Former president of Dennis Publishing (Maxim, Blender, etc) Steven Colvin will soon be leaving his year-old postion as head of CNET / CBS Interactive entertainment and lifestyle division (Gamespot, mp3.com, tv.com, Chow, etc). Within the department, Colvin is widely believed to be the "brains" behind Jeff Gerstman's unceremonious canning last December. Just before the firing, Colvin spent hours in a meeting with Eidos attempting to salvage the relationship after Gerstman's negative review of Kane and Lynch. No word on if this departure is volunary or not, but his role is being taken over by CBSi COO Steve Snyder, which might be indicative of hardly-unexpected "restructuring" occuring sooner rather than later. Control of one of the department's largest assets, tv.com, was recently transfered out of the department.

There was also an annoucement today that CNET's extremely generous vacation hours package will be discontinued after this year, sick time hours will be reduced, health care providers will be changed, and benefits cut for "opposite-sex domestic partners", in order to be "consistent with CBS' company-wide poilcy".

On the plus side, parking fees can now be paid pre-tax.

Less than six weeks before the second edition of the event is supposed to begin, the official E For All web site has listed Microsoft and Electronic Arts as the only major game publishers who will be exhibiting at the show this year. THQ and Konami, both of whom attended E For All in 2007, have no current plans to attend the 2008 event.

Big Download has also learned via their respective PR reps that a large number of other major gaming publishers also have no current plans to attend. That list includes Sony, Midway, Atari, Sega, Warner Bros. Interactive, NCsoft, LucasArts, Sony Online, Square Enix, Codemasters, Gamecock, Southpeak, Disney Interactive and Capcom. PR reps for Nintendo, 2K Games and Activision did not yet know whether or not their respective companies would be attending.

Fraps are easy to shoot — just click record while playing a game on your PC. A 10-minute session at HD quality makes for a Godzilla-sized video file to upload to Vimeo.

But filespace isn't the only issue. Management is refreshingly blunt: Vimeo was meant to be a site to share personal real-world movie camera work with friends and family. Dammit, you kids with your Grand Theft Auto 4 clips are ruining everything. Starting in September, Vimeo will delete previously uploaded fraps and ban new ones. Its users, meanwhile, will just decamp to WeGame.com.

It's a long-held truism in the Valley not to risk your own money on a project when there are plenty of people willing to let you risk theirs in the hope of a return. You can now add that you probably shouldn't risk your company's most vital assets in exchange for loans from interested parties. As it stands, all of Flagship and partner Ping0's employees have been laid off, and HanbitSoft along with competitor Perfect World are now sniffing around the remains looking to poach whatever engineering and development talent they can, while Roper and other executives are said to be paying the last of the team's salaries out of their own pockets.

And according to our source, the death of the company couldn't have come at a worse time. The development team were just putting the finishing touches on the code to allow players of Mythos to make "real money transactions" — in other words, pay for in game items and new content as they played. By offering the game for free or nearly so and then charging the players nominal fees afterwards, the game can benefit from wide adoption early on and a revenue stream to pay for the development of more features and content as time went on.

But it meant that Flagship would have to eat the cost of early game development (which can be wildly expensive) and would almost guaranteed not to recoup the full cost on release. While it's an interesting business model that could prove wildly profitable a well-funded company, at one where Roper's old pal from Blizzard, CFO Ken Williams, couldn't keep the burn rate under control and was pawning IP off to licensees in exchange for bridge loans, it might make a little more sense to get some sales in first and nickel-and-dime players later. (Photo by Gamerscore Blog)

Get your highly-paid keisters into a meeting room. Order some takeout. Lock the doors. And work this out yourselves.

Whatever the reason, the magazine's editors failed at BusinessWeek Arcade. A number of the listed games, like Echoes, aren't Web-based at all. When I click "Play Now," the games attempt to download to my computer. Finally, we've found an audience for whom even casual games are too hard a concept.

After Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two's executive chairman, refused to play, Riccitiello took the proposal public Sunday. Riccitiello is looking to boost gross profits, which nine months into fiscal year 2007 have seen a 20 percent dip. Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto is thought to be one of the most lucrative franchises in videogames. The deal would grant EA rights to the series, whose latest edition, Grand Theft Auto IV, is slated for an April 29 release. The pending launch, of course, is why Riccitiello is desperate to close the deal now — and why Zelnick is calling the bid "opportunistic."

Its timing may seem curious. The proposed takeover comes on the heels of the $860 million acquisition of BioWare and Pandemic Studios last October. But since then, Activision has merged with Vivendi's Blizzard. And videogames are a fast-moving business. Games age almost as quickly as their customers.

