Round-Up: WoW & Parents, MTV & GameTrailers, Ubisoft & Free Radical

Today's round-up includes news of MTV's acquisition of the GameTrailers website, a new parental controls system for Blizzard's MMO World Of WarCraft, and Ubisoft's deal to publish Free Radical's next game, as well as today's Gamasutra job postings. - MTV has acquired GameTrailers.com, an aggregator and producer of video promos for games. The acquisition brings GameTrailers into the MTV Networks portfolio of websites, which also includes IFilm.com, MTV.com, VH1.com, Nick.com, and others, and continues MTV's moves to ally with the game industry. "The acquisition of the GameTrailers business represents a strong and unique step forward for MTV Networks into the growing world of video-game culture by delivering high quality broadband video content to consumers, and it complements our broad efforts in video-games media across our brands," said MTV Networks chief digital officer Jason Hirschhorn. - Following recent controversy over minors spending excessive time in MMOs such as World of Warcraft, Blizzard has released an update enabling users to implement server-level controls on when WoW characters on an account are allowed to be online, intended for use by parents or guardians. Account holders can set the game up so that users can only connect during time blocks defined by the administrator, and there are several present schedules: "Some limit access to your World of Warcraft account to evenings and weekends, to after-school times and weekends, or to evenings only. Others build in an automatic one-hour break at regular intervals." - Ubisoft has agreed to publish the next game from Free Radical Design, developers of the TimeSplitters series and Second Sight. The untitled game will be a new franchise unrelated to the team's previous efforts, and is scheduled to be released for next-generation consoles and PC in the 2006 fiscal year. "Ubisoft is looking forward to working closely with Free Radical, renowned for creating beautiful and engaging gameplay in epics such as the TimeSplitters series," said Ubisoft third-party development director Virginie Gretz. "With this game, we plan to take players to a new level of intensity and create an environment at once terrifying, enthralling and impossible to resist." - Also updated today: the latest Gamasutra job postings, including positions from Datascope Recruitment, Digital Illusions CE, Disney Buena Vista Games, Microsoft, Rockstar San Diego, Sony Computer Entertainment America, and Terminal Reality. [Job seekers can now also sign up to a Career newsletter as part of Gamasutra's new suite of free newsletters, which include a daily digest and specific newsletters for mobile game, casual/indie game, and 'serious game' professionals.]