An anonymous reader writes "The Japanese supreme court has upheld a ruling that software company West Side's 'naked Kasumi hack' for the PS2 version of Dead Or Alive 2 violates Tecmo's copyrights. West Side has been ordered to pay around 2 million yen in damages."

dustrider writes "The latest silver screen to silicon crossover is the Walk of Game, a Walk of Fame style display for the Gaming Industry. You can vote in two categories, "Game/Character" and "Lifetime Achievement", until the end of October. The top four Game/Character and the top two lifetime achievers will be the happy recipients of 24"x24" brushed steel stars at Metreon in SF."

An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo will release the new Donkey Konga Ultimate Bongo Bundle Pack to the European market on the 15th October for a reported £89.99. The bundle includes a black Gamecube, controller , a copy of Donkey Konga and a bongo drum controller." No word yet on a US release.

An anonymous submitter writes "For the last ten years, the readers of the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction have held a yearly interactive fiction competition. For fans of the old Infocom games as well as for newcomers to the genre, the competition is a chance to enjoy some of the best short adventure games available anywhere. And now, this year's entries are finally available for public testing. Visit IFcomp.org to download the games and interpreters for all of your favorite platforms. For the next six weeks, judges will play, score, and review." The website explains Windows and Mac installation pretty well; you'lll have to figure it out on your own for Linux but there is plenty of help available (i.e., "apt-cache search infocom" for Debian).

CamelToes writes "Sam and Max 2 is not dead! According to a Gamespot article, the team that was working on bringing the new Sam n' Max adventure game 'has formed a new studio called Telltale Games. The San Rafael-based developer will concentrate on re-energizing the adventure game market.' Amazing what an on-line petition will do these days."

Alan Wong writes "Taken from the latest issue of Xbox Nation magazine, 1UP.com has posted a feature entitled Doing The Right Thing, where eleven industry insiders discussed what it would take for Microsoft to make the next Xbox a success. Among the panel members were Nolan Bushnell, Trip Hawkins, Steven Kent, Bioware's Greg Zeschuk."

Early in September, some of the luminaries of the mobile gaming and mmog industries got together for the Austin Game Conference, an event organized by the Austin Game Initiative. Running concurrently with the Game Conference was the Women's Game Conference, a get-together focused on women in gaming. Over the past two weeks there have been a number of good reflections and observations put forth on the experience of both conferences. Show Director Chris Sherman sat down for an interview with Gamespot. Gamedevnet has a wrap-up of the whole event, as does the Guardian. TerraNova has observations on The BigWorld Middlewear suite, and a mmog specific wrap-up. For those interested in wireless, IBM has an article about mobile gaming. There are discussions of the Women's Gaming Conference as well, from MemoryCard's parting thoughts and the Guardian's one day overview.

rorita writes "1UP.com has posted an entertaining overview of comic books derived from video games, spanning from Valiant's Nintendo Comics System to current-day projects like Studio Udon's Street Fighter. It's not quite comprehensive, but it should still inspire a nostalgic tear for anyone who remembers those old Nintendo Power comics." I have very fond recollections of the adventures of Nester and Howard in particular.

base3 writes "The EFF reported that the Vivendi/Blizzard vs. the good guys case has been decided, and it doesn't look good. Some highlights from the ruling are: A clickthrough EULA isn't unconscionable (and thus enforceable); Fair Use rights can be waived in a EULA; First Sale rights (!) can be waived in a EULA; The DMCA's interoperability provisions are not a defense. If this ruling is allowed to stand, it will allow one-sided EULAs to force the waiver of the rights of First Sale and Fair Use. This, combined with the Supreme Court's recent assent to perpetual copyright, a few decades at a time, will destroy any semblance of balance in U.S. copyright law. Fortunately, the EFF plans to appeal the ruling."

jSpectre writes "Remember how much you loved The Bard's Tale? Or maybe you're looking for something a little different than the current crop of RPG games? Then check out Devil Whiskey for both Linux and Windows. The developer also promises to release the source after some of the development costs have been recovered! O'Reilly has an article discussing development of the game as well."

wraggster writes "Thursday saw the start of the first joint Dreamcast and Gamepark 32 coding competition called Dream Coding Grand Prix 2004. The contest was jointly organized by DCEmu UK and GP32 Xtreme, and was sponsored by Lik Sang. Its purpose is for Coders to create an educational game/tool for Children and those with learning difficulties. A unique contest for a good cause."

Thanks to TerraNova, and specifically Timothy Burke, for the article entitled Death of the Auteur. In it, Burke examines the modern reality that games are no longer made by a single person and ponders the meaning of game authorship. "Who is the author of a game? How should we speak of authorship?" What kind of weight does a personal and public apology have when a games authorship is up in the air?

Sarusa writes "Video games are big business. Movies are big business. I hear that people used read a lot of things called books: it seems like there would be a lot of money to be made from a successful merger of what makes books and movies compelling with what makes video games compelling, though we've been trying that for decades with little success. Interactive Storytelling: Techniques for 21st Century Fiction by Andrew Glassner takes a look at what we know about stories, what we know about games, how they work (or don't work) together now, and how they might work together in the future." Read on for the rest of Sarusa's review.

Antony.S writes "This morning, the CPL (Cyberathelete Professional League) confirmed that they have dropped Doom 3 as the World Tour game. The press release states they "are in discussion with two other publishers/developers". Could one of them Atari/Epic of Unreal Tournament 2004, seen by many as the only serious contender left, or maybe Dreamcatcher of Painkiller, the Summer CPL 1vs1 game? Which ever game is chosen, Doom 3 is still being played at Winter CPL this December."

InFoMaD writes "On the official Lionhead Studio forums Peter Molyneux apologized for announcing features that did not make it into the final version of Fable." Their forums are already getting hammered. Post text available below.

code-e255 writes "The European beta of World of WarCraft started a few hours ago. For those who signed up for this, the American WoW Web-site claims that all keys have been emailed out already; however, the European ones stated the process will take a few days."

On the heels of the first debate, many thanks to the anonymous reader who alerted us to these political games. CNet has an article up about a Vietnam game where you can ride with Kerry on the swift boat. Another more well known game covers the actual presidential race this year. Called "The Political Machine", it allows you to manage political campaigns on the road to office. For silliness, you can't beat Bush vs. Kerry Boxing.

An Anonymous Coward writes "The folks at Techspot have a very comprehensive Doom3 Tweak Guide up. It will take you through every option available in the game, the console, config files, graphics, audio and input settings."

An anonymous reader wrote "The Playdo Community recently launched PlaydoCAM, a whole new technology for web games that transform your webcam into a gaming device you control by moving your body. For the widest audience possible PlaydoCAM is based on standard Flash and Shockwave technology and can be played directly in your web browser without the need of extra plug-ins or installations." Demos are available on the site, but no full fledged games yet.

blackbearnh writes "The folks over at Rooster Teeth Productions, best known for their Red vs Blue comedy movies based on the Halo rendering engine, are branching out with a second series, with more of a sitcom flair, called The Strangerhood. This time, they're using the Electronic Arts Sims 2 game as their rendering engine."