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As of today, Mythic and Bioware are now one entity. Electronic Arts has merged the two studios, with Mythic co-founder Mark Jacobs being the odd man out (via Gamasutra).

BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka will head the new entity as group general manager, with co-founder Greg Zeschuk taking on the role of chief creative officer. Co-founder and COO Rob Denton will head up the Mythic side.

The chances will have little affect on the development of titles like Dragon Age: Origins and Warhammer Online, with the team continuing with their current structure. The biggest difference is that they are now reporting to Muzyka.

Anyone who’s downloaded Ketera Software’s Aquatica app for iPhone may have noticed a more than passing resemblance to thatgamecompany’s flash and PlayStation 3 title, flOw. One person who’s certainly taken notice is thatgamecompany co-founder Jenova Chen, who, on his Twitter page, recently accused the developers of Aquatica of using flOw’s source code without permission.

“I released flOw source for people to learn. I didn’t expect to see it on iPhone without quoting the creator,” reads the Flower designer’s Twitter. “I just gave out source for people who wants to learn Flash programming. However, according to them, they wrote it from scratch,” he added.

When reached for additional comment, Jenova offered the following statement:

“The image and animation in Aquatica is almost identical to the original web game I created. I felt maybe they are one of the many who asked me for the flOw source code. But according to the comments the creator of the Aquatica made on the youtube, they didn’t use my source code.

“Anyway, I always wanted to see the original flash version of flOw ported to iPhone one day. However, there are many legal issues with the flOw IP since Sony owns the rights to flOw PS3. Though we had many request for doing the port, we didn’t end up pursuing it.

“I thought the creation of Aquatica is a very flattering thing because they mimic the game I created in the university and somewhat realized my dream for a flOw game on the iPhone. It could be a very sweet thing if they did this as a fan ware and put it out for free. But the fact they didn’t mention flOw at all and call it a ‘new, unique game completely in a class of its own’ is disappointing.”

Not entirely unlike the initiative that Walmart recently launched, Best Buy chief marketing officer Barry Judge has announced on his blog (via Gamasutra) that the retailer will be testing out used game sales by way of automated kiosks. Just bring your game to the store, insert it into the machine to be tested in order to assure it functions properly, and get your compensation. Simple.

Stores located in both Austin and Dallas, Texas will see the kiosks installed this week, some of which will also rent out games and movies. Judge didn’t detail whether the machines are being maintained internally or by an outside company like e-Play, who is handling the Walmart kiosks. Presumably e-Play has nothing to do with the Best Buy program, as these machines will immediately offer up a gift card for store credit rather than a delayed credit/debit card deposit that e-Play offers elsewhere.

In addition to buying used games, those same stores will, as you might expect, be testing the waters of used game sales.

The Last Remnant began its life on consoles as a timed exclusive for the Xbox 360, but judging by a recent Square Enix shareholder meeting in Japan, the Unreal Engine 3-fueled RPG might skip out on the PlayStation 3 entirely.

According to a report by AndriaSang.com (via Joystiq), Square Enix president and CEO Yoichi Wada addressed concerns about the future of The Last Remnant on PS3 with regretful skepticism. “Although it’s tough on the development side of things to say that you’ll release a game on multiple platforms but end up not doing so, Square Enix has to think about profitability,” said the Square Enix executive, continuing, “If there’s a gap in the release of multiple versions of a game, and if the first version didn’t necessarily see such great success, they have to think that there won’t be a change in performance on a new platform.”

It’s hard to fault his logic there. On top of getting almost universally dumped on in reviews, The Last Remnant got absolutely buried in the holiday rush last year. Still, that’s got to be a pretty big bummer for anyone who was looking forward to eventually giving Last Remnant a go on PS3.

Call of Duty has become one of the most recognizable brand names in video games, thanks in large part to the monumental success of Call of Duty 4. But for their latest, Infinity Ward has dropped the “Call of Duty” moniker — a change that’s having unintended consequences.

According to tracking firm OTX (via Gamasutra), dropping “Call of Duty” has resulted in a sizable drop in name recognition for the franchise. According to the manager of OTX’s GamePlan Insights divsion, awareness of the anticipated sequel has dropped 20 percentage points since the change was revealed.

