People say Jane Cavanagh, the founder of the SCi Entertainment Group, has just released the company's 2007 annual report where they revealed that sequels to the Tomb Raider, Hitman, and some of their other IPs are in development. There's an uneasy air surrounding its emergence, however, since SCi's own investors called for the ousting of Cavanagh a few months ago. To find out more, head on over to the full article.

The gaming world was recently greeted by the news of Eidos signing a beneficial deal with Time Warner, but it looks like there were some dire consequences: according to some insider sources, Eidos has laid off its PR, marketing and sales departments in what seems to be in exchange to Time Warner's financial assistance. Read more about it in the full article.

Banking on the edge of Valve Software's Steam online digital distribution mechanics, European publisher Eidos Interactive has made a deal with part of SCi Entertainment Group Plc to acquire online distribution specialist Bluefish Media.

 

Bluefish Media uses a fusion of a good selection of content to distribute and reliable technology to provide entertainment software to their consumer base. Eidos plans to use Bluefish Media as a means to effectively distribute their own New Media (mobile and PDA) content, as well as their games for the growing casual market scene.

The merger will see the complete integration of Bluefish into Eidos' New Media division. The addition of the Bluefish staff will augment the publisher's "ability to integrate online distribution" into its operations. From an official press release, Simon Protheroe, New Media and IT Director of Eidos, said:

Online distribution of digital content is a key component of our strategy. In addition to offering our games via Bluefish's distribution network, this acquisition also gives Eidos the ability to build on Bluefish's platform and to drive online sales in a much more aggressive way over the coming months.

  

If you've been doing your reading, you'll notice that updates on Tomb Raider: Anniversary has been coming to us in bits and pieces. Well yeah, SCi and Crystal Dynamics has finally confirmed the April 2007 release window, but other than that (and the screens and trailer, hehe), they've been pretty tight-lipped about the celebratory title.

So imagine our bliss when we score these all-new screenshots for the PC version, which shows the classic environments from the original Tomb Raider that the devs promised we'll be seeing in the anniversary edition. They may not show Lara in heated action (wait, that came out wrong. Ah, anyways...) but they provide a pretty sweet insight on how the game will play out on your PCs. That said, we'll end the chitchat right here and just let you get on to the good stuff. On to the screens!

   

Talk about great women in the games industry! Jane Cavanagh, CEO of the SCi Entertainment Group, got the Order of the British Empire award for helping the UK games industry grow.

Working in the games industry for almost twenty years, she actually started out by creating SCi, with the hit game Carmageddon helping to increase her company's visibility. Now, SCi owns Eidos, Crystal Dynamics, and IO interactive, among others, cementing its place as one of the industry's bigwigs. Their popularity has also garnered the attention of Time-Warner, who has purchased a 10.3% stake in the company.

Originally given to honor those who had served noncombat roles during the First World War, it's now awarded to people who've helped make British society and culture grow in one respect or another. We can certainly say she deserves it. Grats to her!

SCi Entertainment Group (Eidos, Crystal Dynamics, IO Interactive and Pivotal Games and others) is on the offensive with an ambitious plan that includes developing up to 22 games based on Warner Bros properties.

The company is also opening studios in China and Canada and will focus on developing mobile, casual games, digital downloads and episodic content.

"A lot of the investment will be spent on increasing our development capacity, both in terms of our internal studios and working with third party groups," said the company's CEO. The "investment" refers to the £ 44.5 million Warner deal which is still to be finalized.

Sci owns such highly successful franchises and titles including Tomb Raider: Legend, Hitman: Blood Money, Conflict Global Storm, Commandos Strike Force, and Championship Manager.

The press release used very positive language. Powerful positive words like "investment" and "leading"  were present. Well, here's the short of the long of it: the big WB is putting some of its eggs in Sci Entertainment Group, the parent company of video game publishing label, Eidos Interactive Ltd.

So what will this business-y bit of news mean to us gamers? Well it basically means that Eidos now has the freedom to develop games on WB properties. Franchises like Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera, The OC (do you really want to see an OC MMO? Ergh...), and other animated content can now be made into games by Eidos.

So what are we looking forward to? Hopefully a good WB-Batman game, or maybe even a Justice League game thats based on the JLU animated series. Here's a weird thought:what if Eidos takes a page from CAPCOM's playbook? Looney Tunes vs. Hanna-Barbera? We'd want to see Tom and Jerry go up against Road Runner and Wile E on your 360...

More interesting is that, after some digging, we found out that there was a rumor a few months ago that SCi-Eidos will be making games based on movies by Time-Warner... Hehe, a Snakes on a Plane survival game perhaps?