Ubisoft has issued an apology to customers who were affected by server moves this week that affected games requiring "always connected" DRM - even when they tried to play single player games. Because Ubisoft uses a DRM scheme on some games that require a constant connection, shutting the servers down that these games require made them unplayable.

According to Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia, Zynga is losing an estimated $150 on every new paying customer it acquires. Bhatia's estimate is based on the company's $120 million marketing budget for the first nine months of 2011. In other words, the pace of user growth is too slow and the company is spending way too much on marketing.

According to this TechieBuzz report, analysts are telling Apple that they should collect up to $10 per device in royalties from companies that are using technology that they hold patents for. Kevin Rivette, managing partner at intellectual property firm 3LP Advisors LLC, said in an interview with Bloomberg that Apple could probably collect up to $10 in royalties for every Android device sold and that would be twice what Microsoft is believed to receive for each HTC Android device sold.

Online retailer Amazon has risen slightly among the top companies for customer satisfaction while Netflix takes a significant nose dive, according to an annual holiday online retail satisfaction report released today from analytics firm ForeSee.

GoDaddy is not having a merry Christmas, and the way things have started out this week, its New Year's celebration will be punctuated with audible sobbing. A lot has happened to the company since last Friday. The first notable thing, according to VentureBeat, is that it has lost 37,000 domains - mostly the result of boycott efforts after the company was revealed on a list of companies that support SOPA.

It might have seemed cute when marketing company TrashTalkFCM pitched the idea of releasing thousands of balloons into the San Francisco sky to promote Homefront during the Game Developers Conference earlier this year. But THQ realized as the balloons flew upwards and then inevitably fell down into the San Francisco Bay that maybe it wasn't such a great idea after all. The bad local and national publicity wasn't worth it.

GameStop has put a questionable practice in place for adults seeking to purchase single action figures for Activision's Skylanders from its web site. In case you are not familiar with Skylanders, the game features a portal peripheral that you connect to your console of choice to scan in action figures which then become playable in-game. There are 30+ action figures but apparently supply is low because Activision didn't anticipate the demand for them and the supplier is overseas.

While Americans were enjoying Thanksgiving last Thursday Australia's Internet service providers held a meeting to come to a consensus on how to deal with illegal file-sharing in the country.

Iran has banned Battlefield 3 from being sold in the country because it depicts a U.S. military assault against the city of Tehran using tanks and aircraft. This news comes from the Iranian IT magazine.

"All computer stores are prohibited from selling this illegal game," said an unnamed deputy with the security and intelligence division of Iran's police in a statement carried by the Asr-e Ertebat weekly.

An Austrian court had found that right-wing Austrian politician Gerhard Kurzmann was not guilty of "incitement" related to a video game that required players to target and stop mosques, minarets and muezzins as they appeared on screen. Alexander Segert, the head of a Swiss advertising company that designed the game was also acquitted by the court.

A fake Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for iOS has managed to piss off a lot of consumers and many are wondering how Apple allowed a game that has been in the App Store system for nearly six weeks to get past its approval process. The bogus game app claims to be an official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game and is the work of a Vietnamese developer known as Dang Van Phuong. The license for the popular franchise is currently held by Nickelodeon, who are working on a brand new animated property to be released in 2013.

This morning Kotaku pointed out a video from Germany's RTL Television in which commentators took great delight in mocking what they characterized as the "computer freaks" that they filmed at last week's Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. Today the show, apparently embarrassed (and likely humbled by fans that were pissed off at their mean-spirited characterizations) is now apologizing for their bad judgment in airing the report.

As part of an earnings report today, Atari announced it is divesting of its interest in Champions Online developer Cryptic Studios, calling the development house a "discontinued operation" as of March 31.

Atari will continue to support all current Cryptic products while the publisher looks to sell the studio, Gamasutra understands. Development on the Bay Area studio's Neverwinter project will continue as normal for the time being.

The studio showed a loss of $7.5 million for the 2010/11 fiscal year period, up from a loss of $17.9 million in the same period a year ago. Most of this was due to turning its super hero MMO Champions Online to a free-to-play game, instead relying on micro-transaction to make money off the game. Its success was apparently not appreciated by parent company Atari.

Source: Gamasutra

A safety-escort tug that ran aground two years ago on Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef went off course because of a captain who was playing video games, according to a report from the U.S. Coast Guard. The tugboat ran aground at the very same site where the Exxon Valdez disaster occurred. The tugboat Pathfinder was part of a navigation safety system established in the aftermath of the 1989 oil spill and was designed to guide oil tankers through the sound after they fill up with crude at the trans-Alaska pipeline's maritime terminal in Valdez.

