Intel’s been having a good run as of late and they’ve recently celebrated their 40th anniversary and what better way to mark that date than to launch your hottest product to date. Marking Intel’s 40th year in the industry is the release of the Sandy Bridge E processors aimed at high-end enthusiasts, top-end gamers and no-compromise power users. Building upon the success of the highly acclaimed Sandy Bridge processors, the new Sandy Bridge E line up is now taking on the mantle as  Intel’s flagship processor and its most powerful desktop product line. Today we have the top-end of this product line: the Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition. A six-core, Hyperthreaded computing behemoth that is designed to be THE processor for years to come. Let’s see how this processor performs and let’s make this extremely showy!

The first generation Sandy Bridge was an impressive product and something that has really been successful in the market easily taking away chunks of share from its aging Gulftown brother due to its great performance. But truth be told, the processor we have right now goes toe to toe with its predecessors, the 980X/990X Gulftowns. Right now there are 3 models (see below) of the Sandy Bridge E processor: a quad-core model and 2 six-core variants, the quad-core part being released Q1 2012.

Now as with any new release there’s always that question on which is supported. As this one is a new platform, a new motherboard is needed that sports the new X79 chipset. For this test we have a board from Intel, the DX79SI coupled with a quad-channel kit from Kingston.  So let’s get hammering and see some benches… BUT FIRST, a couple of photos!

CLOSER LOOK

PROCESSOR

The new LGA2011 socket is massive.	The new retention mechanism features a dual-lever lock which makes sure your chip is in place.
	Not really much to say about the proc… let’s let the charts do the talking for it.

MOTHERBOARD

As the northbridge gets totally scrapped in this platform, we can see a cleaner layout on this board. The noticeable skull trademark that Intel uses on its high-end boards is present in the south-bridge heatsink which is connected via heatpipe to the	Codenamed Siler, this board is basically clean to look at but closer inspection we can see that there’s a lot going on in every part of the board.
This board gives us 6 SATA ports, the blue ones are SATA 6Gbps and the 4 black ones are SATA II capable.	Down below we can some onboard power controls and a error code display and other than that some front and back panel connectivity like USB and FP audio.
Checking out the back we have 2 USB3.0 at the top row with a little switch which Intel calls the “Back2Bios” switch. I shit you not and I did not make that up, it is called the Back2Bios switch. No relations to Back2Gaming whatsoever. Just a few notches below we get plenty of USB2.0, a dual LAN ports, a Firewire port and audio ports.	The board features 8 DIMM slots for quad-channel fun. My gripe about this is that Intel decided to place the main CPU fan header on the left side of the left DIMM cluster, so you’ll be forced pass your CPU fan cable over or around your RAM.

PERFORMANCE

We’ll start off with SiSoft’s SANDRA CPU Benchmarks which includes the Dhrystone and Whetstone tests. These tests basically all run within the CPU and cache so it is really a test to show how a processor performs.

First up the Dhrystone, which is a integer and string benchmark.

In the Whetstone benchmark, which measures floating point arithmetic performance, the 3960X absolutely demolishes everything.

Now we move on towards test with SuperPI and wPrime. SuperPI is single-threaded so our results show the performance of a single core.

On wPrime we can see how the scaling of the 3960X though not clear, the larger values give us a clearer picture of how our chip handles the benchmark.

Maxon offers a nice benchmark tool called Cinebench which really stresses your entire system to render a very complex scene. The output score is completely unique to Cinebench but allows us to have a rough idea of how the CPU works with 3D rendering tasks.

Video conversion is one major requirements of user which requires heavy processing power. We used Xilisoft and conver a 150MB 1080p clip into x264 format and average out the times we get in 3 runs.

CONCLUSION

We expected the Sandy Bridge E platform to perform strongly but it completely surpassed our expectations. By no means we didn’t make a thorough nor definitive guide to this chip’s power, go ahead and check out the big boy tech sites for a full understanding of how this chip totally annihilates everything in its wake.