If you missed the livestream of 1UP’s Game Night with Battlefield 1943, fret not, for you can watch the archived episode right here (divided into two parts — there was simply too much multiplayer madness to be contained in one video). While playing amongst ourselves and various EA personnel, we answered your questions that were submitted via either our message boards or our Twitter feed We could spend a lot of text yammering about how this game is essentially a “best of” compilation of DICE’s other Battlefield titles, featuring the maps of Battlefield 1942, the streamlined class system of Battlefield Heroes, and the destructibility of Battlefield: Bad Company. But really, you should just watch it yourself.

In addition to learning about how Battlefield 1943 plays in general, you’ll also learn all sorts of fun facts such as:

• How ineffective Scooter is at piloting airplanes.
• How the air raid system works.
• How much of a jerk Sharkey is during multiplayer games.
• How destructible the environment and buildings are.
• How the Coral Sea map works.
• How the squad system works (in theory)

Aquatica on iPhone looks, sounds, and plays an awful lot like thatgamecompany’s flOw. So much so, in fact, that designer Jenova Chen accused Aquatica’s developers at Ketera Software of, at the very least, very closely mimicking flOw, and at worst copying the game’s source code outright. But is it really a total ripoff of Chen’s early PSN title, or just an unfortunate case of unattributed inspiration? We got in touch with the folks at Ketera Software, and this is their side of the story:

“Aquatica was not built from the source code released by thatgamecompany. We can easily prove it by sending you, or anyone who requests it, any portion of our code to do any given task in the game, and the comparison should make it clear that our code was written completely from scratch. In fact, we were not even aware that the source code for flOw was released, and might release portions of our code, as well, to put to rest any speculation about copying the code.

“So to summarize, there was not a single line of code copied from the source code released by ThatGameCompany that is in Aquatica. We also apologize for not properly giving credit for the original idea of the game — this has been fixed everywhere, including YouTube, iTunes, and our own site, though it will only show up on iTunes in several hours.

“We will also be contacting Jenova Chen personally.”

As promised, where Ketera’s Aquatica website once said, “From the makers of SpaceX, comes a new, unique game completely in a class of its own,” it now reads, “Aquatica is an iPhone from-the-ground-up re-make of the famous flOw game created by Jenova Chen of the ThatGameCompany fame.”

So what’s the verdict? Harmless mistake, or deliberate attempt to cash in on someone else’s ideas? Either way, it’s a good thing this appears to have been resolved before it had the chance to get really ugly.

So what did the co-founder of id Software have to say on his twitter upon finding out about today’s news of ZeniMax Media, better known as the parent company of Bethesda, buying id Software?

ZENIMAX??????? Disgusting.

Yeah, seriously, screw that! Completely disgusting. He soon followed it with this comment:

As Xbox 360 and PC Fallout 3 players explore Point Lookoot, Bethesda’s Pete Hines is reminding PlayStation 3 fans that they aren’t forgotten. In a Eurogamer interview, Hines revealed that the first PS3 content pack, Operation: Anchorage, is almost finished. He says that putting the pack on PS3 takes “quite a bit” of effort. “It’s a different platform with a different way of doing things and it requires special attention and plenty of testing before it’s released,” he said. “We are trying to put the finishing touches on it now, but as I said above it’s a different task than DLC on another platform, and so there are things we have to finish doing and testing before it’s done on PS3.”

We had expected the PS3 content to start hitting in late June, a window that’s now quickly closing. Hines didn’t give word on a release date for it, or for the Mothership Zeta pack due on other systems in July. He calls the pack “alien abduction done really, really well.” After Anchorage is released for the PlayStation 3, Hines says the other packs will follow, each coming about every 4-6 weeks.

This year’s E3 kicks off in three weeks; a fact that might lead you to believe that things like the companies attending have been, you know, confirmed. So imagine the surprise today when it was revealed that Atari had backed out of their plans to be at the big event. A statement from Atari (via Big Download Blog) reads, “Atari has made the proactive decision to attend but not exhibit at this year’s E3 event. Although we feel E3 benefits the entire games business, we are very focused around other selling and marketing initiatives for our upcoming Ghostbusters, Champions Online and other to be announced titles.”

Atari is refusing to explain the reasoning behind this sudden decision, but, according to Joystiq, a more detailed answer will soon be forthcoming. Hopefully that will provide us with some indication as to why Atari would make such an abrupt announcement.