We have learned two things this week about Treehouse Avatar Technologies. Inc.: first, they are owned by a publicly traded Canadian company called - Wi-LAN Inc. (TSX:WIN, NASDAQ:WILN) and that the company has settled its lawsuit with Turbine. Apparently rather than fighting the accusations that Turbine violated its software patents the makers of D&D Online and The Lord of the Rings Online have opted to enter into a licensing agreement with the firm.

CCP Games announced today that its PLEX for GOOD initiative will help fund relief efforts for victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. On November 8th 2013, Typhoon Haiyan (Typhoon Yolanda) struck the Philippines, leaving a trail of destruction and loss whose effects continue to be felt in the region. In response to this tragedy, CCP and their community of over a half million players will again host a PLEX for GOOD drive to aid survivors.

Trion Worlds announced that last week's participation in the Extra Life charity marathon and a promotion related to it helped give its MMORPGs RIFT Online and Defiance a record-breaking week last week. The company said that over a quarter of a million new players joined their online games, RIFT and Defiance. Bookended by the relaunch of RIFT as a free-to-play game on Steam and the charity marathon for Extra Life, Trion’s celebration week included promotions, in-game special events, and giveaways across both games to celebrate both new and veteran players.

RuneScape makers Jagex say that the recent introduction of RuneScape Bonds into the long-running MMO has reduced gold farming activities by as much as 81 percent. Bonds were introduced into the game on September 26. A Bond in RuneScape cost $5, £3 or €4.25 each and can only be redeemed in-game. Bonds are redeemable for 14 days of RuneScape membership, eight Squeal of Fortune spins, or 160 RuneCoins. Multiple Bonds can also be redeemed for RuneFest tickets (RuneFest is a fan gathering that will take place at the Tobacco Dock in London on November 2).

Several new reports from research firm Niko Partners reveals that China's gaming population is mostly made up of PC gamers and mobile players. According to data from two reports, the "Chinese Gamers Report 2013," and the "Quarterly Home Gamer Survey and Monthly I-café Games Usage Data," China has 208 million PC gamers and 288 million mobile game players this year.

Jagex announced today that one million users have joined its retro MMO RuneScape Old School since it launched in January of this year. As the name would imply RuneScape Old School lets players jump in the popular online game world that put Jagex on the map.

Researchers at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab is researching how sexualized depictions of women in video games can make women feel like they are objects, and that it may alter their perception on myths related to rape.

"We often talk about video game violence and how it affects people who play violent video games," says Jeremy Bailenson, the director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford. “I think it’s equally important to think about sexualization.”

In what can only be described as ironic, Activision Blizzard has filed a lawsuit against Worlds, Inc. for patent infringement. In its lawsuit, the World of Warcraft maker says that Worlds, Inc. has violated two of its patents that relate to navigating a 3D space and the interaction of objects with a 3D space. The irony is that Worlds, Inc. sued NCSoft - a lawsuit the two companies settled in April of 2010 - related to scalable chat systems and another one related to interacting in a virtual space.

EA's Mythic Games announced via the game's official site that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will be shutting down on December 18. The MMO launched by Mythic and Electronic Arts in North and South Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand on September 18, 2008. While it had a rough launch, the game managed to interest a small and faithful following over the last five years.

Trion Worlds' MMORPG Rift Online continues to have setbacks in Asian countries, with another operator of the game announcing that it will shut down the game. Today Shanda Games revealed that it will shut down the Rift Online service it operates in China. The company was pretty vague about why it was shutting down the game, only stating that it had "several reasons" for doing so.

The Korean version of the game was shut down in April of this year and Trion Worlds recently closed studios in San Diego and Europe.

A new Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign has an interesting pitch: help fund an MMO universe built with a high level of input from players. Not only will players have a say in how the fantasy MMO will be built, the creators of the game claim that they are already helping to build out some of the content. The game is called Neo's Land, and it is being developed by Calgary-based game studio NeoJac Entertainment.

Admitting that the launch of its newest Final Fantasy MMO was less than stable, Square Enix announced that it will compensate subscribers of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn with an extra seven days of game time.

The publisher admitted that it has been unable to deliver a reliable and stable service to customers since the game launched on PC and PS3 last week. The company chalked up the game's technical difficulties to high user demand. This led to a temporary halt in digital sales as it attempted to expand server capacity.

Sony Online Entertainment announced that it has laid off an undisclosed number of employees at its San Diego, Calif. and Austin, TX. studios as part of a new initiative to reduce costs, align its resources, and streamline its workforce company-wide.

"As part of a strategic decision to reduce costs and streamline its workforce, SOE announced today that it will eliminate positions in both its San Diego and Austin studios," the company said in a statement.

MCV is reporting that MMO publisher Trion Worlds will close its European office located in Guildford, UK by week's end. The European headquarters for the company will lay off ten employees and close the office this week, according to the report. Staff affected by the closure include Trion Europe boss John Burns, communications boss Jon Goddard commercial director Jeff Pabst, senior brand manager Dominic Wai and PR manager Gary Burns.

In last week's poll we asked you "Should MMOs limit the amount of time gamers can play them to stem pathological addiction?" Around 431 votes were cast with the lion's share going towards personal responsibility on the part of gamers.

