BioWare has explained the recent spate of Star Wars: The Old Republic bans – and promised to adjust areas players are exploiting.

Last week a number of players were banned from playing the sci-fi MMO for looting containers in planet Ilum at too low a level – a move that sparked outrage from the game’s community.

Read the full article here:

Source: Wesley Yin-Poole

Via Eurogamer

The long-running dispute between Bethesda Softworks and Interplay over the proposed MMOG Fallout Online has apparently come to an end after the parties reached a settlement.

Duck And Cover reports that a settlement was reached on the day of the trial itself; after lunch, the courtroom was locked to everyone but attorneys and clients because those inside were working towards a deal.

Read the full article here:

Source: Nathan Brown

Via Edge

Modern Warfare 3 earned $1 billion in sales in 16 days, proving the series has become an influential force in American entertainment. It sold millions of copies in its first day of release, and the sales of content packs have only just begun; the game is going to have legs at retail. But it hasn’t been without a bit of controversy. The Atlantic recently ran a story claiming the game’s television commercial “sunk to new lows,” but the problem isn’t the fact the live-action commercial cheapens war, it’s that the commercial accurately depicts an immensely popular game.

Read the full article here:

Source: Ben Kuchera

Via Ars Technica

The most pirated PC game of 2011 wasn’t Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 or Skyrim – it was Crysis 2.

Specialist site TorrentFreak estimated, using several sources of data, that Crysis 2 was downloaded illegally nearly 4 million times (3.92 million).

Modern Warfare 3 was the second most pirated PC game, having been downloaded 3.65 million times. Battlefield 3 was third, with an illegal download count of 3.51 million.

Read the full article here:

Source: Robert Purchese

Via Eurogamer

For the first time in a single week, more than a billion apps have been downloaded, according to a study.

Analytics firm Flurry said 1.2 billion apps were downloaded in the last week of December.

Activity was buoyed by the facts that many users received new devices for Christmas and firms offered discounted apps over the holiday period.

Read the full article here:

Via the BBC

EA’s ‘FIFA 12’ finishes first for the final week of the year fending off three threequels in the shape of Activision Blizzard’s ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’ at No2, EA again with ‘Battlefield 3’ at No3 and Ubisoft’s ‘Just Dance 3’ at No4. This marks the second year in a row that FIFA has had the final week at the top and FIFA 12 has now scored 4 No1s so far, tying with FIFA 11 and FIFA 10.

The rest of the top ten are also at least the third iteration of a title’s series with Ubisoft’s fourth installment of the popular assassin adventure game ‘Assassin’s Creed: Revelations’ holding on to No5 ahead of another non-mover, THQ’s ‘Saints Row: The Third’, at No6.

The next two titles are also holding fast with EA’s third title in the top 10 ‘Need for Speed: The Run’ and Bethesda’s Christmas No1 ‘The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ at No7 and No8 respectively.

Two very different racers have fought their way back into the top 10 with Nintendo’s ‘Mario Kart 7’ at No9 and Microsoft’s ‘Forza Motorsport 4’ at No10.

As it’s the last week in the year it comes as no surprise that there were no new releases in the Top 40 this week.

Top 20 Entertainment Software (All Prices), Week Ending 31 December 2011

1. FIFA 12 – ELECTRONIC ARTS
2. CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3 – ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
3. BATTLEFIELD 3 – ELECTRONIC ARTS
4. JUST DANCE 3 – UBISOFT
5. ASSASSIN’S CREED: REVELATIONS – UBISOFT
6. SAINTS ROW: THE THIRD – THQ
7. NEED FOR SPEED: THE RUN – ELECTRONIC ARTS
8. THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM – BETHESDA SOFTWORKS
9. MARIO KART 7 – NINTENDO
10. FORZA MOTORSPORT 4 – MICROSOFT
11. MARIO & SONIC LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES – SEGA
12. RAGE – BETHESDA SOFTWORKS
13. WWE ’12 – THQ
14. SUPER MARIO 3D LAND – NINTENDO
15. SONIC GENERATIONS – SEGA
16. KINECT SPORTS: SEASON TWO – MICROSOFT
17. KINECT SPORTS – MICROSOFT
18. RAYMAN ORIGINS – UBISOFT
19. ZUMBA FITNESS – 505 GAMES
20. F1 2011 – CODEMASTERS

Read the full article here:

Via UKIE

Anonymous, the notorious online anarchist group, has released a video stating its intention to attack Sony over its support for the Stop Online Piracy Act.

In the video, posted on YouTube on December 28, the group said that Sony had signed its own death warrant by supporting the controversial American act.

Read the full article here:

Source: Rachel Weber

Via Games Industry

Atari has reportedly been applying legal pressure to developers which it believes are infringing on its intellectual property rights, despite the developers affected claiming that attempts had been made on their part to reach an agreement.

Black Powder Media, which created iPhone title Vector Tanks, has had the game removed from the App Store by Apple after complaints by Atari, claiming that the veteran publisher’s ‘special relationship’ with the platform holder meant that it received preferential treatment.

Read the full article here:

Source: Dan Pearson

Via Games Industry

The early success of Bioware and EA’s Star Wars: The Old Republic is an indication of a healthy market for subscription based MMOs, according to analysts monitoring the high-profile release.

Electronic Arts said over the Christmas period that more than one million users had registered for the game, which officially went live on December 20, although it had steadily rolled out early access to the game beginning two weeks before that.

Read the full article here:

Source: Matt Martin

Via Games Industry

[Remember what game culture was like in the weird old days, before information was plentiful and the internet connected all? Gamasutra's Leigh Alexander looks at what Skyrim reminds us we've missed.]

When we think about the leaps video games have made in the recent decades, we rightly consider technology advancements, increasingly large-scaled and sophisticated products, and refinements in game mechanics. But thinking about the culture around games, our experiences as fans have certainly changed a lot since we were younger.

Read the full article here:

Source: Leigh Alexander

Via Gamasutra