Consider this a public service announcement. Developer S2 Games announced that, starting today, all players of its multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game Heroes of Newerth will have full access to all of the game's 107 heroes. Prior to today's change players had to pay money to have access to premium heroes. This change effectively turns the game fully free-to-play.

UK-based Jagex Software announced today that its free-to-play massively multiplayer online adventure game RuneScape has hit a major milestone: 200 million registered player accounts worldwide. Jagex claims that over the last 10 years, RuneScape has garnered the support of over 200 million players from more than 150 countries around the world since its launch as a 3D web based MMO in 2001. They say that, if RuneScape were a country, it would be the 5th largest population in the world.

In an interesting interview with CNBC, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello says that the company's recent decline in its stock price isn't due to the business, but to a lack of understanding in how the business works on the part of investors. For starters industry's focus on NPD's packaged game sales numbers is "misguided," and ignores the current strong shift towards digital sales - which NPD doesn't have a handle on yet. He points to their success with games on Apple's platforms as well as on Facebook.

According to Sony Online Entertainment CEO John Smedley, 70 percent of DC Universe Online players prefer the game on the PlayStation 3. Speaking to GamesIndustry International, Smedley says that his company has proven that free-to-play gaming on Sony's console is a viable market, and one that's supported well. Smedley makes a good point considering that there are more MMO's on the PS3 than there are on any other console and the PS3 is the only console system that has successfully supported the free-to-play model in games like DC Universe Online and Free Realms.

BioWare has announced Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, a free-to-play action RPG coming to the PC and iPad later this year. According to BioWare, Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar will feature action RPG gameplay, BioWare-style storytelling, cross-platform play, and a whole lot of other features to be revealed at a later date.

While Star Wars: The Old Republic isn't free-to-play yet, BioWare and EA have made a move similar to what Blizzard did with its World of Warcraft trial version. BioWare announced today that the trial version of the game will let players try out the game free of charge up to level 15. Players will have access to all eight character classes, as well as access to player versus player and player versus environment gameplay.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick admitted in a recent interview with CNBC Asia’s Squawk Box that bringing Call of Duty Online to market in China is a risky proposition. While Kotick expresses confidence in Tencent Holdings in making the game based on its popular first-person shooter series successful in Mainland China, Kotick also knows that there is a risk when bringing a Western game into a new market with different business models and player tastes.

Sony Online Entertainment announced today that one of its last remaining subscription-based MMO's is going free-to-play. Via a Producer Letter, SOE announced that Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will be free later this summer. The company has actually been working on the transition to free-to-play for quite some time, but today's announcement makes it official and lays out some of the changes players can expect.

Activision Blizzard has inked a deal with Chinese online games giant Tencent Holdings Limited to bring Call of Duty Online to Chinese players. In its announcement this morning Activision said that Call of Duty Online has been in development by Activision Publishing for approximately two years. Under the multi-year agreement with Activision Publishing, Tencent gains the exclusive licensing rights to operate Call of Duty Online in mainland China. The game is described as free-to-play and uses a monetized in-game store to sell virtual items.

Cevat Yerli, CEO and president of Crytek, recently said that after his company finishes up its current projects all future titles from the studio will be free-to-play. In a lengthy interview with Computer & Videogames, Yerli said that free-to-play gaming is the future of the industry and the reason we do not see free-to-play games on consoles is because platform holders have done a good job of not allowing them at the behest of retail partners.

Ben Cousins, general manager of Ngmoco, recently gave a keynote at GDC Taipei where he offered his predictions on the five big trends in the game industry across the next 5-10 years. One of the big trends that will change the industry will be freemium and mobile, according to Cousins. In his keynote he claims that the combination of mobile and freemium games will ultimately kill off the home console.

BioWare’s Emmanuel Lusinchi, lead designer on the company's MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, says that the company is looking into the possibility of switching the game from its current monthly subscription-based business model to free-to-play. Speaking to GamesTM, lead designer Emmanuel Lusinchi said that the MMO space is ever evolving, and acknowledges that BioWare must adapt to the changes.

Is Habbo (formerly Habbo Hotel) a despicable hang-out for pedophiles that are continually preying on its underage users? A report that will air tonight on a Channel 4 news claims that they have strong evidence that it is. The report claims that pedophiles are chatting it up in the graphical social game-like teen destination, asking them if they have a "web cam," if they will get naked on camera, and trying their best to engage under age children in sexually charged conversations.

Speaking to web site Videogamer.com, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli revealed that - after the company is done wrapping up its currents projects - all of its future game releases will be free-to-play. Yerli also said that he has become a little bit sick of DLC and premium gaming services that are "milking customers to death."

