This sponsored post is produced by StackSocial.

We all need a little bit of leisure time every now and again, but there’s no reason why you have to break the bank to get award-winning games to play during those times. That’s why VentureBeat is offering The Name Your Own Price Gamer Bundle for a limited time.

That’s right. We’ve partnered with 6 of the world’s finest Indie Gamer developers to bring you The Name Your Own Price Indie Gamer Bundle. You pay what you want for three different games that will keep you gaming for hours on end including: The Journey Down, Aztaka, and iBomber Defense. And if you pay higher than the average price, you’ll also receive Spades of Time, SpaceChem, and Cubemen.

After purchasing, you’ll get instant access to the full-version of games right from your account using Steam. Support some of the world’s best Indie developers and pay what you want for their finest work. Remember, they’ve worked hard to build these apps – pay a price you feel represents their efforts.

Here’s a little bit about the games included:

Blades of Time

• Solve different puzzles and fight armies of monsters
• Over 40 different combo attacks as well as spells of different magic schools
• Beautiful graphics: travel from snowy valleys and dense jungle to ancient cities and temples
• Eye-catching visual appeal

SpaceChem

• An addictive puzzle game
• Excellent design and user experience
• A fun, challenging and rewarding game that includes cosmic horror space monsters

Cubemen

• A fun, action-packed battle game
• Over 80 built-in maps and 8,000+ user-generated maps
• Built-in level editor
• Single player and multi-player gaming
• Fast-paced, easy to play but yet difficult enough to keep you battling for hours

iBomber Defense

• Twenty-two challenging and unique stages across a vast campaign
• Huge variety of weapons to repel the enemy: AA Guns, Artillery, Machine Gun Nests and more!
• Use Counter Attacks, Rewinds and the High Ground to your advantage
• Slick, gorgeous, graphics

Aztaka

• Gameplay in a gorgeous hand-painted world
• Discover 21 unique and detailed levels
• Enhance and customize your character by leveling-up and training skills and abilities
• Manipulate spiritual energy through an innovative hybrid control scheme to solve puzzles and vanquish foes

The Journey Down: Chapter 1

• A twisted and suspenseful adventure game
• An original jazzy reggae soundtrack
• Full of puzzles, mischief, and mystery

You can learn more about all of the games in the bundle by heading over to the VB Store.

But that’s not all that we’re offering with this offer. We’ve also chosen three charities that we believe make a significant positive impact across the globe. 10% of your entire purchase will go to help one of three charities of your choice: Child’s Play Charity, World Wildlife Fund, and Creative Commons. You get to help choose which charity raises the most!

This deal won’t lst for long – and that average price will climb each and every day. So don’t delay – pick up The Name Your Own Price Gamer Bundle today!

Wikia’s mission is threefold. It is designed to unloose the power of knowledge as influence, enable personal and collective creativity, and distribute rich, original content. Although founded by the creators of Wikipedia, Wikia is a separate business dedicated specifically to lifestyle topics and pop culture. And unlike Wikipedia, Wikia is a for-profit enterprise that makes money off advertising.

The platform powers over 200,000 wikis with millions of pages of content. The Wikia Video Games hub is the largest network of gaming sites in the world. It contains more than 65,000 game wikis and 2.48 million pages of content. The company cites The Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty, Mass Effect, Fallout, and Runescape as the most trafficked titles. The entertainment section is also growing fast, with “super communities” coming together around A Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games.

Today, alongside closing an $11 million deal, Wikia announced that the forum feature is now available, which will facilitate discussion on the sites. The investors on the fielding are Jeffrey Blackburn of Amazon, which led Wikia’s Series B of $10 million in 2006. Also listed are previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Institutional Venture Partners. Angel investors in Wikia include major Silicon Valley names like Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, Reed Hastings, and Mitch Kapor.

This brings Wikia’s funding to $25 million. Wikia is based in San Francisco. Read the SEC filing.

Apparently oblivious to the jokes that initially surrounded the Wii’s name, Nintendo just announced the Wii Mini — a budget console that offers fewer features than the original Wii but is much cheaper.

The Wii Mini will sell for just $100 when it’s released in Canada on December 7. For some reason, Nintendo is keeping the console exclusive to the country for this holiday season, and it isn’t saying anything about availability elsewhere.

To make the Wii Mini so cheap, Nintendo had to chop out many features, like networking capabilities and compatibility with GameCube games. The Wii Mini will only be able to play Wii game discs (Nintendo says there are now more than 1,400 disc-based Wii games available). The console comes with a Wii Remote and Nunchuk controller, and it’ll offer all of the motion gaming capabilities the Wii is known for.

By stripping out extra features and focusing on a core experience, Nintendo is clearly aiming to extend the life of its existing Wii hardware. And given that the new Wii U console starts at $300, Nintendo may be able to tempt some budget buyers who somehow missed out on the original Wii with this smaller console.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The company connects gamers together to share videos, screenshots, and gaming prowess. Gamers can post about the games they’re playing and the achievements they’ve received. Members can also watch live streams of game play, so you can decide if a game is worth picking up.

IDM Venture Capital led the round, which will be used to expand the company into Asian gaming markets. The full press release is below.

Xfire Secures $3 Million in New Funding to Expand in Asia

SANTA MONICA, Calif. and SHANGHAI – May 21, 2012 – Xfire, a feature-rich online community
platform that transports gamers’ social networks into thousands of PC games, secured an additional
$3 million in funding to continue its expansion into Asian territories. Led by Singapore-based firm
IDM Venture Capital, the latest influx of financing comes shortly after Xfire’s recently announced
partnership with CHINA YOUTH GOYOR TECHNOLOGY (BEIJING) CO., LTD., which is bringing
the company’s service to more than 400 million gamers in Asia. The investment from IDM Venture
Capital, a venture capital firm investing in early- to mid-stage interactive digital media companies, is
expected to be part of a larger funding round.

“Xfire’s Asian expansion and product pipeline are a key focus for our firm, and indicate the company
is poised for exponential growth,” said Denis Gamobramov, managing partner, IDM Venture
Capital. “Gamers yearn for the type of broad-based social connections, content creation and in-
game experience that is only possible through Xfire.”

Providing the tools for online gamers to take screenshots, record video, chat across multiple games
and share content to social networks in one streamlined application, Xfire is a free utility. The new
funding will aid the company in integrating Chinese character support to the application’s in-game
chat, helping millions of hardcore gamers in Asia improve their gaming experiences with native
support for Xfire and its suite of tools.

“The funding from IDM Venture Capital will allow Xfire to continue to add new features and support
as we adapt our services for the Asian markets,” said Malcom CasSelle, CEO, Xfire. “This interim
round of funding directly benefits our team in the U.S. and China as well as our strategic partnership
with CHINA YOUTH GOYOR TECHNOLOGY (BEIJING) CO., LTD.”

This latest round of funding brings Xfire’s total amount raised to $7 million. The initial $4 million
investment was led by Intel Capital in 2011.

The rumors are true. Microsoft confirmed today that it will offer a $99 Xbox 360 console and Kinect bundle (with a $15 monthly subscription fee) in its retail stores.

The deal will be available via the above online coupon, which Microsoft’s Xbox spokesman Major Nelson tweeted this morning. As we reported last week, the deal includes an Xbox 360 with four gigabytes of storage, and the $15 subscription fee includes Xbox Live Gold service (typically a $40-$60 annual cost).