Being the flagship product that targets the higher-end market, the intended audience of this product will have surely prepared for this release. But anyone who’s coming from an SB platform might take a moment and rethink about WHY they should get this processor. In all honesty, we believe one should get the SB-E platform if they really need it. Heavily threaded and processor-intensive applications will happily feel at home with the new processor but the accompanying cost of a new motherboard and the new processor is going be a very pricey investment.

That said, we’re more likely going to see many people looking at the i7-3930K priced at ₱29,000 versus the ₱50,000 Extreme Edition. Even with its lower clock and cache, the performance alone in stock of the i7-3960X gives us a good idea of what can be attained with the i7-3930K. Also worth noting is that there is no cooler included with the new chips. Intel sells their standard air-cooler separately and a closed-loop liquid cooler, the RTS2011LC, for these line of processors although considering much of those who opt for this will most likely have an aftermarket cooler in mind.

We just can’t stress enough how impressed we are with the Sandy Bridge E processor we have right now. It just blows everything out of the water but that’s just a teaser because we’re sure that these chips are octo-cores (real cores) and we can’t wait to see how those babies handle.

In closing, we would like to repeat again that the SB-E platform is a platform that guarantees excellent performance but comes at a price. It’s hard to recommend this chip if you’re just going to game on a single card, but if you’re going multi-HD7970 or that new Kepler cards Team Green is cooking up, there’s nothing more reliable than the X79 powered board with an SB-E chip at the helm. If you’ve got the cash, there’s seriously no point not to recommend the new SB-E platform but if you’re on a budget, we suggest holding out a bit to see what Ivy Bridge brings to the table… but it surely won’t be beating the SB-E anytime soon in performance benchmarks.

… and no, I don’t have an SNSD video for this processor.

The fated hour has finally arrived!

A large number of game developers all over the world, may they be students, professionals and/or independent, have gathered in their country’s game jam locations to take part in the biggest game development marathon of the year: the 2012 Global Game Jam. Roughly a hundred participants in the De La Salle-College of St. Benilde and more than thirty in the University of the Philippines ITTC have signed-up to take part in this exciting two-day race to create a fully-functional game.

Will they make the cut, or will they crash and burn? Back2Gaming covers the events as they unfold! Read on!

From all around they came; a brilliant procession of bright minds converging to weave dreams in the span of two days. Students, professionals, independents, you name it: these guys are here to create a game in the event known as the Manila Game Jam.

For those who are not familiar with the event, here is the description from the official Global Game Jam site:

The Global Game Jam was the brainchild of IGDA Education SIG director, Susan Gold, in collaboration with active IGDA members Gorm Lai and Ian Schreiber. GGJ was founded in 2008 as an IGDA event to broaden the outreach of the game education and the goals of Curriculum Framework while giving the world an opportunity to create games in the world’s largest Game Jam to date. The GGJ prides itself on collaboration, both in organizing as well as making of games. GGJ was inspired by and modeled itself after the Nordic Game Jam.

 

The 1st Annual Global Game Jam was held January 30-February 1, 2009 to much critical acclaim and success. With over 1600 participants in 23 countries, and a theme of “As long as we have each other, we will never run out of problems,” the GGJ produced 370 games. In 2010, the number of participants increased to over 4300 with 900 finished games on the theme of “Deception”, and in 2011 there were 6500 participants in 44 countries, who created over 1500 games!

 

GGJ is a volunteer-run organization, built upon the very hard work of its leadership, site organizers and of course the participants.

Okay, back to my adventure!

5:00 P.M., De La Salle-College of St. Benilde ampitheatre

College of St. Benilde ampitheatre

I arrived at the College of St. Benilde‘s ampitheatre at around five in the afternoon, thirty minutes late for the opening of the event. Excitement flowed through my veins as I gazed upon the huge number of participants, all geared up for the upcoming task. This is the biggest jam I have ever seen since my participation in the first Game Jam back in 2010, and it looks promising.

