London's Patents County Court has ordered an unidentified woman to pay nearly $30,000 in fines to Topware Interactive for illegally sharing one of the studio's games online, according to a Telegraph report spotted by MCV.

The woman, who is among the first to be sued for copyright violation in the United Kingdom by a game company, was fined damages of £6086.56 ($11,325) and costs and disbursements of £10,000 ($18,607) for distributing Topware's Dream Pinball 3D.

The ruling establishes a strong precedent for further action against copyright violators. London law firm Davenport Lyons, which represents Topware Interactive, is also pursuing civil proceedings against 100 people suspected of illegally uploading copyrighted software.

"Illegal file-sharing is a very serious issue resulting in millions of pounds of losses to copyright owners," said Davenport Lyons senior partner David Gore. "As downloading speeds and internet penetration increase, this continues to be a ... Read more

The recently formed PC Gaming Alliance industry consortium today unveiled the initial results from its first Horizons Report, highlighting what PCGA president Randy Stude refers to as "incredible growth in online PC Gaming."

According to the report, PC gaming was a $10.7 billion industry in 2007, with sales from digital distribution nearing $2 billion and in-game and web advertising bringing in $800 million. Online PC gaming brought in $4.8 billion, almost double that of retail PC sales.

"Our analysis clearly shows incredible growth in online PC gaming, proof that this industry is far stronger than anyone has reported," explained Stude. "Today's consumers shop where they live--online."

Overall, the study found that growth was driven by online revenue from Asia, which accounted for almost half of the total worldwide sales, and noted that revenues are expected to grow as developers embrace online distribution and other opportunities.

"By pioneering new business models, the PC has quietly remained the single leading platform for games, not only in terms of consumer usage, but revenue generation," commented DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole. "The most fascinating thing about PC gaming is its ability to attract such a diverse audience, both demographically and geographically."

Some 70% of professionals in the game development industry are currently at work on games for the PC, according to survey data presented by Game Developer Research.

The survey sampled 2,000 game development professionals from North America and elsewhere, in which 70% of participants said that they were currently developing titles bound for PC and Mac. 43% are creating games for consoles and 28% for web-based platforms, while just 16% of those sampled working on titles for handheld platforms.

Among the console developers, 73% of those responding to the survey are working on titles for the Xbox 360, followed by 58%—which includes some of those same Xbox 360 developers—working on PlayStation 3. 42% of participants reported work on the Wii, while 15% are creating games for the PlayStation 2.

Within those developers working on handheld platforms, the Nintendo DS held the lion's share of the raw numbers with 75% of the developers working on the system. 45% reported development on the PSP.

While ATI launches new hardware, rival Nvidia today released a new set of drivers that adds support for AGEIA's PhysX physics acceleration technology to the existing GeForce 8, GeForce 9, and GeForce GTX 200-series cards.

The new drivers are part of the free GeForce Power Pack, which also contains a PhysX-enabling mod for Epic's Unreal Tournament 3, the full version of NetDevil's physics-heavy title Warmonger, and a few tech demos, including a fluid simulation.

In addition, the drivers add PhysX support for the PC version of GRIN and Ubisoft Paris' Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. The functionality comes after Nvidia announced plans to acquire AGEIA earlier this year, with many developers since pledging support.

Left, Warmonger. Right, Unreal Tournament 3.

"Seeing really is believing and is the reason why we compiled all of this great PhysX content into a free download," commented GeForce GPU general manager Ujesh Desai. "We can't wait for our customers to jump in, get wet, and tell... Read more

Hardware manufacturer ATI has launched the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, which it boasts as "the fastest and most powerful graphics card available today." That statement, ATI explained, is based on the card's "extreme top score of 6920" in the 3DMark Vantage v.101 benchmarking tool.

The dual-GPU card packs two HD 4800 graphic chips, said to provide "2.4 teraFLOPS of GPU power," and 2GB of GDDR5 memory. To illustrate the card's performance, ATI provided the above benchmarks, comparing the HD 4870 X2 to rival Nvidia's GTX 280.

At present, the HD 4870 X2 is only available from online system builders such as Alienware and Falcon Northwest, carrying a suggested price of $549, with the card expected to hit retailers shortly.

A pared-down version that sports 1GB of GDDR3 memory, dubbed the Radeon HD 4850 X2, is slated to hit in September for around $399, according to TechReport.

Complete details on 4870 X2 and the benchmark machine follow... Read more

Per its weekly tradition, research firm NPD has provided its regular update on the sales of PC software at North American retailers, this time covering July 27 to August 2.

After topping the charts for the past few weeks, Her's Nancy Drew was bested by EA Maxis' regular chart resident The Sims 2 Double Deluxe. Both EA and Blizzard continued their usual domination, with each responsible for 4 of the week's best sellers.

1. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
2. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice / Her Interactive / $19 (Average)
3. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
4. Spore Creature Creator / EA Maxis / $10 (Average)
5. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
6. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $20 (Average)
7. Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
8. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / Infinity Ward / $43 (Average)
9. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $30 (Average)
10. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)

Steadily decreasing PC software figures have prompted acclaimed Doom and Quake creator id Software to focus more on consoles than PCs for the future, id president John Carmack has revealed.

"It's hard to second guess exactly what the reasons are. You can say piracy. You can say user migration," Carmack told Tom's Games at this year's QuakeCon. "But the ground truth is just that the sales numbers on the PC are not what they used to be and are not what they are on the consoles."

The statement follows remarks made by id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead at last year's Game Developer's Conference, where he claimed that that "piracy has pushed id as being multiplatform" at last year's Game Developers Conference.

"We still think the PC is a market worth supporting, but we're not making decisions around the PC," Carmack added. "It's probably more of the junior partner in... Read more

PCs are used for gaming more than any console and PlayStation 3 owners are more likely to have multiple consoles, according to the results of the Games Segmentation 2008 report from sales tracking and research firm The NPD Group.

In addition to stating that PlayStation 3 owners are most likely to have other "next-generation" consoles than Wii and Xbox 360 owners, NPD claimed that only 10% of PS2 owners have a PS3. In the realm of portables, 45% of PSP owners have a Nintendo DS, but only 21% of DS owners have a PSP.

Despite the broad declarations, NPD did not provide specific figures for console and PC playtime. Likewise, an exact breakdown showing the ownership patterns of those that have multiple "next-generation" consoles was absent from the release.

Using information gathered back in January and February, the report... Read more

10.0? Whatever.

Game of the year? Who cares.

During the course of any PC game, there is only one grading category that really matters--a single moment that will determine whether we'll be coming back.

Tasking out. Alt-tabbing. Minimizing. Whatever you want to call it, it is the ultimate litmus test--when great games rise to the top, and other great games show their truly annoying colors.

Take Half-Life 2 and the Source engine, sworn enemy of multitaskers everywhere.

The Source engine is like the kind of ancient Macintosh computer you'd find in an elementary school: sticky to the touch, and always thirty seconds behind... Read more

Taiwan-based computer hardware maker Asus has released a new Wii-like controller called the Eee Stick (pictured left), which promises to bring motion controls to PC gaming.

Going by information reported by Register Hardware, the controller includes an "Activation stick" with seven buttons, paired with a "Navigation stick" equipped with an analog stick. Both components appear to incorporate additional buttons on the front ends of the units, much like the Z and C buttons on the Wii Nunchuck controller.

The device is said to support 3D motion, pointing and tilt sensing. Both components of the Eee Stick broadcast a 2.4GHz RF signal to a USB dongle connected to a PC, and do not required to be tethered to one another. The peripheral is powered by a total of four AA batteries, two in each stick.

The Eee Stick is slated to arrive alongside future iterations of Asus' Eee PC and Eee Box computer hardware, packed with a series of titles designed to make use of the controller. No release date was immediately available.

A new chip unveiled by hardware maker Intel is hoping to take graphics processing back to the x86 instruction set while still offering DirectX and OpenGL support, according to TechReport. The chip will be offered as discrete chip on motherboards as well as a standalone processor to compete directly with the GeForce and Radeon products.

Dubbed "Larrabee", the chip was unveiled at this year's SIGGRAPH conference and sports a variety of new technical features, including a fully coherent memory subsystem which allows for more efficient multi-chip implementation.

Should the x86-based graphical rendering capabilities prove viable to developers, Larrabee could serve as a cost-efficient alternative to expensive PC video cards, such as those produced by AMD and Nvidia. TechReport explains the chip... Read more

Capcom corporate officer Christian Svensson revealed that the PC edition of the company's demon-slaying action title Devil May Cry 4 (PC, PS3, 360) saw poor sales since it debuted early last month, owing in some part to rampant piracy of the game.

"It's not doing as well as I would like in the US at retail," Svensson wrote on Capcom's official blog. "It's such a good version and it really deserves better sales. I know it's getting pirated to hell and back (it was up on torrents literally the day it shipped)."

The executive added that he had pushed for more prolific digital distribution of Devil May Cry 4's PC incarnation, but was stonewalled by Capcom Japan. Despite the frustration, Svennson reiterated his commitment to bringing more Capcom titles to... Read more

Games using hardware-intensive ray tracing technology could appear in the next two to three years, according to PC component maker Intel.

"I dare say that in two to three years time we will see something [using ray tracing from game developers]," Intel engineering manager Michael Vollmer told PCGH.

Ray tracing calculates how light interacts with objects, including proper reflections and shadows. The results are often described as photo-realistic (see example above), with the process used create computer-generated effects in films and television shows.

