Next Generation has the results from the Interactive Achievement Awards, one of the most respected accolades a game can receive. God of War came away very, very well from the event. If you're interested, you should know that starting in 2007 the AIAS may be televised in a collaboration with Dick Clark Productions. Some of the given awards: "Game of the Year: God of War, PC Game of the Year: Battlefield 2, Console Game of the Year: God of War, Outstanding Innovation in Gaming: Guitar Hero, Outstanding Achievement: Animation: God of War, Outstanding Achievement: Art Direction: Shadow of the Colossus, Outstanding Achievement: Soundtrack: Guitar Hero" Just a little more respectable than a SpikeTV award.

David Jaffe, creator of last year's very popular God of War, made a plea during a talk at the DICE event for developers to create games with soul. From Next Generation's coverage: "He then made clear that the game industry had to adequately compensate those with talent in order to attract them, saying the industry must provide 'financial incentive for more creative people to come join us instead of working with TV and cinema.' Jaffe appeared to debate the issue of the industry's future within himself. 'Maybe it's all bullshit. Some days, I think games can be something else, the next great entertainment media. And then other days, I feel it's just like porn or motion rides, where there's no capacity to reach high emotional levels.'" Update: 02/10 05:44 GMT by Z : More views on Jaffe's talk are available at 1up and Gamespot.

Shodan writes "eToychest writes that a new game union of sorts has been formed to both recruit new industry talent, as well as give them a unified voice when it comes to maintaining a work/life balance. PEER (Professional Electronic Entertainment Recruiters) was created to establish and maintain ethical work standards and optimum recruiting service for game industry developers, publishers, and related industry companies." From the article: "The part that catches my eye is 'ethical work standards', which I cannot help but think was established, at least in part, due to all of the fervor surrounding EA and the treatment of its employees. The group seems to be a sort of 'worker's union', as they say that in an era where quality of life and rapid growth are chief concerns, PEER gives its members 'a representative voice.'" It will be interesting to see where this leads.

Heartless Gamer writes "The British Red Cross has told GamesIndustry.biz that it hopes to work with developers to prevent the 'illegal and detrimental' misuse of the red cross emblem in videogames. From the article: 'It is important for videogame manufacturers not to use the emblem in their games, including for matters related to its humanitarian purpose, such as first aid or general medical care,' said Michael Meyer, head of international law for the British Red Cross."

Next Gen's DICE coverage includes commentary by Reggie Fils-Aime, who tries to convince publishers to expand the gaming market. Even if it means running ads during Oprah. From the article: "He said that Nintendo would be using new marketing channels, such as daytime television shows, Oprah and Ellen ... In what has become something of a Nintendo mantra, he said Nintendo was seeking to attract female gamers and older gamers. He also warned that the number of teenage males is declining in North America, and high school students are saying their interest in games is declining."

Next Generation is reporting from the annual DICE event, and has the gist of the presentation given by Robert and Richard Garriott about the future of the MMOG industry. From the article: "Richard Garriott, father of the Ultima series said, "After a period of growth, opportunities are closing, budgets are increasing to tens of millions of dollars, and companies need global infrastructure in order to publish. My guess is that over the next 3-5 years, only five companies will operate in this business, and unfortunately, many of the startups will be gone.""

Gamespot reports that Sony will be devoting a quarter of its booth to the PS3 at next week's Taipei game show. The question is, will there be anything new? From the article: "It hasn't been disclosed whether Sony is planning something similar [to 2005's E3] with the Taipei Game Show, or if the console will finally appear in a playable form. Sony's appearance at 'the other TGS' comes just one month before Microsoft launches its Xbox 360 in Taiwan on March 16."

iLogiK writes "Halo 2 will be available for PC, but only in Windows Vista. From the announcement: 'Halo 2 the game that redefined first-person combat and multiplayer action for millions of gamers worldwide, is set to explode onto PCs exclusively for Windows Vista. Halo 2 for Windows Vista will be developed by a dedicated Microsoft Game Studios team in partnership with Bungie Studios.'" That's one way to force upgrades. I thought just not releasing patches for the microsoft-worm-of-the-week would be enough ;)

An anonymous reader writes "According to Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing, Metroid Prime will include the ability to voice chat with other players before and after games (not during). Granted, the PSP's version of SOCOM allows for in-game chat, but this certainly is the first step." They're also going to be setting up demo download stations in retail stores, as reported in a DS Fanboy post. More details also available at the Game|Life Blog.

TheGrapeApe writes "1up has an article about the possibility of World of Warcraft becoming the next "Golf": A place where friends, acquaintances, and perhaps even business partners will meet up to "talk shop" and swap stories. Personally, I can't wait until I have my next job interview in the Deadmines. " I demand extra healing and mana pots from all my employees.

Blackbird writes "The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has tested Nintendo's upcoming Nintendo DS revision, the Nintendo DS Lite, and has released the full test report on its website. Apart from the test results, a concept version of the user manual and photo's of the casing are available for download."

An article at Gamasutra pines for MMOG characters to have their own lives. Specifically, the author wishes that over a very long period of time xp would accrue for parked characters. From the article: "Here's what I'd like to see: instead of Vanille Ice and all the millions of unused characters sitting on their collective tookuses, why not imagine that each day they venture forth and do some low-level crime fighting (orc slaying, etc.) just to, you know, 'stay in shape'. Now this workout wouldn't actually happen in any way visible to players logged on, but these characters would earn nominal amounts of experience each day. And in three months time, presto, a new level."

