Even as Microsoft revealed that it would ditch the Xbox Live Arcade designation for games in the new version of Xbox Live - likely to be launched with the release of Xbox One later this year, the company also revealed that it would not let indie game developers self-publish their games. This makes sense considering that it ditched support for its entire XNA program last year.

Michael Newman and his Los Angeles-based interactive development and product design company Pomp Productions has created an interesting game called Video Game Sans Video. Recently shown off at the 2013 Maker Faire, and highlighted by Discovery, Video Game Sans Video is a clever contraption that lets players navigate a space ship in four directions (up, down, forward and back).

As detailed in this May 7 story, indie studio Notion Games indicated that Ubisoft had asked it to change the name of its game Super Ubi Land to something else to avoid the implication that the game was somehow associated with the French publisher. At the time Notion Games said that it would do just that and that it understood where Ubisoft was coming from.

German online game developer InnoGames will host a Game Jam in its Hamburg office on June 21. Participants will be charged with developing computer games with a team in a 48-hour period. Teams will have to create graphics, game design and programming from scratch. This is the sixth game jam held by the company. A team from InnoGames will also be participating in the event.

Organizers of The Boston Festival of Indie Games announced that game designer and producer Robin Hunicke will deliver the keynote address at this year's event to take place Saturday, September 14, 2013 at the Stratton Student Center and the Johnson Athletic Center on the MIT campus.

Believe it or not, the (mostly) clean-shaven gentleman in the video to your left is Double Fine's Tim Schafer.  Uncle Tim comes to us today to promote Humble Bundle's new Humble Bundle.

Why would he do that?

Because Humble Bundle's new Humble Bundle is chockful of Double Fine goodness that has been bundled together most humbly.  And he wants you to buy them!

Three former Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) America employees have struck out on their own to create a new independent and digital content publishing company located in Los Angeles called Acttil. The name is an acronym for "acceptance +creativity +teamwork +trust +innovation +love." The studio features the talents of long-time and now former NIS America employees Jack Niida, Hiroko Kanazashi, and Nao Miyazawa.

Indie game developer Notion Games announced via Twitter that it will change the name of its game, Super Ubi Land, following concerns expressed by Ubisoft over potential confusion and possible brand infringement. Super Ubi Land has no connection to Ubisoft, obviously.

The game was announced in January and successfully raised $6,333 from nearly 300 backers in February on Kickstarter.

The game is being developed for Wii U, Windows PC, Mac and Linux for release later this year.

Digital Eel's Rich Carlson let us know that the Kickstarter for the next chapter in its rogue-like space adventure game, Infinite Space 3: Sea of Stars, managed to raise $36,661 from 1,764 backers. Digital Eel was originally asking for $30,000, but managed to rake in a little extra.

Grasshopper Manufacturer Goichi "Suda51" Suda says that his various games have not had the best sales because of the way publishers treat its unique gaming experiences. Suda51's games include Shadows of the Damned, Killer7 and No More Heroes.

Having worked with some pretty huge publishers over the years (Sega, EA, etc.), Suda51 feels that the companies don't understand how to handle indie titles like his:

Four coding schools just for young girls and women are trying to change the number of females that program (and give girls more STEM-focused educational opportunities) in the United States - as highlighted in this ReadWriteWeb feature. The start-ups catering to women and girls aspiring to learn how to code include Girl Develop It, Black Girls Code, Girls Who Code, and Girls Learning Code/Ladies Learning Code.

Organizers of the Boston Festival of Indie Games announced the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to fund the annual event dedicated to independently developed games by game developers in the Greater Boston Area. The event takes place September 14 at MIT's Stratton Student Center and Johnson Athletic Center.

A DePaul University report says that the Chicago game development space once dominated by titans such as Midway Games and Electronic Arts is now being mostly powered by independently owned and operated small to medium sized game studios. These studios are focusing on mobile platforms and social games, and many feature a mix of both industry veterans and newcomers trying to make a name for themselves in the industry while remaining faithful to the area.

Yesterday we reported the striking similarities between Vlambeer's upcoming mobile game Luftrausers and Rubiq Labs alleged clone of it, SkyFar. Today Vlambeer says that it has asked Apple and Google to remove the game from their app store because it is a blatant clone of its game, currently in development for the PlayStation Vita. Rubiq Labs released SkyFar on April 10 on Apple's App Store.

Valve has announced the latest batch of games and application software to be approved for sale on the digital distribution platform as part of its Steam Greenlight program. Eighteen new games and two new software programs join the 90 titles Greenlit since Steam Greenlight launched in August of last year.

