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The retail gaming web site GoGamer.com is at it again with its latest price cut sale. This particular one lasts until 3 am Tuesday and is filled with lots of PC games, both new and old. Perhaps the one that will generate the most interest is Left 4 Dead which can be picked up for $29.90 during the sale.

Other games on sale at GoGamer include the just released Overlord 2 for $34.90, The Sims 3 for $37.90 and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for $19.90. You can also grab some older games at rock bottom prices including Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for just $5.90 and the original Call of Juarez for a mere $4.90.

It looks like game publisher Midway will soon by no more. A story on the Chicago Tribune web site reports that Warner Bros. has been cleared by a Delaware bankruptcy judge to purchase two of Midway's development studios (Chicago and Seattle) along with most of the company's IPs, including the Mortal Kombat franchise. As previously announced Warner Bros. will pay $33 million for those assets.

And what about the other two Midway studios not bought by Warner Bros. (the ones in the UK and San Diego)? Our sister site Joystiq reports via a Midway spokesperson that they are required by law to shut down the studios within 60 days. There's no word yet if any other companies might be interested in acquiring those studios but the UK studio is trying to promote their own open world action game, Necessary Force, as a last ditch attempt to get a publisher to buy their studio.

Most of the time we really don't care about new trademarks filed by game companies. Quite frankly, filing trademarks is easy; it's making the games that's the hard part. However we will make a small exception for this mention of a new trademark from Blizzard Entertainment who seems to milk its previous IPs (Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo) for all they are worth (which is quite a bit actually).

According to game trademark-hunting web site superannuation, Blizzard has put in a trademark for "Catalysm" that will cover "computer games, paper-based products, and online games". Our sister site WoW.com hints that the name could be used for an upcoming World of Warcraft expansion pack or it could be used for . . . something else. Anyway, as we said, it's not the title that's really important . . is it?

One of the biggest and most well known web sites that deals in pirated software, including PC games, is going legit. Today The Pirate Bay announced that they have been bought out by Global Gaming Factory X for $7.8 million. The new owners have state they will now compensate companies that have their products downloaded from the site.

This represents a major shift in the BitTorrent based file sharing site. Earlier this year the four founders of the Sweden-based site were sentenced to one year in prison and nearly $1 million in fines each for allowing pirated software and other files to be traded on their site. On their official blog, The Pirate Bay stated, "The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets."

Blizzard has said that they are still targeting the release of their sci-fi RTS game StarCraft II for the end of 2009. However Gamasutra is reporting that one analyst believes there are signs that the game could be pushed back to 2010.

Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey is basing those thoughts on a comment over at Kotaku where StarCraft II's lead designer Dustin Browder stated that the beta for the game will last "four to six months" Since the beta has yet to begin that time table will make a fall/holiday 2009 release for the full game very close indeed for publisher Activision Blizzard. Because of this, Hickey claims, "We find it increasingly probably that the game will be released in [Activision's] fiscal '10 period."

Hickey even sees weakness in Blizzard's huge MMO hit World of Warcraft, saying, "We view looming competition in the West from new MMORPGs as a greater threat to WoW's future."

With outlets like Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive, GameTap, GamersGate already out there there is no lack of places you can download PC games. Now publisher Playlogic has decided to enter this crowded market with their own entry, GamEssence (and yes, that is how they are choosing to spell it on their site).

The site's selection of titles is pretty sparse at the moment with just 41 games to choose from. The games come from either Playlogic itself orfrom another publisher Microids. However Playlogic states in their press release that they plan to expand GamEssence to include hundreds of titles from third party publishers. It will be interesting to see if this new venture will make any headway against the already established brands.

Earlier this month Big Huge Games was saved from being shut down by its owner THQ via a purchase by 38 Studios. However it appears that one of the developer's main co-founders, Brian Reynolds, has decided to depart Big Huge Games anyway for other interest.

Today the social web site gaming company Zynga announced that Reynolds will become their chief designer creating new games for sites like Facebook and MySpace. Prior to founding Big Huge Games, which created Rise of Nations, Reynolds was also a co-founder of Firaxis Games with Sid Meier where he was the main designer behind Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

Canadian-based game publisher Meridian4 has had a long relationship with Valve's Steam download service. This week Steam celebrates Meridian4's fifth anniversary with a special week-long sale. In short all of the games from the publisher have had their prices cut to 50 percent their normal value.

