Child’s Play has announced that it has raised over $1.5 million in 2011. The organization has raised over $10 million made in donations since the it was launched in 2003.
Child’s Play is targeting $2 million in total for donations for the year get. There are several things that will occur in December, including the Charity Auction Dinner and many gaming marathons.
Source: ChildsPlayCharity.org
BioShock Infinite will no doubt be a moody and atmospheric game when it releases in 2012, so appropriately the most recent trailer is paired with a haunting melody. Check out the new environments and enemies in this trailer, all done to an original rendition of Will the Circle be Unbroken.
Those funny guys at BeatDownBoogie, responsible for the Modern War Gear Solid series, are back to lampoon Modern Warfare 3. Ghost thinks the game would be better with him, and after watching this video who’s to argue
Diablo III has been anticipated for more than a decade and now it’s nearly here. Check out this intro video to the game, which has an awesome use of drawings that appear to be three-dimensional.
Lego is inviting people to spread some holiday cheer by sending a virtual Star Wars greeting card {link no longer active} to friends or family. For each greeting shared on its site up to December 24, Lego will donate one new toy to the U.S. Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots program, up to a maximum of one million toys. To promote the engaging charity campaign, thousands of residents and visitors of the San Francisco Bay Area helped to construct the world’s largest LEGO Santa Yoda in Union Square {link no longer active}. Weighing nearly 4,000 pounds, the figure stood 12-feet tall, 10-feet wide and was made of around 250,000 bricks. The Whitebox Art Gallery in New York City also featured a huge Lego Yoda display.
Rovio has announced that it is the second anniversary of Angry Birds release. To celebrate this “Happy Birdday” the company is releasing new content for the mobile game.
The new content will include a new expandable orange bird, “15 delectable new birthday cake levels, spiffy new menus and graphics, and special birthday achievements. As a birthday gift to our fans, all episodes are now unlocked!” It is available now on iOS, with the update coming to other platforms”soon.”
IGA Worldwide has confirmed that they have laid off up to seven of their 22 employees. The layoffs were said to be about realigning business strategy, following bad fiscal performances over the last few quarters.
The company saw a rise in casual games being ad supported, mostly through Flash-based titles, pushing the company up to 70 employees in 2008. However, social and mobile games have sought advertising revenues from different sources and the AAA-games sector going away from in-game advertising, the company has fallen on hard times.
Source: VentureBeat
While there are some doubts about Zynga’s upcoming IPO, it should still be said that the company is still the king of social games. The developer has the top five titles in Daily Average Users (DAU): CityVille, CastleVille, FarmVille, Texas HoldEm Poker, and Words With Friends.
CityVille has over 10 million players and Words With Friends has seen an increase of 500,000 users in the past week to get up to 5.7 million and in fifth place. By contrast, The Sims Social has dropped all the way to sixth at 5.6 million, seeing its number go down from 6.1 million DAU.
Source: AppData {link no longer active}
AT&T and the U.S. Department of Justice have agreed to ask a judge to stay the DoJ’s antitrust case until January 18, which was granted. The reason both parties came together to agree on this is is because AT&T wishes to discuss the merger with T-Mobile USA’s parent Deutsche Telekom and basically consider if they want to continue proceeding.
“AT&T is committed to working with Deutsche Telekom to find a solution that is in the best interests of our respective customers, shareholders and employees,” said AT&T in a statement. “We are actively considering whether and how to revise our current transaction to achieve the necessary regulatory approvals so that we can deliver the capacity enhancements and improved customer service that can only be derived from combining our two companies’ wireless assets.”
“They’ve conceded that this deal is dead and signaled that they are going to try and have additional discussions with the Justice Department to see if there’s any kind of alternative deal they would agree to,” said Andrew Gavil, an antitrust professor at Howard University School of Law in Washington. “At the same time, AT&T will have to be in discussions with Deutsche Telekom about whether they are willing to release them from this deal to discuss another deal.”
If the merger doesn’t happen by September 20, 2011, AT&T would have to pay T-Mobile about $3 billion in cash and compensate with spectrum and other services worth about another $4 billion. “Essentially AT&T is now deciding whether to try to come up with a solution to fix the transaction or to just pay the breakup fee and walk away,’ said Jeffrey Jacobovitz, an antitrust litigator with McCarthy, Sweeney & Harkaway PC in Washington.
Source: BusinessWeek {link no longer active}
Konami has announced that they have launched an international Metal Gear Solid website at www.metalgearsolid.com in order to unify the unified global presence of the series online. Along with media and opportunities to buy games from the series, along with an “interactive game universe.”
“The first layer of exploration is the Metal Gear Solid Timeline, an interactive aggregation of the game series’ most pivotal events, characters, and storylines spanning over 200 years,” describes Konami. “The second layer is the Player Timeline. Through the Player timeline, not only will fans be able to follow and interact with the personal Metal Gear Solid memories, favorites, and insights of famed producer Hideo Kojima and key members of the Kojima Productions development team, but fans can also add their own mark to the legend of Metal Gear Solid by submitting their own nostalgic moments, uploading their own photos and videos, as well as viewing and commenting on other players’ memories in order to create a diverse and dynamic community connected by the heritage of the Metal Gear Solid storyline.
There is also full social media integration with Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus.
