Blog Posts by Chris Morris

Halo's Master ChiefIf you've been itching to play the new game from Bungie, the creators of Halo, you won't have to wait too much longer.

The company's new title, codenamed "Destiny," is scheduled to hit store shelves next fall, and should be playable on both the Xbox 360 and Microsoft's still officially unannounced next-generation system.

Details of the game came out when a contract between Bungie and game publisher Activision was made public as part of the ongoing lawsuit between Activision and Call of Duty founders Jason West and Vince Zampella.

Even in an industry where leaks are commonplace, this is a huge one.

The trading debut of Facebook didn't exactly burst out of the gate like many people expected. But while the company was getting pounded in mid-day trading Monday,  shares of "tracking" stocks -- companies people invested in to own a piece of Facebook before it went public -- have suffered terribly in its wake.

None more so than fellow social giant Zynga.

Zynga shares closed down 14 percent Friday, briefly touching an all-time low. And Monday didn't start off much better. Zynga was down another 6.5 percent in early trading, hitting yet another all-time low of $6.40 per share, though they had rebounded to nearly even territory by the end of trading as bargain hunters stepped in.

Curt Schilling (Getty Images)Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling shocked a lot of people when he launched a video game studio following his retirement from baseball. Today, he might be wishing that he hadn't followed that dream.

38 Studios, who partnered with EA earlier this year to release its debut title, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, is in the midst of a severe financial crisis. The developer was unable to pay its 379 employees this week, and is behind in making repayments to the state of Rhode Island, which loaned the company $75 million in 2010.

Jason West and Vince Zampella (Getty Images)One of the ugliest lawsuits in the video game industry's history has been settled just days before going to court, but the legal fireworks may not be over yet.

Activision and Electronic Arts have settled their differences over Jason West and Vince Zampella, former heads of Infinity Ward and creators of the Call of Duty franchise and "agreed to put this matter behind them," the two publishers said in a joint statement.

The peaceful resolution is a far cry from the mudslinging that has been going on since 2010, when Activision accused EA of "poaching" the developers, who were under contract. (It escalated things by suing EA in December of that year.)

Halo 4 (Microsoft)Microsoft and 343 Industries aren't waiting for E3 to start spilling the beans about their biggest game of 2012.

Pre-orders for Halo 4 went on sale today, and to help pump up interest in the game, the publisher and developer have released a lot of details about the game's multiplayer, a live-action digital series and the obligatory special edition.

It's been 12 years since Blizzard last released an installment of its popular Diablo franchise, but judging by the enormous demand that today's release of Diablo III is seeing, it might as well have been yesterday.

The game unlocked at midnight Tuesday. Despite the late hour, however, players quickly overwhelmed the game's servers, extending the pain of people who have been waiting to wear out their index fingers on the clickfest.

Diablo III launched in multiple territories, which caused the Battle.net servers (required to authenticate the game before owners can play it) to buckle. That resulted in a dreaded "Error 37" message, forcing players to log in again, a stalling tactic to make the queue more orderly.

Not so fast...With the circus-like E3 expo less than three weeks away (listen closely and you can hear the collective gaming industry screaming in excitement/terror), you'd think the focus would be on 2012.

But with game sales on track right now to hit a six-year low, developers and publishers certainly want this year to end on an uptick, right? Well, of course, they do, but more and more, 2013 is looking like the year where things are going to get really interesting.

Square Enix's decision to delay the reboot of Tomb Raider until next year was the second big push back this year. Last week, Take-Two Interactive Software announced that Bioshock Infinite would miss its original October 16, 2012 release