ShackNews is reporting Activision Blizzard is being sued by Worlds Inc., for violating a patent on virtual worlds. The firm claims that games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft violate its patent, and are requesting "fair compensation." The patent covers a "system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space," reports Games Industry International. That may sound broad, but the company did manage to get an undisclosed settlement out of NCSoft for City of Heroes in 2010. "Technologies created by Worlds have helped the businesses of virtual worlds gaming and the sale of virtual goods to grow into a multi-billion dollar industry," said Worlds CEO Thom Kidrin. "While we are pleased to see that the gaming industry and its rapidly growing customer base have enthusiastically embraced our patented technologies, we deserve fair compensation for their use." No response yet from Activision Blizzard.

The end is nigh! Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that Diablo III, the next chapter in its critically acclaimed action role-playing game series, will be unleashed from the Burning Hells on May 15.

Starting that day, gamers with a thirst for fast-paced action and adventure will be able to purchase Diablo III at retailers throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. In addition, gamers in the regions above as well as in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil will be able to buy Diablo III digitally via Blizzard's Battle.net website.

Blizzard announced that its highly anticipated title, Diablo III, will not ship with Player vs. Player (PvP) gameplay, because its development and refinement is holding Blizzard back from meeting the April 17, 2012 launch date. "The PvP game and systems aren't yet living up to our standards," said Jay Wilson, Game Director. The PvP component will instead be added to the game as a patch, months after the game's launch. The patch will include PvP arenas, achievements, and a matchmaking system. The arenas, according to Wilson, will be "as brutal, bloody, fast-paced, and awesome as we know they can be."

A slip-up by online marketplace Amazon.com saw the release-date of Blizzard's hotly anticipated hack-and-slash RPG title, Diablo III getting leaked. That date is April 17, 2012. The date has since been removed from Amazon. What makes this slip-up a credible leak and not an error, is the fact that Blizzard has been talking about a Q2, 2012 launch for the game.

Blizzard Entertainment has reportedly laid off about 600 employees, about 10 percent of which are positions related to game development. It's reported that the people working on World of Warcraft are not affected. The company says that the decision came after a review of business needs. The company's game development and publishing schedules as a result of these job cuts, are not affected, the company says. It's still looking to hire game developers in some positions.

Diablo III has many gamers waiting for it with the anticipation of some Biblical event - the third-coming of Blizzard's popular hack-and-slash game. However, its makers worry that this anticipation could turn into over-hype, which could damage the game's market success once launched. A community manager at Blizzard Forums posted this carefully-worded note, in one of the countless threads in which fans drool rainbows over the upcoming game:

On a more serious note, I too worry that we won't be able to meet the expectations people have built up for themselves. Part of my job is managing people's expectations, so... eh... stop it. Stop thinking about how awesome this game could be. Just imagine it's a new M. Night Shyamalan movie. Sure Sixth Sense was amazing and Unbreakable had it's moments, but this right here is the sequel to The Village ... or The Happening ... or Signs ... or any of the movies besides the two I first mentioned. So just like, lower those expectations, but still definitely buy the game please, and everything will be just fine.

This fine-tuning of public opinion away from over-hype to healthy PR could work wonders for the game's success.

Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), announced today that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 crossed the $1 billion mark in sales since its launch on November 8, 2011, according to Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information. Highlighting the trend of interactive entertainment gaining a greater hold of audiences worldwide, the game achieved this milestone in just 16 days, eclipsing the record set in 2009 by the feature film "Avatar," which reached the $1 billion milestone in 17 days.

While 2011 box office revenue is on the decline - down 4 percent this year at $9.4 billion, compared with $9.8 billion in 2010 -- the number of people purchasing and participating in gaming is on the rise, with no sign of slowing.(1) With more than 30 million gamers, the Call of Duty community now exceeds the combined populations of the cities of New York, London, Tokyo, Paris and Madrid.

Shattering its own day-one sales records, Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, announced that its highly-anticipated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has become the biggest entertainment launch ever with an estimated sell-through of more than $400 million and more than 6.5 million units in North America and the United Kingdom alone in the first 24 hours of its release, according to Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information.

This marks the third consecutive year that the Call of Duty franchise has set day one launch records across all forms of entertainment, something no other entertainment franchise in any medium has ever accomplished. Last year, in North America and the United Kingdom , Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops had estimated day-one sell-through of $360 million and in 2009, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, set day-one records with estimated sell through of $310 million, according to Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information.