The news is a fundamental change in the way the console market works. Typically, companies debut expensive new consoles that are heavily subsidized, with the hopes of making back money with game sales. As the years pass, consoles become cheaper to make, and companies are able to make a profit from the hardware itself. Given that the Xbox 360 is now almost seven-years-old, Microsoft can afford to be creative with its pricing model.

To purchase the same Xbox 360 + Kinect bundle now, you’d have to shell out $299, plus another $120 for a two-year Xbox Live Gold contract, for a total of $420. With the new bundle, you’d be paying $459 over two years — a difference many consumers likely wouldn’t mind.

In comparison, Sony’s cheapest PlayStation 3 model is $250, and its cheapest bundle with its Move motion controller is $350. With the confirmation of this deal, Sony will likely offer some sort of discount on the PlayStation 3 (a $199 price announcement at E3 doesn’t sound too unlikely). But that doesn’t include Sony’s pricy Move controller.

Given that the PS3 is much more expensive to produce than the Xbox 360 (thanks to the Cell processor), it’s unlikely Sony will ever be able to match Microsoft’s $99 + subscription pricing. But with the conversation quickly shifting towards next-generation consoles, Sony could just try to downplay Microsoft’s news by teasing the next PlayStation in the coming months.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Major tech and game companies will join the fight to purge convicted sex offenders from online video games in Operation: Game Over, according to a report in Forbes. Eric Schneidermann, the New York state attorney general, is leading the charge to remove accounts registered by sex offenders from popular online communities.

Participating companies include Microsoft, Sony, Disney, Apple, Warner Bros., Electronic Arts, and Blizzard.

“We must ensure online video game systems do not become a digital playground for dangerous predators. That means doing everything possible to block sex offenders from using gaming networks as a vehicle to prey on underage victims,” said Schneiderman in a statement. “I applaud all the companies participating in this first-of-its-kind initiative for taking online safety seriously and purging their networks of sex offenders. Together we are making the online community safer for our children, not allowing it to become a 21st century crime scene.”

New York state requires all sex offenders to register their email and online information. Even with this information, it is easy for sex offenders to assume online aliases and open new accounts. To date, Operation: Game Over has removed over 3,850 accounts belonging to offenders registered in New York. Partnering with major corporations was crucial to making this progress.

“Our partnership with the Office of the New York Attorney General helps further this cause. By leveraging the online identity information all registered sex offenders are required to provide, we are able to help reduce potentially harmful situations,” said Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel. “We’re supportive of Attorney General Schneiderman’s efforts to make the Internet, including online gaming environments like Xbox LIVE, safer for everyone.”

[image taken from Doubleblade]

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Niko Partners, a firm dedicated to gathering marketing intelligence in Southeast Asia, released a new study highlighting changing trends among 180 million Chinese gamers. Like much of the world, players are shifting toward more “occasional” or convenient mobile and social games.

“In examining the rapidly evolving Chinese games market, we see that casual, social, and mobile games have all captured the hearts of hardcore and occasional gamers alike,” said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner and founder of Niko Partners. “Online games revenues are now more distributed among various platforms and genres than they have been in past years, when MMORPGs compiled the vast majority of domestic revenue.”

Niko’s study covered 10 tier one and two cities in China. Cities are arranged into tiers based on their size and economic structures.

Sixty-four percent of all Chinese gamers are now spending money on online games each month, which is higher than other developing countries. This transition is also triggering a fall in the number of hard-core gamers that spend 22 or more hours a week playing. More people are actively picking up games now but playing them for shorter amounts of time.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Just as anyone can create a new article on Wikipedia, anyone can create a new community in Wikia. The founder sets the rules for that site and elects the moderators who help to govern it. There are now over 300,000 wikis generating around 50 million unique visitors a month. Six hundred new sites are created each day. So when talking about Wikia, we mean the universe of articles, reviews, walkthroughs, and videos dedicated to gaming which are collected under a central hub.

Wikia’s claim as the biggest gaming site in the world, however, isn’t cut and dry. IGN.com is far larger than Wikia.com, and IGN is only available in one language, while Wikia is global. IGN also has a big audience away from its web site, with tens of million of visitors to its Youtube page and Xbox Live content. It’s hard to get an apples-to-apples comparison between the two companies.

Wikia CEO Craig Palmer stopped by the VentureBeat office during a recent visit to New York to talk about what the company is doing to try and capitalize on its massive traffic and growth. “We’re not a forum or a place for Q&A. These are communities creating lasting content, like a traditional media company but without the hierarchy.”

Wikia has received $14 million in financing from Bessemer, First Round, Amazon and a list of big names angels like Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman, and Mitch Kapor. Palmer believes that it’s well positioned to thrive in an age when social media seems to be dominating the conversation.

“On Facebook and Twitter, there is so much content, it gets lost in the stream. Our users are also creators of these sites, so they are deeply engaged,” Palmer said. The average member of the gaming Wikia, for example, spends 30 minutes a day on one of the company’s sites.

To manage its two largest and fastest growing properties, gaming and entertainment, Wikia hired the former heads of IGN’s gaming and movie sites, Hilary Goldstein and Eric Moro. While Wikia says it has been profitable since 2005, it is looking to capture more high-end brand dollars by creating a more refined editorial product. Goldstein and Moro will manage hub pages that collect the best in gaming and entertainment from around Wikia.

“We’re turning up the dial in terms of our strategic relationships and aiming to provide our community with more exclusive and pre-release material. Hilary and Eric can really help us to craft those partnerships,” Palmer told us.

Image via Flickr user Sendoa Portuondo

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Greg Perreault, a doctoral student in the university’s School of Journalism, recently examined five titles that incorporate spiritual themes in their storylines — Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII, Assassin’s Creed, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. He found that each game “problematized religion” by closely tying it to violence.

“In most of these games there was a heavy emphasis on a ‘Knights Templar’ and crusader motifs,” he said. “Not only was the violent side of religion emphasized, but in each of these games religion created a problem that the main character must overcome, whether it is a direct confrontation with religious zealots or being haunted by religious guilt.”

Perreault (pictured) tells VentureBeat his study did not originally focus on violence. “In general, I tend to think that studies of violence in video games are passe. I set out interested in the depictions of organized religions versus spiritual religions, expecting to find organized religions depicted far more poorly than spiritual [ones].”

However, he says a game that connects religion with violence isn’t necessarily portraying it negatively. He uses the character Thane in Mass Effect 2 as an example, a deeply spiritual assassin who joins in the player’s quest to save the galaxy from the Reapers. “This is an interesting case because his religion doesn’t ‘inform’ the violence, although it allows for it,” he said. ”His religion basically says that the body and soul are separate. So the body can be used as a tool by someone else, and thus his assassinations aren’t anything he bears guilt for — the person who hired him bears the guilt. But Thane still feels guilty. He thinks about his victims, he prays for his victims. So is the religion violent here? Not necessarily, although it allows for the violence he commits — and must commit – in order to save the galaxy.”

While he cites Mass Effect 2 as an example of a game that portrays its spiritual themes in a positive light, Perrault says Assassin’s Creed is the most critical title he researched. “The game revolves around the search for something called the Piece of Eden. It allows you to control people’s minds. The argument is that the parting of the Red Sea, the turning of water into wine, the Resurrection — all of it was courtesy of church leaders who used the Piece of Eden to convince people a miracle occurred. The Templars, who appear to be exactly what they’re called, want it so they can use it to control the people. The Assassins, who are depicted as Enlightenment era secularists, want to keep it from them. As it turns out in the end, the Assassins don’t have good intentions with this thing either.”