Intel had previously demonstrated a version of Raven Software's Quake 4 that utilized ray traced graphics, which some criticized for not showing a marked improvement. However, Vollmer noted that "a complete demo, which contains the graphical aspect, too, is likely to look different."

"Ray tracing [for games] is still in an early stage," he stressed, noting that though it has "all the basic features already, like shadow cast, surface reflections," the transition to a new technology is often slow and laborious.

Earnings from Electronic Arts' PC and PlayStation 3 publishing and development businesses contributed to net revenue of $804 million in the company's fiscal year 2009 first quarter, the publisher revealed today.

The figure marks a $409M year-over-year increase above EA's 2008 Q1 revenue of $395M, led by PlayStation 3 sales amounting to $139M. PC software followed at $86M, while Xbox 360 sales came in third with $81M in the quarter ending June 30, 2008.

Meanwhile, net loss for the quarter was $95 million, down from $132... Read more

During an investor conference call today, EA Sports president Peter Moore offered new details on the studio's attempts to reinvigorate its PC sports title offerings.

"We are retooling these titles [on the PC] to take advantage of the online connectivity in a bigger and more meaningful way," Moore said today, noting that EA's usual sports offerings--Madden, NCAA Football, NBA Live, etc.--will reappear on PC in 2009.

He also said the company is toying with subscription programs to reward players, but offered no further details on either subjects.

EA Sports had previously announced that several EA Sports franchises would not appear on PC this year, citing "serious business challenges" and a... Read more

Electronic Arts amassed over $90 million in direct digital sales in the first quarter of its 2008 fiscal year, the company announced today.

The sales figures include revenue generated by the company's EA Store, which offers direct downloads of its catalog of PC titles and a variety of games for mobile phones, as well as games and content on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network.

In addition to games, the company also offers music via the EA Store's EA Trax division, serving direct downloads of soundtracks from such titles as EA Maxis' SimCity Societies and EA Montreal's Army of Two.

Soundtracks featuring licensed music such as the Madden NFL and NBA Live series are offered via Apple's iTunes music download service, and are likely not counted as part of the $90 million revenue figure.

Publisher Electronic Arts is planning to sell a line of PCs that will be branded and marketed as machines that can handle Crytek's beefy PC shooter Crysis.

The computers will come in several configurations, and will be released alongside Crytek's upcoming stand-alone expansion Crysis Warhead, according to some blogger.

While Crytek has mainly blamed Crysis' modest sales on PC piracy, many have pointed to the game's demanding system requirements as another culprit. Crytek has been working to optimize the engine and increase framerates for the Warhead expansion.

Crysis Warhead is scheduled for a September release.

Now that the multiplayer features of Games for Windows Live-enabled PC titles are entirely free, Microsoft says it will refund subscription fees to Gold-level Live subscribers, Games for Windows senior global director Kevin Unangst has revealed.

"There will be a benefit for customers who purchased gold subscriptions on Windows," Unangst told Ars Technica. "Proactively, we will be offering refunds for those with Windows-specific Gold subscriptions. Customer service has already begun to get communications prepared."

Many Games for Windows-branded PC titles including Bungie's Halo 2 and FASA Interactive's Shadowrun required a subscription to make use of features such as matchmaking and cross-platform play, effectively requiring a subscription for functional online multiplayer experience.

Games for Windows Live formerly featured a pricing structure similar to that of the Xbox 360's Xbox Live online platform, with Gold subscriptions costing $49.99 for a year, $19.99 for three months and $7.99 for a one-month subscription.

Earlier today Microsoft announced that all Games for Windows Live features will now be available for free, in addition to revealing a PC digital distribution marketplace that will launch this fall.

Later on, we had the chance to speak with Games for Windows senior global director Kevin Unangst on the announcement. Read on for the result of our extensive chat, which covered digital distribution, the changes to Games for Windows, and how Microsoft is thinking about the PC platform going forward.

Kevin Unangst: I think what Steam and Valve are doing is great for the PC, and I think they've been successful so far. I think there are areas in which we believe we will offer more value, not only to gamers but to publishers. So in some areas we will compete. But overall that's what's great about Windows--publishers and consumers get to choose. So there's plenty of room for more than one system on the platform. Read more..

Software giant Microsoft today revealed details concerning DirectX 11, the latest edition of its PC gaming graphics API.

Similar to DirectX 10, the software will be available only on Windows Vista and future versions of Microsoft's operating system. DirectX 11 will add new compute shader technology that Microsoft says will allow GPUs to be used "for more than just 3D graphics," allowing developers to utilize video cards as parallel processors.

DirectX 11 will support tessellation, a feature which can potentially assist developers in making models appear smoother when seen up close. Multi-threaded resource handling is also incorporated, making it easier for games to utilize... Read more