Update: An official statement has been released by Popcap, confirming layoffs and adding clarity to the situation. Text can be found in the body of the post.Say it ain't so, PopCap. The casual games giant behind notable franchises like Bejeweled, Peggle, and Plants vs Zombies may be gearing up for some layoffs in the near future - or so says the rumor mill on the internet.
Rumors are a funny thing. Sometimes so much time passes after they happen that people forgot they existed in the first place. Back in 2010, Rovio's CEO Peter Vesterbacka reportedly told a crowd at the Virtual Goods Summit that "We are not going to do a sequel. We want to surprise people. No one has told the story from the pigs point of view." That led to plenty of speculation… followed by 18 months of complete silence on the topic.
Plenty of games companies like to remain secretive about their upcoming games. That's fine, we get it. Why spread word about a game that's not quite ready for prime time yet? But when you need to beta test those games, eventually something's gonna pop up. Like this: a new game that's allegedly from Zynga that's testing in the Philippines right now under the name Big Harvest.
Tired of having to jump through third-party game networks on Android while your smug iOS friends gloat about their Game Center? According to a source that spoke with Business Insider, it looks like Google might be aiming to supply Android devices with a native Game Center-like app of their own.
According to the rumor in a Bloomberg video report this morning, South Korean free-to-play giant Nexon made a bid to purchase North American game developer, Electronic Arts. While this news in itself is pretty unexpected, the fallout so far has been equally surprising.
While they've been king of the Facebook hill for quite some time now, Zynga hasn't forgotten where their success started. The social farming simulator that could, FarmVille topped more than 80 million monthly active users as its peak, and has seen countless expansions and tie-ins ever since. It should come as little shock, then, that the big Z are looking to repeat their success with FarmVille 2 - at least if the rumors are to be believed.
When you're the CEO to the world's largest company, people tend to take notice at every action you make. So when Apple's CEO Tim Cook was reportedly spotted at game software giant Valve's main offices this Friday, rumors began to fly. The largest amongst them, according to Cult of Mac, is the possibility that Apple is working on a home videogame console. While these kinds of rumors pass by all the time, Tim Cook's meeting with Valve makes this story much more interesting.
There's a rumor flying around about a new controller coming to iOS devices. It's getting hard not to roll your eyes at this kind of news these days: new iOS controllers (such as the Fling and multiple iCade models) are just a few of the dozens of new third party peripherals announced each year. What makes this rumor different, according to Anandtech, is the fact that this new device would be made by Apple.