Richard Wilson (previously Head of Business Policy at the Institute of Directors) was unveiled as the new CEO of TIGA, The Independent Game Developers Association here in the UK, at the trade body’s annual awards dinner.
Wilson, ex Torie researcher, takes up the position in March, succeeds current CEO Fred Hasson.
“The appointments board was unanimous [...]

Cooper Lawrence, the psychologist who savaged Mass Effect on Fox News last week, has issued a retraction of her statements. Quoted in the New York Times (link has reg wall), she said:
In an interview on Friday, Ms. Lawrence said that since the controversy over her remarks erupted she had watched someone play the game for [...]

Dare to be Digital seem to be doing excellently at the moment. We forgot to blog this a week or so ago, but Turner Broadcasting (a part of Time Warner, and owner of US games service GameTap) will be sponsoring them in 2008:
“[Turner Broadcasting's] support is a huge boost to our plans to raise GBP [...]

Mass Effect recently received a proper hatchet job from Fox News and a writer named Cooper Lawrence, who’d never seen or played the game but leveled various accusations at it. EA have actually mounted an incredibly cogent defense, first seen here at Kotaku:
Your headline above the televised story read: “New videogame shows full digital nudity [...]

Last.fm have struck a deal to allow free streaming of music and even full albums from their website. In a blog entry, they said:
As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website.
Something we’ve wanted for years—for people who visit Last.fm to be able to play any track [...]

Nicholas Lovell does an analysis of recent events with SCi over at MCV. It has a good overview of the history and situation, along with a choice quote or two:
Some of these operational issues may have stemmed from the difficulties in adapting from running a small SCi to a significantly-larger Eidos with global reach. SCi’s [...]

Digital Urban, at University College London, have been busy building a virtual London in the Crysis Engine. This impressive video shows St. Pauls and the Tate Modern:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2XiYFmvGwI]
Here’s the impressive part, from the comments over at Rock Paper Shotgun:
The movie is only a work in progress – as the blog states, although we feel crysis is [...]

Great post from Mark Morris of Introversion, about the inaugural meeting of the AI in Games Network. So far it involves three UK universities meeting a load of game developers. It’s difficult to pick out a highlight from the post, really, the whole thing is worth reading, but I especially like this part where he [...]

Skillset are blogging, we noticed recently, and there’s some good stuff there. Particularly, a post today about UK games industry salaries. The quote Develop:
the average salaries for artists, designers and producers have risen in the past 12 months – with some senior level producer and designer roles now commanding up to £10,000 per annum more [...]

EA are releasing a free downloadable game this summer, supported by ads in the front end, and microtransactions. Called Battlefield Heroes, it blatantly has the aesthetic of Team Fortress 2, but the focus seems to be on casual gamers who might be moving toward more complex games. It’s interesting to see an Asian business model [...]