PenguinRadio writes "The Washington Post is writing about Barbara St. Hilaire, a 69-year-old grandma and a fanatic video game player. Apparently, the 'AARP generation' of gamers accounts for about 19 percent of all computer and console gamers. St. Hilaire is, on the internet, Old Grandma Hard Core (previously mentioned on Slashdot). The OGHC blog has gotten a ton of traffic in recent weeks, has been featured on Web sites around the world, and has been hired as a 'senior reporter' for MTV.com to talk about games." From the article: "There is an AARP generation of gamers, a group that logs on to Gamegeezers.com and would qualify for a senior citizen discount if game stores offered them. ... They play a variety of games -- from laid-back, relaxing fare such as solitaire and mah-jongg, to first-person shooters (military-themed titles are hits)."

Steve from Hexus writes "HEXUS.gaming reports that Microsoft's XBox LIVE on the XBox 360 is giving away far more information than is necessary. From the article: 'When we first realised the extent and detail of information that was being shared with other Xbox Live users, we did a bit of investigating. With the boss on the other end of the phone, I skipped about through my Xbox 360's functions, each time challenging the boss to tell me what I was doing. Using Media Connect, he told me just a few seconds after I had started that I was viewing pictures... then playing music... then on the Xbox 360 Dashboard and then that I was in Xbox Live Marketplace looking for something to download. The sad thing is, he was right every time!' This information isn't confined to people on your friends list either."

mrokkam writes "Hasbro owns the copyrights for the game of Risk, as the guy who wrote the google maps based Risk found out. This was featured on slashdot earlier. However, he does not seem too discouraged and asks people to submit ideas for other games using google maps that will not have such legal wrangles." One thing this reminded me of is how cool Risk is. My office is now in its 3rd round... Africa will be mine!

Eli Gottlieb writes "It would appear that the Sony Corporation (known for their world-class rootkits) paid graffitists to paint pictures of children using their new PSPs on city walls. Sony "artists" (corporate operatives?) have even been caught in the act of painting advertising campaigns on public walls. Note that these are not paid-for billboards or advertising media, but illegal graffiti in the first place. Beyond that, Sony is attempting to co-opt the subculture and possibly even artistic integrity of real graffists to sell more PSPs! Luckily, people have started to paint back and show that corporate vandals are not welcome." Though it does appear the vandal depicted is copying the image off of a sheet of paper, there's no real proof of Sony's complicity. Take with a grain of salt.

Kotaku has been reporting from the Digital Interactive Entertainment Conference this past week, and they have a short piece on Industry giants talking about gaming on the Revolution. From the article: "Miyamoto keeps dropping his receiver, which is connected to an earpiece through which English is translated into Japanese. The perky student that greeted me at the door tells me that they didn't have money for a Japanese-to-English translator, meaning that I have to pay extra attention to what Miyamoto's saying right now. He's talking about the Revolution controller."

Craig writes "The Dreamcast turned 7 only a few days ago but still the amateur developers and fans keep the Dream alive, only a week ago was the final of the DreamOn Coding Competition and today the announcement of a new Commercial Shootemup. The Scene centres around DCEmu with multinational support from French & Spanish sites with the majority of releases stored at Dreamcast Homebrew."

xlilacx asks: "The video game industry is worth $25 billion, and predicted to rival the global music industry in the next 10 years. Even Grandma is joining in on the fun. My husband and I bought three video game retail stores two months ago, and so far sales are dismal (down 25% from last year's sales), which seems to be an industry trend. I've noticed a few things that are contibuting to our lack of profits: the people who weren't able to get an XBox 360 have decided they will wait to get one (which most likely will be after Christmas), and they will not buy any games for their old systems in the meantime; people are automatically conditioned to go to the EB-Games and GameStop stores at the malls, even if they give less in trade-ins and have horrible customer servicr; lastly, kids come in with piles of junk games (Madden 2001, etc..), and get enough store credit to buy the latest greatest game that we only mark up like 5%-10%. I'd like to ask Slashdot readers if these observations are a good reflection of the mentality of video-game buyers everywhere, and what suggestions they have for a small ma-and-pa video game store. With all the huge retailers in the video-game market and the EB/GameStop merger, is there a place left for the local game store?"

Moe Napoli writes "While machinima has long promised itself as a way to democratize animated filmmaking, it might finally be finding its way out of the steady stream of crass comedy and frag videos. Filmmakers with a desire to express their political views are using machinima as way of articulating their perspectives. One film that's gaining a lot of attention for its political message is The French Democracy, a machinima about the suburban riots in France, and made with Activision's recently released game/machinima app, The Movies. Additional commentary about the film is also on Clive Thompson's Collision Detection and Paul Marino's Thinking Machinima."

Via GameSetWatch, an L.A. Times article discussing the existential reality that exists inside the world of Nintendogs. From the article: " Today, the saga further unfolds with the Nintendogs phenomenon. That's a form of computer intelligence running on that experimental platform, the Nintendo DS, a hand-held game system far less advanced than the theoretical HAL 9000 but still powerful enough to let you walk around with a bunch of simulated beings living in your pocket. Yes: virtual pets. A game of tail-wagging, ball-chasing, romp-loving puppies is the latest evolution in the man-machine interface, now available for $29.99 at Wal-Mart and quality electronics retailers nationwide."

von_blapp writes "EA is being sued over the Super Star feature that is included in Madden '06. Pernell Harris, owner of Virtual Jam is suing EA over a confidentiality violation. Harris claims when he met with EA in '03 he discussed a game called Heart Of A Champion, in this game players take high school athletes from the schools to the pros insuring their grades are kept up and even picking their parents for the optimum gene pool. This is the same feature as in the current game released by EA."

