With all of the uncertainty in the games industry of late (and basically every industry, really), a bit of good news, depending on how you slice it, is that two talented development studios have found permanent homes through the wonder of acquisitions.

Ubisoft has made a move for Massive Entertainment after the studio was severed from the Activision Blizzard family. The Swedish developers concentrate their efforts mainly on real-time strategy games, garnering critical success with games such as Ground Control (1 and 2) as well as their most recent title, World in Conflict. Massive Entertainment president and founder Martin Walfisz said in a statement:

“Massive’s development team places great importance on its freedom to innovate and create games of the highest quality. We are fortunate to have found in Ubisoft a publisher who shares the same values and understands our mindset. I have no doubt that our future together will offer significant mutual benefit and synergy.”

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For the quarter ending September 30th, Activision Blizzard posted revenues of $711 million, with a net loss of $194 million as a result of general expenses, the Vivendi merger, sales costs and compensation packages.

Activision Blizzard cited sales of Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: On Tour, World of Warcraft, LucasArts’ Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Guitar Hero: On Tour as massive contributors to their successful quarter, the latter of which has proven to be the best selling title in North America on the Nintendo DS.

CEO Bobby Kotick said, “In the December quarter, we will launch our strongest holiday slate ever, which is based on some of the best-selling franchises in the industry. We are excited about our holiday releases, which are all based on proven franchises, and will deliver our entire slate on schedule with strong product quality on our key titles. However, we remain cautious given the likely slowdown in consumer spending this holiday season.”

This was the first full quarter the company has experienced as a combined entity after the Activision/Vivendi merger.

The DS version of Guitar Hero, On Tour, went down quite a storm when it was released earlier this year, and now a follow-up to that success is to be released in the form of Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades.

El33tonline enjoyed the original, so this next one should be a treat as well. An Activision Blizzard statement for the game reveals:

“The game leverages the technology of its predecessor and expands the experience with a new progression taking players on a musical journey from the classics of the 1970’s through today’s greatest hits.” The game also features all master recording for the songs included while you’ll also be able to share songs between Decades and the original On Tour in the multiplayer mode.

Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades’ set list below:

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After the then-upcoming game, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand was publicly dropped from Activision Blizzard’s release line-up and put up for sale, a lot of uncertainty hung in the air surrounding the title. After the game allegedly received age certifications in the UK and Australia, again supposedly under a THQ label, it was thought that the next 50 Cent game had been officially picked up.

That is indeed the case, as THQ officially confirm it will handle publishing duties for the gun and brawl action title, featuring the titular 50 Cent and his cronies. Vice president of global brand management at THQ, Brad Carraway said:

“50 Cent is a cultural icon and one of the biggest names in hip hop. THQ is thrilled to be working with him on this exciting new title. Combining intense single player combat, drop-in and drop-out online co-op and never-before-released music tracks makes this the ultimate package for gamers and hip hop fans alike.” 50 Cent himself continued the games’ appraisal:

”Blood on the Sand has non-stop action and exclusive music tracks from me and the G-Unit that you won’t find anywhere else. Plus our fans will be able to play together with online co-op, and maybe even join me or one of the G-Unit online.”

Great. Click through for a trailer from the game:

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It’s been announced on the Sierra Community Forums that many of Sierra’s online game servers will be shut down come November 1st.

No reason for the shutdown was given, although, while the games in question are of the older variety, you can bet that the Activision/Vivendi merger had something to do with it.

Click below for the full list of games to be without official Sierra online server support, which number 21 in total, some of which you may be surprised are still even around:

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The upcoming horror shooter from veteran developer Monolith, Project Origin, has had a name change for the better - it’s now to be known as F.E.A.R. 2, now the official sequel to the first game in the series, F.E.A.R., also developed by Monolith. Confused? You should be.

In 2005, Monolith released an action horror shooter called F.E.A.R., published under the Vivendi/Sierra label who had acquired Monolith, thus owning all of their franchise branding, including the name, F.E.A.R. Monolith was then acquired by Warner Bros. This meant that, while Monolith didn’t own the rights to the F.E.A.R. brand, they did own the intellectual property as far as characters and plot were concerned. As a result, Monolith began work on a ‘spiritual’ sequel to the original F.E.A.R., but decided to name it Project Origin (a name chosen by the F.E.A.R. community), while Vivendi/Sierra began work on ‘real’ sequel, F.E.A.R. 2.