I caught the latter part of what seemed to be a Unity 3D presentation, an appealing development tool for those who wish to create rapid prototypes of their game due to its functionality and ease of use.

Sir Norman Lee discusses the house rules for CSB

After the presentation were the CSB house rules, given by sir Norman Lee, head of the Game Design and Development department (CSB-GDD) of Benilde.

What followed was a lengthy keynote presentation by various development icons such as Gordon Bellamy (IGDA chairman), John Romero (former Ion Storm CEO), and Will Wright (creator of The Sims).

Other individuals were presented as well in the video such as Baiyon (a multimedia artist from Japan) and Gonzalo Frasca (founder of Uruguay-based game dev company Powerful Robot Games). Each shared their insight on particular facets of development (collaboration, inspiration and innovation, to name a few).

GDD students from the College of St. Benilde

After the keynote was the moment everyone was waiting for: the announcement of this year’s theme. Due to the time difference between other jam sites, we are not allowed to post the theme of the event for now.

I got to talk to some of the student participants in the event:

[/caption]

These “focus groups”, as discussed in the event mechanics, will collaborate to create three ideas, commonly known in game dev as a “pitch”. They will be then tasked to present those said pitches to the crowd at around 8:30 in the evening.

Each team is comprised of roughly ten members each, a good mix of experienced and non-experienced developers.

While the participants brewed their ideas, I interviewed Paul Gadi (current chairman of the IGDA Manila chapter) regarding the Manila Game Jam and its nuances:

I then took off to see the next jam site: UP-ITTC.

10:00 P.M., University of the Philippines ITTC

The University of the Philippines Information Technology Training Center

It was already dark when I reached the second jam site all the way in UP. The number of participants in the location were few, but don’t let their numbers fool you: they’re seasoned veterans.

Developers working hard on their game

It was reported that By Implication, the team responsible for Wildfire (the winner of the 2010 Imagine Cup) and Scram, were present in the location, as well as some guys from Anino Games, two of them being past Game Jam winners, namely Jayson Gavarra (the guy I worked with on Crease, Manila Game Jam 2010′s top game) and Marnielle Estrada (developer of Speck, winner of the 2011 Manila Game Jam). The location was quiet, but there was a subtle aura of intensity in the air.

I interviewed the location organizers, ladies from DevCon Philippines. Apparently the team compositions for this particular location are not randomized, and they are also expecting a few more participants to arrive the following day.

This marks the third year of the Manila Game Jam, and things are definitely looking up. I wonder what kind of games will come out of the minds of these brilliant individuals? All we can do is wait until Sunday when the awarding ceremony commences. Until then, stay tuned to Back2Gaming!

~ Shin

It really sucks to be a gamer’s girlfriend for 2012. The final chapter in the Mass Effect trilogy is about to end and we get to taste a part of it this February 14. Yes, ladies, it’s VALENTINE’S DAY so either buck up or ship out (on a side note, Billy’s not into Mass Effect, so he’s VERY VERY LIKELY to be free this valentine’s day. And last time I checked he’s looking for a date #nudgenudgewinkwink). Or if you’re like Nicole, you can just watch your Boyfie (for the love of-) kill all those aliens and save the world.

The demo will be available to Xbox, PC and PS3 users on the 14th. Also the demo will introduce the controversial 3-player coop for and for xbox users, Kinect functionality.

The demo let’s you run around the starting stage of the game where “Earth” is now being attacked by the reapers. So it’s supposed to be action packed as heck.

For more info you can visit the BioWare blog.

Pinoy2DFighters, in cooperation with Team X-Over, Blazblue Philippines, and A2G/Playmore are sending out February with an explosive finish with Labanparooza 2012, a multi-game tournament spanning an entire weekend.

The featured games at Labanparooza are Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition Ver. 2012, King of Fighters XIII, Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend, and Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3. Prizes those await who triumph, so you might as well start training.

For all the event details you’ll need and more, click here to visit the official thread on P2D.

