Steam has revealed the top selling/highest grossing games on its platform for the year 2017, and with come some surprises, and some non-surprises as well. The distinction between top selling and highest grossing is a needed one, if you look at the top Platinum tier. There are two free-to-play games on it, which really isn't much when you consider that the category itself contains 12 titles. Still, it does go to show how correct monetization of free-to-play games leads to impressive earnings for companies. Joining those two titles are the usual multiplayer galore of titles. The hit phenomenon Player Unknown's Battlegrounds stars in 4th place, behind H1Z1, Grand Theft Auto V, and Rocket League. When it comes to single-player games, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt holds its own on 6th place in the Platinum list, a remarkable feat if one considers the game was originally released in May 2015, and hasn't seen added content for a year now.

The first seasonal community event for Call of Duty: WWII is here. Running Friday, 8th December, 2017, through Tuesday, 2nd January, 2018, Winter Siege delivers an array of activities and content for free to all Call of Duty: WWII players for a limited time. The Winter Siege features a new, frost-covered Winter Carentan multiplayer map, the return of the Gun Game party mode, Double XP Playlists, a winterised Headquarters with new visiting Quartermaster as well as new Winter Siege Supply Drops delivering new, limited edition winter gear and content to players. Winter Siege is packed to the brim for the Call of Duty: WWII community this holiday season.

"The Winter Siege is all about celebrating with the Call of Duty community," said Aaron Halon, Senior Product Developer, Multiplayer, Sledgehammer Games. "There's a ton of content for everyone to play during this time from a reimagined Winter Carentan multiplayer map that's now packed with snow to Gun Game to Supply Drops full of winter-themed gear and content all available throughout the Winter Siege."

Activision Blizzard today announced the newest iteration in its award-winning in-game program to support the Call of Duty Endowment's efforts to help unemployed veterans find high-quality careers in the United States and United Kingdom. The Call of Duty: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment (C.O.D.E.) Bravery Pack (PS4/XboxOne/PC), developed by Sledgehammer Games, includes a special Call of Duty Endowment in-game helmet, calling card, and emblem.

The pack will be available for a suggested retail price of $4.99 in the in-game store and the Sony and Microsoft online stores. For the first time, a personalization pack benefitting the Call of Duty Endowment will also be available at all GameStop stores across the U.S. as well as online through BestBuy.com and Amazon.com. One hundred percent of the proceeds received by Activision through the Bravery Pack will directly fund the Endowment's mission to help veterans secure quality careers when they leave military service. More than 4,800 veterans have been placed in high quality jobs through Call of Duty personalization packs to-date, which is a brigade-sized group of vets.

Activision's Call of Duty: WWII has surpassed more than $500 million in sell-through worldwide in its first three days of release, topping popular theatrical box office openings Thor: Ragnarok and Wonder Woman combined, according to company estimates. On PlayStation4, Call of Duty: WWII set a record as the best-selling digital full game by units sold on its first day of availability. Overall unit sales at launch doubled year-over-year globally.

The gripping, personal narrative, boots-on-the-ground multiplayer and terrifying Nazi Zombies mode attracted players worldwide resulting in the highest total connected users on current generation consoles and PC in Call of Duty history. "We challenged our players to get their squads back together and they answered the call, with the highest number of players we've ever seen on current gen consoles and PC," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision.

AMD has released another driver suite for their Radeon graphics cards, in the form of the 17.11.1 Beta drivers. These bring support, and the best experience, for Call of Duty: WWII, with up to 5% faster performance on Radeon RX Vega64 (8 GB) graphics than with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.3 at 2560x1440.

Additionally, this driver brings AMD XConnect technology improvements for Vega 56. XConnect is AMD's technology that allows seamless plug and play ability for eGPU enclosures, and with this update, AMD is increasing the number of eGPU solutions that support AMD's RX Vega 56 graphics cards in this configuration. There's also an extensive list of fixes (including a particularly nasty bug where system devices such as printers could be removed during Radeon Software uninstallation) and known issues, which you can catch after the break. As always, you can download your drivers right here, on the best website of the known universe. Just follow the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.11.1 Beta

Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc., announced today that Call of Duty: Black Ops II has crossed the $1 billion mark in worldwide retail sales, according to Chart-Track retail customer sell-through information and internal company estimates. Illustrating the strong appeal of interactive entertainment to audiences worldwide, the game achieved this milestone in just 15 days after its launch on November 13, 2012. Last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 reached $1 billion in retail sales in 16 days. The box office record set for feature films in 2009 by "Avatar" was $1 billion in 17 days.

