MonkeyPaw Games recently experimented with Kickstarter for a physical deluxe edition of the PSP game, Class of Heroes 2. The funding drive ended with $96,951 raised of the company's $500,000 goal.

"Our Kickstarter for Class of Heroes 2 didn't reach our funding bar but I think it was a great experience," MonkeyPaw CEO John Greiner told Joystiq, during an interview about the announcement of Tomba! for PSN. "Class of Heroes isn't a well-known brand but we were able to educate people about the game and its features. That will help immensely when we release the digital version."

The drive may not have worked out to get Class of Heroes 2 onto UMD, but it served in an educational capacity about more than just Class of Heroes, Greiner suggested. "This drive was the first time a console game had been pushed on Kickstarter so that also entailed teaching people why we needed $500K. Not a small sum but not really that much when you consider this was a physical, deluxe boxed version of a console game."

The time of being born into power is coming to a close, as democracy sweeps across this world of ours. Now, if you want to be a leader of a country, you need to be smart – a student of conquest and diplomacy – and this weekend you can study up in Civilization V on Steam, free of charge.

You can install the game through Steam and play until you bring the world around to your type of thinking, up until 1pm PT on Sunday. And if you like Civilization V, it just so happens you can also purchase it at a 75% discount this weekend, which brings the price down to $7.49. A good ruler must also be able to spot a good bit of marketing. The expansion, Gods and Kings, is a little more than a month away, after all.

Most of us will never know what it's like to pilot a gigantic, bipedal mech in real life – that technology is years off – but the next best thing can be experienced if you've got an Xbox Live Gold subscription and a Kinect sensor.

A demo for Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor is available for download on Xbox Live right now. Perhaps you'll enjoy it as much as we did during our preview session back in March. If not, it's much easier to eject those gigglebites from your storage unit than it is to eject yourself from one of those massive machines.

Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor launches on June 19 in North America.

Steam has proven to be a boon for indie games like Super Meat Boy. Now we'll see if it's similarly helpful for movies about Super Meat Boy. Following its limited theatrical run, Indie Game: The Movie will be released digitally through Steam on June 12. Pre-orders are open for $9; normal price is $10. It'll also be streamable or downloadable from iTunes and the movie's own site the same day.

If you want it on a disc (remember those?) you can pre-order that, as well.

Google Play (formerly Android Market) now supports in-app subscriptions, so developers can optionally accept recurring payments for their apps. Subscriptions can be monthly or annual, and ... are all auto-renewing by default. Good news, developers! You'll get at least one accidental payment from a user.

First out of the gate to support this is Glu Mobile, which appears to be using it for recurring conversions of money to in-game credits in games like Frontline Commando. There's even API functionality allowing developers to use in-app subscriptions to determine access to non-Android-based properties, like websites – allowing an Android app to serve as the subscription system.

It may not be the next update (that's scheduled to be an Xbox approximation of Beta version 1.7.3, which adds pistons), but at some point the XBLA version of Minecraft will be brought up to parity with PC version 1.8, also known as the Adventure Update.

"There are no big architecture changes with the move to 1.7.3, so it's been quite straightforward. The move to 1.8.2 is much more challenging," 4J Studios co-founder Paddy Burns told OXM. "We are working with Daniel Kaplan at Mojang to define what is going in to the Xbox version, but the aim is to include as many of the PC features that make sense on the Xbox as possible. The game isn't Minecraft on the Xbox, it is Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, so it isn't really a direct port of the PC game."

When the Adventure Update went live last on PCs September, it introduced the Endermen, several new kinds of building materials, a new mode specifically designed for free-form creation (dubbed "Creative mode"), as well as more minor changes to combat mechanics and the introduction of a food system.

Blizzard has made a quick update on its forums for Diablo 3 today, saying a post-launch patch could be ready as soon as next week. The patch, along with a number of server updates and other incoming fixes, will "further address client issues and apply additional bug fixes." One of the biggest issues is that, while the servers were bobbing up and down like buoys in the ocean last week, lots of players weren't able to earn achievements. Blizzard says it's still working on a solution.

Meanwhile, the real-money auction house has yet to be given a release date. It was supposed to be online earlier this week, but was pushed back after launch last week, and is now delayed indefinitely. "More information soon," says Blizzard.

