Social networking site opens pilot program to help small and medium-sized developers release their games globally.

Facebook today announced Facebook Mobile Games Publishing, an all-new pilot program aimed at helping small and medium-sized developers release their games across the world.

In a blog post on the company's website, engineer Victor Medeiros said the games ecosystem on Facebook is "steadily growing," but with this expansion, some developers are having difficulty making their games visible to Facebook's more than 1 billion users.

"There are many developers with awesome mobile games who don¥t yet have the upfront resources for a paid strategy, and we want to help them find a path to success, too," Medeiros said.

Through the new Mobile Games Publishing program, Facebook will work with "select" game developers and provide promotional support for games across the company's suite of apps.

"This program is designed to reach people who already play games on Facebook with new games that may interest them," Medeiros said. "For example, we will help strategy game fans find strategy games and casual game enthusiasts find casual games."

Medeiros said Facebook is invested in the success of the games and, in exchange for a revenue share, will collaborate with developers to help their games reach a wide audience. Facebook will also lend analytics tools to developers that are part of the program.

Early program participants include the following:

• 5th Planet's RPG card battle game, Dawn of the Dragons
• Brainbow's puzzle-packed adventure game, Dr. Newton: The Great Brain Adventure
• Certain Affinity's pirate-themed strategy game, Age of Booty: Tactics
• Dragonplay's social poker game, Live Hold'Em
• Gameloft's medieval strategy/simulation game, Kingdoms & Lords
• Gamevil's train management simulation Train City
• KiwiGames' quest-based exploration game, Shipwrecked
• Outplay Entertainment's explore-and-battle fantasy game, Monster Legacy
• Space Ape's multiplayer combat strategy game, Samurai Siege
• WeMade Entertainment's endless-running game WINDrunner

Those interested in taking part in the Mobile Games Publishing program can apply through Facebook's website.

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Company will debut upcoming MMORPG on August 2 during SOE Live event.

Sony Online Entertainment will reveal first details on EverQuest Next at SOE Live on Friday beginning at 12 p.m. PDT, the company announced through the event's website.

The August 2 debut event will be hosted by SOE president John Smedley, development director Dave Georgeson, and other members of the production team.

The EverQuest Next event will last 90 minutes and will be streamed through the SOE Twitch channel.

EverQuest Next was announced in 2010 during SOE's Fan Faire, now known as SOE Live.

Unlike 2004's EverQuest II, the new title will not be a continuation of the events that began in the 12-year-old original. Instead, the studio is positioning EverQuest Next as a "reimagining of the EverQuest universe," one that will have "familiar faces, races, and places" but operate as an alternate dimension and with a "clean slate."

"Our task now is to take the game and evolve it and make it into something new for today's fans. And I would liken that to the brilliant job J.J. Abrams did with Star Trek¥the reimagining of it," Smedley said in 2011. "That's what we're doing, and we've got some cool new things in store for players with the next one."

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"Never forget that the internet can be a fantastic thing, but it can also be fantastically dumb," writes Gears of War designer in open letter to Phil Fish.

Veteran game designer Cliff Bleszinski has written an open letter to Fez developer Phil Fish, requesting that he stay in the games industry.

Bleszinski's post on Tumblr speaks about how the Gears of War designer has learnt to respond to criticism online, and asks Fish to make a return.

Fish announced over the weekend that he was getting away from the games industry, and said the amount of negativity he received over the internet was a factor in his decision. Fish then announced that Fez 2, which was announced at E3 2013, was cancelled.

"Never underestimate the intestinal fortitude of the anonymous loser hiding behind a monitor and his or her ability to sling vitriol at someone who willingly puts themselves out there," said Bleszinski.

"The fact of the matter, Phil, is that you were trending worldwide on Twitter. How many game developers can say that? Does no-one realize that while you may seem somewhat unstable at times you also have Andy Kaufman as your Twitter AVI? (Kids, google Andy, and suddenly Phil might just make more sense to you. Or watch 'Man On The Moon.')"

"Never forget that the internet can be a fantastic thing, but it can also be fantastically dumb. Reddit is a wonderful community for finding out funny memes or random facts until they falsely accuse someone of being the Boston Bomber or go out of their way to protect the r/creepshots loser. And never forget that the Internet can be one big game of telephone amplified by anonymous myopic monkeys jamming on keyboards who are so angry about their meatball sandwich."

"You don¥t owe a damned thing to any gaming journalist. We¥ve seen the rise of many 'Rush Limbaughs' in the gaming industry, people who do videos or podcasts digging a finger into an open wound that gets the gaming community going because, hits. You DO owe a great product to your community, something I hope you¥ll resume doing some time in the near future. The industry needs people like you to speak with their hearts before their brains because I¥m tired of hearing the PR approved appropriate response. I¥m tired of games that feel like they¥ve been developed by focus groups or clueless executives going 'Hey that Call of Duty is big, we need one of those!'"