That means huge savings for titles like the two Shadowgrounds sci-fi shooters from Frozenbyte, the two Pacific Storm WWII action titles from Buka and the sci-fi first person shooter Alpha Prime from Black Element Software. You can also get all 13 games in the Meridian4 Complete Pack for just $24.99 via Steam. The sale ends on July 6.

Back in 2005, game developer Greg Costikyan founded Manifesto Games. At the time the outspoken Costikyan wanted to create a company where independent game company could find a way to distribute their titles via download. The company was co-founded by Johnny Wilson, who previously was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the now defunct Computer Gaming World magazine.

This past week, Costikyan announced that Manifesto Games was shutting down its operations. He cited several reasons for the decision (the recession, lack of venture capital funds, and "perhaps we were simply too early." Of course independent PC game developers now have a number of outlets to release their work so it's also possible that Manifesto Games simply wasn't as attractive a place for dev teams to spotlight their work.

Epic Games continues to expand its offices with today's announcement of Epic Games Korea. The new office in Seoul, South Korea will be devoted to helping game developers in that area of the world with Unreal Engine licening and support. There's no iindication that the new studio will be active in its own game development.

In addition to its main hub in North Carolina, Epic Games owns two development studios, the Utah-based Chair Entertainment and the Poland based People Can Fly. It's also involved in Epic Games China, which licenses the Unreal Engine in that territory and who also creates their own games.

[Via email press release]

Bohemia Interactive's military shooter ArmA II only started on Steam's download service last Friday but sales were high enough to put it on top of the sales list for Steam for the last week. Second place went to Overlord II, the fantasy RPG-strategy from Codemasters. Here's the rest of the list for the week ending June 28:

1. ArmA II - Bohemia Interactive
2. Overlord 2 - Triumph Studios/Codemasters
3. Empire: Total War - The Creative Assembly/Sega
4. Left 4 Dead - Valve
5. Prototype - Radical Entertainment/Activision
6. Counter-Strike: Source - Valve
7. Team Fortress 2 - Valve
8. Killing Floor - Tripwire Interactive
9. Empire Total War: Elite Units of the West (DLC) - The Creative Assembly/Sega
10. Dawn of Discovery - Ubisoft

GoGamer.com has launched their latest 48 Hour Madness sale on their site and this time the PC game sales are mostly of recently released titles rather than those that are several years old. Indeed the sale includes the just released Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen game which is priced at just $19.99 for the sales time period.

Also cut in price is Spore Galactic Adventures, the first real expansion pack for the alien evolution sim. GoGamer has the title available for $24.90. Other games with price cuts include Fallout 3 ($32.90) Grand Ages: Rome ($12.90) and Terminator: Salvation ($24.90). The sale lasts until 3 am ET on Tuesday.

It's looking like Warner Bros will be the sole bidder on some of Midway's assets as the once major game publisher sells itself off. The LA Times reports that no other publisher made bids to buy Midway's properties. That means Warner Bros. will almost certainly buy two of Midway's dev studios in Chicago and Seattle along with game IPs such as Mortal Kombat. Two more Midway teams in the UK and San Diego are not part of the Warner. Bros. offer of $33 million.

However the bankruptcy court will have to consider some creditor's claims about the Midway sell-off. That includes Tigon Studios, the Vin Diesel-founder game company who claims Midway still owes them $200,000 for their work on Midway's last game Wheelman.

Australia is already known as a country that won't allow certain games to be sold because of their lack of a adult rating for game titles. Many games, including the above Fallout 3, have to be edited in order to comply with Australia's MA15+ rating. Now a new media report states that the country's government is moving to go beyond just monitoring retail games.

According to a story on TheAge.com.au, the government is thinking about censoring web sites that sell games beyond the MA15+ ratings along with Flash games and downloadable titles. This could affect MMO games such as World of Warcraft and others which are currently exempt from the ratings system. Naturally this move has angered many in the country. Electronic Frontiers Australia spokesperson Colin Jacobs stated, "Far from being the ultimate weapon against child abuse, it now will officially censor content deemed too controversial for a 15-year-old. In a free country like ours, do we really need the government to step in and save us from racy web games?"