According to documents unearthed by Motley Fool, Billionaire Ken Griffin has increased his financial stake in publisher Take-Two Interactive. Ken Griffin's Citadel Investment Group now holds 5.5 million shares in the company, according to a December 28 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's a substantial jump from the 3 million shares of Take-Two stock held by Griffin's group in October of 2012.

While THQ would like nothing better than to hand off all of its assets to Clearlake Capital Group for $60 million, several creditors have voiced their opposition to the company's bankruptcy and takeover plans, calling them "unfair and unreasonable." The troubled publisher filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month and asked the court to approve a take-over of the company by investment firm Clearlake "within 30 days."

In a video for knowledge forum "Big Think," researcher John Seely Brown explains why World of Warcraft players are the ideal employees for businesses. In his video he explains why playing an online game and being part of a team might be more important than getting an MBA at Harvard.

In what can only be described as the first non-shocking news story of 2013, THQ announced that it was delisted from the NASDAQ stock exchange over the Christmas holiday period. The company's stock will now be traded on the OTC (over-the-counter) Markets - at least until Chapter 11 bankruptcy has been sorted out.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said way back in October that the company would be shutting down its Japanese-based studio Zynga Japan as part of a company-wide cost reduction plan and today that closure is a reality. According to a Facebook post by Zynga Japan CEO Kenji Matsubara, the studio is being closed and three of its games are being turned off. Matsubara posted a personal message thanking fans for their support and announcing the discontinuation of the games that were available in Japan.

According to an MCV report, Ubisoft is considering buying troubled games publisher THQ. Earlier in the week the publisher announced that it had filed for bankruptcy and would be sold to Clearlake investments. This 'stalking horse bid' process with the investor allows THQ to write off the company's debts but keeps its business going to make it ready for an acquisition. According to MCV one of the companies that might be interested in buying THQ is Ubisoft.

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) issued a very brief statement this week noting that it is paying very close attention to game publisher THQ's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and its plan to sell the company to an investment firm. THQ announced yesterday that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the U.S.

Publisher THQ announced today that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and has entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement with affiliates of Clearlake Capital Group, L.P., who will serve as a "stalking horse bidder," the agreement allows Clearlake Capital Group to acquire THQ’s assets including THQ’s four wholly-owned studios, any licenses it currently holds, and all games in development.

Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business professor Sydney Finkelstein picked the "worst CEOs of 2012" for Bloomberg's Business Week and one of those five CEOs is Zynga's Mark Pincus. So why did Pincus end up on the list? Well a series of "rookie mistakes" by the social game maker CEO had a lot to do with it.

Korean MMO publisher NCsoft will sell its shares in NC Interactive - the company's U.S.-based subsidiary at the end of this month, according to a Reuters report. NCsoft will sell its 809 million shares on Dec. 24 for 78,348,368,000 South Korean wons, or USD $72,926,269.

Mobile games publisher and developer GREE has laid off 25 employees today. The layoffs are directly tied to the shut down of its mobile social gaming platform, OpenFeint.

Eurocom has entered administration and ceased trading, with the remaining staff laid off, according to a statement from administrators given to Eurogamer. Last month the studio was forced to let a large portion of its staff go. Eurocom most recently developed 007 Legends for Activision. Today a statement from administrators revealed just how bad the financial situation is for the company:

Two more employees from social gaming giant Zynga's management team have reportedly left the company for greener pastures, according to this GII report. They join many other high profile executives that used to work at Zynga who ultimately jumped ship for better offers or to start new companies.

Intent Media, which owns such popular games industry publications as MCV and Develop, has been acquired by North American publishing group NewBay Media. The deal also includes other Intent Media publications such as Music Week, ToyNews and Bike Biz. Intent Media founder and current managing director Stuart Dinsey will stay on that role and be in charge of the group's UK and European presence.

Former Free Radical co-founder Steve Ellis issued a statement today trying to set the record straight on some comment he made recently about the failure of Star Wars Battlefront III and the eventual shut down of Free Radical. Last week in an interview with NowGamer, Ellis said that Star Wars: Battlefront III was "99 per cent finished" and blamed outside influences for the game's failures.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told attendees at the Credit Suisse 2012 Technology Conference in Scottsdale Arizona that he expects some third-party publishers to die off as they attempt to make the jump to the next console generation.

