With the rise of Kickstarter-funded game projects, however, that sort of black-box development could (and should) change. Developers who take money from fans upfront owe it to their investors to keep them informed of how the project is coming along, and to seek out input from them.

InXile Entertainment appears to be doing just that with its Kickstarted Wasteland 2 RPG. The developer this weekend released an early developer preview video for the title.

Wasteland 2 was kickstarted almost one year ago. InExile was asking for only $900,000 for the project, but received nearly $3 million.

The developer video includes a look at the customizable UI, combat, skills, and the dialogue system. There is also a blog post that provides an overall update on the game’s progress. As of right now, the developers are “just past the halfway mark.”

Triumph Studios, developers of the original Age of Wonders titles, announced today that Age of Wonders 3 is on track for a PC release later this year. This new game will introduce a number of new features, including the addition of RPG elements.

Check out the debut trailer here:

Here’s a breakdown of all the new features the new title sports:

There’s no official release date, but the game will be available in late 2013 on various digital distribution channels. The game will also be getting a limited physical release, but it will probably only be available in Europe.

[h/t: Polygon]

Last we heard of Company of Heroes 2, the game had been delayed from the placeholder February 2013 release date to sometime in March 2013. A small setback, but fans of Company of Heroes seem to simply be overjoyed that the title is finally on the way.

Today, THQ released a teaser for the first full-length gameplay trailer for Company of Heroes 2. The video provides a small look at all of the military strategy action that players will jump into the middle of come march. The real gameplay trailer will debut on Wednesday, November 28 on G4′s doomed Xplay. It’ll hit the internet shortly thereafter, though, so if you don’t have cable make sure to check back here on Thursday morning for a link to the full trailer.

Company of Heroes 2 moves the World War II strategy game to the eastern front, where players will take control of the Soviet Union’s troops. When announcing the title back in May, THQ touted its improved graphics, new commander abilities, and new environmental destruction.

Video of the demo, like that seen below, has already hit the web, so even if you aren’t a member of the “glorious PC gaming master race” you can still experience what XCOM is all about. 2K has said a demo will be available “soon” for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gamers.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown will launch on October 9th, and those who pre-order the game will be eligible for free exclusive downloadable content, including soldier customizations and a recruit unit inspired by the original X-COM: UFO Defense.

Company of Heroes 2 will be a World War II real-time strategy game similar to the first Company of Heroes. This time, though, gamers will command Soviet troops on the war’s Eastern front. THQ is touting improved graphics, new commander abilities, and new environmental destruction. Greg Wilson, producer at Relic Entertainment, the studio developing the title, said, “Company of Heroes 2 is a true successor, introducing a new front, new protagonists and new technology while retaining the unique mix of strategic gameplay and competitive multiplayer that made the original Company of Heroes such a success.”

Gamers might be either pleased or disappointed to learn that downloadable content (DLC) for Company of Heroes 2 is already being planned. Such content schemes can extend the life of a multiplayer game and the community surrounding it, but can also be used to discourage used game sales and promote specific retailers. Danny Bilson, THQ’s Executive Vide President of Core Games, said, “We are excited to announce a sequel to one of THQ’s best loved properties. Company of Heroes 2 will deliver an amazing strategy experience along with a strong post-launch digital content plan that enhances and expands the product’s lifecycle.”

Though the “overdone” stink might still surround World War II video games, the shift of the last few years started by the Modern Warfare Titles toward modern-day soldiering might have left the genre open to revisit such an experience. It has been a while since a realistic World War II game has been hugely successful, and battling Nazis is something I’m sure many gamers miss. Destroying Hitler’s army might just be fun again, especially from the Red Army’s perspective.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and let me know.

That’s the advice from ProBlogger founder Darren Rowse. Your content has to engage the reader, and you have to build a community of people that respects your style and looks to you for more than just simple information.

“Content plus branding plus ads plus seo plus marketing plus link bait plus design equals successful blogging. Not necessarily. What I found to be true is that it’s really where the heart and the smart come together.”

Here are some key tips for blogging from the heart:

• Passion: “If you want an engaged readership you need to be engaged with your readers and your readers need to be engaged with each other.”  Successful blogs have writers and an audience that are all truly interesting in the topics they cover.
• Tell Stories:  This is all about being unique to your readers.  When you tell stories to your audience, it creates engagement.  “Write the type of posts that create memories with your readers.”
• Build Community: Remember, everyone can provide information.  Do something more.
• Inspire People: “When you inspire, something amazing happens on your blog. The inspiration can motivate your readers. Inspire people first, then inform.”
• Be Personal:  A good way to build you brand is to bring your own life into your blog.
• Be Playful
• Be Yourself
• But remember to be useful.  “If you can help people solve their problems, you are blogging from the heart.”