Here’s a cover done by local musician and legend among geek circles, Master Diwa. It’s one half multi-track a capella, and one half other instruments that some, I do not know the name of. Well, the video’s up there in the header and be sure to check out his Youtube channel for other video game music covers.

With the portable gaming market slowly getting more and more diversified with smartphone platforms quickly finding their spot in what used to be a Sony versus Nintendo world, the platform-specific items needed for these devices are also getting numerous. From the games themselves, the memory card where you store your data chances are it’s going to be tied to that certain system. And the same goes for the listening equipment you use on those devices. If you’re packing a PSP, DS, laptop, smartphone, a portable music player or all of those and want a listening solution to cover all of them well Razer’s got your back.

Razer’s line of all-around audio gear isn’t limited to the Orca and Electra, somewhere in their catalog you’d notice the Moray and its more packed version, the Moray+ which is what we have in our studio today for testing. Let’s see if Razer’s swiss army knife of an earphone packs a bite worthy of its predatory namesake and as usual, let’s make this showy!

Like we mentioned in the opening paragraph, the world of gadgets is now heavily diversified with the entertainment capabilities of such devices a far cry from the days of the Nintendo Gameboy and Sony Walkman. The Moray+ is Razer’s attempt at finding a medium in audio delivery for such a wide selection. Razer’s Moray+ is a pair of in-ears earphone with a bunch of included adaptors for your PC/laptop, PSP, DS, idevices or any device that supports a 3.5mm jacks which can be any smartphone or MP3 player. So let’s just cut the chat and see how this baby performs.

SPECIFICATIONS

Earphones

Microphone

PACKAGING

CLOSER LOOK

PERFORMANCE

Note: Audio is a complicated subject to rate properly and something that can’t be properly graded in numbers. We test our review sample using a variety of audio sources with varying quality and we rate them as fairly as we can.

LISTENING

To test out the music performance of our Moray+ we used a Sony NW-E002VC and all our audio files are 320Kbps MP3 CBR 44khz encoded to the player’s native OMA format. (I was seriously gonna use the Lexicon Omega on this one but that was gonna be neither fair nor relevant)

SISTAR- Shady Girl

An upbeat track with a heavy kick in the beat pulling together its nice keyboard melody. This is arguably one of Sistar’s tracks that highly showcases Hyorin’s singing and vocal skills. The song intros with the beat surging in and that first bar is what really sets the mood for the song. The Moray+ delivers a punchy bassline but feels a bit short on that oomph level I enjoy on these songs. As mentioned earlier this song features a good vocal performance and the Moray+ does as well rendering the group’s vocal prowess.

Electroboyz – Ma Boy 2

A hiphop track featuring one of my most admired singers of the new century, Hyorin of SiStar. A smooth track that flows from solid to mellow verses then to a powerful chorus and bridge. This song is hot right now. Again the Moray+ impresses with its clear mid-high range but the bass just wasn’t doing it for me so I played around with the EQ until I get the amount of deepness to it yet the kick still isn’t doing it for me.

D-Coy – Black Katipunero (ALBUM)

I decided to pop in D-Coy’s latest album tracks to complete this session and just to cover up the fact that I am a Kpop fan. Seventeen tracks of hiphop, reggae, swag and just plain ol’ good music is what we have here. Again I’m trying to get a feel for the bass here since I’m not satisfied, everything else seems perfect but the bass just seems to not be doing it for me. The Moray+ excellent upper spectrum range delivery is really impressive here that you can pick out details from the track but when it comes to that strong gut-felt kick, it just ain’t coming out.

GAMING

We start things off on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, though bundled with some decent earbuds it just doesn’t deliver that unique sound experience that Sony has been known for. So popping in the Moray+ in our Xperia Play we fire up Dead Space. I’ve been using Dead Space 2 as a benchmark for audio equipment to gauge how they handle positional audio as well as distance and layering. This time around I’m very satisfied with the Moray+’s performance with that ever present and spine-chilling silence that gets broken off by masterfully timed sounds crafted to scare the pants off of you.