But the tug boat operated by the Crowley Marine Services ended up striking the same submerged reef that ripped open the hull of the Exxon Valdez supertanker, causing the worst tanker spill in U.S. waters.

Three men attending Shinboku-con 2011 in Westlake, Ohio this weekend ended their attendance to the three-day anime/video game/culture event by going to jail. Police arrested two attendees of the anime and video game conference at about 7:15 p.m. on April 30. The two men, a 27-year-old Cleveland resident and a 21-year-old Canal Fulton man, got into an argument over how the younger gentleman was playing an undisclosed video game. The younger man was so agitated by the critique that he punched the other man in the mouth an hour after the initial argument. Police arrested the younger man for assault. The older man, proving just how stupid he is, decided to spit on an officer. Both men were released later that evening.

Today AT&T begins controlling how much broadband users consume with a new cap. The new cap limits users to 150 GB for DSL and 250 Gigabytes for its UVerse service. This could prove to be a challenge to AT&T subscribers that want to use services such as Netflix and Hulu due to the massive amounts of data being transferred during streaming. AT&T joins Comcast and some smaller ISPs in limiting the amount of broadband users consume - and the penalty for going over is additional charges.

AT&T will charge an additional $10 per month for going over the cap. That charge is not a onetime thing either: users will be charged $10 for every 50GB of additional data over the cap. If you have children or additional internet users in your care, the new capping scheme could prove to be an expensive challenge.

Last year, a few video game publishers (Notably EA and THQ) started charging a fee for online multiplayer from used video game buyers for $10. Sony Computer Entertainment America goes beyond the pale this week by charging gamers who dare buy SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals used extra. Those who buy SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals used will miss out on special guns, game types, and other perks that will be added to the game at a later date. To get these features as a used game buyer, you'll have to pay a $15 fee.

Sony is marketing all this as "SOCOM Pro," an suite of enhancement for new game buyers. While some might argue that these extra enhancements are rewards for buying new, it is also hard to deny that they feel like punishment to anyone who can't afford to buy the full game. Basically if you are a used game buyer, you start out at a disadvantage online. Further, that $15 activation fee nullifies the savings of buying used.

Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton said that the Nintendo DS, is nothing more than a kids-only "babysitting tool." He made the comments during a recent interview with CNN.

"Our view of the 'Game Boy experience' is that it's a great babysitting tool," Tretton said in a bruising chat with CNN, "something young kids do on airplanes, but no self-respecting 20-something is going to be sitting on an airplane with one of those. He's too old for that."

Not content to bag exclusively on the DS, Tretton also took shots at the Wii and Xbox 360.

According to this Ars Technica report, citing a report from advocacy group Reclaim Your Game, the dreaded SecuRom DRM has made its way into PC version of Dragon Age II, despite BioWare (and EA) saying in its forums that it "does not use SecuROM." Surprise! Not only does the game use SecuRom, but all involved have failed to mention this fact to users in any way. There is no warning in the EULA, during the install, on the game's packaging, or on its official web site.

Back in 2008, EA was sued for failing to inform consumers about the DRM scheme in free trial versions of some of its games. Now EA could face similar legal action for its secret implementation of SecuRom in Dragon Age II.

Could this have been some sort of odd mistake or was EA trying to sneak the DRM past consumers? We will have to wait and see what they say.

Sony Computer Entertainment America announced at the Game Developers Conference this week that it plans to make the Move software development application available to academics, students, researchers, and enthusiasts. The app is called Move.Me, and it allows developers to create software that takes advantage of the PlayStation Move motion controller.

Coming to PlayStation Network this spring, Move.Me takes advantage of the PS Move's internal motion sensors and PS Eye camera tracking, allowing developers to export that data to Windows or Linux-based PCs (tablets and smartphones can also receive the data when connected to a PS3) and create applications. SCEA said during its announcement of the app that Move.Me could be used for a lot of different applications - from prototype rehabilitation applications for patients undergoing physical therapy, to creating new types of game applications.

From fake protesters to scaring the crap out of your mom, EA has cut loose with some, shall we say, odd marketing choices of late.  Oh sure, there’s no such thing as bad press and EA’s games certainly aren’t hurting for attention but irking the people who actually buy your games in addition to the people who routinely lambast them might not be the best move.

I am sure that Blizzard (and other MMO companies) is delighted with today's press release from World of Wacraft gold reseller outfit BYGamer. While the press release isn't particularly thrilling one could imagine that the China-based gold farmers are not well liked on this side of the world.

