Got Light developer Ben Reynolds explains how his game accidently became a freebie on the Apple App Store. The iOS puzzle game was recently released in the store but a minor programming error - one small line of code - turned his $1.99 game into a $0.00 game.

With only 38 hours to go, the developers of Ninja Pizza Girl managed to raise the cash it was seeking from its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. Australia-based Disparity Games managed to raise $35,816 AUD - a little over the $35,000 AUD it was initially seeking.

Military-focused video game charity Operation Supply Drop has announced The Indie Ammo Box, a digital online store that will offer specially created "name your price" indie video game bundles and an assortment of individual games for sale.

All of the proceeds from this special storefront will go towards building care packages filled with video game software, equipment, and accessories for U.S. military personnel stationed overseas and those recovering from combat injuries in military hospitals around the world.

Codemasters has decided to offers refunds for Colin McRae Rally after negative reviews on Steam. The general complaint among consumers who purchased the game? They say were led to believe it was a high definition remake of the 1998 original; instead they ended up buying a port of the mobile game released by Codemasters last year with touched up graphics and audio.

Following a bunch of negative reviews, Codemasters decided that it would offer dissatisfied customers a refund and update the Colin McRae Rally product page on Steam to better reflect the product.

The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s Professional Programs unveiled a new academic course dedicated to the study of video game development. The course, "Interactivity: A Course in Video Game Design and Development," will be taught by video game scribe Marianne Krawczyk (best known for her work on the God of War and Prince of Persia series) and Sony Computer Entertainment’s Senior Manager of Internal Production, Whitney Wade.

NIS America and GaymerX have amicably settled their differences, after a tumultuous day of bad press that reflected poorly on all parties involved. Sadly most of the bad press stemmed from a simple miscommunication between GaymerX co-founder Matt Conn and two principles from NIS America's PR & Marketing department. The dispute, over a $3,000 sponsorship deal at the recent GaymerX 2 LGBTQ event in San Francisco, has been resolved and the parties involved have apologized to each other for the miscommunication.

The European Women in Games Conference will open its doors officially on Sept. 10 and will feature two keynote speakers (so far), organizers announced today. This year's event will take place at London South Bank University, in London England.

Topics being focused on this year relevant to women already in the games industry or trying to break in include setting up your own games company, games industry career advice on to how to encourage more school children to consider a career in the games industry, and much more.

Ninja Pizza Girl developer Disparity Games announced a new stretch goal that focuses on "Includification." In case you are unfamiliar with the term, it basically means to add components and functionality in a game or piece of software that makes it easier for people with various disabilities to play.

People who are trying to sell their Oculus Rift headset pre-orders on eBay may run into a road block put down by the virtual reality headset maker. According to TechCrunch, Oculus VR reacted quickly when a listing (since deleted) was spotted on eBay.

Basically if the company finds a listing on eBay they will figure out who is selling it and cancel their pre-order.

UK charity SpecialEffect will receive over £10,000 in funding thanks to runners in the recent British 10k. Those participants who ran for the charity include staff from Disney, EA, Microsoft, Rare, IGN, New Star, Firefly, Green Man, and Bandai Namco. All of the companies helped raise that final total, which will go towards the charity's goal of helping those with disabilities.

Nexon and Wargaming, two juggernauts in the MMO gaming space, and Zynga CEO Don Mattrick have teamed up with UK-based investment fund London Venture Partners to create an early-stage seed fund.

Blizzard president and a co-founder Mike Morhaime says that his studio is making a concerted effort going forward to create more diverse and inclusive game characters and content. Morhaime made his comments in response to an open letter aimed at him and Blizzard complaining about under-representation of females and ethnic minorities in the company's games.

Bethesda announced today that it has teamed up with the American Red Cross to host a blood drive during its annual QuakeCon event. QuakeCon takes place this year at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas.

The blood drive is inspired by Tango Gameworks' upcoming horror game, The Evil Within - which is set for launch on October 21 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PS4, and PC.

The blood drive event is being called "The Good Within Blood Drive," and will take place July 18 and 19 at QuakeCon.

Jennifer Ann’s Group continues to use the medium of video games to promote awareness on the dangers of teen dating violence. Today the nonprofit organization announced the winners of its seventh annual "Life. Love. Game Design Challenge" - as well as the results of its first-ever game jam to create a game that championed its cause of stopping teen violence.

Wizards of the Coast has teamed up with 14 video game luminaries to create special cards for the upcoming collectible trading card game Magic 2015 – Duels of the Planeswalkers and the Magic 2015 – Core. The specially designed cards are from George Fan (Plants vs. Zombies), Notch (Minecraft), and Rob Pardo (World of Warcraft), Richard Garriott (Ultima series), and others.