After that we get on the road with Need for Speed: Shift on the Xperia Play and one just has to hear to believe it. It may not be the most realistic of Android games but the crappy engine audio just seems to sound a bit better in the Moray+. All in all, it’s just a better experience than the stock earphones.

We were also able to test the Moray+ on the DS Lite and PSP3000 and I’ll just say it straight that it performed just as well as with the previous tests. The microphone was excellent and spot on. I’m used to using the single ear headset of the DS and to scream out OBJECTION!!!! 3 to 4 times every time I had to serve Edgeworth’s face while playing Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney but the Moray+ was clear enough to let the DS know I was shouting OBJECTION!!! the first time around.

CONCLUSION

There’s really nothing crazy or gimmicky about the Razer Moray+. It’s a straight-up solution for gamers who prefer to travel light and want something that goes with everything. Built solidly with a minimalistic design (which is very un-Razer-like) it has a good balance of simple looks and just the right swagger. As for performance, it surely delivers excellent sounds although it comes a bit short on that kick some club-banger fans love. So how much is this gonna cost us? Right now the Moray+ comes in at US$60 and locally at ₱2800.

So you might say that’s a hefty sum. Well let’s see what we’re getting: a powerful and very capable noise isolating earphone that has great sound isolation and also very comfortable. We’re also getting a very good microphone (had it like up to my chest and I was in public transport and my friend on the other line can still hear me clearly.) Just those alone are already worth something. That is, if you’re getting the stock Moray. The Moray+ bundles a DS and PSP audio jack, a Y-cable and a nice carry pouch to cover all your portable gaming audio needs and that’s getting a lot out of one pair of earphones.

If you’re strictly looking for some quality noise-isolating earphones, you’re probably better off with some cheap SkullCandy but the Moray+ addresses a situation only a gaming brand like Razer can cover so like I said in the opening, if you have multiple gaming portables and a smartphone then this package is for you. It is indeed well worth it and there’s nothing like it in the market right now so we highly recommend the Moray+ for you. If you’re an audiophile though (or a wannabe audiophile that worships Beats by Dr. Derp) go check out other solutions.

No more than twenty-four hours ago the gaming community was rocked by a sudden reveal trailer for Resident Evil 6, Capcom’s latest installment in their long-running survival horror franchise. The video features Leon Kennedy (former one-day R.P.D. officer turned unwilling government lapdog), Chris Redfield (S.T.A.R.S. bad-ass and BSAA commando), Steve Burnside (or at least I believe it’s Steve, based on his dialogue) and…

…GASP! could that be Ashley Graham? She’s all grown up! Hit the jump and see the dissected shots and my predictions about the game.

The video, roughly 3 minutes plus a few seconds long, show three unrelated events that lead to an enigmatic conclusion. One thing’s for certain: evil survived.

The first part depicts Leon Kennedy speaking to Helena Harper (another government lapdog) about how she supposedly “started something” in a location called Tall Oaks. Oh, and he gets to kill the (zombified) president too in a scene which is a clear homage to Resident Evil One.

Here we see Hunnigan (Leon’s intel officer from Resident Evil 4) briefing him about the situation in the said location. It seems that Tall Oaks has reached critical mass and is now on the verge of collapse from the virus outbreak.

Aside from the usual undead fare, Leon also faces a huge monstrosity resembling Left4Dead’s Boomer, which succinctly gives him a well-deserved piledriver.

Jump to China, where Chris and a squad of BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance) personnel arrive via chopper in the midst of an outbreak.

We then see non-infected civilians fleeing the scene, and a camera crew which Chris promptly pushes away as they make their move into the conflict zone.

Chris’ campaign appears to feature squad-based gameplay, as depicted by the BSAA’s strategic advances towards the heart of the torn city.

Chris also faces a B.O.W. (Bio-organic weapon) that resemble William Birkin (the inventor of the G-Virus in Resident Evil 2), which leads me to believe that this particular outbreak is of the G kind.