Aware of the problems it could cause, Ubisoft puts a disclaimer on each Assassin’s Creed title saying that the game was designed by a “multicultural team.”

While the study observed a relationship between violence and video games, Perreault says he does not believe developers are creating an intentional commentary on religion.

“It doesn’t appear that game developers are trying to purposefully bash organized religion in these games. I believe they are only using religion to create stimulating plot points in their storylines. If you look at video games across the board, most of them involve violence in some fashion because violence is conflict and conflict is exciting. Religion appears to get tied in with violence because that makes for a compelling narrative.”

“I hope [the developers] take away that the thoughtful writing and imagery of their games doesn’t go unnoticed,” he added. ”I hope this propels great writing into all the great conversations of our society in video games, which I think ultimately will lead to better and better games.”

Perreault presented his findings at the Center for Media Religion and Culture Conference on Digital Religion.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Video game sales crashed 34 percent in January, with total industry sales falling 34 percent to $750.6 million from $1.14 billion a year ago, according to market researcher NPD Group.

The lousy performance of video game sales in physical retail stores masks what’s really happening as the industry transforms to digital sales, which aren’t captured in the retail numbers. Gamers are shifting their purchases to online, social, and mobile forms of gaming—dubbed digital gaming—while the retail side is shrinking fast. And the growth in digital isn’t quite big enough to offset the shrinking retail numbers.

In January, hardware sales were $199.5 million, down 38 percent from $324.0 million a year ago. Software was $355.9 million, down 38 percent from $576.0 million a year ago. Accessory sales were $195.2 million, down 18 percent from $237.1 million a year ago. In December, hardware sales were down 28 percent while software was down 14 percent.

Full told, the estimated total consumer spending on games includes physical video and retail games, used games, game rentals, subscriptions, full-game digital downloads, social network games, downloadable content, and mobile games. Not counting hardware, sales were $379.6 million, down 37 percent from $603.2 million a year ago.

Liam Callahan, analyst at the NPD Group, said, “January retail performance experienced steep declines with a lack of software launches, and poor hardware and accessory performance partly related to bad comps from Kinect-related success in January 2011.” A year ago, there were a lot more releases of new video games in January.

He added, “Outside of new physical retail sales, we estimate that the consumer spend on other ways to acquire content including used games, full game and add-on content downloads, social network games, mobile games, rentals and subscriptions accounted for an additional $350 – $400 million in sales.  Our final quarterly estimate of the Q1 2012 consumer spend in these areas will be released in our Q1 Games Market Dynamics: U.S.”

David Dennis, spokesman for Microsoft, said that the Xbox 360 had another month as the leader in console sales. The Xbox 360 led U.S. hardware sales for the 13th month in a row, selling 270,000 units in January. Microsoft said it holds 49 percent share of console sales, with the total retail spend on Xbox hitting $301 million.

NPD is working with research company EEDAR to try to come up with more accurate numbers for global digital and physical game sales worldwide. The top-selling game of the month was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (pictured), which was launched in November and is the top-selling video game of all time.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The deal is similar to one LG recently made with cloud gaming service Gaikai and is all part of the company’s plan to market its line of products as all-in-one multimedia systems.

Unity Technologies is the creator of the Unity development platform, which allows users to create and distribute interactive 3D and 2D content to mobile phones, app stores, tablets, set-top boxes, connected TVs and more. The company boasts a thriving community of 750,000 registered developers, including large publishers, indie studios, students, and hobbyists, and says it plans to make numerous games available on upcoming LG models in the near future through its business division Union.

“The television technology LG is introducing this year is very impressive and offers an incredible opportunity for the developers under the Union umbrella to reach a new market,” said David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies. “Our goal with Union is to create new avenues of distribution for developers using Unity, and LG smart TVs are creating a massive and new gaming audience.”

LG’s 2012 HDTV models feature the ability to play video games without the need for a console through a powerful video processor and the Magic Motion Remote, a gyroscopic motion controller. LG Head of Content Division Sang-Woo Lee says adding Unity’s huge catalog of titles to the lineup already available on his company’s TVs will boost their value to consumers looking to choose a HDTV model and help make them the most comprehensive platform for entertainment on the market.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The idea that he and his partner, chief executive Van Burnham, have dreamed up is to use the creators of the best arcade experiences from the golden age of Atari in the 1970s and 1980s to create games for the “new arcade” on iOS devices.

“We are looking at the new arcade, and 99 cents on the iPhone is the new quarter,” Blackley (pictured above), president of the startup Innovative Leisure, said in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. “People are playing on all these new devices and are finding the joy of the arcade games.”

The “Jedi Council” team includes Ed Rotberg, creator of the classic Atari game Battlezone; Owen Rubin, creator of Major Havoc and Space Duel; Rich Adam, creator of Gravitar and co-developer of Missile Command; Ed Logg, co-creator of Asteroids and Centipede; Dennis Koble, creator of Touch Me and Shooting Gallery; Tim Skelly, the only non-Atari veteran arcade game designer who worked for Cinematronics and created games such as Rip-Off; and Bruce Merrit, creator of Black Widow.

“This is the dream team from Atari,” Blackley said.

All told, there are 11 arcade game creators who are banding together at Innovative Leisure. They are joined by young interns in their 20s who will work with the veterans to help design new apps. Altogether, Innovative Leisure has 30 employees — a big team for a fledgling startup. To finance the overhead, Blackley has invested his own money and raised funds from publisher THQ. Next week in Las Vegas, at the industry’s Dice Summit, Blackley and his team members will talk about their vision for “the new arcade.”

Supercade

The startup has been a long time in the making. Some of the Atari veterans participated in a Time magazine cover story on video games in 1982; it was titled, “Gronk! Flash! Zap! Video games are blitzing the world.” But a couple of years after that, Atari changed ownership and the golden age of arcade games came to an end.

Burnham got to know many of the creators from Atari while writing her 2003 book, Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age 1971-1984. She introduced them to Blackley. They realized that the small group of designers had a tight relationship, getting together on an annual basis for the Gonzo Invitational, a golf tournament for Atari alumni that began in 1998.

Blackley helped launch the Xbox in 2001 and left Microsoft in 2002. He worked at game-production startup Capital Entertainment Group before becoming an agent for game developers at Creative Artists Agency. There, he represented legendary designers such as Will Wright (The Sims) and Tim Schafer (Psychonauts), helping them get a bigger ownership stake in their companies and properties in negotiations with publishers.

Meanwhile, Burnham and Blackley began building their own arcade in a Los Angeles warehouse. Dubbed “Supercade,” it has tons of old machines that Blackley repaired and refurbished himself. It is a vast place with row upon row of machines with flashing lights and ringing bells. Walking down the aisles is a trip down memory lane: Every person who visits Supercade becomes a kid again as they find an arcade machine from their childhood days.

He and Burnham curated and hunted down machines that would best illustrate a history of gameplay. And when Blackley left CAA last summer after eight years, Supercade figured big in his plans for his next gig.

“We had that big collection of games, and we love the history of game design,” Blackley said. “I’m lucky because I love games and following that love has always done me well. Once we figured out the iPhone is the new arcade, that games from the old days fit this new audience and their on-the-go lifestyle, we knew what to do. There is already a group of people who know how to operate and innovate in this space. They had the longest string of hit games in history. And they wanted to get back together again.”

