Social gaming king Zynga has begun legal proceedings against Brazilian developer Vostu for "blatant copyright infringement."
Zynga claims that Vostu, which has offices in Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and New York and is, along with Mentez, the biggest social developer in Brazil, "has brazenly appropriated the copyright-protected aspects of Zynga's games (as well as almost every other aspect of Zynga's business) with scant effort to mask [its] strategy."
The hacking group has hit CCP's Eve Online servers for the second time, bringing them down in the process. In addition, the group has published the email and password details of 62,000 internet users obtained from an unspecified source. LulzSec has claimed responsibilty for attacks on Nintendo, Epic Games, Square Enix, Codemasters, Minecraft and the Escapist websites over the past few days.
For the length of its opening level, SpeedRunner, the debut title from DoubleDutch Games, appears to be Canabalt with a bit of story thrown in. Stick with it, though. By the second level, you’ll realise this arcade platformer is actually Canabalt with a grappling hook – and that’s a much more appealing proposition.
Microsoft has officially released a beta version of the Kinect for Windows SDK.
Designed for non-commercial purposes, the programming toolkit is aimed at academic and hobbyist application developers.
Offering Kinect capabilities to developers who build applications with C++, C#, or Visual Basic by using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, it includes drivers, rich APIs for raw sensor streams and human motion tracking, audio capabilities, installation documents, sample code and resource materials.
Duke Nukem Forever is the new number one on the Nordic chart, which collates sales data from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
Fellow new entry Infamous 2 takes second place ahead of LA Noire, which had topped the rankings for three successive weeks.
Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean slips one place to number four, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars rounds off the top five, while Portal 2 and Zumba Fitness slip out of the top ten.
Regularly promoted alongside Shadows Of The Damned, there are few finer stablemates for Suda’s descent into hell than American McGee’s Alice: Madness Returns. Both herald from digital auteurs encroaching on familiar territory – hell and Lewis Carroll – and both lack ideas to match their visual invention. This is a Burton-esque Wonderland; in fact, it’s more Burton-esque than the director’s own attempt.
Japanese developer Game Republic is believed to have closed its doors after eight years in the business.
The studio, known for the PS3 exclusive Genji: Days Of The Blade and last year's Majin And The Forsaken Kingdom, has vacated its Tokyo offices, and its official website has been offline for some time. It is our understanding that the studio had been operating with a skeleton staff since at least October of last year, while staff known to have worked at the developer have been popping up at other companies.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has emphatically ruled out the suggestion that Nintendo should develop games that use the free-to-play model, saying that the entire industry would be at risk were the firm to do so.
In an interview with All Things Digital, Iwata reiterated comments made about mobile and social games at GDC in February, when he said that low-cost software threatened consumer perception of traditional, full-price experiences and the industry that produces them.