The Evening Report, December 12, 2012: Bioshock’s Infinite Covers, and The Secret World’s Not So Secret

The Evening Report, December 12, 2012: Bioshock’s Infinite Covers, and The Secret World’s Not So Secret

Bioshock Infinite Getting Even More Covers

Bioshock Infinite alternate cover vote

Earlier this week we noted the silly hullabaloo over Bioshock Infinite’s cover, and lead designer Kenny L’s response; explaining that fans would be able to vote for the art that would appear on the reversible side of the cover. Well it turns out today that Irrational will be making even more covers that fans can download and print themselves if they still aren’t satisfied with the reversible cover. Honestly though, if time comes around that you’ve got the game in your hands and you’re wasting time fiddling with covers instead of playing it, I will literally come find you and fist fight you. Fair warning.

[Source: Irrational Games]

Insomniac Games Won’t Leave Anyone Behind On The Last of Us Cover

The Last of Us cover

Want some more news about video game covers? VG24/7’s Dave Cook found in an interview with the game’s creative director Neil Druckmann, Annie Wersching, the actress who portrays Tess, and Ashley Johnson, who portrays main character Ellie in The Last of Us, that Naughty Dog refused to take Ellie off the game’s cover when asked to do so. Druckmann said that he’d been present at meetings where higher-ups asked the developers to take Ellie off the cover and, “everyone at Naughty Dog just flat-out refused.” Druckmann also agreed with Johnson when she said, “I feel like they don’t put women on the covers because they’re afraid that it won’t sell. It’s all gamers really know – and I don’t want to be sexist by any means – but I get the feeling, generally, that they think game’s won’t sell as well with a woman on the cover, compared to some badass dude on the front.”

[Source: VG24/7]

The Secret World Goes Free-To-Play

The Secret World

It looks like there’s nothing but a sign-up to keep the secrets of The Secret World away from you now, as the game’s developers have just announced the game will be going free-to-play, in same way as Star Wars: The Old Republic. Once you buy the game itself, for $30, you don’t have to pay anything else if you don’t want to, but you can also sign up for the new membership plans which includes benefits like extra experience points, a 10 percent in-game store discount, $10 of points for that store, and a gift item every month. We hate to sound mean, but, we saw that this game was headed in this direction the moment it came out. It just doesn’t seem like the world’s cut out for subscription based MMOs that aren’t World of Wacraft anymore!

[Source: The Secret World]

THQ Makes Money from Humble Indie Bundle, Needs It

humble thq bundle

We’ve spent what feels like the better part of this year reporting on THQ’s financial woes, but today we get to write some good news! Hooray! After pairing up their games on the Humble Indie Bundle last week, THQ, Humble Bundle, and the charity included will be splitting the $5 million earned from the 885,251 copies sold at an average price of $5.76 a pop. We can only hope that will be enough cash to tide THQ over long enough to release some of the games they still have cooking like Metro: Last Light or that Warhammer: 40,000 MMO-turned-singleplayer game.

[Via: Joystiq]

The Ryan’s Den

Hey everybody! In case you didn’t know it, I’m a bit of a Skyrim addict. I spent 100 hours on my first account before I got to Sovngarde, decided I didn’t like my war paint, and then created another character that I’ve spent another 300 hours on. What I’m trying to say is that I’m pretty much the perfect guy to review the game’s new Dragonborn DLC expansion, which you all can look forward to sometime this week!