What Happened This Weekend: Diablo III Will Ship When It's Almost Done, GAME Up for Sale

Morning all, and welcome to a quick and dirty round-up of all the news semi-fit to print that just happened to occur over the course of the weekend. You know, that time period where we drink ourselves into a 48 hour stupor that pretty much always ends up with you face down on the couch, screaming into a pillow in the hopes that the sheer force of volume and rage spewing from your body will somehow will the pain, grogginess, and two-day-old Chinese food out of your body? No? Never had this happen before? Man, you guys are missing out.

Anyhow, here's all the news that took place over the course of my usual weekend screaming fits, including news about Diablo III's upcoming release, the fate of UK retailer GAME, and some tidbits about another years-late movie-to-game adaptation that probably nobody actually wanted. Enjoy!

---

The general mantra of Blizzard regarding Diablo III and its oft-delayed release is that it'll come "when it's done." Now it's coming "when it's almost done," if this late Friday announcement from the company is to be believed (it is).

Posting up official word on the Battle.net blog, the company let it be known that the sticky wicket that's kept Diablo III from moving on to life at retail is the PvP feature, which the blog described as not "living up to our standards." So, for the time being, PvP is actually being excised from the game in order to help get the single-player and co-op functionality out to retail sooner, given that both those aspects of the game are very nearly done.

Once the PvP is complete, Blizzard plans to release a patch that will turn the functionality back on. Of course, all of this messaging stopped short of actually announcing a release date for Diablo III, because lord knows that would just be way too easy at this point. Still, with PvP apparently out for at least a short period, one can surmise that the release date can't be too far off.

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We've reported previously about the fiduciary woes currently plaguing UK retailer GAME, who I was not-so-gently informed by the Kingdom-dwelling population of Giant Bomb is not only one of the biggest video game retailers in the UK, but rather the biggest by a fairly wide margin. In my defense, I've been to your country twice, and one of those times I was in Nottingham for 48 hours. So it's not like I've really had much time to soak up your retail culture to the fullest extent possible.

Anyway, while the previous word signaled some serious doom and gloom for the retailer, apparently that doom and gloom took hold yesterday. Following a report from MCV (which sourced The Sunday Times), GAME has reportedly contracted financial firm Rothschild to help sell the company outright. The report says that GameStop may have some interest in the Spanish arm of GAME, but that the UK section of the company may end up going into administration.

GAME had been wrestling with credit issues for quite some time, issues which came to a head just a few weeks ago when it became known that the retailer would not be stocking a number of high profile products, including titles like Mass Effect 3 and Street Fighter x Tekken.

Based on the comments from the last time I reported on this, I'm guessing most UK players won't be too terribly sad to see GAME go. My question is, who picks up the slack if GAME goes away entirely? Aren't there hardly any specialty game shops in the UK nowadays?

---

I've been hearing occasional snark-filled whispers about the possibility of a video game based on the cult crime movie The Boondock Saints for a while now, and apparently those whispers have proved true.

Those who were in attendance at a small announcement event at South by Southwest this weekend got their first look at the game, which is in development at Critical Mass Interactive, who are the makers of this game and also some other stuff you've maybe actually heard of, albeit in a purely mercenary capacity.

The teaser shown at the event effectively showed nothing, save for a couple of character models based on the avenging brothers of the film's story, played by Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus respectively. Joystiq says the actors will be voicing their characters in the game, as is David Della Rocco. No word on Willem Dafoe possibly returning to voice the psychotic gay FBI agent of the first film, but I wouldn't put any money on it happening.

Considering what a catastrophe the sequel, Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day, was, the fact that this is a developer better known for loaning out members of its team for contract work than any of its own, original projects, and the fact that franchise director Troy Duffy's decision making over the last two decades has largely been defined by his raging cocaine habit, I'm maybe going to remain skeptical about this one for the time being.

