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Ever-ready to cut through critical bias and drummed-up presale data, Raptr has released its Raptr Report for 2011, with data on which games commanded the most player attention. The report breaks the year's releases down into categories, calculating total playtime by Raptr's 10+ million users over launch month, per-player launch-week playtime and launch-month session length. There's a few surprises in there, but the list's two standouts are both November releases...

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was the big winner at last night's Interactive Achievement Awards (IAAs) in Las Vegas, scoring a total of five top honors including the coveted Game of the Year title. Rest assured, the likes of Portal 2, Uncharted 3, and Super Mario 3D Land were also shown some industry love...

As the console wars continue, a new contender in the digital download conflict emerges. Publisher and developer Electronic Arts has announced that it’ll be offering “platform exclusives” in the form of games only available through its own download service, Origin. The announcement coincides with new exclusivity requirements added for rival digital distribution service Steam, which have already seen Crysis 2 and other titles removed from its catalogue.

“You talk about platform exclusives like Halo or Uncharted,” explains EA's Frank Gibeau: “EA's going to have some of our own platform exclusives.” The “Only on Origin” badge has already shown up on advertising for Battlefield 3 and Crysis 2...

Filesharing blog TorrentFreak has released its list of the Top 10 Most Pirated Games of 2011, putting Crytek's Crysis 2 in top spot with nearly four million illegal downloads...

“The only thing worse than being talked about,” said Oscar Wilde, “is not being talked about.” Maybe that’s why Activision’s Eric Hirshberg took the time to thank Electronic Arts for the company’s “assistance in building awareness” for the Call of Duty brand. And it's true! EA won't shut up about Call of Duty! Maybe that's how Black Ops got to have the single most profitable DLC installment of all time. Okay, it's probably also because Black Ops is pretty killer, but the extra publicity couldn't have hurt.

We like a good fight. So when Sledgehammer Games’ co-founder Glen Scofield had something to say about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s biggest rival, Battlefield 3, we listened. Speaking to AusGamers, Scofield emphasized the importance of delivering a game that can run at 60 frames-per-second on consoles. While he didn’t specifically mention DICE’s Frostbite 2 engine or Battlefield 3, you can read between the lines and connect the dots…

Above: In this Battlefield 3 screenshot, the fallen soldier in the middle represents Activision shares if loyal CoD fans defect to EA’s flagship FPS

Subscription fees for Activision's Call of Duty Elite social service could cause “loyal Call of Duty players to defect to [Battlefield 3],” says omniscient voice of the future and industry analyst Michael Pachter. However, EA's own attempt to establish a foothold in the digital distribution space with its online platform Origin looks to exclude Battlefield 3 from Steam, which can't be good for prospective sales. Is BF3 really going to be unavailable on Valve's platform?...

***Update*** Confusion reigned supreme over who owned the URL in question here, so let's try this story again, eh?***

All's fair in love and Modern Warfare, right? At least, that's what someone seems to be thinking. Amazingly, Activision has overlooked the need to own the domain name www.modernwarfare3.com which has allowed an unknown party to redirect any traffic to that name squarely onto Battlefield 3's official website. Ouch.

According to opinion data from social networking service Raptr, more players were excited about the launch of Battlefield 3, thought that DICE was a more innovative developer than Infinity Ward, and that the Battlefield franchise has had a bigger impact on the FPS genre than Call of Duty. That data comes from a survey of over 6,000 respondents. But when you break down the numbers comparing hours played from Raptr’s user base of over 10 million gamers, it looks like most players prefer Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to Battlefield 3…