"Besides, at the end of the day, that cycle of community feedback and crafting that big fireball is entirely too addictive."

"Come back, Phil," concluded Bleszinski. "We miss you already. Maybe I¥ll be right behind you, returning with Adamantium skin."

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Konami launching demo July 31 through Steam for Ultimate Edition of upcoming action title; full game due August 27.

Konami will release a demo for the Ultimate Edition of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow on PC tomorrow, the company announced through the game's Facebook page recently. Mercury Steam's action game was originally released only for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2010.

Lords of Shadow for PC, due out in full on August 27, will include expansions Reverie and Resurrection, as well as 1080p graphics at 60 frames per second.

The game will be available on Steam, where players can unlock achievements and make use of cloud saves.

In addition, Lords of Shadow for the PC features new storylines, weapons, skills, battles, and environments not found in the original console game.

For more on the original Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, check out GameSpot's review. Mercury Steam is currently at work on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, due out this winter.

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BioShock creator Ken Levine confirms he is writing script for new Warner Bros. sci-fi movie, says original was a major inspiration for his body of work.

BioShock creator Ken Levine saw 1976 sci-fi film Logan's Run as a ten-year old and the experience would end up inspiring nearly his total body of professional work, the industry veteran has revealed.

At a Boston event this week, GameSpot asked Levine if he would consider working in a medium other than games. As an answer, he confirmed he is working with Warner Bros. on a Logan's Run remake and explained the impact that movie had on his professional career.

"It was the first dystopia story I ever saw and if you know my games, obviously it had a huge impact on me," Levine said. "So I actually talked to [Warner Bros.] and I sort of forced them to give me the job because I said there is no person on earth who spent more time thinking about Logan's Run and spent more of his career sort of doing things that came off that experience [I] had ten years old seeing this movie that I feel, in the same way whether it's art deco or it's [Ayn Rand] or American exceptionalism or whatever it is or quantum mechanics, I want to make things that aren't particularly popular or interesting to people."

"I think Logan's Run, because it's such a 70s goofy thing, I think there's a story in there that there's a real good story there that needs to be told," he added. "And it's certainly inspired almost my entire career."

Levine said he has not officially started writing for the new Logan's Run movie yet, but he is signed up to do it.

The original Logan's Run was based on a 1967 novel from William F. Nolan and George Clayton John, which depicts a dystopian society set in 2116 wherein all people must agree to be executed at age 21 in an effort to control population.

The 1976 film was directed by Michael Anderson and starred Michael York, Richard Jordan, and Jenny Agutter.

Levine and Irrational Games are currently working on BioShock Infinite downloadable content Burial at Sea - Episode One and Burial at Sea - Episode Two, the latter of which will allow gamers to play as Elizabeth in Rapture.

Both expansions will launch in 2014.

Looking further ahead, Irrational Games has no announced games, and Levine said earlier this year that he has "no idea" what the studio will make next.

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CD Projekt Red game director says studio's hope is for "every inch of the world to be interesting and believable."

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt aims to redefine the open-world genre by making "every inch" of the gameworld compelling and believable, according to to game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz.

"Think about closed-world games," Tomaszkiewicz told Examiner. "Their storytelling is usually quite good because fewer possibilities for gamers mean that developers can plan more and concentrate solely on the finite number of locations in the game."

"We want to take that quality and extend it to an open world," he added. "We want every inch of the world you'll traverse to be interesting and believable. That's our way of redefining [the open-world genre]."

To do this, Tomaszkiewicz said CD Projekt Red must deliver new experiences to gamers within the world as they travel between in-game destinations.

"There was a time when open world gameplay meant that you just had to travel from point A to point B with nothing to do in between," he said."Nowadays, there's like a second game between point A and B. If you want, you can forget that point B even exists."

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt launches in 2014 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. For more, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.

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Three top executives reported to have exited Zynga in the last month, reports Bloomberg.

Social gaming giant Zynga has lost three of its top executives in a single month, according to a new report on Bloomberg.

The three departures have not been made public, reports Bloomberg, but are said to include senior vice president John Osvald, casino division vice president Jesse Janosov, and vice president Nathan Etter.

The trio of reported exits follow the start of Don Mattrick's career at the company as Zynga's CEO. Mattrick joined Zynga earlier this month, and is set to earn $40 million over the next three years.

Last week Zynga announced a $15.8M loss for the second quarter of 2013, while daily users of its social games have fallen by 45 per cent over the last 12 months.

"Getting a business back on track isn¥t easy and isn¥t quick," said Mattrick in response to company's financials. "We have a lot of hard work in front of us but I believe we can succeed as a team and Zynga can do this."

"There¥s no denying we¥re not where we want to be. We¥ve not met our investors¥ expectations, we¥ve not met our own expectations, and most importantly, we¥ve not met our players¥ expectations."

"But there¥s also no denying that we have what it takes to get back to winning."

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