Morning all, and welcome to a quick and dirty round-up of all the news semi-fit to print that just happened to occur over the course of the weekend. You know, that time period where we drink ourselves into a 48 hour stupor that pretty much always ends up with you face down on the couch, screaming into a pillow in the hopes that the sheer force of volume and rage spewing from your body will somehow will the pain, grogginess, and two-day-old Chinese food out of your body? No? Never had this happen before? Man, you guys are missing out.

Anyhow, here's all the news that took place over the course of my usual weekend screaming fits, including news about Diablo III's upcoming release, the fate of UK retailer GAME, and some tidbits about another years-late movie-to-game adaptation that probably nobody actually wanted. Enjoy!

---

The general mantra of Blizzard regarding Diablo III and its oft-delayed release is that it'll come "when it's done." Now it's coming "when it's almost done," if this late Friday announcement from the company is to be believed (it is).

Posting up official word on the Battle.net blog, the company let it be known that the sticky wicket that's kept Diablo III from moving on to life at retail is the PvP feature, which the blog described as not "living up to our standards." So, for the time being, PvP is actually being excised from the game in order to help get the single-player and co-op functionality out to retail sooner, given that both those aspects of the game are very nearly done.

Once the PvP is complete, Blizzard plans to release a patch that will turn the functionality back on. Of course, all of this messaging stopped short of actually announcing a release date for Diablo III, because lord knows that would just be way too easy at this point. Still, with PvP apparently out for at least a short period, one can surmise that the release date can't be too far off.

---

We've reported previously about the fiduciary woes currently plaguing UK retailer GAME, who I was not-so-gently informed by the Kingdom-dwelling population of Giant Bomb is not only one of the biggest video game retailers in the UK, but rather the biggest by a fairly wide margin. In my defense, I've been to your country twice, and one of those times I was in Nottingham for 48 hours. So it's not like I've really had much time to soak up your retail culture to the fullest extent possible.

Anyway, while the previous word signaled some serious doom and gloom for the retailer, apparently that doom and gloom took hold yesterday. Following a report from MCV (which sourced The Sunday Times), GAME has reportedly contracted financial firm Rothschild to help sell the company outright. The report says that GameStop may have some interest in the Spanish arm of GAME, but that the UK section of the company may end up going into administration.

GAME had been wrestling with credit issues for quite some time, issues which came to a head just a few weeks ago when it became known that the retailer would not be stocking a number of high profile products, including titles like Mass Effect 3 and Street Fighter x Tekken.

Based on the comments from the last time I reported on this, I'm guessing most UK players won't be too terribly sad to see GAME go. My question is, who picks up the slack if GAME goes away entirely? Aren't there hardly any specialty game shops in the UK nowadays?

---

I've been hearing occasional snark-filled whispers about the possibility of a video game based on the cult crime movie The Boondock Saints for a while now, and apparently those whispers have proved true.

Those who were in attendance at a small announcement event at South by Southwest this weekend got their first look at the game, which is in development at Critical Mass Interactive, who are the makers of this game and also some other stuff you've maybe actually heard of, albeit in a purely mercenary capacity.

The teaser shown at the event effectively showed nothing, save for a couple of character models based on the avenging brothers of the film's story, played by Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus respectively. Joystiq says the actors will be voicing their characters in the game, as is David Della Rocco. No word on Willem Dafoe possibly returning to voice the psychotic gay FBI agent of the first film, but I wouldn't put any money on it happening.

Considering what a catastrophe the sequel, Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day, was, the fact that this is a developer better known for loaning out members of its team for contract work than any of its own, original projects, and the fact that franchise director Troy Duffy's decision making over the last two decades has largely been defined by his raging cocaine habit, I'm maybe going to remain skeptical about this one for the time being.

Diablo III will never ship, it's a lie! The PVP in Diablo really isn't that interesting to me though, so I'm perfectly fine with that feature sliding for a little bit at release.

Ahh, finally some new content. It's been rather quiet last week.

Regarding D3... the recently announced cuts point towards a release date in the near future I think.

I don't mind any additional delays as I'm still not really excited to play Diablo III. Yeah I'll play it, but I don't think it'll hook me for as long as the second one did. To be fair though, no game can hook me that long anymore.

