Dear people who defend game pirates,
In case you hadn't guessed, this is a letter to those folks who oppose developers taking legal action against people who download and play their games without paying. Hello.
EA-published PC shooter Crysis 2 was the most pirated game of 2011, according to Bittorrent blog Torrentfreak.
While Crytek's sequel was also released on PC and Xbox 360, the PC version alone was downloaded 3.92 million times, according to data collated from several sources including all public torrent trackers. By last July, the game had sold three million copies on all platforms worldwide.
Soho-based Mediatonic, the prolific studio behind games such as Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess and Whos That Flying?! is after a console developer to work on a new firstparty downloadable project. Find all Mediatonic's jobs here.
Sony has slashed the price of its Tablet S by $100, barely three months after launch.
TechCrunch reports that the 32GB model of Sony's tablet has been reduced from $600 to $500, with the 16GB model cut from $500 to $400. The price drop means Tablet S is now $100 cheaper than Apple's iPad, which remains the runaway market leader.
Facebook has renamed its chart of the top 10 games of last year and explained its methodology after its naming of Gardens Of Time as the year's most popular game was met with widespread confusion.
Adobe has tweeted a link to Unity Technologies' Angry Bots 3D tech demo running in Flash.
While the 3D shooter, which was built to help developers learn how to use Unity, has been available on the Chrome Web Store since December 6, it can now be played in-browser with no installation at all.
Atari is reportedly threatening legal action against developers whose games the company believes infringe on its IP rights.
A post on Kickstarter by Los Angeles-based Black Powder Games claims that Atari enforced the removal from the iOS App Store of two of its games, Vector Tanks and Vector Tanks Extreme, due to their resemblance to Atari classic Battlezone.
Yu Suzuki's Ys Net studio has ceased support of Shenmue City, a social game extension of his beloved Dreamcast series for mobile phones.
Andriasang reports that the developer posted a brief note on its official website on December 26, notifying users that the service had come to an end and thanking them for their support.
Yu Suzuki's Ys Net studio has ceased support of Shenmue City, a social game extension of his beloved Dreamcast series for mobile phones.
Andriasang reports that the developer posted a brief note on its official website on December 26, notifying users that the service had come to an end and thanking them for their support.
Nintendo's Wii U will have its own app store, according to reports, with its tablet controller able to function as an e-reader capable of displaying books, magazines, newspapers and strategy guides for the company’s games.
We'll be publishing our awards for this year throughout the week. See all of them by visiting the Edge Awards topic page, or following the topic using My Edge.
Key games: Spy Mouse, Real Racing 2 HD
EA's FIFA 12 secured the last UK all-formats number one of 2011 after sales rose 34 per cent week on week.
Christmas number one The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim slips seven places to number eight after sales fell 62 per cent. BioWare's PC MMOG Star Wars: The Old Republic enters the chart at number ten, a strong showing given that the chart only collates sales of boxed games at retail.
New hardware may have emerged in the shape of Wii U and PlayStation Vita during 2011, but it was also the year in which game studios were able to really push technical barriers on well-established hardware, and realise long-held ambitions.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is selling ten beta models of its ultra-low-cost PC on internet auction site Ebay.
The foundation is listing two of its $25 PCs each day in a bid to raise funds ahead of the computer's retail debut, currently planned for next month. At the time of writing, the first such listing has attracted 48 bids, the highest of which is £1,900.
Andy Payne, owner and MD of Mastertronic and chairman of trade association UKIE, has been awarded the Order Of The British Empire (OBE) for services to the UK computer game industry in the Queen's New Year honours list.
Payne, who is also chairman of The Producers and works with the likes of BAFTA and GamesAid, told MCV: "I am truly surprised, honoured and very proud to have been awarded an OBE. I am truly thankful to have worked with so many fabulous people down the years and am proud of our great industry.
Sales of PlayStation Vita have slowed in its second week on shelves in Japan, with Sony's new handheld the fifth-best selling hardware of the week with 72,479 units sold.
According to Media Create data translated by Andriasang, Vita sales in the week ending December 25 fell by over 77 per cent week on week. 3DS once again topped the hardware charts with 482,200 units sold, but Vita was also outsold by PS3, Wii and its predecessor, PSP.
Electronic Arts, Nintendo and Sony Electronics all appear to have pulled their support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the controversial bill being considered for legislation by the US government.
"You can slip it in at night, and then when the owner wakes up in the morning and turns on the system, a new video is waiting."
Shigeru Miyamoto provokes childish giggles with his explanation of automatic video downloads on 3DS using SpotPass.
The year began on a hopeful note, with Ubisoft seemingly relaxing its DRM policy. Eagle-eyed Redditors noticed that older Ubisoft PC titles, including Assassin's Creed II and Splinter Cell: Conviction, were suddenly playable without a connection to the internet. The publisher subsequently confirmed that it had patched out its DRM from some older titles, with its future implementation to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
In January, Gamers' Voice, the UK pressure group set up by Labour MP Tom Watson, held the first-ever Parliamentary Games Day, in which it invited MPs from all three main UK political parties to a lunchtime videogame session in the House Of Commons. Corridors of power-ups, if you will.