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After the recent news that not only has Midway been reducing their staff count, NCSoft and High Moon Studios face employee terminations and Scarface 2 has unofficially been canceled, you’d think we were in for some good news. The industry, and Activision-Blizzard specifically, is not done doling out bad tidings just yet, though.

Activision-Blizzard said in a statement, “Activision Blizzard is committed to making the best games possible and has elected at this time to reduce the number of titles that Radical is developing from four games to two. Therefore, we will be proportionately reducing the size of our studio.”

As a result, Radical Entertainment, known to be currently working on free-roaming action game Prototype, has had its staff reduced almost by half, according to some reports. This would then follow the news of Scarface 2’s cancellation as Radical were said to be developing the follow-up to the original, which Radical also developed. Radical will also be developing future Crash Bandicoot titles.

Is this the end of the fallout from the Activision Vivendi merger, or are we just getting started?

The Activision-Vivendi merger strikes again! Scarface 2, in development under Vivendi’s Sierra label, while never announced officially, was confirmed by Vivendi top brass to be churning along. Until recently, that is.

It’s being reported that Scarface 2 didn’t make Activision-Blizzard’s list of ‘games to make’ after their priorities were shuffled around during the merger. Scarface 2 joins a growing list of games left off of Activision’s ‘cool’ list, including the new 50 Cent game, Ghostbusters, the Bourne series and Double Fine’s Brütal Legend.

While the original game, Scarface: The World is Yours, sold around 3 million copies worldwide, it was a bit of a slow burn sales-wise, as initial reviews made it out to be slightly above average, with room for improvement on a solid game and license. A sequel was sure to patch up the inconsistencies and further take advantage of the Scarface universe. Yet another casualty of Activision-Blizzard.

Source: Variety’s Cut Scene Blog

Following on from the news that Midway were to release almost 100 people from their offices in Austin, comes similar news from both NCSoft and High Moon Studios.

NCSoft, most known for their Guild Wars series of massively multiplayer online games and, more recently, the Richard Garriott helmed effort, Tabula Rasa, has confirmed that they will be letting 21 employees go from their Austin offices, despite the denial of similar rumours.

An NCSoft spokesperson said of the lay-offs: “Primarily this is related to products which we have not previously announced and were in prototype phases. We are also cutting some positions on the Dungeon Runners team after deciding not to port the client to other platforms at this time.”

High Moon Studios on the other hand, known for Darkwatch as well as the recent Bourne game, is to release around 60 employees as a result of the Activision-Vivendi merger. Acquired by Vivendi Games in 2005, High Moon Studios is yet another casualty of the holy/unholy union, while other, now Activision-Blizzard owned studios, such as Radical Entertainment, Swordfish and Massive Entertainment, await their fate, after Activision’s statement:

“…the company intends to adapt the Vivendi Games’ studio operations to better align the studio structure against the new product slate. The company will realign staffing at Radical Entertainment and High Moon Studios.”

It’s a tough time in the industry.

Despite Activision Blizzard dropping Ghostbusters from their release schedule, developer Terminal Reality believes the game will still get a release.

Mark Randel of Terminal Reality told VG247 that “Ghostbusters will be published. That’s all I can say at the moment.”

This comment comes in the wake of Variety reporting Sony Pictures’ announcement that Ghostbusters will be released “one way or another.” After all, Sony Pictures owns the rights to Ghostbusters (licensed to Vivendi) and the film was released in 1984 which means it celebrates its 25th anniversary next year. The game is still listed on the Activision website and is marked with a 31st October release date.

Ghostbusters is in development for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, DS and PC. Terminal Reality are handling the development of the PS3, 360 and PC versions while Red Fly Studio are in charge of the DS, PS2 and Wii versions.

So, we just need a publisher now. Until then remember the first rule, don’t cross the streams!

For more information and screenshots head over to our previous coverage.