Ex-members of Rockstar Games in Vienna have announced the formation and launch of their new social games development studio based in Vienna, Austria, dubbed Socialspiel.

Founding CEO Helmut Hutterer also announced their first title, a competitive puzzler named Push, which is launching later this Summer on Facebook, Netlog and several other social networks as partnerships get closed and announced. Hutterer also went on to say

“After almost 10 years of developing big budget, AAA titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne for Rockstar Games it is a breath of fresh air to focus on developing independent games with a direct connection to our fans and players on social networks around the World,” says CEO Hutterer. “Our goal at Socialspiel ( http://socialspiel.com) is to develop richly crafted online games, with high quality production values and appealing experiences for players and their friends to enjoy throughout their daily life online”.

Read more at the Socialspiel Blog

7 months after the closure of Rockstar Vienna by Take-two, former founders Hannes Seifert and Niki Laber have announced the formation of their new company, Games That Matter. Working together with Jürgen Goeldner, founder of Funsoft, later acquired by THQ and mobile developer Mobile Scope, later acquired by IN-FUSIO, their team will present a “visionary game production business model” to the industry. What that visionary model will be or why exactly it’s visionary in the first place hasn’t been announced yet, but founder Hannes Seifert has held talks in Vienna discussing the shift towards “movie industry style” production methods in the past. One would assume that would involve a small core team focusing on production and design aspects, while outsourcing whenever and wherever possible for content, development and testing. The official press conference for Games That Matter takes place on the 25th of January where more information will be presented to the gaming press, possibly including information on their first title.

Read more: Games That Matter | Rockstar Vienna entry @ Wikipedia

Second Life developers Linden Labs have announced that they are open sourcing their client software, possibly as a way to shift focus from the rising media backlash after their months of super-hype among the mainstream. A super bold move which has been wished for by fans and amateur hackers of Second Life since the beginning of time*, Second Life users will have direct access to the client to mashup, hack and crack new features into the anything goes world. Though it’s not clear if the announcement was accelerated by the recent media backlash, which began several weeks back throughout the blogosland or whether this was a planned announcement, I think it’s great that Second Life is taking this step, let’s just hope it breathes new life into the world and means less 48 year old men in diapers and football helmets propositioning every female avatar in their vicinity**.

(*) Second Life time that is.
(**) This never happened to me, honest.

Read more: Second Life goes open source

Austrian publisher JoWooD has announced the sequel to their ‘eh’ selling tactical shooter, 2 years after shutting down original Soldner developer Wings Simulations. Though it was said that Soldner 2 would never make it to market, JoWooD seems to have shifted their position, sourcing the continued development to Germany’s gEasy Team Development, a remarkably odd choice considering there are quite a few talented development studios in search of work. But this is JoWooD, so, no surprises as usual. Soldner 2 is slotted for release in late 2007.

Read more: JoWooD announces Soldner 2 | gEasy Team

..and by announce I mean they released another in a long line of poorly written and absolutely unexciting press releases. Moving on. LifeSigns: Hospital Affairs is a Japanese drama-soap game for the Nintendo DS, which JoWooD has chosen to be their debut title for the Nintendo DS, bringing Austrian-backed games to yet another console! LifeSigns will be released first quarter 2007 for the Nintendo DS console.

From JoWooD’s ‘Marketing Manager’:

Lifesigns for Nintedo DS takes part of all Nintendo DS features and we are really proud to publish such an innovative game concept on the successful Nintendo DS. This is for JoWooD the perfect possibility to have a good start on the DS console

Read more: LifeSigns: Hospital Affairs

Funcom, developers of the long-running Anarchy Online, a science-fiction online massive multiplayer, have announced that the game will remain free to play until 2008. Continuing with their model of offering free subscription accounts for older expansions, but charging $9.99 monthly for the latest version of the game, Anarchy Online will now include the Notim expansion pack within their free subscriptions.

Read more: Anarchy Online remains free throughout 2007

Austrian publisher JoWooD has announced the launch of the homepage for The Mark, their upcoming first-person shooter developed by Greek developer Track7Games. An action/espionage thriller which takes the player on a fight against terrorists wanting to blow up London with a nuclear bomb, The Mark features a vast storyline mission which allows the player to change characters at the start of every chapter and of course, multiplayer deathmatch and capture the flag modes.

Read more: The Mark | JoWooD

The almighty Dig Dug is now available on Xbox Live Arcade, sporting some enhanced new features which almost makes you not feel bad paying to play a 24 year old game on a next-generation gaming console. The game features enhanced graphics including HDTV support (480p & 720p), 12 Xbox Live Achievements and an online leaderboards, so you can compete against your friends and family for only 400 Xbox Live points.

Read more: Dig Dug on Xbox Live Arcade

ANACONDA Games, a Germany-based publisher of point and click adventure titles has announced Undercover: Dual Motives, a Nintendo DS point and click adventure title which is a prequel to their well-recieved PC title, Undercover: Operation Wintersun. Developed by one of Vienna, Austria’s few remaining game developers after the messy demise of Rockstar Vienna, Sproing, U:DM puts the player in control of physicist and reluctant spy, Dr. John Russell in his early days, investigating a British research facility. Taking advantage of the DS’s unique abilities, Sproing intends to implement novels ideas into the gameplay, one of which will be the player’s ability to control two characters when they wish, independently of the other. Adventure fans have been asking for more point and click titles coming to the Nintendo DS, so now let’s see how the adventure gaming market responds, for Sproing’s sake.

Undercover: Dual Motives will be released worldwide by ANACONDA, starting with the German-language territories at the end of March 2007.

Read more: ANACONDA Games | Sproing

For anyone interested, we are at Barcamp Vienna (I actually made this post from there, just couldn’t submit it before the WLAN went down again) and for the next few days, will be attending Blogtalk Reloaded, two very interesting conferences (or “unconference” in the case of Barcamp) happening in Vienna this weekend, which we couldn’t resist bringing our special brand of nerdiness to. If anyone happens (by some small chance) to also be in town and attending, feel free to leave look us up, we have beards.