American McGee, he of Alice in Wonderland and Alice: Madness Returns fame, the man who accidentally kicked up a fuss when he called EA's marketing tactics disingenuous, has taken to the social networks, putting feelers out to see if fans of the Alice games would be willing to stump up some cash to help fund a third instalment.

Thatgamecompany's Jenova Chen has suggested that the time is not quite right for his company to enter the crowdfunding game just yet, noting that the most successful campaigns from the past year have been those from veteran developers trading on nostalgia.

Just when we thought we were in for a quiet run up to Christmas, the zombie apocalypse happened! Sort of...

In the final Game Buzz of the season, Matt and Jon chat about the WarZ fiasco, Black Isle's unfathomable crowdfunding initiative, and THQ's bankruptcy. We also take a look at Defiance's cross-platform potential and ask why the hell Sony and Microsoft couldn't put aside their differences for the sake of their customers and consumers.

Game Buzz | Episode 13 - Surviving the Apocalypse. Recorded 20th December, 2012.

Parental Advisory: We've tried to keep it as conversational and informal as possible, and you should be warned that there may be some instances of strong language.

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One can't help but wonder if the timing of Kickstarter hitting the UK and the grumbling rumblings of backlash that we've spotted dotted around the corners of the  internet over the past week or so aren't something more than purely coincidental. We are, after all, a nation rather more in tune with failure than success - one only has to look at the broad spectrum of a century of comedic output, let alone tabloid gossip "journalism", to note that us Brits have a predilection for placing people on pedestals one moment, and then mercilessly ripping them to shreds for shits and giggles the next.

The perception is that, for whatever reason, our friends across the pond are more encouraging, particularly when it comes to the rugged individualism of the American Dream that Kickstarter so readily presents, whereas we're a little more sceptical this side of the Atlantic, demanding to be won over. Why else would industry luminaries such as Tim Schafer, Brian Fargo, and Chris Roberts be met with open arms and oodles of cash, and Peter Molyneux, the Oliver twins, and David Braben find themselves attracting a certain amount of heat?

Well, plenty of reasons actually.

EA have announced an initiative to waive Origin distribution fees for 90 days for any developer with a “successfully crowd-funded, ready-to-publish downloadable PC game.”

It's been a painful journey for Stainless, retrieving the rights to their most notorious IP, but Carmageddon is coming back and, after ploughing a few hundred grand into the project to get it set up, Stainless have turned to crowdfunding to get Carmageddon: Reincarnation made.