Turtle Rock Studios today announced the launch of a small games division named “Turtle Rock Garage”, which will be focused only on casual and experimental games, like those on the iPhone, Facebook and Xbox LIVE.

The Art Director at Turtle Rock Studios, Phil Robb, said that the team at Turtle Rock Studios is constantly coming up with fantastic little game ideas, and that these are games that they would love to see realized just as much as their larger scope projects. Phil Robb also stated that it would be a shame to throw these ideas out just because they are not a part of a big project.

Ignition Entertainment in Japan is pleased to announce that it has licensed the morpheme animation middleware of NaturalMotion in their recently announced AAA Game entitled “El Shaddai”.

VP Sales of NaturalMotion, Christian Staack, said that they are delighted that Ignition Entertainment have chosen morpheme as they are fully aware of their commitment to creating the most believable animations possible for El Shaddai. He also stated that they look forward to supporting their project throughout its development and eagerly await the game’s debut at E3 in June.

Emergent Game Technologies, a leading provider of 3D game development solutions, announced today a licensing deal with Korean developer Gorilla Banana Entertainment Corp for use of Emergent’s proven Gamebryo engine in their upcoming MMORPG Red Blood.

Red Blood is an epic action game that takes place in a future where companies have perfected a new and improved, genetically-altered human race. Players will choose to join one of four countries – Victoria, Kulitie a Khuril-Tai, Normu a Nomos, and Peiladulia a Phratria – each possessing unique character traits and attributes to utilize.

Nexon America’s million dollar program called “The Nexon iNitiative”, that seeks out and funds new innovative game projects, has received more than one-hundred and fifteen submissions from twenty six countries from all six continents.

The Nexon iNitiative accepted submissions from the 3rd of March to the 30th of April, 2010. The Nexon iNitiative will provide up to one million dollars in order to support the next generation of game developers. The most original and unique independent gaming project will earn a share of the one million dollars, and get co-developed and later published through Nexon’s global distribution network.

Developer of the number one Korean online baseball game and based in Korea, Anipark, announced today that it has received its own license of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 for its next two major projects, which will be a next-generation online baseball game, and a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

The highly anticipated sequel of the baseball game will be based on “MaguMagu” (The number one Korean online baseball game). The game will deliver fantastic 3D Baseball gameplay for users of all ages.

The leading developer of 3D engine for games and 3D applications, Stonetrip, announced that ShiVa 3D, its popular engine technology, now supports the Palm webOS platform, which makes it the first engine that enables development across platforms.

Stonetrip has added four new platforms over the past two months including iPad, Wii and Android.

With the support of Palm webOS, and with more upcoming platforms support, ShiVa 3D is the fastest growing development tool for games and 3D applications.

The worldwide publisher and developer, Ignition Entertainment Ltd, is very pleased to announce that they have licensed Crytek’s critically acclaimed CryENGINE 3 for the first game published from its London-Based Studio. The game is going to be a uniquely developed action-adventure game with combat elements, expected to release on the Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 video game consoles.

It has always been Ignition’s mission to push creative and technological limits in their titles, and the London studio will continue this vision by harnessing CryENGINE 3 in their upcoming title.

The production service company named Catalyst Outsourcing has just expanded its team which is based in the United Kingdom – Liverpool, with two new members.

Joining as Senior Producers after four and seven years at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe are Gareth Betts and Tony Buckley.

Previously, Gareth Betts was a Senior Producer of F1 Championship Edition and Wipeout HD, while Tony Buckley was the Game Director of the Wipeout franchise at Studio Liverpool.

The special interest media group, Future, confirmed that the June releases of its Official Xbox and PlayStation Magazines in the United Kingdom will reveal the first in-depth previews of the upcoming title Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Future’s Official PlayStation Magazine and Official Xbox Magazine will deliver the first hard facts about the game directly from the studio of the developers in California. Teased from the Call of Duty: Black Ops trailer, gamers will no longer have to look at the rumors on the internet. The Call of Duty: Black Ops first-person shooter is expected to release on the 9th of November, 2010 according to the announcement trailer.

Activision Blizzard announced better than expected financial results for the first quarter of the year 2010. For the quarter that ended on the 31st of March, 2010, Activision Blizzard’s GAAP net revenues were one point three billion USD, with its non-GAAP net revenues 714 million USD.

For the quarter that ended on the 31st of March, 2010, Activision Blizzard reported that the GAAP earnings per diluted share were 0.30 USD, and that the company’s non-GAAP earning per diluted share were 0.09 USD.

The publisher of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 video game hit has announced that a second downloadable content pack for the game is currently planned to arrive in the second half of 2010, which means it will release sometime between July and December.

Activision Blizzard COO Thomas Tippl explained that they plan to release the second map pack for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 while discussing the company’s lineup for the “Black half of the year” during today’s investor conference call.

CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, stated that thirty five others have left the creator of the Modern Warfare 2 video-game, Infinity Ward, since Activision has fired the two lead executives. More are expected to follow.

Bobby Kotick explained that a few more people are expected to leave as well, and that many of these people have been recruited by other studios because of how talented they are. He also said that they are obviously disappointed about this, and that they wish they could have convinced some of these incredibly talented people to stay.