There might be a lot of 
executives touting the benefits of 3D gaming these days, but don’t expect Electronic Arts’ John Riccitiello to join the pep squad anytime soon.
The CEO of the industry’s second largest publisher gave his take on the technology in a recent conference call with shareholders – and he was anything but bullish.
Ubisoft’s first attempts at battling piracy 
did not go smoothly – to say the least. But that’s not stopping the publisher from trying to use them again.
The company, in 2010, instituted a DRM (digital rights management) program that required players to remain online as they played a PC game. The concept was simple: Any interruption in service resulted in players being booted from the game, simultaneously erasing any progress since the last save. After getting feedback from a lot of angry fans (and weathering a denial of service attack that made games like Assassin’s Creed II and Silent Hunter V unplayable for days), the company put the strategy on ice last February.
First, the bad news: It’s looking less 
and less likely that Diablo 3 will be on store shelves by the end of the year. But if it’s any consolation, should the game slip to 2012, it looks like it won’t be too far into the calendar year.
Blizzard has unveiled a slew of information about its hotly anticipated RPG clickfest – and while fans are enthusiastically embracing some of what the developer had to say, they’re pretty upset about other parts.
Sick of watching CEOs cashing out 
while their company — and employees — suffer? So is Nintendo. After slashing the price of the Nintendo 3DS, the company is cutting executive salaries just as ferociously.
Global president and CEO Satoru Iwata announced Friday at a meeting with shareholders that he would be taking a 50 percent cut to his fixed salary as a show of responsibility for the dismal quarterly earnings and failure of the 3DS to catch on. In addition, members of the board of directors are taking a 30 percent pay cut, while other executives will see their paychecks cut by 20 percent.
Tabloids may obsess over the likes 
of Lindsay Lohan and Jennifer Aniston, but if you want to spot a truly timeless celebrity, turn on a game show. Several of the biggest names in the game show world around aren’t as front and center as they used to be, so here’s a look at how they catapulted to fame – and what they’re up to these days. Come on down!
Faced with horrendous earnings 
and ongoing weak demand, Nintendo has dramatically lowered the price of its 3DS handheld system just four months after the system hit store shelves.
Starting Aug. 12, the company will drop the price of the 3DS from $250 to $170 — a move it hopes will spark flagging consumer interest and lay the groundwork for a strong holiday season.
It took more than 12 years for
Duke Nukem Forever to see the light of day, but the wait for expansion packs may wind up being less than 12 weeks.
Take-Two and Gearbox Software have announced that the first downloadable content for the long-anticipated but critically-derided shooter will be out this fall. And in true Duke style, he’s taking aim at the kings of the FPS hill.
Playing a game on Facebook 
from the comfort of your living room couldn’t be any further away from the loud, smoky casinos of Las Vegas or Atlantic City. But scratch that surface a little and you’ll find that, aside from the complimentary cocktails, the two are virtually identical.
Both are designed to keep you sitting there playing, unaware of the passing hours. Both attract millions of visitors per year.
And both rely heavily on a small percentage of those visitors to make up the majority of their income.
Securing a court victory that clearly 
defined the First Amendment rights of video games was just the beginning for the Entertainment Software Association. Now it wants California to pay its legal bills.
The video game trade group has filed a motion with the U.S. Supreme Court for reimbursement of attorney’s fees in the case of Brown v. EMA, fees that add up to $1.1 million (and could go even higher).
For the most part, 2011 
has been a pretty crummy year for video game sales.
Other than April, every month has shown declines. For the year, the industry is 10 percent behind 2010’s pace. That puts video games retail on track for its third consecutive year of negative growth — the first time that has ever happened in the gaming world.
As retail sputters, more and more publishers are looking to downloadable games to help fill the gaps.
Chris Morris: Journalist 