Getting the band back together

The idea, Burnham said, was to “get the band back together.” Many of these veterans went on to careers at Apple and other places outside of gaming, and most of them thought the arcade days were over. But they all considered their time at Atari to be the most rewarding in their careers and are reunited thanks to Blackley’s vision.

“I’m here because of Seamus,” said Rotberg (pictured right), who works remotely from Grass Valley and is excited to be working on games again. Like the other veterans, Rotberg is paired with an intern and are working on a new title together.

“These kids are thrilled to learn how to make games with the inventors of gameplay,” Blackley said.

The team came up with 30 game ideas and whittled them down to 10. They pitched them to THQ, which said that it wanted all of them. So far, seven of those titles are in the works. Most of them are already in prototype form.

“It’s been very easy to support Seamus and his team on Innovative Leisure because they are all super-smart dudes who care about games,” said Lenny Brown, vice president of creative and business development at THQ.

Blackley said that the creators of coin-operated games know how to do things like grab the attention of the gamer in the first few seconds and make him feel like he’s accomplished something in three or four minutes of play.

Coin-op games had to stand out in an arcade and generate money for weeks in order to be profitable, so the process of making them and refining them was very rigorous. And while the iPhone has far more computing power than the old machines did, it is constrained in terms of memory and processing resources compared to modern consoles. So designers have to know how to efficiently use the device’s resources.

While many other big companies have been accused of copying or making derivative titles, Blackley believes strongly in making original games.

“We are carrying on where Atari left off, focusing on innovation in gameplay,” Blackley said.

Blackley said the team can work together in the arcade warehouse and be inspired by the different games that are there. He says it is important that the group works in a collaborative way. They are divided into different projects, but, as at Atari, they are free to help — and offer criticism — on other projects.

“They have worked together before, and they have a development rapport that is magical,” Blackley said.

THQ has first right of refusal on the games, in exchange for financing. That’s a little risky, since THQ is on shaky financial ground. But Blackley said his team is low overhead, and it is a more efficient use of THQ’s money. And if THQ chooses not to publish a game, Innovative Leisure is free to take the games somewhere else. Indeed, companies like Atari itself might want to tap its former designers to make modern versions of its old games.

But Blackley says the focus will be on original games. He is knee-deep in the creative process. As a former game developer (and theoretical physicist) who created physics-based games such as Trespasser, Blackley likes to get technical. He feels at home writing code and talking about it with his team members.

“We have to create a quality experience, hone it, and tweak the crap out of it so that you get the same level of gameplay that people demanded in the arcade era,” Blackley said. “It’s scary as shit if you don’t understand gameplay.”

Blackley said his team of veterans had license in the old days to do “crazy stuff,” using a rapport to riff on each other and craft wonderfully creative games where you could shoot worms or missiles and play with roller-skating bears.

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This makes nine straight years of losses for Sony’s TV business. Sensibly, new CEO Kazuo Hirai’s first moves have been to scale back the television division and look to replicate some of the success he had with video games at Sony. As VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi wrote yesterday, Hirai was largely responsible for the success of Playstation in North America. He was also the one who took the stage to bow and apologize when the Playstation network was hacked last year.

The company also projected an annual loss of $2.9 billion for the fiscal year ending in March 2012.

Some of Sony’s losses this year came from moves it made to streamline the business. It sold its stake in a joint venture with Samsung to produce flat panel screens and bought out Ericsson to consolidate its smartphone business. The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan last March shut down 10 Sony plants and interrupted supply chains.

But the new CEO made it clear that Sony had no excuses, and would try to find a way to regain its footing in the consumer electronics market. “I hold a very severe sense of crisis,” Mr. Hirai told reporters at a conference on Thursday, 24 hours after he replaced former CEO Howard Stringer, who will become chairman. “Without a faster sense of speed, Sony cannot win.”

Santa Monica-based Image Metrics developed the Faceware technology to create realistic human faces for movies, animations and video games. The technology has been successfully used in a wide range of entertainment, from Assassin’s Creed II to Red Dead Redemption.

Now Image Metrics will focus on delivering products based on its consumer animation and facial recognition technologies such as PortableYou, an app for adding 3D avatars to web sites, and the digital comic book Zombie Wars, where you can put your own face into an animated character.

Faceware Technologies will focus on selling technology to professional animators. Financial details were not disclosed.

“This transaction is a great opportunity for both Image Metrics and Faceware Technologies because each company can focus on delivering exceptional products and services to its target customers and enable both companies to unlock faster growth potential in each market,” said Robert Gehorsam, chief executive of Image Metrics.

Ron Ryder, currently chief financial officer and chief operating officer of Image Metrics, will lead FTI during a transitional period.

“There will be no interruption to the pace of innovation in the product line during 2012 and beyond,” Ryder said.

Image Metrics was founded in 2000. The company has raised more than $14 million to date.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Dan "Shoe" Hsu

I’m delighted to confirm that VentureBeat has acquired Bitmob, the respected gaming news site known for its passionate community of users. Bitmob will be integrated with our GamesBeat channel.

The best part of the deal: Bitmob co-founder Dan “Shoe” Hsu, an industry veteran with significant street cred with gamers, will become the Editor-in-Chief of GamesBeat. He’ll join Dean Takahashi, our lead games writer, who has done an incredible job getting GamesBeat off the ground over the last couple of years.

Together, along with Sebastian Haley, who is GamesBeat’s review editor and will lead our video coverage, this is the perfect powerhouse trio to help GamesBeat become the bible of the games industry.

Shoe just posted about the merger.

The GamesBeat channel will expand significantly over the coming months, after Shoe starts with us Feb 1. This will include a “relaunch” of GamesBeat, which will essentially give GamesBeat its own identity separate from VentureBeat. It will also mean the integration of Bitmob’s community features. Most importantly, it will bolster GamesBeat’s mission to cover the most disruptive and interesting stories in the games industry — everything from the amazing saga around social gaming companies like Zynga and Crowdstar, to how giants like Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are responding. GameBeat will also expand its reviews of top games that define the industry.

Dean Takahashi

To be clear, it was Dean who first approached me saying he wanted us to acquire Shoe and Bitmob, so that Shoe could run GamesBeat, while Dean focuses on writing. Shoe has a 16-year track record. He communicates well and has managed big teams, including at EGM, 1UP and Gamers.com. Dean has already attracted some promising new writers to GamesBeat, including Haley. It’s all a perfect fit. Though Shoe is justifiably “freaked out” at the thought of managing a veteran like Dean.

The merger continues the momentum we’re seeing at VentureBeat. Today we’re also announcing the hiring of Ben Popper, founding editor of Betabeat, the influential Silicon Alley blog from The New York Observer. He will be VentureBeat’s East Coast Editor. He’s done an excellent job covering the New York start-up and wider technology scene there and quickly caught our attention by the scoops he was getting about the New York scene. He’s got a “comer” reputation. We’re super excited about him joining us. Ben just blogged about the move here.

Benjamin Popper

Ben will join Devindra Hardawar and Sean Ludwig, our two other New York-based writers. Devindra becomes our national editor. While Ben will wake up early, and break East Coast news and focus on taking the New York scene by storm, Devindra will start shaping our national coverage for us early in the day. He’ll work closely with executive editor Dylan Tweney and senior editor Heather Kelly as they wake up on the West Coast, to guide coverage through the rest of the day.