On November 8, 2011, millions of fans attended more than 13,000 midnight openings at retail stores worldwide. According to Microsoft, after just two days, the number of gamers playing simultaneously on Xbox Live set a new peak concurrency record.

SteelSeries, a leading manufacturer of professional gaming peripherals and creator of the MMO Gaming Mice based on Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, today announced their latest custom product for World of Warcraft players. The SteelSeries World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse Legendary Edition is a finely crafted weapon of precision balancing style and function. This sleeker, more compact option shares the enhanced features of the previous World of Warcraft mice including in-game integration and superior illumination and software functionality.

"We've established an incredible partnership with Blizzard Entertainment and the amazing World of Warcraft community. We've taken all the excellent suggestions and feedback we've received, merged it with the latest gaming technology, and come up with a truly unique lineup of MMO Mice for World of Warcraft players." said Bruce Hawver, SteelSeries CEO. "The new Legendary Edition allows us to meet the needs of gamers looking for a smaller, less complex gaming mouse that delivers the same impressive functionality found in the original and Cataclysm versions."

As the game industry waits for E3 to kick off next week, SteelSeries, a leading manufacturer of professional gaming peripherals today announced a co-branding partnership with Blizzard Entertainment on the SteelSeries Diablo III family of products. The Diablo III Mouse, Diablo III Headset, and two Diablo III QcK mousepads - Witch Doctor and Barbarian Editions, were co-designed with technology, hardware, and illumination features that support the look and feel of the third installment of Blizzard Entertainment's highly anticipated, mouse-intensive Diablo series.

"The level of excitement for the Diablo III release is massive. When the opportunity was presented to partner up with Blizzard for a new family of co-branded peripherals, we knew that they had to be engineered for this particular type of gameplay by being both durable and able to bring out the Diablo III theme onto a player's desktop," said Kim Rom, SteelSeries CMO. "The mouse offers both simplicity for new players and unprecedented durability that will support the series' distinctive mouse-driven gameplay, while the headset optimizes the high, spine-chilling snarls of otherworldly creatures and the booming lows of a barbarian battle cry. Together, the headset and mouse will help immerse players into the game through their extended comfort, compelling designs and high performance."

PNY Technologies, a global leader in flash memory cards, USB flash drives, solid state drives, high speed HDMI cables, computer memory upgrade modules, consumer graphics cards, and professional workstation graphics cards, today announced the XLR8 GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5 graphics card.

PNY's XLR8 GeForce GTX 570 Enthusiast Edition offers incredible performance and stunning gaming effects. With cutting-edge Microsoft DirectX 11 technology and full support for all the premium GTX gaming technologies, such as NVIDIA Surround, 3D Vision, PhysX, and SLI, the GTX 570 screams performance. PNY's latest graphics card also features the new innovative thermal design for a quiet gaming experience. The GTX 570 delivers a fully immersive stereoscopic 3D experience, for the ultimate in PC gaming.

Today, SteelSeries, the leading manufacturer of professional gaming peripherals and creator of the original World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse, announces a new MMO gaming mouse co-developed with Blizzard Entertainment. With a unique exterior that evokes the armored plating of Deathwing the Destroyer, the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm MMO Gaming Mouse delivers superior ergonomics and an intuitive button layout with advanced software functionality.

"Since the release of the original World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse in 2008, we've received feedback from thousands of World of Warcraft players, both Horde and Alliance, on how they've customized their World of Warcraft mice and what they would like us to do next," said Bruce Hawver, SteelSeries CEO. "For two years, our R&D team worked hard with Blizzard Entertainment to incorporate the great feedback and to enhance the mouse technology and game integration. The new Cataclysm mouse is the result of that collaboration: it provides a wide range of customization options and delivers a more comfortable, intuitive, and ultimately better experience."

PNY Technologies, Inc. ("PNY"), a global leader in flash memory cards, USB flash drives, solid state drives, high speed HDMI cables, computer memory upgrade modules, consumer graphics cards, and professional workstation graphics cards, debuts the latest graphics card from NVIDIA: the Verto GeForce GT 430 1024MB DDR3.

