Stephen Toulouse, the former policy and enforcement director at Xbox Live, is once again representing the Microsoft brand with his new job as director of Community Engagement on the upcoming Gears of War game for Xbox One. Toulouse actually joined Black Tusk Studios awhile ago, according to what he wrote on his personal blog.

According to this Daily Mail story (by way of The Escapist), the leader of the Scottish Police are blaming Gears of War for a vicious knife attack.

Microsoft promises "vigorous action" against those individuals who downloaded a pirated version of Gears of War: Judgment. The complete copy of Gears of War: Judgment appeared on internet torrent sites overnight and some decided to download it and play it (some played it online as well), much to the dismay of Microsoft.

In an in-depth interview with the artist formerly known as CliffyB (he asked everyone to call him Cliff Bleszinski, and not his nickname as you may recall), GamesBeat grills the former Gears of War designer about the game franchise, perceptions in some circles that he was a bit of a douche, and what he thought about former EGM editor Dan Hsu calling him a d*ck in a cover story.

The man that many consider the face, heart and soul of Epic Games, has decided that it is time to take a breather and leave the company. Epic Games made the announcement last night via its official blog. The split seems amicable enough for the creative force behind the Gears of War series.

Epic Games bought a majority stake in Bulletstorm and Painkiller developer People Can Fly in 2007, and as of today they own the company outright. Epic Games announced that it has purchased the Warsaw, Poland-based developer who is currently working on Gears of War Judgment, though for how much they did not disclose. Epic made the decision to buy the company last week.

On a related note, Adrian Chmielarz, Andrzej Poznanski and Michal Kosieradzki have left the company. Epic's Mark Rein says that these departures will not affect the studio's ongoing projects in any way.

BitMonster Games and Epic announced today that they have inked a licensing deal to create casual games using the Unreal Engine 3 technology. Naturally today's announcement is simply a formality because the studio has been using the tech for awhile to build its first title. The first game from the company to use the technology, Lili, is in its final stages of production. Lili is described as a "quirky adventure RPG hybrid" for iOS devices. You can check out a video of the game to your left.

China-based Tencent Holdings Limited will take a minority stake in Gears of War and Unreal Engine developer Epic Games. How much equity Tencent has taken was not disclosed, but Epic said in a press release that it will continue to operate "independently and seek to further expand its game franchises across multiple platforms."

The deal is expected to close in one month, subject to customary closing conditions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Six men in Scotland are going to war this weekend, but the fight isn't for the survival of the human race - it's for a good cause. They will take part in a 48-hour Gears of War marathon to benefit their favorite charity. The six combatants taking part in the 48 hour Horde 4 Charity event are Sean Kiddie, Colin Henderson, Alistair Cowan, Kyle Hatch, Stephen King (not the horror writer), and Neil Castle.

How long would you wait for your favorite video game to be released? Four hours? Eight hours? How about 29 hours? That's how long one man waited in Singapore to get his hands on his copy of Gears of War 3 on Monday. Nanyang Polytechnic student William Ten sat at the Funan DigitalLife Mall on Monday so he could be the first gamer in Singapore to own the latest game from Epic Games and Microsoft. Despite the wait the 22-year-old was in good spirits and good health thanks to his family members who made sure he was okay. The local launch event drew more than 1000 fans.

Even with the distraction of a foulmouthed twelve-year-old cursing in your ear, you’ve still got game.  But how well would you hold up against streaming video of a topless porn star?

Adult performers Alana Evans and Misti Dawn have launched PwnedByGirls, a new website that will allow eager gamers to play video games with them or just kick back and watch them mop the floor with competitors who just can’t seem to focus.

Most developers would be delighted to hear that the lowest score their latest game has garnered is an 8 out of 10, but apparently not Epic's Cliff Blezinski. Speaking to VG247, Blezinski railed against the outlets that gave Gears of War 3 an appalling score of "8," referring to them as "haters." Haters is a pretty strong term to use to describe a score of 8, but Blezinski feels like the third game in the series is the best yet. Fair enough.

While it might seem like a joke at first glance, apparently Epic Games is so pissed off at those who have shared information about Gears of War 3 online that it plans to ban those people in the future. Earlier this month Epic said it was keeping track of those who shared videos of Gears of War 3 and promised repercussions. We assume they mean that when these folks try to play online Epic will remember them and not allow them to play. How they could possibly facilitate such an action is beyond understanding.

In an extensive interview with Edge published this morning, Epic's Rod Fergusson admitted that the premature leak earlier this month of a development build of Gears Of War 3 has been a mental drain on the development team.

Epic Games' popular shooter is now a board game. Gears of War: The Board Game will be released next month, transitioning from slick fast-paced action game to the calmer settings of a board game. Based loosely on the video games, the board game comes packed with over 30 plastic figures, 200 game cards, 35 Locust AI cards, 17 double-sided map tiles, 75 tokens and markers, 1 mission reference sheet, one line-of-sight ruler, five attack dice and 4 defense dice.