Finally, Blizzard claims it's following the security concerns of players closely. According to the company, there is no "server spoofing" going on, official Blizzard servers themselves haven't been compromised, and Blizzard Authenticators are still the best way to keep an account secure. There's no word on the PvP update or any post-launch content yet – Blizzard's main goal at this point is to make sure the game is running steadily and securely.

The sudden firing of all 379 employees at 38 Studios and Big Huge Games today was a blow to the industry, even for those of us who expected it. Soon after news broke, many developers, artists, designers, PR people, journalists and fans took to the Internet to express frustration and anger -- and to help.

On Twitter, the hashtag "#38jobs" rose to trending in the US, with people shouting out which studios were hiring and generally sending support to those let go today. A Facebook group titled "38Jobs" popped up around the same time. Freelance games journo Alex Rubens gathered all of these jobs tips into a Google Doc that currently sports 84 studios with openings, including Irrational Games, Bungie, Activision, Klei Entertainment, Rockstar and other major and indie companies.

Access the full list here; it is still in the process of being updated and refined, courtesy of Rubens and The Side Of The Gaming Industry That Proves We're Not All Trolling Douchebags.

We've been pretty worried about the fate of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD's soundtrack after we caught word that the remake probably wouldn't have all of the songs featured in the first two Pro Skater titles, stemming from licensing issues and whatnot. Now that the complete soundtrack has been released, though, we're feeling a little more confident about hitting the asphalt goofy-style once more.

The complete track list can be found after the break, and we're glad to say that "Superman" by Goldfinger and "When Worlds Collide" by Powerman 5000 are both present and accounted for. The new replacement tracks include stylistically appropriate songs such as "Flyentology" by hip-hop artist El-P (featuring Trent Reznor). El-P once featured on the Del the Funky Homosapien track "Offspring," and Del's song "If You Must" was on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 soundtrack. If we're playing by Six Degrees of Separation rules, we can call that a winner.

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Here at Joystiq, we spend most of our time hunched over laptops pumping out a steady stream of news for you to consume. But every now and again, one of us is ripped out from behind the comfort of our mobile workplace to talk gaming news with a mainstream outlet – today is such a day.

Following the unfortunate events at 38 Studios and Big Huge Games, News Editor Alexander Sliwinski took to Boston-area affiliate Fox 25 News to talk all things 38 and Rhode Island. We're hoping that his dashing suit and suave demeanor will help to convince you that our whole staff is made up of debonair jetsetters, even if we know in our hearts that's a stone-cold lie.

If you read yesterday's European pre-order news for Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and were left wondering how you could get Ancient Ogre in your life over here in the colonies, we now know, and the answer is ... GameStop.

GameStop pre-orders of TTT2 will get day-one access to four DLC characters: Ancient Ogre, Kunimitsu, Michelle Chang, and Angel. Best Buy and Amazon pre-orders only get Michelle Chang and Angel. Don't worry, though, we're sure the other two will be released as regular DLC soon enough.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 comes to PS3s worldwide September 10, and Xbox 360s in North America one day later.

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Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee gathered his experts on finances and bond laws to discuss the dire situation of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning publisher 38 Studios today, opening with a clear summation: "It's not a good situation; I'm not here to deliver good news."

Just an hour before the conference, news broke that all 379 staff of 38 Studios and its property Big Huge Games had been laid off. Chafee's adviser John Savage answered the first question regarding the layoffs: "In my conversations today, there were no discussions about layoffs."

Chafee agreed, saying "nothing changed today," and the tone of the conference was effectively set.

Of the layoffs that his administration wouldn't acknowledge, Chafee suggested, "Well, they could be rehired. Some investor might come in."

In a related optimistic response, Chafee said he believes 38 Studios will be able to hit its payment benchmarks, banking on the "emotional attachment" of gamers to the Amalur universe. "I would suspect that they are going to be on time and at the proper amount," he said. "All that investment, all that adherement to benchmarks. I think is going to be accurate in the end."

At the moment, Chafee said he couldn't assign blame in the situation to anyone specifically, but he did say "that's gonna come over time if we're not successful in getting this company financially solvent."

To keep 38 Studios solvent will be "very, very expensive," Chafee said, taking "tens of millions of dollars" in marketing alone. These projections come from "industry experts," who also told Chafee that he was doing the right thing the entire time. "Every indication I got from all this process is that everything is going according to the business plan," Chafee said.

"I asked the experts: What could have we done better? And they were telling me, 'You did everything right. You put your money in, you supported the game, and you're better off not meddling.' If I had meddled there wouldn't be all this violence in these games, all the sexism."

