The leading provider of three dimensional game development solutions, Emergent Game Technologies, and Actoz Soft Co. Ltd, which is based in Korea, announced today a licensing agreement for use of the popular Gamebryo Engine for the upcoming Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, Wild Planet.

Wild Planet takes place in 2400 A.D. after a meteorite crashes into the earth. The game will feature a non-targeting combat mode and a science fiction environment conquered by punk-styled characters.

Icarus Studios has dropped over seventy-five percent of its staff six months after released the latest massively multiplayer online role-playing game titled Fallen Earth.

The remaining employees of the company will still continue to work and support Fallen Earth. A new patch is expected to release on 7th of May, 2010 titled “Blood Sports Patch 1.4″.

CEO of Icarus Studios, James Hettinger, explained that while this is a challenging step for them, the steps were taken to maintain the growth, continued development and profitability of the Fallen Earth Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.

The CEO and president of Activision Blizzard’s Activision Publishing subsidiary named Mike Griffith, has resigned his roles as announced by Activision Blizzard. This is effective from 23rd of April, although Mike Griffith will continue to work for the company as a vice-chairman of Activision Blizzard on a twelve month rolling contract.

It is not clear if Griffith’s resignation is somehow based on the public and messy battle with several of the Infinity Ward studio members, following the ground-breaking success of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which was released late last year.

The drama with Activision and Infinity Ward continues once again. Thirty-eight ex and current Infinity Ward employees have filled a lawsuit against the publisher of the popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 first-person shooter, Activision, as reported by the LA Times. The Infinity Ward employees are claiming that they are owed between seventy-eight and one hundred and twenty-five million “United States Dollars (USD)” in royalties in addition to potential damages.

Seventeen of the employees that filled the lawsuit still work at Infinity Ward, and also, the thirty-eight ex-Infinity Ward employees represent around forty percent of the Modern Warfare 2 team.

The leading 3D engine developers for games and 3D applications, Stonetrip, announced that they will be presenting the ShiVa 3D engine and showing it in action at the Nordic Game 2010 on 28th and 29th of April. The CEO of Stonetrip, Philip Belhassen will lead the “Optimize Your Development by Going Cross-Platform” session at 1:30PM on 28th of April at the Copenhagen room.

Belhassen will speak during the session about the opportunities for taking taking content and expanding it into multiple platforms and the importance of a strong production pipeline to support the development.

Crytek is an interactive entertainment development company which was founded in 1999 by the Yerli brothers. The company’s head office is located in Frankfurt, Germany. Crytek also has studios in Budapest, Hungary; Kiev, Ukraine; Sofia, Bulgaria; and Seoul, Korea. Crytek entered the United Kingdom games market in 2009 with the acquisition of the Nottingham based Free Radical Design which has been renamed to Crytek UK.

The company Crytek has been dedicated in to the development of high-quality video games for Next Generation Consoles and PC and real-time 3D Technologies such as their CryENGINE.

The leader in 3D sensing and recognition technologies, PrimeSense, and Microsoft Corp, announced today that PrimeSense will be providing its leading 3D Sensing technology for use in ‘Project Natal’ for the Xbox 360 gaming console.

Vice President of Xbox 360 hardware, Ian Spillinger, said that they’ve seen tremendous excitement and anticipation for the arrival of Project Natal this year, and that PrimeSense has delivered an important component to the technology, helping us deliver revolutionary controller-free entertainment experiences in the living room.

Leading 3D engine company for games and 3D applications, Stonetrip, announced that their recently released Web Player has already surpassed three Million downloads. The ShiVa web player sets the standard for compatibility and features a single click installation procedure. It is compatible with more eighty percent of all computers in operation today plus full compatibility with all the browsers out there. ShiVa 3d is one of the fastest growing engine technologies around.

CEO of Stonetrip Philip Belhassen explained that the response to their business model has been phenomenal, and that they had a lot of interest because of their single license for all platforms and the inclusion of PC, Max, Web, Linux, iPhone, Android and future platforms.

Leading provider of 3D Game Development solution, Emergent Game Technologies, and Shanghai-based Goldcool announced today that the studio has licensed the award-winning Gamebryo engine for its Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game titled Magic World Online II.

Magic World Online II is a sequel to the original Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game named Magic World Online which launched in September 2006.

The sequel is expected to release in Europe and the United States.

Dr Richard Wilson
CEO of TIGA, the trade association representing the UK games industry:

The UK video games industry is important part of the economy, contributing ?1 billion to the UK’s Gross Domestic Product, sustaining 27,000 jobs, including over 9,000 highly skilled roles in games development. The video games are culturally important: 73% of the population regularly play video games and video games interact with other forms of media, for example, inspiring film, television and music. Video games also have the potential to play a valuable role in mainstream education, in training and in workforce development.

The trade association which represents the game industry in the United Kingdom explained today that the announcement of the Government’s intention to introduce a sector of specific Games Tax Relief for the United Kingdom video games industry was a decisive breaktrhough. TIGA’s Games Tax Relief would be really good for the games industry in the United Kingdom, and the consumers plus the wider UK economy.

Dr Richard Wilson TIGA CEO stated:
“This is an inspired decision. In backing TIGA’s Games Tax Relief the Government has chosen the future over the past, growth over decline, success over failure. Games Tax Relief will increase employment, investment and innovation in the UK video games sector.

The trade association which represents the games industry of the United Kingdom, TIGA, announced today that there was an urgent need to support measures to sustain export oriented and high skilled business sectors of the economy. In this case, the video games industry, the policy makers should support the introduction of Games Tax Relief at the earliest opportunity. Following the publication of the National Strategic Skills which showed that since 2001 the fastest growing jobs in the United Kingdom include “Conversation and Environmental Protection Officers” (up 124 per cent), “Leisure and Theme Park Attendants” (up 102 per cent) and “Beauticians and Related Occupations” (up 63 per cent).