Zynga Has Lost $160 Million This Year So Far

2012 has been rough for the company behind FarmVille. Zynga has lost a total of $160 million during the nine month period from January to September 30, 2012, the company said in an earnings report today This includes a loss of $52 million over the past three months. Yesterday, Zynga laid off 150 staff and…

Clever Move, Activision…

Via the personal Twitter feed of Josh Olin, former community management guy for Call of Duty studio Treyarch. Now at Riot. Olin Tweeted: “So this is the packaging that @Amazon is shipping @MedalOfHonor in…. Brilliant!!! Cc: @stephentotilo pic.twitter.com/YMFWDswO” I’ve checked in with Activision PR to find out out if this was done just for Medal…

How AMD’s Fancy New “Piledriver” Processors Compare To Intel’s Ivy Bridge

About this time last year, AMD’s new Bulldozer-based FX series launched to bright-eyed system builders who expected the new architecture to challenge Intel’s increasingly comfortable position in the upper-end processor market. Unfortunately, Bulldozer wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Its performance fell short of the then 9-month-old Sandy Bridge processors and in some…

This Browser-Based Text Adventure Is the Best James Bond Game of the Fall

The most recent James Bond game to grace consoles, last week’s 007 Legends is, sadly, just not good. Fans of the British super-spy need not despair, however: there is a genuinely good James Bond tie-in game out this fall. And it’s a text adventure. The British Intelligence Officers Exam puts players in the shoes of…

It’s Time to Celebrate The Spooky Season In MMORPGs

Halloween is still a week from today, so you’ll have to wait until next Wednesday if you want to go trick-or-treating in the real world. (Or at least, if you want to do it without getting the cops called.) But if you’d like to dash around a virtual world in costume, gathering treats and performing…

ChefVille ‘The Undead Chef’ Quests: Everything You Need to Know

The second portion of ChefVille‘s Halloween event has finally launched in our restaurants, as players are now encouraged to upgrade both the Halloween Cauldron and Haunted Broiler to unlock Intermediate Level dishes. This comes by way of two new quest series that are activated via a single quest that we’ll look at below. From there,…

L4D2 is free to play for one weekend (starting this Thursday). New achievement added for long-time players.

This New Professor Layton Commercial Is So Bad It’s Kinda Good

It comes full circle! What is it with Nintendo and Penelope Cruz, by the way? Do they have some sort of Penelope Cruz commercial quota to hit this year? Genuinely curious.

Two Creators Frustrated With The Legend of Zelda Are Bringing You a Great-Looking Graphic Novel

Some people felt like Skyward Sword soared. Others felt like the latest entry in Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series was saddled with annoying issues. Even current steward Eiji Aonuma feels like changes may need to happen to the long-running franchise. While the impact of these mixed feelings on the next Zelda game is a long…

Medal of Honor‘s Most Annoying Bug Makes My Soldiers Stop Caring

“Hurry up and wait.” It’s a common phrase used in the U.S. Military, one that encapsulates the often frustrating tedium of life in the armed forces. “Hurry up and wait” may apply to real life, but it probably shouldn’t be true in a video game. Or at least… not to this extent. But this kind…

The Best Gaming-Themed Jack-O-Lanterns

Dedicated gaming fans can create high-quality fan art from pretty much anything. Even squash. Squirtle and Charizard come from the DeviantArt page of joh-wee, who has a truly astonishing array of carvings on her site (along with other art). Garrus is a painstaking work by Mass Effect fan and tumblr user weemiji, who created it…

Zuckerberg Isn’t Pleased With the State of Facebook Gaming, But It’s Getting Better

With Facebook’s major gaming revenue source faltering and social gaming in general struggling to find new ways to engage and earn without annoying, it’s no wonder Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg isn’t happy with the state of gaming on his massive social network. During yesterday’s earnings call as reported by TechCrunch, Zuckerberg came right out and…

How People Earn The Actual Medal of Honor

The video game first-person shooter series Medal of Honor has been around so long that it’s easy for a gamer to think of the words “Medal of Honor” as just a video game brand, no more tied to a real thing in the non-gaming word as a phrase like “brothers in arms”, “company of heroes”…

This Grand Theft Auto V Artwork Promises “Pest Control” in the San Andreas Sunshine

The art style that Rockstar Games uses to promote its Grand Theft Auto games has been almost as important as the gameplay in the open-world series. Over the years, the publisher has doled out hints as to the sex, drugs and hi-jinx players would get into via posters and other graphic design images, long before…

Strange New Resident Evil 6 Patch Will Unlock Ada Wong Right Away

In a very unusual move, Capcom is releasing a free Resident Evil 6 patch in mid-December that will unlock the Ada Wong campaign—previously available when you beat all the other campaigns—for players right away. The new patch for the maligned horror-survival game will also offer new camera and subtitle options. Here’s Capcom: Capcom is pleased…

Run, Run, Run For Your Life, And Sometimes Space-Punch A Zombie

I like a good runner as much as the next guy; any game that requires me to run forward and time my taps to keep my on-screen character alive for as long as possible. From Canabalt to Jetpack Joyride to Temple Run, the key to a good running mobile game is simplicity. Save Them All…

The Complicated Truth Behind Games That Want To Change The World

If you listen closely to those who advocate for games as a worthwhile medium, you can sense the hope that games will change the world. Either society becomes enraptured by the possibilities that interactivity presents, or games become another avenue for making a difference—if not both. We stand on the precipice of public awareness when…

Pummel Your Pals in the Street Fighter X Tekken Facebook Game

Celebrating the release of Street Fighter X Tekken on the PlayStation Vita, Capcom has released Friend Fighter on Facebook, a silly little app that’s not much more than an excuse to prove I have more friends than Kirk Hamilton. Pick a friend, pick a criteria (photos posted, travel miles, amount of friends, etc.), and get…

The service allowing named rosters to be shared over NCAA Football 13 was restored this morning, for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Pro Wrestler Who Dresses as a Classic Nintendo Wrestler Gets In Trouble At WWE Show

The New Jersey-based wrestling league Pro Wrestling Syndicate has a guy wrestling for them who goes by the name Star Man. The inspiration for his character? The star-faced character from the old Nintendo Entertainment System game Pro Wrestling (the one the “A Winner is You” meme comes from.) Star Man isn’t in the big leagues…