An anonymous reader writes "The Onion AV Club, the entertainment section of the satirical periodical The Onion, has expanded its coverage of movies, music and books to include reviews of video games. Also, they will host a game history column by Wil Wheaton: "Each week, [Wheaton] will take a look back to games past with his Games Of Our Lives column, reaching beyond Pac-Man and Donkey Kong to find the dusty arcade games and worn-out cartridges that paved the way for the games of today." The first expanded issue posted yesterday, featuring an interview with industry legends Will Wright (The Sims, SimCity) and Howard Scott Warshaw (Atari)."

The Canadian and Quebecois governments have announced millions of dollars in grants and tax subsidies for the Montreal studio of French developer Ubisoft. Bloomberg has the news that these monies will be given to the studio over the course of several years. From the article: "Paris-based Ubisoft plans to hire programmers, game designers and computer animation specialists in the city over the next five years.."

This past Friday a sea of Gnomish fury swept over the chilly vale of Dun Morogh. The reason? Their character class isn't balanced. AFK Gamer has details on this outpouring of tiny fury, with liveblogging from the event itself and pictures of the naked gnome march from later in the weekend. Despite GM crackdowns and general apathy towards the Warrior cause, they appear to have gotten some sort of response from a developer (even though the response has nothing to do with the march). Terra Nova has picked up the topic and poses it as a question about the right to assemble in virtual spaces.

GamesIndustry.biz has a story on Take-Two interactive and their efforts to tighten up agreements with Major League Baseball. From the article: "As with the MLBPA deal, the new arrangement gives Take Two exclusive rights among third party publishers only..but a loophole identified by many analysts has been sealed up, with third party publishers prohibited from developing and releasing titles in partnership with the platform holders."

Voodoo Extreme has the news that game development veteran Trip Hawkins has been inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' Hall of Fame. Previous inductees have included luminaries such as Peter Molyneux, Will Wright, and Sid Meier. Individuals are inducted for "pioneering a new game genre; changing the face of the art form through new technology; influencing other designers and products; demonstrating the highest level of creativity and innovation; and consistent product success at a level that helps expand the industry."

Ubisoft announced this morning that they have come to an agreement with 3 Rings Design to publish Puzzle Pirates in retail stores. This exciting news couldn't come for a better game, winner of the IGF 2004 Technical Excellence and Audience Awards for Online games. From the Puzzle Pirates site: "Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is an online game in which you play a Pirate character in an ocean world. Hundreds of your fellow player Pirates swarm these Isles and Sea-lanes. For Pirates who love acronyms, Puzzle Pirates is an massively multi-player online roleplaying game, or mmoarrrrpg." Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is available for Demo on PC/Mac/Linux.

myukew wrote in to let us know about a viral marketing campaign by Nintendo that went awry. A while back Nintendo posted an opening on the jobs board Monster.com for an "Intergalactic Bounty Hunter". The response they received was unnerving. From the article: "Within the first day of posting the job, we had several replies from real applicants who seriously wanted to be an intergalactic bounty hunter for a living. The skills and experience these people listed went beyond surprising into the realm of frightening. We never expected such a wide array of replies from so many people who were actually pursuing interviews for gainful employment as a space warrior."

blueZhift writes "It looks like PC gaming is not dead yet! GamesIndustry.biz reports that retail sales of Valve's Half Life 2 have topped 1.7 million. There aren't any numbers available for online sales via Steam, but these are impressive numbers for any platform, console or PC."

usacoder writes "The Raleigh News and Observer Lifestyle section has a story on the guy who wrote Snood, Dave Dobson. It's nice to see that shareware can still make money for some developers." From the article: "He describes the evolution of Snood into a cult attraction as a series of random events, and refers to his fame as the game's creator as third-rate celebrity. 'But,' he adds, 'I milk it for all it's worth.'"

Doomstalk writes "In the last couple of months, rumors on the possible resurrection of LucasArts' Sam and Max: Freelance Police grew in gaming circles. The rumors mentioned a new, mysterious games publisher called Bad Brain that was willing to raise money in order to buy the rights to an unnamed adventure game from LucasArts. Many thought this was too good to be true. Unfortunately, they were proven right, as Bad Brain revealed the news that negotiations with LucasArts over the rights to Sam and Max 2 have been discontinued."

