Erling Ellingsen, Funcom's director of communications, tells MMORPG.com that his company is cooperating with Norwegian authorities who are conducting an investigation into allegations that executives at the MMO developer engaged in insider trading.

Over 6,000 self-indentified PC gamers want Sega to bring more of its console games to personal computers, according to a petition launched on Change.org. The petition, which has 6,539 supporters (as of this writing), calls on Sega to bring more console games to the PC. The petition name checks some particularly popular titles including PlatinumGames' Bayonetta and Vanquish, SEGA AM2's Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, and other popular titles.

Here's the problem with letting a bunch of different PC manufacturers make something and use a brand like "Steam Machines" - you are going to get some wildly different products and price ranges that can be pretty darned costly for rank and file consumers whose last names aren't "Rockefeller," "Bloomberg," "Trump," etc. That's what is happening with Alienware's version(s) of the Steam Machine.

The petition on Change.org asking Rockstar Games to port Grand Theft Auto V to PC has surpassed 650,000 signatures. That's 50,000 more than the 600,000 the petition had way back in October of 2012.

Bohemia Interactive has sold over a million Early Access copies of its zombie survival game DayZ, according to CEO Marek Spanel. The Arma II mod turned into a full-blown product created by Dean Hall has been selling like crazy since it launched on Steam Early Access in December, despite the fact that the game is in alpha and still has plenty of quirks, bugs, glitches, and a general lack of polish.

Valve's Steam Controller has been getting a mixed response from journalists who finally got to try out the hardware at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Valve recognizes that the controller still needs a lot of work and tweaking, but ultimately the goal is to make it work with all kinds of games - even games that one would think "require" the use of a mouse and keyboard.

The latest bundle offering from Humble Bundle, Humble Indie Bundle X, is now available. The bundle offers four indie titles for whatever you want, and two additional games if you pay more than the average price.

Pay whatever you want and get several decent games including To the Moon, Joe Danger 2: The Movie, Papo & Yo, and Runner2. Pay more than the current average of $6.68 to unlock Reus, and Surgeon Simulator 2013. The Mac and Linux versions of Reus are in beta still, but you can play them.

Sony Online Entertainment will likely change its subscriptions model for its line-up of PC MMOs into a single system where users pay one fee for access to its entire catalog of games. In a recent Reddit thread, SOE head John Smedley said that the company would "likely move forward" with a plan to charge customers a flat monthly fee of $14.99 for access to its entire catalog of games on the PC.

Chucklefish's procedurally generated space-themed RPG Starbound has sold more than one million copies thanks to its inclusion in the Steam early access program and the company's own pre-order efforts. Starbound is currently an early access game on Steam, allowing consumers to play an early beta build of the game while developers make wild and drastic changes. Selling for right around $15 via Steam's early access program, players have been enjoying the game since December 4.

Last night at its Consumer Electronics Show press conference Valve Software revealed that 14 third-party hardware manufacturers were working on Steam Machines that would run its Steam OS operating system and would support the Steam controller. The prices among these manufacturers for the customized Steam Machines vary wildly, with a starting price of $499 all the up to the ridiculous price of $6,000.

Twelve more companies have lined up to build Steam Machines - machines meant to be used with a high definition television set in the living room that run Valve's Linux-based operating system Steam OS and support the Steam controller. This news comes from an Engadget report. Valve is set to hold its Consumers Electronics Show press conference this evening, where it will make a number of announcements related to these systems and its custom-built game-focused operating system.

The hacking group known as "DERP" has reportedly struck again, claiming responsibility for taking down EA's digital distribution platform Origin yesterday.

The hacker organization claimed responsibility for the attack in posts via Twitter.

"We've directed the Gaben Laser Beam @ the EA login servers. Origin #offline."

According to Valve's statistics page for Steam, the online service has set a new concurrent user record. On Dec. 29 Steam had 7.6 million of its 65 million members logged in at the same time, setting a new record for peak concurrent usage. This number is up slightly up from 7 million concurrent users recorded over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and the all-time high of 6 million concurrent users in 2012.

If you own Mojang's turn-based card game Scrolls, then you can share it with a friend. To celebrate the holidays, Mojang is letting Scrolls owners give away a free copy of the game to one friend.

So how would one go about doing that? It's very simple: login to your Mojang account and then click on the "Send to a friend" button. A code will then be sent to the email you specify, and the recipient will have until January 31, 2014 to redeem the code.

Over the weekend Valve released the beta version of its Steam OS to the public at large. Steam OS is a Debian variant of the Linux operating system, in case you are interested. Valve has warned those that are eager to install the Steam OS on their PCs that the release is meant more for technically savvy users, and not casual fiddlers.

GOG.com has launched its "2013 DRM-Free Winter Sale, giving consumers deep discounts on many of the games in its DRM-free catalog, offering special pricing in three different random categories and giving away all of its Fallout games for FREE for the next 48 hours.

While many will head over to the site to get Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics for free, there are plenty of decent deals on old and new games in the GOG.com worth checking out.

At about this time today (5:00 pm EST) 300 individuals in the United States will get an email from Valve Software announcing that they are one of the lucky few to get a Steam Machine. The beta quality Steam Machines and Steam Controllers will be shipped to those 300 testers beginning on Friday, according to Valve's announcement today. The system will support a selection of games that currently are capable of running on Steam OS, which will be added to users' libraries.

