GamesBeat weekly roundup: Spelunky, Sony buys Gaikai, and the Walking Dead

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

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This week, Sony buys online streaming service Gaikai and drops OnLive support, Disney spends millions to protect children playing Club Penguin, and the mystery around iOS game Pretty Pet Salon is revealed.

You’ll also find reviews for The Walking Dead Episode 2 and Spelunky.

GamesBeat:

GamesBeat 2012 features more than 80 of the game industry’s best and brightest

The road ahead in gaming: Welcome to the Crossover Era

Apple’s crackdown on app-ranking manipulation: Confused developers caught in the dragnet

The DeanBeat: Even Grand Theft Auto V won’t save 2012 retail game sales

Blizzard recognizes Diablo III’s lack of endgame content

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Six years in the making, epic sci-fi MMO Taikodom is finally set for beta-testing (exclusive)

Free-to-play pioneer K2 Network merges with Reloaded Games (exclusive interview)

And the grenade’s red glare: Call of Duty downloadable content is half off

Buffy Summers, eat your heart out: Juliet may be our generation’s Slayer

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‘Give us something BIG!’: 10 of the best live-action video game trailers

3 unexpected questions from Nintendo’s shareholder meeting

Big Fish Games bets on the cloud with a cross-platform casual gaming service

Three things you need to know about gamification

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Nintendo: Online subscriptions ‘aren’t always the best‘

You can interview for a job by playing Diablo III

Aggressive expansion: How Hero Academy came to embrace China and Steam (interview)

Poker site CEO arrested on new Ponzi scheme charges

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Activision-Blizzard partners with Tencent to take Call of Duty Online to China

What happened to the horror in survival-horror?

Only a mad man could love Spelunky (review)

The Walking Dead Episode 2: Starved for Help turns the gore up to 11 (review)

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Sony buys Gaikai game streaming service for $380M

VentureBeat:

GamesBeat’s Evolution 2012 viewing guide

Gamevil boosts its multimillion-dollar investment of mobile-game developers (exclusive)

Disney spends millions to keep Club Penguin’s young audience safe

GameFounders now nurturing games in Europe with an accelerator

On the move: Mobile gamers now outnumber PC players in China

EA goes after CityVille with today’s launch of SimCity Social

PlayPhone quadruples its mobile social gaming network users in six months

Report: $99 Android-based game console Ouya on the way

Meet our all-star GamesBeat 2012 moderators

Kuato aims to teach kids programming through games

The mystery of why Pretty Pet Salon was banned from the App Store and then returned

Gamers spend $3.4B on all types of games in Q1

Disney and others bring disruption to movie-licensed games

How Sony could disrupt its console rivals — and itself — with its Gaikai acquisition

Zynga ‘unleashes’ bigwig Mark Pincus after big product unveiling

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GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your tickets here.