VentureBeat plans to open an office in Manhattan next month. Ben will lead the local expansion there over the next two years. Expect more hires.

Previously, Ben has written about the culture and business of technology for The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Slate, and Fast Company. Prior to Betabeat and the Observer, he was a blogger at CBS Interactive.

We just can’t wait until both of them get started. While Shoe officially starts Feb 1, he’ll be working hard to get ready for the transition in the meantime. We’ll plan to syndicate the best of Bitmob’s content in the meantime, so readers can track all of the best stuff on GamesBeat beginning today.

Ben Popper starts Monday.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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In 2011, games took center stage. Game investment changed fundamentally during the year, as investors shifted their money into social, mobile and online games as they chased after users who were embracing the newest platforms for games.

The total game investment number is up more than 47 percent from the $1.05 billion raised by 91 companies a year ago, based on VentureBeat’s own research. By comparison, 115 game companies raised a total of $663.1 million in 2009. And in 2008, 112 game companies raised $936.8 million.

Keep in mind that Nexon raised $1.2 billion and Zynga raised $1 billion in their IPOs in 2011, bringing the total amount of capital raised by game companies to $3.75 billion.

Even if you don’t count those two IPOs, venture capital funding for games has never been bigger. Zynga, the social gaming giant and creator of FarmVille and CityVille, accounted for a third of all of the venture funding raised in 2011.

Those numbers chronicle the biggest gold rush in the history of games. Just a few years ago, venture capitalists were afraid to invest in games because they were a lot like Hollywood movies, where it was too hard to pick the hits. But the collision of the web, social, mobile and online gaming trends led to a huge disruption for the industry and lots of opportunities for game startups.

Major VC firms such as Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, DCM, Andreessen Horowitz, and others all poured money into big game companies this year. Google Ventures became an active strategic investor as it recruited startups to make games for its Google+ social network.

Powered by the success of games such as Rovio’s Angry Birds, mobile game startups came into their own during the year, raising as much as $18 million per round.

Investors and startups saw huge exits, starting with Electronic Arts’ purchase of PopCap Games for $750 million in cash and stock plus $550 million in potential bonuses.

We’ve chronicled the gold rush religiously ourselves but have also pulled data for these fundings from the internet at large, the Internet DealBook, Digi-Capital, and the National Venture Capital Association.

We’ve ranked them here in order of the amount of money raised, and I’ve linked to our coverage or to those or who covered the funding. If there were no stories on the funding, I linked to the company’s own web site. Fundings where the amounts weren’t made public are listed alphabetically at the end. If you’ve heard of others, please note in the comments and we’ll add them to the list.

The list includes companies that raised funds in prior years but disclosed for the first time in 2011. It’s likely that some companies from last year’s list or this year’s have gone out of business. If so, let us know in the comments. We expect that we’ll be revising the list upward in the coming weeks as we add more deals that we didn’t know about.

This year, we decided to add fundings that involved gamification, or the use of game mechanics in non-game applications.

Each company link takes you back to the story we wrote about the company. In the rare cases where we did not cover the story, the link takes you back to another publication’s story on the funding. Happy reading.

1. Nexon — $1.2B for initial public offering on Tokyo Stock Exchange. Investors: the public. Dec. 13.

2. Zynga — $1B for initial public offering on Nasdaq. Investors: the public. Dec. 16.

3. Zynga — $490M for strategic expansion. Investors: Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity Investments, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Feb. 1.

4. Kabam — $85M for hardcore games on social networks. Investors: Google Ventures, Pinnacle Ventures, Performance Equity and SK Telecom Ventures, as well as existing investors. May 26. (Kabam CEO Kevin Chou pictured right).

5. Razer — $50M for gaming peripherals and hardware. Investors: IDG-Accel China Capital. Dec. 20.

6. Rovio — $42M for mobile games such as Angry Birds. Investors: Accel Partners, Felicis, and Atomico. March 10.

7. OnLive — $40M for games-on-demand service. Investors: HTC. Feb. 9.

8. 6waves Lolapps — $35M for social and mobile games. Investors: Nexon. Aug. 3.

9. Lumosity — $32.5M for brain-training games. Investors: Menlo Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Harrison Metal and Norwest Venture Partners. June 16.

10. Kabam — $30M for hardcore social games. Investors: Redpoint Ventures and Intel Capital. Jan. 20.

11. Gaikai — $30M for game-streaming technology. Investors: NEA, Qualcomm, Benchmark Capital, Rustic Canyon and Intel Capital.  July 20.

12. Happy Elements — $30M for Chinese social games. Investors: Legend Capital, DCM. Oct. 16.

13. Tapjoy — $30M for mobile ad network and monetization services. Investors: J.P.Morgan and existing investors. July 5.

14. Online Warmongers — $25M for free-to-play online games such as War Inc. Battlezone. Investors: Cybergun. Aug. 25.

15. Wooga — $24M for social games on Facebook. Investors: Highland Capital Partners, Tenaya Capital, Balderton Capital, and Holtzbrinck Ventures. May 30.

16. CrowdStar — $23M for social, mobile and Asian online games. Investors: Intel Capital, Time Warner Investments, The9 and NVInvestments. May 23.

17. Funzio — $20M for social games such as Crime City (pictured right). Investors: IDG Ventures in the U.S. and IDG Capital Partners in China. May 10.

18. Gazillion — $20M for online game worlds. Investors: Temasek Holdings, Revolution Ventures, Oak Investments, Hearst Corp., Pellon Ventures, Abu Dhabi Media. Nov. 8.

19. Kixeye — $18M for hardcore games on Facebook. Investors: Jafco Ventures, Trinity Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners. Aug. 4.

20. Papaya Mobile — $18M for mobile social gaming network. Investors: Keystone Ventures and DCM. April 27.

21. TinyCo — $18M for social mobile games. Investors: Andreessen Horowitz. Feb. 25.

22. Zeebo — $17M for interactive education console for kids. Investors: undisclosed. Aug. 29.

23. Fourth Wall Studios — $15M for alternative reality entertainment. Investors: California Capital Equity. March 8.

24. Raptr — $15M for gamer social network. Investors: DAG Ventures, Tenaya Capital and Accel Partners. Feb 10.

25. Rumble Entertainment — $15M for mobile and browser-based games. Investors: Google Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Dec. 1.

26. CocoaChina — $14M for mobile games in China. Investors: Sequoia Capital China, Steamboat Ventures, Northern Light Venture Capital. Aug. 26.

27. Nubee — $13M for mobile games in Singapore. Investors: Vega Corp. Dec. 10.

28. SNS Plus — $12.5M for Asian social games. Investors: WI Harper Group and Matrix Partners. Nov. 28.

29. Badgeville — $12M to create a platform to gamifiy web sites. Investors: Norwest Venture Partners, El Dorado Ventures, Trinity Ventures and Webb Investment Network. July 13.

30. Digital Chocolate – $12M for social and mobile games. Investors: Intel Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, and Bridgescale Ventures. Feb. 22. (CEO Trip Hawkins, pictured right).

31. Kontagent — $12M to expand social analytics service into mobile. Investors: Battery Ventures, Maverick Capital, and Altos Ventures.  Nov. 10.

32. Rivet Games — $12M (estimated) for web, social and mobile games. Investors: Softbank Capital, Baseline Ventures, Floodgate, and Outpoint Capital. April 20.

