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Last year was a busy one for Valve. In addition to shipping the Orange Box, a game which received one of the highest aggregate review scores of the year, the developer made significant gains with its online digital distribution portal Steam. Several publishers, including Rockstar, Capcom, id Software, among others, signed on to distribute their wares through the service, and Valve launched a new community hub to accommodate its more than 13 million global users.

Looking to keep its pipes hot through the new year, Valve has announced that Steamworks, its proprietary suite of publishing tools, is now available to developers and publishers worldwide free of charge. The tools include a number of back-end support services for developers, including encryption systems, auto-update functionality, voice chat integration, social-networking services, and development tools, among other features. The tools can be used for PC games distributed through retail and online platforms.

“Developers and publishers are spending more and more time and money cobbling together all the tools and backend systems needed to build and launch a successful title in today’s market,” said Valve president and founder Gabe Newell. “Steamworks puts all those tools and systems together in one free package, liberating publishers and developers to concentrate on the game instead of the plumbing.”

More information on the free publishing tools suite is available through Valve’s Steamworks Web site.

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With its merger with Activision looming, Vivendi Games today reported revenue for 2007, its final year as a direct subsidiary of French multinational Vivendi SA. The gaming division saw a record €1.02 billion ($1.51 billion) in revenue, a 26.6 percent jump over the previous year’s €804 million ($1.15 billion) haul. However, for the fourth quarter, the division saw sales slip 7.4 percent to €302 million ($447.8 million). (The company did not release net profit figures.)

To the surprise of no one who read NPD’s 2007 PC game-sales report, Vivendi Games said its success was “driven by the continued momentum of World of Warcraft, its award-winning subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).” The company reported that sustained interest in WOW and the release of its first expansion, the Burning Crusade, added 2 million subscribers to the game, bringing its user base to over 10 million.

As a result, the revenues of WOW’s developer and publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, shot up 58 percent to reach €814 million ($1.2 billion), putting it over the billion-dollar mark for the first time in its corporate history. Vivendi’s non-Blizzard game divisions–Sierra Entertainment, Sierra Online and Vivendi Games Mobile–saw their revenue sink 29 percent year on year to €204 million ($303 million). For the fourth quarter, Blizzard’s sales rose 19 percent to reach €186 million ($276 million) while non-Blizzard game revenue slid 32 percent to €116 million ($172 million).

Today’s Vivendi Games numbers may well be the last before the division is subsumed into Activision Blizzard. In December, Vivendi and Activision stunned the game industry by announcing the formation of the new megapublisher, whose assets are valued at nearly $19 billion dollars. Vivendi SA will have a controlling stake in Activision Blizzard, which will have a structure that leaves Blizzard largely intact and folds all other Vivendi Games into Activision. It is still awaiting stockholder and regulator approval.

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ASUS is expanding its Eee PC line to include not one but multiple extra models, including an all-in-one desktop, the company said today at a press event. The E-Monitor will aim to do what the original Eee PC notebook did for portables by reducing the cost of entry for the class; the system will have a screen between 19 and 21 inches large but use Intel’s low-cost Shelton platform to help drive down prices. A finished system should cost just $500 despite including a TV tuner, ASUS says. The Taiwan PC maker does not elaborate on full details but is most likely to use Linux to improve both relative performance and the cost, which is less than half that of the $1200 base iMac it sees as a rival.

The computer builder also says it will build a headless desktop, the E-DT, which will at first use a Celeron but then switch to the Shelton platform. Most details are unavailable, though the price should range between $200 and $300 and is being pushed towards the $200 mark. A third system known as the E-TV will combine a basic Eee PC platform with a 42-inch LCD TV and should cost about $200 more than a comparable TV that ships without such features.

ASUS plans to ship the E-DT first in April or May, at the same time as projected enhanced Eee PC notebooks. Both the E-Monitor and the E-TV are scheduled to launch in September, shortly after the Shelton platform becomes available for production.

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Google and Facebook are fighting hard to hire this years crop of computer science graduates, we’ve heard, and ground zero is Stanford. Most of the class of 2008 already have job offers even though graduation is months away.

Last year, salaries of up to $70,000 were common for the best students. This year, Facebook is said to be offering $92,000, and Google has increased some offers to $95,000 to get their share. Students with a Masters degree in Computer Science are being offered as much as $130,000 for associate product manager jobs at Google.

Apparently the popular Facebook Applications class is getting a lot of attention from other startups, too. Slide and RockYou are both recruiting hard. One source says that RockYou is approaching students and telling them they aren’t hiring them, they’re “acquiring” their “companies” and will let them continue to work on their applications after graduation. That is, of course, some serious smoke blowing - any code they’ve been working on in the class is likely to be shelved by RockYou. Still, it’s a great way to recruit by making these students feel like they’re entering into some kind of an M&A transaction.