Zynga Mobile's UK General Manager Matthew Wiggins has left the company after serving in the position for a little over a year and a half. Wiggins made the announcement that he was leaving the company via his personal blog.

"It's been quite a ride," Wiggins wrote. "I wish all the best for the good and talented people who I leave behind."

UK games Retailer GAME and IGN announced a partnership this week that will see the two companies team up in 2013. Under the terms of the new deal IGN and GAME will work on a range of community based initiatives including special events, live-streamed gatherings and events, and "special guests" at GAME store locations.

Last night THQ announced that it had entered into a forbearance deal with Wells Fargo, who represents the company's creditors. The deal protects the troubled publisher from any possible legal action from missing payments related to outstanding debt - at least until January 15. The deal also includes provisions that allow the company to get additional funding at a later date, though specifics on that were not disclosed because that part is still being negotiated.

Zynga's VP of business development has resigned, joining a long list of high level executives that have left the social game maker to find greener pastures. According to an AllThingsD report, VP of business development Jonathan Flesher left the company on November 9. When at Zynga, Flesher was in charge of securing partnerships with companies such as Google, MSN and Yahoo. The company has not disclosed who will take up the duties of Flesher.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal (registration required to read the story), Apple director Bill Campbell shared a story about a meeting with Zynga chief executive officer Mark Pincus, where he described his demeanor as discouraged and being almost in tears about the fate of the company he created.

Video game retailer GameStop announced that it suffered a $624 million net loss in revenue for the third quarter that ended on October 27. While GameStop said that results exceeded expectations for Q3, it highlighted the fact that sales were down on new software, used software and new hardware. Total sales fell approximately 8.9 percent to $1.77 billion while store sales also fell 8.3 percent. Overall, GameStop recorded a consolidated net loss of $624.3 million.

LG and OnLive announced this morning that the cloud-based gaming service will be pre-loaded on all LG Smart TVs in its Google TV (G2) lines, with current set owners receiving the app over the air today. The app allows players to stream games on their TV and access save files on PC, Mac or Android devices. It also allows them to play online with other LG TV and compatible device owners.

Sony announced that it will raise an estimated $1.85 billion in cash through the sale of its convertible bonds. The money generated from the sales of these bonds, the company says, will help pay down on the $380 million it spent acquiring cloud-based gaming company Gaikai, along with financing investments it has in other businesses such as Olympus Corp., and paying off miscellaneous company debts.

Zynga this week shuffled the senior management deck as chief financial officer David Wehner left to take an executive post at Facebook. Mark Pincus has apparently restructured the management team in a way that centralizes command structure and fills the gigantic gaps left by recent departures from the company in the last few months.

Magazine publisher Ziff Davis has been purchased by business cloud services company j2 Global, the company announced yesterday. According to the announcement, j2 Global paid $167 million in cash for the company, with an expectation that the transaction will contribute $60 million to its 2013 revenue.

Publisher Future has told C&VG today that Xbox World and PSM3 will release their final issues next month as the company deepens its investment and focus into digital publications and properties. Future also said that it hopes to redeploy affected employees in different areas of its business. Future has been reorganizing its existing publications, cutting staff and discontinuing many of its more traditional print publications this year.

Another day, another milestone met for Mojang's ultra popular sandbox building game, Minecraft. It has managed to surpass the 8 million sales mark on the PC platform, according to a tweet from Mojang co-founder and Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson.

"The PC version of Minecraft just passed 8 million sales," said series Persson via Twitter.

"My face is making grinning sounds, so I assume it's grinning," he added.

The former head of Square has some harsh words for Square Enix after the company posted a quarter of losses, saying publicly that the company seemed to have "no vision for the future." Square Enix recently posted losses of nearly 5.5 billion yen, which in turn sent its stock in a downward dive, making its market cap worth around 124 billion yen.

Suzuki pointed out on Twitter that when Square merged with Enix in 2003, the market cap was 150 billion yen.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter says that Electronic Arts and Activision's mismanagement of big first-person shooter titles could end up contributing to another month of "terrible" software sales for the game industry in October. He is referring to Medal of Honor: Warfighter, a game that was supposed to be a major release for EA in October and Activision's 007 Legends, which fared worse than Medal of Honor.