GigaOM

It’s not entirely clear yet how Vivendi’s plan to take a controlling stake in Activision, unveiled Sunday, will shake up the games industry. But the $18.9 billion deal will not only merge the maker of World of Warcraft with the owner of Guitar Hero, but will create a video game company, Activision Blizzard, that surpasses [...]

The mobile gaming market was supposed to be huge by now. Clearly that hasn’t happened. And although the jury is still out as to whether this sector will grow or fizzle, as games on cell phones face competition from all kinds of other media, some analysts are resolutely predicting a slowdown.
But John Carmack, the [...]

Two acclaimed boutique game studios recently released music-based games for the iPod, and I hope they are pioneers of a new frontier. The iPod interface offers such intriguing possibilities for play style, and with 100 million versions of the iPod sold, the install base is quite large! NanaOn-sha’s Musika and Harmonix’s Phase both import [...]

The market for online games in China shows no signs of cooling off as NetDragon, an online games developer, this week reported a nearly 2,700 percent profit increase, to $35.8 million, over the same nine-month period last year.
NetDragon’s earnings growth is based on three popular titles: Conquer Online, Eudemons Online and Zero Online. The [...]

Jack Myers posted a rather long article this morning chronicling the trials of a 13-year-old girl who recently had her avatar stolen in the casual anime-styled MMO Gaia Online. While it’s true that there are now virtual characters with virtual possessions that translate into real dollars, the article sensationalizes a problem that is hardly [...]

We all love the Wii — gamers, game developers, marketers — in theory, anyway. But mine has been collecting dust since the spring, and the ardor of developers has cooled as well.
Sure, there was Metroid Prime — an excellent game, the first solid shooter for the console, but decidedly not the type of game [...]