Glu Mobile Inc. announced plans to release the next Call of Duty mobile game, published as part of the company's expanded partnership with Activision Publishing.

The mobile title is scheduled to be available in Q4 2010 in conjunction with Activision's upcoming blockbuster release of Call of Duty:  Black Ops and will be published worldwide for carriers and application stores that support feature phones and smartphones.

"Through our close partnership, their team has been able to create adaptations that are true to the Call of Duty spirit and they're poised to deliver a striking title this year."

"Call of Duty: Black Ops is set to be one of the biggest entertainment events of the year, and we are excited to take part in this historic launch by continuing our partnership with Activision to create the next mobile Call of Duty title," said Niccolo de Masi, president and CEO, Glu. "The mobile game will serve as the ideal complement for Call of Duty fans and new players alike."

"Glu Mobile has been a trusted partner and has the proven track record in capturing the Call of Duty experience to mobile fans everywhere," said Dave Anderson, Head of Business Development, Activision. "Through our close partnership, their team has been able to create adaptations that are true to the Call of Duty spirit and they're poised to deliver a striking title this year."

_{by Kerri Panchuk}

OnLive, the "cloud" service that will revolutionise online gaming by removing the need for a PC or a console, will also be launching in the United Kingdom, it's been revealed today.

British Telecom has teamed up with the American company to bring the service to Ol' Blighty, and in doing so has also bought a small share - 2.6% - in the firm.

While OnLive will launch in the US this summer, a British release date is still up in the air, OnLive saying only that further details will be disclosed later in the year.

Those worried that this means the service will be exclusive to BT customers needn't fear; it'll be available to customers of all internet service providers (BT's stake only buying them exclusivity over bundle deals, not OnLive itself).

More about this ONLIVE and how it works you can find here.

_{IGN Editorial by Erik Brudvig}

The New Business of Online Gaming

Or, why coddling a fan base is more important than squeezing out a few extra bucks.

Electronic Arts has been experimenting with ways to bring in revenue from the used gaming market. If you've purchased a game from the publisher in recent months, you've seen the tests in one form or another. Mass Effect 2 had the Cerberus Network. Bad Company 2 had the VIP program. Now the company has unveiled the Online Pass for its sports portfolio and many are crying foul.

The Online Pass is a code that comes with all new purchases of this year's versions of EA's NCAA Football, NHL, Madden, NBA, FIFA, MMA and Tiger Woods games. You'll need it to download certain add-ons and play with your friends online. If you get the game used or rent it, you'll have to purchase an Online Pass for $10. Otherwise you'll only be able to play the game online for the 7-day trial period. That's on top of the money you already might be paying for a high-speed internet connection and Xbox Live.

The anger over this announcement is understandable, but it's also easy to see things from EA's point of view. People who aren't directly paying EA when buying used games are simultaneously costing them money by using servers for online matchmaking. That would burn my britches if I had investors to report to. Ah yes, investors...  

Electronic Arts's video explaining the Online Pass.

It seems that two strategies are emerging for how best to approach the online space and the used games market on consoles. On one side you have developers like Bungie and Valve that take great pains to encourage people to keep playing their games long after release, oftentimes at no added cost to the consumer. There's this nebulous concept of brand loyalty that appears to be successful but is difficult to pinpoint how well it translates into real dollars. On the flip side you have EA. Here is a company that notes in its announcement of the Online Pass that, "We think it's fair to get paid for the services we provide and to reserve these online services for people who pay EA to access them."

Valve Software has announced that the download service is now available for Apple's line of computers, and it flipped the switch on its online store early this afternoon. The Steam client can be downloaded at www.steamgames.com

Valve will be giving away the Mac version of its award-winning puzzle game Portal through May 24.

Past titles such as Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, and Counter-Strike are not yet available in non-PC form on Steam, although Valve has said it plans to port them to the Mac. Starting with Portal 2, all future Valve games will be released simultaneously on the Mac, PC, and Xbox 360

Mac for Steam did launch with a 63-game catalog of mostly puzzle, arcade, and classic games. Among the titles offered are Peggle Deluxe, Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse 1, Zuma Deluxe, World of Goo, and Tales of Monkey Island Season 1. Also available are Cryptic Studios' massively multiplayer online role-playing game City of Heroes: Architect Edition and Firaxis' historical strategy "god game" Civilization IV: The Complete Edition. All purchased Mac games bearing the "Steamplay" logo can also be downloaded onto PCs as well at no extra charge--and vice versa.

