On May 8, at the CTIA Wireless 2012 show in New Orleans, Nokia announced that they are partnering with a bunch of top-tier brands to bring their various apps and games to Windows Phone, with a lot of those apps and games being exclusive to Nokia’s Lumia line of Windows Phones.

Some of the highlights from their press release:

PGA Tour (exclusive to Lumia for 12 months)

In addition to live tournament scoring, highlights and player information, the app provides interactive, augmented coverage of select events and holes, showing each player’s exact position and scoring information. This allows fans to “get inside the ropes” and follow all players competing on the PGA TOUR.

ESPN (exclusive to Lumia until May 2013)

This app already exists on the Lumia devices, and is in addition to the ESPN ScoreCenter app that is available to all Windows Phones. The Lumia app will see some functionality updates and in addition, the ESPN Fantasy Football app (another Lumia exclusive) will be made available later in the Fall to align with the NFL season.

Rovio

After a back-and-forth on whether they are going to build Angry Birds Space for Windows Phone or not, Rovio is now building a dedicated design and development team to create games for Lumia and other Windows Phone devices. That’s quite a scoop for Nokia from the rather negative start that the game maker had with Microsoft and Windows Phone.

Nokia and Rovio will partner to develop innovative new consumer products and content exclusively for Nokia Lumia smartphones, alongside cross platform multi-channel integrated marketing initiatives.

EA

EA will be bringing some of their most popular titles to Lumia and other Windows Phones, including FIFA, Madden NFL, NBA Jam, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR®, Mirror’s Edge and Yahtzee to add to the several titles they already have in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Groupon (exclusive to Lumia for 6 months)

There is already an official Groupon app which is going to get some major updates, including a cool and innovative augmented reality feature to find deals near you.

Tripdots (exclusive to Lumia for 3 months)

Tripdots helps vehicle owners optimize their driving behaviors while connecting with other vehicle owners and sharing driving efficiency achievements via social networks. The app lets users monitor the operation of their vehicles to enable cost savings through better understanding fuel economy.

PayPal

Yet another “key” app missing in the Windows Phone ecosystem is for the popular PayPal service. PayPal is going to work with Nokia to not only bring their app to Windows Phone, but also use functionality like Live Tiles to enhance the user experience.

AOL Entertainment Hub (exclusive to Lumia for 3 months)

Whether you want to listen to one of 55,000 radio stations via SHOUTcast, stream free music albums with AOL’s Listening Party or view Trailers and Movie listings, the AOL Entertainment Hub delivers everything you need.

Yet another app where Live Tiles are going to be used to enhance the user experience:

“The live tiles on Nokia Lumia helped us create an awesome app that makes it easy to stay in the know on what’s happening in Film, TV, Radio, Concerts and Music right from your home screen,” said Sol Lipman, Director of Mobile First products at AOL.

TIME magazine

Utilizing the stunning Windows Phone UI, the app will enable users to view TIME.com content, receive breaking news alerts, watch rich media content including video and share stories via the Windows Phone People Hub, while delivering the latest news and stories to users first via Live Tiles.

Newsweek – The Daily Beast

The Daily Beast app delivers the latest content through Live Tiles and combines the unique style of The Daily Beast with the Windows Phone UI to deliver a stunning experience. For users who only have minutes to digest the latest news, the app also delivers The Cheat Sheet – your one stop must have reads from across the world – uniquely designed for Windows Phone.

Box app for Windows Phone

Box, another oft-requested app, will finally come to Windows Phone with support for nine languages.

EA has some really bright ideas about marketing this wonderful commodity called a “video game” to potential buyers called “video gamers”, who have a fairly good idea about what this commodity should be. However EA does not, which has been repeatedly shown throughout its recent debacles. Not a month goes by without EA doing something wrong that is so basic that one wonders just how they did manage to become one of the biggest game publishing houses in the world.

Players (“Rockers”) of Rock Band for the iOS – a $4.99 game on the iTunes – were recently accosted by a friendly popup that said:-

On May 31, ROCK BAND will no longer be playable on your device. Thanks for rocking out with us!

No apologies, no explanations. Just that rather verbose message. What gives?