33. Supercell – $12M for hardcore real-time social games. Investors: Accel Partners and Klaas Kersting. May 25.

34. Unity Technologies — $12M to expand market for Unity 3D engine and game development tools. Investors: WestSummit Capital and iGlobe Partners. July 21. Pictured: David Helgason, CEO, right; Joachim Ante, chief technology officer, pictured left, and Nicholas Francis, chief creative officer, pictured center.

35. HealthTap — $11.5M for gamification of communication in doctor-patient relationships. Investors: Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and Mayfield Fund. Dec. 6.

36. Peak Games – $11.5M for social gaming in emerging markets. Investors: Earlybird Venture Capital, Hummingbird Ventures and an unnamed strategic investor. Sept. 27.

37. DreamBox Learning — $11M for adaptive learning education games. Investors: Reed Hastings and John Doerr. Dec. 7.

38. Tiny Speck — $10.7M for web games such as Glitch. Investors: Andreessen Horowitz and Accel Partners. April 12.

39. OMGPOP — $10.1M for social game site. Investors: Spark Capital, Betaworks, Rho Capital and Softbank. June 1.

40. Moca World — $10M for mobile social networking games. Investor: Infinity Venture Partners. June 14.

41. Funcom — $10M for massively multiplayer online games. Investors: Stelt Holding. Dec. 13.

42. Idle Games — $10M for social games based on its proprietary Idle Engine, with social recommendations. Investors: not disclosed. Oct. 13.

43. Sourcebits – $10M for mobile games and apps. Investors: Sequoia Capital and IDG Ventures. May 11.

44. A List Games — $9.3M for marketing games via digital distribution. Investors: The Ayzenberg Group. Nov. 21.

45. Red Robot Labs — $8.5M for location-based mobile games. Investors: Benchmark Capital, Shasta Ventures, Playdom co-founder Rick Thompson, former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya. Sept. 14. CEO Mike Ouye, pictured left, and chief product officer Pete Hawley, pictured right.

46. Icarus Studios – $8.1M for online game development platform. Investors: undisclosed. March 24.

47. Kobojo — $7.75M for social games in France. Investors: Endeavour Vision and IDInvest Partners. April 26.

48. Ignite Game Technologies — $7.5M for online racing games. Investors: Steve Bellotti and Bill Budinger. July 12.

49. Rocket Ninja — $7.5M for social games. Investors: Marcel Boekhoom. Nov. 22.

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“The word ‘historic’ is overused, but as we look back on 2011, it is a perfect fit for our industry’s year,” Gallagher said in a letter. “The U.S. Supreme Court’s vigorous affirmation of our First Amendment rights, a new array of artistically astonishing games, and educators’ increasing recognition of the role games play in teaching and learning made 2011 a remarkable year and set the stage for a great 2012.”

On the court case, Gallagher said the ruling was a “landmark declaration that video games enjoy the same Constitutional protections as books, movies and fine arts was exactly what we hoped to hear.”

He noted that game reviewer Seth Schiesel wrote in The New York Times earlier this month, “Game makers are producing more high-quality entertainment for a broader variety of players than they ever have in the past. No other form of fun melds advanced digital technology, personal engagement and mass-market cultural relevance as felicitously as video games. That is why video games are the ascendant form of popular entertainment.”

Gallagher said that, beyond fun, video games hit new milestones in appreciation as works of art. The Smithsonian Institution announced that it will unveil a new exhibit dedicated to showcasing the art of game at its American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. That exhibit opens March 16, 2012.

And as the economy struggled to recover during much of the year, games kept many people employed, generating about $25 billion in revenue in 2010 and a similar amount this year. The expansion of the mobile, social and online game businesses have helped the industry reach new heights in the number of gamers and pull more non-gamers into the market.

Gallagher noted that games had an impact on healthcare. An online game called Foldit, designed by Professor Zoran Popovic at the University of Washington, tapped online gamers to decipher the protein that helps the HIV gene multiply. The problem had stumped scientists for more than a decade, but the gamers unlocked the secret of the protein in just 10 days.

On the education front, Gallagher applauded the White House for launching Digital Promise, a public-private partnership aimed at incorporating technological tools, including games, into American classrooms.

About 1,231 British gamers took part in the study designed to discover more about their playing habits. Just under two thirds of those surveyed claimed to feel “addicted” to playing video games. When asked to elaborate on how video games fit into their everyday life, 42 percent admitted they often miss out on social occasions in order to play video games, while 82 percent admitted they regularly missed out on sleep as a direct result of their gaming.

When asked if they thought they could easily give up playing video games, 51 percent said, “No.”

Playr2 founder Simon Kilby, a gamer himself, can empathize with the study’s findings. He admits he’s often put important things off to continue playing his favorite titles and, although it may not count as an addiction in a medical sense, he feels with certain titles that he couldn’t wait to finish what he was doing to get back to playing. “I’m only surprised that Skyrim didn’t top the list, because I don’t know a single player who hasn’t become entirely engrossed with the game,” he said.

According to the study, the top 10 “most addictive console video games” are:

1)      Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – 73 percent of gamers who said they’d played said they felt “addicted” to it

2)      The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – 70 percent

3)      Halo 3 – 68 percent

4)      Final Fantasy VII – 63 percent

5)      Grand Theft Auto IV – 58 percent

6)      The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – 56 percent

7)      The Sims – 55 percent

8)      Red Dead Redemption – 46 percent

9)      FIFA 2012 – 42 percent

10)   Tetris – 39 percent

“Looking over the list of console games, it’s not hard to see how people are so easily drawn into them,” Kilby said. “Although a number of the top ten have open-ended multiplayer modes that could keep you playing for hours on end, it’s great to see titles like Final Fantasy VII and Tetris in there, which are clearly loved for other reasons.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Jimi Hendrix can be found at the top of Rolling Stone Magazine’s recent 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time feature, and now seven more of his most iconic hits are making their way to the Rock Band video game Music Store.

On December 20, a mix of tracks from 1968′s Electric Ladyland and 1971′s Rainbow Bridge and The Cry of Love albums will be available for download on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii as part of the “Experience Jimi Hendrix Pack 01” for $11, or individually for $2 each:

• Long Hot Summer Night
• Gypsy Eyes
• All Along the Watchtower
• Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (Live)
• Dolly Dagger
• Freedom
• Angel

Pro Guitar/Bass upgrades will also be made available for previous Hendrix tracks for $1 each:

• Purple Haze
• Little Wing

As a bit of Hendrix-related gaming trivia, the artist’s Purple Haze reportedly influenced the opening of  Nobuo Uematsu’s One-Winged Angel, easily the most recognizable music track in the entire Final Fantasy franchise.

[Official Site]

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

As the gaming culture matures, a handful of impressive fan films paying homage to popular titles have continued to emerge. First, the “Escape from City 17” Half-Life shorts from two years ago set a new standard with their Hollywood-lite production values, then earlier this year Modern Warfare and Portal received similar treatments. Now another Valve-published game, Left 4 Dead, has been reimagined in this live-action eight-minute film.

Check back shortly for our exclusive interview with the film’s creators from Northern Five Entertainment, the same production company responsible for The Resistance web series that was picked up by Starz Media last year.

Full disclosure: The author of this post is in a relationship with Meagan Marie, who appears as Anya Stroud in this video.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Scott Steinberg (pictured), vice president of marketing, has resigned. Dyer, who was senior vice president of publisher relations, also left recently, according to Industry Gamers. Steinberg evidently left without indicating his future plans.