One percent of voters (5 votes) said that limits on MMOs should be mandated by the government. Seven percent (30 votes) that developers should voluntarily added controls that limit gameplay. But a whopping 92 percent (396 votes) said that gamers should be responsible for their own actions.

Researchers in the United Kingdom are warning MMO developers that they need to consider limiting the amount of time the average player spends per session to combat "pathological addiction," and avoid inevitable government intervention. Researchers at Cardiff, Derby and Nottingham Trent universities said some gamers play up to "90 hours a session,"  and that if game companies did not create in-game limits for players, governments might have no choice but to follow Asia's model for limiting play time.

As part of its announcement this morning that it would break the iron grip of Vivendi's controlling interest, Activision Blizzard revealed that World of Warcraft subscriber numbers have fallen to 2007 levels. The number of paying World of Warcraft monthly subscribers has dropped to 7.7 million, according to Activision Blizzard. That's close to what the game had in 2007 before The Burning Crusade helped it break into the 8 million subscriber mark.

When we first started writing about law firm Lerner, David, Littenberg, Krumholz & Mentlik sending letters on behalf of Treehouse Avatar Technologies to independent game development studios concerning an 858 patent (U.S Patent 8,180,858), we reached out to the signatory on those letters - Stephen F. Roth - to give him an opportunity to tells his client's side of the story.

GamePolitics has learned that at least three more independent development studios received letters from the law firm representing Treehouse Avatar Technologies claiming that they "may be infringing" on a patent the company holds because they make online games. Earlier in the week we detailed how the law firm representing Treehouse sent a letter to Bothel, Washington-based indie developer Bad Pug Games.

On July 1, a law firm representing Treehouse Avatar Technologies sent a legal packet to Bothel, Washington-based indie developer Bad Pug Games warning the two-man studio that it was violating an obscure 858 patent (U.S Patent 8,180,858) "Methods for Presenting Data Over a Network Based Network User Choices and Collecting Real-time Data Related to Said Choices."

EVE Online maker CCP Games has hired video games industry veteran Sean Decker as its new senior vice president of product development. CCP says that Decker will lead the company’s worldwide game development, overseeing the company’s studios in Reykjavik, Shanghai, Atlanta, and Newcastle. Decker joins the company from Electronic Arts, where he spent 12 years in a variety of key production leadership roles. Most recently Decker served as vice president of EA’s Play4Free group.

Austin, Texas-based mobile online game developer Spacetime Studios announced that its four online mobile games have garnered over 250 million play sessions to-date. The four games - Pocket Legends, Star legends, Dark Legends, and Arcane Legends - have also been downloaded over 20 million times collectively. Spacetime also says that its game have a high level of engagement, with players logging an average of 33.5 hours per month on Spacetime’s titles, almost 3 times as much as the average iOS player’s total monthly gameplay and four times more than Android players.

BioWare is apologizing publicly for accidently banning 100 - 150 players in its MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. The company took to its forums to say it was sorry for banning over a hundred players for violating the game's terms of service. Yesterday those players received email notifications from the company saying they had violated the game's ToS and would be banned for a week.

Swedish MMO developer MindArk announced today that a recently discovered moon in its long running MMO Entropia Universe was auctioned off for $150,000, or 1.5 million PED in the game's virtual currency. The winner (?) of that bid was Jan Terje Egeland (whose Entropia Universe alter-ego is "Modified Akoz Power"), who MindArk claims will be able to share revenue with the company from all activity on the moon.

Whether you have your doubts about Trion Worlds' Defiance - a first of its kind MMO transmedia project that lets what happens in the television show of the same name on the SyFy Network affect what happens in the virtual world you are playing - the game seems to be doing well within its first month or so of operation. According to Trion Worlds, over one million people have registered accounts for the game since it launched on April 3.

The game is certainly helped by being available on three platforms: the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC..

City State Entertainment announced that it managed to raise well over $2 million in crowd funding for its upcoming MMORPG project, Camelot Unchained. The "TriRealm" RvR-focused MMORPG will also receive $3 million in additional funding which includes $2 million from studio co-founder and online game industry pioneer Mark Jacobs. Pledges are still being accepted via PayPal on the game's official site.

Valve Software announced that the very first game to make use of its freshly launched support for subscriptions is the MMO Darkfall Unholy Wars, with "additional subscription-based games to follow."

EVE Online maker CCP Games today announced the final schedule of events for its sold-out annual fan celebration, EVE Fanfest (April 25-27). Playing up this year's "Second Decade" theme (which commemorates the 10th anniversary of EVE Online) CCP has managed to bring some pretty interesting speakers to the event this year including Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams, and Paola Antonell from MOMA.

Kaspersky Lab has uncovered a Chinese hacking ring that has been breaching the security of and stealing source code and other material from various online games in East Asia, South Korea, Germany, the US, Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, Peru, and Belarus. The security researchers at the company say that this Chinese hacking ring broke into the servers of dozens of online video gaming companies and stole from them over a four year period.

CCP Games today revealed the line-up of speakers that will be a part of the "Make EVE Real" track at its (sold-out) annual fan celebration EVE Fanfest from April 25-27. Dr. Richard Obousy (President and Co-Founder of Icarus Interstellar) and Chris Lewicki (President of Planetary Resources) will join Michael Laine (President of LiftPort Group) in sharing their thoughts on how current science fiction may soon become a reality.