Game News: Playback

This has been a big week for news. People have been sending us stories to look into for the past few weeks, and we've been trying our best to follow the best and biggest rumors and find out if they're true. Take a look at what we uncovered this week.

One rumor that we weren't sure if we should even talk about was the possibility that an actress had been chosen to portray Lara Croft in the coming Tomb Raider movie. Remember, as of right now, this is only a rumor, but we wanted to make sure that TR fans knew what was being talked about (plus, Entertainment Tonight really doesn't do any coverage on Tomb Raider). Since we posted the rumor story, we've had some interesting feedback from readers, and we'll post their comments shortly.

Two hot development houses being talked about are beginning to make the news as well. Gas Powered Games, the new development house formed by ex-Cavedog and Total Annihilation wonder boy Chris Taylor, signed a multi-title deal with Microsoft. Was it the money? Was it the power? Taylor cites that Microsoft has a record of quality releases - and geographically isn't located all that far from the Gas Powered Games studios either. Next up to bat: Fugitive, pulling in the creative powers of ex-Blizzard employees and an ex-GT Interactive project director, is close to signing a deal with a publisher. Sources say that both Sega and GT Interactive are vying to publish the company's first titles - although we heard today from a reliable source that GT will be the lucky publisher.

Over the past few weeks, GameSpot News has heard of rumbles galore over at Sierra. This week, some solid you-know-what hit the fan. One VP, Randy Dersham, has defected from Sierra over to competitor Electronic Arts. From what we hear, it wasn't a philosophical difference. Dersham received an offer he couldn't refuse and took it. Late last week, we posted a story about a small parting of the ways at one of Sierra's divisions, Papyrus - the company known best for its NASCAR Racing and CART Racing games. At first it appeared to be two resignations and one employee who was fired. Read the real deal in our Papyrus story below. On the higher end of the food chain, Cendant, the parent company of Sierra, lost eight members of its board of directors after it was uncovered that someone had made some, um, miscalculations in calculating the profits. Cendant says that the loss of the directors would have no effect on its gaming businesses.

Blizzard reports that it has sold over one million copies of Starcraft since release. Starcraft sales give the company a hat trick (of a million sellers) alongside other big hits Warcraft II and Diablo. Once Diablo II releases, we suspect that Blizzard will add it to the "million sellers" list.