Blogging from the heart is important, but it’s not everything. It’s about being smart.

“I began to hear a spectrum of disillusionment. People think that if you blog from the heart, good things will happen to you. But blogging from the heart is not enough.

If you want to be a business with your blog, treat it as one today.”

To do this, Rowse says you have to define what “success” means to you. You have to have a plan for what you want your blog to achieve in one year, in five years, and beyond. You have to focus on branding, which can be thought of as “what you want people to say about you when you’re not in the room.”

How can you grab an audience and keep them? It’s about “hooks.”

“How are you going to make readers stick to your blog? It may mean some sort of social media. Perhaps the biggest hook is email or Twitter or rss or Facebook or Flickr. What do you want your readers to do? We know that if we can get people to subscribe to our email and signup for our Twitter or Facebook, then we have them hooked.”

In the end, don’t be afraid to try new things.

“Experiment, test and tweak. I am constantly trying new things. I had this crazy idea of trying to write 31 posts in 31 days. It had a very positive response. We then put this together in an e-book, which was our first product. We have now sold over $300,000 worth of our e-books.”

When it comes to marketing strategy, however, it often seems like beer companies focus on being entertaining at the expense of being strategic. With campaigns that seem to change almost monthly and taglines that rarely last for more than a football season, it is easy to dismiss beer marketing as irresponsible spending to promote a high margin product. Is there more to beer advertising than 30 second eye candy and girls in bikinis? Here are a few popular marketing campaigns for beer – along with their corresponding marketing strategy that may yield some surprising lessons …

1. Be Unique (Red Stripe Beer)

If you have ever had a Red Stripe beer from Jamaica, you know that it has a very unique bottle shape, shorter and stubbier than most others. The bottle sets the beer apart more than anything else, and this fact is brilliantly parodied in this ad featuring their central spokesperson – the Jamaican guy who loves nothing more than celebrating what beer can do with his trademark expression of Jamaican joy: "Hooray Beer!"

2. Demonstrate Loyalty (Bud Light)

The ad for Bud Light below follows the model this beer company has focused on for nearly every Super Bowl and football season – forget about your product features and focus on the simple message that guys will do almost anything for your beer. The strategy which seems buried in most of their ads is the unwavering loyalty that the guys in their ads have for Bud Light. They will build houses out of it, jump out of planes, and even walk around naked for a day just to get more of it. It is easy to argue that the name of the beer involved is entirely forgettable, but the ads stand out for being entertaining.

3. Create Associations (Estrella Damm)

A popular ad for European beer Estrella Damm – this campaign features a few ads which tell the story where the beer plays a supporting role and one of the tagline reads "Good times never end when you have something to remind you of them." Another ad features a growing relationship between two fellow travellers. While the taglines don’t exactly roll off the tongue, the entire campaign creates stories that associate the beer with the common memory of moments like a short term romance on a backpacking trip through Europe that many of their target audience will remember nostalgically, and one that many people won’t be able to help sharing.

4. Foster Aspirations (Dos Equis)

Probably the most popular campaign of the list, this inspired marketing from Dos Equis creates a persona for the Most Interesting Man In The World who, by his own admission, "doesn’t always drink beer, but when he does he prefers Dos Equis." The image of this man is who every guy wants to grow up to be, and works because it places Dos Equis in a typically uncontested space as the choice for a more mature and refined guy versus an infantile male trying to relive lost days of keg stands and beer pong from college. That and irresistible lines like "he lives vicariously through himself" help position Dos Equis as the more aspirational choice in beers.

5. Reinforce Perceptions (Heineken)

The thing that European beers have always used to promote themselves against other brands is the sense that they are a more upscale and respectable choice when you go to a bar or similarly public place. Heineken’s recent campaign takes this message and replays it with the powerful tagline – "give yourself a good name." The ads feature guys making bold decisions (like drinking with the scary bosses’ daughter) and congratulating them on their choice. It helps reinforce the message that what beer you choose says something important about who you are, so choose well.

