Recently on Ars Technica they reported that Valve has admitted to accidentally banning over 12,000 CoD:MW2 players from the game due to an erroneous detection by the Steam software. According to Valve, the bans occured over a span of two weeks during which the disk image of the game was being updated.

Gabe Newell had this to say to effected users:

The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game. This wasn’t a game-specific mistake. Steam allows us to manage and reverse these erroneous bans (about 12,000 erroneous bans over two weeks). We have reversed the ban, restoring your access to the game. In addition, we have given you a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 to give as a gift on Steam, plus a free copy for yourself if you didn’t already own the game.

To correct this blatant mistake on Valve’s part, they have granted every effected Steam account with a free copy of L4D2 as well as one copy to give to a friend as a gift.

With the finals of the ESEA S6 LAN Playoffs & Finals having taken place only 2 weeks ago, the ESEA has announced that they have opened registration for the next season of their league. Registration will remain so until Monday August 23rd at 11:59pm EST.

There are several key changes from last season.

Key Changes From Season 6 to Season 7:

Increased prize pot from $50,000 to $56,550
Map rotations for each game will chosen by the community
Players banned for cheating in a non-league server will no longer result in matches being overturned
Increased number of League servers on new hardware to ease scheduling availability

With the announcement of season 7 also comes the announcement that everyone has been wondering about. ESEA has decided to drop support for the TF2 division unless 50 teams register for the Open league this season. The official announcement regarding this can be found below:

Lastly, as promised, we will be completely dropping all support for TF2 for Season 7, but there’s a catch. We’ve worked hard to address the many issues and suggestions TF2 players have had with our services including Client update response time (we’re down to an average of roughly 45 minutes), scrim servers (in public testing), as well as an Intermediate division. We’ve done our part, now it’s up to the community to man up, stop whining, and save TF2 on ESEA themselves. ESEA TF2 Season 7 will only happen if at least 50 TF2 Open teams are paid by the close of registration.

ESEA has also announced that they are removing the ESEA-Main Finals from the LAN schedule this season in order to raise the Invite division prize pots.

Click here to register for ESEA League Season 7.

EA Sports has announced the official soundtrack for Madden 2011. This year’s soundtrack will feature 23 songs including seven NFL Team fight songs.

The term ‘Madden Music’ has come to mean music that matches the intensity of the video game. This year, we wanted the music to not only define the game, but also the stadium experience. These are the classics that consistently bring NFL crowds to their feet. It’s an exciting new audio direction for Madden NFL, one that we know all fans will respond to. There is nothing like the experience of live football in a packed stadium, and the Madden NFL 11 soundtrack absolutely brings that excitement home.- Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing for EA

 Original Recordings:

– AC/DC – Thunderstruck
– Archie Eversole – We Ready
– Blur – Song 2
– Bush – Machinehead
– Guns N’ Roses – Welcome to the Jungle
– Kevin Rudolf featuring Lil’ Wayne – Let It Rock
– Kiss – Rock and Roll All Nite
– Ozzy Osbourne – Let Me Hear You Scream
– Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train
– The Hives – Tick Tick Boom
– Todd Rundgren – Bang the Drum
– Ying Yang Twins featuring Homebwoi – Halftime

Cover Versions:

– Rock N Roll Part 2 – as made famous by Gary Glitter
– We Will Rock You – as made famous by Queen
– Crowd Chant – as made famous by Joe Satriani
– Kernkraft 400 – as made famous by Zombie Nation

Team Fight Songs:

– Chicago Bears – Bear Down Chicago Bears
– Detroit Lions – Gridiron Heroes
– Green Bay Packers – Go Packers Go!
– Miami Dolphins – Miami Dolphins #1
– Minnesota Vikings – Skol Vikings
– Philadelphia Eagles – Fly Eagles Fly
– Washington Redskins – Hail to the Redskins

Source: EA Sports

Tonight at 7PM EST DJWheat and Day[9] will be going live for 12 hours for the Starcraft 2 Countdown Party. The event is taking place LIVE at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA. The entire event will be streamed live on ustream, which can be found below.

Over the 12 hours your favorite Starcraft pros will be doing interviews and commenting on the starcraft community. There will also be an in-game movie made with the Starcraft 2 map editor.

During the GameGune 2010 tournament, HLTV.org reported that the GameGune organization did not care about the spectators, as they allowed matches to be started up to a half an hour earlier than scheduled, making it hard for spectators to watch their favorite teams play.

Today, GameGune has released a statement in which they defended their response, but clarified their initial intention. The whole statement can be found below.

First of all, the title misquotes blatantly our words. Nobody from the organization said that and the only thing you will get writing this is making people think that GameGune is a tournament that does not give a damn about spectators, and that´s not even close to the truth.

The article is not sincere about what really happened. The schedule that ORG people sent to the press before the tournament is approximate and everybody knows that. If everything goes better than expected (which is what happened), and a match can start earlier, so it will. For us, the most important thing is to take care of players. Our goal is that when the tournament is over they are happy with the organization and the facilities, so they will repeat next year and tell everyone about us. If we were such a bad organization as the article seems to imply, teams would never come to our tournament year after year. You can ask every single team of the tournament if they have had any problem with org people, computers or schedules.