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning sold 1.2 million units in its first 90 days, but for 38 Studios to break even it would have had to sell 3 million, Chafee said. Even though 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling said the game "outperformed EA's projections," Chafee was forced to disagree.

"The game failed," he said.

Despite Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning selling "1.22 million copies in its first 90 days" according to 38 Studios head Curt Schilling, it apparently never crested the 3 million mark it needed to break even. "The game failed, the game failed," Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee told attendees of a press conference this afternoon.

According to "experts" speaking with Chafee's office, Reckoning needed to sell over 3 million copies "just to break even," never mind profit. The action RPG was released this past February to critical praise and modest initial financial success. It was credited with saving Big Huge Games from destruction back in 2009 when 38 Studios picked up the Baltimore studio, primarily for repurposing an already-in-production RPG into what we now know was Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

Both 38 Studios and Big Huge Games laid off their staffs this afternoon amidst major financial trouble at 38.

Along with omniscient battle control, the Summoner gets two pets, can levitate for 15 seconds, build an army from sentient crystal and basically wreak havoc on the battlefield, as the above video shows. The Summoner DLC pack is available via Steam for $4.

Bethesda is making good on all of the features seen in the Skyrim sizzle video, like the Kinect stuff added earlier this month and those snazzy new kill cams. The next addition to the game will be mounted combat, the Bethesda blog has revealed. Finally you will no longer need to dismount before you punch that dragon to death.

There's no word on when the update will be available on consoles right now, but if you've got the game on Steam, you can opt into the beta version and test out mounted combat in Skyrim immediately. For the full patch notes, hit up the source link below.

38 Studios and Big Huge Games have both let go of their entire staffs, a source with knowledge of the situation tells Joystiq. Following reports that 38 Studios stopped paying staff on May 1, and just an hour before a scheduled press conference in Rhode Island addressing the recent 38 Studios financial debacle, both the Providence, RI-based 38 Studios and the Baltimore, MD-based Big Huge Games are no more.

"Big Huge Games was home for my wife and me for our adult lives so far. I'll miss it terribly, but so proud. Good night and good luck," former Big Huge Games lead world designer Colin Campbell said on his Twitter account. Big Huge's latest release was the moderately successful Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The studio was picked up by 38 Studios back in 2009, and it crafted the first entry in 38's ambitious new universe: Amalur.

The recent financial tumult arose following a defaulted payment from 38 Studios to the Rhode Island state government on May 1, indicating much larger financial issues that could ultimately lead to Rhode Island taxpayers owing up to $112.6 million between 2013 and 2020. It's unclear whether today's layoffs mean 38 Studios is unable to pay back the approximately $50 million its owes Rhode Island of a planed $75 million loan. If that's the case, Rhode Island will take over ownership of the Amalur IP, valued at around $20 million.

We expect to hear more at a scheduled press conference this evening held by Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee.

Update: WPRI got ahold of the internal memo to employees at 38 Studios, which reads: "The Company is experiencing an economic downturn. To avoid further losses and possibility of retrenchment, the Company has decided that a companywide lay off is absolutely necessary. These layoffs are non-voluntary and non-disciplinary. This is your official notice of lay off, effective today, Thursday, May 24th, 2012." Big Huge Games and 38 Studios collectively employed 379 full-timers as of March 15, according to the report.

Alliance operatives, word has come down from command – we've got a new directive for this weekend's Mass Effect 3 combat initiatives. Operation Shieldwall commences this Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern Earth Time, but due to our failure with last week's Operation Silencer, expect to encounter more enemy Banshees out there.

The goal for Operation Shieldwall is to promote a total of 50,000 operatives across the Alliance for a Victory pack; promote three characters yourself and you'll be awarded a Commendation pack. Operation Shieldwall concludes on Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern Earth Time.

Outside of workshopping "challenge maps" for Canabalt, creator Adam Saltsman has been pretty mum on any kind of updates or changes for the free-runner ... until now. Rather than do a sequel, Saltsman is considering a free update that would add local multiplayer for up to two people, eight new hardcore game modes with corresponding leaderboards, and achievements for Game Center.

Saltsman also kinda joked about Canabalt without rooftops, as seen in the image above – sounds great to us because maybe then we'd stop jumping into walls. This was more of a hypothetical than anything, though Saltsman hasn't officially ruled it out. Maybe it'll be the most hardcore mode of them all: You spawn and then immediately fall to your death.