Australia's Bureau of Statistics Releases City Building Game

May 20, 2013

Australia's Bureau of Statistics has released an interesting game for iOS devices that uses real census data (circa 2011) from the country's various towns called Run That Town. Players build a town using real census data (which can include the real town they live in… in Australia) and run it.

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First Lady Sees Culture as an Obstacle to Higher Education for African American Youth

May 17, 2013

First Lady Michelle Obama recently gave a commencement address at Bowie State University encouraging more young African Americans to continue their education. She does so by throwing culture like videogames, television, and music under the bus.

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Nintendo Targets Let's Play Videos on YouTube

May 16, 2013

Nintendo has decided to target "Let's Play" videos on YouTube with "content ID match" claims, according to multiple reports this morning. By making these claims it allows Nintendo to either block content or monetize the video. This is not sitting well with Let's Play video makers like Zack Scott whose videos have been targeted by Nintendo.

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Crowd Funding Campaign for 'Get Schooled' Opens

May 8, 2013

S.O.S. Gamers has launched a crowd-funding campaign for Get Schooled, an initiative that supplies underprivileged schools and community centers in the New York City area with access to educational technology including computers, calculators, and recreational items such as video game consoles and games.

GTFO Documentary Gets Fully Funded

May 6, 2013

GTFO, a documentary about sexism and harassment in the video games industry and within the gaming community has surpassed its funding goal of $20,000. With four more days to go, the documentary has managed to raise $23,829 from just 882 backers on Kickstarter. The documentary is being put together by New York-based filmmaker Shannon Sun-Higginson, who describes herself as a casual gamer.

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Papo & Yo Developer Tackles Bullying in Next Game

May 2, 2013

Papo & Yo developer Minority Media took the wraps off the next project it is working on - a game about bullying. The game is called the Silent Enemy, and explores the topic of bullying and what people who see bulling tend to do (not get involved). According to a promo video for the game, it will feature an "Aboriginal character" who embarks on a quest to find springtime in Northern Quebec. During that quest the protagonist will be bullied by crow-like creatures that hinders his quest.

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My Carnival Aims to Help Children with Cystic Fibrosis

May 1, 2013

Accessibility advisor AccessAble Games is looking to raise $40,000 via Start Some Good for a Spanish and English language game called My Carnival that helps children with cystic fibrosis maximize their pulmonary functions.

Story Bundle Offers Ten Video Game-Themed Books in Latest Bundle

May 1, 2013

We've seen the pay-what-you want bundle dedicated to indie games from places like the Humble Bundle and Indie Royale Bundle, but Story Bundle is offering a great collection of books for whatever you are willing to pay - and all of them are related in some way to gaming.

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Poll Results: Quitting Games on Moral Grounds

April 23, 2013

Last week we asked you if you "have you ever stopped playing a video game on moral grounds?" The question was inspired by this story about a man who got a refund from Valve because he objected to a certain scene in the Steam version of BioShock Infinite involving a religious rite.

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Women in Games International Teams Up With Girl Scouts LA for Video Game Patch

April 17, 2013

Women in Games International (WIGI) and the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles (GSGLA) are now working together to create the first video game patch for Girl Scouts. Scouts can earn the patch by taking part in a special program put together by both the GSGLA and WIGIIGI using various tools to create a game.

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Seven Stories Press to Bring Minecraft Book to America

April 16, 2013

Book publisher Seven Stories Press announced today that it will publish the English language version of the book about independent game Minecraft and its creator Markus 'Notch' Persson at the end of this year. The book is called "Minecraft; The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything, and was written by Swedish journalists Linus Larsson and Daniel Goldberg, with the English translation being handled by Jennifer Hawkins.

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Dead Shark Triplepunch Team Wins Make Something Unreal 2013

April 8, 2013

Dead Shark Triplepunch has been named the winning team at Make Something Unreal Live 2013, Epic Games announced. The team has won a variety of hardware prizes in addition to the main award of a commercial Unreal Engine 4 license. The team from Belkinge Institute of Technology in Sweden won with their game Epigenesis, which was developed with Epic’s Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free version of the Unreal Engine 3.

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NCAC's Youth Free Expression Film Contest Theme is Video Game Censorship

April 3, 2013

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) announced the theme for its 2013 Youth Free Expression Film Contest. This year’s theme will be "Video Games in the Crosshairs." The non-profit organization goes wherever it is needed to fight against censorship in the United States. After the Sandy Hook School shooting back in December of last year, politicians at the state and federal level started wagging their fingers at video games as a catalyst for the violent act.

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U.S. State Dept. Releases Game About American Culture and Language

April 3, 2013

The U.S. Department of State and marketing agency The SuperGroup have released a game that they hope will teach 12 - 16 year olds American culture and better English. The goal is to make learning about language fun. The browser-based game, which is available now online and on mobile phones, comes with support materials for teachers and was tested in non-English speaking countries like Peru, Columbia, and Indonesia.

