If you’ve attempted to log into some of Blizzard’s most popular games today it’s possible that you’ve run into a problem that as of time of writing there has not yet been a given reason for. For some reason the login queues are taking a while longer than they usually do.

The reports of overlong queues for Hearthstone turned up on the sub-Reddit earlier when users complained that their waiting times were often around 15 minutes, sometimes more than that. As is typical several have already put forth the theory that a DDoS attack could be behind the problem, and while Blizzard haven’t yet provided the users with a reason it wouldn’t be the first time in recent memory something of a similar nature happened – after all Draenor’s launch woes were compounded by another attack.

For now all we can do is wait and see if it’s another attack or something more tech-related.

The results are in for how much money digital distribution of the video game on PC made for the industry in the last year, and it’s pretty good news. At least if you enjoy knowing that the industry is healthy.

Digital distribution has seen the UK games industry’s sales up by 7.5% in 2014 when compared to figures from 2013. Digital sales on their own have risen by a significant 18.8% over the 2013 figures, with the total figure for it standing at a fairly impressive figure of around £1.5 billion for the year. Boxed copies were down by around 6.6% compared to 2013’s figures which seems to suggest that digital continues to be the chosen method by which people choose to receive their new games.

Overall the UK games industry made around £2.452 billion in 2014, which as I said above is good news for those of us who enjoy seeing the industry of our preferred entertainment healthy and thriving. Especially when compared to the other two main entertainment forms, which both saw a slight drop with music sales down 1.6% and movie sales down 1.4%.

Who says video gaming doesn’t appeal to the general public?

Those of you paying attention to the MMO The Elder Scrolls Online might have noticed something’s gone missing recently from its page of subscriptions. It’s now no longer possible to subscribe to the game for longer than 90 days, with the six month option having been removed shortly before 2014 ended.

The French forums did put up an explanation for the disappearance of the six month subscription when a moderator told users that it’d been removed simply because the 30-day and 90-day subscriptions were proving more popular among the community.

However, past trends with previous MMO games suggest that something else might be going on behind the scenes at Zenimax Online. See, removing longer subscription times has been done with other MMOS. And those MMOs usually had the longer time periods removed as the first steps towards making those MMOs free-to-play mode MMOs.

There’s not a lot of evidence to support the theory that this is what’s happening to TESO, but given that the game hasn’t done as well as expected it would seem a sensible move to alter its model. After all, the game is a decent one. I will admit that. The only thing putting me off right now is that it isn’t good enough in my mind to justify the cost of the monthly subscription.

Until we do know if anything is going on with the game’s model, players have a new update to look forward to this month which will bring Champion and Justice Systems to the game. About time as well.

It seems that reports of a possible hacking of Origin is popping up on Reddit, with users reporting that their accounts are having unauthorised purchases and other activities appear within them. Some users are reporting that they’re being charged for games they didn’t buy, while some are lucky enough to have had the purchase fail to go through and are receiving e-mails informing them of the fact. One user reports realising something was up when he started gaining achievements for a game they didn’t own, while another has had their account banned because the hacker used it to farm coins with a FIFA game.

EA customer support seem to be handling this well, although the level of satisfaction varies from user to user as is the case usually. Origin has a similar login setup to Steam when it detects an account being logged into from an unfamiliar device, sending a security code to the related e-mail for input before the user is allowed to proceed. Electronic Arts themselves are currently investigating the issues to find out what is happening and how it has happened, but right now no further information has been released from their side.

Either way, if you have an Origin account it might be a good idea to go check its history and do the usual security checks when hackers are around (i.e. change your password, make sure the right e-mail is registered…)

The Kinect was in a way Microsoft’s answer to the Wii’s motion controls, a feature that captured the imagination of the gaming public back then in a way that not many saw coming. Now Microsoft have confirmed that the original version of the Kinect will stop being sold next year.

The Kinect is being taken off the shelves due to the introduction of the v2 Kinect released in October. The models saw updates to body tracking, greater depth fidelity, the addition of 1080p video and many other updates over the v1 Kinect. It also added updates and allowed for the creation and publication of Kinect-enabled apps for the Windows Store from outside developers.

“We know that your proven track record doing great things with the original technology will only get better with v2—the improvements in quality from the original Kinect for Windows sensor to the v2 device are truly immense,” Microsoft said in a statement. “And so, we’re cheered by the prospect of seeing all the amazing solutions you’ll create with this the new and improved Kinect for Windows.”

Microsoft will do its best to fulfill orders from customers who still need large numbers of the older model but have stopped producing new stock, which means once the stockpile is gone there will be no more sold.

The Kinect for Windows v2 model is available for $200 from Microsoft.