Call of Duty: Black Ops II Reaches $1 Billion

DEC. 5, 2012 • Call of Duty: Black Ops II is keeping up with past installments in the franchise. Activision Blizzard reports that the action title took in $1 billion in worldwide revenue within 15 days. It took Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 a total of 16 days to accomplish the same milestone last year. By comparison, Call of Duty: Black Ops took 42 days to reach $1 billion in sales in 2010, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) needed 64 days. .....

Facebook and Zynga Reach New Deal

Nov. 30, 2012 • In regulatory statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Facebook and Zynga amended the terms binding content distribution and revenue giving both companies more freedom. Facebook now gains the opportunity to publish its own titles. In return, Zynga no longer must use Facebook as the primary distribution platform for its titles, or use Facebook as the exclusive means of login on all platforms. .....

3DS XL Bundles Mario Kart

NOV. 28, 2012 • Less than a month before Dec. 25th Nintendo of America announced its holiday plans for 3DS XL. The system, which sports 90% more screen area than the 3DS, was originally released on Aug. 19.  With no change to the standalone $199 price the special edition 3DS XL bundle includes a copy of Mario Kart 7 pre-installed. The game was released at retail on Dec. 4 of last year yet became available through Nintendo’s eShop more recently on Oct. 18......

OpenFeint Servers to Close

NOV. 19, 2012 • On Nov. 16, smartphone developers started receiving notices from GREE that the latter was terminating servers of the cross-platform mobile social network OpenFeint on Dec. 14. GREE acquired OpenFeint in 2011 for $104 million. Previous to this announcement GREE had told.....

GameFly Digital Client Launches

Nov. 9, 2012 • Eleven months after the open beta inauguration of its PC digital content client, game rental retailer GameFly officially launched the service with a free download of 2K Games’ Bioshock. The company entered the digital distribution business in August of 2011 with the acquisition of the Direct2Drive service from IGN. Using the Direct2Drive platform as a foundation, GameFly was intent on creating an online portal where its subscribers can manag.....

Aeria Interview: Embracing Mobile Games

NOV. 8, 2012 • Aeria Interview: There is a flood of free-to-play publishers making bold moves to carve out territory on mobile platforms. While it cannot be contested that many consumers are now completely enamored with their smartphones and tablets, there are mounting questions about how many games these consumers will actually pay for on their mobile devices, and whether there is too much content vying for far too little prospective purchasers. .....

Disney Acquires LucasFilm

OCT. 31, 2012 • The Walt Disney Company is purchasing LucasFilm Ltd., for $4.05 billion. The latter is wholly owned by chairman George Lucas, who will receive roughly $2 billion in cash, and the remainder in 40 million shares of Disney stock. Disney is acquring Lucas’ entire entertainment holdings, including the LucasArts video game division, and the Industrial Light & Magic special effects business. The sale will make Lucas the second-largest sharehol.....

Microsoft SmartGlass Examined

OCT. 31, 2012 • The Kinect motion controller was a tremendous boon to the Xbox 360 released far back in 2005 – helping to extend market share for the console at the very time that sales should have been trailing off.  While much outside attention is being focused on what the next Xbox will look like and when it will arrive, Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division has launched a new complementary input technology, SmartGlass. Although Kinect can e.....

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