Researcher Anita Lynn Furtner says that the best way to train for a crisis is to use films and video games. She said crisis management training needs a change and that it is time to do away with lectures and boring PowerPoint presentations and consider films and video games.

"You have a lecture, you have a PowerPoint and a knowledge check and, there, you are considered trained and certified. And, most likely, you only do this once a year," said Furtner. She wrote her dissertation at the University of Arizona about the potential use of films and video games for crisis management training. She earned her doctoral degree in rhetoric, composition and the teaching of English in May

"That's not what I call motivating or engaging, and it doesn't lead to any long-term recall," added Furtner.

An investigation is underway to find out how a portion of Epic Games' upcoming Gears of War 3 was leaked to the public, according to a 1UP report. A portion of Epic Games' upcoming Gears of War 3 was recently leaked onto the Internet. Right now Epic Games has no idea how the game, which is still in development and months away from release made it out into the public. Microsoft, who holds the publishing rights to the Xbox 360 exclusive franchise, is looking into the situation and has assured fans that the leaked code is not the final product.

"We have seen the reports of Gears of War 3 content being propped on the Web and working closely with our security teams and law enforcement to address the situation," a Microsoft statement sent to IGN over the weekend reads. "This content is not from a final build and is not representative of what fans will enjoy when the game launches."

Five students from the sixth-grade class at Milton M. Somers Middle School (in Southern Maryland) found themselves playing video games in school to learn about why underage drinking isn't all that cool. The game asked questions about healthy lifestyles and the dangers of underage drinking and provided moments of activity to keep things interesting. It was created by the Century Council, an Arlington, Virginia-based nonprofit group funded by a group of distillers that includes Diageo, Bacardi and Brown-Forman.

Epic Games design director and developer lead on the Gears of War series Cliff Bleszinski says that the video game industry needs to embrace the hacking community for a number of reasons. In an E3 interview with GameTrailers.com to promote Gears of War 3, Bleszinski said that it was a chance for companies to foster more homegrown, user-generated content.

"I was on a panel with Kudo (Tsunodo, Kinect creative director), and we were talking about Kinect Fun Labs, and he was saying they’re embracing a lot of the homebrew and hacker stuff that’s going on with Kinect," said Bleszinski.

"Generally speaking when it comes to hackers, you want to embrace a lot of what they are doing instead of fighting it. I think the industry is slowly learning that," he added.

One of the benefits Blezinski didn't mention is using hackers to highlight or locate security holes in various online systems. Many are more than happy to oblige.

A new study from Simmons College researchers comes to the conclusion that children exposed to more violent games for longer periods of time are less able to sympathize with others. The new study published in the Journal of Children and Media surveyed 166 Boston, MA and southern New Hampshire schoolchildren. The study was overseen by Simmons College professors Edward T. Vieira and Marina Krcmar. They examined the relationship between violent games and kids' attitudes toward violence.

The duo surveyed children age 7-15 about their favorite games, how many hours a week they played, and questions to gauge their ability to sympathize with others, to see things from another person's perspective, and whether they saw violence as an appropriate response in situations where it would be deemed justified or unjustified. The favorite "violent games" included Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Counter Strike, Mortal Kombat: Deception, and World of Warcraft.

Allowing gamers to decide the fate of Gears of War 3 character Clayton Carmine will result in the Penny Arcade-backed charity Child’s Play receiving a donation of $150,000.

The Fate of Carmine campaign let participants vote on whether or not the third of four brothers to appear in the series will live, or die as siblings Anthony and Ben did before him. Votes were expressed in the purchase of “Save Carmine” or “Carmine Must Die” t-shirts, both real and in the form of Xbox Live avatar garb.

While Carmine’s fate has been chosen, Epic Games isn’t letting the results be known yet, but the company’s Cliffy B and Rod Fergusson shot the embedded YouTube video to let the gaming community know about the princely sum raised.

Microsoft also supported the charity drive, which saw 80 percent of the funds raised going to Child’s Play, with 20 percent reserved for administrative, bandwidth, and other associated support costs.

Edge Online reports that upcoming Xbox 360 gore-fest Gears of War 2 will not be released in Japan or Germany.

Germany is perhaps not a surprise, given that the original 2006 GoW was banned there. Not selling the game in Japan, however, is raising some eyebrows. From the EO report:

“We can confirm that Gears of War 2 will not be available in Germany or Japan indefinitely” said the [Microsoft] spokesperson. 

 

The news may come as a shock to many observers as the original Gears of War was one of the first titles to crack the Japanese software charts during a time when the 360 console was selling at its slowest...

The reasons why the game will not be released remain unclear...  Edge has approached Microsoft’s offices in Japan for comment.