After quietly scrapping it months ago, Ubisoft representatives have officially announced, in an interview given to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, that the always-on DRM system previously used by the company will not reappear in any of their future PC releases. It will, instead, be replaced by an one-time on-line activation, after which the single-player portion of the games, devoid of any on-line components, will be playable even without any active Internet connection.

Despite the reporter's repeated attempts, however, they have blatantly refused to admit that the system was a mistake or a failure. In addition, and without offering any solid reason, they have stubbornly refused to provide any data to back up their claims about the extent of piracy, the losses caused by it or the effectiveness of DRM as a whole as a method of fighting it, though they were forced to back down on some of their most extreme earlier statements on the issue, blaming miscommunication.

On another note, in the same interview it was stated that, despite PC sales only making up 7% of the company's revenue in the last fiscal year [wonder why...], gamers will no longer need to wait nearly as long for the PC versions of Ubisoft games in the future.

Previously this month we had the great news that our database had all PC Engine / TurboGrafx CD games documented. Now we're proud to announce that all Odyssey² and Videopac+ G7400 games have their own entries here at MobyGames!

The Odyssey² (Videopac G7000 in Europe and just Odyssey in Brazil) has 87 games listed, including European and Brazilian exclusives, as well as prototype releases and homebrew games. The platform is very much alive, thank you, with more than 4 games released this year, one of them released earlier this month.

The Videopac+ G7400 (planned as the Odyssey³ but never released in the US) is an enhanced version of the Videopac, with 23 released titles, most of them backward compatible with the Videpac G7000. Among those releases are a few exclusives released for the Jopac, a version of the Videopac+ released only in France.

Of course this achievement doesn't compare with the completion of far more populated platforms such as the PC Engine mentioned here, but it is always satisfying to know that MobyGames fully documents a platform.

The work isn't finished, though. More games are about to be released, one of them scheduled for this month. But now it will be easier, as we will only need to keep up with those new releases.

Kotaku reports Paul Steed, artist on Wing Commander and Quake series, has passed away unexpectedly. "The circumstances of Steed's passing are unknown. Steed is survived by his wife and children."

That's right - all the 408 games for the PC Engine / TurboGrafx CD console have their MobyGames entries now, which officially makes MobyGames the fullest, most comprehensive information source for this platform in the world. It is the largest completed MobyGames platform so far.

What's missing is what our website does not accept: demos without extra content and unreleased prototypes, all of which account for the 20 or so extra "games" you may see on various lists. Every other disc ever released for that console in any region is documented, including unlicensed and all known homebrew games that were released on physical discs.

Without false modesty I want to pat myself on the back, since it was yours truly who contributed the majority of the entries.

I'd like to thank everyone who helped contributing and also approved my submissions. Of particular mention is the incredible work done by Jotaro Raido. Not only did he help me avert mistakes and achieve a high level of accuracy with his valuable advice during approvals - he almost single-handedly filled up our PCE CD database with a vast amount of Japanese credits.

added new platforms Videopac+ G7400, Atom, Thomson TO 7, Sinclair QL

Added new platforms FM-7, SAM Coupe, and SuperGrafx

If you are a Tex Murphy fan and happened to complete Tex Murphy: Overseer, the last of his adventures, you will know that the game ends with a cliffhanger. There were originally going to be two more games that follow on straight after it left off but these were eventually cancelled. Since then, Chris Jones and Aaron Connors had formed Big Finish Games. They also pitched their ideas for a new Tex Murphy game to several companies only to have them rejected.

Now they are turning to you, the fans, to help them fund money for the project. $450,000 is the target amount and you can pledge until Saturday, June 16 at 01:51 EDT. When the target is met, not only would the new game follow on from Overseer, but it will include everything that made the Tex Murphy games great, including the use of Full Motion Video and multiple paths/solutions. In addition, Project Fedora would be DRM-free.

The Kickstarter page can be found here.

Sharp X1, Amstrad GX4000, Casio Loopy, Casio PV-1000, GP2X, GP2X Wiz

We've added Acorn 32-bit, Commodore 16 - Plus/4, Nuon, SG-1000, ZX80, and ZX81

Since the beginning of gaming history there have only been two ways for developers to fund the development of a game: deal with a publisher, or fund it themselves. As the price of HD quality graphics caused the budgets of games to balloon over the past decades, increasingly only the large publisher model has been able to support commercial game releases. As a result publishers gained a stranglehold on game genres; refusing to fund any genre they deemed out of date or unprofitable.

Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert, both alums of Lucasarts during the graphical adventure heyday, had wanted to make a new game in that genre for years, but no publishers would bite. Because of that they turned to Kickstarter, a site designed to allow people to donate to projects that required any amount of funding. Essentially it allowed people to pre-purchase a game, although the game would only be made if enough people purchased it. Because of the genre's small fanbase and limited cross-over appeal Schafer figured they would be able to make a game if they reached a total investment of $400k, although he was dubious as to whether or not that was possible. The Kickstarter had broken $400k before the end of the first day and ended its 30 day run at over 3.3 million dollars.

Since then other developers have taken to using Kickstarter for similarly written-off game genres. A sequel to Wasteland, directed by Brian Fargo, director of the original Wasteland as well as Fallout and many other Black Isle games, reached its $1 million goal in less than two days and, as of this writing, sits at just under $2 million. A new Shadowrun game, directed by the creator of the license Jordan Weisman, has just been added to Kickstarter as of this writing, and looks to be well on the way to clearing its $400k goal.

Success with Kickstarter is not universal, however. All of these projects have had notable developers or licenses behind them. One project without any notable names attached, Takedown, a tactical shooter in the style of Rainbow Six, only barely cleared its $200k goal after a rename and a rewrite of the project statement. A Kickstarter to give the PSP game Class of Heroes 2 a deluxe physical special edition in the style of older Working Designs releases looks as if it will miss its $500k goal by a wide margin, due to a combination of unclear donation rewards, the mediocre quality of the game, and general apathy towards a physical PSP release in 2012. An RPG designed with the LGBT community in mind, Arkh Project, is collecting its donations piecemeal, and as of yet has only funded its concept art. It remains to be seen how much influence this donation/pre-buy model will have on the industry as a whole, especially for new franchises and genres.

Following up from the previous news item on it, the UK based GAME group has now gone into administration, protecting it from creditors and allow it to continue trading, previously having had no luck finding a buyer. This comes just hours after they delisted themselves from the London Stock Exchange.

Currently, the group plan on gutting the GAME side of their business, and replacing it with a new games specialist store from scratch, which they plan to unveil on Monday the 26th. However, this plan only involves the GAME stores the UK and Spain, with others in other countries most likely be closed down.

Game group have also announced they could be potentially be sacrificing the GameStation side of the groups business, except for the most profitable stores.

As a result of a supply dispute with EA over "manageable credit terms" with the group, stores in the GAME Group, which owns both GAME and Gamestation, will not be stocking Mas Effect 3, which is the first major blockbuster game of 2012, and any pre orders made with them have been refunded.

As a result, shares have taken a nose dive, falling down by 7%, to a mere 4.8p/share. This has seemingly lead to the beginning of the end for two of the UK's biggest game shops, which also has shops operating in Australia, with the groups directors saying the plug may now be pulled on them, which has been suffering from the economic climate in recent times, although reports indicate that they will neverless attempt to find a buyer.