Becker Video Game Design

Along with new federally mandated education standards, investments by Gates in grants for "digital learning" tools.

A father describes how, despite his efforts to the contrary, both his sons are deeply involved in video games, highly accomplished, and travel great distances and time to visit fellow players and participate in gaming events. Whether this is at the expense of social skills, interactions and real life is considered.

Highlights two games, one designed an American and one designed by Chinese, one taking as its subject the end of American military hegemony, the other portraying American soldiers as "the enemy." Socio-political implications of these developments are discussed, particularly how these represent a break from mainstream video game content.

Merger between two companies developing "mobile devices into wireless controllers" for game use and other applications

"Center of Excellence for Games," game marketing and game development for Hasbro moved to Rhode Island with unfortunate results for some Massachusetts employees.

Profiles an MIT grad Eitan Gilnert, founded company with new game "Slam Bolt Scrappers," using funding from friends and family. Gives his insights on entrepreneurship and why one should invest in his company. The company's web site: http://www.firehosegames.com/ features product information and an online community.

A regular stream of news stories from Ars Technica about video game development. Features RSS and Twitter feeds and comment forms.

A premier news aggregator for the tech startup culture,hosted by tech incubator YCombinator, featuring articles on programming, hacking, software and other topics of possible interest to game designers. Also hosts query functions, comments and job listings.

A technology and curiosity weblog " a directory of wonderful things," that frequently posts articles and reviews on video games and technology relating to game design

A competition for youths to design adventures for Spore game, recognition of prizewinners at Electronic Arts, links to videos of winning concepts

"gaming marketing and social entrepreneurship" organization celebrarting its 8th annual festival this week

Potential applications for therapy, electronic health records, operating rooms

Principles of physics applied to popular mobile video games

Partnership between Civilization game franchise and Facebook, game playing is free, currency is premium, speculation on how user communities will respond

"How do game characters contribute to shaping the playing experience? What kinds of design tools are available for character-based games that utilize methods from dramatic writing and game research? Writer Petri Lankoski has a theory for this. There is a need to tether character design to game design more tightly than has been the case in the past, as well as to pay attention to social networks of characters by the means of finding useful design patterns.

Published in 2011, "Art, Science, Magic and the Computer Game Medium"

"A Comprehensive Study of Sound in Computer Games: How Audio Affects Player ActionJørgensen, Kristine This study examines the functionality of sound in computer games, a topic which has received little attention in game studies and media studies." Especially focuses on player experience of sound

Creator of Persuasive Games studio's site featuring information on his books, writings, and blog

"As many women play online video games as men"

story of a game developing in the 1990s and the difficulty of getting a legal copy or the source code today