Thanks to The Grumpy Gamer (Ron Gilbert of Monkey Island fame), for his excellent look at The Economics of 2D Adventure Games. "First, this is only a thought experiment. This is not something I am planning on doing, or even have a huge interest in doing, so please don't feed the rumor mills. Second, this article contains gory and gruesome details about the games business and, in particular, marketing and distribution. If you'd rather remain blissfully oblivious to the horrors of what goes on behind the scenes, this is the place to stop reading. If you're one of those people that can't help but stare at a car accident, read on."

Aspyr Media and EA put out a joint press release yesterday announcing Aspyr's conversion of The Sims 2 to Macintosh. Information on the game is available via Aspyr's site, and will soon be available for preorder. No information yet on when the game will be available on the Mac platform.

Thanks to Gamespot for the heads up on the newly released San Andreas trailer. It features, among other things, landmarks, dialogue, combat, and a new game feature: parachuting. The trailer is set to a song with explicit lyrics, so viewer discretion is yadda yadda...

Thanks to GameGossip for the news that the Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed expansion has been confirmed for an October 27th release. The expansion adds space combat, two new player races, and a bunch of new emotes.

gavriels writes "Today, TransGaming released Cedega 4.1, a new update to our software that lets Windows games run on Linux systems. The new update adds support for Far Cry and Anarchy Online, and implements a completely new 3D pipeline which executes the traditional Direct3D Fixed Function rendering path using dynamically generated OpenGL vertex programs, providing great performance improvements on cards with sufficient vertex program capabilities. We also added MMX accelerated sound mixing, fixed copy protection issues in several games, and improved Pixel Shader support, among other things."

Wynken de Word writes "'In a move that could open a new vista of possibilities for advertisers, New York-based Massive Inc. today announces the launch of the first ad-serving network for video games. The company said it has so far signed game publishers UbiSoft, Atari, Universal and Konami as partners in its system, which enables marketing messages to be projected into the digital fabric of their online games.' AdAge.com has the article (reg req.)." If you don't feel like registering for AdAge, just read the press release or see the company website.

With the gold status of Halo 2, the ILoveBees performance will soon come to an end. Wired has an article discussing the meme in depth, and going into details about what exactly it is. If you haven't had a chance to experience the phenomenon yet, the article does a good job of laying it out. (Though the performance finale doesn't come until Halo 2's launch day.)

Thanks to GameGossip for the news that Lionhead studios has obtained investments from several firms. These funds were obtained to fund future games. The studio currently has four titles in the pipe, with two of them due to be released next year.

News regarding two new expansions to Massively Multiplayer Games today. Thanks to Gamespot for the fascinating news that Asheron's Call 2 will roll out a new expansion sometime in the future. This announcement was anticipated after Turbine's purchase of Asheron's Call 1 and 2 from Microsoft, but no firm details had yet to be announced. Meanwhile, Yahoo has the press release on Planetside: Aftershock's release today. The waning FPS massive game has finally been reduced to the reasonable price of $20. The new offering includes the core game, the first expansion, and a new expansion that incorporates mechs into the game.

ack154 writes "As previously mentioned here, the guys and girls over at Rooster Teeth Productions (the creators of Red vs Blue) have started a new series based on the Sims 2. As of last night, Episode 1 has officially hit the download servers. Currently available in DivX, WMP, and QuickTime formats, the first episode weighs in at just over 5 minutes. " As a big RvB fan, I'm looking forward to seeing where this one goes.

Anonymous Gamer writes "GameSpot has a new hands-on preview of Sony's redesigned PlayStation 2 system. It's one-fourth the size of the old PS2 and only weighs two pounds. It looks like Sony's new system will be the iPod of game consoles this holiday season."

bippy writes "Analyst PJ McNealy predicts that EA will announce Tuesday a 20 percent drop in sales for Madden and a 50 percent drop in sales for NHL 2005, partly due to the success of ESPN's low-price, high-content games. McNealy says this likely won't have a huge financial impact on the game developer, but it will affect them psychologically. I'm just surprised that ESPN's price cut worked. It seems that when Madden came out everyone was saying that the price cut wouldn't help ESPN or hurt EA."

wylf writes "Rooster Teeth productions (makers of Red Vs. Blue) have just released the first episode of "The Strangerhood", a sitcom made using EA Games' The Sims 2."

grazzy writes "Microsoft is set to release its Windows Media Center Extender for Xbox mid-November. The device will allow you to view recorded and downloaded media content stored on your PC via your Xbox.""

Thanks to HomeLAN for the news that Activision and Nielsen will be testing in-game adverts starting at the end of the year. Though we've mentioned this previously, the press release would seem to indicate things are moving into their final stages. "The two companies announced that they are launching a groundbreaking test using the newly-released Activision video game, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 to determine how long and how often players interact with brands. The test will feature Nielsen's watermarking technology that uses audio encoding to uniquely identify when players are exposed to product placements within the game."

An anonymous reader writes "Worthplaying has the scoop on the official going gold of Half-life 2. According to their information it has a confirmed ship/store date of November 16!" Gamespot has details on the ship date as well.

BlueMoon writes "On January 5th at 6.30pm PST, the night before the opening of the CES 2005 event, Bill Gates will give a pre-show keynote speech in Las Vegas. A public announcement of Microsoft's next generation Xbox is widely expected."

Many, many thanks to the gentlemen at Penny Arcade for the kickoff of their now annual Child's Play Charity Drive. The drive is intended to hook up willing people in our community with children's hospitals across the country, to spread some geeky christmas love to young folks that need it. This year the drive extends across the country, and you can donate toys to hospitals in Seattle, Oakland, San Diego, Houston, and D.C.. Tycho has a little startup post on Penny Arcade, as well.

wraggster writes "DCEvolution, a Dreamcast site that specializes in legal rom images and more specialist homebrew offerings has released the following: "Another classic music release from us! We offer you an updated image of Dream68 featuring over 1800 Amiga and AtariST songs in the sc68 format."

Thanks to GamingHeadlines for the news that DS games are not going to be region restricted. "Although this news may not specifically cater to American and Japanese folks, it certainly gives us Europeans the benefit of importing our DS systems from abroad..." I certainly think it caters to US gamers. Imported Japanese games can lead to wonderful things.