Aside from the usual zombies, we get to see Chris fighting armed civilians. Did Umbrella arm these civilians, or is it similar to Las Plagas?

Jump (again) to a mystery location, where we see who I believe to be Steve Burnside (The wise-cracking teenage Rockfort island prisoner from Resident Evil: Code Veronica) accompanied by someone who might be Ashley Graham (the president’s daughter and prime annoyance from Resident Evil 4). If this really is Steve, then the Veronica virus must have given him the sigil of awesome, like what the T-Virus did for Albert Wesker (THE bad guy of the Resident Evil series).

Things aren’t easy for the unlikely duo, as they are being chased by what seems to be an advanced version of the Nemesis B.O.W. (Resident Evil 3′s epic enemy, a zombie that RUNS, PUNCHES, KICKS, and CARRIES A ROCKET LAUNCHER). One thing with Steve though: he’s clearly a good match for the monstrosity with his superhuman strength and agility.

Now for the gameplay. It’s similar to the over-the-shoulder mechanic we’ve already experienced in both Resident Evil 4 and 5, along with a few (awesome) modifications reminiscent of games already seen in the market. Here we see Chris using a side-cover system similarly found in action games like Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell. In the next one, we see Leon performing a slide-and-shoot trick seen in Wanted: Weapons of Fate and WET.

It seems that Capcom also employed some Gears of War mechanics in Resident Evil 6, with Chris’ sudden stick-to-cover maneuver.

Close quarter defensive techniques were first introduced in Resident Evil for the NGC and Wii, and it seems that Capcom has taken it up a notch by allowing the player to use melee weapons found in the environment, like this axe.

Steve’s campaign is clearly melee-centric with his jumping around and doing all sorts of kick-ass commando moves on armed zombies (yep, ARMED ZOMBIES). Ashley’s no wuss either, since she provides cover fire for the Kung-Fu mercenary.

All in all, this reveal will keep haunting us until the game’s release this November 20th for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The biggest question though is: are we ready for what could possibly be the biggest Resident Evil of them all?

• Next-Generation SSDNow V+200 Balances Performance with Price
• Wide Capacity Range Ideal for Corporate Deployment, Personal Users

Kingston, the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the latest addition to its SSDNow range, the  SSDNow V+200. The new Kingston SSDNow V+200 solid-state drives are the ideal high-performance upgrade solution for the performance minded yet cost-conscious business or home user.

The SSDNow V+200 features the second-generation high-speed SATA 3.0 (6Gb/s) SandForce SF-2281 Processor and outstanding sequential read and write speeds of up to 535MB/s and 480MB/s. The SSDNow V+200 enables fast system start-up, rapid data access and speedy copying of large files such as videos, presentations and graphics illustrations.

 “Kingston constantly strives to offer the perfect upgrade solution to cover each market segment. The SSDNow V+200 drive has been specifically designed to meet the needs of both business and home users looking for an inexpensive yet powerful upgrade,” says Nathan Su, Flash memory Sales Director, APAC Region, Kingston. “The SSDNow V+200 is equipped with all essential tools needed to extend the lifecycle and boost a system’s performance to the maximum. The balance between performance and price makes this SSD deliver the best ROI as an upgrade for a fleet of corporate notebooks or desktops or the home PC,” Nathan continues.

The SSDNow V+200 is available in 60GB, 90GB, 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities as either a stand-alone drive or as an upgrade kit to make installation easy and quick. Kits include cables, brackets, cloning software and HDD enclosure — everything the business or home user needs to get started.

A video of the new SSDNow V+200 can be found at http://youtu.be/K7DtjEac5rk.

Kingston SSDs are backed by a three-year warranty and free live technical support. For more information, please visit www.kingston.com/uk.

