News Blips: New EGM Details, Madden on Facebook, No Dante's Inferno for Middle East, and More

Before you go and renew your former EGM-turn-Maxim subscription, you might want consider this:

News Blips:

Publisher Steve Harris recently posted some details on the new EGM, including subscription prices. Rates break down to six print issues and 26 premium digital issues for $14.99 or 12 print/52 digital for $24.99. How exactly the EGM[i]: The Digital Magazine will look is still a bit ambiguous, but Harris does tease about the product interfacing with the iPad and other tablet PCs. Do you now think the iPad is at least kind of cool? [EGM Now]

Peter Moore, the president of EA's sports label, recently revealed that his company plans on making a simplified version of the Madden franchise for Facebook. This installment of the popular football franchise is supposed to be similar to yet more accessible than its console brother. In other Madden news, EA's prediction (via Madden NFL 10) that the New Orleans Saints would win Super Bowl XLIV was correct. This is all part of a big EA conspiracy to take over football! It's rigged! Rigged, I tell ya! [SF Gate]

GamesLatest reports that Electronic Arts says that the company will not release Dante's Inferno in the Middle East. The publishing giant made this decision after going over "an evaluation process which is based on consumer tastes, preferences, platform mix, and other factors." GamesLatest notes that the United Arab Emirates banned Darksiders and God of War 3, the former for its religious content and the latter for simply having the word "God" in the title. Damn, being a fan of action games in the Middle East sounds pretty tough.

The British Columbia government plans to offer tax credits to film, TV, animation, and video-game industries that operate in the Canadian province. Industry group BC Interactive Task Force lobbied the BC government since last year and is currently working with them to flesh out some of the details of this new program. Watch out, video-game world, here comes Canada. [gi.biz]

Got any hot news tips? Send 'em over to: [email protected].

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Andrew Hiscock

February 08, 2010

Major studios already exist in Canada and many of the video games of note that have been released recently have come from studios in Canada (Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Dante's Inferno, etc). I know that's nit picky, but the video game world is quite aware of Canada

Frank Anderson

I'm so excited for the new EGM!!!!

They should really hire Brian Shirk!

Brendon Mroz

To jump in on Andrew's comment, last year the Ontario government gave $260 million to Ubisoft to form a new studio in Toronto. GO TEAM CANADA!

Toby Davis

Brian Shirk to EGM would equal another reason why i am getting a subscription to it :)

We must think alike, Toby!

Btw- do you really listen to country music? If you do you should get the Crzy Heart soundtrack. It is awesome!

@Frank That is all I listen to is country music :)

Alejandro Quan-Madrid

@Andrew, I knew Canada was already making some big games but I didn't realize they were churning out that many high-profile titles. Thanks for the info.

Rushan Shekar

So many other provinces have been giving tax credits that it's great to see BC stepping up its game. With Vancouver being one of the largest hubs for game development in the world, the provincial government really needs to keep it from being a desirable location. Tax credits in Ontario recently wooed Ubisoft over to Toronto after all. It could have been us!

Jake Jensen

Watch out, video-game world, here comes Canada.

I know you have already stated that you didn't know about all the high profile games, but EAC in particular has been churning out most of the EA Sports titles since the early 90s (FIFA Soccer, NHL, NBA, Fight Night, etc.) Big blockbusters like Splinter Cell and the new Prince of Persia series were also developed in Canada :)

@Jake, I knew about the Prince of Persia games but not about EA Sports. I didn't realize Bitmob has so many Canada/Canadian fans.

Reed Brown

I don't think you know what latter and former mean, or it was just a simple typo.

@Reed, ;) thanks.