PNY's new GeForce GT 430 gives PCs the ultimate performance upgrade. Now users can power up their digital media PCs with the GT 430 to enjoy games, videos, and photos. The GT 430 delivers PhysX and CUDA technology for an even more dynamic and realistic experience with incredible performance improvements. Experience high definition with the native HDMI port, for unsurpassed HD visuals and sound. Consumers can accelerate HD video and photo editing, take mainstream gaming to the next level on the latest DirectX 11 game titles, and upgrade home theater PCs for the ultimate in viewing theater quality Blu-ray and 3D movies.

Alongside the July 27th launch of Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, SteelSeries is pleased to announce the release of original co-branded gaming peripherals for gamers eager to jump back into the epic struggle between the protoss, zerg and terran races.

SteelSeries will offer a complete gaming solution with the StarCraft II Limited Edition Zboard gaming keyboard bundle, which includes the SteelSeries Zboard Base with Z Engine II software, the Zboard Standard QWERTY Keyset for everyday use and the SteelSeries Limited Edition Zboard Keyset (StarCraft II). The specially designed Zboard Keyset (StarCraft II) provides labeled commands, in-game shortcuts, official artwork from the game, and three race-specific mods featuring unique abilities for each of the races. Through its unique Z Engine II software, gamers can also remap every key on the keyboard, guaranteeing a completely customized experience for each and every user.

Razer, the world's leading manufacturer of high-end precision gaming and lifestyle peripherals, has joined forces with Blizzard Entertainment, a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating some of the industry's most critically acclaimed games, to introduce an entire suite of peripherals designed specifically for the release of Blizzard Entertainment's highly anticipated real-time strategy (RTS) game StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Featuring a look and feel inspired by the StarCraft universe, this line of peripherals includes the Razer Spectre StarCraft II Gaming Mouse, the Razer Marauder StarCraft II Gaming Keyboard and the Razer Banshee StarCraft II Gaming Headset.

"We are all huge StarCraft players here at Razer, so we are really excited to give gamers a first glimpse at the StarCraft II gaming peripherals," said Robert "Razerguy" Krakoff, president, Razer USA. "The peripherals were created with our newly developed APM (Actions-Per-Minute) Lighting System and feature a gaming-optimized design inspired by the StarCraft universe to complement the on-screen action."

Creative Labs, Inc. today announced the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Wireless Headset is now available at AAFES, Amazon.com, Apple.com, BestBuy.com, Blizzard.com, Creative.com, Dell.com, Frys.com, Newegg.com and Tiger Direct for $159.99. "As the leading innovator in precision audio for PC gaming we were well positioned to develop a headset that could live up to the high standards set forth by Blizzard Entertainment games," said Steve Erickson, VP and GM for audio and video at Creative. "The Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Wireless Headset is a result of this, providing an unprecedented combination of wireless technology, THX TruStudio PC technology for enriched audio performance and a unique design that stands out from anything else available to gamers."

ASUS today launched a new co-op campaign with NVIDIA, which features a promotion in association with Blizzard Entertainment to include a 14-day trial for Blizzard's popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, along with a collectible door hanger, with select ENGT200 Series graphics cards.

ASUS ENGT200 Series graphics cards are built with superior design acumen to provide the most compelling visual experience available to gamers. These ASUS limited edition graphics cards are up the ante with NVIDIA 3D Vision, making great use of GeForce GPUs. Using special glasses and 120Hz LCD displays or compatible HDTVs, NVIDIA 3D Vision tantalizes gamers with ultra-realistic graphics, vivid stereoscopic images, and immersive depth of field. Up to 400 PC games work out-of-the-box with NVIDIA's 3D Vision, including games such as Resident Evil 5, Borderlands, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Star Trek D-A-C, Dark Void, and Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

NVIDIA's recently released GeForce 196.75 WHQL drivers are causing problems with some users reporting "intermittent low FPS", in the words of Blizzard's technical staff. It notes that the drivers have a bug in its fan-speed control that causes graphics cards to overheat when running applications such as Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 Beta. Not only does bad fan control result in bad application performance, but can also damage the graphics accelerator. Blizzard on its part advised users to revert to older versions of the GeForce driver. Version 196.21 (older WHQL-signed driver) can be downloaded from here.

Update (3/5): NVIDIA has withdrawn the 196.75 WHQL drivers from its website. The company is working to resolve this issue.

