Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley is not afraid to give frank answers on the company's upcoming online zombie apocalypse game, H1Z1. When asked the tough questions on Reddit about the game's similarities to DayZ, Smedley tackled the question head on with the following answer:

Assassin’s Creed is Ubisoft’s most successful franchise, according to newly updated data on Ubisoft's Facts & Figures page on its website. The data was uncovered by Kotaku columnist Superannuation. The Assassin’s Creed series of games has sold 73 million to-date worldwide, but Ubisoft's second biggest game series is Just Dance, which has sold 48 million to-date, beating out big franchises such as Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Rayman, Petz, and Prince of Persia.

Candy Crush Saga maker King has settled two of its most prominent trademark disputes - one with The Banner Saga developer Stoic Studio and the other with CandySwipe developer Albert Ransom. Both developers acknowledged on their respective web sites that they have worked out their problems with King.

Stoic was in a dispute with King over using the term "Saga" in the title of its game, while Candy Swipe developer Albert Ransom was disputing King's trademark claims because his game's release predated the release of Candy Crush Saga.

Chinese internet juggernaut Tencent has inked a deal with King to bring its popular Candy Crush Saga game to China. The Chinese version of the Candy Crush Saga game will be available by the middle of 2014 to customers of Tencent's Mobile QQ and Weixin Game Centers.

The alliance will help Tencent, China's biggest internet firm, attract more users to its online and mobile services. It's a good deal for King too, who will get their game exposed to the country's estimated 618 million internet users.

CCP Games tells CVG that it is reviewing the World of Darkness IP after it announced yesterday that it had canceled the MMO based on it and laid off a large number of employees at its Atlanta studio who had been working on the game for over seven years.

White Wolf and CCP Games merged in 2006, prior to CCP beginning work on the MMO.

In a recent interview with GamesBeat, The Tetris Company's Henk Rogers reveals that the mobile version of the classic puzzle game has been downloaded more than 425 million times. That figure does not include free-to-play versions of the game, which Rogers apparently is not a big fan of.

Wargaming CEO Victor Kisyli has pledged that his company will invest $10 million into improving and developing features that support eSports in 2014. At a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, Wargaming CEO Victor Kisyli said that there has been a huge upswing of interest in World of Tanks for eSports in the last two years. In 2012, 30,000 pro players took part in 120 World of Tanks tournaments, while in 2013 that number climbed to 200,000 players across more than 1,000 World of Tanks tournaments, according to Wargaming's calculations.

Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft has now sold 12 million copies to-date at retail and online through Xbox Live Marketplace. Along with the announcement of the milestone, Microsoft also revealed that a new mod pack for the game called the Candy Texture Pack will be released on April 18.

Activision Blizzard announced today that its first expansion for Diablo 3 is selling like hotcakes. Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls topped 2.7 million units in the expansion's first week of availability, according to Activision Blizzard.

The data is based on internal company sales tracking and reports from key distribution partners. We assume that these numbers also include digital direct-to-consumer sales by Blizzard.

Diablo 3's first expansion pack launched on PC and Mac on March 25.

King Digital Entertainment went public this morning on the New York Stock Exchange after raising about $500 million in an IPO that valued the company at about $7.6 billion.

But the Candy Crush maker and litigious patent and trademark holder fell short of its valuation with a tepid response from the market; shares opened at $20.50 well below the expected $22.50, and are - as of this writing - trending downward ($20.29).

Hot on the heels of Facebook announcing that it would acquire Oculus, Minecraft maker Mojang announced that it has canceled talks to support the technology in its popular world building game. Mojang's Markus "Notch" Persson said that he is canceling talks for an upcoming official version of Minecraft for the Oculus Rift.

"We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus," Persson tweeted shortly after the announcement on Tuesday. "I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out."

Angry Birds developer Rovio has won a lawsuit relating to several companies selling counterfeit versions of its popular toys without authorization. On Nov 6, 2012 Angry Birds maker Rovio sued Jong K. Park, Royal Plush Toys, Inc., Western Sales and Services Inc. and Royal Trade Int'l Inc. for making and selling unauthorized toys based on its popular game.

Publisher 505 Games passed along word that Terraria on mobile platforms - including iOS and Android devices - has been purchased 1.3 million times since the game was released. The popular 2D open world action RPG originally created for the PC by Re-Logic, is also enjoying great success on consoles, according to 505 Games. The Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and PS Vita versions of the game have been downloaded one million times, according to the company.

Electronic Arts announced today that it has delayed the Xbox 360 version of Titanfall for an additional two weeks. Executive vice president of EA Studios Patrick Söderlund confirmed a further two week delay to the game, which will now hit North America on April 8 and Europe on April 11. The Xbox One and PC versions of the game were launched on March 11.