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The Channel Challenge

We hear with increasing frequency that traditional tactics just aren¹t working anymore, and it¹s no surprise that despite billions of dollars spent on lead generation programs and branding campaigns, a significant portion of co-marketing spend is not driving channel performance or sales. Ultimately, the manufacturer to channel relationship is crucial to maximizing value to customers. Yet, in a recent CMO Council Report, only eight percent of channel marketing managers indicated they do an extremely good job of teaming with their channel to build stronger customer affinity. Topping the list of channel complaints were slim lead rates, unqualified opportunities, and uninspired marketing campaigns that failed to connect with the customer.

Empower Your Partners

A fresh approach is desperately needed, and Search is the solution. Today, those responsible for channel marketing programs within their organizations hear from their partners with increasing frequency the need to use online resources such as those offered by Google, Yahoo!, MSN and others in creative ways to help grow their business. But, many marketers have serious concerns about rolling Search programs out to partners, among those concerns are:

• Channel bid conflict & artificial price inflation
•  Diminished brand control
•  Lack of expertise within partner organizations

Our clients needed a way to bring new and emerging marketing tools to their business partners," said Steve Riegel, Director of Search Strategy and co-founder of Faction Media. "Many of these partners are small businesses that have limited resources and no experience in marketing. Our goal is to help them overcome these challenges and provide them with the tools they need to be effective in reaching and communicating to their customers‹Search does exactly that. With the new tools and services available, like Google Template Center, there are new ways to leveraging your organizations brand strength and Search marketing expertise to help channel partners more effectively manage their online advertising programs and generate better results from their marketing budgets. An example of these new tools is the partner marketing platform built by Faction Media that allows channel partners to create Search campaigns, customize templates and preapproved creative, and mange online campaigns all from an easy to use and corporate controlled marketing portal. Using a controlled environment tool like Template Center, the partner marketing platform allows you to:

• Isolate campaigns and control the bid landscape to prevent conflict
• Enhance brand and message control with templates and managed creative
• Drive effectiveness by leveraging the marketing expertise of the organization

With a little effort, organizations can now bring the scale, relevancy and measurability of Search to their channel partners around the world. The Search Solution Using Search and other emerging marketing platforms gives organizations new opportunities to support their channels and provide measurable leads to their business partners. Additionally, it extends the digital reach of the brand while providing the Holy Grail of channel marketing‹closed sales. The new tail of Search resides in the direct support of the channel, says Riegel. Those that get this will tap into a new wealth of leads and sales opportunity, those that don¹t will be left behind.

I chatted briefly with Ask spokesperson Nicholas Graham about the company, now that the initial shock of proposed changes at the site has passed. The infamous Marge Simpson plan has morphed into “search with a focus,” and the focus happens to be on the demographic that is most typical of the Ask.com user.

Women look for reference, health, and entertainment information on Ask. To serve those requests, Ask will aim at delivering answers. Don’t look for the iconic Jeeves to return; the methodology may resemble the original aims of Ask, but the butler won’t be part of it.

Ask hopes to render the answers they provide in a compelling way. They are looking to build emotional connections with their searchers.

How they plan to do this, how it will look, and advertising’s role in the repurposing all fell under the unfulfilling “stay tuned” mantra. It has only been a few days since Ask’s big reorg took place, one that sent WebProNews favorite Gary Price off the employee roster, so it is early to expect a response.

Though Graham took issue with the original reports of Ask becoming a women’s search engine, Ask’s attention to the demographic does appear to figure in their strategy going forward.

Those who underestimate the financial power of women in the world need to recall what happened when their set their clocks forward this past weekend. The change provides more daylight later in the day, when the women who largely influence and direct their household spending shop for needs and wants.

Shifting time to allow for more opportunities for shoppers to get money into the economy, that’s a big move. It shouldn’t be surprising Ask wants to direct their strategies in a similar way, and define a clearer niche for itself rather than fighting Google et al for pieces of search market share.

“[T]he company continued to cut costs, expecting to reduce operating costs by $230 million over the next two years from its 2007 cost base, via the consolidation of printing plants, reducing newspaper page sizes and the planned streamlining of other operations,” reports Louis Hau.

He then continues, “Among the anticipated job cuts will be layoffs in the Times newsroom of non-journalist support staff,” which might not be quite so cheery.  Also, cost-cutting can only be taken so far – the company can’t sell small, blank pieces of cheap paper.  Still, these measures are having an effect on the almighty bottom line, and increased digital and circulation revenues are playing a role in the turnaround, as well.

If those last two factors can pull a fair amount of weight, The New York Times Co. will do all right.  And at least one onlooker believes this should be the case; Hau reports that Benchmark Capital changed its rating on the media company’s stock from “hold” to “buy.”