Games

EA is shutting down three more Playfish-developed Facebook games, citing a dropoff in player participation.

“Project Unity” is a one off game system that combines 15 game consoles capable of playing 18 formats in a single box, not using emulation.

The UK’s Office of Fair Trading has put in-app purchases in games in its crosshairs.

Nate Ralph at TechHive says Gameloft’s new Dungeon Hunter 4 game is marred by an overly obnoxious free to play mechanism that continuously begs you for money.

Adam Orth, the Microsoft creative director at the center of a gamer’s firestorm on Twitter last week, is now looking for other work.

Pathways Into Darkness, the classic early 90s shooter from Bungie Software, is back and available for download from the Mac App Store – for free!

Microsoft is expected to offer details about the next Xbox at an event now scheduled for May.

iOOTP Baseball 2013 is ready for download from the App Store for $5.

Moscow is home to a museum of vintage video games from the Soviet era.

Very clever idea.

LucasArts, the video game studio behind countless Star Wars games, has been shut down by new owner Disney.

Sonic & Sega All-Star Racing is released for the Mac on Thursday and is a Mac App Store exclusive.

Creatorverse, the creative tool from the makers of Second Life, is now free to download – it used to cost $5.

The wife of California’s Lt. Governor implored the video game industry to portray women as strong figures, not highly-sexualized ones.

Blizzard’s chief creative officer Rob Pardo talks about development of Hearthstone, a collectible card game coming this year for Mac, PC and iPad.

If you only read one gaming statistic this week, let it be this one: In a pre-conference survey, GDC 2013′s organizers found that 58 percent of gaming professionals attending either last year’s conference or this one plan to release their next game on smartphones or tablets. That’s a tad greater than commitments to the Xbox 360, Microsoft’s next console, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U and Wii, which combined garnered “next game” pledges from 56.5 percent of developers.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this week plays out.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown for the iPad won’t skimp – it’ll be the same game for PC, consoles (and soon for Mac too).

Blizzard has revealed plans to release a free to play collectible card game for Mac, PC and iPad.

Looking for some retro gaming fun on your Mac this weekend? Another World 20th Anniversary Edition – a new remake of a classic game originally made for the Amiga – is available for $10.

Steam is now offering players the chance to beta test games if they’re willing to pony up first.

Aspyr is working on a Mac version of BioShock Infinite, which it plans to release this summer.

Ultima’s creator contends that most game designers suck because they’re no good at anything else.

Despite its problems, the new SimCity game has moved more than 1.1 million copies since its release earlier this month.

A few other mid and senior-level executives sounded surprised at the changes in just asking around so far. But EA suffered a big black-eye in the last few weeks with the botched launch of Sim City.

EA admits that SimCity could have an offline mode, but said that wasn’t their vision for the game.

SimCity’s modder explains what he’s learned about how the game works, and suggests that EA isn’t being honest with customers.

Nvidia says that developing hardware for Sony’s PS4 wasn’t worth what Sony was willing to pay them.