The latest Indie Gala bundle offers a bunch of nifty games depending on what you're willing to pay - but the money will go towards "help rebuild Vancouver's game industry" by supporting a political candidate. Vancouver has been hit with a lot of layoffs at many of the region's biggest studios.

Dead Shark Triplepunch has been named the winning team at Make Something Unreal Live 2013, Epic Games announced. The team has won a variety of hardware prizes in addition to the main award of a commercial Unreal Engine 4 license. The team from Belkinge Institute of Technology in Sweden won with their game Epigenesis, which was developed with Epic’s Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free version of the Unreal Engine 3.

Digital Eel has turned to Kickstarter to fund the follow-up title to its wonderful rogue-like space adventure games Strange Adventures and Weird Worlds. The new game is called Sea of Stars and features the same kind of lunch-break-length space adventures complete with randomly generated worlds, space exploration, turn-based space combat and the kind of quirky humor that the previous titles are known for.

IndieCade announced today that it is now accepting game submissions from independent game artists, creators, and designers. Those interested in getting in on this indie game competition can submit interactive media of all types for the 2013 International Festival of Independent Games through the IndieCade website. Works-in-progress submissions are also encouraged.

Yacht Club's Kickstarter for Shovel Knight has surpassed its funding goal of $75,000 and is now offering stretch goals to add even more features to the game. With 12 days to go, the crowd funding campaign for the 8-bit style action RPG for various platforms has raised $81,954 from 3,600 backers.

Apple has refused to include Auroch Digital's Endgame: Syria on the Apple App Store and has removed Sweatshop HD - a collaboration between U.K. studio Littleloud and Channel 4, according to this Polygon report. Both games, it seems are a little too controversial for Apple.

Ridiculous Fishing and Serious Sam: Random Encounter developer Vlambeer says that "non-evil" free-to-play game design is almost impossible and that game developers should not be afraid to price their games at $3. Vlambeer's Ridiculous Fishing, which almost saw the studio go under during development, went live last week on Apple's App Store and garnered strong sales and critical acclaim from fans and critics.

Yesterday notable indie developer Jason Rohrer (best known for such indie titles as The Passage and Sleep Is Death) quietly started taking early orders for his next game, The Castle Doctrine. The Castle Doctrine is an online focused game where the player must protect his spouse and children from home invaders.

Polygon has an interesting interview with Plague Inc. developer James Vaughan, who reveals to the publication that he has been asked to speak to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. Plague Inc. is a unique strategy game for iOS that lets the play take control of a deadly pathogen and infect one person - patient zero - with the end goal being to spread the plague to every corner of the globe.

Indie Royale, organizers of the pay-what-you-want DRM-free bundle, have launched their latest collection of indie titles called the The Mash Bundle (thanks to Blue's News). This new bundle offers Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Guns of Icarus Online, Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior's Rise, KRUNCH, and Delve Deeper.

Valve has revealed the next 12 software titles that have been approved by the community as part of its Steam Greenlight system.

The creators of the Zelda-ish 8-bit adventure game Anodyne say that spending just a few dollars to have their game featured on the front page of The Pirate Bay drove more sales than videos or reviews ever could. In a post mortem on the experiment over on the developers' blog, they revealed that they only paid $7 to have their game highlighted on the front page.

"First, it cost $7 to do the promo, all $7 of which were for paying our hosting provider for bandwidth, Nearlyfreespeech.net. There were no other costs."

Electronic Arts announced that it will host the first-ever EA Hackathon at the EA headquarters in Redwood City, California on March 16. Teams will compete against each other for a chance to win a (what we assume will be) tasty and informative lunch with EA CTO Rajat Taneja, a selection of unnamed EA products, and $1,000 in cash for each participating team member of the winning team (of course).

EA describes the challenge as follows:

Introversion's tiered pre-order idea for its upcoming Prison Architect game seems to have paid off a great amount of dividends for the popular indie British studio. The company behind such hits as Uplink, DEFCON, Darwinia, and Multiwinia says that it has sold 30,333 pre-orders, generating $1,019,265. The company accomplished this by offering different tiers much like the rewards you might find attached to a Kickstarter campaign.

In an open letter to the media, three indie studio heads decided to break their silence and detail the struggle they have had working with publisher Mamba Games Ltd. The letter signed by Jakub Dvorsky, Managing Director of Amanita Design; Andrey Arutyunyan, Managing Director of Colibri Games; and Sergei Klimov, Director of International Publishing of Daedalic Entertainment, details at great length the alleged trouble these studios had in getting Mamba Games Ltd and Lace Mamba Global Ltd to honor its contracts and make payments in a timely manner.