Besides GTA, Take-Two's 2K Sports division is the only real competitor to EA Sports. Take-Two also owns a few other highly regarded titles, including Bioshock, but none of them compare to GTA and the sports titles. Take-Two, of course, isn't in the best financial health. It's been in the red since 2005 — its latest loss totaled $138.4 million in 2007. It's also been plagued by legal trouble thanks to a sex mini-game embedded in Grand Theft Auto III: San Andreas.

A vegetarian-owned and managed emerging sports games startup in San Francisco is looking to hire vegetarian software development interns for summer 2008 (and potentially beyond) who are interested in entrepreneurship and promoting vegetarianism. We were founded by experienced entrepreneurs and venture capitalists with a track record of success, and deep technical and business experience at top companies in the industry, such as Microsoft and Square Enix, as well as consulting experience at McKinsey. Our management team includes MIT-educated computer scientists and Wharton and INSEAD MBAs.

Interns will join an experienced team developing a new product that will redefine its segment in the sports gaming space.

Interns will have the opportunity to work with experienced entrepreneurs across many facets of a startup business. Roles include a breadth of responsibilities, including:
* Development in C++, high-performance network programming, and 3D graphics development
* User interface and game play design
* Unit and user testing

The successful candidate will be proficient in C or C++, creative, have a strong work ethic, and be an enthusiastic learner. This paid internship will provide significant development opportunities, as well as an opportunity to experience a broad range of roles in a startup company.

Please submit resumes and enquiries to <vegprogjob@bigfoot.com>

Who knew EA had so much money to spare for a chap who owns $37 million worth of EA stock, including options? EA continues to bleed cash, lay off workers, and shut down studios. And yet it can take care of Riccitiello.

EA has the rights to make digital copies of Hasbro games, of which it announced a slew this morning. It's also stepping into Scrabulous's ultrapopular arena. As EA Hasbro general manager Chip Lange told me late last week, Electronic Arts wants to get each Hasbro title onto as many platforms as possible. Even if that means sticking us with more useless application requests from friends.

To paraphrase Petraglia's rant: He mocks Gamespot writers, who are now forced to choose between padding advertisers' review scores or losing their jobs. Right as if CNET would be stupid enough to incite another PR fiasco. Sorry, we fail to be outraged. Media companies don't care about their writers. Reporters are nothing more than expendable, semiskilled labor.

Despite the chicken and the egg scenario (you can't sell ads if there isn't content, you can't pay people to create content without ad sales), sales staff land the multimillion dollar deals that dictate everything from magazine cover themes to advertorial packages. You don't need a bloody beheading to point out the disparity — just glance at the parking lot. All those Infiniti G37s belong to sales. Editorial is lucky to be cruising about in a used Ford Focus.

Compete.com says Iminlikewithyou, Forman's online dating site, has grown 58 percent in the last month. But that's only up to 21,000 or so "people," so big deal.

Even if growth keeps up at that rate, marketing expert Seth Godin — who otherwise raves about Forman's site — will tell you, "There's no way, none, that tradtional online ad models will generate revenue for sites like this."

No revenue? No problem! Forman just wants to own the market, he says: "You look at games on the internet in the U.S., and they are all shit. I will own the casual gaming space in the U.S. within the next year."

Keep in mind, this is the guy whose business card reads, "So ... chances are, you were in like with me. And ... chances are, I gave you this card because I didn't feel like talking to you anymore. Just kidding! LOLZ!"

MTV is not gaining access to Bruckheimer's successful film properties or TV series CSI. Those are already licensed to other developers. Other game-development deals with high profile director-producers like Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have produced nothing but ego massages. A partnership between MTV, with little success and experience in the gaming industry, and Bruckheimer, who has no experience in the game industry, is more likely to be the kind of disaster story Bruckheimer produces so adeptly for the silver screen. (Photo by Frank Connor)

GameStop will sell the Wii rain checks for $249.99 on Thursday and Friday. A GameStop shift supervisor tells Consumerist that this kind of preorder counts in the store's net sales. GameStop's annual reports are mum on how the company actually accounts for preorders. The program will certainly lift the company's cash flow well in advance of when GameStop actually has to make good on its holiday promises. Ho ho ho!

One analyst remarks, "Everyone argued that games would be distributed online ... but these guys stuck to their game plan." That's true, but GameStop's success is mostly due to the nascent state of digital distribution. Broadband is still too slow, and console hard drives are still too small. Those limitations hinder the sale of full-length, multiple-gigabyte games. GameStop's success has been a matter of luck as much as timing. Playing videogames has grown as a mainstream obsession even faster than the broadband pipes that were supposed to make GameStop's business model obsolete. That, and it's still really hard to download a Wii. (Photo by maulleigh)