Game-Spectrum and www.Sprocketidea.com are teaming up to give away three downloadable games from Sprocket's small, up-and-coming library of games. How do you get into this fantastic offer? Easy, just sign up! You'll need to be a registered user of GS, and all you have to do is fill out a quick form and make sure you put an email address that we can reach you at easily. There will only be one winner, and he or she can choose any three games from the Sprocket library for free, no strings attached!

The contest ends 12/22/07. Sign up before then, and if you're a winner, we'll notify you by 12/23/07. If you don't respond within 24 hours after being notified, we'll give your codes away to the next lucky winner, so act quickly! 

Good luck!

http://www.game-spectrum.com/features/gs-contests-and-events/three-for-free-3.html

Welcome to the new Game-Spectrum.com! We apologize for having to delete all users and posts for the upgrade, but we feel that it will be better in the long haul.

The new Game-Spectrum has many new and exciting features, such as user blogs, article comments, a favorites system (to keep track of your favorite articles or blog postings), an image gallery, a more integrated forum and more! Plus, we have plans to add even more cool new features to the site in the near future! Remember to register your account again, and be sure to report any bugs in the Report Bugs thread in the Suggestions & Feedback forum. Now that the website is actually up, we hope to add tons of content.

We encourage you to take a look around and try out the new features. You can access your very own user blog by clicking on the "Blog Dashboard" link in the User CP in the side bar, and you can also leave comments on other people's blogs! 

Thanks for sticking with GS through this transition period. It was tough, but this is a huge step forward for Game-Spectrum and its community. Stay tuned!

Check it out and register at www.game-spectrum.com, and thanks for your support!

In other news, Mass Effect is awesome.

In other news, Xbox Live is having its fifth anniversary tomorrow.

One of Game-Spectrum's editors had a brief interview with the co-founder of Tournament.com.

"Whenever you visit a site that offers money for playing a game, there's always some sort of catch or scam behind it all.  Playing your favorite game and winning money seems to good to be true.  However, Tournament.com is an exception.  It stands out among the others because it's legit, plain and simple.  It offers a safe and secure environment, along with a great community.  I had the chance to interview Alex Holt, co-founder of Tournament.com , and asked him the top questions the community wanted answered..."

Click here to read the interview.

EA recently closed its Chicago studio, which had been open for just under a year. It now has to place over 150 employees around the company. An internal memo from EA Games president Frank Gibeau read:

Today we are announcing the closure of our studio in Chicago. This is a difficult decision but we are convinced it's the right thing to do for the future of the Games Label and EA.

Within the EA Games Label, we are committed to running each franchise and facility as a city/state, teams with unique creative identities as well as responsibility for product quality, ship dates and profitability. We recognize that games require large investments and extended development cycles. We're willing to take risks, make long-term investments, and to support teams and individuals between launches. But each team is responsible for staying on a reasonable path to profitability. Sticking to that strategy is what gives us the financial resources and flexibility to take risks on new projects.

Unfortunately, EA Chicago hasn't been able to meet that standard. The location has grown dramatically in the past three years while revenue from the games developed there has not. The number of employees has grown from 49 in 2004 to 146 people currently in the new facility in downtown Chicago. As it stands, EA Chicago has no expectation of hitting our profitability targets until FY2011 or later.

Closing EA Chicago is the toughest decision I've made in my career - one that in no way reflects on the talent and dedication of the people who work there. I've enjoyed their games and consider GM Kudo Tsunoda to be one of the best creative minds in our industry. The people impacted by this decision will be treated fairly - we're offering relocation opportunities to many and there will be outplacement assistance and severance for all eligible employees.

I know this decision will be unsettling to many beyond those who work in Chicago. It's important that you understand that we are willing to take creative risks and make long-term investments in people and projects. But the city/state philosophy demands that every project be committed to delivering a reasonable expectation of profitability. It's a performance commitment that binds us together and ensures we have the resources we need to invest back into our people and creative output.

Finally, when EA announced our quarterly earnings last week, John and Warren referenced facility closures. We had planned to include Chicago in that communication but a personal tragedy in the studio - the death of a colleague - resulted in our delaying the announcement out of respect for his family and friends. I apologize for any confusion or concern that caused.

I think you'll find that in addition to tackling some serious challenges, we are making great progress on our business. Consumers have responded well to our new IP and quality scores are tracking up. We are proud of our recent hits, such as Skate and the success we have made in making a solid game with The Simpsons. And we're looking forward to breakout hits like Need For Speed Pro Street, Rockband, Burnout Paradise, Battlefield Bad Company, Army of Two, Crysis, and more in the future with Mass Effect and Mercenaries 2 World in Flames.

We're definitely headed in the right direction.

Frank

"Target strives to provide merchandise that will appeal to a wide variety of guests. We also want guests to be comfortable with the purchasing decisions they make at Target. All video games and computer software sold at Target currently carry ratings by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB)--from early childhood through mature audiences. While Manhunt 2 was given a Mature rating by the ERSB, we received additional information that players can potentially view previously filtered content by altering the game code. As a result, we have decided not to carry the game."

Digg it!

The Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 single player demo is out today on the Live Marketplace! I just thought I'd let you know if you didn't already. It seems to me this game might be getting rushed a bit. I mean, GRAW came out less than a year ago! I'm just hoping this game turns out good, and they fix the horrible spawn camping problem!

I haven't been updating much here, so I apologize for that (to any of you who actually happen to read this blog).