Big_Al_B writes "CNN reports that a federal judge ruled against the state of Illinois law that banned the sale of some games to minors." From the article: "The Illinois law, which also was to go into effect January 1, would have barred stores from selling or renting extremely violent or sexual games to minors, and allowed $1,000 fines for violators. Kennelly said the law would interfere with the First Amendment and there wasn't a compelling enough reason, such as preventing imminent violence, to allow that." Triumphantly, GamePolitics offers up the ESA's reaction to the decision. The Governor has vowed to appeal, so this isn't over yet.

As more and more people realize the fun they're denying themselves by turning away from orc-bashing and dragon-baiting, mainstream businesses and media are paying more attention to RPGs. Sam the Giant writes "Barnes & Noble University is offering a free 8 hour on-line course titled 'Discover Dungeons & Dragons: Becoming a D&D Player'. The free course is described as follows: 'As a beginning player, this course will guide you in understanding how D&D works, explaining the various worlds and characters types that it is based on, creating a D&D role for yourself, and understanding how your player role interacts in the world and with other characters. You will learn the extent of your abilities and the possibilities that lie ahead for your player, including magical spells, mythic quests, and epic battles with incredible monsters.' It's free to enroll." In the same vein, NPR's great reporting turns to World of Warcraft. Dragoonmac writes "All Things Considered recently ran a feature about WoW communities, farmers, and a humorous review of real-life. A Slashdotter's must hear."

heartless_ writes "GamerGod is running a response to a recent Chris Crawford article discussing Women and Gaming. The problem with identifying winning game elements lies not in the efforts of the game makers themselves; they can only work with what they have. It lies in the fact that most game developers lack one thing - the elusive extra X chromosome. As a result, we have men trying to decide what women most want to play." We linked to Crawford's piece when it was originally run.

Gamespot reports that Nintendo has opened an office dedicated to the next-gen sequel to Smash Bros. From the article: "Heading up the new studio is the series' original creator, Masahiro Sakurai. He returns to the Nintendo organization after a two-year absence. According to Famitsu, Sakurai was persuaded by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata to return to Nintendo over conversations that took place at the E3 Expo held earlier this year. Preparing a new Super Smash Bros. game with such short notice was not easy for Sakurai, given the game's tight development schedule."

Chris Kohler's Game|Life blog has a post discussing what a real games industry crash looks like. From the article: "But I hate the ridiculous amount of misinformation that gets spread around about what happened to the game industry in 1984. And the fact that the awful years of 1994 and 1995 get totally whitewashed in history articles like the above, as if the games industry has been just peachy ever since Nintendo got here. Well, it hasn't been. And what happened in 1984 isn't what people think." His post is a reaction to previously mentioned Inquirer story.

Gamasutra has an article discussing the procedures that Bioware uses to maintain and grow their online communities based around their games. From the article: "Fans as content creators are another asset. 'if you build it, they will build it as well...' Some members want to add to the community in very real and meaningful ways, and some of them possess 'mad skillz.' '90% of what sustains a community,' Watamaniuk stated, 'is the community itself. You provide the framework for their work. If fans are there creating content, it means that you don't have to create 100% of the content yourself.'"

An anonymous reader writes "FiringSquad.com brought back their Face Off format to debate how the Xbox was beneficial or harmful for the PC industry. It's an interesting read with a special 3rd guest, Tim Sweeney from Epic Games, giving a few comments at the end." From the article: "The exact impact on Microsoft on the ATI/NVIDIA rivalry is difficult to know. NVIDIA received $200 million up-front from Microsoft for the Xbox. That was as much as the entire 3dfx company was worth in 1998, when the Voodoo2 was at its peak. Likewise, the original plan was for DirectX 8 to provide an API for the pixel shader in the GeForce 2 GTS. But something happened to the DirectX8 spec where all of a sudden, the minimum level of support was the GeForce 3. That something was Microsoft."

Coltron writes "In an article published by AskDrSears.com, medical professionals go over step by detailed step why video games are so terrible for a child's developmental Health." From the article: "A green label suggests the game is suitable for all ages. Yellow or red labels signal the video may contain violence, sexual content, or bad language. While these ratings are a start, preview the 'E' or 'ALL' ratings anyway, since the level of violence the raters consider harmless may not be acceptable in your home." This is a bad sign for the gaming industry if a medical site is beginning to take the anti-gaming studies this seriously.

The Xbox 360 has launched in Europe, to similarly high demand as in the U.S. The BBC has details on the long lines and consumer reaction, and Next Generation has some information from Microsoft on how the launch is going. From the BBC article: "The technology giant has been forced to defend itself against accusations it has failed to provide enough consoles ahead of Christmas. Some 300,000 Xbox 360s are likely to be available for Friday's European launch, though demand is expected to far exceed this."

Gamespot has another article in its continuing series on 'The Greatest Games of All Time'. This time they profile The Sims, the Will Wright PC classic. From the article: "While The Sims was certainly revolutionary, it wasn't simply the revolution that makes it one of the greatest games of all time. Like all truly great games, it is the timeless and continually entertaining gameplay that makes The Sims so worthwhile. And while in the years since its release there have been many more versions to choose from, there's something quite heartwarming and familiar about the original game and its very specific choices, the sublime stainless steel refrigerator, the Henry Moore-esque statue, and that handy dandy little burglar alarm."