Many are of the opinion that relicensing the music was too expensive for EA, now that they already had the players’ money, so they just let the game “expire”. See, when you ‘buy’ an app on the iTunes Store, you are just buying the license to use it, which can be revoked at any time by the licensing authority – in this case EA.

So what can you do about it? Nothing much, although you can try to get a refund from EA. You can also email Tim Cook of Apple and tell him how this sort of behavior from a licensing company is atrocious.

[Picture via Reddit]

I am a big fan of the FIFA franchise and have played it on the PC and Xbox as well. However, I have been waiting for a while to get my hands on the next version of FIFA from EA Sports called FIFA Street.

FIFA Street compromises of 5-a-side match which provides authentic street soccer, styles and stars from around the world. It claims to provide an authentic feel to the game which if similar to FIFA 2012 is going to blow you away.

The demo will allow you to play at the at the Amsterdam Square stadium and choose between teams like Manchester City and AC Milan  or real life street football legends.

• Download FIFA Street Demo for Xbox 360
• Download FIFA Street Demo for PS3

EA Sports will be releasing the full game on March 13th, but you can pre-order your copy of FIFA Street right now for $59.99 on Amazon. Amazon is also offering a pre-order bonus where will receive in-game access to an Adidas all-star team featuring 13 of the greatest footballers in the world, including Messi, Kaká, Robin Van Persie, Nani, David Silva as well as the Lionel Messi Barcelona venue. FIFA Street will be available for the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms only.

Joystiq reports that the puke-worthy EA has actually gone and done something reasonably intelligent with its Origin digital distribution system. Apparently many users of the Day One Patch forums reported that copies of Dead Space 2 – that they had purchased over Steam – had magically appeared on their Origin game library, with the same CD Key (i.e. an identical copy). While this is slightly unnerving, some more data that surfaced said that it was not all that malicious since Origin is known to look through files of the user’s computers (much like Steam itself does) and send back relevant statistics to EA.

It seems Origin looks through the games and filenames present in the user’s computer, match it with its database and if the user had bought an EA game through another platform, it automatically adds it to its own game library. Of course there are some checks here and there built into its system. While this is actually pleasing for once it is slightly creepy and we would all be a little more comfy if Origin announced that it has found such and such game in your system and will be registering it with Origin as well. That way people will actually like Origin. But this being EA, they again missed out on a lovely opportunity to show how Origin is better than other platforms in this respect.

They still have not convinced me to buy Mass Effect 3 though.

FIFA by EA Sports is one of the most played sports game in the world. Earlier, it faced heavy competition from PES (Pro Evolution Soccer) in terms of game play, but since FIFA 11 was released, it has improved in leaps and bound. FIFA 12 is the best from EA Sports so far. The brilliant individual player control and intelligent CPU game play along with numerous new features in various modes has made it the best football game in the market.

FIFA 12 Arena

Let’s start with the game play; the player control has been massively improved. Unlike earlier versions of FIFA, FIFA 12 has slowed down the game speed which gives the gamer a fraction more time to swiftly control their player by just jogging or jogging while pressing the Pace control button, it also makes skill moves easier to perform during matches.

FIFA 12 Side Selection

FIFA 12 On going Game Screen

You can make the game play more realistic by turning off numerous Auto assist options like pass power, and direction  from settings. Some players have specialties. For example Wayne Rooney has engine, distance shooter and clinical finisher specialties; this makes his distance shooting more effective in scoring goals and also has high scoring percentage inside the box. This brings the skills of individual players in the games closer to what they are in real life. If a player has a clear view of goal then he will score 8 out of 10 times.

FIFA 12 Rooney Scoring

FIFA 12 Real Life Collision Impact

EA Sports has also introduced levels in FIFA 12 which helps to find suitable opponents  during online play and ranking yourself with your friends. Penalties have also changed in FIFA 12, which now has a meter. You have to shoot when the pointer is on the green patch. When shot at either end of the bar, the player usually slips, which is fun to watch. The intelligence of the CPU can be described by the fact that if a player like Peter Crouch is in the penalty box, the winger of his team will cross the ball immediately (note: Peter Crouch is 6 feet 7 inches tall), but if a shorter striker is present it will try to cut in with the ball. Midfielders like Fabregas are quick in picking out passes because of his high vision compared to Michael Carrick or Ji Sung Park.

