The items that will be available to those purchasing the virtual tickets for this year’s Blizzcon have been revealed today by Blizzard and they include an item for players of every one of Blizzard’s properties.

First is the items for their mostly widely known game, World of Warcraft. As part of the tie-in to the upcoming Warlords of Draenor expansion release the WoW item this time round is an exclusive pet: a baby Murloc who seems to be cosplaying as Grommash Hellscream, the leader of the Warsong clan.

For Hearthstone players the item is a new and exclusive card back for Blizzcon 2014, designed around the compass design that is emblazened in the Blizzard courtyard.

Starcraft II players can receive a pair of portraits, one of Hierarch Artanis and the second to be revealed at a later date, as well as a decal inspired by the upcoming Heroes of the Storm MOBA game.

Speaking of Heroes of the Storm, even this not-yet-released game gets an item in the virtual ticket pack. Purchasers can receive a Nexus Mount as well as a portrait of the mysterious Nexus Brawler for the game.

Finally if you’re a Diablo III player the items on offer are six different weapon transmogrifications, one for each class in the game, based again on the upcoming Warlords of Draenor.

Blizzcon is happening at the beginning of November. Our glorious leader Lonesamurai has already decided that he’s buying a virtual ticket to watch the event and receive the listed goodies. What about you?

The Red Bull Starcraft II Battlegrounds tourney has been ongoing for some time now. But fear not, the marathon is nearing it’s finish. Today and tomorrow at 11am EST (4pm GMT) eight Starcraft II pros will be battling it out over a $50,000 prize pool. The event is taking place in Washington D.C. and will be cast in part by Day9 (Sean Plott). The competition features some top players from the pro circuit including Cure, DRG, Polt, Bomber, Scarlett and PartinG. If you’re a fan of Starcraft II, I expect you’ll be glued to the live stream. If you’ve never watched Starcraft II on a competitive level before, this lineup promises to be one that could hook you on the game’s eSports incarnation. I’ll post a handy link to the stream below.

Who do you want to win? Let me know in the comments!

Watch it live at http://www.twitch.tv/redbullesports

Seems that the rumours were true. Today Microsoft, Mojang and Notch himself have all confirmed that Mojang now belongs to Microsoft.

In a blog post Mojang said “remember that the future of Minecraft and you – the community – are extremely important to everyone involved” before answering a number of the most regularly posed questions fans might have about the acquisition. About the Playstation and other game editions that fall outside of Microsfot’s area or might represent some conflict of interest they said “There’s no reason for the development, sales, and support of the PC/Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Vita, iOS, and Android versions of Minecraft to stop”, although they did note that they couldn’t predict the decisions of another company with regards to it. The main reason they were sold up is obviously down to Minecraft and because no one had ever expected it to grow as big as it did upon its original alpha release. Simply, it grew too large for Notch to handle. They also reassured everyone that “Stopping players making cool stuff is not in anyone’s interests.”

Notch himself talked about the deal on his own site, saying that he felt he’d become a ‘symbol’ and that was not what he wanted to be. He described himself as “not an entrepreneur… I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter” and said that he wanted to break away from Minecraft so that he could focus on smaller things again, citing that despite leaving the development to Jeb a while back he still got a wave of hatred in the wake of the EULA episode a few months back. He thanked the fans for helping the game to grow but said that despite that he couldn’t be responsible for the game and its grown community anymore. He said that even though now Microsoft technically owned Minecraft that it’d always belonged to the community more and that the deal was less about the money but his own sanity at this point.

Microsoft issued a press release as well to announce the deal saying about the game “Minecraft inspires millions to create together, connects people across the globe, and is a community that is among the most active and passionate in the world.” They then talked more about how Minecraft added some diversity to their portfolio of titles and that “we see great potential to continue to grow the Minecraft community and nurture the franchise.” They also said that they planned to continue with making Minecraft available to all the platforms it is currently on.

The news will probably come as a shock to some, or you might be in favour of this development. The future for mojang and Minecraft though is as of yet is unknown.

Mojang “Yes, we’re being bought by Microsoft”: [x]
Notch “I’m leaving Mojang”: [x]
Microsoft “Minecraft to Join Microsoft”: [x]

In today’s digital-distribution rich gaming environment a physical boxed copy of a game is becoming a rarity or at least not the sole consideration upon releasing a game. An indie game usually would never bother with one for example.

However Subterranean Games have managed to gain enough interest in their top-down dungeon simulator game to allow for the release of the digital copy AND a special edition boxed copy named the Underlord Edition. The Underlord Edition will come with the game, a soundtrack, a digital artbook, and two additional dungeon themes in-game to tempt players to consider purchasing the physical version of the game.

The boxed copy will be released thanks to Subterranean’s partnership with Sold Out, a UK-based company that is also responsible for other boxed copies of games that includes Snipe Elite III. Their Sales Director James Cato said of the project “Subterranean Games’ massive success with its Kickstarter campaign underlines the powerful desire that exists out there for the next big dungeon management game. The team has put an unbelievable amount of time, effort and passion into making sure War for the Overworld will more than satisfy that demand – and we’re delighted to be able to work with them to bring together a special edition which will retain pride of place in any collection.”

The initial Kickstarter for the game, which took place at the beginning of last year was funded about £50k over its target and has since been proceeding strongly. War For the Overworld takes cues from many games, including Dungeon Keeper which it is often considered to be a spiritual successor to.

The news about Microsoft’s possible purchase of Mojang, the studio famous for their popular hit game Minecraft took many by surprise because the news seemed to come out of nowhere. While opinions are still divided about whether it is a positive step or not, everyone’s waiting to see what will happen.

Now sources are saying the Microsoft are preparing a press release to announce that they have successfully bought out the Swedish studio in a deal supposedly worth about $2.5 billion. According to what we’ve heard the announcement will be made on Monday.

Previous updates on this story have told that Notch, the man behind Minecraft and Mojang was the person who started the talks with Microsoft months back. This was despite Notch having a reputation for loving the indie game scene and not really getting along well with larger companies and their interests, having once called Windows 8 a negative thing for indie gaming and famously pulled out of an Oculus-based version of Minecraft because the VR company was purchased by Facebook.

For now, all fans of Minecraft and Mojang’s other games can do is wait and see…