We´ve always asked every participant about their opinion in order to improve and that made us what we are now.  I know that advancing matches is not good for spectators and I want to apologise for the inconvenience we may have caused. But, as I said, it´s not true that we don’t care about spectators. From the very first match of the first group, HLTVs are up and running. We have every demo of every match recorded. We have all POV demos recorded. We also have server logs to do statistics with your website program. So, happily I can say that, the only problem in the tournament has been this 30 minutes of advancing the match. This could have been fixed if HLTV.org people had talked to ORG people right after the previous match and had asked when the next match was going to start rather than just writing down what the approximate schedule said.

To sum up, GameGune ORG is sorry for the inconvenience we may have caused, and we invite everyone to come to Bilbao and see how things are run here and how teams feel about the organization. Players would rather have an earlier start. We care about them because they are the single most important part of the tournament, because without them, there is no GameGune.

Nix0n from HLTV.org commented on the situation via the comments section of their website:

I would like to be the first to comment on the matter, as it was me who brought the post in the first place.

First of all I’d like to underline that GameGune for years I’ve been in HLTV.org, has always been very cooperative, with this year being no exception. MIRAA and I got picked up in the airport, dropped off at our hotel and generally served with the best conditions press could pray for. The GameGune organizers, especially zoR, made it really easy for us, in terms helping us getting HLTV setup, gathering POV demos and so forth.

Turning over to what was said to us, when we were confronted with the fact that a match in the lower-bracket would start 30mins earlier, I stressed that it is a really bad idea to pre-pone matches. As stated by zoR, matches could start earlier than schedule, where to I responded that they should not, drawing parallels to football, where this would never happen. I noticed that several users had complained about matches starting before time earlier in the tournament, which made me fight hard for the matches to begin at the “scheduled” time.

What I quoted zoR for (We don’t care about spectators, it is better for us and for the players), was his words and not something we fabricated. As nothing was recorded, it will come down to our word against his.

On a personal level, I can totally understand how zoR reacted to this. Had I been in his shoes, I would most likely have reacted the exact same way. Together with many of the other guys in the crew, I am a good friend of zoR for the past many years, which made it even harder to bring the post, as I knew it would do damage. I do however feel as a reporter, that we are obligated to report such situations, that it will damage a long-time friendship is simply the downside about getting close with the people who’s tournaments we cover.

As mentioned, I can totally understand that zoR feels offended and disappointed in a friend. I do however still think of zoR as a friend, if it’s likewise only zoR can decide.

The whole post can be found here

During Comic-Con today, the Capcom team introduced a trailer for one of their future games. That trailer pitted characters from both Street Fighter and Tekken against each other in a duel to the death.

Rumors are circulating that there will be two different versions of the game, produced by both Capcom and Namco that will play like either version that they are representing. For example, one version will play similarly to Street Fighter, while another will play just like Tekken.

Some videos of the trailer can be found below:

Source: 1Up

Coming from the Lower Bracket and having sent home Arbalet Dallas winners Na`Vi, Fnatic has managed to win the GameGune 2010 event.

Taking on the Frag eXecutors team, Fnatic came out strong, taking the first half of de_train by the score of 13-2. Unfortunately for them, FX showed why they belonged in the finals by coming back and equalizing the match, sending it to an unexpected overtime. With both teams at the top of their game, the first overtime resulted in a tie. However, in the second overtime, Fnatic managed to pull ahead and take the map, and moving the finals to 1 more map.

On de_nuke, Fnatic pulled ahead for the second time in as many matches but once again FX proved that they wouldn’t go down easily. With the score at 13-13, Fnatic finally made their push to the finish and took the map and the championship by the score of 16-13.

With this win, Fnatic will take home €12,000, while FX will take home €6,000.

Image courtesy of HLTV.org

In a report from HLTV.org, it has been discovered that GameGune officials are not sticking to the official schedule. Instead, the players are given the ability to determine when they play. Matches are starting 30-45 minutes earlier than scheduled, making it impossible for spectators to successfully watch a match.

When approached about this situation, GameGune officials had the following to say (taken via HLTV.org excerpt):

When confronted with HLTV.org’s opinion once again, GameGune organizers responded “We don’t care about spectators, it is better for us and for the players”.

In an industry made by spectators and fans, to say that you don’t care about them is sickening. What do you think about that statement?

The first day of GameGune has come to a close and 14 teams have made it out to the next day of action. Included in those 14 are the likes of mouz, Na`Vi, fnatic and FX.

Fnatic proved they were in perfect CS shape after taking off during Arbalet Dallas to attend a PR trip by putting up over 20 rounds in every match they played. Against dellum Fnatic managed to win by the score of 23-7. Against Antwrep Aces, the score was 21-9 and against prodigy-esc the final score was 25-5.

Na`Vi, fresh off their win at Arbalet Dallas, managed to nearly do the same, however a close call against D4Gaming stopped the streak, winning by only 4 rounds.

The action will continue tomorrow with the bracket stage of play.

Image courtesy of HLTV.org