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Back in April of 2006, rumors surfaced that Crytek was bringing its much-anticipated PC shooter Crysis to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. More recently, there was speculation that an extended “Crysis 1.5″ would be coming exclusively to the PS3.

Although the aforementioned rumors remain unconfirmed, today the German developer announced that console versions of CryEngine 2, the technology behind Crysis’ processor-punishing visuals, are in development. The console editions of the middleware will be unveiled at private appointments behind closed doors at the upcoming Game Developers Conference, which runs from February 18-22 in San Francisco.

“This year’s engine will be shown for the first time running on multiple hardware platforms such as the PS3 and Xbox 360 to a select audience,” the company said in a statement.

While general attendees may not be able to get a peek at the console editions of the engine, Crytek will be showing off the fully optimized engine’s performance on a budget PC that could be put together for about $600. In addition, Crytek’s Cevat Yerli, Sten Hübler, and Bernd Diemer will host a conference session titled “Crysis in the Making,” which will provide insight into how the PC shooter came together.

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This week, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer publicly expressed confidence that the PlayStation 3’s once-flagging fortunes have turned around. However, many gamers are holding off on buying the device for one simple reason–its dearth of “system seller” exclusives. While Sony has spent millions touting first-party games such as Lair, Uncharted, and Heavenly Sword, none have reached the multiplatinum status of the Xbox 360’s Halo 3 or the Wii’s Super Mario Galaxy.

That may change later this year, when a wave of highly anticipated PS3 exclusives washes up on retailers’ shores. One such title is Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, the latest installment in the acclaimed racing series that helped the PlayStation 2 sell more than 100 million units worldwide. Today, Sony announced it will go on sale in North America on April 17. The $39.99 game will be available both as a 2.2GB digital download from the PlayStation Store and at retail as a Blu-ray Disc, which will also sport an exclusive making-of high-def video featurette called “Beyond the Apex.” No European launch details were announced for the game, which went on sale in Japan last December to celebrate the series’ 10th anniversary.

Though it won’t be as expansive as the full Gran Turismo 5, which has only a tentative 2008 release window, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue will sport the same 60fps, 1080p HD graphics as its bigger brother. Developed by Polyphony Digital, the game will contain some 60 detailed replicas of real-life cars from Nissan, Audi, and Ferrari. It will also sport five racetracks (not 16, as initially reported), including re-creations of international locales such as Daytona International Speedway, which will allow 16 players to race together online. It will also feature a new in-cockpit view with realistic recreations of each vehicle’s various dashboard displays, and will fully support the forthcoming DualShock 3 controller’s force feedback functionality.

To help support GT5 Prologue and rev up interest in GT5 proper, Sony Computer Entertainment America is also launching Gran Turismo TV, a PlayStation Network channel “that delivers worldwide motorsport programming and manufacturer content.” In addition, SCEA is planning a series of GT5 Prologue community races and related events.

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French web survey company XiTi Monitor has published Firefox market share statistics for 2007, which indicate that the open-source web browser is continuing to see gains at the expense of Internet Explorer, particularly in Europe.

XiTi’s breakdown of monthly Firefox market share gains for the past year show that the browser climbed from about 20 percent two years ago to 23.1 percent in December 2006 to a record 28 percent in December 2007. Firefox market share hit a plateau and hovered around 27.7 percent between June and September before taking a 0.7 percent drop in October, but then recovered prior to reaching 28 percent last month.

XiTi also provides market share statistics for 32 individual European countries. Finland currently has the highest Firefox market share in Europe with 45.4 percent, followed by Slovenia with 44.6 percent and Poland with 42.4 percent.

In December alone, Internet Explorer fell to 66.1 percent in Europe after losing 0.9 percent market share. During the same time period, Firefox gained 0.7 percent. The statistics show that Safari currently has only 2 percent market share in Europe.

XiTi also provides some insight into adoption rates of recent versions. Less than half of all Internet Explorer users are running Internet Explorer 7 rather than earlier versions, whereas 93 percent of Firefox users are running Firefox 2.

Firefox’s continued success in Europe may undermine some of the arguments made by Norwegian browser maker Opera in an antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft in December of last year. Opera accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the web browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows. Earlier this month, the EU decided to open an investigation against Microsoft in response.

Firefox adoption is likely encouraged by the perception of superior security and the availability of extensions and other user-driven enhancements. Firefox’s current market share growth rate was decent in Europe in 2007, but the official release of Firefox 3 (which is currently in beta stage) could potentially incite more significant market share increases in 2008.

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