Claims EA flew West and Zampella to CEO’s home by private jet to plan new studio; wants $400m.
Activision has named Electronic Arts in a cross-complaint in the case involving former Infinity Ward studio heads Jason West and Vince Zampella.
Treyarch-developed shooter passes the milestone after just six weeks on shelves.
Call Of Duty: Black Ops has generated more than $1 billion for Activision in just six weeks on sale, the publisher has announced.
Milestone reached in just six weeks; no actual sales figures revealed.
Microsoft claims it has shipped 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 handsets in six weeks.
The figures were revealed in an internal interview with Achim Berg, vice president of business and marketing for Windows phones. Berg welcomed the figures but admitted Microsoft were facing a long battle in a highly competitive market.
Format: Wii
Release: Out now
Publisher: Disney Interactive
Developer: Junction Point
Screenshot gallery
Newly-released Mafia Wars: Atlantic City runs on iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and WebOS.
Social gaming giant Zynga has launched the latest in its popular Mafia Wars series, Atlantic City.
It has been an interesting few months for PrimeSense. Having supplied Microsoft with the depth-sensor technology used in the Xbox 360 motion device Kinect and watched it sell 2.5 million units in its first month on sale, the Israeli firm has formed OpenNI, a nonprofit organisation promoting Natural Interaction (NI) devices, applications and middleware. It’s also released open-source drivers for its own motion-sensing device, PSDK 5.0. So where does the five-year-old startup go from here?
The second part of our look back over the events that shaped videogames in 2010. Part one, covering January - April, was published yesterday.
May - August
Ex-shareholders of Harmonix claiming non-payment of bonuses based on 2008 Rock Band profits.
Former shareholders of Harmonix have brought a lawsuit against the Rock Band developer’s parent company Viacom.
A highlight from our community-written blogs, featuring a rumination on war.
Ambrus_Vere's blog, Friendly Fire, describes a Battlefield 2 encounter in vivid detail as the author considers what parrallels exist between the experiences of players in games about war, and those of real soldiers with far more to lose in defeat.
Modern PC in a classic C64 keyboard housing revealed and detailed.
Commodore USA has announced the details of its brand new Commodore 64.
The new C64 is a modern PC housed in the classic keyboard design.On its official site, Commodore says the keyboard contains “a modern mini-ITX PC motherboard featuring a Dual Core 525 Atom processor and the latest Nvidia Ion2 graphics chipset”. It will be available initially in classic beige, with more colours available down the line.
Firm’s assets, including the ageing Gamebryo Engine, bought by anonymous bidder.
Asset liquidation firm Gerbsman Partners has confirmed the sale of the technology and IP of Gamebryo maker Emergent.
According to Develop, an anonymous bidder purchased Emergent’s assets after a period of open bidding ended the week before last. Several firms had expressed interest but the sale was made to “one single highest bidder.”
Jury whittles down 75 indie games to final eight; all playable on the show floor at GDC 2011.
Organisers of the Independent Games Festival (IGF), the annual celebration of indie game development held at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), have announced the nominees for the Nuovo Award.
Time spent polishing will reap rewards down the line, says Braid man.
Braid developer Jonathan Blow has advised indie game developers against rushing to release.
“With Braid, I had that game done, mechanically, in 2006,” he said. “Within eight months of starting development you could play the whole thing. But the game came out over two years after that.
“There are British soldiers dying,” says Flashpoint: Red River developer.
Games based on real-world conflicts are in poor taste, according to a leading developer of the Operation Flashpoint series.
Sion Lenton, creative director of Red River, the latest in the Flashpoint series which will be released next year, told us: “I, personally, don’t want to focus on live conflict. I don’t think it’s appropriate and I don’t think it’s tasteful.
Microtransactions are where the money is for EA ahead of next year’s Battlefield: Play4Free.
In-game advertising has not delivered the expected levels of revenue, with microtransactions proving far more lucrative for EA.
The publisher’s general manager of free-to-play, Ben Cousins, told us: “We actually aren’t getting much from ad revenue at all. The in-game advertising business hasn’t grown as fast as people expected it to.”
Trade association states its case in response to government call for input on economic growth.
TIGA, the trade association representing the game industry, has announced its response to the Government Growth Review.
As the end of the year approaches, we've decided to look back over the events that shaped 2010. Today, tomorrow and Wednesday, we'll be presenting a selection of the news reports we've published that tell the story of a year that has seen the business and art of making games break new records - and hearts, too.
January - April
Simple game development tool’s wares available early next year.
YoYo Games has ported its Game Maker runner to Android devices.
Since 1999 Game Maker has enabled users to create games without knowing any programming languages. It uses a drag-and-drop system with advanced users given the option of using its own programming language, GML.
Claims Russian developer offered to give up Osmos name for $1350.
Hemisphere Games, developer of indie hit Osmos, claims to have had a run-in with a cyber-squatter on the App Store.
In a post on their website the developer claims that when it tried to submit its iPad version of Osmos to the App Store under the name Osmos HD, it was told that it was already in use.
Square Enix’s SNES classic headed to the App Store sometime this month.
Much-loved SNES RPG Secret of Mana is being released for iPhone.
In a post on the Square Enix Facebook page, producer Masaru Oyamada confirmed that the game had been submitted to Apple and greenlit for release.
Firmware update incoming to double camera resolution and enable hand and finger tracking.
Microsoft is working on an update for its Kinect motion sensor that will quadruple its accuracy.
Eurogamer reports that an update is in the works for the Xbox 360 peripheral that will enable it to track finger movement and hand rotation.
The third title in Bethesda’s open-plan RPG series is definitely freeform, but far from free.
No surprises as Activision's firstperson behemoth takes top slot; Cataclysm nowhere to be seen.
Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops is the UK all-formats Christmas number one.
UKIE reports that the Treyarch-developed shooter has sold three million copies in the UK since its release on November 9, and joins Modern Warfare 2 and Wii Fit in the exclusive club of games that have grossed more than £100m.
Asks European Commission to consider a ban on behalf of victims’ families.
A Member of the European Parliament has called for Take-Two’s Mafia II to be banned, reports Bloomberg.
More than 70 iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad games reduced to 59p.
Over 70 Electronic Arts games are now available for 59p as part of the publisher’s biggest ever sale.
The sale, which contains not only iPhone and iPod touch games but its iPad offerings as well, has led to Battlefield: Bad Company topping the Top Paid Games chart, unseating Angry Birds.