This one is strictly a rumor at this point, but a reliable U.K. source tells GamePolitics that Midway's Newcastle studio in the U.K. has been shut down this morning following a surprise visit by CEO Matt Booty.

Workers have reportedly been let go without pay and some are apparently posting about the situation on Facebook. We have an e-mail in to Midway seeking confirmation.

Midway, of course, was recently acquired by Warner Bros. in a deal approved by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge.

UPDATE: This one is CONFIRMED. Develop has details...

Faced with rumors of a Second Life ban by Australian government authorities, publisher Linden Lab issued a statement last night to reassure SL users Down Under that no such action has taken place. At least, not yet.

Here's what Linden said on the issue:

Linden Lab has received no indications from the Australian government that it plans to block Second Life and will keep our community apprised of any developments on that front. In the meantime, we want to assure Australian Residents that Second Life remains accessible and functioning in your region.

Australia has and will continue to be an important market for Linden Lab, and we’re committed to providing the best possible Second Life experience for the users... Some of the most exciting uses of Second Life have come out of Australia, a diverse community of Residents that includes major universities, large enterprises and many thousands of consumers, who spend hundreds of thousands of hours inworld each month.

The Second Life rumors surfaced after the Australian government said that it planned to block Internet access to games which would not meet the MA-15+ content rating standard.

Meanwhile, New World Notes reminds us that the community of Australian SL users is a rich one, indeed:

There's a number of Australian organizations, including several universities, with an official presence in Second Life, there's been several SL-based fundraisers to benefit various Australian non-profit causes... and coming soon, a feature film starring several of Australia's top actors which depicts Second Life in a positive/neutral manner...

As GamePolitics reported last week, the Australian government is moving to block online access to games containing content which would exceed the country's MA-15+ rating. The proposed filtering scheme would affect online retailers selling such games as well as games played online such as MMOs.

In last week's coverage we noted speculation that such a ban could affect games like World of Warcraft and Second Life. At least one site is now reporting that Second Life has, indeed, been banned. The Inquisitr, invoking Nazi (!) imagery, writes:

It was confirmed by Australian Minister for Censorship that online games such as Second Life is banned in the country. There was confirmation from Censorship Minister Stephen “Goebbels” Conroy...

It is surprising because this policy has always been known to everyone. When Conroy was asked, he didn’t give direct answer. The more Australian government confirms the issue, the more totalitarian the policy is becoming if compared to China.

But Wagner James Au, who tracks SL happenings on New World Notes, writes that rumors of SL's Australian demise are greatly exaggerated:

Over the last 24 hours I've been peppered with links... which seem to suggest the Australian government is imminently planning to block access to Second Life from that country...  I'm far from an expert on Australian jurisprudence, but near as I can tell, any relation with this news to Second Life is highly tenuous and conjectural at best...

 

Nothing in the [Inquisitr] editorial actually confirms [a ban], and the very second sentence compares the government administrator involved to Joseph Goebbels, which is such a ham-fisted violation of Godwin's Law*, the only thing it really confirms is the author's own penchant for dubious hyperbole...

 

It's likely there are several layers of parliamentary, bureaucratic, and technical implementation before any of this impacts Australian access to Second Life (if it ever does.)...

* Godwin's Law: As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

While the video game community knows all too well that the long-awaited Duke Nukem Forever project is stalled (and currently being litigated), GamePolitics has learned that a Duke Nukem game is in development by a "well-known" developer under contract with publisher Take-Two Interactive.

This juicy, new detail is contained in a court document filed on Friday by DNF developer Apogee Software. Responding to a lawsuit filed against it last month by Take-Two, attorneys for Apogee told the U.S. District Court in Manhattan:

As part of the October 2007 Agreement, Take-Two agreed to pay Apogee $2,500,000 as an advance to help fund the development of the DNF game, but only after Take-Two visited Apogee to review the status of the development of the DNF game within Apogee.

 

Repayment of the $2,500,000 advance was to come from royalties generated by sales of the DNF game and/or a new Duke Nukem-based game being developed in parallel by a separate well-known game developer under contract with Take-Two.

 

The October 2007 agreement did not provide for a completion deadline for DNF. However, the development agreement for the new Duke Nukem-based game (not to be confused with the DNF game) being developed by the separate game developer scheduled the new Duke Nukem-based game to be completed by mid-2010.

 

In the event the DNF game was not commercially released before October 22, 2012, then and only then, the $2,500,000 advance became due and payable to Take-Two, but only to the extent this advance had not already been recouped from royalties from sales of the new Duke Nukem-based game.

GamePolitics has requested comment from Take-Two.

UPDATE: Aside from DNF, the only publicly-named but unpublished Duke game is Duke Nukem Trilogy for the DS/PSP,which was shown at E3 2008. Take-Two, however, has not been publicly mentioned as its publisher. A recent report on GameSpot mentions DNT as a joint project between Apogee and Deep Silver. There is no mention of any involvement by Take-Two.

Also, given that DNT is a known quantity, if that is the game referred to in the court filing, why wouldn't Apogee just name it and its developer?

UPDATE 2: The game mentioned by Apogee is Duke Begins and is in the hands of 2K Games, a Take-Two subsidiary. See follow-up GP coverage for more details.

There are some unconfirmed reports floating about this morning claiming that The Sims 3 has been leaked. The long-awaited PC game's official launch date is June 2nd.

Romanian site SoftSailor is among those reporting the supposed leak:

For the moment we can’t tell for sure if the game is real as the packed/unpacked leaks are sized somewhere near 5GB. The small size of the game makes us think that this is not the actual game, but maybe it’s an unfinished version of The Sims 3 life simulation game...

[updated] P.S. From what I’ve read, the game is real and many are playing it right now.

Well-known torrent site The Pirate Bay, whose operators are appealing their recent conviction by a Swedish court on piracy charges, currently has a 4.94GB file named The.Sims.3-Reloaded posted.

GP: Pending confirmation from more reliable sources, we'll call this one a rumor for now...