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Nowadays we’re used to Gamestop’s pre-opening of video games and taping them shut to avoid returns, something that former frequent contributor James called our attention to originally. News today that Gamestop employees are being told to open the PC copy of Deus Ex Human Revolution and throw away the coupon that gives users free access to the OnLive version of the game is meddling in the extreme.

Over the weekend the Epic Games Forums admitted to being hacked. My brother James got this cheerful email:

Our Epic Games web sites and forums were recently hacked. After some downtime, they're back up and running now.

The hackers may have obtained the email addresses and encrypted passwords of forum users. Plaintext passwords weren't revealed, but it's possible that those passwords could be obtained by a brute-force attack on the encrypted passwords. Therefore, we have reset all passwords. Your new password at the bottom of this message.

The Unreal Developer Network (UDN) hasn't been compromised. Thankfully, none of our web sites ask for, or store, credit card information or other financial data.

We're sorry for the inconvenience, and appreciate everyone's patience as we wrestle our servers back under control.

Tim Sweeney
Founder, Epic Games Inc

So who else has been smacked around by the LulzSec hacker group's antics over the past week? EVE Online, Minecraft, Bethesda, Nintendo, PBS, the US Senate, and Sony Pictures (GameSpot).

It's funny how the forums for EVE at least were getting comments along the lines of "Hey it was funny when you went after Sony and the government, but now you're lame and just pissing us off."

It's not like any amount of complaining on forums will get these guys to stop stomping on servers and consumer services on the internet, but they need to understand that gaming is big business. And ISP's and carriers are big business.

If the carriers bring their proposals for low caps, throttled connections, and traffic limitations for consumers to the gaming companies as a solution to consumers hammering their networks with the help of infected computers their owners don't even know are infected, this could be the beginning of the end for the relatively discrimination-free internet we all want, an internet that is one of the best things to ever happen to video gaming and computing in general.

Is that what the hackers want?

The Minecraft creepers would just like to remind you that while it's all well and good to use a bed to skip over nighttime, and it's nice to get excited about taming a wolf, don't get so excited that you run out of your house first thing in the morning to see if wolves spawned without looking out of every window first. We are silent, we are relentless, and we will get you when you let your guard down. SSSSSS BOOM!

Minecraft 1.5 is headed our way next week with a bevy of updates including statistics tracking, achievements, powered minecarts, lightning, snow, and rain. The Nether is a zone I've never tried going in single player, but apparently one of its inhabitants will be coming out to play in the normal world in this update. If one of the many harmless pigs -- normally just a pork chop food source -- is struck by lightning he will become a zombie pigman.

For a test video of what this is looking like so far, check after the jump.

The PlayStation Blog has news of DCUO becoming a digital download on the PlayStation Store sometime soon, but the price tag is pretty steep. That’s the full $60 for the client software and first month of play time. Insert bellyaching about not having to print a disc, manual or key here, but I get it, they have to kiss the keister of retailers. At least, they have to until they discontinue the disc entirely and just sell it through the Store. Then we can see the price come down.