An Anonymous Reader writes "Gaming Horizon has a nice editorial taking a look at how gamers are poorly stereotyped and pandered to. (SpikeTV awards, anyone?) The writer proposes that gaming media unionize to help fight the stereotypes perpetuated by outsider media and interest groups, perhaps a more "Oscar-style" awards show, and further establishing the ESRB rating system among parents."

Steve writes "Of the record breaking $7.3 billion in video games sold in 2004, only 18 percent of them were rated "M". This is surprising, considering some media watch groups have great concern over inappropriate video games landing in the hands of children, even claiming that 60-90 percent of video games have violent themes. Filefront uncovers the real trend and includes quotes from ESRB President Patricia Vance."

Ant writes "And I thought I had seen it all from DOOM world. Nope, there is a boardgame! It is for 2 to 4 players, playable in 1 to 2 hours, based on the groundbreaking DOOM 3 computer game by id Software. Seen on Blue's News." There's also Frag, which IMHO isn't a very good boardgame. The Doom game looks like it might work, though.

KrunchTime writes "The Steam network seems to be having some problems tonight. This is not good new for fans of counter-strike, day of defeat and other half-life mods. Some people seem to be able to log on fine while others, like me :(, cannot connect at all. The steam forums were filling up with invective when I was last able to get on. The forums now seem to have imploded under the strain of complaints. The question that was being asked most is why there isn't more redundancy on the log-in side of steam. They say that if one of the master servers goes down that the accounts held there become unavailable immediately. The other big problem is that while the Steam network is down even the offline games are unplayable. There was no sign of responses from Valve staff or forum moderators."

AaronH copies and pastes: "'Face of Mankind is an MMORPG set in the 24th century. You are invited to play out the ageless battle of good vs. evil, and witness all shades of gray in between. Role-playing and your real-life skills are the raw ingredients of game play. This MMORPG uses the first ever player-generated mission system, and combines it with sophisticated economics and complex player politics for a new kind of online experience. Only your ability to shoot, bargain, politic and otherwise duck and deal will advance your character's private or corporate agenda. The success of each and every mission will determine your rise to the top, or your fall into obscurity. Whatever path you take in this astonishing world, plan well: one day, one minute or a single second could bring you to your destiny as the true Face of Mankind. The first download mirrors for the open beta client have been put up. The servers themselves will be open for open beta testers on Monday.' Fileplanet has a few trailers while ya wait for the servers to come online."

jujubees writes "Games to movies, movies to games -- it's not an unfamiliar trend anymore, and today the most popular online shooter is next in line. Counter-Strike has been picked up by German director Uwe Boll (known, or hated, for game-to-movie adaptations like the recent Alone in the Dark, upcoming Bloodrayne, etc.). Boll is currently working on the script, which will remain true to the spirit of the game. While the studio is debating whether to use real actors or not, there has been interest from Hollywood actors Ben Affleck and Colin Farrell. "

MikeT writes "If you have played a game made by Blizzard in the last five years you've heard Jason Hayes' work, from Starcraft, Diablo II, to Warcraft III. His latest position at Blizzard was lead composer on World of Warcraft. Hayes recently left the software company and decided to venture out on his own in the form of Music By Jason Hayes. FileFront profiles his trials and tribulations and his future aspirations."

An Anonymous Reader wrote in to tell us about a Massively Multiplayer Machinima series entitled A Galaxy Far Away, made in Star Wars Galaxies. MMOGs are increasingly seeing use in Machinima productions and music videos, in works such as SWG's Fallen, WoW's Shutup and Dance, Dark Age of Camelot's Remember, and City of Heroes' Justice.

Alef writes "The winners of the 2005 Independent Game Festival Student Showcase have been announced. However, at least one entry appears to have been ignored by the judges. This makes me wonder whether the elaborate description of their judging process merely is empty words." Update: 01/28 22:45 GMT by Z : Goodman simoniker wrote in with an update to this story in the comments. Basically, miscommunication reigns.

Word is now out that, in all likelyhood, all three next generation consoles will be displayed in some form at this year's e3. Nintendo's Revolution has been rumoured to be making an appearance for a while. Yesterday Sony announced the PS3 would be available in playable form at the convention, and Microsoft was soon to follow regarding the Xbox Next. Game on?