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Stardock has released it's promised next major update for its Impulse digital distribution platform. "Phase 2" of Impulse adds a number of games from publisher 2K Games to its line-up, including Civilizations III, Shattered Union, Sid Meier's Pirates! and Sid Meier's Railroads! The update also adds the new enhanced version of Tilted Mill's Children of the Nile to the game line-up along with a number of other non-game PC software applications for download and purchase.

As we previously reported, Phase 2 of Impulse also adds a number of new features including ImpulseReactor which will allow developers to add things like matchmaking , cloud computing, rankings, achievements, multiplayer, NAT negotiation, and more. The recentStardock strategy game The Political Machine 2008 will be the first game to have the new Impulse Reactor feature. Also a private beta of MyImpulse has begun which will allow any developer to submit a game or other program for sale via Impulse. According to the press release, "A team of Impulse moderators evaluate the submission and (if accepted) could go live within one business day."

Earlier this week we reported on the massive success of the 2008 Leipzig Games Convention which announced that the five day trade and consumer video/PC game event in Leipzig, Germany had brought in 203,000 attendees last week. The organizers announced their 2009 dates and even hinted at plans for a North American expansion.

Well, the organizers of the Cologne based GAMEScon came out with their own statement, basically saying, "Leipzig is doomed." The event was announced last year by the industry consortium BIU and will be held in Cologne on September 9-13. Gamasutra reports that the organizers of the event claim to have broad industry support, adding, "Whatever happens in Germany in 2009 outside of Cologne cannot claim to represent this sector." Ouch. Them's fightin' words. We should see in a few months which German games convention comes out on top.

The NPD Group's weekly list of the top 10 best selling PC games in retail stores just got released for the week ending August 16 and, well, it's bascially the same as last week with a few shifted positions. We should get some new games beginning in September when the flood of new titles comes out and . . . hey, there's a nifty gallery feature here at Big Download that goes over all of those games. What are the odds?

1. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
3. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
4. Spore Creature Creator - Electronic Arts
5. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice - Her Interactive
6. World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - Blizzard
7. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff - Electronic Arts
8. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
9. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision
10. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard

Recently, UK based Slitherine Software announced plans to self-publish their own games beginning in 2009. Today the company announced yet another direction as they have entered into an agreement to make games based on Horrible Histories, the well known children's book series.

Published by Scholastic, the series has sold 20 million copies since 1993 with author Terry Deary and illustrator Martin Brown attempting to make history fun for kids "by focusing on the bits kids don't get taught at school." The games from Slitherine will be released for the PC and other platforms in spring 2009. There's no word yet on what form of game it will take.

Gold farming. It's a phrase that MMO gamers know well and one that most MMO publishers hate. People who don't play games but just gather virtual loot in games to sell to other (lazy) MMO players is publicly denounced but there's no doubt that there's a market for such a service.

Now the BBC web site reports that a new study claims that gold farming worldwide is worth $500 million. The study, from Professor Richard Heeks of UK based Manchester University, claims that nearly 500,000 people are employed in the gold farming business with the vast majority in China. The story doesn't state how the professor came by his figures and even he seems to doubt his numbers, stating that it could be twice as large as his study says.

Last week, Electronic Arts let its hostile takeover attempt of fellow game publisher Take Two Interactive expire but stated they were still open to some kind of chat between the two rivals for some kind of deal. Now comes word (via a new filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission) that EA has put a gag on itself on any further public discussion on the subject thanks to entering a confidentiality agreement with each other.

We will let EA's own words speak for themselves: "As a result, EA does not intend to make any further announcements regarding the status of any discussions or negotiations with Take-Two unless and until discussions between EA and Take-Two have been terminated or such parties have entered into a transaction." There. That should about do it for now.

Earlier today we reported on the apparent lack of support the upcoming 2008 E For All Expo has with game publishers with the vast majority of those companies currently having no plans to attend the Oct.3-5 event in Los Angeles. After the posting of our article Big Download has gotten some updated information as PR reps for Ubisoft, Activision, Namco Bandai and 2K Games have all told use they have no current plans to attend. 2K Games was an exhibitor at last year's E For All.

In addition we have learned that another publisher, Eidos have not yet decided on whether or not they will be attending E For All this year. We have once again attempted to contact the PR rep for E For All's organizer the IDG World Expo for comment but so far they have not yet sent us a response.

