Valve founder and boss Gabe Newell talks to a high school marketing and business class, where he touches up on gaming, the business, digital downloads vs retail stores, and where he compares single player games to movies, and multiplayer games to sports. It’s an interesting watch, and Gabe seems quite honest in his answers.

Need For Speed Shift 2 is getting the brand new Pagani Huayra supercar, which costs over $1 million per car, and sports a 700 HP V12 engine, making it one of the fastest cars ever made. And now you’ll be able to take it out for a spin in Shift 2, where it will be available when the game ships on March 29 in the US and April 1, 2011 on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

You’ve probably heard of Mojang Specification’s independently developed Minecraft which has managed to sell well over a million copies despite having little to no promotion. Well, it seems that some fans have decided that the game is good enough to merit a commercial and have taken it upon themselves to make their own. We’re not going to go and give away the commercial as it’s quite clever. However, there have been some party poopers around the Internet claiming it’s racist so keep that in mind when you’re viewing it and let us know what you think.

Depending on the manufacturer, many electronic products that are released onto the market (be they cellphones or video game consoles) have some sort of software lock. This not only prevents the consume from tinkering with the system’s underlying code but also (in some cases) prevents them from running unauthorized code. In other words, it’s an attempt by the manufacturer to curb piracy.

Sony’s PS3 had been doing quite well in this sector going unhacked for years until infamous hacker Geohot came forth and cracked the console’s security measures wide open. Now to be fair, Geohot claims he was doing this for the good of the people allowing them to install things like Linux (which was previously disabled by Sony) but it has also allowed pirates to run pirated games on the console.

Regardless of what you’re looking to use the jailbreak for, you may remember when we told you that Sony would be banning those who utilized the jailbreak from the PSN permanently. Bad news for hackers but the good news? Reports suggest an alternative jailbreak has appeared today that will actually unban these jailbreakers from the PSN in addition to banning other PS3s.

I wonder how Sony will react to this.

via destructoid

Video games of all shapes and sizes are quite popular with the console gaming population amassing millions. However, a new breed of gamers is former over on social networks like Facebook who pride themselves in tending to their farms and building cities. Yes, I’m talking about FarmVille and CityVille.

While I won’t dive into the gameplay of these respective titles what I will say is that they’ve made Zynga (their developer) quite the mammoth of a company. In fact, due to a recent investment of $250 million, Zynga has now been valued between $7 and $10 billion dollars. Pretty incredible considering the concept of their games are quite simple.

If you aren’t aware of how Zynga makes money and don’t want to actually dive into one of these games it’s all about micro-transactions. First, they have you complete certain tasks with a limited amount of energy. More often than not, in order to actually complete the task you need more energy than you are given and the only ways to get more is to buy it (with real cash) or wait until it’s replenished. Thus, Zynga profits.

via nytimes

I have to give it to Sony, even though I dont’ agree with some of their choices the series of commercials featuring the fictional character Kevin Butler are quite hilarious. Today, a new commercial has been outed this time focusing on Killzone 3.

Featured within the commercial is Kevin Butler, Sony’s First Person Sensai, demonstrating how you can play Killzone 3 with PlayStation Move while at work.

Check it out and let us know what you thin.

Crytek’s Crysis franchise has long been regarded as one of the most visually appealing on the market. However, due to the fact that the first game required an extraordinary computer to even run, it’s reach was severely limited. Luckily, with Crysis 2, Crytek will be taking a different approach and releasing the game for video game consoles including the PS3 and Xbox 360.

While the final game won’t be out in March 22nd of this year, PC gamers can look forward to a demo being dropped for the game on March 1st. However, while the PC demo has been confirmed, will the Xbox 360 and PS3 be getting one as well? Well, the Xbox 360 already got the demo treatment from January 25th – February 4th but PS3 owners have been effectively left in the dark.

Luckily, while speaking with PSU, Crytek’s Nathan Camarilla has said that PS3 owners can “probably home for [a demo]“. While this doesn’t confirm it, it will definitely give PS3 owners  ray of hope while waiting for March 22nd.

Call of Duty: Black Ops has been on the market for a bit now garnering positive reception virtually across the board. We’re just going to cut to the chase and tell you that in lieu of President’s Day weekend, Treyarch and Activision will be unlocking some of the game’s extra features. By that, I mean the Dead Ops Arcade game will be unlocked without you having to do anything in addition to Five (aka President’s Zombies).

If you haven’t played Dead Ops it’s essentially a birds eye view shooter that pits you against an onslaught of zombies. Five, on the other hand, is a special Zombies mode where you’ll be playing as iconic political figures such as John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro and Robert McNamara.

Have fun, and let us know how it goes.

via destructoid

Of all the different FPS franchises currently on the market Activision’s Call of Duty time and time again leads in sales. Of the games, Modern Warfare 2 was arguably the most hyped and didn’t fail to impress when it came to sales numbers – so where is the sequel?

It’s long been rumored, and virtually confirmed, that Activision would be putting out a 3rd addition to the Modern Warfare franchise but we haven’t been sure what exactly the game would entail. Luckily, some rumors have appeared today that suggest the game will be entitled Modern Warfare 3: Return of Ghost and, quite obviously, feature the character Ghost from the previous games.

We’ll keep you posted.

via cvg

Over the years there have been many different first person shooter franchises some leaving more of an impact than others. Call of Duty and Halo are prime examples of FPS franchises that have been around for about a decade and still managing to put up high sales numbers. Medal of Honor, on the other hand, is a similar franchise that’s been around since 1999 and will forever be remembered as an iconic title.

However, released in 2010 came the franchises reboot in the form of, well, Medal of Honor. While this game seemed promising leading up to launch it didn’t make as much of a splash as everyone thought but still managed to maintain positive reception. Due to this positive reception, EA has come forth today to announce that they will in fact be pushing out a sequel to the game.

Unfortunately there has been no official word on exactly what this game will include so we’ll have to keep you posted on that front.

via medalofhonor