The creators of Gears of War (providers of the image above) have announced the release of the long-awaited Gears of War 4 Beta! For those of you who don't know, here is the five-second rundown of the game: it's a multiplayer third-person shooter game (two-player local or online) in which you and a few survivors are looking to save the planet Sera from the Locust horde.

In order to obtain early access to the beta, you need to have played Gears of  War: Ultimate Edition for the Xbox One or  Windows 10. These players will receive tokens in waves that will allow them to log onto the beta (as long as they are using  their own Xbox Live gamertag.) This beta  will be open Monday, April 18th to  Sunday the 24th. 

This doesn't mean that everyone else is cut off. If you purchase and register for the Ultimate Edition now, you will be able to obtain the tokens. There is also an open beta that will begin Monday, April 25th and run to Sunday, May 1st for Xbox Live Gold members. 

After an exclusive look into the game's production, Game Informer reported that we should probably expect Horde mode to return, and that the game will remain as it has always been -- human vs. monster. Players will be able to take on the personas of five main characters: JD, Kait, Del, Reyna (Kait's mom and leader of the Outsiders) and Oscar and (Kait's uncle, ex-Gear soldier, and expert survivalist.)

Get your tokens while you can!

Since the grand announcements this summer, many gamers have been awaiting a peek at the most anticipated games: Super Mario Maker, Rainbow Six Siege, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Now they can at GameStop Expo 2015 in Las Vegas, NV at Sands Expo & Convention Center. GameStop Expo is open and broadcasting on September 2nd only.

If you haven't gotten a chance yet or just don't plan to buy any of the limited tickets, then you have nothing to worry about. While you won't be on the floor, GameStop Expo will be hosting a live stream service for all of these games among others, including the Street Fighter V Tournament online. Broadcasts will be streaming on this one-day event on Twitch and Youtube.

2015 GameStop Expo Broadcast Schedule

• 10 AM -- Introduction
• 10:15 AM -- Make-A-Wish / St. Jude segment
• 10:30 AM -- Super Mario Maker
• 10:45 AM -- Rock Band 4
• 11:00 AM -- Battleborn with special guest Randy Pitchford
• 11:15 AM -- Assassins' Creed Syndicate
• 11:30 AM -- Rainbow Six Siege
• 11:45 AM -- Alekhine's Gun & Lichdom: Battlemage
• 12:00 PM -- Xbox One games and hardware
• 12:15 PM -- NBA 2K16
• 12:30 PM -- Little Orbit games
• 12:45 PM -- Mega Man Legacy Collection
• 1:00 PM -- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
• 1:30 PM -- "Square Enix Title"
• 1:45 PM -- Street Fighter V overview
• 2:00 PM -- Street Fighter V tournament
• 2:30 PM -- Street Fighter V tournament
• 3:00 PM -- "Square Enix Title"
• 3:15 PM -- "Square Enix Title"
• 3:30 - 4:15 PM -- The Game Informer Show--October cover reveal
• 4:30 PM -- Disney Infinity 3.0
• 4:45 PM -- EA

If you do plan on going to GameStop Expo next month, General Admission tickets are currently $40 ($50 after Aug 15) and VIP Admission tickets are currently $110 ($125 after Aug 15). For students, Student Admission tickets are $20.

A full schedule for both admissions are available on the GameStop Expo website, as well as travel guides, what to do in Las Vegas, and times doors open for special tickets. Attendees will get exclusive access to play games not available on the broadcast. 

Once again, GameStop Expo is only open September 2nd. 

Header Image Source: Gamestop.com

It has been a tough year for certain game developers, and things are no different for SEGA. Through an e-mail, the company told Game Informer that they would not be having a booth at E3 this year, due to the fact that SEGA of America is relocating, an announcement they had made in January.

Having a booth at E3 can be costly, and SEGA prefers to save that money to put it into future games. They have promised several titles such as Yakuza 5, Tembo the Badass Elephant (working with GameFreak, the studios who developed Pokémon), Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax, and Total War: Warhammer. 

