The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community has made over $150,000 from the sale of the online passes related to the Operation Payback initiative. The news comes from the official Twitter account for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Launched in April of this year, the initiative features seven maps created by the community and chosen by players as the very best. The seven maps were later released on Steam as a map pack for $5.99. It will be available until the end of this month.

Valve has decided that players in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community should be able to police themselves. With that in mind, the company has launched a beta of a new system it has called Overwatch. The system will choose reputable members of the game's community to serve as investigators. When playing the game they'll have a special "Overwatch button" that will alert them that a case is pending to evaluate.

Is public transportation a "brand?" That's the question one has to ask oneself when it reads about the Montreal transit authority threatening two Counter-Strike designers with a $49,200 fine over a new Counter-Strike map based on the Montreal subway station. According to Ars Technica, Diego Liatis and Frédérik Denis spent nine months making a detailed digital version of the Berri-UQAM station.

The six crew members of the $15 million Mars500 experiment each paid 3 million roubles ($98,300) to participate in a 17-month long test to see if people stay healthy and sane on a trip to the red planet. The all-male crew of a 520-day mock mission to Mars had to find ways to ease tensions. After all, if you are on a trip to Mars it's probably not a good idea to pick a real fight with your comrade, who is more than likely a specialist in some field you are going to need. According to a Reuters report the crew turned to video games to ease their tension during the 17-month sim.

A 17-year old gamer playing Counter-Strike in a Jilin, China net café was accused of wall hacking and, following an argument with his accusers, ended up being stabbed in the skull by with a 12-inch long knife.

Hot Blooded Gaming has the story of the incident, which, in turn, is taken from a Sankaku Complex translation of a Chinese blog. The 17-year old stabbing victim retained consciousness and was rushed to the hospital, where it’s reported that after hours of surgery, the knife was removed and the boy appeared to be recovering. Doctors said that the rusty knife missed major arteries, though the boy was placed under observation due to possible complications from the rust on the knife.

 The café in question was apparently quite liberal in requiring IDs for entry, making it popular with local youth.

It’s been about five and a half years since Valve released Counter-Strike: Source and a growing gaggle of gamers think it’s about time for some news and action on Counter-Strike 2.

Organized by UK-resident Sam England, the group hopes to goad Valve into issuing an official response on the matter—and to eventually put CS2 into production—by drawing 25,000 members to its Facebook page. The group has already surpassed 2,300 members.

Why the does the group see a need for CS2?

….we want to bolster interest in CS so more people play it, and if we want to regain mainstream attention in the game it needs to be re released as Counterstrike 2. Even if it was just re released with some fixes/patches, additional official maps, a graphical upgrade and a new shiny box... Counterstrike would then survive as a franchise and become popular once again.

England added a few more thoughts:

The most popular multiplayer FPS games on the PC are either non-realistic, less mainstream games or simply very poorly executed ports of console FPS games like Modern Warfare 2. There is no longer a single iconic game on the PC which everyone can enjoy, and play together.

A 15-year old Romanian male stabbed his adoptive mother seventeen times after she cut off the family's Internet service in an apparent bid to quell his online gaming addiction.

After the eruption of violence, the boy, Ionut Savin (pictured), took all the money he could find in the house and went off to the local Internet café, where he reportedly played Counter-Strike for four hours. The boy also apparently missed over 200 days of school as a result of his gaming dependency.

In a further twist, the victim was found by her husband on the couple’s 16th wedding anniversary. After police were called, the boy returned home and offered, “I think I’m the one you’re looking for.”

Savin was described as a “model student,” but “quiet” and “introverted.” He is currently hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic.

HotBloodedGaming found the story, which originally appeared on the Romanian website Adevarul.

|Via Kotaku|

The wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is back in the video game news thanks to her involvement with an obscure firm by the name of Magnitude Gaming. Although we were unable to locate a website, Magnitude is described by the Daily Mail as "one of a new breed of companies which manage semi-professional teams in the growing ‘e-sport’ world."

