The internet is great for keeping up on video game news, but more often we're reminded of all the community happenings we missed as they formed. I'm sharing my four favorite stories from the past week with corresponding highlights from Twitter: my conversation whirlwind of choice.

Check after the jump to play a naughty cat, say goodbye to a few Sony Online MMOs, find why black holes no longer exist, and stick it to the candy man.

Game of the Year 2014

Catlateral Damage smashed and crashed its way to Greenlit status on Steam! If you haven’t tried the game yet, it’s a true-to-life role-playing simulation. You’re a cat given two minutes in a room of your owners’ breakables and your goal is to swat as many objects off high surfaces as possible before the timer sounds.

The deceptively simple first-furson stress reliever seems to strike a chord with gamers--probably due to the real-life experience of cat ownership that inspired the game.

Me and my old buddy (and @CatlateralDMG inspiration) Nippy! He'll be 17 this year. pic.twitter.com/URKghV9BVZ

— Chris Chung (@Chrixeleon) January 19, 2014

Niche Repeal

image via http://tmblr.co/Z8NuqxID-lIz

Sony Online Entertainment announced the sunset of aging MMOs Free Realms, Wizardry Online, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and Clone Wars Adventures. The gaming community flocked to CEO John Smedley’s Reddit AMAA (Ask me Almost Anything) to express a collective “meh” on the sunsetting and grill Smedley on SOE’s EverQuest Next and EQN Landmark plans.

Conspiracy theory: SOE shuts down Clone Wars, Free Realms & Wizardry to make All Access simpler. Shuts down Vanguard to spite McQuaid.

— Matthew Gollschewski (@Nonsensicles) January 24, 2014

You can read the announcements of great regret and heavy hearts for Vanguard here, Free Realms here, Wizardry Online here, and Clone Wars here.

This is Gonna Suck for Someone

 image via http://imgur.com/gallery/QEP34

Stephen Hawking’s snarkily-named internet-published paper, “Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes”, hit the digital streets yesterday. Social media was in an uproar, shouting that Hawking claimed “black holes do not exist” and prompting attention-grabbing headlines like “Black Holes? More like Grey Holes!” (The latter was accompanied by waggling eyebrows and rimshots, I assume.)

What does this have to do with video games? The paper does away with our current understand of a black hole’s event horizon and singularity, which do function as story points and mechanics in many scifi games. Still, this shouldn’t affect the major point of black holes in movies and games: you really don’t want to get sucked in.

It’s worth noting the paper has yet to pass peer review, which means it’s not exactly accepted working theory yet. Hawking points out that the new theory calling for a redefinition of black holes will require vast research before anyone can begin to work with it. I daresay had this proposal come from any other physicist, it would still be dismissed as a crackpot cry for attention at this point.

This Is My Jam

Why You™ Should Delete™ Candy™ Crush Saga™: http://t.co/VGy9BXfQ1p - vile™ business™ practices™, and our Trademark™ office™ let it happen™.

— snipe ? (@snipeyhead) January 22, 2014

Earlier this week, Mandifesto covered King.com’s power play to squash competition against their confectionary behemoth, Candy Crush Saga. As is usual in broad legislative motions, the little guys get swatted out of the way. Thankfully, indie developers jump at any chance to run a game jam and trademark-fighting makes for the perfect theme. Candy Jam is accepting entries from now until February 3, which means many teams are combining their Candy Jam entry with the massive Global Gam Jam wrapping up this evening.

Trademark-busting or not, I look forward to watching Steam Greenlight and other indie outlets in the weeks following this Global Game Jam.

my commit message just now: "Added groin collision"

— sexual donut (@hentaiphd) January 25, 2014

Did Maevrim skip news you think she should have listed? Let her know in the comments or on Twitter.

Thanks to Raptr user Quatrol (and Raptr.com) for permission to use his screenshot in the header!