"Over the next months, SEGA of America will be focusing on the restructure and relocation to Southern California, and we have decided to not attend E3 with our own booth this year. With the majority of our bigger titles launching later in 2015/2016, particularly those from our AAA studios Relic Entertainment, Sports Interactive and Creative Assembly, we are concentrating our efforts for some of these major announcements after our relocation.

Instead, we will be collaborating with our various business partners for this year's E3 show." 

SEGA had also announced that they were looking to focus more on PC and mobile gaming.

SEGA titles might still appear here and there

Although SEGA will not have its own booth at E3 2015, this does not mean that certain games will not be talked about. Titles will likely be seen on other booths due to their various partnerships. A PC manufacturer might talk about Total War: Warhammer (announced under development at Creative Assembly), and maybe Nintendo will have some news about Sonic's next adventures. 

The gaming world has gone crazy over intellectual property rights.  Trademark infringement claims have shown up everywhere and are aimed at everyone, both as a result of automated systems and as a result of companies 'protecting their interests'.  If one were feeling charitable, one might think the average gaming company is extremely concerned with the right and wrong of creative property.  

Game Informer, then, would not appear to be an average company, according to a curious thread on Reddit.

The man who started the discussion claims to have taken a photograph of himself for an angry gamer meme, shown on his Flickr here.  A while after the picture was taken, Game Informer published an article of top 10 most annoying Call of Duty gamers, using this picture as the first image in the article.  Eventually the man in the picture contacted them to inform them it was an unlicensed use of his likeness.  His communications were ignored for months.  Now he has turned to Redditors to try and find a solution.

This is just another symptom of the problem.

While it did not take long at all for someone to link him to DMCA takedown information and free forms, this still brings up a very unpleasant topic that becomes increasingly more and more apparent the closer one looks at the modern state of copyright, trademark, and licensing laws.

Constantly we see large companies threatening to sue both individuals and smaller companies for the use of images, sounds, and any other conceivable form of creative expression. Other companies have to purchase trademarks out of self-defense, or to protect their players. Gamers have already been caught in this crossfire with the recent removal of thousands of YouTube videos, some featuring games which did not even want the videos removed, but this person on Reddit brings up the other side of the issue:

It is significantly more difficult to enforce these laws to protect oneself without a corporate entity backing you up, making the protections and abuses both decidedly weighted in favor of money.

As an online journalist, I am constantly reminded to use care when selecting images to include in my articles and to be sure to properly credit any quotes specifically to avoid stepping on any legal toes.  I would expect a site the size of Game Informer to have similar criteria.  Hopefully we will get more information once the business day begins tomorrow.  After all, the surest way to get a response from any corporate entity is to show their actions to the public and wait for them to begin damage control.

Tablets. Phones. Laptops. The age of technology is ever taking over. As more and more things are switching to digital format, gaming magazines are not immune. There are very few print magazines in circulation for today's gamer. The three I could find included:

• PC Gamer
• Game Informer
• Official Xbox Magazine.

While these three do still offer the print subscription, they do give subscribers the option to subscribe to the digital version as well.

PC Gamer

PC Gamer is one of the most popular video games magazine in existence. They are known to give out coveted beta keys with early access. The magazine covers various topics such as news, reviews, and previews for PC games. Currently, in the US you can get a 12-issue subscription for $19.95. In Canada, the same subscription is $29.95, and is available internationally for $39.95. According to the magazine, they are the world's number one PC games magazine.

Game Informer

Game Informer is more well-known to those who are frequent Gamestop shoppers who have their Power Up Rewards card. The Game Informer subscription site claims that they are the world's top video game magazine. They cover a lot of games on various formats in full color imagery. You can get a 12-issue subscription for $14.99 which also includes the Gamestop PowerUp Rewards Pro benefits.

Official Xbox Magazine

The title of this magazine is obvious self-explanatory. This is Microsoft's official magazine for the Xbox platform. Anything that pertains to games for the Xbox and its platform are released with this magazine. You can get a 12-issue subscription for $24.95 in the US. Canadians can receive this magazine for $29.95, and it can be received internationally for $49.95.

What magazines do you get in print that covers video games not included in the list?