Our hearts were warmed to hear of SCi's seeming salvation as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment acquired 171 million shares in the floundering company (for nearly £60 million) -- an investment that would "benefit of all [their] major franchises" and put the once-great publisher Eidos back on the map. However, according to 1UP, a number of insiders have reported that this act of gaming industry cartography could have some far less publicized consequences.

Much like the pushy girlfriend who doesn't allow you to bring your autographed Erasure poster into your new apartment, Eidos may have recently kicked their entire marketing, public relations, and sales departments to the curb following their Warner Bros. bailout, according to the 1UP tipsters. Whether this was a stipulation of the WB deal, or a continuation of SCi's systematic operating cost reduction (or if the information is even legit), we're not sure. We just hope they don't fire the one guy who wants to make a Mister Mosquito sequel.

Last week we managed to catch the Venture Capital panel at the Virtual Worlds Forum, an event set inside a nightclub situated within a rather eerie warehouse district behind Kings Cross train station. Plenty of black leather sofas with bloggers and attendees basked in purple lights, a glitter ball, and three bars provide an odd backdrop for discussions about monetizing the latest WoW wannabe. The overall atmosphere of this panel was very businesslike -- £995 a head means most attendees were on their respective company's ticket -- so if you want to continue believing that video games are solely a creative medium designed to further society through creation of fun, look away now.

If you're interested in this subject, make sure to check out ex-Joystiq editor Vlad Cole's newly relaunched blog on video game venture capital. Now keep reading.

MTV intends to spend over the next two years $500 million dollars in the video game industry. OK, seriously, maybe seeing the full line of digits will have more impact: $500,000,000. Eight zeros, a half billion dollars. This is big news and goes way beyond anything having to do with MTV's potential mega-hit Rock Band.

"We're putting well over $500 million behind building our games business across all of the brands in our portfolio ... I'd like to see more game applications on some of our current big brands across the music group," MTV chairman Judy McGrath said. It's still not absolutely clear if this money includes the $100 million already announced for MTV Network's Nickelodeon. This continues MTV's march across the industry having already acquired major properties like GameTrailers and Harmonix. No announcements yet where this money is going, but it's going to be very interesting to see MTV flex its financial muscle in the industry.