Steinberg joined Sony in 2007 and served previously at Sega, Crystal Dynamics, Roxio, and Liquid Audio. Sony confirmed that Dyer had left to work at Zynga, where his title will be head of partner publishing. Dyer joined Sony in 2008 and previously was president of Eidos and Crystal Dynamics. No replacements have been named.

It’s not clear why the two executives left. Earlier this year, Peter Dille, another longtime marketing executive, resigned his position as senior vice president of marketing. He took a long break and resurfaced at Tapjoy. Guy Longworth was named to replace Dille in October. He previously worked at Procter & Gamble.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Tretton said that the PlayStation Vita is Sony’s latest push in mobile gaming and an attempt to compete with the likes of smartphones such as the Apple iPhone. The Vita will feature some spectacular games such as Uncharted Golden Abyss, which looks very console-like in its graphics and can be controlled with a swipe of your finger on the touchscreen.

Sony will also launch the Vita on Feb. 22 in Canada, Europe and Latin America. It will sell for $299 for a WiFi/3G model, and $249 for WiFi only.

The Vita will debut in Japan in December, and now Tretton has spilled the beans on the U.S. as part of a conversation with author Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken, a book on video games and how they can save lives.

Tretton said that Sony’s game consoles have been able to get into a quarter of homes, but you could look at that as a “glass half empty,” Tretton said, since three out of four homes still don’t have a gaming device. The Vita represents an attempt to reach a lot more consumers, partly by being much more social.

The new Vita will have built-in integration with a number of sharing networks. You can, for instance, capture a scene from a game and upload it directly to YouTube from the Vita, which can be connected to wireless networks, without leaving a game. You can do the same with Twitter, Skype and Facebook.

The Vita will allow new kinds of marketing promotions as well. You can go to a store, for instance, and wirelessly pick up digital goods or rewards that you can use in your games.

Tretton said that Sony has 17 million gamer fans on Facebook and it has 24 million users on its PlayStation Home social network on the PS 3.

The game debuts on Nov. 8, but by releasing the trailers early, Activision Blizzard can stir buzz and presumably keep gamers from spending all of their money on the rival game, Battlefield 3, from Electronic Arts. These two games will be slugging it out for billions of dollars in retail spending during the fall holiday season. Both are on our list of the best games of the fall.

The video trailer, dubbed Redemption, reveals a lot of interesting details about the game’s single-player campaign. The villain of the game, Makarov, seems to be plotting the destruction of cities on a huge scale.

The characters from previous games — Price, Soap, and Nikolai — appear in the game and seem to be in a big rush to stop the conflagration before it consumes everybody. You can see scenes that indicate massive battles, as well as a gun battle aboard a plane in mid-air that has lost its hull integrity and everyone is being sucked out. That’s a ridiculous scene, but very much typical of a Call of Duty game.

“You think I am mad, but soon you shall see that every move, every strike, was meant to bring us to this,” the voice over (from the Makarov character) says in the trailer.

It’s downright chilling. Clearly, the video shows mastery of the fine art of making a trailer. And the game series is as riveting as ever in terms of its ability to create game combat scenes that are every bit as dramatic as a Hollywood action movie. But we’ll see how well this goes over. You’ll likely see this trailer playing all over the place as part of the estimated $100 million marketing campaign associated with the game.

Now you can expect a big battle of the trailers to begin. Earlier this week, EA said it would create an exclusive reality show with GTTV focused on simulating battle scenes from Battlefield 3 in real life. In the show, Battlefield 3 Operation Gridion, pro football players Drew Brees, Clay Matthews, Larry Fitzgerald and Jared Allen will participate in simulated combat scenes that highlight scenes from the game. EA also released some new single-player campaign screen shots today, such as the one on the left.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Gears of War 3 is the conclusion to an epic series that has spawned three blockbuster games for the Xbox 360. The first Gears of War came out in 2006 and had a score of 94 out of 100 across 88 reviews and helped standardize many of the modern tropes seen in over-the-shoulder cover-based shooters like Uncharted 3. Gears of War 3 picked up a score of 91 out of 100 across 82 reviews.

It’s one of Microsoft’s flagship exclusive titles for the Xbox 360, which helps differentiate it from other consoles like the and PlayStation 3. Most blockbuster games, like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3, are going to appear on multiple consoles and on the PC. If gamers want to play Gears of War 3, they have to buy an Xbox 360 specifically.

“Gears of War 3 has set the bar as the top game launch of the year, kicking off the biggest holiday in Xbox history with a bang,” a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat. “While we don’t share sales projections, we’re really happy with the results thus far and are kicking off what promises to be our biggest holiday yet in Xbox history.”

That relationship has been so successful that Microsoft will likely continue its exclusive relationship with Epic Games, a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat. That could bode well for Microsoft, which has made significant gains over competitors thanks to its console’s motion controller, the Kinect.

“We’ve enjoyed a terrific partnership with Epic Games throughout the “Gears of War” trilogy, and the success of the franchise is a testament to the strength of that relationship and our work together,” a spokesperson said. “We look forward to working with Epic in the future.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The service rolling out in the UK is much more advanced than the original game streaming service that OnLive launched in the U.S. Now it has more than 150 games and is available on web-connected TVs, PCs, Macs and tablets. With OnLive, you can watch others play games, play live demos without downloading, and log in from just about any computer.

“It’s a much more complete service that we have now,” said Steve Perlman, chief executive of OnLive, in an interview. “We’ve got a mature service. Basically, OnLive is coming into its own as a major platform.”

OnLive is launching the service at the Eurogamer Expo in London, where attendees can get a free Onlive Game System. As a special promotion, OnLive is offering the first game that someone purchases available for the price of one pound. Normally, users pay 40 pounds for a new game. OnLive computes games in the cloud, or web-connected data centers, and then streams the game imagery to the user’s computer. With this streaming system, users don’t need high-end computers, disks, or downloads. They can log into the system and play games as if they were using any other cloud-based service.

OnLive is partnered with BT, the UK’s high-speed broadband provider with 11 million customers. BT is offering a promo deal for its customers, including three months of free access to 100-plus OnLive PlayPack games, which are available for a monthly subscription fee.

OnLive also has a new partnership with Game Group, a big game retailer. Game Group will market OnLive to millions of its customers across the UK and Europe. It will also sell the OnLive Game System (which you need if you want to stream games to a TV instead of a PC), the OnLive universal wireless controller, and the online game service digital offerings. Game Group has 615 stores in the UK.

That is an interesting alliance since GameStop, the major U.S. retail chain, is directly competing against OnLive, even to the point of pulling its coupons from the recent Deus Ex Human Revolution game boxes. OnLive has more than 50 publishers, who can reduce costs and keep more revenues in their own pockets by distributing games digitally through the service. Of the 150 games coming, four of them are from Electronic Arts, which previously did not supply games for OnLive.

After the promos are done, users can buy games for as little as 1.99 pounds or sign up for a PlayPack subscription at 6.99 pounds a month.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced tonight that the company will be splitting its business in two, with its DVD-by-mail service getting a name change to Qwikster, while Netflix will focus on streaming video.

Yes, the company that has become synonymous with DVD rentals by mail will no longer associate its core brand with disc rentals. But as a consolation, Qwikster will include video game disc rentals for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii, something that Netflix users have long been begging for. Qwikster will also continue to use the company’s traditional bright red mailing envelopes.

