Who needs melodramatic TV shows when you can just follow what's going on behind the scenes at video-game-publishing studios?  

News Blips:

Activision amends its lawsuit against former employees Jason West and Vince Zampella (who worked on Modern Warfare 2), by adding Electronic Arts and others to the list of defendants. Activision alleges that the various parties conspired to get West and Zampella out of their contract. EA responded to the legal action with company spokesman Jeff Brown telling the LA TImes that, "This is a PR play filled with pettiness and deliberate misdirection. Activision wants to hide the fact that they have no credible response to the claim of two artists who were fired and now just want to get paid for their work." Is it me, or is this whole situation is shaping up to be great material for a documentary film? [Industry Gamers]

Humble Bundle, Inc. adds last year's collection of games to this year's Humble Indie Bundle deal. The first 180,000 customers who already paid (or didn't) for their games this year can now grab the other titles -- including World of Goo, Aquaria, and more -- for free, or they can add on to their initial donation. New buyers need to donate more than the current average amount (currently set at $7.51) to get both bundles. If you or your friends have never really played any indie games before, this is seriously a great and economical place to start. [Humble Indie Bundle]

Microsoft is discounting several popular Xbox Live Arcade games for its Countdown to New Year's Eve with Xbox Live promotion. From now until the end of the year, Live members can pick up Super Meat Boy, Comic Jumper, Castle Crashers, and more for 33-50 percent off. Plus, Microsoft is giving away a couple of 50-inch 3-D HDTV and other goodies in a sweepstakes. It looks like cheapskate gamers (like me) are gonna have quite the happy holidays.  

A study by research firm Newzoo shows that U.S. consumers spent $24.7 billion on video games this year (which doesn't include hardware sales) -- a figure that's down 2 percent from 2009. Interestingly, they found that shoppers in 2010 are spending significantly less money on traditional console and handheld games (including downloadable content) than last year. Instead, they're putting those dollars toward MMOs, social-networking games, and PC and Mac downloadable titles which all saw a growth in sales. In other words, don't expect these Farmville and Mafia Wars games to go away anytime soon. [Gamasutra]

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