According to the Daily Mail, Blair, an attorney by profession, and her 23-year old son Nicky have accepted positions on the board of the fledgling company.

So why is this an issue? The Daily Mail sees hypocrisy in Blair's involvement with a firm connected - at least peripherally - to violent video games, given that she previously signed on to a report linking violent games to a wave of stabbings in the UK:

The company has run a team playing the Counter-Strike combat game... There have been claims that perpetrators of massacres in the US and Germany have been fans of the game.

Only last year, Mrs Blair... chaired a major inquiry into the growth of knife and gun crime on Britain’s streets which acknowledged the ‘dire consequences on some young people’ of the video games and films they watched.

The resulting report stated: ‘The broader cultural context in which young people live – the music they listen to, the films they watch, the video games and sports they play – are important in articulating values, defining what is 'cool' and fashionable, and legitimising social norms.’

Magnitude founder Gabriel Moraes, who is Nicky Blair's housemate, issued a statement on the flap:

Magnitude has never been involved with games containing any kind of street violence. We had one game involving soldiers in military combat but it had a rating of 18-plus and was a team game. We stopped involvement with that game some months ago.

We have read some reports of late that German officials have banned the public display of Counter-Strike, forcing the cancellation of gaming competitions.

While information to that effect is sketchy so far, such a ban would be consistent with our May report on the forced cancellation of a LAN event in Stuttgart which featured Counter-Strike and Warcraft III competitions.

German gamers aren't taking these repressive measures lying down, however. An estimated 400 gamers assembled for a June protest march in Karlsruhe. German gamer Matthias Dittmayer e-mailed GamePolitics to let us know that more gamer demonstrations are planned for later this month:

Because of this [censorship] there was the (as far as I know) first demonstration of gamers in Germany with up to 400 gamers. The next 3 demonstration in Cologne, Karlsruhe and Berlin are announced for  the 25th of July.

As Germany continues to come to grips with the horrific March 11th shooting rampage that left 16 people dead, violent video games have come under renewed scrutiny by elected officials and others.

In the latest news, a gaming competition scheduled for March 27th in Stuttgart has been canceled. Winnenden, where 17-year old killer Tim Kretschmer began his rampage, is not far from Stuttgart.

As reported by Heise Online, the Electronic Sports League (ESL) match would have featured competitive play of first-person shooters Counter-Strike 1.6 and Counter-Strike Source as well as real-time strategy classic Warcraft 3.

An Associated Press report which appeared on the day of the rampage indicated that Kretschmer was a Counter-Strike player.

Stuttgart Mayor Wolfgang Schuster (left) cited the school shooting as the reason behind the cancellation. Although GamePolitics is working from a Google translation, it appears that, in canceling the ESL match, Schuster was concerned for the feelings of the families and friends of the shooting victims.

GP: Thanks to GamePolitics reader tibuka for the tip...

As GamePolitics reported yesterday, German retailer Galeria Kaufhof is dropping 18+ video games and movies from its inventory in the wake of last week's horrific school shooting.

Reuters has reaction to the move from Stephan Reichart, who heads G.A.M.E., a trade association which represents German game developers:

I think (Kaufhof's decision) is a complete overreaction... it borders on impulsive hysteria. It would be sufficient if retailers made sure their cashiers don't sell this material to young people.

Since 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer's rampage, reports have emerged indicating that he played the first-person shooters Counter-strike and Far Cry 2.

First-person shooters Counter-strike and Far Cry 2 have already come in for mention in relation to last week's horrific rampage shooting in Germany.

But World of Warcraft, not one of the usual suspects in the video game violence debate, has now been thrown into the mix by a German politician.

