"Blizzard sent over a press release announcing that approximately 600 employees will be let go on a global scale. The company determined this was necessary after conducting a review of its business based on current organizational needs. Approximately 90-percent of the affected employees will come from departments not related to game development."

"Despite recent talk that Diablo 3's required Internet connection was all about the player's character and Battle.net's feature set, game director Jay Wilson made it clear that the requirement is also to prevent the same amount of hacking as seen with Diablo 2. The revelation was made while explaining why it's a bad idea to have an offline mode for the upcoming action-RPG game..."

"During an earnings call this afternoon, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime revealed the company's goals for testing and releasing the much-anticipated new chapter in the Diablo series. "[Morhaime said], 'On the Diablo 3 front, I'm pleased to report that we began internal, company-wide testing last week. The game is looking great and we are currently targeting a Q3 launch for external beta testing.

"No more mystery about if it is happening It seems that the waiting and wondering if Blizzard will finally enter the console market is coming to an end. Blizzard is confirmed to be hiring a senior producer specifically for the console version of Diablo III and they are moving forward on this project..."

"Blizzard has confirmed that it is working on a MMORPG with the working title of Titan. Blizzard cofounder and executive vice president Frank Pearce confirmed that project exists and that it is going to be out there in 2013. He refused to say anything more about it. This will be a MMORPG that will not be related to World of Warcraft and apparently has been on the drawing board since 2007." | more

"For the upcoming Diablo III, the big news is the announcement of the fifth class: the demon hunter, who will now be joining the ranks of the barbarian, witch doctor, wizard and monk. The new class will take on the role of a ranged warrior, but one that can also use a bit of dark magic as well. In fact, the demon hunter can actually acquire dark spells from defeated enemies.

"Blizzard Entertainment kicked off its annual BlizzCon expo with a bang and some rumbling with news on Diablo III and the upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft, Cataclysm. Chris Metzen, senior vice president of creative development at Blizzard, was the host of the keynote. After a lot of playing to the audience, and a little bragging on Blizzard's part (20 years of operation, 12 million WoW players, etc), he announced news on the next WoW expansion." | more

Johnny Mercer sang it best, "I really can't stay ♫ But, baby, it's cold outside ♫"

Let this be a lesson to those shameless copyright infringers. When Blizzards lawyers fine you 88 Million after only making 3 Million, you only have yourself to blame for being kicked out in the cold.

Starcraft II causes overheating problems

Blizzard has admitted that its latest Starcraft II game has a bug which can cause a GPU to go into meltdown.

The game's menu screens aren't framerate-limited which means that if the computer has nothing else to do the graphics hardware gets bored and starts to render the screens. This sounds like a good thing but actually causes overheating problems for the card.