I hate to open up as an apologetic, but I am sorry there was no feature last week as usual. I won't even try to make excuses, as I made a critical error in my own advice I like to give: Never save your work on just blogs. Always have a backup on text.

I failed to heed my own advice.

Everything was ready and raring to go by 1 a.m. CST, then the odd happened: Both Photoshop and Chrome crashed simultaneously. As unlikely as that sounds it's the doggone, unbelievable truth. Needless to say, I was pretty upset. I took some time to reflect upon it, however, and taking an unscheduled week off may have worked out in my favor.

That doesn't mean I should, nor would I want to, make a bad habit out of it. Heck, last week I was even contemplating on discontinuing the Tumblr portion of this feature blog after the January presentation for Minot State University.

See, I originally started this as a requirement-to-graduate loophole for MSU, while creating a new feature for the now-defunct DebasedToThis. As the weeks went by and turned into months I found myself getting into a routine that I enjoyed doing, and that others seemed to enjoy reading as well. So much in fact that it became a Monday morning feature on ScrewAttack news.

I'll save all of my thoughts for the Jan. 30 presentation, as I don't want to overdo anything, especially a simple apology. But the short of it, I'm sorry. To you, the readers. Whether you subscribe to me or are reading this for the first time, it was beyond my control and I won't miss another week.

I Promise.

Now, with all of that said and done, let's keep the tone at a somber pace with what I believe is the top story of the past two weeks (even though this feature will go through the past week).

THQ, Clearlake Capital to auction off franchises

Let's face it, we kinda knew this was coming sooner or later, right?

Polygon reports that both THQ and Clearlake Capital have agreed to auction off titles and franchises on January 22 at 3 p.m. (possibly PST). This comes as a result of a denial of Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the ill-fated company.

Earlier on in the week, Tim Schafer's Double Fine studio allegedly sought interest in THQ's titles and franchises, as well as EA, Activision, and many other developers and publishers alike. The hot items such as Saint's Row, Warhammer 40k, and quite possibly the WWE license is up for grabs by 9 a.m., as bids are due by then.

The DIP term loan for Clearlake Capital was also extended to Jan. 25, and will remove $10 million originally offered to extend the deadline of the auction.

Sadly, there seems to be no future for THQ and will go the way of a favorite company of mine that faced a similar fate in 2009. That company is of course Midway Games, the creators of Blitz, San Francisco RUSH, and Mortal Kombat.

The company was delisted from Wall Street shortly after its bankruptcy, which is usually poor fortune for the future of most, if not all, companies. I'll be keeping my eye on THQ throughout the rest of the month, as I'm sure everyone else will in what is arguably the biggest news story of late 2012, 2013 so far.

VP Biden, ESA talk about U.S. gun debate

Aaaaand we dive head-first into the controversy!

The Associated Press attended a two-hour discussion between U.S. vice president Joe Biden and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). To open the discussion, Biden stated the following quote:

I come to this meeting with no judgment. You all know the judgments other people have made. We're looking for help. ... We know this is a complex problem. We know there's no single answer.

The ESA responded by saying that there was, according to the AP, "independent, scientific research conducted to date has found no causal connection between video games and real-life violence."

We also recognized that gun violence is a serious problem in our country. As an industry integral to the social and cultural fabric of America, we want to work toward meaningful solutions.

Although the ESA did not clarify as to what the "meaningful solutions" were necessarily, this is a wonderful start to a much needed talk about a glaring issue that Wayne LaPierre and the Nation Rifle Association (NRA) had failed to do during their press conference in December.

The NRA, as well as LaPierre, did not attend the discussion with Biden and the ESA. This is a travesty to pro-gun and pro-NRA persons as I feel that they needed to clarify their actions back in December for accusing all forms of media, mostly video games, for the direct motive for the shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Now, I believe that there is some blame here most certainly, but like peanut butter, you need to spread the blame all around and not just have a large chunk of it on one exact place, or problem in this instance. As Biden said himself, there's no one precise problem, but no real answer to any either.