God of War III creative director Stig Asmussen has resigned from Sony Santa Monica, following recent layoffs at the studio. While Sony Computer Entertainment confirmed with IGN that the sudden departure was real, the company did not give a specific reason for Asmussen's resignation. Asmussen was supposedly working on a new project unrelated to the God of War series for which Sony's Santa Monica studio was responsible for over the years.

Naughty Dog's popular PS3 exclusive action game The Last of Us, has sold six million copies to date, according to a Sony Computer Entertainment America announcement today. SCEA did not say whether those numbers represent units sold to retailers or units sold to consumers... The Last of Us sales topped 3.4 million units between the game's global release on June 14 and July 3.

Hitting that milestone officially made the game the fastest selling new franchise in the console's history and the quickest selling PS3 game of 2013, according to Sony.

As is usually the case with new, popular, and multiplayer-focused games, cheating is a problem that has to be dealt with as swiftly as possible, and that is just what Respawn is doing with Titanfall. Respawn said that it is keeping track of those players who are cheating and will root them all out shortly. Titanfall launched on Xbox One and PC on Tuesday.

The developer announced via Twitter that it was keeping track of anyone using aimbots to boost their kill counts and has plans to ban them soon.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Candy Crush Saga maker King today said that it plans to price its shares between $21 and $24 for its initial public offering and that it plans to sell 22.2 million shares.

While Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen may have pulled his popular iOS and Android app from both stores because it was "too addictive" (despite making a lot of money off the free game), at the time he said that he would continuing developing and releasing games.

EA has released a Titanfall release schedule for the digital versions of the game on Xbox One and PC through its Origin digital distribution service.

While the Xbox One version of the game launches in the U.S. Canada, Mexico and Brazil today, it won't be available in other regions around the globe until March 14. You can check out the big list below. The Xbox 360 version of the game launches March 25 in the U.S. and March 28 in Europe (list via CVG).

While everyone else will enjoy Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall when it releases this year, it looks like gamers in South Africa will not be able to play the game. Publisher EA announced that it wouldn't be releasing the game in the region because of poor broadband speeds.

The original Flappy Bird app may be gone from the Apple App Store and Google Play, but people trying to cash in on its success are keeping the dream alive. According to a new report from Pocket Gamer, 60 new Flappy Bird clones were added to Apple's App Store February 28-March 3. That breaks down to 2.5 new clones every 24 minutes during that time period. The report does not say if this trend is ongoing.

Danish developer Interceptor has bought 3D Realms, according to this Eurogamer report. Initially there was some confusion because the company said it bought Apogee Software LTD. The new Apogee - a separate company doing business under the name Apogee Software LLC - denied the report. This caused Interceptor CEO Frederik Schreiber to later clarify on Twitter.

According to what Mojang co-founder and Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson said on Twitter last night, a film based on his cult hit open world building game is in the works. What that film might be about is unknown, but Persson claims that the film rights are with Warner Bros. Persson made the disclosure last night because the story was going to be leaked anyway by someone else:

Far Cry 3 writer Lucian Soulban said in an interview posted on the official Ubisoft blog that the introduction of gay protagonists in AAA video game is not going to happen "for a while." He goes on to say that the current sales and marketing system is the primary barrier to entry for the creation of gay protagonists in large-scale games.

The mastermind behind the ultra popular Arma 3 modification-turned-standalone-game DayZ says that he will leave Bohemia Interactive and step down as the lead on the popular survival game by the end of this year. The game he created will be left in the hands of the team he leads today, according to what Dean Hall tells Eurogamer. Hall tells Eurogamer that he plans to start fresh with his own studio in New Zealand, but not right away.

Speaking to MCV today, Marks & Clerk trademark attorney Aidan Clarke says that King did the logical thing when it tried to trademark "Candy" in the United States with the USPTO. Clarke said that the company would be "mad" not to make such a move to protect its intellectual property.

Candy Crush Saga maker King has filed the paperwork to become a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The company has filed an application to register with the Stock Exchange under the name King Digital Entertainment, in an IPO that some believe is worth upwards of $500 million.

In (what comes off as) a contentious back-and-forth interview between Rock, Paper, Shotgun's EA chief creative officer Rich Hilleman, the EA executive vigorously defends the launch of Battlefield 4 and said that with big communities comes much more noise. The interview's tone was likely set by the tough on-the-spot questions by RPS and the setting for the interview (a red carpet interview on the spot as Hilleman was heading into the D.I.C.E Awards ceremony).

Maybe it's a cheeky joke that became reality or perhaps they are simply seizing the moment, but punk band Fall Out Boy has decided to get in on the Flappy Bird media frenzy by creating a parody game called "Fall Out Bird." It sounds like an April Fool's Day joke come early, but the game is a real thing, according to the BBC, and it will be released very soon.