ign posts

Rumors with a little bit of evidence have hit the internet that seem to indicate that gaming media company IGN may be planning to launch its own professional gaming league, with Blizzard's sci-fi RTS game StarCraft II at the center of it.

Starcraft-themed web site TeamLiquid.net reports via Korean-based web sites that IGN will launch such a league with a prize pool of between $150,000 to $200,000. In addition there is a IGN Pro League web site already set up that seems to be counting down towards a launch around midnight Eastern time on Tuesday.

If true this would be the latest attempt to launch a US-based pro gaming league. At the moment only Major League Gaming has been successful at staying afloat with other ventures like the Cyberathlete Professional League, the Championship Gaming Series and the World Series of Video Games all closing up shop in the past few years.

Today we are not waiting around for Steam to offer up its mid-week madness sale. That's because there's a ton of PC game sales and free PC game offers to report on already. We will update this post with Steam's mid-day sale later today:

• Steam offers a free copy of Red Faction Guerrilla when you pre-order the upcoming Red Faction Armageddon from their service.
• Steam also has Hoard available as a pre-order with a 25 percent price cut from its normal price. It comes out on April 4. There's also a Hoard four-pack deal that's available for 10 percent off.
• Telltale is offering the entire five episode "season" of Sam and Max The Devil's Playground for free (a $34.95 value) for new customers of Netflix.
• Amazon.com has a one-day sale of the recently released Dragon Age 2 (for both PC boxed and PC download) for $39.99, a $20 discount.
• Impulse has a one day deal on 2009's Ghostbusters The Video Game for $9.97.
• Update: IGN's newly launched PC download store has Battlefield Bad Company 2 on sale for today only for $9.95.
• Update: Direct2Drive has three games on sale for $2 each for today only; Fish Tycoon, 7 Wonders: Treasures of Seven and Midnight Mysteries: The Edger Allan Poe Conspiracy.
• Update: Steam has Batman Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition on sale from now until Thursday for just $7.50.
• Update: Steam has all of the games in the Gothic RPG series on sale from now until Thursday for 75 percent off their normal prices.

IGN has been operating its Direct2Drive PC game download site for nearly six years now but today, in an unusual move, the site launched another PC game download site today, called simply the IGN PC Store. From what we can tell the store front is pretty similar to Direct2Drive but with its own sales deals (for example it has Medal of Honor on sale for today only for just $7.50).

In a press release today announcing the new IGN PC Store, the company said that the launch of the new storefront was due to "requests from the IGN community: to be able to purchase computer games directly from IGN.com." While the Direct2Drive web site is still live one wonders if it will be still around if this new IGN PC Store becomes more successful.

IGN has been promoting its Direct2Drive PC game download site a lot more lately. During the holiday season of 2010 the site paid for every fifth order it received. Now IGN is offering a new deal that also promotes its FilePlanet download site.

If you pay for a FilePlanet subscription or IGN's Founder's Club service you will get an automatic 15 percent off most of the games available on Direct2Drive for the life of your subscription. This discount looks like it works even with games that have deep sales discounts already as well as pre-orders for upcoming games on the service.

In related news, Direct2Drive has put all of Focus Interactive's games on sale for 50 percent off this weekend.

Last September gaming web site IGN Entertainment announced plans for Indie Open House, where it would pick and support a number of small game developers and offer them free office space and support for making their games. Today the company announced the five game developers that have been picked for the first round of the Indie Open House. It includes:

Team Ethereal - former Carnegie Mellon students working on " a medieval combat game"
Evanatiks - Pasadena, California-based team that has a game project "that combines elements of strategy, role playing and trading card game genres"
Runt, Inc., - San Francisco-based team that's working on "an action platformer with a steam punk aesthetic and fluid freestyle Parkour mechanic"
Interabang Studios - San Diego-based team that's developing a game "that combines action, adventure, beat-em-ups and... mullets."
Cryptic Sea - Santa Cruz, California-based team that's working on a game titled The Balls; "a cooperative platformer for up to 100 players who control furry alien balls bent on world domination"

All five teams will have office space for six months at IGN's San Fransisco location and will get feedback on their game projects from IGN editors. Their games will get free licenses to IGN's GameSpy technology development tools and the games will also be demoed at March's Game Development Conference.

The Direct2Drive PC game download site is owned and operated by IGN. So naturally there's a little crossover content between the two site. Today Direct2Drive is launching yet another new sales promotion that has at its center the IGN nominees and winners for IGN's Best of 2010 awards for the PC platform.

From now until December 20, Direct2Drive will take $20 off the total order of any games in IGN's Best of 2010 list. That includes games like Call of Duty Black Ops, Fallout New Vegas, Mass Effect 2, Super Meat Boy and more. The orders must include the promo code "ignbest" at checkout.

While there hasn't been any official word from either parties, the All Things Digital web site is reporting that the game retailer GameStop is partnering with the IGN web site network in several different ways. One of them is having IGN's content show up on GameStop.com while GameStop will run ads on IGN. The traffic of IGN's web sites will also be combined with GameStop.com.

The report does not, however, go into detail on how this new partnership might affect IGN's Direct2Drive PC game download service which competes with GameStop.com's own PC game download options. Also GameStop owns the Game Informer magazine and web site which also competes with IGN's content.

Direct2Drive is doing something a little different to celebrate the end of the year. It's not a sale but a special giveaway. From now until December 31, one in every fifth Direct2Drive PC game download order will be free. Yep, that means you might not have to pay for that order of Call of Duty Black Ops or Civilization V. The promotion is limited only to credit card orders.

In related news Direct2Drive is also offering a price matching deal for its orders. If a person purchases a game from the web site and then finds a lower price for that game on Steam, GameStop or GamersGate by the end of the day of your purchase Direct2Drive will give that person the price difference in Direct2Drive store credit. This promotion also ends on December 31

The independent game genre has gotten tons of attention in the past couple of years as titles like World of Goo, Braid and others have gotten the notice of mainstream publishers and high sales. However most indie game developers suffer from a lack of money and resources to make their games.

Today IGN announced an unusual effort to help promote the development of indie games with a project called Indie Open House. Basically IGN is inviting indie game development teams to come use office space at IGN's San Fransisco offices for free, including free internet kitchen and conference room use. Indie game teams can get input from IGN editors on their game ideas, get free licensing to use GameSpy's tools and more. IGN insists that this program is just for the support of indie game makers, saying, "We have no interest in owning any of the incredible content you create, nor binding you to any business obligations that prohibit your independence."

For some summer vacation is already over but for many are still waiting for Labor Day weekend to get in one last bit of vacation time. The folks at the Direct2Drive PC game download site have got the Labor Day weekend covered with not one but two special event sales. One is an "end of summer sale" where they will have prices cut on two games for just 24 hours. Today those games are Hearts of Iron III for just $5.95 and Civilization IV Complete for just $19.95.

In addition Direct2Drive celebrates its sixth anniversary this month by having new sales every week in September where all the games involved are priced at just $6. The games involved this week are Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Knight Bundle, Achtung Panzer, Champions Online, Defense Grid: The Awakening, Tropico 3, Tropico Reloaded, Football Manager 2010, and Penumbra Collection. A new set of $6 games will be revealed next Wednesday.