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This lovely month of May has us giddy with excitement for E3 as we prep ourselves for sensory and gaming overload.  Check out what we’re anticipating based on the rumors that have been swirling around for the 2012 show. Also in this issue, we dive into how the carrot of freemium gameplay has effectively converted free players to paying players as well as how gaming has gone from acting as an afterthought for traditional entertainment (think videogames released after a theatrical release) to being fully incorporated and even influential to these releases.

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After five years in development, a slew of industry indie awards, and even some polarizing controversy surrounding its creator, Phil Fish, Fez finally launched on Xbox Live Arcade a couple of weeks ago. And despite a growing list of game-breaking bugs, an atypical Friday launch (most new titles release on Tuesday), and Xbox Live’s less-than-friendly-to-indie-titles UI, Polytron’s retro-themed puzzle-platformer managed over 20,000 day-one downloads and a 90 Metacritic score, putting it on par with Limbo, another critically-acclaimed indie darling. Regardless of its faults or praise, however, if you’re taking Fez on its initial appearance, playing it only as the aforementioned puzzle-platformer, then you’re not really playing Fez, and your “Get to the end” achievement actually means you’re only halfway through.

As spring hits into high gear, we look forward to brining you all of the bloomin’ gaming news (get it? Because flowers are blooming and so are our artic…ah, forget it!)

This month’s feature story hits on two things the masses are loving the most – casual games and social media; a convergence that’s creating a super power toolset in the world of social influence.  We also took some time to jump into the Kickstarter rabbit hole for promising new games we’d put our money behind, and got sucked back into a little-known title called Angry Birds thanks to its evolving gameplay mechanics and marketing mix.

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** This article appears in the March issue of PLAYED, our monthly gaming newsletter. Download the entire issue here. **

By many accounts, it’s been “the year of mobile” in one form or another for the past ten years. However, if the latest trend in the space holds true, mobile’s decade of dominance may really just be beginning. Alongside a surge of gaming innovation for the smaller screen, the “moving to mobile” trend, is seeing some of gaming’s best and brightest abandon the AAA, multi-million dollar production budget game development space in favor of creating for the “second screen”, gaming’s ubiquitous console.

Microsoft took another step in its quest for living room domination today, launching HBO GO, MLB.TV, and Xfinity TV apps for gaming’s most popular console, the Xbox 360. Pair these latest additions with the 360’s existing slate of Verizon FiOS, Netflix, ESPN, Hulu, and video marketplace content and there’s a decent chance that you’ll never need to switch your plasma’s input again.