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Microsoft Kicks Off 2013 Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge

April 2, 2013

Microsoft has launched the Kodu Game Design Challenge for young children, challenging youngsters to use its Kodu Labs game development package available for free on Windows (and for $5 on Xbox Live Indies) to develop a game. Children between the ages of nine and 18 years-old are eligible to compete.

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AbleGamers' PAX East Pachinko for Charity Event Raises Over $17K

March 28, 2013

AbleGamers Foundation announced that its Pachinko for Charity event at PAX East 2013 in Boston over the weekend raised $17,022.09! The group dedicated to evangelizing the need for accessibility in video games for all gamers says that supporters came out in droves, waiting as long as 20 minutes to play even while the lines were three or four rows deep.

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Adventure Game The Last Door Adds Close Captioning to Game

March 25, 2013

Javier Mairena of The Game Kitchen dropped us a note to let us know that the first episode of its horror adventure game series The Last Door has been revamped to make it a little friendlier to those with hearing impairments and dyslexia. Javier says that his studio has added dyslexic-friendly fonts in the game as well as close captions for those with hearing impairments.

The first episode in the episodic horror adventure series launched on March 11 on www.thelastdoor.com. It is titled "The Letter."

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Game of Thrones Author George R.R. Martin on Piracy and Video Games

March 22, 2013

George R.R. Martin, prolific fantasy author and the creator of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series on which HBO's hit TV series is based, took questions before yesterday's Game of Thrones screening for the new season set to air later this month.

Martin had some pretty interesting things to say about two subjects that get talked about here on GamePolitics: video games and piracy. First, when asked about video games Martin said that he loves them, though his obsessive play sessions tended to get in the way of his work so he has avoided them for quite a long time:

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AbleGamers Foundation Nominated for MS Society Da Vinci Award

March 20, 2013

The AbleGamers Foundation has been named a finalist in the MS Society Da Vinci awards for its game accessibility guidelines - Includification. Includification is a 48-page fully-illustrated game accessibility guidelines document for developers to make games more accessible to gamers with various disabilities.

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The Best Amendment Takes Aim at NRA

March 19, 2013

Indie game development studio Molleindustria has created a game called The Best Amendment, which it describes as an "unofficial NRA Game" that they say demonstrates why some of the NRA's stances on guns do not work.

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Ex-Con Creates Chess Game Variant With a Message

March 18, 2013

A man sentenced to ten years in prison for robbing two men for $110 and their driver's licenses in 1999 spent a good portion of his time playing chess and developing a new puzzle-based game that uses the classic board game to teach children how to make good choices in life. Nkosi Brown said that he spent much of his time in prison playing chess to avoid fighting with guards and other inmates and during his time in solitary confinement he would play chess with other isolated inmates by yelling out moves and using a chess board scrawled onto the floor.

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Fan Immortalized in Total War: Rome 2

March 18, 2013

Eurogamer details a bittersweet story of one Total War: Rome 2 fan who was immortalized in the game, but the 24-year-old named "James" who inspired developers Creative Assembly when he visited the studio, would later lose his fight with liver cancer.

Gaming in Color Documentary Kickstarter Launches

March 7, 2013

A new Kickstarter campaign has been launched to raise $125,000 to create a documentary about the "queer side of gaming," or the LGBTQ presence in the game industry and in the gaming community. The documentary is called "Gaming In Color: Queers and Gaymers of the Pixelated World" and hopes to expose the masses to another side of gaming culture - a side that is often hidden among the dudebros and gamer gurls of the community.

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Michael Langlois to Host 'Rethinking Gaming Addiction' Panel at PAX East

March 7, 2013

Michael Langlois, a licensed Psychotherapist, speaker, defender of video games, and author of the book "Reset: Video Games & Psychotherapy," will be hosting an interesting one-man panel at PAX East called "Rethinking Game Addiction."

Ultimately the discussion is meant to challenge the mainstream thinking on game addiction and to explore the mental health benefits of playing video games - even violent ones. From the description at the Pax East web site:

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The USC School of Cinematic Art Interactive Media Division Gets a Name Change

March 7, 2013

The USC School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) announced today that it has changed the name of its Interactive Media Division to the Interactive Media and Games Division. The name change is to "emphasize the program’s commitment to studying games and playable media in all forms," according to Tracy Fullerton, Electronic Arts Endowed Chair of the Interactive Media and Games Division at SCA.

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First Tropes vs. Women Video Released

March 7, 2013

The very first Tropes vs. Women video is alive and kicking and ready for your perusal. The video series by Anita Sarkeesian was crowd-funded by a very successful Kickstarter campaign, though some in the gaming community attempted to take Sarkeesian for being overzealous about misogyny and sexism in both the development and game-playing community.