The end of GAME? Who cares. They lost my business years ago and it they deserve it for being so shoddy.

If Blizzard forums are to be believed, no one is ever happy with PvP in any rpg/mmo. Seems like regardless of how much time they put into the feature it will be shat upon mercilessly by the 'hardcore' PvP players. Glad they're putting the feature to bed in order to make a speedier release for the rest of us :)

Oh good a Boondock Saints game....just what I wanted

Didn't WoW also ship without PVP? I'm pretty sure that was one of the first major patches...

GAME and GameStation are the only exclusively games selling stores in the UK and since GAME owns GameStation and GAME is going under I guess GameStation is as well? They did it to themselves though by being too damn expensive, £45 quid for a game I can usually get £5-£10 cheaper online is dumb. And as for pre-owned I guess there's always ebay and CEX.

Boondock Saints, possibly the most overrated movie ever.

I would prefer an adventure game based on show the Boondocks than a half-assed shooter based on the Boondock Saints.

@HoboZero said:

If Blizzard forums are to be believed, no one is ever happy with PvP in any rpg/mmo. Seems like regardless of how much time they put into the feature it will be shat upon mercilessly by the 'hardcore' PvP players. Glad they're putting the feature to bed in order to make a speedier release for the rest of us :)

um ANY Pvp game has complaints... so its not blizz

@CountMacula: WoW always had PvP. The ranking system and Battlegrounds came later, but you were always able to fight the opposing faction, as long as you were on a PvP server.

It is a shame that Blizz keep trying to shoehorn e-games into their titles.

Good thing I used up all my GAME vouchers as soon as I heard shit was starting to go bad.

@CptBedlam said:

Ahh, finally some new content. It's been rather quiet last week.

Indeed. Blame GDC and Jeff's family issues.

Navarro articles are my favorite articles.

Good article. I like the idea of a weekend wrap up on Mondays.

@HoboZero said:

If Blizzard forums are to be believed, no one is ever happy with PvP in any rpg/mmo. Seems like regardless of how much time they put into the feature it will be shat upon mercilessly by the 'hardcore' PvP players. Glad they're putting the feature to bed in order to make a speedier release for the rest of us :)

To be fair, if Blizzard forums are to be believed, no one is happy with anything. It's a wasteland of whiny, entitled gamers who think they know the game better than the developers. The Blizzard official forums are basically youtube commenters for wow. WoW pvp is pretty good, even though I don't personally care enough to bother with it, they do a pretty decent job with balance and such. Definitely not perfect by any stretch, but considering what else they have to balance at the same time it's fairly impressive.

That said, I couldn't give two shits about pvp in Diablo 3 so it's very very nice to hear they're going to axe it for the moment and finally release that sweet sweet drug.

memes for GB article thumbnails eh?

I didn't even know Diablo 3 had a PVP component. I'm totally cool without it.

@HoboZero said:

If Blizzard forums are to be believed, no one is ever happy with PvP in any rpg/mmo. Seems like regardless of how much time they put into the feature it will be shat upon mercilessly by the 'hardcore' PvP players. Glad they're putting the feature to bed in order to make a speedier release for the rest of us :)

Yeah PvP is actually really problematic.

On the one hand it's actually rather easy to implement if you got everything else going already and it can be quite a lot fun.

However, that's only until people get very good at it and learn to abuse every yet so small mechanic/ability there is. Now you have somewhat unbalanced PvP, even if it's just at the top. But those people will complain 'til there is no morning, and actually rightfully so. After all, if their PvP experience is ruined by not good enough balance, then that sucks for these players. But Balancing a game for PvP that's actually focused on good PvE is insanely hard.

If we look at Diablo 3, there are just about 700 different skills in the game. A lot of them having some kind of snare or even stun abilities. They may work pretty well in PvE. In PvP however without changes to the skill systems, e.g. how stun and snares work, the mode would probably be so unbalanced it's a joke. Now you have to completely rebalance almot everything for the PvP Arena mode, while at the same time balancing has to happen for PvE, too.