Kingston SSDNow V+200 Features & Specifications:

• Dramatic Performance for Any System Upgrade
• Multiple Capacities: The right capacity to meet your storage standards
• Endurance: Data Integrity Protection featuring DuraClass Technology
• Dependable: RAISE for advanced data reliability
• Secure: Self-encrypting drive technology
• Durable: DuraWrite optimizes writes to extend endurance
• Form Factor: 2.5²
• Interface: SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s), SATA Rev. 2.0 (3Gb/s), SATA Rev. 1.0 (1.5Gb/s) Capacities¹: 60GB, 90GB, 120GB, 240GB, 480GB
• Sequential Reads: SATA Rev. 3.0: 535MB/s

                       SATA Rev. 2.0: 280MB/s

• Sequential Writes: SATA Rev. 3.0: 60GB – 460MB/s; All Others – 480MB/s

                              SATA Rev. 2.0: 260MB/s

• Sustained Random 4k Read/Write²

60GB – 12,000/47,000 IOPS

90GB – 20,000/47,000 IOPS

120GB – 20,000/44,000 IOPS

240GB – 36,000/43,000 IOPS

480GB – 43,000/30,000 IOPS

Max Random 4k Read/Write²

60GB – 85,000/60,000 IOPS

90GB – 85,000/57,000 IOPS

120GB – 85,000/55,000 IOPS

240GB – 85,000/43,000 IOPS

480GB – 75,000/34,000 IOPS

• Power Consumption: 0.565 W (TYP) Idle / 1.795 W (TYP) Read / 2.025 (TYP) Write
• Storage Temperatures: -40° C to 85° C
• Operating Temperatures: 0° C to 70° C
• Weight: 115g
• Vibration Operating: 2.17G
• Vibration Non-operating: 20G
• MTBF: 1,000,000 Hrs
• Warranty/Support: Three-year warranty with free technical support

With our first ever attempt on putting up a forum, we (rather I) failed miserably. So instead of going for another forum, we’ll just do a weekly discussion post where we, and you guys could voice out your concerns, thoughts, raves or rants on the topic presented, it doesn’t mean that this is just strictly game-related themes (as our first topic would attest to).

To start the ball rolling, we’d want to focus on the “big” thing in the internet right now, which is the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA to us who hate long names.

So before elaborating, I’d like to present what is SOPA?

[source: What is SOPA Bill 2012?? 7 Things to Know About Controversial Legislation]

SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, introduced last month by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith. It’s a companion bill to the Protect IP Act, which targets Web companies hosting unauthorized content from movies, songs or software. It also dealt with the trade of counterfeit goods over the Internet.

Basically, the whole idea of SOPA is giving more power to big companies to intrude, bully and cut off any “offending” site. In the guise of “stopping” piracy in it’s tracks, the SOPA would instead not only harm “pirates” but rather everyone in the internet. Various websites, (with us included) have raised their opposition to the said act by shading out bits and pieces of whatever image or text they have on their own site, in form of a representation of what would happen to the internet if the SOPA gets passed.

Acts of opposition included wikipedia going offline for a whole day, flickr and wordpress “censoring” images on it’s homepage, while other blogs and sites had a “blackout” for a whole day as well. GoDaddy, a US based hosting and registrar company, experienced the brunt of the blacklash by losing more than 37,000 domains because of it’s initial support on the act.

How does this affect us in the Philippines?

On it’s surface, it would seem that this would it’s only the US will be affected, however upon closer inspection that as long as a  website contains any “offending” material there will be grounds for it to be closed down.

At a glance, it’s not just a US thing because the internet ignores any geopolitical laws and statures since it practically connects us all in a global scale. In Back2Gaming alone, most of our news, features and posts here are not just about the PH gaming scene. Most of our news comes from the US and if that the SOPA gets a passing mark, it could very well hinder us posting anything “offending” to any game or company.

Also, since the PH is an “ally” of the US, there is a big chance that extradition could take place, if said company would go to that extent. Of course I’m exaggerating with the example, but you would never know right?

Currently

As of this post, SOPA has been shelved not killed, contrary to what people would want to think. With discussions to be continued come February. However, PIPA is now on the table with discussions at the senate now ongoing.

