Independent games mega-portal Game Tunnel has announced recently that they will be launching a print magazine, featuring independent games reviews, news, gossip, articles and developer interviews. Issue #1 appears to still be in pre-production, however a preview has been released by the tunnelers in PDF form, allowing site visitors to get a sneak peek into the forthcoming publication. No word on subscription prices or schedules have been released, but I’m sure more information will be forthcoming.

Show more: Game Tunnel launches indie games magazine

Video game sales have always been a hot topic in the gaming world. In the past, many players’ data came from vague and un-confirmed forum or blog postings as well as chatter along the highly-organized video game grapevine. Thankfully there’s no more need in relying on your pizza guy’s interpretation of video games sales charts. For the past 4 years, VGCharts have been collecting video game sales data and organizing it into the internet’s premier source for video game sales charts on the internet. Sales information goes back into the Nintendo 64 days and covers pretty much all of the major sales territories. Sales data are constantly being acquired, so expect many more updates in the near future, including the addition of Sega Saturn sales information.

Read more: VGCharts - Video game sales charts

10TACLE STUDIOS, the publishers of the upcoming Xbox 360 fantasy action adventure title Elveon, have acquired the future rights to all current and future titles from CDV Software Entertainment, further solidifying 10TACLE’s role as an emerging power player in the German / European games industry. With profit on the rise, 10tacle is consolidating it’s European development and publishing reach, with 6 in-house developers currently operating throughout Europe and no doubt more on the way. “Panzer Tactics DS” is one of the titles involved in the deal, which is being developed by one of Vienna, Austria’s few remaining game development studios, Sproing. No word on if this deal will negatively impact the developers currently under contract, but here’s to hoping it’s a positive turn and 10TACLE’s involvment is successful for the studios who are now working for 10TACLE.

Read more: 10tacle Studios assumes publishing rights to CDV titles | 10TACLE STUDIOS

The rumour mills kicked into high gear yesterday after a Shacknews story was posted regarding a ‘mass exodus’ of key members from the Duke Nukem Forever team departing 3D Realms. Reportadly 10 (or more) major members of the team have left with multiple departues occurring in the past few days. Scott Alden, Will Bate, Brian Cozzens, Keith Schuler (a 16 year vet of Apogee and 3D Realms) and many more have been confirmed to have left the team since December of last year, creating more doomsday predictions for one of the gaming industries most legendary projects. However, many look at this as the possibility that the project is nearing completion, where it wouldn’t be surprising to see large amounts of members leave a 10+ year project as it winds down and their roles become significantly reduced. Either way, Duke Nukem Forever still proves it has the ability to move media mountains with just it’s mere mention in a news story.

Read more: Key developers of DNF departing from 3D Realms

The indie gaming world was abuzz after Microsoft announced it’s independent and student game development tool, XNA Game Studio Express, allowing aspiring game creators the ability to begin developing their own games for Windows XP and Vista at no charge. The most exciting bit of news from that announcement was the ability for game creators to develop for the Xbox 360 console starting this holiday season 2006 as part of what MS are calling the XNA Creators Club. This will be a subscription-based service, requiring a yearly subscription of $99, a low fee for any student or bedroom coder who wants to see their creation running on an Xbox 360. To follow that up today, Microsoft has announced the beta release of XNA Game Studio Express for Windows XP and Vista, leading up to the final release at the end of this year with XNA Game Studio Professional launching Spring 2007. Coinciding with today’s beta release, GarageGames has announced the enrollment program for their Torque X beta program, which will include both the Torque Game Builder engine and the Torque Shader Engine, which were developed in conjunction with XNA Game Studio Express.

Read more: Microsoft releases Game Studio Express beta | Garage Games

Legendary sim-strategy game Sim City will be making it’s way to everyone’s favorite handheld console Winter 2006/2007 according to EA, though exact details haven’t been officially released. This possibly means that the release could occur before Christmas 2006, meaning hundreds of thousands of DS owners will soon be playing god with the little inhabitants of Sim City. Rumours also have it that the DS game will be based on the PC title Sim City 3000 which will no doubt be a must-own DS title when it’s released.

Read more: Sim City coming to the Nintendo DS

Searching for job offers within the industry is sometimes a major major pain. When your connections don’t pan out and you have to start searching through the wants ads it’s always a confusing myriad of horribly designed search engines, slimy recruiting agencies and job offers that are trapped inside of frames making it difficult for you to print or send to yourself. Those days are over now, thanks to some enterprising game developers in the UK who put together a meta-search site that collects data and offers from some of the largest games industry job search sites and recruiters, displaying them in a simple and easy to use interface. Sure you eventually could get dumped off to the same recruiting agencies you were trying to avoid, but at least your route there was a nice and easy one. You’ll notice that most of the offers are in the UK, but a good number of EU, US and Asian jobs are being added and as more sources are added to the system, a wider variety of job locales are becoming more available. Good job lads, keep up the great work.

Read more: The Games Industry - Meta job search engine

According to a recent post on a Japanese gaming site, there is a rumour hitting the streets of Tokyo that the Xbox 360 will be receiving a price drop as well as a new colour on December 7th, 2006. Naturally this is only a rumour on a foreign language games site, but, it has some legs with some respected Japanese sites carrying the rumour and confirming with ‘insider sources’ suggesting that the ‘price drop’ will come in the form of a bundle with DOAX2. Many more rumours to come for sure..

Read more: Xbox 360 rumoured to drop in price and feature new colour in Japan (Japenese blog posting)

Ubisoft today announced the upcoming open beta round for Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, the upcoming fantasy action title developed by Kuju. Open beta rounds will begin Tuesday, August 29th at 9AM PT and potential beta testers will be able to sign-up via Might and Magic’s website. Ubisoft are looking to have approximately 100,000 players participate in this final open beta before the release of Might and Magic.

Read more: Dark Messiah - Might and Magic

IGN’s RPG Vault caught up with Eve Online’s Chief Marketing Officer, Magnus Bergsson, for a short interview and retrospective on the little MMORPG that could. Covering everything from how they gracefully handled the fallout that ensued after Eve publisher, Simon and Schuster’s demise, to their slow growth into one of the more successful massive multiplayers on the market, with over 170,000 subscribers, no small feat for an Icelandic games developer who self-publishes and only distributes their game online. Bergsson also touched upon the future of Eve, such as the upcoming factional warfare which is following the storyline towards war between the various races in the game, as well as the new invention system, which will allow players to invent new items in-game, complementing the completely player-driven economy quite nicely.

Read more: IGN interviews Eve Online creators about it’s future and growth| 14-day free Eve Online trial