"The release of Call of Duty has been one of the most significant entertainment events of each of the last six years," said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. "Since Call of Duty was launched, cumulative franchise revenues from players around the world are greater than current worldwide box office receipts to date for the top-10 grossing films of 2012 combined. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for 'Harry Potter' and 'Star Wars,' the two most successful movie franchises of all time."

Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc., today announced that for the fourth consecutive year, the Call of Duty franchise has delivered the biggest entertainment launch of the year. The highly-anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops II has achieved an estimated sell-through of more than $500 million worldwide in the first 24 hours of its release, according to Chart-Track, retail customer sell-through information and internal company estimates.

"With first day sales of over half a billion dollars worldwide, we believe Call of Duty is the biggest entertainment launch of the year for the fourth year in a row," said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc. "Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for "Harry Potter" and "Star Wars," the two most successful movie franchises of all time. Given the challenged macro-economic environment, we remain cautious about the balance of 2012 and 2013."

The wait is over. The groundbreaking Call of Duty: Black Ops II is now available at retail locations across the globe. The highly-anticipated sequel to the best-selling Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 console game in history has been called "the most ambitious Call of Duty ever," pushing the boundaries of the blockbuster franchise to new heights by propelling players into a world full of advanced weaponry, robotics and drone technology in the year 2025. Call of Duty: Black Ops II, which has shattered pre-order records set last year by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, is on its way to a historic launch, and is poised to usher in a new era for the 30-million Call of Duty fans worldwide with a host of new innovations to deliver the complete gaming experience. Providing great value to the Call of Duty community, starting today Activision's Call of Duty Elite services for Call of Duty: Black Ops II are free, providing fans with deeply integrated features, including Clan Operations, Zombies Leaderboards and more.

While many scoffed at Battlefield 3's late-arriving competitor to Call of Duty Elite, it seems to have worked quite splendidly for the publisher. More than 800,000 players have signed up for Premium in its first two weeks of availability, EA Games' Patrick Soderlund revealed. Although Premium less a "service" like Elite and more of a DLC Season Pass, the $50 asking price does include a lot of content. Namely, Premium includes access to over $75 worth of content, making it a "value" for hardcore fans of the series. Speaking to USA Today, Soderlund said that "we are very pleased with the performance so far." When asked if this strategy is something EA will pursue with future games, he said: "We're actually only two weeks into it, so it's a little early to tell how this is going to pay off. It certainly it looks very promising right now."

Call of Duty Elite currently has over two million paying subscribers, a number which took about six months to reach.

Activision is already going at it in court with Jason West and Vince Zampella over their dismissal from Infinity Ward in 2009, but a clause in a Memorandum of Understanding filed with the lost wages and royalties suit in 2010 could affect the recently announced Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. According to Game Informer, Activision continues to hold the rights to the Call of Duty franchise, but Call of Duty games set in "modern day (post Vietnam), the near future or distant future" would be retained by Infinity Ward. With Black Ops 2 set in 2025, developer Treyarch put a lot of thought in the futuristic setting. An intellectual property attorney said that, if West and Zampella win their suit, Activision could be forced to pull the game, but a more likely scenario is money damages awarded by the court.

However, clause 4(D) at the end of the memorandum specifically states that if IW management (Ward and Zampella) are no longer employed by Activision, then the terms of the memorandum are no longer in effect. This seems to override any potential problem, but it is yet another issue that the court must rule on. With Black Ops 2 setting pre-order records, the game could be a cash cow for Activision. A ruling against the publishing giant, though, could mean West and Zampella would get prime cuts of that cow if the employment clause is not enforced.

While the Cold War, assassination attempts at President Kennedy, and over the top action filled the premise of the 2010 smash hit Call of Duty: Black Ops; unmanned aerial weaponry, often autonomous, will fill up Black Ops II, Activision's autumn-winter blockbuster. The worldwide reveal trailer mentions the campaign's storyline to take place in 2025, the future, when there's huge proliferation of unmanned weaponry (≠ robots, so no conflict with the Terminator universe), and that the "keys" (control over these machines) fell into the wrong hands (and the US stopped making kill-switches for its military equipment). The game promises some pretty over the top action over futuristic settings, some of which remind us of Syndicate (which is set even further into the future).The Worldwide Reveal Trailer follows.