And although Blizzard specifically said they do not want to make Diablo 3 competitive PvP Multiplayer game, that doesn't that people are going to say "ah it's fine that it isn't balanced all that well."

@Alex as far as I know, GAME is the only nationwide video games retailer so if they disappeared, supermarkets and the stores that sell Music / Film / TV / Games (HMV , Zavvi) would pick up the slack.

There would no longer be a nationwide video games only retailer though as they're all GAME / Gamestation (same company.)

@Hero_Swe: I don't think you understand the term "blame."

When my uncle died I fell behind on work, and I told my boss that "personal issues were partly to blame."

It's not a term you use to insult people, it's a term you use to explain why stuff happens.

If GAME/GameStation go then we're left with... well, no high-street specialist store? Grainger Games have a few locations, but they're mostly pre-owned stuff... HMV have been ramping up their games section, but their stores aren't doing very well anyway. I guess people would just use turn to supermarkets like ASDA and Tesco for new releases and online for everything else? Game were pretty shitty anyway.

ok, I thought this was a Patrick article, since he is the main news guy, until I read the first sentence.

this should become a weekly thing from either alex or patrick.

@Hero_Swe said:

@AuthenticM said:

@CptBedlam said:

Ahh, finally some new content. It's been rather quiet last week.

Indeed. Blame GDC and Jeff's family issues.

The fact that you want to "blame" that, is disgusting to me. Even if you meant it in a jokey manner. You're a bad human being.

If you're such a delicate butterfly then why get close to the flame that is people on the internet? I'd rip your wings off without a second thought. Harden your shell son.

Cutting PVP for a quicker release is fine with me since the core game is still in tact. I can't wait for Diablo 3 much longer so knowing it will NOT be delayed further is a rather welcome surprise from a company like Blizzard.

Frankly, I have less than zero interest in Diablo III PVP. This is great news.

Not Just online but in high street stores that are in the next retail unit. Battlefield Bad Company 2 for £45 when Asda was selling it next door for £35 and that was the same with nearly every release, I started to care less about preorder bonuses for such significant savings and the abruptness of the staff didn't help either.

They would often refuse to fulfill preorders on the basis that they hadn't ordered enough of the game and that it was "first come, first serve" which is completely ridiculous with the preorder system in place.

@RazielCuts said:

GAME and GameStation are the only exclusively games selling stores in the UK and since GAME owns GameStation and GAME is going under I guess GameStation is as well? They did it to themselves though by being too damn expensive, £45 quid for a game I can usually get £5-£10 cheaper online is dumb. And as for pre-owned I guess there's always ebay and CEX

Diablo 3 Cross Torchlight 2 for all the isometric Pee Vee Peevishness.

@depecheload said:

@Hero_Swe: I don't think you understand the term "blame."

When my uncle died I fell behind on work, and I told my boss that "personal issues were partly to blame."

It's not a term you use to insult people, it's a term you use to explain why stuff happens.

You might indeed be correct. English is not my first language afterall. @CaLe said:

@Hero_Swe said:

@AuthenticM said:

@CptBedlam said:

Ahh, finally some new content. It's been rather quiet last week.

Indeed. Blame GDC and Jeff's family issues.

The fact that you want to "blame" that, is disgusting to me. Even if you meant it in a jokey manner. You're a bad human being.

If you're such a delicate butterfly then why get close to the flame that is people on the internet? I'd rip your wings off without a second thought. Harden your shell son.

And people like you have ruined this community. GTFO back to 4chan.

Don't care for the PVP in Diablo III so hurry up and ship the damn game Blizzard!

GAME could never survive when it was trying to sell new games for £50. The supermarkets always undercut them by £5 or more. And it's not like going into Tesco is any more unpleasant than going into a GAME or Gamestation.

I guess GAME going will kill a decent chunk of the used market too, which I don't see as a bad thing. But it's a shame if people have to lose their jobs.

