thief21 writes "After claims that console versions Modern Warfare 2 had been recalled in Russia due to complaints from politicians and the gaming public over the infamous airport slaughter scene, it turns out the stories were completely untrue. Activision never released a console version of the game in Russia." Instead, they simply edited the notorious scene out of the PC version. They did this of their own volition, since Russia doesn't have a formal ratings committee.

lbalbalba writes "Electronic Arts is shutting down its Westwood-based game developer Pandemic Studios just two years after acquiring it, putting nearly 200 people out of work. 'The struggling video game publisher informed employees Tuesday morning that it was closing the studio as part of a recently announced plan to eliminate 1,500 jobs, or 16% of its global workforce. Pandemic has about 220 employees, but an EA spokesman said that a core team, estimated by two people close to the studio to be about 25, will be integrated into the publisher's other Los Angeles studio, in Playa Vista.' An ex-developer for Pandemic attributed the studio's struggles to poor decisions from the management."

Raver32 sends news that the lost second pilot for Star Trek has been found, and will be released next month on Blu-ray. "Star Trek fans know there were two pilots for the original series. The first, 'The Cage,' was rejected by NBC for being 'too cerebral' (ah, some things never change). The second, 'Where No Man Has Gone Before,' replaced the actor who played the captain with William Shatner and was more action driven. That pilot had an alternate version which was largely lost and has never aired. Apparently, a film collector in Germany acquired the print and 'recently brought it to the attention' of CBS/Paramount. CBS is now releasing this version on Blu-ray Dec. 15."

anomnomnomymous writes "Just a week after Unity announced its engine is now available for free to indie users, Epic Games has revealed a free version of its popular Unreal Engine technology. Called the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), it is a free edition of UE3 that allows community, modder and indie users more access to the engine's features and is available for all. Epic said game developers, students, hobbyists, researchers, creators of 3D visualizations and simulations plus digital filmmakers can all take advantage of the UDK for non-commercial use. The UDK site also offers detailed product features, technical documentation, commercial licensing terms and support resources."

eldavojohn writes "Crispy Gamer is running a very interesting article on why games cost $60. Many games start out at this retail price — but why? Did the makers of The Beatles Rock Band game just happen upon $59.99, as did the makers of Batman Arkham Asylum? After all, those two titles surely took different amounts of man hours to develop, and result in different averages of entertainment time enjoyed by the consumer. They interview a director at Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, who breaks down the pie as $12 to retailer, $5 to discounts/returns/retail marketing, $10 toward manufacturing costs and shipping. That leaves $30 to $35 in the hands of the publishers. Though lengthy, the article looks at three forces of economics on why game publishers continuously end up in lockstep for pricing: sensible greed, consumer stupidity or evil conspiracy. When asked about the next step up to $70 or $80, Hal Halpin (president and founder of the Entertainment Consumers Association) says, 'I'm not sure that we'll see a standard $70 price point at all. To my mind, emerging technologies, subscriptions and episodic and downloadable content should all enable price drops — increasing accessibility to a much wider audience.'"

MMORPG.com's Dana Massey asks about the possibility of throwing out the rulebook for MMOs, suggesting that the next blockbuster title in the genre will be one that ignores many of the features and conventions that have come to be standards over the years. Quoting: "Who said that MMOs require hot bars? Who proclaimed that it's not a proper MMO unless you have quests? Blizzard took a formula that almost all MMOs had been using for years and distilled it down to addictive perfection. Love or hate WoW, it's a polished, polished title. It's no coincidence that on hardcore MMO sites, like this one, WoW is not the most hyped or trafficked game around. It's not that it's bad, but veteran MMO players don't have the same love for it, simply because we've all seen some variation of it before. The WoW community has always been a bit apart from the larger MMO community. Based purely on the number of subscribers, WoW articles should statistically annihilate every other game on this site, but they don't. A huge percentage of people who truly love WoW, I've always believed, do not know or particularly care about this whole world of MMOs out there. They're WoW players and that's it."