Bundle Stars is offering the Indie Capsule Bundle, which contains seven indie games for as little as $3.50 - for a limited time. Three of the games are playable on the Mac, while all the games are available for Windows and codes are available for Steam. Sorry, no Linux games in this bundle...

The seven games are Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (Windows), Blood of the Werewolf (Windows), Slender: The Arrival (Windows), And Yet it Moves (Windows, Mac), Plain Sight (Windows), Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich of Time (Windows, Mac), Snuggle Truck (Windows, Mac).

The crowd-funded cyberpunk-fantasy themed RPG adventure Shadowrun was well received when it was released in July of this year on Steam, but one complaint that came up here and there was that the game was not DRM-free. Harebrained Schemes recognized that some gamers prefer their PC games to be completely free of any digital rights management, and decided to work with GOG.com to release a new version for Windows and Mac OS X. Today that deal comes to fruition.

GOG.com announced this morning that, from today forward it will provide its customers with a worldwide 100 percent money back guarantee for its entire DRM-free catalog of PC and Mac games available. Any game purchased on GOG.com can be returned within 30 days of its purchase for full money back if the company's support team can't solve problems getting the game running and the user's computer meets the requirements posted on the game's page.

Valve has approved 100 more titles to be a part of its Steam Greenlight program, Valve Software announced this week. There's very few familiar titles in this latest batch (the most recognizable being Company of Heroes: Eastern Front, Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore, Pixel Piracy, and Saturday Morning RPG). Nevertheless, there's certainly a few gems in this latest batch worth checking out depending on the kinds of games you find fascinating. As always each of the games in this list will release on their own schedules.

You can check out the full list below:

In a tweet congratulating the team at Electronic Arts for their part in the highly successful Humble Origin Bundle, EA's Peter Moore said that the company had donated $1.65 million of the $10.5 million generated by the bundle to the American Cancer Society.

When EA, Origin, and the Humble Bundle announced the Humble Origin Bundle back in August, they said that all of EA's and Origin's profits would go to give charities - the Human Rights Campaign; Watsi; the San Francisco AIDS Foundation; the American Red Cross; or the American Cancer Society.

Riot Games, makers of the popular MOBA game League of Legends, requires a lot from players who want to sign up with them to play professionally.

With Valve Software pushing towards a future in which it is at the center of our big screen gaming experience in the living room using a system that is entirely powered by the Linux operating system, it should come as no big surprise that the company has joined The Linux Foundation this week. The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of the titular open-sourced operating system.

Valve Software's Mike Sartain says that joining the foundation is just one of the ways that it is putting a spotlight on the operating system.

The PC Gaming Alliance announced today that it plans to officially launch its games certification program in March of next year. The group's PC Gaming Certification Program will support a number of platforms including Mac, PC, Linux, etc. The program has already had a soft launch through an early adopters program, though PCGA president Matt Ployhar tells Gamasutra that March of 2014 is the target date to finalize specs and other requirements for the program.

The latest Humble Bundle, The Humble Jumbo Bundle, offers three games for whatever price you want to pay, and six games if you pay more than the average price. These games include Natural Selection 2, Sanctum 2, and Magika plus all the DLC.

Paying more than the average price will get you three more games - Orcs Must Die! 2: Complete Pack, Garry's Mod, and Serious Sam 3: BFE. While bundle does require you to have a Steam account, at least they are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Kotaku offers a mildly amusing story about a game development studio that decided to pirate their own game. Vitali Kirpu and Alex Poysky, the developers behind Pixel Piracy, have "pirated" a copy of their own game, and provided a free torrent download on their site.

The DRM-free pay-what-you-want Indie Royale Debut 7 has launched this week, offering six indie games. By paying the set minimum price of $2.99 or more, you can get six games including the fighting game Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae, multiplayer mech fighter Metal Planet, first-person puzzler Pulse Shift, adventure game Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine, RPG Millennium 2: Take Me Higher, and space-themed strategy game Fleet Buster.

Valve Software has kick off its annual Autumn Sale today with daily deals running every 24 hours, along with flash sales every 8 hours until Dec. 3. Highlights include Terraria for $2.49, Skyrim for $7.49, Prison Architect for $14.99, Outlast for $6.49, Sleeping Dogs for $4.99, Left 4 Dead 2 for $4.99, Rogue Legacy for $5.09, The Walking Dead for $6.24, and Anti-Chamber for $4.99.

My personal favorites right now? DLC Quest and Breath of Death VII for $0.98.

As always the Steam sale offers listing for top sellers, games under $10, and games under $5.

The latest Bundle in a Box offers a bunch of nifty indie strategy and war games for PC and mobile platforms for a low, low price - and DRM-free. The bundle includes Us & Them - Cold War, Storm Over The Pacific, AI War: Fleet Command, Creeper World, Strategic War in Europe, The Trouble With Robots, Age of Conquest III, and Droidscape: Basilica.

You can pay as little as $0.99 for all these titles, but if you pay more than the current average price of $4.94 you'll get Mayhem Intergalactic, Project Aftermath, Fall Weiss, Creeper World 2, and AI War: The Zenith Remnant.