Early Access is one of those topics that’s talked about a lot in gaming right now. The pros, the flaws of such a system and where lines ought to be drawn if they’re not already. Right now Steam is the only digital-distribution platform that offers Early Access and now GOG are saying that they haven’t ruled out doing something similar – only under their own terms.

If they ever offered a system similar to Steam’s it would be curated by CD Projekt, says its co-founder Marcin Iwinski, in an attempt to protect consumers from the threat of ‘hit and run’ early release games. This really doesn’t come as a surprise as curation is something that exists on GOG anyway, as they feel that they are responsible for what gets sold to the gamers who come to them looking for games to buy.

Iwinski has said that while the uncurated approach has worked well for Valve with Steam, they would always be going to take any sort of GOG Early Access down the path that GOG has always taken. But it is going to be fair too. “If you’re unhappy [with your purchase] and they’re constantly updating it, that’s fine,” he elaborated. “But if you’re unhappy and they just took your money and ran away like typical hit and run there is somebody who has to be on the hook for it.”

Sounds good. With Steam having recently had to refund all customers of Earth: Year 2066 due to that game’s problems and dishonesty from its creators, GOG’s idea of ‘Early Access’ does sound appealing. What do you think?

Earlier brought along a fine example of why you shouldn’t really believe everything that you see on the Internet…

Far Cry 4 was announced last week by Ubisoft so they could begin the ball rolling on hype for the game before E3 came along and the game’s announcement potentially got swallowed up amongst the other news that would be coming out of that event. Set in a region of the Himalayas called Kyrat, a place of breathtaking scenery and wildlife under the rule of a tyranical self-appointed king, players were going to have to use their wits and whatever they could to get through the game.

So when a trailer surfaced this morning, claiming to be Far Cry 4’s first trailer and showing a fly-over of mountains surrounded by blizzard which ended with the camera supposedly flying into the mountain before showing the game’s title, some certainly thought that it was Ubisoft releasing a little more information to follow up on the announcement of the game last week.

However that wasn’t the case. First the trailer got taken down from Youtube by their copyright infringement system, and then a little research proved that the trailer was a fake, the footage ripped from a BBC advertisement for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. What a shame.

What we do know for sure though is that Far Cry 4 is due out on November 21^st. So we should be getting some real trailers online soon.

We’ve known about it since February, but finally, D-day (Deactivation Day) has arrived for online services on Wii and DS games. At some point in the next 24 hours, Nintendo is turning off the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Service as used for Wii and DS games. This means you’ll no longer be able to use the WiFi on Wii and DS to play those games online, download new content, or access leaderboards.

That means no more Mario Kart DS races; no more Professor Layton downloadable puzzles; no more online Multiplayer in Super Smash Bros. Brawl or the original Monster Hunter 3. And while it was originally suggested that DSi-enhanced games would not be affected, this seems to have been wishful thinking, as even Pokémon Black and Pokémon White and their sequels (along with the other DS-era Pokémon Titles) are being disconnected (Nintendo UK’s page about it only lists games with Downloadable Content as being discontinued; the American site is a little more comprehensive, although some titles have different names between regions).

While the games will no longer be playable online or be able to receive downloadable content, local Wireless is unaffected – so you can still wirelessly race, battle, puzzle against or otherwise play with your mates within a ten-metre range; and use Download Play if your game offers it. The games will also continue to have all their offline play features. Meanwhile, Pokémon fans worried their Pokémon collections from Generations 4 or 5 are permanently locked to stay in that generation need not worry – using a 3DS, it’s still Possible to move Pokémon from some DS Pokémon Titles to the Pokémon Bank and then to Pokémon X and Y, thanks to the Poké Transfer app for 3DS which remains functional.

Online services that do not use Nintendo WFC, such as Netflix and Youtube apps, also remain functional on their respective devices (for as long as the companies behind those apps continue to support the Wii or DS, anyway); and Internet Browsing is still also possible. Meanwhile the Wii Shop Channel is also remaining up and running for the moment, so WiiWare and Virtual Console games can still be downloaded, gifted and so on. Even so, it’s clear where the real focus of online for Nintendo is now – Wii U, 3DS, and the Nintendo Network, all of which will continue their normal lives long after their predecessors are cut off later today.

At E3 2013, one of the bigger games demonstrated to a favourable reception was Tom Clancy’s The Division. Shown off at the event using the new Snowdrop engine the game looked good and the game was very well talked-about about after the event. The game was scheduled to be released at some unscheduled time this year, but now the word’s come through that the game has been delayed until some unscheduled time in 2015 purely so Ubisoft can work on making sure the game works.

It doesn’t really come as a surprise. There’s been little word on the game since E3 ’13 and games get delayed all the time these days, release dates pushed back to allow for games to be tweaked to a level closer to perfect due to unexpected obstacles appearing. At the very least, pushing back a release date to make sure a game is working properly is preferable to games that get released in a buggy half-finished state just to meet a deadline. Also the statement that was released says that everyone involved are ‘proud’ to be working on such a project. So the delay is going to bring a better game from a group of people who are passionate and in love with the idea of the game they’re creating. This can only be a good thing all round.

We should be seeing more footage of The Division now at E3 this year, so we should get some information about how much work has been completed since the event last week and possibly be able to estimate how close to being finished the game is and therefore maybe which quarter of 2015 we could see the game being released. Until then though, we just have to wait.

Sources around the internet, including Variety are reporting that YouTube is nearing a deal to buy streaming site Twitch for $1 billion. The deal is purported to be an all cash offer that would close imminently. Countering this, The Wall Street Journal has released a report stating that discussions on this deal are early. If such a deal does go through, it would pull a massive amount of traffic firmly into the Google stable.YouTube  missed out on the rise of streaming, and Twitch is the premier destination for the folks that want to see all manner of games played live. Twitch functionality has even been built into both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, and theres no doubt that YouTube would like to aggregate all of that traffic, and ad revenue, under on easily controllable Google colored umbrella.

Naturally, spokespeople for both Twitch and YouTube have declined comment. And, of course, rumor also has it that if the deal really is in the works, Google is already lawyering up to combat the likely regulatory challenges.

Stay tuned to Sanitarium.fm for the latest on this story.