Call Of Duty: Elite, the social stat-tracking service which launched alongside Modern Warfare 3 last night, is buckling under the weight of demand.
Overnight, several Twitter udpates confirmed that the Elite team was aware of, and working to fix, problems brought on by the rush of new signups following Modern Warfare 3's launch.
A former member of staff at Fable developer Lionhead has admitted the studio was "on its knees" when Microsoft stepped in and bought it.
Speaking to Eurogamer, artist James Duncan said that Microsoft's buyout of Peter Molyneux's studio in 2006 brought "jubilation". It stepped in shortly after Lionhead had laid off 50 staff following the poor performance of games including Black & White.
Animal rights group People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals (Peta) has taken EA's Battlefield 3 to task over the killing of a rat in the game's singleplayer campaign.
In a German-language press release translated by BF3Blog, Peta writes: "The realistic computer game Battlefield 3 treats animals in a sadistic manner. The game gives players the option to kill a rat with a combat knife in the back in order to then lift it by its tail, then toss it away.
The userbase of Sony Online Entertainment's PC and PS3 MMOG DC Universe Online has grown by 1000 per cent since it went free-to-play last week, the publisher has confirmed.
SOE president John Smedley revealed the news on Twitter. The surge in new signups has come at a cost, however, with servers struggling to cope with demand.
"We apologise for the instability," Smedley wrote on Saturday. "We are reconfiguring our servers for the higher populations and we are working on adding more capacity to our servers. The team is hard at work at the office.
Industry veteran Jamil Moledina has left Electronic Arts and joined social gaming developer Funzio.
Moledina, who in addition to being director of business development at EA Partners was also executive director of the Game Developers Conference, is now Funzio's vice president of business development.
Our Christmas 2011 issue, which is on sale November 22, will include an examination of the way Activision has sculpted its miltary shooter into gaming's biggest brand.
Released in 2010, Hello Games' Joe Danger was a PSN exclusive and one of the first games to receive backing from Sony's Pub Fund, which matches development costs in exchange for exclusivity. However, last week the Guildford-based studio announced Joe Danger: Special Edition, a remake of the original with kinks ironed out and some 15 hours of extra content, for Xbox Live Arcade. How did that go down with Sony?
Konami almost tripled its profits in the six months to September 30 despite falling game sales - thanks entirely to success in the social space.
Despite a 46.4 per cent drop in sales of consumer games, Konami's net income rose 174 per cent year on year to ¥11.5 billion (£92.1 million). That discrepancy is almost entirely due to social games, where its revenue more than tripled year on year to ¥16.9 billion (£135.3 million).
Our Facebook page received its 5000th like up over the weekend. A hat tip to forumite Owwmykneecap for being that special person.
If you're on Facebook and haven't yet joined in the conversation, head over to our page to have your say. You may even see it featured in the Online/Offline section of the magazine.
Our Facebook page received its 5000th like up over the weekend. A hat tip to forumite Owwmykneecap for being that special person.
If you're on Facebook and haven't yet joined in the conversation, head over to our page to have your say. You may even see it featured in the Online/Offline section of the magazine.
Hello Games says Sony gave its blessing for the PSN exclusive Joe Danger to be released on Xbox Live Arcade, despite having backed its development with its Pub Fund.
I decided to write a book. It was a book about the fundamentals of game design and how to approach it that had been brewing in my mind for a long time. As I started writing, I realised that my subject was actually deeper than that; I was writing about what games are, as a medium and an art, and trying to get at the heart of why they tick. I was on a mission.
Sales of Deus Ex: Human Revolution helped Square Enix more than double its profits in the six months ending September 30.
In total, 2.18 million units of the Eidos Montreal-developed title were sold, accounting for more than a quarter of the publisher's total software sales of 8.4 million. European sales of the game totalled 1.38 million units, with 800,000 copies sold in North America.
Sales of Deus Ex: Human Revolution helped Square Enix more than double its profits in the six months ending September 30.
In total, 2.18 million units of the Eidos Montreal-developed title were sold, accounting for more than a quarter of the publisher's total software sales of 8.4 million. European sales of the game totalled 1.38 million units, with 800,000 copies sold in North America.
Mojang's indie sandbox game Minecraft has passed four million sales.
The news was revealed in a tweet by studio head Markus "Notch" Persson, and has since been confirmed on the game's official website.
Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, co-founders of Mass Effect developer BioWare, are to give BAFTA's Annual Videogames Lecture in London later this month.
The duo will give their "personal visions for the future of the industry" at BAFTA's headquarters in Piccadilly, London, on November 16. Tickets are available from the source link below for just £6.
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception failed to take top spot in the UK all-formats chart in its first week on sale, with EA's Battlefield 3 number one for a second week.
This has happened before, in 2009 when Uncharted 2: Among Thieves failed to take top spot from another EA title, FIFA 10.
Our Christmas 2011 issue, which is on sale November 22, will also feature full reviews and Post Script articles on the season's biggest games, including Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 and Assassin's Creed Revelations.
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment has confirmed an unspecified number of layoffs at its Seattle offices.
The news was broken by 3D Realms president George Broussard on Twitter, who claimed around 60 staff had been let go from Warner Bros' Seattle operation.
In a statement, a Warner Bros spokesperson told Gamespot: "As part of the continual review of our business operations and fluctuating market confitions, we have had to make reductions in our WB Games Seattle workforce."
Zynga's profits in the three months to September 30 fell 54 per cent to $12.5 million (£7.8 million) year on year.
The slump comes despite an 80 per cent increase in revenue, which rose to $306.8 million (£191.8 million), with the hole in its finances seemingly caused by an increase in staffing numbers.
NetDevil's Lego Universe is to shut down on January 31 due to a lack of subscribers, just over a year after it launched.
A post from the team on the game's forums reads: "Today we are very sad to announce that Lego Universe will be closing. This was a very difficult decision to make, but unfortunately Lego Universe has not been able to attract the number of members needed to keep the game open.
"We want to thank the fantastic community of players who made Lego Universe such a vibrant, fun and creative experience."
Digital distribution of PC games is an increasingly crowded space, but Good Old Games has grown apace since its launch in September 2008, users drawn by its ever-growing catalogue of games that are at least three years old and charmed by its aversion to DRM.
Sony has announced a change to its usage policy, which will reduce the number of systems on which a downloaded game can be played.
All PSN games purchased after November 18 will only be playable on a maximum of two systems. The rule applies to PS3 and PSP games alike, but does not apply to games bought before the new rule comes into effect.
If it seems like only a few weeks ago that I was talking about a game designed by Spry Fox, and that’s because it was only a few weeks ago. According to Daniel Cook, the company’s chief creative officer, they’ve had three releases this month. It’s been “a wee bit hectic”.