According to Variety, Universal Pictures has decided to stop production on a live-action film of Bioshock due to budget reasons. The Bioshock movie, which is being directed by Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, was set to begin filming in Los Angeles, California, but Universal selected to temporarily put things on hold until its estimated budget of $160 million can be reevaluated.

Despite the set back, Verbinski and Variety’s sources inside Universal Pictures have said that they still fully intend on finishing the movie. The obstacles are purely financial, and Verbinski and Universal are already planning to film in London instead of Los Angeles to cut back on expenses.

“We were asked by Universal to move the film outside the U.S. to take advantage of a tax credit,” Verbinski said. “We are evaluating whether this is something we want to do. In the meantime, the film is in a holding pattern.”

In 2006, Universal Pictures and Fox pulled the plug on a live-action adaptation of the Halo series when it was rumored that production costs were projected to far exceed the film’s budget of $135 million. Neil Blomkamp was set to direct the film, and Peter Jackson was also attached to the movie as producer.

To date, film adaptations of video games have enjoyed varied success. The Hitman film (starring Timothy Olyphant and produced by Luc Besson) turned a profit by grossing $100 million on its budget of $70 million. However, the doomed CGI film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within bombed in the box-office, losing approximately $94 million and almost bankrupting Squaresoft. Other video game films like BloodRayne and Alone in the Dark (both directed by German filmmaker Uwe Boll) have been blasted by critics and proclaimed as some of the worst movies ever made.

Bioshock was originally slated for a release in 2010. No announcement of a new release date has yet to be issued by Universal Pictures.

Earlier this month, it was rumored that Harmonix was planning on giving Rock Band the LEGO treatment after one of their senior designers accidentally let the news slip during the Game Developers Conference. However, according to Business Wire, today they came out and officially announced that LEGO: Rock Band is in the works and will be coming to home consoles (including the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, and Nintendo DS) in time for the holiday season.

LEGO Rock Band will be compatible with “Rock Band instruments, as well as other music game controllers.”

“We’re thrilled to offer another LEGO branded gaming experience that will deliver humorous and social play for families and friends,” said Henrik Taudorf Lorensen, VP of the LEGO Group. “LEGO Rock Band is built around the same values of imagination and family-friendly creative role play that is present in other LEGO videogames. It will deliver innovative new elements of game play that complement the fun of the Rock Band experience.”

Harmonix is working in cooperation with TT Games to create a new Rock Band experience that revolves around the theme of “Build a Band and Rock the Universe.” It will be full of “fun, customization and humor of the LEGO videogame franchise” and its track list is comprised of chart-topping hits and other popular songs that will appeal to a younger and more family friendly audience.

So far, some of the songs that Harmonix have confirmed will be in LEGO: Rock Band are Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting”, Europe’s “The Final Countdown”, and Good Charlotte’s “Boys and Girls.”

TT Games are the developers responsible for other LEGO titles, including LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, and LEGO Indiana Jones:The Original Adventures. Harmonix and MTV Games are behind the hit sensation, Rock Band, which has generated over $1 billion dollars of revenue in sales.

Via The Game Review

Activision Blizzard has elected to leave the ranks of the PC Gaming Alliance, a coalition of PC developers and hardware manufactures devoted promoting PC gaming, and SecuROM has stepped up to take its place as the PCGA’s newest member.

No official explanation for Acitivion Blizzard’s abrupt departure has been officially announced.

The news has caused many gamers to stop and scratch their heads in befuddlement. The Blizzard portion of Activision Blizzard has been a long time supporter of the PC, developing some of the most popular titles to ever grace the platform. Blizzard’s Starcraft is still played regularly as a professional sport internationally, and its MMORPG, World of Warcraft, has a large subscriber base of over 10 million users.

SecuROM, on the other hand, is responsible for the anti-piracy DRM that companies like Electronic Arts implement to prevent users from making illegal copies of their games. However, many gamers have accused the methods used by SecuROM (which include limiting the number of times a game can be installed) as being invasive and unfair. Game developers, however, defend using using anti-piracy software to protect their games, citing examples like Electronic Art’s Spore which has been illegally downloaded an estimate 1.7 million times through BitTorrent clients.

Ironically, many gamers who pirated Spore claim that they only did so because Spore had SecuROM on it to begin with.

Though SecuROM may seem like an unlikely member to join the PCGA (which includes companies like Nvidia, AMD, Epic Games, and Capcom), the PCGA has explained that they do not discriminate against applicants. If the company is a member of the PC gaming world and willing to pay their membership fees, then they are free to join.

From: The Game Reviews