Apparently, Austin is the last place you want to be set up as a game developer. Just days after Midway shut down their Austin studios, NCsoft has canceled projects in the city, resulting in 21 people losing their positions. The games being shut down include unamed titles in prototype phases and a few positions on [...]

State Rep. Raymond Poe introduced a bill that would force companies to make cancellation easier for subscription based game, specifically MMOs. It was signed into law on Tuesday. The law is as states that the company must provide:
(1) a secure method at the Internet gaming service provider’s web site that the consumer may use to [...]

Cryptic Studios confirmed this morning that they have secured the worldwide rights to the Star Trek franchise and are working on a new MMORPG with the license entitled Star Trek Online.
“Star Trek was never about a single character, ship or even planet,” says Jack Emmert, chief creative officer of Cryptic Studios. “Star Trek was always [...]

In this week’s edition of Zero Punctuation, Ben “Yahtzee” Crowshow gives his take on Funcom’s Age of Conan. With the MMO genre currently being dominated quite handily by Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, my impression from watching this was that he thinks the games are much too similar. Alongside that, it makes the player feel much [...]

2K Games announced this morning that they will be the North American and international publisher of Cryptic Studios’ upcoming Xbox 360 and PC MMO Champions Online. In doing so, the game is also 2K’s first crack at the MMO market.
“2K Games is excited to work with such a talented group as Cryptic Studios,” said Christoph [...]

Flagship’s first release, the anticipated Hellgate: London, proved to be a disappointment for many. Max Schaefer, co-founder of the development studio, spoke with Eurogamer and explained the problems the game had when it launched.
“If we made a mistake with Hellgate, it was trying to do too many things for too many people… We ended up [...]

DCUO Concept Art - First Look DCUO Concept Art
Fresh off of the first bits of the game being revealed by Edge Magazine last week, Sony Online Entertainment appears ready to let gamers at least get a peak of the upcoming DC Universe Online. Earlier tonight, an official MySpace page was launched for the game that [...]

One would think that after an extensive wait for a sequel to the dungeon crawling PC staple Diablo II, fans would be rejoicing in unison to Blizzard’s announcement of a third game in the series. Leave it to the internet to make any joyous occasion a lackluster one. Fans of the series have begun a [...]

Diablo III, the highly anticipated sequel in Blizzard Entertainment’s critically acclaimed action RPG series, was finally confirmed this morning by the company at their 2008 Worldwide Invitational. Following the announcement, two trailers were shown off, with one being a cinematic teaser and the other being an extended gameplay demo with developer commentary.
“We’ve wanted to expand [...]

38 Studios announced earlier today that artist Thom Ang has joined the company as their new art director. In his new role, he will be working closely with company co-founders Todd McFarlane and R.A.Salvatore on company properties and IP.
“38 Studios’ creative teams have been meticulously crafting the signature look and feel for our upcoming MMOG [...]

A number of new details on Sony Online Entertainment’s upcoming MMO DC Universe were revealed today, thanks to a report in Edge Magazine.
According to Jim Lee, comic book icon and the game’s executive creative director, the game will be a “kick-ass hybrid between a traditional MMO and a first-person action console game”.
Taking up a model [...]

Despite not even having a full version of the game out yet in retail, EA’s Spore Creature Creator is hitting it off big with gamers as the company announced earlier tonight that over 250,000 creatures have already been made utilizing the free downloadable version of the service.

“The response to the Spore Creature Creator has been [...]

Funcom and Eidos jointly announced this morning a slew of features aimed at evolving Age of Conan, which has been doing quite well since its launch last week. New dungeons, a PvP update, and social community features are a number of select items the two companies revealed that are currently in production, some of which [...]

Following the immediate success of their new MMO Age of Conan, Funcom is bringing fans of the game something else to enhance their experience as they announced an official two disc soundtrack for the game. The first disc of the soundtrack is out now on iTunes, while the complete two disc set is coming later [...]

Flagship Studios, developers of the shooter/RPG/MMO Hellgate London is apparently in an internal struggle to survive. On a blog post (since removed), one of the original programmers Guy Somberg let gamers know what’s been happening with development on added content in blatant terms:
“Work is depressing right now. Never mind the fact that Hellgate isn’t as [...]

Realtime Worlds is ready to start establishing their community base for its upcoming MMO APB (All Points Bulletin), and in doing so has announced that Chris ‘Ulric’ Dye has joined the company as Community Relations Manager.
In his new role, Dye will start the process of building interest for the game via the usual online outlets [...]

Age of Conan has proven to a successful attempt at breaking into the World of Warcraft dominated MMO market. Today, Funcom confirmed just how much as they announced that the game has shipped one million copies less than a month after its release.
“Sales data shows that Age of Conan is [...]

Before World of Warcraft hooked its horns into the MMO loving public, Sony Online Entertainment’s EverQuest was the game of choice for those who enjoyed online games. Today, SOE is acknowledging those players, and even hoping to get a few back, by unveiling their Living Legacy program.
The initiative, which starts today and lasts until the [...]

Online game developer Trion World Network announced ths morning that it has acquired a third-party license to develop and publish games on the PlayStation 3.
“Announcing this publishing partnership with SCEA is the latest step in Trion’s strategic growth plans,” said Dr. Lars Buttler, CEO and co-founder, Trion. “The PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system is the [...]

One internet video game show that I’ve recently made it a habit to check out weekly is Players Only with Scott Steinberg. The show, which has covered everything from casual gaming to MMOs up to this point, usually talks to a ton of people in the industry (press included) and is remarkably thorough for the [...]