When fans of EA's upcoming The Sims game -- The Sims 4 -- heard that swimming pools and toddlers would not be in the game at launch (or possibly ever), they were upset. A recent post from EA's Rachel Franklin on The Sims 4 blog hoped to explain why these things were excluded and calm down any backlash from The Sims community. But it seems like Franklin's rather lengthy explanation has done little to nothing to calm down the community.

People have been talking about the possibility of a PS Vita version of BioShock Infinite for awhile, and while there was some hope in the past that Sony and 2K Games would make it happen, Irrational Games founder and series creator Ken Levine finally delivered the closing statement on the issue today on Twitter.

Levine, whose Irrational Games Studio was shut down in favor of operating a smaller studio under the auspices of 2K Games earlier this year, said that Sony and 2K Games just couldn't put a deal together for the latest BioShock game.

After Japanese developer Comcept successfully funded Mighty No. 9 on Kickstarter to the tune of around $3.8 million from over 70,000 backers, one would think the studio would be focusing on the development of said side-scrolling platformer inspired by Mega Man.

But apparently the studio has launched a second crowd-funding campaign through PayPal on its website to funded additional content. Comcept said that it decided to launch a second crowd-funding round based on feedback from its legion of fans.

Fox News is being ribbed by Bioshock Infinite developer Ken Levine for a logo it used on a recent broadcast about U.S. immigration and border patrol policy. The logo for the segment called "Defending the Homeland" seems to be styled after the logo for Levine's BioShock Infinite. Kotaku first pointed out the similarities yesterday.

New documents from the Global Certification Forum and the Federal Communications Commission found by Notebook Italia indicate that a second Nvidia Shield device exists.

Cumberland, Rhode Island Mayor Dan McKee showed a flair for the dramatic this week when he brought a letter to the race for lieutenant governor, according to the Providence Journal. Mollis showed up at the State House to personally hand-deliver a letter to his democratic primary opponent, current Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis.

Actress Lindsay Lohan filed a lawsuit against Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive, alleging that a character in Grand Theft auto V used her image, voice, and clothes line without her permission. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in a Manhattan court.

A requirement for Finland's Assembly Summer 2014 Hearthstone competition has outraged the gaming community. According to this PC Gamer report, an announcement page for the Hearthstone qualifier reveals that "The participation is open only to Finnish male players." The qualifier's organizers, the Finnish eSports Federation, are taking a lot of heat for this requirement and for their explanation why they have decided to separate and/or exclude players based on gender.

Orcs Must Die! developer Robot Entertainment thinks that toxic players are an important part of a game's chance at having longevity. In an interview with Polygon, Orcs Must Die! Unchained designer Jerome K. Jones says that toxic players are an asset that should be leveraged by game developers.

While Sony works on Morpheus for PS4 and Oculus continues to developer Oculus Rift, Google is offering a more mundane approach to the virtual reality space called Google Cardboard. It sounds like an April Fool's Day prank, but Google Cardboard is a DIY VR headset offering developed by a two-man team (in Europe) at Google that uses a simple cardboard headset, and a few household items to offer VR using an Android phone and a Google app.

HBO will premiere the documentary "Love Child" on Monday, July 28 at 9:00 PM. The film tells the story of two South Korean parents who were so addicted to the Korean MMO Prius that they neglected their three month old child to the point that he died. They were later charged by police.

One of the biggest complaints about Battlefield 4 (aside from the fact that it required Origin) was its technical and connectivity issues at launch that prevented many people from playing the popular shooter. The developers of the next Battlefield game - the cops v. robbers-themed Battlefield Hardline - promise that those issues will be kept to a minimum at launch.

Speaking to PSLifestyle, lead multiplayer designer Thad Sasser said that players should "expect great stability at launch."

Phil Spencer, head of Xbox at Microsoft says that separating the Kinect from Xbox One at retail will not drive game developers away from utilizing the device. Speaking to GII, Spencer said that Microsoft expects that the stand-alone Kinect will sell well and the success of the device and the software that uses it is heavily reliant on having a strong Xbox One install base.

Crysis series and CryEngine middleware developer Crytek has denied a report in German publication Gamestar alleging that the company is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. The GameStar report alleges that the Frankfurt, Germany based company was in serious financial trouble after its Xbox One launch title Ryse failed.

Microsoft continues to refute that it is shutting Games For Windows Live down in July. In August of last year a support update on Xbox.com stated, "Games for Windows Live will be discontinued on July 1, 2014". That message was later removed and Microsoft has denied that it is shutting down the multiplayer service for PC games ever since.