A few months ago rumors were flying that Japanese MMO company Nexon was going to buy a gigantic company like Electronic Arts. Today we see a more realistic investment from the company responsible for Maple Story and other free-to-play games in the U.S. Nexon has bought a 14.7 percent stake in South Korean MMO maker NCsoft. Nexon purchased 3,218,091 shares from NCsoft CEO Taek Jin Kim for ₩804,522,750,000 (approximately $686.8 million USD).

Valve announced that Dota 2 will be free free-to-play and revealed details on the Dota Store today. The game will feature an in-game store that will offer mostly cosmetic items, just like the offerings provided to Team Fortress 2 players. Valve says that it has no plans to sell hero characters in the Dota Store because "restricting player access to heroes could be destructive to game design, so it’s something we plan to avoid."

Electronic Arts co-founder Trip Hawkins announced via his official blog that he will step down from the role of CEO at mobile games company Digital Chocolate. Hawkins says that he will take an advisory role with the company he helped found.

"I am transitioning now into a consulting and advisory relationship with Digital Chocolate. For its next stage of growth, Digital Chocolate is narrowing its focus and it made sense to get more streamlined."

According to a GamesIndustry International report RuneScape maker Jagex Software will shut down its latest free-to-play MMO 8 Realms and lay off employees it can't relocate to other teams within the company. Apparently the company will shut down the game because it only garnered 10 percent of the amount of players needed to make the game profitable.

"Hate" is a pretty strong way of describing something that you might find slightly off-putting but that's the word that Edmund McMillen of Team Meat describes "freemium games." The maker of Super Meat Boy recently said on his team blog that free-to-play mobile games have a "lack of respect for players."

According to the latest data from research firm NPD Group, an estimated 40 percent who have played a "freemium" game that offers an upgrade option in-game have spent the money to buy the "full game." The data comes from NPD Group's "Insights into the Freemium Games Market report." The report uses data from 6,000 individuals it surveyed including both children and adults. The report notes that women and girls are more likely to play freemium games than men, but are less likely to spend money on these types of games.

China has an estimated 180 million gamers, and a new report suggests that they spend a fair amount of their hard earned money every month on online games. This news comes from a new study conducted by analyst group Niko Partners.

New data from research firm Newzoo reveals that more than 100 million consumers in the United States are playing games on various hand-held and mobile devices including smartphones, tablets, and iPods. The amount of users playing games on portable devices has grown by more than a third compared to last year, according to Newzoo data. In Europe smartphone and tablet gamers (from seven key territories) has also increased to 70 million, a 15 percent year-over-year increase.

Meteor Entertainment has raised $10 million to launch a downloadable online game called Hawken. Hawken is described as a fast-paced shooter where players can get inside gigantic powered armor and hammer on each other in ruined cities. Investors backing the project include Benchmark Capital and FirstMark Capital (who invested in League of Legends makers Riot Games). That game was so successful that China-based Tencent bought spent more than $400 million last year to acquire them and their game.

Sony announced plans to release the multiplayer component of Guerrilla Games' Killzone 3 as a standalone download on the PlayStation Network, but the best part of this news is that it will be free to play. Sony made the announcement during the most recent episode of the Sony Blogcast. The one caveat is that level progression will be capped, though to what extent or exact point we do now know.

Blizzard Entertainment's next MMO project, currently an enigma in its scope and subject matter, will be a free-to-play game, according to a Develop report. This is according to a Develop source "connected to the matter." Blizzard had no comment on the story. Blizzard has been on the margins with the model, having dipped its toe ever so slightly in it by making World of Warcraft "free" up to level 20.

Microsoft will not allow third parties to build content for its new Microsoft Flight game. They say that allowing third parties to develop content for the new game would simply cause brand confusion amongst customers. The game series has a rich tradition of third party content, but this latest iteration is a free-to-play game offering bonus content created and sold by Microsoft.

Imangi Studios' Temple Run has been downloaded more than 36 million times since launching in August of 2011, according to Gamasutra. Some of that increase in downloads can be attributed to a couple of things. The first is the last five months of switching from a pay title to free-to-play game. The company also claims that the game has 7 million daily active users at present.

Red 5 Studios, makers of the upcoming MMO shooter Firefall, have come out strongly against SOPA and PIPA, and plan to go dark for one day on January 18 to protest. The company also announced that, because of the Entertainment Software Association’s support for the bills, it has canceled its E3 booth and plans to skip the show. The shutdown will include all of its websites, its community sites for the game, and the Firefall beta.

League of Legends developer Riot Games let us know that they, have officially announced their opposition to controversial legislation under consideration in Congress: the U.S. House of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The company's CEO, Brandon Beck, took to the official forums for the game (which has 11-million-players, for the record) to say that these two bills in their present form are unacceptable:

Sony Online Entertainment is proclaiming victory in its switch from EverQuest II being a subscription-based MMORPG, to being free-to-play. The company announced that new player registrations for EverQuest II have increased by "around 300 percent" since Sony Online Entertainment switched the game to an entirely free-to-play model in early December.