and foremost, the developers, artists and publishers will have no choice but to use your service.

Steam is built with a very similar business model though in defense Gabe states:

Steam gets a commission if games are sold through Steam, but developers can use its free tools and services and sell their games elsewhere and “we don’t take anything.”

And last of all from the same Seattle Times article – David Bluhms, president and chief executive of game company Z2Live, finally stood up for Cupertino:

I would argue Apple’s system is very open but very proprietary … it’s open with their rules,” he said.

Which makes it about as closed as it gets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6JXDiz0C-s

If these environmental type weapons are indeed now part of the Half Life universe, the future looks very interesting for one Gordon Freeman.

For more on the DOTA 2 leak checkout the original teamliquid forum thread which is subtlety restrained considering the nature of the leak.

There are issues however and if you are an Australian Steam user you know full well the price discrepancy that can be seen with some game releases. Also, some Steam features may or may not be to every ones liking. Games you do not buy from steam, cannot take advantage of any of Steams features making it a tough ask for a lot of people to put all their faith into one platform.

This begs the question, are there any alternatives to Steam? Of course there are and here are some of the best!

Greenman Gaming

Green Man Gaming is a digital retailer of PC games based in London which sell games to over 89 countries. The most unique aspect to GMG is the ability for customers to trade-in their digitally downloaded games for extra credit in their account and this credit can then be used for new purchases.

Greenman Gaming also sell Steamworks based games which are not tradeable via their service but can be added to Steam. For certain regions, buying a Steamworks game from GMG is often cheaper than Steam itself which makes buying from Greenman Gaming all the more pleasant.

EA Origin

Origin is a revamped EA Store that allows you to purchase and play your favourite EA games. Features include an in-game overlay that allows you to chat with friends and browse the web while playing select games.

Origin’s new social features allow you to create a profile, connect and chat with your friends, share your game library, and effortlessly join your friends’ games.

The most interesting feature of Origin is the ability to register non Origin bought games and integrate them into the service – though this does not look to have been implemented at the time of this article.

GOG

A testament to the statement classics never go out of style, Good Old Games specialise in PC games from yesteryear and have a massive community of gamers eager to explore and return to a period when games were a little more complex.

GOG releases are completely DRM free and to ensure compatibility on newer hardware, are often bundled with emulation software like ScummVM and DOSBox depending on the game.

GOG is owned by Polish developers, CD Projeckt, famous for the excellent The Witcher series of games for the PC and their flamboyant public humour.

Impulse

Impulse is a digital distribution platform from retailers GameStop that allows users to quickly and easily find their favourite game or software and download it automatically to their PC. In 1998 Impulse Inc. was one of the first companies to distribute its software via a free digital distribution program known as Component Manager and has grown to become the Impulse we know today.

Unlike Steam, pricing has been localised for the Australian audience using current exchange rates.

Besides games, Impulse also features applications, utilities, themes, available to purchase or download free and offers community centric features like in game chat, friend finding and online game searching.

Direct2Drive

Direct2Drive doesn’t have a client like Steam and operates more as a traditional online shopfront. This fact alone is quite possibly a bonus for many users with no need for other features and prefer to keep digital downloads simple. Regardless of this fact, it is currently Steams biggest competitor.

Like GMG, various Steamworks games are also available making it another money saving option. There is also a price match guarantee where D2D will match any lower price offered by Steam and a few other digital content delivery networks.

D2D is owned by the online gaming rental service Gamefly who acquired the service from IGN earlier this year.

Up and Coming Features

• Brink Servers Scratch that, no one appears to be playing in Australia.
• Black Mesa Deathmatch Servers (when Available)
• The Steam Gamer (Empty) Server.  Stay tuned for this! (proving difficult to implement though workable)
• Reviews, yes we need to do something different.

On a different note, I recently took over Valve Community from Planet Phillip in the hope of continuing the website and maintaining it in such a way that it would be beneficial to the community at large.  After 3 redesigns and much procrastination, the website is almost completed.  Page views have tripled in the last few months so now is a great time to add your Valve, Steam or Source Engine based website, fansite or modsite .

Check out Valve Community here.

Valve earlier today disclosed its plans for a new “big picture” mode of Steam which will offer controller support and navigation designed for television interaction.

Details regarding big picture mode are among the highlights Valve plans to share with developers and publishers in its partner meetings during GDC this week in San Francisco.

If you want a pseudo big Screen Steam experience now why not try it the way I currently do.  My lounge room  HTPC runs XBMC which is set to launch Steam when a HDTV PC gaming fix is needed.