Warner Bros. buys up Batman domain names

We've seen this song and dance before, but is it something more?

According to Fusible, Warner Bros. has obtained a lot of Batman websites, all associated with the Arkham franchise.

The list of websites are as follows:

• arkhamuniverse.com
• batmanarkahmuniverse.com
• batmanarkhamarises.com
• batmanarkhambegins.com
• batmanarkhamdarkknight.com
• batmanarkhamknight.com
• batmanarkhamlegend.com
• batmanarkhamlegends.com
• batmanarkhamnight.com
• batmanarkhamorigins.com
• batmanarkhamstories.com
• darkknightarkham.com
• dcarkhamuniverse.com
• dcarkhamverse.com
• thearkhamuniverse.com

None of these link really go anywhere, as they're all pretty much non-existent domains. However, this definitely brings up two compelling questions: 1. Is this to protect the product of Batman and/or Arkham franchise? 2. Will one of these URLs actually be used to promote a possible new Arkham game?

If history has showed us anything, it's that the former option will most likely be the option at hand. Whenever these kind of stories pop-up, I'm always a sucker and I'm drawn in as to what might possibly happen.

I guess the possibilities in these type of stories are the attraction here every time they're brought up, as you really can't predict what might come out of it, if anything. Certainly interesting to think about regardless of the outcome, I say.

EVO Championship unveiled, eighth game still unknown

The eighth game choices may or may not surprise you.

g1 Jing412 reports on the upcoming fighting game tournament EVO Championship, and the first seven games have been unveiled. They are:

• Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 
• Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition
• Street Fighter X Tekken 2013
• Persona 4: Arena
• King of Fighters XIII
• Tekken Tag Tournament 2
• Mortal Kombat

However, the eighth game has yet to be determined and is being determined by a popular vote through donations to charity. The games battling for the last spot include PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Skullgirls, Super Smash Bros. (Melee and Brawl, and My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic.

Now, this is odd because MLP: Fighting is Magic has neither an official or an estimated release date, so Mane 6, the development team, must either get their game out by this summer or risk losing their spot and possible donations.

Shoryuken caught up with the team and has ruled that the eighth spot will be given to someone else, namely the runner-up of the drive. Also, if FiM wins the drive, their game will be a standalone exhibition. If a game manages to overtake FiM, however, that game gets a separate $1,000 prize pool as the eighth entrant.

As a fan of the show, I'm glad to see the game getting recognition, but others have been crying foul and horseplay (no pun intended) from 4Chan's video game board in attempt to "troll" EVO. Not exactly sure how adding onto a donation pool is trolling, but I can definitely see some ponies rustling some people's jimmies at EVO.

Nevertheless, the game won't be the eighth entrant, but it may very well have it's own exhibition, which would be very neat.

The donations will go towards the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Steam Box details unveiled by Newell

Gabe talks about the Steam Box? I'll believe it when I...Oh...Oooohhhh.

The Verge conducted an interview with VALVe founder Gabe Newell. You might want to re-read that sentence as I don't know when I'll be able to say "interview" and "Gabe Newell" in the same sentence ever again outside of this story.

In the interview, Newell said that the Steam Box will run on Linux, but will make it available and easy for those who wish to use something else.

We’ll come out with our own and we’ll sell it to consumers by ourselves. That'll be a Linux box, [and] if you want to install Windows you can. We’re not going to make it hard. This is not some locked box by any stretch of the imagination. We also think that a controller that has higher precision and lower latency is another interesting thing to have.

Newell also said that the controllers might use some sort of biometric data and that the console might use Big Picture mode. Newell added that Big Picture mode on Steam wants to answer the question "how can we maximize a content developer's investment?"

How he and his company will respond to that question remains to be seen, but I am confident that they'll answer it the only way VALVe knows how to: In awe and amazement, I'm sure. For more information, check out the interview above!

Because you'll never know when you will again.

Please be sure to comment your thought's on the stories above, as well as hit the Twitter, Facebook, or Subscribe button! I normally don't ask such things, but I greatly appreciate your input!