Tripwire Interactive is was very happy to announce that it will be publishing a first person puzzle-adventure game by Teotl Studios entitled, The Ball, on Valve’s Steam Platform and in stores around the world.

“The Ball” has won a couple of top prizes including the latest “Make Something Unreal” contest by Epic. It is following the steps of Red Orchestra, Tripwire’s game, to make a big leap from a mod to becoming a full commercial game.

The commercial release of “The Ball” is enhanced and expanded with more great features, including a full six hours campaign gameplay.

The designer, developer and pioneer in advanced stereoscopic 3D visualizations systems and software, iZ3D, announced that a new relationship between Zalman and them has taken place today, the goal of which is to provide the best 3D gaming visualizations to Zalman Display users with the world recognized iZ3D Drivers.

The iZ3D Drivers are now included in all the new Zalman 3D Monitors that are sold on the market today.

“The iZ3D Drivers have been widely accepted as the standard for 3D gaming. We have a large community of 3D gamers that utilize our drivers on previous versions of Zalman monitors, so this partnership will help give new gamers a great first impression on the new Zalman 3D solutions, ”

Gamers’ Voice are working with TIGA in their efforts to persuade the Coalition Government to introduce video games tax relief in the UK, with the two organisations planning several joint strategies.

Gamers’ Voice has begun emailing MP’s asking for their support by signing Stewart Hosie MP Early Day Motion “COMPUTER GAMES TAX RELIEF” We will be running a list on our website detailing all those MPs who’ve responded and signed the new EDM.

TIGA CEO Dr. Richard Wilson said:

“Games tax relief will be good for the UK economy, for the UK games industry and UK consumers.

The games industry charity for children and young people in the United Kingdom, GamesAid, confirmed the appointment of Ian Livingstone OBE and President of Eidos Caroline Miller, as trustees.

Livingstone is a Non-Executive Director of ELSPA, Chair of Skillset’s Computer Games Skills Council, Vice Chair of the BAFTA Games Committee and an advisor to the British Council.

He was awarded an OBE in 2006, a BAFTA Special Award in 2002, and an Honorary Doctorate of Technology for his contribution to the UK computer games industry.

TIGA, the trade association representing the UK games industry, today announced Activision Blizzard as its latest member.

Activision Blizzard is based in Santa Monica, California, and is a leading market worldwide pure-play online and console game publisher. The company’s Activision Publishing division operates two game development studios in the UK, which are Bizarre Creations and FreeStyleGames.

George Rose, Executive Vice President and Chief Public Policy Officer of Activision Blizzard explains the company’s reasons for joining TIGA:
“At Activision Blizzard we are extremely supportive of TIGA’s campaign to secure Games Tax Relief for the UK development community.

Arberth Studios announced that the translation of the haunting mystery game entitled Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches’ into the Italian language is complete. The translation is the work of Puntaeclicca (gaming site).

Arberth’s Noel Bruton comments, “We’re very excited about this project. The Italian team, capably headed by Francesca Livia, has been for us the ideal mix of structured translation service and gamer involvement. With Puntaeclicca, the adventure developer requiring an Italian version gets the best of both worlds – the professionalism of a formal localization company and the enthusiasm of the genuine gamer. Puntaeclicca is ideally placed to see localization both from a business and a player’s point of view.”

The veteran of the interactive entertainment industry, France Tantiado, announced the start of a new social gaming company, Brandyl Inc, focused on developing entertaining and engaging games for the online social gaming communities, like Facebook and mobile platforms. Brandyl is currently looking for talented teams of engineers, game designers and graphic artists. If you are interested visit brandyl.com/hire.html.

CEO and founder of Brandyl, France Tantiado, stated that with her years of experience in the gaming industry, she decided that it was time to start her own company

The leading company with the 3D engine for games and 3D applications, Stonetrip, announced today a special promotional price to help support the growing Macintosh development community. ShiVa 3D is not yet available for Mac, but Stonetrip is taking 300 Euro off the normal price of 1499 Euro, to offset the costs of the popular virtual machine software and Windows operating systems that are needed for Mac users to create games with the engine today.

The company is also gearing up for the release of ShiVa 1.9 later this summer and the special pricing will give users of other engines an additional incentive to move to ShiVa 3D which does not currently charge for updates or version upgrades.

One of the leading video game publishers worldwide, Activision Publishing, and Microsoft, announced today that all Call of Duty game add-ons and downloadable content packages will be first released on the Xbox LIVE Online Entertainment Network exclusively, courtesy of the multi-year agreement between the two companies.

The agreement officially began in 2009, and now extends for all downloadable content packages for the mega-blockbuster Call of Duty Franchise throughout the year 2012, which includes Call of Duty: Black Ops.

TIGA, the trade association representing the UK games industry, said today that the video games industry could play a valuable role in supporting an export led recovery for the UK economy. TIGA made the comments to accompany the publication of a new research report entitled The UK Video Games Industry: An Export Success Story , which confirms that the games development sector has a very high propensity to export.

The report presents research on the UK video games development industry’s main export markets and what percentage of turnover is generated by exports. The report also looks at which markets UK games developers consider to be most important emerging markets for exports in the future.

As the new Government’s Emergency Budget approaches, set for the 22nd of June, the trade association representing the UK video games industry, TIGA, and the worldwide pure-play online and console game publisher, Activision, met with Members of Parliament to restate the case for the urgent introduction of Games Tax Relief that was announced in the last Budget.

They met Don Foster MP (Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Culture, Media and Sport in the last Parliament), Jim McGovern MP (Labour MP for Dundee West), and Stewart Hosie MP (SNP MP for Dundee East).

Punchers Impact unveiled today the first beat’em up game which combines the worlds of comics with Lucha Libre, who is a Mexican wrestling. The game is entitled Lucha Fury, and will follow the adventures of four young and talented wrestlers who have spend their lives “loafing” around, until a mysterious energy drink brings them up into a fight against the most incredible conspiracy in the world.

The game combines horizontal scrolling gameplay with cooperative progression with up to four online and even offline players.