It is as simple as adding the XBMC shortcut to Steam and adding Steam to the XBMC launcher plugin.  You can then add Steam shortcuts directly to XBMC and activate each game at the click of a button.

Games with controller capability make for the best big screen experience though on more than one occasion I have sat on the couch with keyboard and wireless mouse in hand!

In Order to make a submission, you need to answer this question:

Should the Australian National Classification Scheme include an R 18+ classification category for computer games?

Submit and download all the relevant documents here.

The submission template contains multiple choice questions as well as a 250 word comment section, not really enough words allowed to thoroughly discuss the issue yet it is better than nothing.

The Commonwealth Government has released a discussion paper which briefly summarises the key arguments for and against an R 18+ classification for computer games.  Censorship Ministers have considered the issue of an adult classification for computer games on several occasions.  However, they have not undertaken public consultation on this issue.

Submissions are being sought on whether the Australian National Classification Scheme should include an R 18+ classification category for computer games.  Submissions can be made by downloading and completing the submission template.  Submissions may also be mailed or faxed.  The discussion paper and submission template contain the contact details for making a submission.

What a torrid few days it has been for the ABC with a massive community backlash in regards to the original silent axing of Good Game TV favorite, The Junglist.  The mainstream Media has also caught wind of the events unfoldng at the ABC with The Age announcing “Good Game presenter claims ABC gender bias after axing”

In the recent forum thread: Statement from the team…. including Junglist the community and Junglist himself has responded to this apparent comment and untruth from the whole Good Game team:

The decision to take Junglist off air was not forced upon us by ABC Management and it’s one that is fully supported by all the GG team. We are gutted that it has come to this but in our opinion it absolutely had to happen.

It’s strange for us to read that so many of you think this is because we have suffered a raging case of political correctness gone mad or a wish to dumb the show down. That’s absolutely not right. We, as ever, will continue our quest to bring you the show for gamers by gamers but this has to be our last word on this – we have shows to make!

Finally, we genuinely wish Junglist all the best, and we hope he finds a medium for his awesome analysis and presenting skills that works for him.

Team Good Game Out
(Syd, Bajo, Moe, Tuk, Gog, Mafia, Jeremy Pencil, Palindrome)

A response to this from Junglist:

I can tell you that this is a lie. There was no vote taken, no consensus reached. In fact, the GG team was completely unaware of the change until the same day I found out. The same confidentiality clause that prevented me from saying anything publicly, prevented management from telling them anything.

I have spoken to members of the GG team who clearly DON’T support this, but can’t say anything publicly. Of course they’ll tow the party line. They have to.

Up until now the situation has just been poorly handled. But to now LIE to your own audience, in an effort to save face for replacing an experienced reviewer/presenter with an inexperienced one, is quite simply the lowest thing I’ve ever seen ABC management do.

I feel now as if I’m being professionally attacked, so here’s a truth bomb. In the meeting where I was told I would be replaced, the reason given was they wanted a girl on the show. “Mass appeal” was a direct quote from that meeting. After a half-hour of explaining how they’ll lose their hardcore following, they responded that yes, they knew this, but expected to make up the numbers with a new following. “A show can grow beyond its hardcore base”, is another direct quote.

The decision was forced by ABC management, for a mass appeal direction, and will naturally be dumbed down for the loss of experience….

Trawling through the thread it becomes clear what some of the issues the Good Game management had with Junglist.  They did not see eye to eye for his desire to review more in-depth if required, unlike the default 1 hour play-test.  Imagine a review for Dragon Age Origins coming from Good Game after an hours worth of play time.So what if it takes a bit longer – more time makes for a better review, especially considering Good Game only does 3 a week and throws out a heap of submissions from Bajo and Junlist every week.

ABC management also appear to have a misguided mission to target the stereotypical Wii type casual gaming public and younger gamer with a dumbing down in order to achieve mass appeal.  Thinking the core gaming audience would not notice this was enough motivation to remove the only core gamer from the show.  His replacement in Hex, also reeks of blatant sexifying to encourage viewer numbers.  I do not have anything against her in general as she has the right personality and ability to become a TV star with great potential for the future, she just walked into a Dog House.

My own personal thoughts and closing sentiments on this debacle which I also sent to the ABC:

I would like to highlight my disgust at the apparent disgraceful act of commercialisation and sexism with the sacking of Junglist from Good Game.  This is not what the ABC is about. The poor performance of your staff on the Good Game forums is also unprofessional and now has brought about potential damning discrimination issues with the ABC in general.
Good Game was fantastic the way it was but now you have killed it and the Real gaming community.

Thanks a lot.

Save Junglist Website.

Save Junglist Facebook Group.

Petition.

ABC Contact Form.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka7wveV7Wsw