Over the past several days, Valve has been releasing details on an update to Team Fortress 2. They first revealed that the Sniper was taking its turn in a series of class upgrades, getting a bow and arrow that's capable of pinning an enemy to a wall. Next, they showed off a pair of new maps — a sawmill arena map that's in the midst of heavy rainfall and a circular map built around a doomsday weapon. Valve also mentioned a new game mode called Payload Race — it's similar to a regular Payload match, but both teams have a cart to push. The next day brought about an electrified shield for the Sniper, and hinted that the Spy would be getting an update as well. The following announcement confirmed it, introducing a device that would allow the Spy to feign death, and another that lets the Spy remain invisible permanently, only draining their power while in motion.

GameSetWatch takes a look at the issues involved in creating an MMO that does not split its users among many different servers. They suggest that running a single "shard" is the next step in the evolution of MMOs, since it better allows player choices to have a meaningful impact on the game world; supporting different outcomes across multiple shards is a technical nightmare. They estimate, from the hip, that the cost to develop the technology required to support a massive amount of players (i.e. far more than EVE Online) on a single server to be roughly $100 million. Another recommendation is the strong reliance on procedural and user-generated content creation to fill a necessarily enormous game world.

AlexMax2742 writes "id's Marty Stratton notes the following in his Quake Live developer blog on the subject of the Mac and Linux port of Quake Live: 'These have proved more difficult than expected, but we're getting close. We expect to also be testing Mac and Linux versions of Quake Live internally this month and then making those publicly available just as soon as we feel they are ready. This work is being done by a separate programmer in parallel with the other work that we're doing, and is his only priority — point being, that this is a top priority for us and not being delayed because of other work.' In my humble opinion, it's awesome to see that kind of (continued) dedication from a company." The post also indicates that progress is being made on the much-awaited private server functionality, and part two makes brief mention of match broadcasting and community-made maps.

Eurogamer is running a feature about what they call "frontier" MMOs, games that are on the fringe of a market flooded with attempts to replicate the success of Everquest and World of Warcraft. Many publishers already have more MMO projects than they know what to do with, and often leave the more unusual and unique games out in the cold, preferring to stick with familiar IP or a tried-and-true approach. "Like any gold-rush, the MMO market also attracts a different kind of adventurer: the fearless, inexperienced, determined and solitary dreamer, making a go of it on nothing but their own resources and pluck. The online distribution and direct revenue streams — be they subscriptions or micro-transactions — make it theoretically possible to make a mint in MMOs without any help from the gaming establishment at all." They take a brief look at several such games currently in development, including Earthrise, Gatheryn, and Global Agenda.

RyuuzakiTetsuya writes "According to Kotaku, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is making its way to the PS3 and the Xbox 360. It's based on the Dreamcast code, and it includes Online play and widescreen support. A demo will be available Thursday on the Playstation Network, and the full game will retail for $15 on each of the respective online services. A gameplay trailer is available as well."

This week saw the addition of aerial combat game H.A.W.X. to the Tom Clancy franchise by Ubisoft. Shane Bierwith, brand manager of the project, sat down with Student Life to discuss the game and some of their developmental decisions. "... we have four-person jump-in/jump-out co-op, which is a first for the air combat category. As far as competitive multiplayer is concerned, we have eight-person Team Deathmatch. It's a really fresh take on multiplayer in-air combat. As you level up and get kills in succession, you'll have access to support units, which range from electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) — you'll shock the other planes out of the sky — to altitude limits." Eurogamer's evaluation of the game calls it fun, but also "a victim of the high standards set by the other titles in the Clancy franchise." IGN says it's "very close to being a great game," but criticizes the combat and the mission design.

Darkfall, a PvP-oriented MMORPG that was first announced in 2001, is finally in the process of going live. After dealing with some launch-day bugs, the Darkfall team reports that servers are going up, and they're processing pre-orders to get players in the game. MMOCrunch has an in-depth write-up from the end of the beta, saying that the game is still "rough around the edges," but also that the team has created a "solid framework of an MMO that offers a unique experience that the genre has not seen in quite some time." Ten Ton Hammer had a similar reaction, tempering criticism with praise for the lack of hand-holding.