The 
story of Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth, so far, has largely taken place high above the earth, in a floating city hidden amongst the clouds. For their next chapter, though, they’re headed down to Rapture.
Irrational Games surprised fans Tuesday by announcing the release of new downloadable content for BioShock Infinite — including a trip back to the same underwater city as the original BioShock– after maintaining a virtual cone of silence since the critical hit’s release.
In 
1983, video game companies were riding high. U.S. sales hit a peak of $3.2 billion (the equivalent of $7.3 billion today) and developers couldn’t make games quickly enough.
No one knew it at the time, but the industry was about to dive into a crisis that remains the most serious publishers, developers, and console makers have ever faced.
The crash that followed 1983 almost destroyed the video game industry, nearly relegating video games to the same cultural scrap heap as Pet Rocks and bell bottoms. It came about due to a confluence of events — some eerily similar to where the industry finds itself today.
High-profile 
Twitter meltdowns are fairly common, but they don’t often result in the cancellation of entire projects.
But that’s exactly what happened over the weekend when Phil Fish, the mercurial creator of indie game sensation Fez, was so affected by an escalating series of tirades on Twitter that he declared he was quitting the industry and canceling development of Fez II.
New 
Zynga CEO Don Mattrick has a lot of work ahead of him.
As the company continues to see users abandon its games at an alarming rate, it has reversed course on its plan to pursue real-money casino games in the U.S., a combination that led to investors punishing the stock Friday.
Bobby 
Kotick, the sometimes controversial CEO of Activision-Blizzard, is leading an $8.2 billion buyout from parent company Vivendi, a move that will restore independence to the world’s largest video game publisher.
The agreement will occur in a pair of purchases. Activision, as a company, will acquire 429 million shares for $5.83 billion in cash, while an investor group headed by Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly will separately purchase another 172 million shares for $2.34 billion. Kotick and Kelly have personally invested a combined $100 million into the company.
By 
almost any measurement, 2013 has been an embarrassment of riches for gamers. The Last of Us earned some of the highest scores of any game this generation, BioShock Infinite is a critical darling, and the reboot of Tomb Raider was masterfully done.
But while the hit to miss ratio has been skewed towards hits, the misses have been painful. The only thing worse than a bad game is a game that was supposed to be good, but totally failed to deliver on its promise. You know, like these five stinkers:
Just 
as Monopoly fans come out of their mourning period for the dearly departed iron game token, Hasbro’s tinkering with the formula again. And purists are likely to be outraged.
A new version of the game, Monopoly Empire, is tailored for the short attention span of today’s youth. Among the changes? Plenty of real world brands to own — and no pesky jail to slow things down.
The 
original programmer of the first Madden football game is $11 million richer today, thanks to a jury ruling in U.S. District Court — and there could be much more money on the way.
Robin Antonick claimed that his code, which was used in the original 1988 version of the franchise, was subsequently used in later versions of the game without his knowledge. He took EA to court in 2011 to sue for royalties and interest, originally in the amount of $16 million.
Nintendo 
has endured more than its share of bumps and bruises recently, but the company’s fortunes might be turning around.
Shares of the Kyoto-based video game maker hit a two-year high today, jumping 4 percent as traders in Japan speculated that strong 3DS sales numbers in the U.S. could help the company’s overall bottom line.
Not 
every great game comes from the industry’s big publishers.
The rise of Kickstarter has put several intriguing titles on our radar. While there hasn’t been a real mainstream hit from the crowd-funding site yet (though games like FTL have come close), that could be about to change. Proven development talent has begun using the service to fund games that didn’t fit into the mold of traditional game publishers. Here are 10 upcoming Kickstarter-backed games that we can’t wait to get our hands on.
Chris Morris: Journalist 