We showed you some of the awesome stuff we’re giving away in our E3 booth earlier today. We know lots of you can’t make it to E3, so we put aside 3 packs of stuff to give away this Friday! Sorry there’s no video this week — as you can tell, we’re pretty busy in the SEGA booth! Since we’ll be traveling back on Friday, Edward@SEGA has graciously agreed to do Free Stuff Friday for you. Please be nice to him!

How it Works
1. You must be following us on Twitter to be eligible. (If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can create one by going to http://www.twitter.com and click the green “get started — join!” button in the center of the page.)

2. At random times on Friday, we will announce the prize we are giving away, a word or phrase, and what number of response you need to be to win. Send us a direct message (DM) via Twitter and be that number to win the prize. (@ replies do not count as entries!) We only accept one direct message per person per prize!

Example:

We tweet “GIVEAWAY: Sonic T-shirt, size L. Be the 15th person to DM “Sonic Adventure” to win!”

You see this, and want to win it, so you send us a direct message that says “Sonic Adventure”. If you are the 15th person to do so, you are the winner!

Quotation marks do not matter, capitalization does not matter, but spelling does matter!

3. All followers are eligible to win all prizes, unless a restriction is noted. Restrictions are usually due to the prize being region-locked. For example, US games that won’t work on UK gaming systems. There may also be age restrictions due to the rating of the game.

4. We will announce the winner on our Twitter feed once eligibility is confirmed.

Other Assorted Information:

Free Stuff Friday duties alternate between the London and San Francisco offices and are done during business hours (usually mid-morning) in our respective time zones.
No, you can’t know what number message you were – so please don’t ask! We will tell you that the information is classified!
If you have questions during the giveaway, please contact us with an @reply. As you can imagine, we get a whole lot of direct messages during the contests and there is a very good chance we will miss your question if it is sent as a DM.
How to Send Direct Messages on Twitter
Due to a change in our account status with Twitter, you should be able to send us direct messages without us following you. However, third-party applications may not allow you to.

There are a few ways to send us a Direct Message on Twitter. The easiest way is:

Log in to your Twitter account.
Click on the person icon and select Direct messages from the drop down menu.
You’ll see a pop up showing your Direct message history. Click the New message button, highlighted below.
In the address box, type the name or username (SEGA) of the person you wish to send a message to.
Enter your message and click Send message.
You may also select the “direct messages” tab from your Twitter homepage, and select SEGA from the drop-down menu at the top of the page. Again, if you don’t see our name there, it’s probably because we’re not following you. Let us know, and we’ll follow you. If you still have questions on sending direct messages, please visit Twitter’s Help Section.

There are also many Twitter clients that you can use instead of using the website. These include TweetDeck, Twitteriffic, Tweetie, and Twhirl. Each of these programs works differently, so you’ll want to figure out how to send a direct message on the program you use. If you want to send us a test message, we’ll let you know if we received it or not. Please make sure your message says “test” somewhere.

We’ve got new screens and a new trailer for E3!

The Cave, the recently announced Ron Gilbert and Double Fine game, is up on display at the E3 Show and the feedback has been excellent. The demos run inside the SEGA Cave demo room with behind closed doors with Ron Gilbert showing off all there is to see in The Cave.

Coverage has been excellent, so it’s a perfect chance to look at some of the videos and previews finding their way online. Gametrailers had a chance to sit down with Ron Gilbert earlier and have a great video that you definitely need to check out:

GameInformer also had a chance to check out the demo and their preview is fantastic:

The game infuses genre standards like goofy puzzles, odd characters, and item collection with refreshing new features.

Read the full preview here!

We’re excited to see such great impressions for the game. Stay tuned for more links and previews from the show.

Today Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is available to everyone on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. To help get you set up for your online matches, we’ve produced a series of tutorial videos. Perfect for beginners and even some bits for the Hardcore.

We’re really excited to see the reactions to the game, so get in, get playing, and let us know what you think!