After running a public beta version for several months Valve has launched the official Steam Community, an expansive set of social networking and online multiplayer features, as it prepares for the launch of the Team Fortress 2 beta, which is scheduled to begin on Monday, September 17, 2007.

Valve announced it has rolled out the public beta for its largest Steam update yet. The update, which will be available free of charge, introduces an expansive set of social networking and online multiplayer features to its digital delivery platform.

Speedball 2 transforms the futuristic game setting into a high-speed online sports spectacle, offering international leagues, a ranking system and a virtual marketplace. At request of the media and community Kylotonn has implemented a sophisticated passing system with automatic detection of team members in reach.

Gothic 3 is the third part of the RPG legend presenting an intense, living world and a non-linear, varied gaming experience. This v1.4 community patch is not supported by Jowood, but addresses a lot of issues with the game ...

Gothic 3 is the third part of the RPG legend presenting an intense, living world and a non-linear, varied gaming experience. This v1.31 community patch is not supported by Jowood, but addresses a lot of issues woth the game ...

Sony unveiled a first-of-its-kind 3D online user community service for the PS3. The service, known as "Home," will enable users to create their own avatar and explore a real-time virtual community, as if they are playing a detailed 3D game.

2K Sports announced today features emphasizing the importance of team chemistry in College Hoops 2K7. Emulating college basketball like never before, Team Unity encourages players to focus on team dynamics to maximize the potential of their squad and even influence team performances in Legacy Mode, College Hoops 2K7's franchise mode.

Some of the top Battlefield 2-ranked server hosts are fed up with EA's continued inability to fix the online shooter. The latest v1.3 patch seems to be more unstable than any of the previous versions, causing repeated server crashes, while documented exploits and bugs remain. Now several Battlefield 2 clans are getting fed up, some have quit, and others threaten to take down their servers. An open letter to EA/DiCE has been posted, urging for immediate action, or else ...

Usually people cannot wait for a game to be released, but this is not the case with the loyal Heroes of Might and Magic fans. Disappointed in the current state of the beta, a large number of HOMM community sites have started a petition to pressure UbiSoft to delay the game, giving developer Nival ample time to optimize the title and add the promised features.

Funcom has launched a new community portal website to support its upcoming online action RPG Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. A mix of a deep, story-driven single-player experience and a massive and brutal multiplayer end-game brings forth the ultimate representation of the Age of Conan.

A couple weeks back members of the official Infinity War forum threatened with a 24 hour server boycott, taking down their multiplayer servers, due to the lack of support and communication from Activision and IW, especially anti-cheat/punkbuster integration, etc. Activision finally replied : "After 2 years of non-stop work on Call of Duty 2, Infinity Ward has just returned from a much-deserved break. The team is aware of some concerns about multiplayer cheating in the game and is looking into an anti-cheat solution." Not a lot to go on, and it only addresses one of the grievances ..

Members of the official Infinity War forums are up in arms over the lack of support and communication from Activision and Infinity Ward, and are planning a 24 hour server boycott to take down their multiplayer servers. The people have been disgruntled for a little while because of the lack of information regarding Call of Duty 2 in terms of future support, especially anti-cheat/punkbuster integration, etc. but what made the pot boil over was a recent interview with IW's CEO claiming there is a lack of interest from the community, and no mods available. In the meantime tons of clans and its members have announced their support of the boycott.

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) now draw more than 20 million players globally, and alongside the multiplayer universe is a marketplace for the virtual characters and other assets created online. Sites that enable trading of virtual goods such as powerful game characters and currency help players broker and buy status and power for cold hard cash -- just like in the real world.

Ensemble Studios has launched a new community site for Age of Empires fans in order to provide an official location for AoE fans to get the latest news and share information with other players. The new site features all the latest Age news, exclusive interviews and insight into Ensemble Studios and AoE, downloadable content and patches, AoE III statistics pages, and community forums where you can chat, discuss strategies and get information from the game’s designers, artists and programmers.

Lionhead Studios and Activision announced today The Movies Online, a community website where aspiring moviemakers can upload and share their motion pictures created with The Movies on the internet! The site will launch a virtual film festival for aspiring film-makers when the game ships this fall. Members of the site will also find a host of competitions, Awards Ceremonies, a Prop Shop and additional downloads that will help extend their gaming experience with The Movies.

Lionhead Studios and Activision announced today The Movies Online, a community website where aspiring moviemakers can upload and share their motion pictures created with The Movies on the internet! Located at www.themoviesgame.com, the site will launch a virtual film festival for aspiring film-makers when the game ships this fall.

Lionhead Studios and Jeff Minter have come to a mutual decision to cancel their collaborative project Unity with immediate effect. Unity was a fabulous journey through a succession of beautiful abstract 3D spaces, with gameplay varying in tempo, from fast paced shooting to a more gentle progression. Read more for details ...

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory will offer a high adrenaline experience thanks to never seen before close range attacks, a totally open level design, a completely immersive and interactive environment, and challenging advanced AI. Ubisoft sent us a pre-made Q&A with community submitted questions, subject being Chaos Theory's game design technology.

Peter Tyson, the Community Liaison Manager renowned for his work on Dragon Empires, is leaving to forge his own empire in New Zealand with his wife-to-be and is being replaced by Senior QA Technician Samantha 'Satine' Russell. Read more for details..

Jowood has announced that they are launching a Soldner Community Hub to inform the players about the progress on the current developments, and keep everyone up-to-date on what the team is creating and what to expect in the next update. At the same token Wings Simulation is working on yet another patch, due later this week, for their multiplayer FPS, read more for detailed fix list ...

As expected the second part of the Community Bonus Pack for Epic Games' multiplayer FPS Unreal Tournament 2004 has been released. This second CBP contains 20 new third party maps, four new player characters and two new mutators. (thanks HomeLAN). Read more for download links ...

Atari let us know that they have released the first Community Bonus Pack for Epic Games' multiplayer FPS Unreal Tournament 2004. This CBP features 21 maps (including four new Onslaught maps), four new character models and a new mutator, SpiderSteroids (thanks HomeLAN). Read more for download links ...

The Unreal II XMP Community Bonus Pack has been released featuring ten of the best maps and seven of the best mutators from the Unreal II XMP community (thanks BeyondUnreal). Read more for download links ...

The Battlefield 1942 team has made a new community update regarding the upcoming 1.6 patch. The BF1942 v1.6, which they call " by far the most comprehensive patch to date", will feature 2 new maps, punkbuster anti cheat measures, improved server browsing and tons of other fixes, tweaks and additions. The patch WILL be over 250mb big, read more for a quite lenghty detailed fix list.

Space Dream Factory has released the full/free download of their space combat simulator based on the Babylon 5 tv-series I've Found Her. IFH: Danger and Opportunity is the first complete and playable game produced by SDF and is the prequel campaign to the main IFH campaign due somewhere in the near future (thanks EvilAvatar). Read more for story details and download links ...