What is it lately with eSports casters and their pottymouths? The normally entertaining and even keeled Toby “Tobi Wan” Dawson has become the latest in a growing list of offenders, following an off-color joke made during a live-streamed DOTA 2 match.

“Have you heard the expression… lame as a ni**ers baby?” Dawson asked mid-match. The remarkably racist comment came as a shock to many, as Dawson has earned a reputation as anything but an explicit racist.

Facebook’s stock market debut yesterday, while less than spectacular in itself (share prices remained flat, rising only by 23 cents through great pains), has greatly affected many of its partners and other social media sites, including Yelp, LinkedIn, GroupOn, and Zynga. Despite acquiring OMGPop earlier this year, Zynga’s stocks are reaching miserable lows following Facebook’s IPO, losing 13.4 percent of its value, closing at $7.12.

Many investors had been using Zynga as a means to own a piece of Facebook, but now that Facebook has gone public, many are dumping Zynga in favor of FB stock.

Ever since it’s unveiling earlier this month, details have been slowly trickling in regarding The Elder Scrolls Online. In a recent interview, the game director, Mat Firor, sat down with Gameinformer to discuss a few more of the game’s mechanics.

One of the very first things that Firor mentions is they they don’t want to punish the player for helping another player who he or she isn’t grouped with. In most games if you attack a “tagged” monster, you won’t get any loot. In The Elder Scrolls online, the rewards will be split  among everyone who participated. This is being done to facilitate player interaction.

Between the time when players battled with the power glove and the rise of the Super Nintendo, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this was Squaresoft, destined to wear the jeweled crown of JRPGs upon a troubled genre. It is I, the chronicler, who alone can tell thee of this saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!…Or at least the tale of Gentleman Studios and their quest to revive the 32-Bit Acton RPG genre with their upcoming game, RAiN.

I recently sat down with Gentleman Studio’s lead programmer and Designer, Joseph Nix, to talk about what they’re hoping to accomplish with RAiN as well his thoughts on the recent Kickstarter trend.

Welcome to Casual Fridays, where we kick back, relax and take off our pants. In Typing About Games (TAG), two of the Piki Geek staff face off in a no-holds-bar chat conversation. Beliefs are challenged, points are exclaimed, hype is harnessed, and video games are dissected like insects. Enjoy a look into the discussions that plague the Piki Geek chat day after day.

This week, not EVERYONE was playing Diablo III. Staff writer Jeroen Amin and reviews editor Zach Martin compare notes on that other third installment to a cherished franchise that saw release on Tuesday – Max Payne 3.

The bane of fanboys across the ‘verse, The Picky Geek is a column that takes the glaring faults of popular games, puts them under a magnifying glass, and leaves them there until they’ve been fried by the sun. With snark, cynicism, and maybe even a little hyperbole, Ryan Larrabee explores why he never gets invited to any games industry Christmas parties.

That’s right. Pong. How is it that Pong is so universally praised? Put it next to to today’s big games like Halo and Call of Duty and it’s like comparing your sister’s tricycle to a super sweet Range Rover. Pong has more than a few issues, and what follows are merely a few of them.

EA has revealed the decision to let games funded via Kickstarter launch on its Origin service for free during a 90 day grace period from launch. During that time, Origin will retain none of the cost of the game except where transaction fees are charged i.e. via credit card.

The first game confirmed for this offer is inXile’s Wasteland 2, which accumulated a whopping $2.9 million in its Kickstarter campaign. No others have been confirmed but it’s likely that we will see many fresh indie titles appear on Origin as a result.

The only real question is whether all the people who would be interested in purchasing these games have already secured copies through Kickstarter. EA is gambling that any one of the games could sell many copies after release, riding on good word of mouth and reviews, to generate massive profit for both the developers and its Origin service in the long run. It’s not a bad strategy, actually.

Our intrepid editors have taken it upon themselves to slog through the world of Diablo III and provide you, the reader, with a daily update on their progress. With all three playing as different classes (as seen above) you’ll be privy to three very different updates. Prepare yourself for the drama, the perils of fighting demons, and the mystique that accompanies a journey into the depths of evil. Oh, and explosions. Tons of explosions.

It has been less than a month since The Walking Dead has been released across the three major platforms, and in that time, the game has already sold a million copies. I don’t find it surprising as it looks like Telltale Games has really struck gold with this franchise, and for a mere $5.00, you can’t go wrong.

Telltale Games CEO, Dan Connors, stated, “The most exciting aspect of getting off to such a great start is that this is just the beginning of the five episode series. The Walking Dead fans are going to experience some really great moments in the months ahead that are uniquely influenced by the choices they make throughout the season.”