Late on Thursday Ziff Davis announced that it was canceling plans to hold its New York City based consumer electronic trade show DigitalLife for 2008, only a few weeks before the show was scheduled to occur on September 24-28. The company cited "poor economic conditions" as the reason for the cancellation. Now Big Download has learned that yet another major consumer show, the video/PC game oriented E For All Expo, is having trouble convincing most game publishers to attend its second annual event. It's currently scheduled to be held on October 3-5 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

E For All Expo held its first event last October, also at the LA Convention Center. Its organizers, the IDG World Expo, had previously stated in interviews they were hoping for between 20,000 and 30,000 attendees but in the end the first show only had 18,000 people show up, according to a IDG World Expo press release. Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Konami, THQ and 2K Games were the only major game publishers that exhibited at last year's inaugural event. Intel also attended as an exhibitor.

It's all over in Germany but the organizers of the just completed 2008 Leipzig Game Convention are bragging about their attendance numbers. The event brought in a total of 203,000 people over the five day event last week, according to a press release from the convention.

Dates for the 2009 Leipzig Games Convention are already set; it will be held in its traditional time period of August 19-23. The press release claims that the vast majority of the games industry want the convention to stay in Leipzig. That's interesting considering that the industry consortium BIU voted last year not to back the Leipzig convention in favor of a new 2009 event, GAMEScon, in the larger city of Cologne. It should be interesting to see which event wins out. In the meantime Games Convention organizers are holding their second annual Asia event next month and they strongly hinted at plans for a US based event, stating, "After the Southeast Asian Games Convention, we are now focusing on the North American market."

Electronic Arts' sports head Peter Moore may not be terribly popular with PC sports gamers thanks to his controversial decision this year to cut most PC ports from EA Sports' 2009 line up. However Moore has now come out against going after PC game file-shares via lawsuits.

Moore made these comments because of a report in the UK earlier this week that five developer/publishers (Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemasters) sent word to 25,000 UK residents to pay a £300 settlement fee for downloading their games without paying for them.

Moore, however, doesn't believe in such tactics telling Gamesindustry.biz that while he is against PC game piracy, "I'm not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer. Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property, I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers." Moore believes that the music industry suffered from similar tactics and, "Speaking personally, I think our industry does not want to fall foul of what happened with music."

It was one of the biggest consumer electronic shows in the US but it seems having over 54,700 attendees in 2007 wasn't enough for Ziff Davis to continue hosting the New York City based DigitalLife event. The show, which was scheduled to be held in just a few weeks (September 25-28) has been canceled, according to a News.com story.

The story used an email from a Ziff Davis exec as its source, who stated that "poor economic conditions" was the reason for the pull out for 2008. He did add, "Hopefully, a bigger and stronger DigitalLife will return in 2009." The company recently came out of Chapter 11 bankrupcy. DigitalLife always had a strong gaming presense (it even hosted pro gaming tournaments on the show floor) and reportedly Ziff Davis was going to put more of an emphasis on gaming for the 2008 editiion before today's decision.

The biggest game retailer in the US, Gamestop, announced its earnings for the second quarter of 2008 today and basically said, "Recession? What recession." Revenue was a whopping $1.8 billion for the quarter compared to $1.3 billion for the same period a year ago. Profits were $57.2 million for the quarter, nearly triple the amount at the same period a year ago when Gamestop had $21.8 million in profits.

Gamestop is raising its expectations for the full year of 2008 based on the performace of its second quarter sales, and they expect sales of games like Spore, Call of Duty: World at War and Lego Batman to help increase Gamestop sales.

A major hurdle has been passed in any kind of merger between Electronic Arts and Take Two Interactive. In a note on their web site, the Federal Trade Commission has stated that after looking at the possible deal to see if it violated any anti-trust laws it has concluded that "no additional action by the Commission is warranted at this time" and they now consider the matter closed..

EA let its formerly hostile takeover bid for Take Two expire earlier this week but now the two publishers are in talks to perhaps have some joint operations. Take Two has agreed to meet with EA to give them some confidential info about their financial numbers and future plans.

[Via Joystiq]

In what might prove to be the most meta post ever, I'm going to talk about gaming journalism and how it's changed in recent years. Now, the mainstream media -- by which I refer to traditional magazines like Time and Life, and news outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times -- have always worked diligently to maintain a high-quality standard for themselves. As a collective, they follow the rules set down in regulatory tomes such as the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook. Of course, every publication has its own house style to which its writers must adhere, but by and large there are many generally accepted guidelines concerning tone, editorial slant, and the like.

As video games grew as a phenomenon, it quickly became evident that the mainstream press wasn't going to give it the coverage its enthusiast audience demanded. Typically adopting an outsider's approach, traditional news outlets left their coverage at "Here's a new trend. It's kind of strange and we don't understand it, but the kids seem to like it." This journalistic void left the field wide open for a new generational voice to inhabit.