Showing that at least a handful of news outlets are chasing the truth on Microsoft's new system that allows game publishers to shakedown consumers on used games, CVG, GameSpot and MCV have collectively contacted ten high profile third-party publishers to ask if they plan on using the new system including Bethesda, Activision, Capcom, Take-Two, Namco Bandai, Electronic Arts, Sega, Square Enix, and Konami.

Zynga has laid off 520 employees today, closed two offices in New York City and Los Angeles, and cut infrastructure costs. The company hopes that these drastic measures will help it save $80 million in staff costs. Zynga currently has about 2,900 workers and today's news is an 18 percent reduction in its staff numbers.

Even as Microsoft revealed that it would ditch the Xbox Live Arcade designation for games in the new version of Xbox Live - likely to be launched with the release of Xbox One later this year, the company also revealed that it would not let indie game developers self-publish their games. This makes sense considering that it ditched support for its entire XNA program last year.

In Episode 52, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about female presenters at Microsoft's Xbox reveal event this week, EA's continued abuse of the Wii U community, The new S.H.I.E.L.D TV series, Wreck-It Ralph, sushi, and other topics and tangents - mostly instigated by Andrew! Download Episode 52 now: SuperPAC Episode 52 (1 hour, 12 minutes) 66.7 MB.

Speaking to Develop, Precursor Games CEO and founder Paul Caporicci told the publication that the statements in the terms and conditions document related to its crowdfunding of Shadow of the Eternals were from a "boiler plate" document taken from another site.

Last week EA confirmed that it didn't have any Wii U titles in development. As if that wasn't enough of a slight against owners of Nintendo's console a developer's comments over the weekend dumped a whole can of gasoline on an already raging fire.

Nintendo has decided to target "Let's Play" videos on YouTube with "content ID match" claims, according to multiple reports this morning. By making these claims it allows Nintendo to either block content or monetize the video. This is not sitting well with Let's Play video makers like Zack Scott whose videos have been targeted by Nintendo.

The Microsoft employee whose glib response (in a series of tweets to a developer friend) to the rumor that the company's next-generation console might require users to be connected to the Internet all the time has lost his job, according to Game Informer.

It looks like Electronic Arts has delivered a lethal blow to Bank of America in the grand finale of the Consumerist's 2013 Worst Company in America tournament. EA slaughtered Ticketmaster earlier in the week to get to the finals. It garnered 78.89 percent of the vote, compared to Ticketmaster's 21.11 percent in that battle.

EA COO Peter Moore may have wanted to defend his company in the wake of possibly winning The Consumerist Worst Company of 2013 award, but his defense of the company's practices and his contention that conservative groups are doing most of the voting does not sit well with the site.

With EA within striking distance of winning the Consumerist's "Worst Company in America" award for a second year in a row, EA chief operating officer Peter Moore thought it might be a good idea to mention that the company is paying attention to the dubious distinction it might end up winning next week and that it realizes that it needs to make some changes to better serve its customers.

Electronic Arts continues to roll over the competition in the Consumerist's tournament to decide the "Worst Company In America 2013." The semi-final round of winning this dubious distinction for bad service pits Electronic Arts against Ticketmaster, while Comcast will attempt to defeat Bank of America. The winners of this competition will go onto the finals.

Sega has finally admitted that the trailers for Aliens: Colonial Marines that were deployed before the game was released to promote it were misleading. Sega Europe has gone so far as to say that it plans to put disclaimers on all of the trailers in the United Kingdom because they do not reflect final game. The company did not say if similar disclaimers will be implemented in North America or other regions.

In what can only be called a savage beating, Electronic Arts beat the holy hell out of Facebook in the latest round of The Consumerist's Worst Company in America. EA is like 1980's Mike Tyson so far. In the first round it beat down and crushed Anheuser-Bucsch with 92% of the vote. Against Facebook, it was a similar beating, with 79%.

This Destructoid article citing a thread on NeoGAF calls into question a Kickstarter campaign to send a little girl to "RPG camp." The Kickstarter campaign, "9 Year Old Building an RPG to Prove Her Brothers Wrong!" by Susan Wilson asked for $869 to send a little girl to RPG ca

Well, the good news is that EA's official Twitter for its digital distribution service Origin has confirmed that you will not be banned if you ask for a refund on your purchase of SimCity in light of the fact that you probably can't play it.

The bad news is that you more than likely ain't getting that refund.

