The Week in Review

This week we learn that Iran is cyber-bullying the BBC, Obsidian was one point away from payday and the Elder Scrolls may be going online in a massive way.

BioWare Responds to Mass Effect 3 Day-One DLC on Disc

Mass Effect 3‘s day-one DLC, From Ashes, has been somewhat of a hot topic for gamers amidst the launch of BioWare’s latest game. At first, it was the mere fact that it existed, then the importance of its content, and finally, the fact that someone found evidence of it on the launch disc, therefore hypothetically proving the developer’s claims of post-launch production less than honest. In the wake of these accusations, one of the game’s producers, Mike Gamble, has decided to clarify his, and the company’s, position. (Link)

Megaupload Founder Claims Many U.S. Government Users

The hammer fell on Megaupload in January, when U.S. government officials unsealed an indictment against its founder, Kim Dotcom, and other employees, claiming that copyright infringement through the service had cost rights holders more than $500 million in lost revenue. Dotcom himself was taken into custody by way of an anti-terrorism style raid on his New Zealand home and of course Megaupload and its related sites were all seized by the U.S. government. (Link)

BBC Points Finger at Iran for Cyberattack

On March 1st, some of the BBC’s servers were subject to a DDoS attack that prevented many sections of the worldwide service from accessing email. At the same time, the BBC detected attempts to block two satellites from broadcasting BBC Persian TV into Iran. The Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, is pretty sure that these two events are related, and probably came from a nation that sounds like a certain Flock of Seagulls song. You know the one. (Link)

Obsidian Lost Bonus for Fallout: New Vegas by One Metacritic Point

Deals between game publishers and developers are just as varied as one might find in any other production business, though the details that comprise them often never come to light. In the case of Fallout: New Vegas, the community recently got some rare insight from Chris Avellone, the co-owner of Obsidian, as to the nature of their arrangement with publisher Bethesda. According to a recent Tweet, his company’s work on the post-apocalyptic RPG was to be a one-time payment unless the game garnered a positive response on review aggregator Metacritic. (Link)

Report: Bethesda Working on Elder Scrolls MMO

This news comes from Tom’s Guide, a site that while quite respectable isn’t the sort of place you’d expect to break this kind of story. Still, they claim that anonymous industry sources have told them that Bethesda Softworks “will officially announce Elder Scrolls Online in May 2012.” Not entirely unexpected, given the lucrative potential of the MMO genre and how well the Elder Scrolls setting would lend itself to a vast, open-world online title, right? (Link)