Valve has also added Mac support into its Steamworks development toolkit, which allows titles built using the software to be interchangeable between the PC and Apple's platform. The developer will also release game updates for Windows and Mac editions simultaneously. Gamers on the two platforms will also be able to intermingle in online matches, playing and communicating on the same servers and in the same game lobbies.

Co-founder of Blitz Games Studios, Andrew Oliver, has said that the second hand games market is having a more damaging effect on the games industry than Piracy.

He said that because of the amount of times a game is changing hands thanks to trade in services, the royalties going back to publishers can be effectively quartered.

"I understand why players do this, games are expensive and after a few weeks of playing you've either beaten it, or got bored of it so trading it back in to help pay for the next seems sensible when people are short of cash," says Oliver.

"The money going back up the chain is a fraction of what it was only a few years ago. This is a much bigger problem than piracy on the main consoles."

The pre-owned market appears to be growing. Argos, Asda and Tesco have all started game trading services this year.

But.... according to an old (2007) article in The Ledger, the small shops that sell video games have to rely heavily on second-hand sales in order to keep up with their chain-store competitors. By focusing on the used games side of the business, retailers can control the pricing of their inventory, whereas with new games, the price is fixed and a retailer may only make $10 or less for one title. With the used games, buying low and selling high has allowed a lot of these stores to stay open.

With the big stores now also wanting to do "second hand games" the last small but specialized game stores have to close plus it will have a real big impact on the price of new games...

The list of Infinity Ward developers and designers now working for Respawn Entertainment :

Activision's president, Bobby Kotick, has revealed that the publisher currently has over 300 staff creating new Call of Duty Titles at the Treyarch, Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer studios.

"Making Call of Duty games today is managed by more than 325 incredibly talented employees spanning three studios: Treyarch, Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer," said Kotick during the publisher's Q1 conference call with its investors. "These studios are among the best in the world. And a position that is among the most coveted in this industry is the opportunity to work at any one of these studios."

Activision's COO Thomas Tippl wouldn't comment on possibly release of two new Call of Duty games in 2011.

"We have built a very enthusiastic and loyal fan base over the years that have very high-quality expectations, and the last thing we would ever do is put a product out that doesn't live up to those standards," he said. "In fact, what we are trying to do is raise the bar."

LETS HOPE THAT ONE OF THOSE 325 GOES TO KOTICK AND TIPPL AND SAYS :

"But Sir... we only have to finish a Call of Duty Game properly. NO errors, NO missing parts. And by doing this we can raise the bar AND make ALL Call of Duty fans happy for once. This new game will sell itself..."

_{Despite losing half of its employees, Infinity Ward studio will still produce the next DLC Map Pack for Modern Warfare 2.} 

_{The next entry in the CoD franchise, Call of Duty: Black Ops from Treyarch, is scheduled for release on November 9 2010.}

_{by Vrandas}

Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick talked openly about firing Infinity Ward's Vince Zampella and Jason West during the publisher's conference call with investors today.

For the first time since the "Infinity Ward Crisis" began, back in March, Kotick told his opinion on the situation, saying that he expects more staff to leave the Call of Duty and Modern Warfare developer; Infinity Ward.

“We felt we had no choice than to fire the two IW executives for "insubordination. There was no gray area, as talented as they might have been”, said Kotick.

He also denied West and Zampella's claim that Activision just didn't want to pay them bonuses, by saying. "There was nothing that would have allowed us to retain them. We did this to protect the company's assets and the interest of our shareholders."

Kotick stated that before their dismissal he considered the Infinity Ward co-founders to be his friends. However he added, "Their conduct was a compromise of our friendship, which was equally disappointing."

Infinity Ward is re-hiring staff at the moment and continues to work on a second Modern Warfare 2 map pack which is due for release later in the year.