FIFA 12 Detailed Player Movement

FIFA 12 Scoring by head

EA Sports also added a new style of defending called Tactical defending. Generally, people who have played an earlier version of FIFA used the sprint plus standing tackle button to win the ball. But the Tactical defending takes it to a new level and is extremely challenging for players. In Tactical defending, you have to control the direction and speed of the defender plus jockey and contain the opponent, then tackle only at the right time to win the ball, just as in real life. Tackle early, the player will go past you and tackle late, you will foul them. Tactical defending is very difficult to get used to, and frankly speaking, I couldn’t get used to it and switched back to old style of defending. However, many people will surely like this new style.

The most played mode in FIFA is the manager mode. I love this mode as it gives me a chance to do whatever I want to do with my team. In FIFA 12, the interface has been completely changed with most of the default screen occupied with News from around the football world. The news of your club and your players’ performance are highlighted here.

FIFA 12 Manager Mode Default Screen

Rotating your squad is also a big challenge, as Form and Morale affect the attitude of the players. If you don’t play a certain player for a long time he’ll wish to leave the club. His form and morale will also dip as a consequence. Giving a chance to new players frequently will give their form and morale a boost, and you will be notified when that happens by a pop up message from that player after matches. The scouting network has changed a bit. Now you can simultaneously send three scouts to different locations. Sending and calling back a scout takes a few days, unlike earlier, where they could be called up immediately and sent to another location. As a manager, you can now get involved more deeply in the game because of the newly introduced option to comment on your team or opponent team before certain matches. You can use this opportunity to praise or motivate your team or any individual player which will increase the morale. At the same time, you can comment on the opponent team or players. Some people love to buy and sell players in manager mode, but the club budget can hinder the fun. In FIFA 12 you can choose your budget allocation between transfer budget and wage. You can decrease the wage bank to increase the transfer budget.

FIFA 12 Manager Mode Budget Allocation

Apart from Manager Mode, one other mode which I like is Virtual Pro. You can create your own professional player and then complete the various accomplishments to increase his ratings. This is very addicting because of the fun of the accomplishment. The online playing option has been improved, and now you can play with players of your level, who will be automatically searched for. Various options, like online tournaments, increase the fun. But you need to have a fast and unlimited internet connection to play online. My 512kbps internet connection is slow to react to my controller action, hence it is difficult to play. An internet connection of 1Mbps should be good enough for a smooth experience. There is also a FIFA 12 Store where you can buy various additional features from EA, like Live Season, in which the player form in game is updated every week based on their real life performance. There are many other additional features which you can buy.

FIFA 12 Post Match

Overall the game is the best that EA Sports have produced so far. Excellent and intelligent game play makes it the best football game currently in the market. The real life impact of collision between players brings the experience closer to real life. If you are a football lover then don’t think even once before buying FIFA 12, and if you haven’t played football, FIFA 12 will surely bring your interest to the game. I rate FIFA 12 a solid 9 out of 10. You can’t afford to miss this one.

EA and Sony have become recipients of yet another slew of criticism for the addition of some unsavory legal clauses in their Terms of Service (ToS). When you agree upon these clauses (whenever the user clicks on the I agree to the terms and conditions’ checkbox), you are essentially waiving your rights to sue the company over any legal issue with the use of its products. This is obviously completely unacceptable!

In the age of technology and considering that the products in question are digital distribution platforms, it seems completely cranky that the only way to get yourself released from these binding clauses is by sending snail mail with your dissent to the clause to the company’s headquarters! I mean, think about it, you buy the game online, download it from the net over wireless and you have to go out into the wild urban areas populated by terrifying cars and motorbikes just to send a piece of data to the company!

A bunch of gamers from Chicago have made their website called Gamers Opt-Out that allows you to send the opt-out letter online, for free. Indeed, it will not cost you a penny to send the letters to the respective companies. Just fill up the online form and the good folks at Gamers Opt-Out will send the mail for you. The site primarily functions via the donations received by other gamers that help send the snail mail (it actually costs money! How strange!)

Jokes apart, I think the people here have shown the world that concerned gamers do exist. Mad props to them! (If you can, please donate to them!)