While the numbers are certainly impressive, they are slightly inflated. Telltale is including both the sales from people buying the single episode as well as the season pass, which will grant them access to all five episodes for the price of four. Telltale has said that, “70% of the transactions to date have been Episode 1 sales across all the platforms” which is still a remarkable achievement, the question remains are the 30% numbers going to be included into all future episode purchases?

Number inflation aside, it’s good to see The Walking Dead getting the recognition it deserves. Telltale went on to say that, “the trial version on consoles has been downloaded over 1.5 million times since April 25th” which is a pretty good return rate for a product. For those that haven’t sunk their teeth into the franchise, there’s still time to download and try out the first episode before the second episode is released next month.

The fine folks at Rocksteady have released a new trailer for the Batman: Arkham City DLC, Harley’s Revenge, and outside of her new gothic high school getup, it’s looking pretty good. As we’ve mentioned before, the DLC will come bundled with the Game of the Year Edition and be available as a stand-alone when the GOTY Edition is released on May 29th.

This looks to be the first (and most likely, last) story-based DLC, as it takes place several weeks after the events of Arkham City with Ms. Quinn feeling rather unhappy over what happened to her puddin‘. She sets a trap for ole’ Bats and he falls for it, and it looks to be up to Robin to save him. It makes one of the few instances where you are able to play as the Tim Drake-era Robin and it’s definitely a welcome change to step into the bat-boots of someone else (not counting the challenge-room DLC).

Head past the break to check out the latest trailer.

The next generation of consoles may be a way off yet, but Epic Games’ has revealed that its latest tech, Unreal Engine 4, is up and running right now. Wired has got the first batch of screenshots, as well as a lengthy interview with Epic’s Tim Sweeny involving a number of subjects, such as the history of Epic, and what sort of effort was involved in building their latest middleware powerhouse.

And a powerhouse it is poised to be, as it may even force Microsoft and Sony to rethink the amount of power they’re putting into their next consoles. They’ll need to at least be fast and powerful enough to run the engine and handle its more demanding properties.

Rampant speculation alert: Way back in 2004, when Epic first revealed Unreal Engine 3, those assets turned out to be from Gears of War, though the game itself had not been announced at the time. It’s likely that these new assets are also from an as-yet-unannounced game that is currently in production. If I were a bettin’ man, I’d wager that the game in question is a new, console specific version of the Infinity Blade franchise which has been so popular on iOS devices.

In any case, with E3 right around the corner, I expect Epic will have even more to say about Unreal Engine 4 very soon.

CCP is finally inviting the general public to sign up for a chance to participate in the closed beta for Dust 514. Sign-ups have been available to active Eve Online subscribers for a while, so this is the first time beta access has been available to those who haven’t already experienced CCP’s spaceflight/economy simulator MMO. Those interested in trying out Eve Online’s FPS sibling can head over to their registration page and get on the list.

CCP hasn’t given word on when the beta is expected to begin, or when players will receive confirmation of their access to the testing. 

For Eve Online subscribers who have already registered, beta tickets are being sent out today. So go check your inboxes!

Alongside the recent news of Activision trying to spy on and fire Jay West and Vince Zampella six months before Modern Warfare 2 came out, GamesIndustry is reporting that they have also settled with EA over their suit which claims that EA stole West and Zampella away from Activision. They’re probably unrelated.

Activision was initially seeking $400 million in damages over West’s, Zampella’s, and 40 other employees’ departures as a counterclaim to Zampella’s and West’s lawsuits against the company for unpaid bonuses and contract termination.

The settlement on this suit has no bearing on West’s and Zampella’s suit. Meanwhile, EA remains somewhat involved and has promised to support West and Zampella in their case against Activision.

According to a press release by 2K Games and Gearbox Software, Borderlands 2 will come with two tiers of special limited editions. While both will come with collectibles and in-game items, the Deluxe Vault Hunter’s Collector’s Edition will sell for $100 and the Ultimate Loot Chest Limited Edition will sell for $150.

The less expensive special edition comes with the game, a Borderlands 2 art book, stickers, a map of Pandora, a digital comic, bonus DLC (the nature of which was not disclosed), and a Marcus Kincaid bobblehead. The more expensive Ultimate Loot Chest comes with all of the above, a scaled replica of a red loot chest, steel book case, an ID chart of the Creatures of Pandora, a lithograph postcard set, field notes from Sir Hammerlock, a cloth map of Pandora, and a numbered certificate of authenticity.