The folks at Cosmos Gaming have posted a Q&A about games in Russia, asking representatives from 1C Company, IT Territory, Step Creative Group, and Lesta Studio about the Russian games industry, Russian to English translations and games they are working on.

Major Russian independent publisher and developer 1C Company announced today its intention to make its first large-scale push into the North American market via a new distribution deal with publisher Atari. The company, which already also operates offices out of China and the UK, is hoping to establish itself as a known gaming force throughout Western territories. Previously, 1C has entered into individual third party publishing relationships to distribute certain titles in North America, with Ubisoft publishing 1C-owned Maddox Games' acclaimed IL-2 Sturmovik flight sims and Cinemaware publishing Elemental Games' well-received space strategy game Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators. Going forward, Atari will have first right of refusal on all 1C games in North America.

Among the slate of 1C games set to be released by Atari is Digital Spray's alternate history shooter You Are Empty, set in a 1950s Soviet Union where state-sanctioned experiments on humans have left citizens mutated or dead. First announced in 2004 and demonstrated at several E3 events, You Are Empty is expected to be released for PC later this year.

Also on the roster is Chris Faylor's most anticipated game of the year, SoftLab-NSK's trucker life sim Rig'n'Roll. Rig'n'Roll is the story of a California trucker in the year 2024, featuring truck racing, cargo delivery, and trucking company management including hiring and firing employees and demolishing opposing firms in the cutthroat world of trucking. Numerous California highways and cities will be faithfully reproduced. 1C plans to release Rig'n'Roll for PC later in 2007.

The full list of PC games included in today's announcement is as follows (screenshots are linked from each game's title):
- Action Forms' arctic FPS Cryostasis (Q4 2007)
- SkyFallen Entertainment's fantasy RPG Dawn of Magic (2007)
- Haggard Games' WWII espionage action game Death to Spies (2007)
- Ino-Co's fantasy turn-based strategy game Fantasy Wars (2007)
- Katauri Interactive's adventure/strategy RPG King's Bounty: The Legend (2007)
- SoftLab's near-future trucker sim Rig'n'Roll (2007)
- CrioLand's space sim/RPG The Tomorrow War (2007) (based on the novels of Alexander Zorich)
- 1C Company's WWII RTS Theatre of War (April 19, 2007)
- Unicorn Games' medieval RTS XIII Century: Death or Glory (2007)
- Digital Spray's alternate history FPS You Are Empty (2007)

A list of publishers and developers currently slated to attend this July's E3 Media & Business Summit in Santa Monica has been made available to press registered for the event. The news follows months of speculation among gamers and members of the games industry regarding how many companies would be attending the newly slimmed down trade show. Said NIS America president Haru Akenaga last month, "We have almost no chance to join the big E3, because we are too small," echoing the fears of some that smaller publishers and developers would be locked out of the event. Indeed, the trimmed down exhibitor list consists mainly of major publishers and the three major platform holders, though there are a few independent developers, niche publishers, and peripheral manufacturers as well. The site refers to the exhibitor list, current as of March 30, as a "complete listing of Participating Companies," implying that there may be no further participants added in the runup to the event.

Participating publishers are 1C Company, Activision, Akella, Atari, Atlus, Bethesda Softworks, Buena Vista Games (now Disney Interactive Studios), Capcom, Codemasters, Crave Entertainment, Eidos, Electronic Arts, Konami, LucasArts, Majesco, Microsoft, Midway, Namco Bandai Games, NCsoft, Nintendo, Sega, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive, THQ, Ubisoft, Vivendi Games, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

The only independent developer exhibitors are Foundation 9 Entertainment and id Software. Accessory manufacturers Logitech and Nyko Technologies are also set to attend. This year's exhibitor lists contains 32 (update: 33) companies; by contrast, last year's exceeded 400.

Despite the low count of independent developers and niche publishers listed as exhibitors, the E3 Media & Business Summit will host the Indie Games Showcase, featuring titles ranging from commercially produced independent games to student projects. Indie Games Showcase will include contributions from the first IndieCade festival, to be held later this year and intended to promote and support the independent game development community.

E3 Summit will consist of an exhibit hall in Santa Monica's Barker Hanger as well as company-run demonstrations in nearby hotel suites. Third party press conferences will be held in a common location, while platform holder press conferences will, as in past years, be entirely hosted by the three manufacturers themselves. No press conferences have yet been announced. Attendeeds to this year's invitation-only event are expected to number 3000-4000 in total, a mere fraction of 2006's 60,000 or 2005's 70,000. The event will be held on July 11-13, 2007.

Update: Developer and publisher Bethesda Softworks has contacted Shacknews, stating that it too will be attending this year's E3 Summit despite its current lack of inclusion on the exhibitor list.

Update: Further contact from Bethesda suggests that the omission of the company on the E3 exhibitor list was merely an error on the part of the Electronic Software Association in compiling the participating companies.

GameSpot has a Cryostasis preview up, offering their impressions of this new first person shooter unveiled at a recent 1C Company press event.

FiringSquad has posted You Are Empty impressions, based on playing this alternate reality shooter at a 1C Company press event.

FiringSquad has posted a Crysostasis preview, taking a first look at this new first person shooter in development at Action Forms. 1C Company will be publishing the game, and courtesy of a new distribution deal, Atari will be bringing the game to North America.

The final couple of 2006-2007 Game Developers Survey Q&As have been posted at FiringSquad asking more people about the hits of 2006 and predictions for this year. Part 5 (Seth Schiesel, New York Times), Part 6 (Derek Smart), Part 7 (Anatoly Subbotin, 1C Company), Part 8 (Max Dolmar, Fireglow Games).

Armchair General Magazine has posted a Theatre of War Q&A, asking Steve Grammont, Matt Faller, and Martin van Balkom of Battlefront.com about this real-time strategy game. Topics include unique features, accessibility for the mainstream crowd, helping 1C Company finish up the game, nation-specific unit tactics, and more.

Anatoly Subbotin of 1C Company and Jan Beuck of Master Creating are today's Games In 2005 - 2006 Q&A victims, telling GameCloud's JCal about the most significant thing that happened to the game industry in 2005, the good and bad games, and expectations for 2006.

As part of a really brief development update, the Battlefield Command website has several new screenshots from this new strategy game in development at 1C Company. The shots show the Polish Vickers Mk.E Type A tank used during World War 2. Thanks Blues'.

Codemasters today announced that they have acquired the publishing rights to 1C Company's untitled WW2 RTS. This game is coming out in 2004, hopefully with a real title by then. You can find some screenshots here.

There is a WW2 RTS Q&A on Axle Networks, talking to Nikolay Baryshnikov of 1C Company about this RTS set during World War 2 (bet you couldn't guess that one). Q&As cover the single player campaign, multiplayer options, plans for a demo, realism and a few other things.