GamesBeat weekly roundup: MMO troubles, virtual reality, gaming, and slow Vita sales

Missed the latest news on GamesBeat? Here's a list of the stories we ran over the past week.

Bitmob Writing Challenge (August 2012): In The Beginning

Each month, the Bitmob Writing Challenge offers both old and new community members a chance to write on a specific topic. If you find this introduction a bit bland, then that’s what I want to hear — this month we’re …

Gameforge sees success with its first three mobile games

Germany's Gameforge has announced that it is moving into the mobile gaming market.

Is the Wii U really a next-gen game console?

The industry has commonly referred to Nintendo's upcoming Wii U as the first of the next-generation consoles; however, this moniker is up for much speculation in light of the current console market.

Up until this point, the market has been …

MechWarrior Tactics sticks to its board game roots with intense 1-on-1 firefights (hands-on preview)

2012 is shaping up to be a banner year for quality free-to-play games on the PC, and the upcoming MechWarrior Tactics is no exception.

EA sues Zynga, alleging The Ville is a blatant clone of The Sims Social

EA and Zynga, two of the world's biggest game companies, are at war over copyrights.

Hasbro taps DeNA to get Transformers to play nice on the iPhone (preview)

DeNA/Ngmoco gives a first look at its mobile Transformers game.

EA readies oodles of mobile games for summer gamers

EA's Summer Showcase was filled with mobile games from publishers Chillingo and PopCap, among others.

The DeanBeat: How fast will the shift to huge growth for mobile games happen?

With the console market looking a little shaky and Facebook starting to slow down, mobile stands before the gaming industry as a potential savior.

Death Rally paves a developer’s path into brave new world of games (interview)

Death Rally is a foot in the door for digital games at Remedy Entertainment. Maybe its next big thing will be a mobile game?

Papo & Yo and 10 other games that feature graffiti

Papo & Yo isn't the first game to feature graffiti, but its style and influences are uniquely Latin American.

Bitmob’s Big 10: July 2012′s most-read community stories

Is it August already? Man, this year has flown by. But fast or slow, our stalwart Bitmob community never misses a beat. (You know. A beat about games. A GamesBeat. Get it?)

(…I'm…I'm so sorry.)

Anyway, a new month means …

3 reasons not to buy games (right away)

In this fast-paced, hustle-and-bustle world of ours, a lot of people are afraid of being left behind. I'm often worried that I'll be at a party and people will start talking about Lost, and I won't have anything to add …

5 very memorable video game deaths

Life in a video game is cheap. Odds are you bite it on a fairly regular basis just bopping through the campaign. Your character explodes in a shower of meaty parts or he simply ragdolls, letting out a manly, yet …

Gamers at Work reveals the risks and emotional complications in entrepreneurship (interview)

Gamers at Work is a collection of interviews with some of the game industry's most iconic founders, developers, and entrepreneurs. It's also a handy guide for aspiring business people hoping to break into games.

Why free to play is not a death knell for MMOs

In the past few years, the massively multiplayer-online market has looked congested at best. And the harsh reality is that unless your MMO is based on an established property or series such as Warcraft or Star Wars, your chances of …

These Minecraft-themed 3D-printed figures are fantastic

You can buy all the weird Minecraft-related clothing you want (including a three creeper moon T-shirt), but finding more game-accurate items is actually a bit of a challenge. Well, one generous person with the time and patience to run a 3D …

Classic shooter Rise of the Triad returns after 17 years (first screens, trailer)

Kicking off this week's QuakeCon event, Apogee Software finally made good on its talk of a modern reboot of its classic 1995 first-person shooter, Rise of the Triad.

Skyrim’s Dawnguard expansion finally available for PC

The expansion sees a powerful vampire lord attempting to use the titular Elder Scrolls to vanquish the sun forever.