Author Archives: Chris Morris

Pirate Bay switches to tougher tech

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While news that the Pirate Bay, the biggest hub of online pirated content, has taken down all of its torrent links might seem like a reason for celebration in Hollywood, studios may want to keep the champagne corked for a while longer.

The infamous website, which has been a haven for people to download copyrighted content for years, stopped serving torrent files late Tuesday — but immediately switched to a new file-sharing system that will make it harder, Pirate Bay believes, for officials to determine who has downloaded a file using the site.

Read more at Daily Variety

Blizzard to shed 600 staffers

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“World of Warcraft” creator Blizzard Entertainment, which had been immune from broad staff cuts throughout its 20-plus-year existence, announced plans Wednesday to slash 600 positions from its payroll.

Roughly 60 of those jobs will be game developers, with the rest coming from other divisions. While the company did not specify precisely where it will trim the extra workers, industry observers expect the majority to come from the customer-service unit.

Read more at Daily Variety

Activision-Blizzard Lays Off 600

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Blizzard Entertainment, the creator of “World of Warcraft” and a substantial part of the video game industry’s largest publisher, announced plans Wednesday to lay off 600 employees.

The cuts, which generally come from areas other than game development, come as subscriber numbers for the hit online game have fallen substantially in recent quarters.

Read more at CNBC.com

Next Medal of Honor game revealed

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EA’s re-launch of its Medal of Honor series in 2010 didn’t exactly set the sales charts on fire, but that’s not stopping the company from moving forward with a new installment.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter will make its debut this October, using the same graphics engine that powered last year’s more successful Battlefield 3. The name’s kind of a head scratcher, though, since, well, the entire series has been about fighting in wars, but we’ll let that slide.

Read more at Yahoo! Games

Gaming’s next legal hotbed

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Privacy is fast becoming a legal hotbed, and while it’s something that’s certain to impact traditional game makers in one form or another, it’s mobile developers who are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs.

It’s an election year. And despite 2011’s historic Supreme Court ruling, you really didn’t think video games were going to be dropped from the political agenda, did you?

As predicted, privacy is fast becoming a legal hotbed — and while it’s something that’s certain to impact traditional game makers in one form or another, it’s mobile developers who are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs.

Read more at Gamasutra