Hastings stresses that Qwikster, whose CEO will be former Netflix executive Andy Rendich, will be the exact same Netflix disc rental service consumers are used to. However, Qwikster’s site won’t be integrated with Netflix at all, meaning you’ll have two subscriptions to manage, and you’ll have to review movies separately on both sites.

Hastings wanted to be extra communicative about the Qwikster name change, since he felt he didn’t adequately explain Netflix’s most recent price hike, which separated fees for streaming and disc rentals, to consumers. He wrote:

In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success. We have done very well for a long time by steadily improving our service, without doing much CEO communication. Inside Netflix I say, “Actions speak louder than words,” and we should just keep improving our service.

But now I see that given the huge changes we have been recently making, I should have personally given a full justification to our members of why we are separating DVD and streaming, and charging for both. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

Hastings argues the company will be able to focus better on its DVD and streaming offerings by having two separate teams working on each service. “[W]e realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently,” he wrote.

Market researcher DFC Intelligence said that advertisers are spending more money in games via in-game ads, around-game ads, and advergames.

In North America, advertisers spent $1 billion in video game ads in 2010. That number is expected to grow to $2 billion by 2014. An example of the in-game ad was the Obama campaign ad in 2008 in the Burnout Paradise video game (pictured).

But Michael Goodman, an analyst at DFC and lead researcher for the report, said the video game medium is still underutilized when it comes to advertising. The amount of ad revenue flowing into video games pales in comparison to other media, considering that video games account for a huge share of leisure time activity. Video games ought to get a bigger share, Goodman said, based on the fact that they can be much more engaging.

DFC estimates that video game revenues on a worldwide basis will grow from $67 billion in 2010 to $81 billion by 2016.

“Video games have reached beyond adolescent males into a mainstream entertainment medium that touches every segment of the population,” said Goodman, in a statement. “Despite this, advertisers continue to underutilize video games as an advertising vehicle. This is slowly changing as more games go online.”

The biggest growth area is delivering ads around games, such as when Facebook runs ads in the borders around social games. Another big growth area is advergames, or games created to deliver an ad message. By 2016, advergames and around-game ads will account for 78 percent of game ad revenue, according to DFC.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Hoag will sit on EA’s executive compensation and leadership committee, and his addition brings the board to 11 members. Hoag is a founding general partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, a tech investment firm with more than $7.7 billion in capital under management.

Hoag also sits on the boards of eHarmony, TechTarget, Zillow and Netflix. EA chief executive John Riccitiello said that Hoag was a valuable addition to EA’s board because of his insight into mass market consumer technologies. Hoag said he has followed EA closely and is watching the company focus on the transition to the digital distribution of games and services.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The company acquired speech recognition software developer Tellme in 2007. But there wasn’t whole lot of interest in the speech recognition sector until Apple stunned the tech community by buying Siri last year — and doing nothing with it for more than a year. With the release of Microsoft’s next mobile operating system update Mango and the next version of its Xbox 360 operating system, Microsoft is finally putting that technology to use.

“In the living room, fundamentally, you don’t want something on your lap,” Ilya Bukshteyn, Tellme senior director for sales and marketing, told VentureBeat. “We want the Xbox 360 to be an application hub for the living room and move the technology out of the way.”

There were already a number of speech features built into the Xbox 360 dashboard, but Microsoft’s NUI adds additional search features and makes it more accurate. When you say something to the Kinect, it automatically uploads that clip up to remote servers run by Microsoft that determines what you are saying and then issues a command back to the Xbox 360. The recognition is constantly improving as Microsoft’s cloud servers gather more and more data.

“Right about now it’s about 80 or 90 percent accurate,” Bukshteyn said. “But that’s improving on a daily basis.”

Giving players new ways to control the game is one way to make the gaming experience more immersive. Microsoft has tried to market its Kinect motion controller as an “experience” by giving Xbox 360 owners ways to control other parts of their Xbox 360 with motion controls — like the menus in the console’s dashboard access popular applications like Hulu and Netflix. Getting the features to catch on requires rebuilding games, even hardcore games like first-person shooters, with those same Kinect features.

Adding voice controls gives gamers an array of new options, like new ways to control their squads in the role-playing game Mass Effect 3. While still controlling the series’ protagonist Commander Shepherd with a regular controller, players can verbally tell their squad mates to advance on enemies and use special skills to disable them while Shepherd goes in for the kill.

I had a chance to test out the new speech features recently to see first-hand how they changed the gaming experience. The voice commands are pretty accurate, and I only ran into a few issues when the Kinect didn’t understand what I was saying. Gestures were also enabled at the same time, so I could wave my hand to move menus around and say something when I wanted to quickly jump to a new part of the menu. It doesn’t feel like you have to do any extra work to use the NUI commands and they are pretty intuitive — it’s like adding an extra button to a traditional game controller that should have always been there.

Developers can tap into the Xbox 360 speech recognition features as soon as they become available, but they will have to wait a little longer to get the kind of immersion that Microsoft applications enjoy on Windows Phone 7 devices. At first, developers will have to make users launch the app before they start using speech commands (though they can launch the application with a speech command).

For example, you couldn’t just say “Tweet ‘Hey, this music is awesome.’” Instead you would first have to go to Microsoft’s Me service or jump into the Twitter application, then dictate your tweet. Those kinds of features are in the pipeline, Bukshteyn said, but there currently isn’t a timeline for implementing them.

You can catch a few quick hands-on presentations of both the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 NUI in action below.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Sony made the announcement at the Gamescom game event in Cologne, Germany, today, confirming rumors that surfaced in June. That price cut isn’t a huge one, but it reflects the fact that, with manufacturing efficiencies and higher volumes, the costs of making the consoles keep dropping.

Sony last cut the price of the PS 3 in 2009, when it introduced the PS 3 Slim with cost-reduced components. The move will put more pressure on Microsoft, which has also gone some time without a price drop on its XBox 360.

Microsoft hasn’t been motivated to lead the price cut this time around because it has had the leading console in terms of unit sales for the past year or so. Nintendo cut the price of its Wii console a few months ago. It also has announced a replacement, the Wii U, coming in the near future. And Nintendo also cut the price of its handheld 3DS from $249 to $169 in the past week.

Kevin Butler (pictured), the celebrity spokesman for Sony, confirmed the price drop in a tweet, “There are now 50 less excuses for not owning a PS3. #PS3now249.”

Sony said it was cutting the price of the PS 3 with 160 gigabytes of hard disk space from $299 to $249. The new price in yen will 24,980 and in euros 249. The price cut is effective immediate. The 320-gigabyte version of the PS 3 will be $299, down from $349.

Sony introduced the PS 3 in 2006 at a price of $600. Since that time, it has added larger and larger hard drives and cut the price to stay competitive with the Nintendo Wii and the Microsoft Xbox 360.

“It is no secret that the PlayStation 3 has been struggling for some time against the Microsoft Xbox 360 in North America (but slightly outperforming in Europe),” said Jesse Divnich, analyst at market researcher EEDAR. “This price reduction will undeniably increase hardware and software sales of the PlayStation 3 in all regions, both in the short and long-term.”

He also said the price cut should create some excitement about hardware and software sales going into the fall season. Last month, U.S. video game sales fell 26 percent, the worst performance since 2006.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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