The first gay companion character in the Dragon Age series was revealed on the official Dragon Age: Inquisition web site by BioWare.

Leslie Benzies, the president of Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar North, will buy Edinburgh, Scotland’s St. Stephen’s Church to save it for the community, the Edinburgh Evening News reports. A spokesperson for Benzies said that the church is "an entirely philanthropic purchase" to preserve St. Stephen’s for community use. The church building is worth an estimated £500,000.

Arma III maker Bohemia Interactive has managed to raise $50,000 for the Red Cross with DLC that started out as an April Fool's Day joke. Bohemia Interactive announced that its Arma III's April Fools' Day joke that became content add-on has brought in 1m Czech koruna, around $50,000 USD, for the Czech Red Cross.

Bohemia and also briefly discussed the success of the military shooter franchise's new approach to DLC.

Oddworld Inhabitants founder Lorne Lanning says that the biggest problem facing the video games industry is Net Neutrality. Speaking to GII, Lanning said that all of the progress made in the industry over the last few years could be undone by its own apathy towards preserving a free and open internet.

Le Game Jam hopes to produce an awesome game based on the upcoming Tour de France event next month. Indie game developers taking part in the game jam have just 48 hours to create a Tour de France-themed video game at a unique joint event in Leeds and Sheffield, England before the great race next month. Teams from Leeds Metropolitan and Sheffield Hallam universities will be among those competing.

Teen dating violence prevention group Jennifer Ann’s Group announced today that artists, game designers, and developers in Atlanta and Moscow will take part in the 2014 Jennifer Ann’s Group Game Jam the weekend of June 20th – 22nd, 2014. The 2014 Jennifer Ann’s Group Game Jam charges participants with creating games that help teenagers deal with emotional health, wellness issues, and issues related to teen dating violence.

Goat Simulator developer Coffee Stain Studios and Escape Goat series developer MagicalTimeBean have launched an initiative to benefit charity organization Heifer International to bring animals to poverty-stricken communities in the world.

A web site dedicated to helping game developers include accessibility options for disabled players into their games has been honored by the FCC's Accessibility and Innovation Initiative. The site, "Game Accessibility Guidelines" (www.gameaccessibilityguidelines.com), was launched in Sept. of 2012 and has helped bring accessibility options to games of all shapes and sizes - from AAA titles to indie offerings.

Frontier Developments founder and Elite series creator David Braben has been appointed OBE (Order of the British Empire) in the Queen's Birthday Honors list. Braben was selected for his recent work with the Raspberry Pi movement, promoting science, match and technology education in the United Kingdom, and for his work in the video games industry.

On the Frontier blog, Braben noted that it was "a great honor" to receive the award.

While two team leaders from Ubisoft (working on Assassin's Creed: Unity and Far Cry 4) say that there wasn't enough time or resources to include female character options for multiplayer, one small developer - chronicled by Polygon - designed its game with inclusivity in mind at the start.

Developer Pixelberry's High School Story, a game that took on the issue of bullying in High School, has set its sights on another important issue: teen boy image issues and eating disorders. A new version of the mobile game aims to provide "educational resources and professional support to the 20.2 million American teenagers who are unhappy with their bodies."

Three major game publishers are showing their support for the LGBTQ gaming community by taking part in this year's GaymerX convection, taking place July 11 - 13 in San Francisco. Ubisoft, NIS America, and console maker OUYA will take part in the second annual event that celebrates LGBTQ geek and gaming culture. All three companies will be present at this year's event and will take part in panels, workshops, events, and goodies for attendees.

GOG.com today unveiled what it calls an "optional client" to facilitate cross play multiplayer regardless of where you buy a game from. The client software, which the company says is "DRM-free" in theory will allow those who buy games from services like Steam to play their game in Galaxy without the need for logging into a service with a user account.

Military-themed video game charity Operation Supply Drop announced several new initiatives for 2014 that are possible because of the strong support it received during its recent 8-Bit Salute fundraiser. The new "Thank You Deployment" initiative was announced, and the goal of it is to send select members of the armed forces on an all-expenses-paid VIP trip to gaming events or tours of game development studios for a rare insider's look at the video game industry.

Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) today announced the winner of the 2014 Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Scholarship. In its seventh year, the scholarship program encourages women to pursue careers in the video game industry in areas of development and design. This year's recipient is Erin Loelius of Manasquan, N.J.