Insolvent developer Realtime Worlds has sold in-development MMOG Project: MyWorld to an "anonymous American company," reports Develop. The studio suffered some layoffs related to its crash, but staff was later rehired for Project: MyWorld when it became clear there was interested in buying the IP. Thanks Big Download.

Confirming a rumor on Shacknews, a post on the Elemental Forums by Stardock's Brad Wardell says that the launch failure of Elemental: War of Magic has resulted in layoffs at Stardock, shedding some light on his comment that "the issue here is far far worse than many of you think it is." Word is:

It is true.

Elemental's revenue was anticipated to provide the revenue both for our main games team's next project as well as a second team. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen so we've had to start laying people off.

No one is being fired. None of these people did anything wrong. Stardock is a small company and each person here is truly amongst the best and brightest. So you can imagine how much it sucks for all of us to lay off anyone. We haven't had to lay anyone off since our migration from the OS/2 market in 1998. It would be great if we can bring as many of these people back over time if the studio can afford it.

No one involved on the core components of Elemental is affected.

Elemental's rocky launch can be summed up (IMO) as follows: Our QA process was insufficient to handle a brand new platform (Elemental = Kumquat 1.0 versus say Galactic Civilizations II was using Pear which was the same engine, modified, from 1997's Entrepreneur) + my own catastrophic poor judgment in not objectively evaluating the core game play components.

Dins Curse patches page now offers new beta patches for Din's Curse to update Soldak Entertainment's action/RPG to version 1.007. There's a patch for the PC edition and a patch for the Mac edition, and as usual, the beta carries the following warning: "A beta patch means it has been tested, but not enough to be an official patch. So use at your own risk." This page outlines all the changes.

DreamCatcher Games and JoWooD Entertainment say we can expect both PC and Xbox 360 playable demos for ArcaniA: Gothic 4 on September 24. Word is: "The demo comprises the first two hours of the game and shows the beginning tutorial level on Feshyr Island featuring selected quests. Fight off demons, hone your skills and prepare for a bloody battle fueled by vengeance. Get your first taste of ArcaniA: Gothic 4." The game is also now available for preorder, with JoWooD eShop, GamersGate, and Impulse offering 15% discounts, and on Steam where it is bundled with a free copy of Gothic 3.

A new article on the Star Wars: The Old Republic Website offers the space combat trailer released at Gamescom. LucasArts and BioWare now offering some details on how space combat will work in the upcoming MMORPG, discussing mission objectives and exploration.

Chris Taylor's Kings and Castles Video Blog Episode # 30 discusses plans to release the mod tools for Gas Powered Games' upcoming real-time strategy game and other tidbits about the project. Chris also visits an over-caffeinated employee, as well as one with excellent taste in Scotch, spies on some folks, shows off his art skill, and more. No cracked-out mailbag or teleporting this week. Also, happy 44th birthday Chris!

A new TERA trailer is called an extended gameplay trailer, though it looks like the footage is mostly, if not entirely, cinematics. The clip concludes with the depiction of one of the larger boss monsters we've ever seen. Here's the embedded version. Continue here to read the full story.

• PAX 2010- Warren Spector Keynote (Video).
• PAX 2010- The Day Begins - Hardware Canucks.
• Battlefield Community Picture Competition Winner.

• Duke Nukem Forever on Shacknews.
• Portal 2 on Hardware Canucks.

• The Full Opening Cinematic for Disney Epic Mickey.
• Interview: Talking the rebirth of GoldenEye 007.

• Android gains on Apple iPhone in mobile web usage. Thanks Ant via Digg.
• Ubuntu 10.10 beta arrives with new netbook UI.

• AMD developing eight-core Bulldozer-based CPU for 2011 release. Thanks [H]ard-OCP.
• Netgear offers 500Mbps powerline networking via next-gen standard.

• Logitech Revue- Hands-On Impressions.
• Yeah, we'd better cite pajama-wearing bloggers, too.

Thanks Ant.

• WARNING - NOD32 defs update(s) causing problems.
• Wi-Fi War Driving Drone Flying.
• New malware detects browser, shows fake malware warning page. Thanks [H]ard-OCP.

• Texas investigating Google. Don't mess with Texas.
• Nigerian advance-fee scammer gets 12 years. Thanks [H]ard-OCP.
• German court rules against YouTube over copyright. Thanks [H]ard-OCP.
• Google coughs up $8.5 million to settle Buzz privacy suit.
• Jagex Suffers Setback In RuneScape Bot Lawsuit.

• Ancient Trader on Out of Eight.
• Elemental: War of Magic on GameSpot and PC Gamer.
• Victoria II on Armchair General.

• Asus Crosshair IV Formula AM3 Motherboard on eTeknix.com.
• Corsair AX850W PSU on Hardware Secrets.
• ECS P55H-AK LGA1156 Motherboard on MADSHRIMPS.
• Mushkin Callisto Deluxe 60 GB SSD on techPowerUp.
• Palit GTX 460 Sonic Platinum 1GB Graphics Card on PureOC.
• Point of View GeForce GTX 460 Beast Graphics Card on Hardware Heaven.
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 Flex Graphics Card on PC Perspective.
• Thermaltake Armor A60 Case on Hardware Secrets.

• The Gaming of Life- Using Game Mechanics for Self Improvement…
• EA’s Need for Speed World to Feature Dolby Axon Chat Technology…

We have some low-key grilling plans for today, since the threatened fallout from Hurricane Earl fizzled out and it's quite pleasant out there. We're just doing some wings and veggies with hamburgers, as my recent burger efforts have been very successful, and my last batch of wings was the best yet, so I am trying to lock-in my technique on each.

Locked-in Links:	Thanks Ant and Mike Martinez and Acleacius.
Play:	Gunbot. eVADE. Lost Head.
Links:	Infrared Nerf autocannon hunts predators, little sisters too. Iraqi Reality TV Show Pranks Celebrities by Planting Fake Bombs in Their Cars. Thanks brother19.
Science:	Giant iceberg enters Nares Strait. Thanks The Flying Penguin.
Media:	Stranbeast. Thanks Devicer. Beware your roommates. Japanese Precision at it's Best/Weirdest.
The Funnies:	The crap we put up with getting on and off an airplane.
Follow-up:	In defense of the 'Happy Days' ' 'Jump the Shark' episode. Thanks Devicer.