The Guardian Gamesblog posted an interview yesterday talking with Makoto Shibata, the director of the Japanese Horror series Project Zero. In addition to a lot of talk about the latest title in the series, there's some interesting stuff about evoking horror in games, and the ways Japanese culture influences the genre. From the article: "We designed this intentionally so the player would be drawn into the Project Zero world, and would thus imagine various horrid fantasies. This design and approach is different from the previous games in the series. However, I believe that the design fits into the game concept of, 'invoke the fear in the player's own imagination'. I personally believe that even the greatest computer graphics cannot create greater fear than that which is created by the player's mind. This is an idea we maximized in PZ 3."

GameDailyBiz has a piece analyzing the value of the Grand Theft Auto Franchise for developer Rockstar and publisher Take-Two Entertainment. At something like $900 Million over the next five years, the franchise is almost 80% of Take-Two's market value. From the article: " ... While it's hard to blame Take-Two for its reliance on a blockbuster franchise, eventually gamers are likely to tire of the GTA formula, or the games will no longer feel fresh when placed side-by-side with titles that perhaps improve on that formula. To be fair, Take-Two has made attempts to diversify itself through acquisitions and new IP, but the publisher's value right now is heavily dependent upon GTA and that could be a double-edged sword for potential suitors, or investors in general. "

Wired has an article looking at folks who have dropped out of the whole 'meatspace moneymaking' thing, and are now making their living in Second Life. From the article: "Within a month, Grinnell was making more in Second Life than in her real-world job as a dispatcher. And after three months she realized she could quit her day job altogether. Now Second Life is her primary source of income, and Grinnell, whose avatar answers to the name Janie Marlowe, claims she earns more than four times her previous salary. Grinnell isn't alone. Artists and designers, landowners and currency speculators, are turning the virtual environment of Second Life into a real-world profit center." Interesting, and with a respectability lacking in gold farming.

The site Gamers with Jobs has up an article discussing the merits of the Legend of Zelda TV series DVD set, and reflecting on the show itself. From the article: "As a rational inquirer who is interested in my own role in the world, I am forever bound to the task of describing just what factors make me what I am. I am therefore thankful for this DVD release; for I am indeed a product of my time, and, in spite of my more conscientious wishes otherwise, I cannot deny that this animated Zelda series represents an important formative component of my own personal history. For anyone who can say the same, the modest purchase is a no-brainer." Totally worth sitting through Captain Lou Albano for.

The NYT has a piece which argues that the new console iteration is not the cause for slow sales at the end of the year. Rather, gamers are tired of all the damn sequels. From the article: "... In an industry that has a reputation for growth, the decline certainly clashes with expectations. And there is also evidence that gamers may no longer be as enticed by the type of games that publishers have been putting on store shelves. For the first time in several years, the industry did not have a breakout hit in 2005. Two releases from 2004's holiday season, Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, generated enough anticipation among hard-core gamers that they lined up to buy copies. 'Last season you had some events that drove people into stores,' said Josh Larson, director of industry products for GameSpot, which tracks interest in new games; he was referring to the last two months of 2004. 'There wasn't anything that filled that void,' in the 2005 holiday season, he added." Update: 02/08 18:07 GMT by Z : As much as I like the letter 'q', fixed title.

Gamasutra has a great feature up, looking at a day in the life of Tony Basch. Tony is one of the folks currently attending The GuildHall, a directed course in game development at Southern Methodist University. Several big-name talents are associated with the place, and his writeup is an interesting look into one of these very new programs. From the article: "Kyle and I remain in the classroom to work on our individual class assignments. While programmers have their Minesweeper clone, the level designers (or LDs as everyone calls them) have 90 textures to do in seven days on top of their normal reading assignments, daily quizzes, and work from other classes. Personally, I wouldn't be able to survive such an assignment, so I give my respect."

Back in December of last year, the CBS News site did a feature printing some of the frustrated and confused emails sent by Star Wars Galaxies players. These individuals were all upset by the 'NGE', or New Game Enhancements, patched into the game by publisher Sony Online Entertainment. Evidently the feature was so popular they've gone back into the well, printing up a whole new batch of SWG-related frustrations. When CBS and the Washington Post are covering something like this, it tells me two things. First, MMOGs are definitely mainstream now. Second, Sony made a mistake. Warcry has some information that may reveal how big a mistake. They claim that a packet sniffer built into the SWG client made population numbers for the servers available to players. On a Friday night, at peak time, post-NGE Galaxies is apparently only drawing 10,400 players across all galaxy servers. This is basically 'some guy on a website' talk, so take this with a big grain of salt. It's sobering news, though, if true.

CCP Games' Massive Title, Eve Online, now boasts 100,000 subscribers. Though there are many games with more users Eve Online is a very different title, set inside ships in the depths of space. They currently hold the record for most concurrent users, set at 23,178 simultaneous users on a single server. From the article: "To help accommodate its growing population, CCP will complete a hardware overhaul, allowing the game to handle more users, expand its universe, and run smoother." Ethic, over at Kill Ten Rats, has been writing about Eve a lot lately. His posts cover intergalactic war and courier missions, and might give you a sense of what gameplay is like. If you're interested in that sort of thing.