The first video is called "Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games" and is described by Sarkeesian on the Frequency Feminism YouTube channel as:

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Boys Scouts of America Offering Merit Badge for Game Design

March 7, 2013

It looks like the Boys Scouts of America are finally recognizing that video games and technology are important in society. The Boy Scouts of America is now offering a merit badge in game design, according to GamesBeat. The organization has apparently spent the last two years building a program that will enable scouts to do the work necessary to earn the badge.

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GamePocalypse 2013: A Charity Event to Benefit the Wounded Warrior Project

March 6, 2013

Bottomline Guild announced its plans to host a 24-hour online gaming marathon to raise money for Wounded Warrior Project called GamePocalypse 2013. This massive gaming event will take place within the virtual worlds of Rift, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and PlanetSide 2. Gamers will be participating in events running for 24 hours, starting at 12:00AM Central Standard Time, March 16th, 2013. All proceeds from the GamePocalypse 2013 event will go directly to charity.

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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Creator to Help Fan Fighting Game Project

March 4, 2013

Bronies rejoice. Lauren Faust, who is best known for creating My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, has decided to team up with the fan-driven development team Mane6 to bring to life the pony-themed fighting game My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic. Mane6 and toy-maker Hasbro have also been in talks. You may remember that Hasbro sent the develops of the game a cease-and-desist letter which Maner6 quickly complied with. That put their little labor of love on indefinite hold.

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Gaming World Wide and Rize Up Gaming Team Up

March 4, 2013

Gaming World Wide has teamed up with Rize Up Gaming to bring their charity efforts to a community that believes in creating a positive social atmosphere for gamers of all stripes.

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Are you excited for the Xbox One?:

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Andrew EisenHere's the full quote on EA making Wii U games according to Neogaf: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56112105/21/2013 - 8:19pm
Andrew EisenXbox One may not be always on but that doesn't mean you can use it without an internet connection. http://kotaku.com/xbox-one-does-require-internet-connection-cant-play-o-50916410905/21/2013 - 7:39pm
Andrew EisenPolygon says EA's CFO says it is developing games for Wii U but doesn't provide that quote. http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/21/4351844/ea-developing-wii-u-games05/21/2013 - 7:11pm
Andrew EisenWell, I was right. Both Sony and Microsoft's consoles will be out by the year's end and both will be significantly more powerful than the current gen.05/21/2013 - 5:06pm
james_fudgethnx05/21/2013 - 4:47pm
ZenJust to let ya know...you called it the "Xbox 260" in the backwards compatibility article lol.05/21/2013 - 4:26pm
Zen@PHX Awesome, I will hit those up after class tonight. Going back to college finally! :) My kids have had a blast telling ME to do my homework now lol.05/21/2013 - 4:19pm
PHX Corp@Zen I sent you a friend request on both PSN and XBL, just a heads up05/21/2013 - 4:16pm
ZenI noticed it with the football players when EA showed off Madden as well.05/21/2013 - 4:11pm
ZenIs it just me or is call of duty hitting the "uncanny valley" with their nicely modeled faces and dead looking eyes? I found it distracting and seemed actually "less" real to me lol.05/21/2013 - 4:10pm
james_fudgeit sounds like if you have an HD reciever you'll be able to use it with a pass-through cable... not 100 percent sure yet05/21/2013 - 2:41pm
james_fudgehappening now http://majornelson.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-architecture-panel/05/21/2013 - 2:20pm
E. Zachary KnightSome reading material for Microsoft on its used games blocks. That will hurt the console more than helping. http://ezknight.net/?page_id=20505/21/2013 - 2:18pm
james_fudgeyeah good luck with over the air TV05/21/2013 - 2:12pm
E. Zachary KnightBut what if I want to only watch over the air tv? I don't subscribe to pay tv. I never will. If that is a requirement, then MS wasted 45 minutes telling me how great TV will be.05/21/2013 - 2:08pm
james_fudgeEZK it will depend on your provider, just like HBO Go i'd imagine.05/21/2013 - 2:05pm
PHX Corp@IanC there's also a chance that those titles might be Xbox one exclusive, but it's too early to tell afaik05/21/2013 - 2:03pm
IanC@E. Zachary Knight - MS certainly got the checkbook out for EA, so no surprise on how negative they are over the Wii U.05/21/2013 - 1:54pm
MaskedPixelanteSo now I have to wonder, how many of EA's games are skipping the PS4 because of their pro-used stance?05/21/2013 - 1:53pm
E. Zachary KnightOn the TV front, does the XBox One require a cable/satellite subscription or will I be able to use my over the air channels?05/21/2013 - 1:48pm
 

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