World Of Warcraft publisher/developer Blizzard has announced a run of auctions to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, a centre for the research and treatment of childhood diseases.
A press release issued by Blizzard outlines the details of the auctions: "In total, approximately 2,000 of the original server blades from about 500 different World Of Warcraft realms will be auctioned.
Yesterday, we discovered how Flash has so far seen off competition to its rule over browser gaming. Its reliable economy has established it as a robust companion to the high-risk high-reward market of iPhone, while its vast installed base sets it apart from webgame alternatives like Unity or HTML5.
EA's Tiffany Steckler has revealed that: "After a review of all current and future projects, Electronic Arts has started a formal consultation process with its Bright Light employees over the proposed closure of the studio".
Bright Light, based in Guildford UK, is the studio responsible for the Harry Potter tie-ins.
TIGA CEO Richard Wilson has warned that the UK government ignores Ireland's ongoing drive to attract developers at its peril.
A report issued earlier this week by Ireland's policy advisory board for enterprise and science Forfas set out recommendations to double the size of the Irish game industry's workforce within three years.
Developer Tiny Speck has used a simple mobile running game to demonstrate the potential of its Glitch API.
Dubbed, fittingly, Simple Runner, the building blocks of the game are a simple iOS run and jump game in which you make a sphere dodge other shapes in order to travel as far as possible (you can see it in action in the first video below).
Once passed through the "Glitchification" (yes, we groaned too) process, the result is Glitch Run (second video) - the same simple running and jumping game but dressed in Glitch assets.
More than most superheroes, Batman is defined by his limits. And so was Arkham Asylum. In taking the Dark Knight out of Gotham, Rocksteady didn't fulfil players' keenest Batman fantasy – that of swooping over a corrupted city before diving to earth to dispense vigilante justice. What we got in return, however, was a Batman so flawlessly attuned to his environment that it was hard to imagine him out of it.
More than most superheroes, Batman is defined by his limits. And so was Arkham Asylum. In taking the Dark Knight out of Gotham, Rocksteady didn't fulfil players' keenest Batman fantasy – that of swooping over a corrupted city before diving to earth to dispense vigilante justice. What we got in return, however, was a Batman so flawlessly attuned to his environment that it was hard to imagine him out of it.
Among the fluffy animals and sporty avatars of Kinect’s launch line-up, Harmonix’s Dance Central gave Microsoft’s motion-tracking system something it sorely needed: a heady dose of sex appeal mixed with a dash of cool. And more importantly, this achingly self-conscious hipness was tied to a use of Kinect which felt like a genuine breakthrough. Before Dance Central, dance games were based on pressure-sensitive mats or Wii Remotes, but this was a title that could see your body and teach you how to move it.
Unity Technologies and Frontier Developments are the latest big names to be added to next month's Bradford Animation Festival.
The tech engine and platform specialist join the likes of Team Bondi founder Brendan McNamara, Blitz Games design lead Nick Adams and facial scanning and capture pioneers Image Metrics for the event taking place at the National Media Museum on the 8th November at the University Of Bradford on the 9th.
DICE is offering the chance to help shape the future of its (literally) ground-breaking Frostbite engine as a backend engineer working on the developer's Battlefield series-powering tech. The successful applicant will join an independent, dedicated team of 30 currently working the next generation of the engine. Find all DICE's vacancies here.
I heard about Triple Town from three different people and via three different social networks this week. That’s the kind of viral marketing you simply can’t buy. Happily, Spry Fox’s ingenious strategy-puzzler is worth every tweet and every wall post.
Valve's Team Fortress 2 in-game store, Mann Co., has reached its first "Manniversary" and as a result the TF2 and Half-Life developer has announced a major update and sale.
The store has earned two million dollars for community item-creators, the company says, "selling their digital creations through the Mann Co. Store".
OpenFeint's Game Channel, an app that directs Android users to recommended games in its crowded Marketplace, has launched.
Already available for iOS, the app promotes a free game each day, as well as offering bundles of recommended games.
Nintendo's decision to cut the price of 3DS earlier this year appears to have paid off with a ten per cent sales jump in the US, according to data from NPD.
The sales increase reflects a month-on-month jump from August (when the price cut was announced) to September, and comes amid an overall six per cent downturn for physical sales in the US.
Nintendo's decision to cut the price of 3DS earlier this year appears to have paid off with a ten per cent sales jump in the US, according to data from NPD.
The sales increase reflects a month-on-month jump from August (when the price cut was announced) to September, and comes amid an overall six per cent downturn for physical sales in the US.
Epic Games' iOS title Infinity Blade is set to debut in US arcades on October 28. The cabinet will feature a 46-inch screen and support two players, but no other details have yet been revealed.
The news follows last week's news that Infinity Blade 2 is headed to iOS.
Following the furore and subsequent apology over CCP's incarna update and introduction of virtual goods into EVE Online, the company has gone one step further towards winning back the hearts (and wallets) of its fans.
Players whose EVE accounts lapsed around the time of the incident have been offered, by email, a reduced subscription offer of $4.95 for 30 days.
The total US physical video game market - videogames, consoles and accessories - fell by six per cent from $1.23 billion to $1.16 billion year-on-year in September, according to new figures from research group NPD.
Despite a number of high-profile game releases, such as Gears Of War 3 and Madden NFL 12, sales of new console and PC software slid one per cent year-on-year to $653.2 million, but were up three per cent over the previous month's figures.
Angry Birds developer Rovio Entertainment could begin selling shares to the public as early as next year, with the company valued internally at “a bit north” of $1 billion.
Chief marketing officer Peter Vesterbacka told Bloomberg that the Finnish studio is “not ready to file for an IPO tomorrow”, but that it may be “a year from now”.
According to the report, Angry Birds has now been downloaded over 400 million times since 2009, with three quarters of the total achieved in the last six months.
Four ex-Rare staffers have established a new independent development studio, which is working on a sci-fi Xbox Live Arcade title due to be published by Microsoft.
Leicestershire-based Starfire Studios consists of designer Chris Tilston, programmer Mark Edmonds, and artists Ross Bury and Phil Dunne, all of whom worked at Rare for over a decade.
New entries Dark Souls and Rage failed to shift FIFA 12 from the top spot on the Nordic chart, which collates sales data from Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark.
Tim Cain, one of the creators of the original 1991 Fallout, has joined Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian as senior programmer.
Listen to some and it would seem Flash dies every few years. The development platform was said to be on its last legs when Unity swaggered onto the scene, and not long for this world when Apple petulantly cast the technology from its many i-devices. Its latest killer? HTML5, so it has been reported. Terminator-like, Flash stalks on.
Developer Spacetime Studios' MMOG Star Legends: The Blackstar Chronicles will allow iOS, Android, PC and Mac players to play together for the first time.
The fully 3D game has been ported to the in-development open source Google Native Client (NaCl), allowing for cross-platform play when it launches on Google Chrome.
EA has released a brand new ten minute gameplay video of Starbreeze Studio's upcoming Syndicate reboot. Narrated by the game's executive producer Jeff Gamon, the video runs through Executive Search, an early level.
Though die-hard fans of the isometric, team-based original are unlikely to be assuaged by any amount of footage, we have to admit that FPS Syndicate is shaping up to look like a pretty interesting prospect. Let us know what you think about the video after you've watched it.