Kotaku

It's a really huge deal in the industry right now...[Gamestop's] pre-order program, which they base their buys off of, is so important now. It's like life or death for some of these original, independent titles.

Holy crap! We got some good entries in our Dementium bandage contest. Tons of brave folks were more than willing to cover themselves in TP, band-aids, w/e to enter this contest. For that, respect and much love! We've picked our top ten finalists. Now, it's up to you Kotakuland to pick the winner. In the comments section, vote for ONE finalist that you like. Just one, not more than that. Voting ends at midnight, tonight. Congrats to the finalists!

I believe the total cost of materials is less than $1 - just a little bit more than a roll of Zewa toilet paper, some glue + crafty handiwork of my wife, since wrapping YOURSELF in TP is a feat I haven't yet mastered.

Those saucy wags over at Gamecock are expanding their Texas based business to include a UK office. In an interview with Next Generation, Gamecock founder Mike Wilson (no relation to our strapping Mark Wilson) had this to say:

We'll be so much better off having a presence over there and really controlling the marketing, PR and creative... It's mostly about us trying to give our developers the best deal we can across the PAL territories too, when doing a co-publishing deal, it's really hard to do that.

...we discovered that it's actually the letter of the law with Nintendo to put the publisher's name on the front of the box and the spine, and the developer only on the back. Obviously, this flies in the face of our philosophy of who deserves the credit, and how gamers can actually see who made the game they love or hate, and thereby develop a relationship with their favorite artists, just like authors, musicians, directors, and so on. Nintendo of America says it's a customer service issue, and they believe people might try to call the developer if they have a problem with the game, and they want them to call the publisher, who is the licensee of NOA.

Auran's massively multiplayer action RPG Fury just landed a distribution deal with relatively unknown publisher Elephant Entertainment, Gamecock announced today.

The deal gives Elephant exclusive retail distribution rights to the player-versus-player game. Checking out their website, it appears the publisher hasn't backed many games, but they did obtain the U.S. rights to Sword of the New World: Granado Espada.

Hit the jump for the full press release.

"It's been a blast getting Gamecock off the ground, but it's even more exciting to have our first two games coming out this October," said Mike Wilson, Grand Champeen of Gamecock. "These games showcase what developers - given the freedom to create - can accomplish. Both Auran and Renegade Kid are visionaries, and have stayed true to creating games that are fresh and that keep your adrenaline pumping."

After E3 proper shut down, the Gamecock crew held its "Up In Smoke" ceremony to commemorate and eulogize the Death Of E3. Not the end. The death. It was all scheduled to kick off at 4:20 PM—zany, no?—but in reality, finally found the energy to mobilize around 5. After a few keg pumped beers, watching various parade goers get made up and affixing our black Gamecock armbands, we started the one mile procession down to Venice beach, repeatedly answering two questions. One: "What's going on?" Answer: "It's a 'funeral' for E3." Two: "What's E3?" It was hot, long and at certain moments, things were throbbing.

I somehow managed to snap an appropriate 69 photos from the event, all of which are in our gallery. Mike Fahey's at the beer garden afterparty right now, drowning his sorrows. I'm sure he'll have more tales to tell for us later.