Pre-order cards of Call of Duty: Black Ops II being sold by retail chain Target ended up revealing its release date to be 13th November, 2012. Developed by Treyarch for Activision, Black Ops II is the 9th game in the Call of Duty franchise, and a sequel to the 2010 title Call of Duty: Black Ops, which is among the most commercially-successful video games in history. A reveal trailer of the game is expected to be posted tomorrow.

This year's addition to the Call of Duty franchise is going to be Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, a sequel to the 2010 game developed by Treyarch. A source among retailers leaked a poster to Kotaku, which flashes a date, 05-02-12, along with a caption that reads "Return for Debriefing". Kotaku predicts that the date on the poster is more likely a reveal date than a release date. On a reveal date, Activision could post a reveal trailer of the game, along with sketchy information about the premise of the game's single-player campaign.

Apparently round one goes to Activision in the royal rumble between them and Infinity Ward founders and now ex-employees Jason West and Vincent Zampella over owed royalties. One of the two fraud charges levelled at Activision by former employees and Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vincent Zampella has been dismissed by a US court. The remarkable story of the corporate fallout between Activision and the development pair began in March 2010 when it was revealed that the publisher had both men frog marched out of the Infinity Ward offices. Several employees quit the developer amidst the mud slinging and bitterness of the dispute, with Activision later deciding to sue EA over the whole ordeal. Why EA? Well, claims were made that both West and Zampella were already in bed with Activision's arch rival long before the waters become turbulent. The fact that West and Zampella's new studio, Respawn Entertainment, signed a publishing deal with EA probably didn't help much either.

Once the dust had settled both sides laid bare their claims. Activision argues that the pair had already planned a defection to EA whilst still working on Modern Warfare 2. It currently wants $400m in compensation from EA. West and Zampella, meanwhile, say that they were sacked to save Activision the pain of paying them bonuses and royalties owed to them. Back in the present Activision's success in convincing State Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle to dismiss one of the fraud claims levelled against it is a success, for sure, but it's not enough to stop everyone being dragged into court on May 7th.

Apparently the war between the original creators of the Call of Duty franchise and Activision is going in front of a jury. The big "he said, the monolithic corporation said" video games kerfuffle of 2010, the fallout from Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vincent Zampella leaving Activision then signing up with Electronic Arts, is indeed going to trial. On Wednesday, a California Superior Court judge denied EA's motion for summary judgement on the complex lawsuit, as well as one from West and Zampella, meaning the big Call of Duty mess will go before a jury next year.

Microsoft has revealed the top 20 most popular games played on the Xbox 360 in 2011 based on numbers of unique users logged into Xbox LIVE (Silver and Gold members). Note that this gives a different result to the total playtime for a particular game, which has not been disclosed here. Unsurprisingly, the Call of Duty series dominates the chart, but what is sure to irk CoD detractors, but make fans very happy, is that a massive five of those positions are taken up by CoD - that's 25% of the rankings. Even CoD4: Modern Warfare which was released way back in 2007 sits at a very respectable number 14. However, top games Battlefield 3 and Skyrim did very well nonetheless, sitting at five and six respectively, with only Halo beating them at number 4. Can you guess which CoD game hit the top spot before looking at the chart?

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.

Today, we brought you the depressing news that Activision are unlikely to bring the Call of Duty social network called Elite, to the PC platform, despite all their loyal PC gamers, who have bought every iteration of the game going and in particular helped them achieve their blockbuster sales of $400M last week. This delight came courtesy of this tweet:

@thejuggz We are working towards a universal Elite experience but we cannot guarantee if or when a version will be available for the PC.

Well, what do you know, but it looks like Elite is coming to the PC platform after all. Yes, you heard that right. In a tweet a while later, Activision claim to have "misspoken", like this:

We misspoke. Our goal has always been to provide a free PC offering for ELITE. Stay tuned for an update as timing is still being determined.

So PC gamers will at least get the free version. Fantastic. Still second class, but better than nothing. Probably best to keep a close eye on those tweets and a sceptical outlook on this one until it happens. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Just over a week ago, we brought you frustrating news that the brand new Call of Duty Elite social network was going to be delayed for the PC, once again leaving the PC gaming crowd feeling like second class citizens compared to their console counterparts. Now, in a bitter blow, it appears that the Elite service may shut out loyal PC gamers altogether. Plus, as is typical of big companies, the message was delivered in the most terse and disrespectful way possible, via a short Twitter tweet:

@thejuggz We are working towards a universal Elite experience but we cannot guarantee if or when a version will be available for the PC.