Boondocks Saints the game huh, well the logo looks as if it were pre-rendered in 1995 so I'm not holding any high hopes if they can't even get that right.

I don't know if there are any other video game based retail stores other than GAME, i remember going to a JB Games (i think) years ago, only ever saw one of those.
Mostly there are hybrid music and games stores like HMV or Virgin Megastores.
Other than that, supermarkets with prices all over the place, Modern Warfare 3 for £45.99? really?

@Hero_Swe: That's what I assumed. Trust me, that's a term that is used with no offense intended. I think you should apologize to the person you accused.

I guess GAME having 3 stores (2 Games and 1 Gamestation) within 10 mins walking distance doesn't help them. the problem is where will I get my impulse buy X old game now, No other store in the UK offers this (Excluding Online retailers). Also with the fact of other stores do not hold a Wide selection of PC titles for example PC world had about 50 games in a jumble sale set up next to all there Pc components (Not in the video games section where all the console games are)

@Hero_Swe said:

@depecheload said:

@Hero_Swe: I don't think you understand the term "blame."

When my uncle died I fell behind on work, and I told my boss that "personal issues were partly to blame."

It's not a term you use to insult people, it's a term you use to explain why stuff happens.

You might indeed be correct. English is not my first language afterall. @CaLe said:

@Hero_Swe said:

@AuthenticM said:

@CptBedlam said:

Ahh, finally some new content. It's been rather quiet last week.

Indeed. Blame GDC and Jeff's family issues.

The fact that you want to "blame" that, is disgusting to me. Even if you meant it in a jokey manner. You're a bad human being.

If you're such a delicate butterfly then why get close to the flame that is people on the internet? I'd rip your wings off without a second thought. Harden your shell son.

And people like you have ruined this community. GTFO back to 4chan.

People like me? You mean someone familiar with reality? Not that I need to defend myself, but I wouldn't visit 4chan if you paid me. Man up little girl, and stop getting your panties in a bunch over shit people say online.

They should do an EVERYTHING-GOES kind of sale, with 90% discount on all games.

I would play a Boondock Saints game only if I could play as Willem Defoe reenacting the crime scenes. The hammier the performance the more points you get.

Whoa, the website still works!

@Hero_Swe: @CaLe: Calm down, guys.

These weekend wrapup things are a good idea. Kinda like Back in Black without the sarcastic humor.

After playing through the D3 beta 5 times I'm dying for more awesome single player/co-op stuff. Really hope this means it'll be out before June as April and May are looking pretty barren for me.

@CaLe said:

@Hero_Swe said:

@depecheload said:

@Hero_Swe: I don't think you understand the term "blame."

When my uncle died I fell behind on work, and I told my boss that "personal issues were partly to blame."

It's not a term you use to insult people, it's a term you use to explain why stuff happens.

You might indeed be correct. English is not my first language afterall. @CaLe said:

@Hero_Swe said:

@AuthenticM said:

@CptBedlam said:

Ahh, finally some new content. It's been rather quiet last week.

Indeed. Blame GDC and Jeff's family issues.

The fact that you want to "blame" that, is disgusting to me. Even if you meant it in a jokey manner. You're a bad human being.

If you're such a delicate butterfly then why get close to the flame that is people on the internet? I'd rip your wings off without a second thought. Harden your shell son.

And people like you have ruined this community. GTFO back to 4chan.

People like me? You mean someone familiar with reality? Not that I need to defend myself, but I wouldn't visit 4chan if you paid me. Man up little girl, and stop getting your panties in a bunch over shit people say online.

Being jaded and hostile to everyone on the internet is being familiar with reality? HAH. Sounds like you need a reality check my friend.

I would play a Boondock Saints game only if I could play as Willem Defoe reenacting the crime scenes. The hammier the performance the more points you get.

Wow, this article doesnt contain the phrase "thats a thing" even once. Well done Alex ^^

Somebody thought now was the perfect time to make a Boondocks Saints video game?

I think I'm gonna wait on the console version of D3.