So… What now?

We’d like to hear your thoughts, comments or reactions to the whole SOPA/PIPA debacle. How it may affect YOUR own little online world.

so without further adieu, DISCUSS!

For those following closely on the actions of Razer these past few months, we can see that the company seems to be moving to areas of gaming where such companies fear to tread. However, behind all the pomp and grandeur their innovations have been, Razer is still all about the promotion of the pro-gaming circuit.

Since 2012 has started, we have been wondering what’s in store for Razer this year. Thankfully, we have been given the opportunity  to talk to Christopher Mitchell, the global e-sports manager for Razer and here’s what he had to say about Razer this 2012.

Haoson (B2G): What plans does Razer have for the current Team Razer line up this year?

Chris (Razer): There is a lot of cool things we’re preparing for internally. Basically we’re looking at supporting more levels of gaming, from professional to semi-professional and amateurs. Obviously each tier comes with a different kind of support, but in regards to teams we want to be able to help new aspiring teams to rise to the top and have a shot at turning professional, while supporting those that made it to fully focus on their gaming and really pursue it on a professional full-time basis.

Haoson (B2G): Do you plan on increasing the number players/teams that they will support this year? Why or why not?

Chris (Razer): We definitely will increase the number of players & teams further. From expanding vertically in regards to skill level/professionalism to expanding it horizontally in terms of regions and genres, you’ll see more additions to Team Razer over the course of 2012. We want to make sure we support e-Sports in every region in the world, whether that’s the e-Sports Mecca of Korea or more nascent e-Sports regions and with the ever changing landscape of e-Sports when it comes to the games that are played competitively, we also have to keep up with the change. Right now we’re especially looking at CS:GO and Dota 2 as titles that we’ll be eyeing closely in 2012.

Haoson (B2G): Will we see Team Razer getting more professionalized this year?

Chris (Razer): I’d say that comes down to the definition of professionalism, but I would like to say yes. With our increased support and dedication we help teams to be able to focus more on their gaming, how to interact with media, the do’s and don’ts, etc. With the (still young) addition of a content team, we’re also trying to get everyone a closer look at the pros in Team Razer, how they got into gaming and their thoughts on the game they play and e-Sports in general. We’re hoping to make e-Sports more accessible to those unfamiliar with it and give the fans a “behind-the-curtain”-view to the professional gaming elite.

Haoson (B2G): How dedicated are your internal e-sports teams? Do you have a set amount of trophies and achievements that you guys want to have once 2012 ends?

Chris (Razer): We have clear goals and objectives for 2012 and everyone in the team is working hard to achieve that. Podium placements is certainly one of them and from picking the right players, enabling them to practice in the best possible environment to covering travel expenses to events, we’re doing our best to achieve those goals. Obviously trophies and achievements aren’t the only things we’re looking for. Growing a team’s fanbase and engaging it, providing news and info about the players & tournaments, giving insights on their games are some of the other more visible factors of how teams are measured. The feedback for our product development and validation also plays a great role in a team’s value, although that’s mostly happening behind the curtain and not visible to the average gamer.

Haoson (B2G): As shown on your website, currently you are selling team-branded peripherals in the form of mats bearing the logo of team Serious Gaming, Mousesports and MeetYourMakers. Will Razer be adding more this year?

Chris (Razer): Yes, there are more team branded mats in the making. Some of them have already been spotted in the wild being tested by the players of the respective teams. One of our team mat prototypes was already part of the setup winning Dreamhack Winter in 2011.

Haoson (B2G): Aside from the mats, what other team-branded peripherals will you guys be releasing? Will we get team logos on the existing Razer mice keyboards?

Chris (Razer): First one will be a mouse in a Counter Logic Gaming design. CLG just won the Team Razer team of the year 2011 contest and will be rewarded with our first team branded mouse this year. After that we’ll certainly look at our other top teams and potentially other peripherals, so stay tuned for that.