In all honesty, Sony’s lawsuit prevention clause in its PlayStation Network Terms of Service (ToS) is quite fancy. If you agree to section 15 of its new ToS, you are essentially waiving your right to a class-action lawsuit against Sony Network Entertainment International, LLC (SNEI) and in effect you are giving the gaming giant free reign to do whatever it wishes to do with your account and registered games.

Electronic Arts (EA), the gargantuan beast of gaming decided that Sony’s ToS change is pioneering and went about copying that to its own End User License Agreement (EULA) for the Origin digital distribution store that it operates. If you accept these terms of service, you will be denied the right to sue and bring the company to trial by jury. Only individual cases will be considered against the giant.

By accepting these terms, you and EA expressly waive the right to a trial by jury or to participate in a class action.
YOU UNDERSTAND THAT BY THIS PROVISION, YOU AND EA ARE FOREGOING THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL.
YOU AND EA AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN YOUR OR ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING.

One can opt out of both of these binders by submitting a written application to the company, but why is that even necessary when these clauses can be done away with entirely?

It is rather sad to see that these pinnacles of the industry put forth these gags against the civil voice instead of making sure that the service they provide is hassle-free and fair for both the users as well as the developers.

A more charming title would have been Dragon Age II Fades Away from Steambut not many readers might get the reference. Nevertheless, the title rings out true. The game has been removed from Valve’s digital distribution platform Steam. This comes on the eve of the launch of the new downloadable content (DLC) Legacyfor the troubled role playing game.

I say troubled, because it had tremendously huge shoes to fill. The shoes being Dragon Age: Orgins‘. I, on the other hand, enjoyed the game more than the original and its expansion pack Awakening, partly because of how Mass Effect-y the second game felt and the more streamlined quests. It did have a lot of bugs, some tawdry continuity issues and the same I never meant to say thatmoments in the dialogue circles.

On this matter, Electronic Arts’ SVP of Global E-Commerce said:

At EA, we offer our games and content to all major download services including GameStop, Amazon, Direct2Drive and Steam,

Unfortunately, Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to sell downloadable content. No other download service has adopted this practice. Consequently some of our games have been removed by Steam.

We hope to work out an agreement to keep our games on Steam.

So it seems that Valve had some trouble with the DLC being downloaded on the game’s own launcher, or EA could not sort out licensing and payment terms for the game on Steam. Either way, it is sorry to see two large companies bickering about this. I hope more games are not taken down from Steam on the pretext of T&C violation and put on EA’s Origin.

Today, Electronic Arts announced that it was acquiring PopCap Games for $750 million in cash and stock, plus up to $550 million in earnouts over the next couple years contingent on some revenue targets. Rumors of the acquisition started last month, after a report by Techcrunch.

PopCap was started eleven years ago, and is now of of the biggest creators of social games like Bejeweled, Plants vs Zombies, Baking Life and Zuma Blitz with nearly 17.5 million monthly active users.

This isn’t EA’s first acquisition in the social gaming space. It acquired Playfish in 2009 for nearly $300 million and has subsequently been able to become one of the biggest names in social gaming with more than 30 million monthly active users.

With the PopCap acquisition, EA would become the number two social game company in terms of users, with over close to 50 million users, second only to Zynga, which has more than 275 million.

EA is still far behind Zynga, but with too much competition, acquisitions like these are the only way to grow fast in this exploding space of social gaming. Zynga is expected to raise close to $1 billion in the coming months, via the IPO route. Activision, EA’s closest competitor, may also be planning to snatch a few social gaming companies in the future.

EA may be in talks with PopCap Games, the creator of popular games like Bejeweled and Plants vs Zombies about a possible acquisition. A report by Techcrunch suggests that EA may be planning to buy PopCap for a sum over $1 billion.

PopCap has raised just about $22.5 million in funding so far, so it would obviously mean a huge payoff for its investors and founders. With PopCap’s revenues hovering around the $100 million mark, the acquisition figure is at a 10x revenue multiple.

EA acquired Playfish in 2009 for around $400 million, but is still trying to become the dominant player in the mobile and social gaming space. With the PopCap acquisition, EA might just manage to do that. Other major players in the space include Zynga and Rovio Mobile.

With the acquisition, EA may be able to boost its games portfolio to rival that of Zynga’s.

The deal is expected to close in a day or two. We will keep you updated.