Tools firm Autodesk is due to debut their entry into the game engines market at GDC in San Francisco with a preview of their Stingray Game Engine.

Built on the tech found in the Bitsquid engine that Autodesk acquired last summer, Stingray is supposed to be designed to be user-friendly for both experienced developers as well as those just starting out; helping them create what Autodesk says will be “graphically advanced games” for a range of different platforms. Last year Autodesk said that the new engine would “change the way games are made and buildings designed”.

The demonstration will take place on Wednesday March 4th in Room 3003 of the Moscone Center’s West Hall from 3:30pm to 4:30pm. They hope to demonstrate how the engine will allow developers to evaluate how their games run on multiple platforms as well as the integration with 3D content tools, among other things.

Already one developer, Fatshark Games, is using the engine for their Warhammer: End Times title, Vermintide.

Studios will be able to learn more about the engine, as well as gaining Beta access from the www.autodesk.com/stingray site.

It was announced this morning that the UK retailer GAME has acquired the gaming events company Multiplay in a deal worth about £20 million.

GAME is a well-known gaming retailer in the UK, with a store in most major cities and many towns as well. They are known for holding competitions to win games, gaming related mechandise as well as being a collection point for special free exclusive content such as prize Pokemon; they also are usually the focal point for midnight releases of big name games. Multiplay is an events company that also provides servers for online multiplayer gaming, with their most popular event being a gaming festival called Insomnia that takes place 3 times a year and will have its 54th event this April.

The deal will see GAME paying £12.6m of the £20m up front, with the reminder of the price being made up by cash and shares over the next three years. The CEO of Multiplay, Craig Fletcher, will remain in charge of Multiplay reporting in to GAME CEO Martyn Gibbs; so far no jobs are reported to be under threat due to the deal.

“With our combined passion and expertise, we are looking forward to delivering more, bigger and better experiences for our communities and are excited for what the future holds.” said Gibbs about the deal.

GAME itself had troubles a few years back when the company went into administration, with a number of stores closing down as a result. Happily they managed to survive and this deal only proves that they’ve managed to recover from the problems of the past.

In their “Utopia in Progress” presentation at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona earlier today, HTC announced that they have entered into partnership with Valve to develop virtual reality technology, showing off a small video presentation to show off their new headset – the HTC Vive.

We’ve already heard from Valve that they’re planning to develop VR hardware called SteamVR that will be properly shown off at GDC in a few days, but the announcement of a partnership means that HTC, developer of smartphones and other related devices, will be one of the first to be making use of the SteamVR system.

Speaking on stage to the crowd HTC CEO Peter Chou talked about Valve as the leader in gaming saying that they were “dedicated to bringing the best” to their customers. He said that HTC were “so excited” to be working with them on this project and that HTC believes that virtual reality will have the ability to “totally transform” the way we interact with the world, and will eventually become a mainstream device for the general consumer, with the possibilities being “limitless”.

The Vive will make use of 70 sensors allowing for full 360-degree exploration and will have a 1200×1920 screen in each eye, powered by a 90Hz refresh rate. HTC have also announced two VR game controllers that will work in tandem with the headset so each hand can be represented accurately within the virtual space.

HTC will be at GDC along with Valve, and we know that Valve plan to demonstrate the SteamVR there so it’ll be interesting to see if the two companies are planning to do presentations and demonstrations in tandem there or not.

Final Fantasy XIV has offered some free time to inactive players of the game as a celebration for the reaching of a new milestone for the game – they’ve bypassed the four million mark on the total of account registrations.

This of course is registrations, not subscriptions. World of Warcraft still far and away holds the subscription record right now having bypassed the ten million mark; but Square Enix aren’t doing too badly in an MMO industry where you need to have a good game to keep people paying a monthly fee to play.

The free play time is aimed at players who have let their subscriptions lapse and will be running until March 9th 1 AM PDT. To qualify you need to have purchased and registered the game and have your account currently be inactive, a status you can check on Square Enix’s website if you’re unsure.

It seems Square Enix have really turned around XIV as a game, given that before its relaunch as A Realm Reborn it was not considered a good game at all and was once described as having “greatly damaged” the brand of Final Fantasy by Square Enix’s CEO. To have reached 4 million registrations is very positive news for the company.

If you haven’t ever played the game before, Square Enix do offer a 14-day free trial for you to try out. It does have some limits though, like having a level cap of 20.

Star Trek is often listed as one of the factors that led a good many game developers to begin dreaming of doing wonderful things, especially for those people who would eventually go on to make wide open-world space games such as Eve Online and Elite: Dangerous. So the passing away of Leonard Nimoy who played the popular and fondly-remembered character Spock has understandably prompted tributes from studios across the industry.

Upon hearing the news, most studios took to their Twitter accounts and other social networks to post the news and their condolences to his family and friends.

o7 Mister Nimoy, you will be missed. pic.twitter.com/Ah0Bn0LNGP

— EVE Online (@EveOnline) February 27, 2015

RIP Leonard Nimoy #LLAP and Thank you! pic.twitter.com/hUbXDg2GiD — Konami (@Konami) February 27, 2015

Peace and long life. #LLAP pic.twitter.com/2YS1DwmKoV

— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) February 27, 2015

A blast from the past with Leonard Nimoy. LLAP http://t.co/klK4abC6YB — Star Trek Online (@trekonlinegame) February 27, 2015

The last of those above, Star Trek Online by Cryptic Studios obviously did a bit more than tweet though. Nimoy had been involved with the game, helping to announce it back in 2008, and recording lines for the game although Spock doesn’t appear in the game himself. Shortly after the news had been announced they requested that players join them in-game on the planet of Vulcan for a solemn vigil in which to pay respects. Many players flocked to stand around a fountain on the planet, with many instances of the location having to be created so while for players it seemed that they were only one of about 20 people in reality across all created instances there were over a thousand players standing in tribute for Nimoy.

The news was also announced last night on the game’s forums that Cryptic will be adding a memorial to the game this Thursday as part of the game’s weekly updates.

I want to once again express my heartfelt condolences to the friends, family, and fans of Leonard Nimoy. Everyone at Cryptic Studios was saddened to hear of his passing and we want to make sure we never forget the cultural impact of the man or the character he played. To that end, the Star Trek Online team will implement a standing in-game memorial to Spock and Leonard Nimoy this Thursday March 5th with our regular weekly maintenance.

In this way, we hope to keep his memory as alive in our game as he is in all of our hearts.#

LLAP

Steve Ricossa
Executive Producer

Elite: Dangerous has also announced the addition of a tribute in-game for Nimoy, planning to add a new space station to the LHS 3006 system orbiting the game’s version of the planet Vulcan. It will be named ‘Nimoy Station’.