Blizzard have released a special statement regarding all Battle.net accounts stating that there was some sort of hack or "unauthorized illegal access" to a large quantity of US Battle.net accounts.  According to Blizzard no credit card or billing address information was obtained, but email addresses, encrypted passwords, and security questions were all stolen.  While the chance of the information actually being utilized is slim, Blizzard recommends you change your password immediately. 

SteelSeries, makers of gaming peripherals, came out swinging at E3 2012 this year with five product announcements all centered around partnerships with groups and games within the industry.  We got some eyes on time with all of them at the show and there's definitely a commitment to quality and detail here.  Let's look at what's available.

Full disclosure: I am not a Blizzard fanboy.  There, I said it.  Wait, don't freak out!  I'm not a Blizzard hater, either.  I've played through Diablo and some of the sequel.  I dabbled in WarCraft before there was a "World of."  I Zerg rushed with the worst of them in StarCraft.  I did all of that and more - a decade ago.  I have never owned a gaming PC, ever.  I mooched accessed Blizzard titles through a steady stream of college friends and roommates back in the late 90's and early 00's.  Once I moved on I never looked back.  Somehow, I found myself at Blizzcon 2011 last Friday.  There were sights, there were sounds, there were many announcements, and not so much as a whisper of StarCraft: Ghost.

Hey there!  Blizzcon 2011 is in full swing, and Co-Optimus was awesome enough to let me cover it.  Now, I'm not what you would call a "Blizzard Expert," or even a "PC gamer," but I can take a damn fine grainy photo or two!  Feast your eyes on some of the sights of Blizzcon 2011!  Blizzard out did themselves this year, with several gigantic bad-ass character statues.  I also took a trip through their art gallery, as well as captured some of the tournaments, panels, and presentations in action.  We'll have more news from Blizzcon for you soon!

Nancy returns with another World of Warcraft themed tale rife with the charming banter of two gamers each in their own crises - one prepping for a raid...and one prepping for a social evening.

In a surprise move today, Blizzard has dropped the previous 10 and 14-day trial time restrictions on World of Warcraft.  Players interested in trying out the co-op friendly MMORPG can now play the base game for free up to a maximum character level of 20, including draenei and blood elf characters.   The only requirement is you have a Battle.net account and an Internet connection.

Our request for guest entries did not go unheeded! First up is the energetic account of a marriage dragged through three MMOs and still kicking.

If you had told me one year ago that I’d be playing World of Warcraft on the PC, and that I’d actually enjoy it so much that I considered buying hardware specific for it, I’d have called you insane. Yet here I am with a giant glowing World of Warcraft gaming mouse in my hand.

Blizzard has just released a new video retrospective that looks at the 20 year history of the company.  The beefy video that weighs in at almost an hour long shows the company history from Silicon & Synapse after founders Mike Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham met at UCLA up until modern day.  Its incredibly facinating to see the work that went into early Blizzard titles like Lost Vikings and Rock & Roll Racing - a small team in a 600 square foot office coding, creating and goofing off.  Honestly the video is way more entertaining than it should be.

What happens when you put together two things that are awesome?  Apparently, you get awesome squared; need proof?  Just check out Starcraft 2 mod called World of Starcraft.  It combines two things we love (namely, World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2) into something that can only be described as "full of win".  Though the mod is only in a pre-alpha state at the moment, it looks quite highly polished already.  So far, the focus is on Terran infantry units as player characters, but can Zerglings or Zealots be too far behind?  The real question here is: why didn't Blizzard do this themselves, five years ago?

This Week in Co-Op, Mike and Nick head to the land of Azeroth where they play World of Warcraft and the latest expansion pack - Cataclysm.  This is Nick's foray in WoW, while Mike is a 6 year veteran. 

Here we are: World of Warcraft. Whether you see it as the most successful Western MMO, or an elaborate Skinner Box designed to trap players with addictive personalities, there’s no denying its superlative craftsmanship compared to other entries in this genre.

Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, the weekly feature where we look at gaming news around the industry.  Here are this week's stories for August 16th, 2009 through August 22nd 2009.  

While we don't list MMOs, or cover them on this site, games like World of Warcraft are sort of "implied co-op."  The nature of MMOs are to work as a team against hordes of enemies.  The reason we can't cover them is there's simply too much information unique to each game, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about them at all!