It's been a pretty rough day for both customers who bought SimCity and the developers trying everything under the sun to get it working at full capacity. While EA has been trying to solve the problem and get gamers playing the game, some fans have been very vocal about how the game's DRM has broken it beyond repair.

Joystiq is reporting that Ziff Davis will be shutting down popular and long-running gaming sites 1UP, GameSpy, and UGO. The new owner of IGN also laid off the editorial staff at all three sites, as well as some employees at IGN. Ziff Davis's parent company J2 Global bought IGN and its various web properties earlier in the month, and today it has decided to focus on its core brands - IGN and AskMen.

Engadget is reporting that the new PlayStation 4 console from Sony will not allow you to transfer all of those PlayStation Network games you might have purchased on the PS3. Sony admitted last night that current-generation PSN titles won't be playable on the system because architecture of the Power-PC-based PS3 and x86-64 based AMD processor powering the PlayStation 4 are so different.

Is public transportation a "brand?" That's the question one has to ask oneself when it reads about the Montreal transit authority threatening two Counter-Strike designers with a $49,200 fine over a new Counter-Strike map based on the Montreal subway station. According to Ars Technica, Diego Liatis and Frédérik Denis spent nine months making a detailed digital version of the Berri-UQAM station.

In an open letter to the media, three indie studio heads decided to break their silence and detail the struggle they have had working with publisher Mamba Games Ltd. The letter signed by Jakub Dvorsky, Managing Director of Amanita Design; Andrey Arutyunyan, Managing Director of Colibri Games; and Sergei Klimov, Director of International Publishing of Daedalic Entertainment, details at great length the alleged trouble these studios had in getting Mamba Games Ltd and Lace Mamba Global Ltd to honor its contracts and make payments in a timely manner.

Yesterday USA Today published an editorial by CEA president and CEO Gary Shapiro, who sharply criticized CBS's interference in the editorial independence of CNET, noting that the technology web site has lost its credibility as a result. The editorial is in response to CBS not allowing CNET to award the Dish Hopper with Sling DVR the "Best of Show" award at CES 2013 because of an ongoing legal battle between the parent company and Dish.

The UK tabloid The Sun is running a feature length story about a saucy calendar featuring gaming and scantily clad women that is apparently all the rage in Germany - right alongside David Hasselhoff... The article is titled "Nerd is the word," and highlights the fact that the "calendar featuring classic gaming consoles and sexy girls" is a "big hit.." We think it's a big miss personally because it objectifies women in the name of geek culture.

Forbes is reporting that Electronic Arts has changed the language of the "End User License Agreement" (EULA) users have to agree to in order to play SimCity. Players, who are already peeved that the game requires an "always-on" connection in order play even single-player, took issue with some wording in EULA for the SimCity Beta.

Two more League of Legends professional eSports players have been permanently banned from competition, according to word from Riot Games (by way of Polygon and PC Gamer).

A special edition of Dead Island Riptide announced today has put publisher Deep Silver in some hot water with fans for some extras that many consider incredibly tasteless and gross. Deep Silver announced this morning the Dead Island: Riptide Zombie Bait Edition, which comes with a myriad of extras including a statue of a bloody headless and armless bikini clad female torso wearing the Union Jack colors. Another special edition of the game called the "Rigor Mortis" edition comes packed with zombie hula girl bobble figurine, a zombie arm bottle opener, and a wooden keychain.

The War Z has not had the best PR in the last week or so, and things are not getting any better for the post-apocalyptic zombie survival action game. Apparently, even as Hammerpoint Interactive released the game and then had it pulled from Steam, the company behind it had lost its trademark for the game..

Hammerpoint Interactive's controversial zombie survival game The War Z has been removed from Steam. Earlier this morning we reported on the very vocal and public outcry of consumers who say that The War Z was falsely advertised by its developers and that it was missing features promised in the game's original product page - which was later revised. You can get the rundown on all those issues in this news story.

The War Z developer Hammerpoint Interactive sort of apologized to gamers who might have "misread" the game's Steam product page, and took a shot at "extreme DayZ fanboys." Yesterday Hammerpoint released their zombie survival game on Steam much to the delight of many users who were looking forward to playing it. The game ended up being pretty popular - in fact it had the most sales of any game on its launch day. But then fans struck back at the developer claiming that the game they had purchased lacked a lot of the features that were promised on the product page.