So, that's it then, PC gamers may never get it and there's no explanation why. One can only surmise that it's due to the alleged "security issues" previously alluded to. Therefore, hopefuls will just have to wait on tenterhooks for an undefined period of time. So, the biggest sales launch in history isn't enough to convince the company to support the PC platform? It looks like detractors of the Call of Duty franchise have a very legitimate axe to grind this time, doesn't it? Probably the best way to view this unfortunate news is that the benefits weren't worth it anyway.

callofduty.com has published a blog entry from developer Infinity Ward / Sledgehammer detailing some of the features and improvements that will be in the upcoming MW3, to be released on November 8th:

I'm extremely excited about the PC version of Modern Warfare 3 this year, because we've been taking your feedback since Modern Warfare 2,and the franchise as a whole, on what you wanted to see in the PC version of Modern Warfare 3 and the team at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games has put aton of emphasis on delivering a PC experience that brings in all the great things we added in Modern Warfare 2:
Lobby System, Matchmaking with a Party, Matchmaking for Public Games, Steam Integration (Friends List, Server Browser,Achievements, Join on Friends)
While combining it with your favorite features from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare:
Dedicated Servers (Join your favorite or set up your own,without any 3rd party hosting requirements), In-game Server Browser that allows you to filter by ping, map, gametype, hardcore, voice, password, and more. In addition, we're supporting PC specific features that give you even more control over your experience like RCON, Custom Game Saving, NoGFX / Audio Card Requirement on DS.exe, Voice Chat, and SSAO.

Today HIS unleashed the revolutionary new HIS Radeon HD 5830 iCooler V 1GB GDDR5 Turbo and Standard version. Combined with the high performance dual slot iCooler V and stellar overclocking performance, it delivers most affordable high performance graphics with ATI Eyefinity technology supported. Prepare to plug in for a ridiculously immersive HD gaming experience unlike anything you've ever seen.

iCooler V features a high performance dual slot cooler. It comes with excellent cooling setup, which transfer heat effectively from the GPU to the internal fins around the central fan. Thanks to the elegant design and smoothness of iCooler fan shroud, massive amount of cool air is drawn from the central cooler to cool down the internal fins directly.

VisionTek Products announced a technology partnership with Bigfoot Networks today in conjunction with the North American launch of the VisionTek Killer Xeno Pro Gaming Network Card. The introduction of this revolutionary gaming network card takes gaming to the next level with performance designed to enhance the online multiplayer experience. This new hardware caters to the growing online PC gaming audience and includes custom bandwidth controls to tailor the game play experience to the user's needs. When the dedicated Network Processing Unit (NPU) was born in the labs of Bigfoot Networks, VisionTek made plans to join forces for their next technology launch.

"My technology roots are grounded in the GPU, as the quintessential PC gaming hardware upgrade," said Michael Innes, COO & EVP of VisionTek Products, LLC, "It's too early to say that the NPU will overcome the GPU, but I do know it feels a lot like the advent of the PC graphics card. One thing is certain, online gaming is the dominant factor keeping the PC gaming platform alive."

Publisher Activision today announced its intention to release new downloadable multiplayer maps for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4. The content packs should arrive this spring. No mention of pricing, map details, or a PC release was made in the statement.

We're excited about the new maps, and the added gameplay variety, and we can't wait to wrap things up and get online with everyone,

said Infinity Ward community manager Robert Bowling.

Infinity Ward has released the mod tools for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The 603MB download includes everything required to make levels, models and mods for the game. To get people started, Infinity Ward has opened a Wiki with information on using the Call of Duty 4 version of the Radiant level editor. There's also a promise of frequent article additions.

DOWNLOAD

Aspyr Media announced today they will publish Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Mac. Developed by Infinity Ward and licensed by Activision, the Mac version is expected to be available in May 2008.

Featuring a tense storyline, filled with plot twists, the title thrusts players into battle like never before. With amazing special effects, including rim-lighting, depth of field, texture streaming and character self-shadowing, players are enlisted into one of the most photo-realistic gaming experiences imaginable.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Mac will soon be available for preorder through Aspyr's website for 49.99. For more information, fans can also visit the official CoD4 website.