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phorce phed and several other readers sent news that a system notification was sent out this evening through the Xfire IM client, to wit: "Xfire was bought by new owners today. Most of the team that has built Xfire over the last six years is leaving. We enjoyed working for you for the last 127 releases and wish we could stay to create the next 127. Good bye, good luck, and game on. — The Xfire Team." According to Wikipedia, the new owner is 3D Realms.

The folks at XFire passed on a link to their recent interview with the people at Harmonix. Now working on hit of E3, Rock Band, the company's senior designer at Harmonix, Community Developer, and Associate Producer answered questions from the XFire audience about the upcoming title. "shrouded: Can you tell us about the challenges of designing the drumset? ... Answer: The hardest part was satisfying all of the stuff we wanted - we're a company of musicians, including a sizeable chunk of drummers. I think we spent at least half a year making sure that the pedal felt almost exactly like a real drum pedal, and not just some switch. We also had a bunch of non-negotiable things that we had to get in, like using real drumsticks. I could go on forever, but the basic summary is that from day 1 we wanted this to be as close to an electronic kit as possible, with as few compromises as possible."

Last night a debate hosted by the XFire gaming chat/social network service went into depth on the subject of game censorship. Participants included notables like Entertainment Consumers Association President Hal Halpin, Sacremento Assemblyman Leland Yee, Escapist Editor Russ Pitts, and GamePolitics blogger Dennis McCauley. Transcripts are available of the discussion both on and off the main floor, and both make for some very interesting reading. From the Escapist post on the event: "On the whole, it would seem that everyone, from the senator on down, is concerned about adult-themed content in games and how to preserve the gamemaker's rights to create such content while simultaneously keeping it out of the hands of minors. The devil, of course, is in the details. Exactly how to go about doing that - and defining the types of content to be restricted - is where we all seemed to disagree wildly."

wyndairn writes "Blizzard Entertainment and Xfire have just announced the largest ever machinima contest with over $10,000 in prizes from AMD, Hypernia, Creative Labs, XFX, D-Link, Corsair, ZBoard and Time Games. The contest involves entrants producing movies using the Blizzard Entertainment MMORPG World of Warcraft game engine to create imaginative movies in the three main categories of Dance, Comedy and Drama. Six prizes will be awarded for each category. An additional Twenty prizes will be awarded in special categories including Best Music, Best Dialog, Best Action Scene, Best Pun or Line, and Best Editing and Special Effects. A special prize from Hypernia will also be awarded to a selected movie. Entries must be submitted by January, 21st 2006." Good luck to folks who decide to enter. If you aren't already familiar with it, the Curse Guild's Blackwing Lair: The Movie may give you an idea of what is possible with WoW Machinima.

wyndairn writes "Blizzard Entertainment and Xfire have just announced the largest ever machinima contest with over $10,000 in prizes from AMD, Hypernia, Creative Labs, XFX, D-Link, Corsair, ZBoard and Time Games. The contest involves entrants producing movies using the Blizzard Entertainment MMORPG World of Warcraft game engine to create imaginative movies in the three main categories of Dance, Comedy and Drama. Six prizes will be awarded for each category. An additional Twenty prizes will be awarded in special categories including Best Music, Best Dialog, Best Action Scene, Best Pun or Line, and Best Editing and Special Effects. A special prize from Hypernia will also be awarded to a selected movie. Entries must be submitted by January, 21st 2006." Good luck to folks who decide to enter. If you aren't already familiar with it, the Curse Guild's Blackwing Lair: The Movie may give you an idea of what is possible with WoW Machinima.

CheesyPeteza writes "GameSpot is reporting that the popular game messenger client Xfire is being sued by Yahoo for patent infringement. The patent was originally granted to two Yahoo employees who developed GameProwler for Yahoo Messenger. It describes a system which "allows users to use a game server in connection with a messenger server to permit 'buddies' to know when other 'buddies' are playing games online, and easily join such games." One of these employees then left Yahoo to work for Xfire. Xfire denies infringing on Yahoo's patent, but with the costs estimated at $2 million to defend this cas, will the startup company Xfire be able to stand up to the Yahoo giant?"

CheesyPeteza writes "GameSpot is reporting that the popular game messenger client Xfire is being sued by Yahoo for patent infringement. The patent was originally granted to two Yahoo employees who developed GameProwler for Yahoo Messenger. It describes a system which "allows users to use a game server in connection with a messenger server to permit 'buddies' to know when other 'buddies' are playing games online, and easily join such games." One of these employees then left Yahoo to work for Xfire. Xfire denies infringing on Yahoo's patent, but with the costs estimated at $2 million to defend this cas, will the startup company Xfire be able to stand up to the Yahoo giant?"