Game Development

Realizing that it has lost the war on Xbox One's online requirements and its used games policies, Microsoft announced today that it is abandoning them altogether. Microsoft has changed its stance on always online and used game policies to be more like they were on Xbox 360. In a blog post explaining the changes President of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, Don Mattrick, laid out the changes.read more

The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) today presented Independent Home Entertainment Awards to four video titles for being the best in their respective categories. The awards were given out during EMA’s 2013 Independent Product Market at the Marriott Marina del Rey in Marina del Rey, California.read more

Former Microsoft creative director Adam Orth will be giving an ironic speech that explores "toxic online behavior" and why he left the Xbox maker at this year's GDC Next. Adam Orth- is best known for his controversial "always-online" and "deal with it" comments on Twitter that angered a lot of gamers and inevitably led to him getting fired by Microsoft. Orth will give a talk titled "Mob Rules: The Destructive Power of Opinion and Online Community."read more

A thread on NeoGAF that pokes around in some code from the new Steam Beta reveals some strange strings about game sharing on the popular digital distribution platform. The code refers to a shared game library and a shared license. While the strings have been confirmed as legitimate, Valve has not publicly commented on the data fished from the new client beta. The code in question is below:read more

The newly designed Kinect for Xbox One may run afoul of a bill called the "We Are Watching You Act," if it becomes law. The law sponsored byread more

Those consumers who were looking forward to buying that "other" Android home console, the Gamestick, will have to wait a bit longer. The release of PlayJam's Gamestick has slipped to August, citing a delay with manufacturing the micro-Android device. The $500 pledge tier - called "Designed By Me" - offered 50 people the chance to advise on the Gamestick UI. However, the prototype units intended for this stage of production were delayed, and the entire project has been pushed back until August as a result. read more

According to an in-depth Vanity Fair article chronicling the departure of Jason West and Vince Zampella from Activision and the lawsuit that followed, the duo who helped make Call of Duty a household name were not getting along at their new studio Respawn Entertainment. Last Month West left the company to deal with "family issues," but those issues may have had more to do with his work family than his home life.read more

After some back and forth from lawmakers in Rhode Island, officials say that they will honor the debt generated from a default of the loan to Curt Schilling's 38 Studios. The state of Rhode Island said that it will officially honor the bonds that financed Kingdoms of Amalur developer 38 Studios after the Rhode Island Finance Committee approved a budget last night that includes an interest payment of $2.5 million, Reuters reports.read more

Retailers are embracing digital delivery as consumers migrate their existing disc collections into the digital world, but a new report by the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) shows that Blu-Ray consumption is on the rise. There was a .25% increase in consumer spending on home entertainment in 2012, the first time in seven years there hasn’t been a decrease, EMA noted at the annual Independent Product Market event.read more

As of this writing, PS3 firmware update 4.45 has been taken down from the site and Sony Computer Entertainment has said publicly that they are currently fixing the problem. Users have been advised not to update their PS3s until further notice.read more