We were all laying around being force fed by the one dimensional media device called the television when my wife came home and asked the kids and I, “Aren’t you watching the Oscars”. I told her we forgot and I already knew all I wanted about that movie with all the Canadians in it. We continued to watch game reviews. I found out later when blogging that there was actually an interesting gaming moment at the Oscars.
Call of Duty 4 was the best selling retail game in December and from what I’ve seen, it is going to be stuck on the charts like Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ was.
Nintendo seems to be on a role with its product line starting with the Brain Training products for Nintendo DS developed by Dr. Kawashima who apparently just pours all his royalty entitlements back into more research facilities at the University he works at. From the article … “Asked whether he ever thought of taking the royalty money and moving to a tropical island, Kawashima simply said: “I wouldn’t know what to do there. If I had such time to spare, I want to do my research.”" Right now his efforts are focused on delaying senility by exercizing the brain. His new research will look at children.
The take up of the Wii is extending into the extended care facilities. Most popular are the games like bowling and boxing. In many cases it appears the level of activity obtained with the Wii-mote is perfect for seniors.
As a result of this extension of the gaming market into a new audience, Nintendo’s profit doubled last quarter.
And as the gaming industry grows it is even impinging on Hollywood’s draw on talent by giving older actors a second life and sometimes more fame than they had in their original acting career.
“I’m not a big videogame player,” actor Kieth David said. “But once I was on the set of a film and one of the grips came up to me and said ‘I know you’re the voice of the Arbiter, can I have your autograph’?”
Apparently Jack Thompson has no problem with ‘Mass Effect’ and had this to say about the Fox News Story. That was after he said he would fight the release/rating of Grand Theft Auto IV in April.
To: Jack
From: Brian (Kotaku.com)
I’m surprised you haven’t been looking into Mass Effect.
To: Brian
From: Jack
“Why would you be surprised? I don’t see any problem with it. The guy who shot his mouth off about it had no idea what the Hell he was talking about.”
Meanwhile, 
Lore Sjöberg, on his Wired Magazine blog tries to bate Fox News with a number of contrived inventions of his own. He targets a number of games including this description of Super Mario Galaxy which I gave to nieces and nephews for Christmas 
“Super Mario Galaxy
If you bring Rosalina enough “fuel,” she tells you “stories,” helps you learn new “techniques” and eventually invites you into her bedroom to “look at the stars,” all while you’re shaking your Wiimote at regular intervals. Get it? No? Well, there’s also an explicit sex scene involving Mario and a Koopa Troopa.”
It doesn’t stop with Nintento Games, the fast selling WII is being used by Ronald McDonald in this disturbing DDR video …
EA Games has not responded to repeated invitations to talk around Fox News and their ignorance of the ‘gaming industry’ which now dwarfs Hollywood. Their infantile discussion about PG 13 content in a Mature
rated game, “Mass Effect“ has infuriated the ‘gaming community’ and the internet is rife with discussions equating Fox News with a bunch of disconnected, backward, ‘out of date’, irrelevant ‘talking heads’. Not the kind of reputation you want if your in the business of appearing to know something about what is going on in the world. With the ongoing discussions about content in games, the attack of what is really a banal bit of character developement seemed to touch a nerve with many gamers. The thought of Quinton Terrentino and franchises like ‘Saw’ carrying on with impunity (and who do you think watches these movies?) in a ‘non-interactive medium’, movies, while certain individuals are determined to ruin the new ’immersive’, ‘mentally engaging’ medium … gaming, and its relavence to human existance … is disturbing. The attack on what is really material that in the context of the game isn’t even worth consideration beyond an ‘authors’ attempt at making something more ‘life like’ and ‘interesting’ so that someone other than a toddler could become engaged … simply enraged the ‘gaming community’.
EA Games should just ignore Fox News on this matter. They are obviously embarrassed about their irrelavance. I have to thank my ’web partner’ for bringing this to my attention and posting the last article on this subject. I really haven’t got into gaming much since Wolfenstein 3D
and trying to get Doom 2 
multiplayer working over an analog modem (Imagine it … after fighting with modem strings you get 640×480 graphics, a chain gun, and then you hide in a corner … and d’d'd’d'd’d'd frag the enemy! … it was awesome in 1995). My personal belief is ‘first person shooters’ like that developed out of the technology available. Now, I find the business and technology behind gaming more interesting than actually playing, and this is a major story of political significance. Bioware wins, Fox loses and guest Cooper Lawrence on the show recants the message to the NY Times.
Beyond Fox trying to invent some filler material for ’another day’ of news, I simply view this as an ‘over reaction’ in ignorance after guys like Jack Thompson
have had their apparent success in that games now actually have a rating system. So when a game called ‘Manhunt 2′ gets a rating of AO, ‘Adult Only’, I think that is progress. However, I wouldn’t want him selecting what movies I bring my kids to or what games I buy my kids for Christmas. And yes, I know what is on the shelves in my kids’ rooms. There were a few people that looked at me odd when I sat in the front row with my kids at ‘American Gangster’ (a great movie that we discussed substantially).
So basically what you have here is a whole industry playing by the rules and someone comes along and moves the bar so far as to make the whole enterprise pointless. The sad thing is the TV media in general with its ‘clipped’ messages treats most issues in the fashion that Fox News treated this one.
Adam Sessler of G4 TV (formerly Tech TV) editorialized this event on his show ‘Sessler’s Soapbox’ (videos here).
One Gamer and four ‘talking heads’ have a conversation about Mass Effect’s very insignificant momentary side view of an alien boob. The other boobs in this Fox News story should be playing Viva Pinata be