Electronic Arts might be the titan of the video game publishing industry, owning top-selling franchises and churning out game after game for essentially every viable platform on the planet. But the company is not immune to the tight global economic climate…and nor is it immune to market forces that are quickly reshaping the gaming industry. Yesterday Electronic Arts announced a new deal to acquire social gaming company Playfish for some $275 million, then turned around and revealed a net loss of $391 million for its fiscal second quarter along with plans to cut an additional 1,500 jobs from its payrolls.
Category: Gaming
Gstar 2009: The Future of Video Games and the Video Game Industry
Gaming fans and members of the gaming industry from all around the world will gather together for the exhibition show Gstar 2009 at Busan’s Bexco Convention Center from November 26-29. This will be the 5th year of this event, and companies and visitors from all over the world will come to preview the future of the gaming industry. At this event, future games, products, and developments will be displayed. Two hundred companies from 20 different countries including America, China, Japan, and European countries will make appearances at this exhibition.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Could Be The Best Holiday Video Game
This holiday season’s biggest entertainment blockbuster likely will be a sequel to a popular franchise, with jarring depictions of war and an intricate story of good versus evil. It could easily rake in more than last year’s record $155 million opening weekend for “The Dark Knight.”
But this blockbuster is not a movie.
It is “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” a video game that Activision Blizzard Inc. is releasing Tuesday. Fans worldwide are expected to spend at least half a billion dollars on the game in the first week.
Black Friday 2009: Best Ad Sales from Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and More
Searching for 2009’s hottest Black Friday deals before November 27th? Look no further—We’ve rounded up the holiday’s best sales, ads and web sites so you can get your Black Friday 2009 fix. These are our picks for Black Friday’s best sale items from popular retailers like Sears, Walmart, and Kmart.
Fuji J29 10MP 3X Zoom 2.7″ LCD Digital Camera Bundle 
This digicam bundle will be retailing for $89.99 rather than its previous $129.99. Its features and specs include:
- Storage Case
- 2GB SD Memory Card
- 10.2-megapixel resolution
- 2.7 in. LCD Display
Chinese Agencies Fight for Control of Web Game
Chinese regulators are fighting over the right to oversee “World of Warcraft,” a popular online game, in a bizarre battle that has thrust bureaucratic rivalry for control of the Internet into the open.
The bureau that licenses publishers said this week the game’s Chinese operator failed to obtain required import approval and should stop signing up customers. Its rival, the Ministry of Culture’s cultural products department, fired back that it was the regulator of online games and said the Web site’s paperwork was in order.
Second Life Gets Ready for Enterprise
Linden Lab’s Second Life might be known as the most free-wheeling of the online virtual worlds—Second Life hosts its own virtual version of Burning Man every year, and is currently embroiled in an copyright infringement lawsuit with makers of in-game sex furniture. But the company has attracted serious interests from businesses and enterprise eyeing the virtual world technology as a way to substantially improve collaboration, training, telepresence, and conferencing within their companies…if only they didn’t have to deal with security and confidentiality issues of hooking up to the main Second Life grid. So at the Enterprise 2.0 conference today, Linden Lab plans to unveil Second Life Enterprise, a beta version of its “Nebraska” project, a new solution that will let corporations and enterprises set up their own private virtual worlds behind their corporate firewalls, separate from the Second Life grid.