Welt Online reports that Germany's Minister for Social Affairs Mechthild Ross-Luttmann (left) has turned her attention to WoW:

Ross-Luttmann... aims to achieve a general age restriction for addictive computer games. World of Warcraft, for example – available to minors at the age of 12 – might in the near future only be sold to adults. In addition to this, parents need to be further sensibilized [sic]. “Parents must know what danger potential exists in their children’s bedrooms,” Ross-Luttmann said.

Computer game expert and author of "Digital Paradise" Andreas Rosenfelder is rather skeptical about demands like this. “I don’t see a connection between digital role playing games like World of Warcraft and shooting sprees,” he said. World of Warcraft is a game set in medieval times in which the protagonists can take on the roles of dwarfs, elves and wizards. There is no shooting in this game.

"In heated debates there can easily be some confusion,“ Rosenfelder said.

Ross-Luttmann also hopes to begin a secret shopper program in order to evaluate video game rating enforcement by German retailers.

Via: GameCulture

Tim Kretschmer, the German teenager whose shooting rampage left 16 people dead earlier today, was a fan of the first-person shooter Counter-Strike, according to an early report from the Associated Press:

A 17-year-old who would give only his first name, Aki, said he had been studying this year with the shooter at a private business school, and described him as a quiet, reserved person.

 

Aki said the two played poker together, both in person and online, as well as a multiplayer video game called "Counter-Strike" that involves killing people to complete missions.

 

"He was good," Aki said.

Meanwhile, UK newspaper Telegraph reports that Kretschmer was experienced with weapons:

A former classmate said... "The only thing which stands out is that Tim was always very good with weapons. He mainly shot air weapons firing plastic balls, but the house had several gun cabinets occupying square metres of walls, mainly air guns."

 

"He was a pretty good shooter. He used to shoot in a forest behind his house. Sometimes we'd have air gun battles in the summer."

Another student told the AP that Kretschmer seemed troubled:

Sabienne Boehm, 12, said she recently met the shooter through a friend, and that he had shown her a note three weeks ago that he then sent to his parents.

 

"He wrote to his parents that he's suffering and he can't go on," she said.

GP: Video game violence is an ongoing topic of discussion among German political officials. Today's events will almost certainly spur additional debate on the topic.

Anti-game attorney Jack Thompson and Gavin McKiernan of the Parents Television Council appeared on the Glenn Beck program last night on CNN Headline News.

The first clip is Beck's opening. Thompson and McKiernan appear in the second clip.





GP: Big thanks to several GamePolitics readers who uploaded and/or pointed us to videos of the show...

 

Niko Bellic, the Eastern European protagonist of Grand Theft Auto IV, represents a damaging stereotype, according to the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, an advocacy group based in the U.K.

MCV UK reports:

The JCWI has told The Times that it disagrees with a Balkan being portrayed as being involved in a criminal underworld – and that the game could even make ‘life hard’ for real-life Eastern European immigrants.

A spokesman said: “The figures show that East European immigrants are not proportionately responsible for any increase in crime. This plays on untrue stereotypes.”

UPDATE: Gamasutra presents an alternate opinion from UK game journalist Simon Parkin.

Miami anti-game violence activist Jack Thompson isn't the only one connecting last week's shooting rampage at NIU to the popular online FPS Counter-Strike.

Fringe political figure Lyndon LaRouche has also linked the game to the NIU tragedy. In a news release bearing the headline International Fascism: Microsoft Will Kill More Youth than Hitler, LaRouche's political action committee writes:

Another young killer, Stephen Kazmierczak, who killed five people and wounded 16 others at Northern Illinois University, was allegedly addicted to Microsoft's Counterstrike killer video-game. "He played a lot of video games, especially Counter-Strike, really loud," said one of his dorm mates...

The intended effect, to foster an environment of mass suicide terrorism in the U.S.A., is a by-product of the 'Revolution in Military Affairs' policy... organized by [financier] Felix Rohatyn and [former Secretary of State] George P. Shultz; the same individuals... are the prime backers of a fascist [NYC Mayor Michael] Bloomberg Presidency.