Today, SteelSeries, a leading manufacturer of game peripherals and accessories, unveiled a new line of gaming surfaces featuring art from Blizzard Entertainment's highly anticipated StarCraft II. The QcK Limited Edition Terran Marine and Kerrigan vs. Zeratul editions are designed with a non-slip rubber base which prevents the pads from sliding, no matter what surface the mousepad is placed on, and is optimized for optical and laser technology providing an overall more reliable gaming experience.

"StarCraft and its expansion have together sold more than 11 million copies worldwide, and we believe StarCraft II will prove equally influential and popular, making this a great opportunity to provide gamers with surfaces that help to improve performance and game play," said Brian Stech, SteelSeries President of the Americas. "We are incredibly excited to have an opportunity to continue our partnership with the designers from Blizzard Entertainment and develop surfaces that we know StarCraft players will enjoy."

A new list of features surraunding the upcoming RTS franchise Star Craft 2 that might interest you were announced today. Starting with the big one, Blizzard has confirmed that Star Craft 2 will not support LAN multiplayer mode. The game will be entirely online based, multiplayer connections will go through Battle.net only, no LAN connections will be allowed.
Blizzard today also posted a new 7 minute video footage of some ingame action. Units from all the three races are captured in the video, you can watch it in high quality here.
Also unveiled during an interview with Shacknews was that players will be able to hire NPC mercenaries and use them in the single player mode campaign. StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder also detailed that again in single player campaign mode, there'll be additional objectives and optional quests which if completed will give players different bonuses. You can read the full interview with Dustin Browder right here.

This story is less hardware important, but still the word Blizzard is mentioned, so I'm sure you'll make it count. Blizzard Entertainment is glad to inform its admirers that tickets for the game developer's fourth BlizzCon gaming convention are now on sale. Tickets are priced at USD $125 each and can be purchased through the company's event website here. BlizzCon is a celebration of the global player communities surrounding Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo game universes. The event will take place August 21st and 22nd at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, and will feature an array of activities, including developer panels, contests, tournaments, hands-on gameplay with upcoming Blizzard Entertainment games, and more. The ticket-purchase process uses the online Blizzard Store and requires an active Battle.net account. For those of you that won't be able to make it to BlizzCon, Blizzard will offer the DIRECTV BlizzCon Pay Per View service for $39.95. A minimum of eight hours of live HD coverage from the show floor on each day of the convention, including exclusive interviews, demos, and more will be captured and streamed to DIRECTV subscribers. All they need is to watch and enjoy the show from their PCs. Find more information at BlizzCon.

RTS giant Blizzard let loose a few new teaser screens of its much anticipated title, Starcraft II, sourced by SK Gaming. The screens include stills of ongoing campaigns demonstrating the visuals and graphic design of the game. One of those hype building measures from a company that has so far stood and delivered to all its hype. Starcraft II is on course for launch later this year. Enjoy the screens. A larger archive of Starcraft II images sourced from Blizzard so far can be found here.

Blizzard Entertainment today announced that World of Warcraft, its award-winning subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, is now played by more than 11.5 million subscribers worldwide. This new high was reached following the November 13 release of the game's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Within its first 24 hours of availability, Wrath of the Lich King sold more than 2.8 million copies, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. In addition to winning a number of editor's choice awards from major gaming publications, the expansion has now gone on to sell more than 4 million copies in its first month, setting a new record for monthly PC-game sales. Both sales records were previously held by World of Warcraft's first expansion, The Burning Crusade.

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, has sold more than 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours of availability, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. This eclipses the previous record of nearly 2.4 million copies sold in 24 hours, set in January 2007 by Blizzard's first World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade. Wrath of the Lich King was simultaneously released in North America, Europe, Chile, Argentina, and Russia on November 13; Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand on November 14; and South Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on November 18.

Today sees the release of Blizzard's last World of Warcraft installment, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. This is the second expansion to date, making the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) game by far the largest in the world. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King features a massive new continent called Northrend, the brand-new death knight Hero class, unique dungeons, an open-world PvP zone with siege vehicles and destructible buildings, and hundreds of brand-new quests. The expansion is available in both a standard and Collector's Edition. The Collector's edition includes the original game DVD, a 208-page book featuring never-before-seen images from the game, an exclusive in-game pet, a behind-the-scenes DVD containing over an hour of developer interviews, a soundtrack CD with 21 songs, and an exclusive mouse pad with a map of the newly opened continent of Northrend. The game should already be available everywhere, have fun playing it.