Ubisoft has issued a statement attempting to explain why the PC version of Watch Dogs included unused graphical options hidden within its game files. The company also said that a mod enabling these features is not a good thing for PC users because it can cause a number of unwanted technical and gameplay issues.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says that his company is working hard to improve its character creation processes in response to criticisms over 'bland' characters in its blockbuster games (although the most recent criticisms were related to both Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed: Unity not offering gender options in multiplayer and the creative leads of those games saying that they lacked the resources and time to add them).

The winner of Monday's DreamHack Hearthstone tournament has been accused of cheating by the community - even though organizers have reviewed the situation and given both participants a "pass," and the loser of the event says that the winner beat him fair and square. The trouble revolves around the winner, Radu 'RDU' Dima, who apparently received Battle.net messages from friends while the finals were taking place. Dima eventually bested Team Liquid's Jason 'Amaz' Chan by 3-0 to take home a $10,000 prize pot.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said lots of interesting things while he was at E3 last week. Adding to his comment that watching people playing games isn't exciting (millions of people do it every day on Twitch and YouTube), Fils-Aime told the Seattle Times that the Wii U is currently second place in console war, right behind Sony's PS4 and right ahead of Microsoft's Xbox One.

Microsoft hasn't been the best of friends with the PC gaming community over the last few years. While the company says that it has a lot of faith in the PC gaming space, you can always tell how strongly they feel about something by how much they highlight it at E3. And at this year's E3 Microsoft didn't even talk about PC games or show any that we know of.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime attempted to address concerns that there has been a real lack of third-party titles for the Wii U announced so far this week, but didn't actually mention any third-party titles. During Nintendo's E3 Direct feed yesterday Nintendo didn't highlight one company outside of its own brand that is developing a game for the Wii U or even the 3DS.

In the latest episode of Stossel, Libertarian host John Stossel tackles what he views as "Popular Nonsense" including Hollywood's use of global warming as themes in movies, income inequality, and video game violence causing real-world violence. At around the 31:14 mark in this YouTube video of the show Stossel talks about violent video games and is joined by disbarred Florida attorney and long-time anti-video game critic Jack Thompson.

Earlier this week Microsoft said that the newest update provided a boost to developers using the Xbox One to develop their latest games. They claim that boost comes from resources that are used by Kinect. With the new Kinect-free Xbox One bundle coming out this month, everyone assumed that Microsoft meant that disconnecting the Kinect from the Xbox One magically made more resources available to the system. Eurogamer offered an extensive report yesterday.

AT&T says that it would be happy to expand its broadband fiber infrastructure throughout the country... if the government agencies like the FCC and the Justice Department approve its proposed merger with satellite TV provider DirecTV. AT&T recently name checked 100 municipalities in 21 metropolitan areas where it "might" bring its fiber-to-the-home network, GigaPower service. The company did not say just how many customers might be served under this attentive plan to expand its network. The service offers up to 1Gbps download speeds.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says he has no intention of selling the Xbox business.

"I have no intent to do anything different with Xbox than we are doing today," Nadella told reporters at the Code Conference in California this week, according to The Verge.

Conan O'Brien's latest edition of "Clueless Gamer" takes on Ubisoft's hacking-themed open-world action game, Watch Dogs. Being that Conan isn't much of a gamer, he acts like he's playing Grand Theft Auto V, with lots of inadvertent car crashes, car jackings, random gunfire, and other acts of stupidity.

AT&T said yesterday that it would follow the FCC's old net neutrality rules for three years if the government approves its acquisition of DirecTV. It's a miracle. This is despite the fact that the D.C. circuit of the federal Appeals court basically put those rules out to dry, noting that the FCC didn't have the authority to regulate broadband service providers because they are not "common carrier" under Title II of the Telecommunications Act (Verizon v. FCC).

What does the average gamer look like and how are people who play games different from the rest of the population? Are they better or worse than the rest of society? While Jagex would never claim to know the full answers to these burning questions, the company behind the long-running MMORPG RuneScape thinks it has a clearer picture.

Dungeons and Dragons and Magic The Gathering owner Wizards of the Coast has filed a lawsuit against Cryptozoic Entertainment and Hex Entertainment related to their digital card game Hex: Shards of Fate. According to the lawsuit the digital collectible card game is a clone of the popular card game Magic: The Gathering.

Microsoft doesn't plan on providing any compensation to those who have already bought an Xbox One, according to Eurogamer, though one has to ask the question - why would they? After yesterday's announcement that it would start offering the Xbox One without a Kinect for $399, GameSpot decided to ask Microsoft if it planned to offer any freebies to early adopters of the system.

Naturally the answer is an emphatic "no."