The company issued a press release to announce changes to its web site - BYGAMER.com - which now offers visitors a plethora of fancy colors, improved navigation and lovely new frames. Are they mocking Blizzard? It sure seems that way.

The company tops off its wonderful announcement with customer testimonials:

"It’s amazing! What a beautiful site and Buy WOW Gold here is absolutely a good choice!, said new customer Monica to one of BYGAMER’s call center operators.

The company says that this new design is already proving to help "increase traffic and sales."

Full release below:

Psychologist and author Carole Lieberman is not very popular with some people right now.

Yes, her sex in games leads to real-life rape comment in yesterday’s FoxNews story seems to have rubbed a few folks the wrong way.  As such, she’s joined Jack Thompson and Cooper Lawrence as someone whose, shall we say, ill-advised comments have prompted the less mature of us to mosey on over to Amazon and give her book a negative review.

RuneScape maker Jagex Limited announced this morning that it has accepted a new round of investment from Insight Venture Partners, Spectrum Equity Investors, and The Raine Group. The company says that this cash injection will enable it to "accelerate growth of its development and publishing capabilities." Jagex recently published its first third-party title, War of Legends. The company plans to publish more titles in the next 12 months, and will continue to develop and publish its own titles for various platforms.

Chris Mitchell and Jim Quagliaroli of Spectrum Equity, and Brandon Gardner and John Salter of Raine, will join Jagex’s board of Directors as part of the investment deal. Mark Gerhard, along with Jeff Horing and Alex Crisses from Insight Venture Partners, will continue to serve as Directors of the company.

A bizarre series of photographs show just what Korean children have to go through in specialized military training camps designed to help them kick the habit of gaming. These gaming addiction boot camps (judging by the 15 photos) show some strange exercises such as young boys rubbing snow on their bare bodies, lying on their backs in the mud with their feet in the air, standing in the snow with gas masks and camouflage uniforms, standing outside in the cold with bare upper bodies yelling, lying bare-chested in the snow, and many other cruel and unusual situations.

Where is Amnesty International or other rights groups? Are children not afforded the same rights as prisoners everywhere else around the world?

Incoming White House Chief of Staff William Daley's history in the telecom industry has some supporters of the FCC’s net neutrality rules concerned, according to a report in The Hill. Dailey served as president of SBC Communications before it acquired AT&T and took the “smaller” company's name. Saying that AT&T was a smaller company tells you just how big SBC really was.

One of those supporters is Free Press:

"With Daley at his side, how long will it be before Obama caves?" Tim Karr, Free Press campaign director, wrote in the Huffington Post on Saturday.

Opponents of net neutrality, including Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), think that Dailey’s influence in the White House on this particular issue is a good thing:

Correction: The U.S. Commerce Department contacted us to let us know that the national I.D. program is completely voluntary. In our earlier report we erroneously reported that it was not a voluntary program. Our original wording was "The Internet I.D. would give every American a unique online identity overseen by the Commerce Department."

According to the public affairs officer for the Commerce Department, "Every American will not need an ID and private organizations or others that conduct online transactions would opt in to a system that is led by private industry in partnership with federal agencies like DOC."

Details on what the program consist of can be found at www.nist.gov/nstic.

The East Valley Education Center, an Oakdale private school for special needs children, has been making an effort to help its students come out of their shells and be more social by allowing them to play video games.

Pretty groovy, no?

Well, according to a CBS Sacramento report, some of these games are M-rated titles such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Yeah, probably not the best pick and to the surprise of no one, there has been a complaint.  The parents of one autistic boy told CBS that their son had been acting angrily and even violent towards his sister.

While Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino’s iPhone app has been making the news this week due to its appearance in Apple’s top 10-grossing application list, the Jersey Shore star may soon be facing a lawsuit over a game included in the app.

The app features a game called “Grenade Dodger,” in which users attempt to dodge unattractive women, or “grenades” in Jersey Shore-speak. The problem, according to Radar Online, is that photographers were dispatched by the game’s developer to clubs in order to snatch pictures of women in the “3 or 4” category for inclusion in the Situation’s application. One of the girls featured in “Grenade Dodger” is reportedly horrified over her insertion in the game and is considering taking legal action.

Good Old Games sure pulled a fast one on journalists and all of its members. While the publicity stunt - that they were shutting gog.com down because it couldn’t go on the way it was - was clever and generated a lot buzz, I wonder if there will be some ill feelings from subscribers who were saddened and scared at the prospect of losing all their games.. You can watch the awkward video the site's owners posted today.

The silver lining - if there is one here - is that when the site re-launches on Thursday it will be vastly improved, and Baldur's Gate will soon be available for sale DRM-free. That's something.