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In the past few days there have been several new developments in the Massive Gaming market. Jessica Mulligan's departure from Turbine now has an end destination, with the announcement that she'll be the executive producer for Nevrax's Saga of Ryzom. In a swashbuckling tie-in, Disney announced they'll be adding to their Massive Gaming portfolio, with a Pirates of the Carribean MMOG joining Toontown Online sometime next year. The always excellent CNN Money column Game Over has word that Sony Online is planning a new Action MMOG, a possible strategy title, and some new non-mmog titles. From the article: "Though the numbers for massively multiplayer games aren't bad, they remain a niche in the gaming industry. To expand SOE's potential audience, the company will soon announce smaller puzzle games for two and four players. While those games won't be massively multiplayer or have any sort of persistent world, it's not out of the question for the long term." Finally, there are many stories over on Gametab discussing the "I'm cancelling because of the WoW Honor System" thread on the official World of Warcraft boards. They were likely sparked by this Kotaku post about the thread. I just want to put in my two cents and state that this isn't news. Forums are not an accurate way to get a picture of a game's user base. Doom may be coming to Blizzard's game, but the subscriber charts are the only real way to know for sure.

John Callaham writes "The film industry trade publication Variety announced today that Showtime plans to make a bio-pic movie based on Masters of Doom, the 2003 released non-fiction book on the formation of Doom developer id Software." More coverage available on Gamasutra. Now there is a Doom movie that I'd like to watch.

John Callaham writes "The film industry trade publication Variety announced today that Showtime plans to make a bio-pic movie based on Masters of Doom, the 2003 released non-fiction book on the formation of Doom developer id Software." More coverage available on Gamasutra. Now there is a Doom movie that I'd like to watch.

John Callaham writes "Computer Games Magazine takes a quick look at the upcoming first person shooter games that are expected to be show at this May's Electronic Entertainment Expo." From the article: "Today we start to look at all the games that have been announced and are out in the open and are likely to be show at E3 this May. First up: first person shooters. 2004 was truly a banner year for this genre; how many years can we have that contain UT2004, Doom 3, Painkiller, and Half-Life 2? Will this year be any different?"

John Callaham writes "Computer Games Magazine takes a quick look at the upcoming first person shooter games that are expected to be show at this May's Electronic Entertainment Expo." From the article: "Today we start to look at all the games that have been announced and are out in the open and are likely to be show at E3 this May. First up: first person shooters. 2004 was truly a banner year for this genre; how many years can we have that contain UT2004, Doom 3, Painkiller, and Half-Life 2? Will this year be any different?"

John Callaham writes "As we approach E3 next month, what game projects are currently in development but are still under official wraps? Computer Games Magazine takes a look at the sparse facts and does some speculation as well." From the article: "there is a period of near silence as developers work on games that are, for whatever reason, not ready to be officially announced yet. But that doesn't mean we can speculate based on the tiny snips of info that can be gathered from official sources, such as web site postings, press releases, interviews and job listings."

John Callaham writes "As we approach E3 next month, what game projects are currently in development but are still under official wraps? Computer Games Magazine takes a look at the sparse facts and does some speculation as well." From the article: "there is a period of near silence as developers work on games that are, for whatever reason, not ready to be officially announced yet. But that doesn't mean we can speculate based on the tiny snips of info that can be gathered from official sources, such as web site postings, press releases, interviews and job listings."

John Callaham writes "Computer Games Magazine has learned that Stardock, developer of Galactic Civilizations and The Political Machine, is now working on an unnamed massively multiplayer real time strategy title that will be free to play." From the article: "...the development team is trying to solve the problems that have kept other similar games from being as popular as other MMO titles. When asked to describe the gameplay Wardell said, 'I like to call it The Sims meets Total Annihilation.'"

John Callaham writes "Computer Games Magazine has learned that Stardock, developer of Galactic Civilizations and The Political Machine, is now working on an unnamed massively multiplayer real time strategy title that will be free to play." From the article: "...the development team is trying to solve the problems that have kept other similar games from being as popular as other MMO titles. When asked to describe the gameplay Wardell said, 'I like to call it The Sims meets Total Annihilation.'"

John Callaham writes "Computer Games Magazine got a chance to chat briefly on the phone today with Turbine's Vijay Lakshman to get a few more tidbits on their plans for the MMO title Middle Earth Online now that they are developing and publishing the long awaited game." From the article: "Acquiring the license to produce massively multiplayer online games based on Tolkien's world-renowned The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit books is the latest in a series of aggressive business moves by Turbine - the once small contractor that transformed itself into the largest privately-held online game studio in North America."

John Callaham writes "Computer Games Magazine got a chance to chat briefly on the phone today with Turbine's Vijay Lakshman to get a few more tidbits on their plans for the MMO title Middle Earth Online now that they are developing and publishing the long awaited game." From the article: "Acquiring the license to produce massively multiplayer online games based on Tolkien's world-renowned The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit books is the latest in a series of aggressive business moves by Turbine - the once small contractor that transformed itself into the largest privately-held online game studio in North America."

Ant wrote to us with the story that Maxis announced today that Simsville has been canceled. It was originally supposed to be out in 2002 - but Maxis decided that "it wasn't up to the standards of Maxis" - but did also say the team did a good job, and was being reassigned to other products like the upcoming Sims Online. The original intent was to be a cross between The Sims and SimCity. Having had to play through some real stinkers of games before, I applaud Maxis decision to kill the product, rather then try to release it on an unsuspecting public CT Cry!