PC-based games - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Xbox One-to-PC game streaming launched Monday

  Microsoft is allowing select users to start streaming games from their Xbox One console to PCs running Windows 10, a feature that will be available later this year to all users.

• Blizzard is not so flattered with alleged Warcraft copycat from China

  Blizzard Entertainment is taking legal action against a Chinese mobile game for allegedly copying characters and settings from its famed Warcraft franchise.

• Ubisoft Pirate ships sail onto the Web thanks to Microsoft JavaScript library

  A Microsoft JavaScript library for rendering three-dimensional environments played an instrumental role in helping game developer Ubisoft build a version of its Assassin's Creed Pirates that can be run in the Web browser.

• 'League of Legends' account information and transaction records compromised

  A portion of the North American user base of "League of Legends" (LoL) had its account information compromised by hackers, according to Riot Games, the company developing the popular online multiplayer game. Passwords and credit card numbers stored in encrypted form were accessed, as well as other details.

• Researchers find critical vulnerabilities in popular game engines

  Security researchers found serious vulnerabilities in the engines of several popular first-person shooter video games that could allow attackers to compromise their online servers and the computers of players accessing them.

• Disney zaps in-house game development at LucasArts

  Walt Disney has shut down in-house development at LucasArts, the gaming arm of Lucasfilm, less than a year after buying its parent company.

• Game developers employ AI for more adaptive play

  Instead of charging directly at the player in the craggy martian landscape, as they might do normally, the aliens zigzag to take cover behind boulders and outcrops of rock, adjusting their approach as the hero opts for a less conspicuous route to his destination.

• AI programmers struggle to makes games 'imitate life'

  Artificial intelligence, a field of programming employed by video game developers to make characters smarter and improve their decisions, still has a ways to go before it actually yields intelligent characters.

• Researchers find vulnerability in EA's Origin platform

  Users of Origin, the game distribution platform of Electronic Arts (EA), are vulnerable to remote code execution attacks through origin:// URLs, according to two security researchers.

• US jury indicts Dutch man for disabling multiplayer online game

  A grand jury in New Hampshire has indicted a Dutch man for allegedly conspiring to hack into and disable servers belonging to Rampid Interactive, a company that hosts the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) Outwar.

• Japan's Gree to expand game platform to HTML5, avoid app store fees

  Japan's Gree, which runs a large mobile gaming platform, said Wednesday it will expand to include games that run entirely inside web browsers, a move that will free its titles from fees and requirements imposed by app stores run by companies such as Apple and Google.

• Researchers find vulnerability in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

  Researchers have found a serious vulnerability in the game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," and another in the CryEngine 3 graphics platform on which many games run.

• Rovio to design versions of Angry Birds for China

  Rovio Mobile, the developer of the Angry Birds game, plans to release Chinese versions of its hit product later this year, as it hopes to turn the game brand into China's biggest entertainment franchise, an executive said Thursday.