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Well, it seems Activision is rarely out of the news. Yet again, they have reappeared in the mainstream media, though not as controversially as with the recent Infinity Ward shake-up.No, this time it's a little more straight forward: according to memos received by the Los Angeles Times, Activision has essentially subdivided its business into four main units, without much fanfare at all really, and done so largely along franchise lines.The most obvious demarcation is around Blizzard. I say obvious, because Blizzard, in what is becoming a rarity in the games industry, is, and always has been, largely independent. If Activision, or any other publisher for that matter, really wanted to muscle in on their space, Blizzard could wave the WoW wand, and make the nasties go away. They're that big.The fact that there's also a special Call of Duty division should also come as no surprise, given the stellar sales of the Modern Warfare titles, in particular.The other two units concern licensed properties (i.e games and franchises that Activision doesn't own the rights to), and internal properties (ones that they do). We'll ignore the fact that Guitar Hero, which apparently falls into the latter group, is packed to the brim with third-party licenses, and just get to the point...Is this putting too many eggs into the one basket? Clearly, Call of Duty has been good to Activision for some time but, at the risk of sounding unimaginative, how far can one franchise go?We've already seen problems with one of Activision's other key franchises, Guitar Hero, that, along with competitor Rock Band, took significant sales hits mid last year.Certainly, it's possible to put all your weight into one franchise or genre, and ultimately come up short. With Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk being the mainstays of Activision's own internal properties (not including Blizzard properties), surely there is cause to be concerned with the apparent emphases of the publishing giant?The one thing that may play in their favour is that EA did almost exactly the same thing in 2007. Sure, they still had The Sims and a flood of sports labels as their main money-makers, but since then they've also taken on several new IPs like Mirror's Edge, BattleForge, The Saboteur, and various BioWare titles, to mention a few.In short, they diversified, at least partially. So maybe Activision's potential problem isn't so much their structure, but what they do with it. Because make no mistake, various iterations of Call of Heroes and Guitar Duty won't work forever.

Every now and then, we come across a game that's just plain weird. Not necessarily weird in a bad way, just in a "I can't believe this is a game" way.Ulitsa Dimitrova is one such game. Released late last year, it recently came to prominence as a finalist in the student game category at the Independent Gaming Festival during GDC.The absolute, very first thing you need to know about the game is that it's written by some uni students from Germany. The weirdness is when you realise that the setting - indeed, the culture - of the game is Russian.In fact, you could actually be forgiven for thinking this short little game was designed by Russians, simply because the concept of the game is... well, for a lack of a better description, 'Russian'.You play the part of Pjotr, a seven year old street kid with a chainsmoking habit. You must steal car hood ornaments and booze which you can trade with people on the street, including your mother who, it is made quite clear by the game description, is a prostitute.The game offers no objectives, no directives, and the Ulitsa Dimitrova itself (a fictitious street in St Petersburg) is made of no more than cars, newstands, bottle shops, and the occasional passerby.As the descriptions further note, "one time he even falls in love with a girl." That's great, except for the fact that her mother always comes and takes her away as soon as you meet her (and, incidentally, offer her a cigarette).And the kicker? If you do nothing, if you break the loop of theft and bartering, you die. Frozen to death in the cold Russian winter. Just like that.So really, it's more a scathing social commentary than an actual game, but for once, minimalist, nearly childlike art design and repetitive gameplay can be considered good things rather than bad. You can't help but walk away from the game feeling like you've learnt something and, if nothing else, Dimitrova certainly wins the award for "Game With Most Effective Existential Commentary."Ulitsa Demitrova can be downloaded for free here. Also, if you feel so inclined, maybe also check out some of the other IGF notables here.

For those who've been particularly interested in BioShock 2 post release support, you may already have noticed some of the kerfuffle surrounding its first round of DLC.Now, think what you will about the whole model of paying small sums of money for equally small amounts of content, but at least it gives developers a reason to continue development of their games after the first day sales have been and gone.Of course, what BioShock 2 has done is open a whole can of worms in terms of what can justifiably be charged as DLC.For those not yet up to speed, the majority of content for the game's Sinclair Solutions multiplayer pack was in fact already included on the vanilla game disc.Putting aside for the moment the plain fact that this is, by definition, not DLC, we actually need to ask the question: is this justifiable, or just a blatant ripoff?2K have already given a presumably official response via Community Manager Elizabeth Tobey. In this response on the 2K forums, the reason the content was shipped on the disc was to avoid a content disparity that could, as it were, "split the player base – so whether you purchase the new content or not, you can still play with your friends. "Now, this makes a certain amount of sense. If I have the pack, and you don't, normally, that would mean we couldn't play against each other. This has been the case with differing patch levels since online gaming actually became something most people could do.The real problem is in terms of appearances. Paying extra for something you download obviously 'looks' better than paying extra for something that comes on a disc you've already paid for. You can understand why Take Two put the DLC on the disc to start with (I'm sure the words "Saving on extra downloads is great, right?" came up in a distribution meeting), but clearly no one thought of how someone already shelling out $90 on a product would view it.There's also the issue that this isn't something the team have been working on since release, as they had clearly already finished it. Why then hold off on the extra content this long, if it was done before the game even shipped?Whatever the reason, it's not hard to see why people have become so riled about this. Having said that, we can't help but feel the whole problem could have been side-stepped simply by calling it something other than DLC...UPDATE: We approached 2K to see if they would discuss in more detail the DLC, and some of the issues arising from the public reaction to it. They declined to comment further.