We mentioned this in passing when we reported on EA and other game companies signing onto an amicus brief supporting the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, but the event deserves a little more attention: On March 7 Electronic Arts and the Human Rights Campaign will host an event to address the full spectrum of LGBT issues in gaming in New York City.

A new game called Depression Quest hopes to raise awareness about the challenges of someone living with depression by using interactive fiction as its medium. The browser-based game was created by Zoe Quinn and Patrick Lindsey and puts players in the shoes of a 20-something as they struggle with their emotions and make daily choices that can either help get them out of their depression or send them spiraling into a state of deep despair.

The developers describe the game as follow:

The AbleGamers Foundation has partnered with Paradox Interactive to help bring video game accessibility to the Penny Arcade Expo East (PAX-E) in Boston, Massachusetts. Each year, the AbleGamers Accessibility Arcade displays the latest assistive technology for gamers with disabilities to play today’s top games with just a little help.

Over the weekend, two Newtown, Connecticut residents opened a family friendly video game arcade in the town called the Sandy Hook Arcade Center (as reported by Polygon). The all-ages arcade is meant to help the town heal and promote family values in the aftermath of the elementary school shooting in December where 26 human lives were lost as the result of a shooting rampage by a lone gunman.

On Saturday, February 16th at 6:00PM EST gamers from Storm Unity will be running a 24-hour Mega Man marathon event to benefit the Child's Play charity. The marathon will be streamed live over Twitch.TV at twitch.tv/stormunity.

Video game's can never be art, eh?

14 video games will be among the items on display in Applied Design, an installation in the Philip Johnson Architecture and Design Galleries that opens on March 2 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). 

"Representing the new directions of contemporary design," says a MoMA press release, "the exhibition features outstanding examples of interface and interaction design, dynamic visualizations, products, furniture, 3D printed chairs and bowls, emergency equipment, and biodesign."

Alloy Digital, the new owners of the popular gaming site The Escapist has confirmed today that The Escapist Expo will be making a triumphant return to Durham, North Carolina from October 4-6.

Last year nearly 6,000 gamers attended the inaugural three-day video gaming lifestyle and culture event. Like last year's event The Escapist Expo will once again team up with Global Spectrum (the management company for the Durham Convention Center) to bring a variety of fun activities, exhibitions, discussions, and events related to gaming.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) announced today the nominees for their British Academy Games Awards 2013 to be handed out on March 5. A total of 53 games have been nominated for awards across 17 categories covering the last 12 months of releases in the UK.

Organizers of the annual National STEM Video Game Challenge - Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and E-Line Media announced today that student submissions of original video games and game designs is now opened at www.stemchallenge.org. In its third year, the annual challenge hopes to inspire and motivate interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by tapping into students’ enthusiasm for playing and making video games.

Well eventually it had to happen, and today G4 Network's fate was finally revealed. The network that used to be dedicated to geek culture and video games will now be focused on men's culture. The network owned by NBC Universal will be re-branded and relaunched as the Esquire Network on April 22nd. While the announcement promises that the network will expand on the technology, geek culture, and gaming content that G4 was known for, it's hard to imagine that happening with the end of such popular shows as X-Play and Attack of the Show being cancelled.

Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA.) defended the call for more research related to the alleged effects of violent media on the youth of America as it relates to gun violence. Both Democrats and Republicans in both houses of Congress have been quick to pounce on violent media and gun control as issues that need to be addressed in the wake of the December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Angry birds, meet real-life science. The John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida announced that it plans to open up a special attraction based on Rovio's number one franchise later this spring.

Speaking at the DICE Summit today with a small gathering of game designers, executives, and reporters, former Junction Point founder Warren Spector said that he had no desire to retire and that games like Warner Bros. and Grasshopper Manufacture's Lollipop Chainsaw should not be made. During his presentation on how his taste as a gamer and a game designer has changed over the years, he showed a slide of Lollipop Chainsaw and said (from Kotaku):

In a discussion about gun violence and gun control, Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) says that games are way more problematic than weapons because "they affect people." Weapons apparently don't affect people, except the fact that they put holes in them where blood can leak out... Speaking today on MSNBC's The Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd, Alexander said video games are a greater societal threat than guns.

The UK tabloid The Sun is running a feature length story about a saucy calendar featuring gaming and scantily clad women that is apparently all the rage in Germany - right alongside David Hasselhoff... The article is titled "Nerd is the word," and highlights the fact that the "calendar featuring classic gaming consoles and sexy girls" is a "big hit.." We think it's a big miss personally because it objectifies women in the name of geek culture.

The American College of Emergency Physicians announced the launch of a browser-based game meant to gauge the knowledge of families, children, and teachers on disaster preparation. The game, Disaster Hero, was developed by American College of Emergency Physicians using grant money from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

This Reddit thread reveals a grand and charitable deed that Bungie did for a very sick little boy in Seattle, as detailed by The Escapist. According to the Reddit thread, Seattle-based Reddit user fiscal_ reached out to Bungie asking them to send something to his five year old son who was in the process of getting a liver transplant.

A recent profile of Mike Langlois, a clinical social worker in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and author of the eBook "Reset: Video Games & Psychotherapy" by Psychotherapy Networker (part of its Clinician's Digest III), makes the case for psychologists and mental health professionals to learn more about video games and even play them if they can.

According to a Polygon report, the video game industry executives and other interested parties that met with Vice-President Joe Biden's Gun Violence Commission walked away feeling that they were unscathed, and that Biden was looking for general input on media and violence.

Around 180 students are taking part in a Minecraft based experiment at the Viktor Rydberg school in Stockholm, Sweden - according to GameSpot. The school has introduced "compulsory Minecraft lessons" for its 13-year-old students as a means to teach them - in an engaging way - about planning for the future and environmental issues.

The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) has issued a call to action this morning calling on the gaming community and its members to email their representatives in Congress and the President of the United States to let them know that blaming video games for the recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut is wrong-headed, and that there is no research to suggest that there is a correlation between gun violence in America and playing video games.

Konami announced that it has teamed up with UnitedHealthcare for a joint initiative that will use its popular dance rhythm game DanceDanceRevolution in schools to fight childhood obesity. The initiative will create a special version of DanceDanceRevolution called the DDR Classroom Edition.

Organizers of the game-related charity Child's Play announced that more than $5 million has been raised in 2012, making it the biggest year for the charity to-date. In 2011 Child's Play managed to raise $3.5 million. A representative for the charity thanked event organizers, volunteers, and participants in various charity drives for their hard work and dedication to achieve this new milestone.

In a video for knowledge forum "Big Think," researcher John Seely Brown explains why World of Warcraft players are the ideal employees for businesses. In his video he explains why playing an online game and being part of a team might be more important than getting an MBA at Harvard.

Seduce Me, an erotic game created by Amsterdam-based indie developer No Reply Games, will never be sold on Steam, but it is for sale, and was released earlier in the week at its official web site. You may recall that the game was deemed too racy for Valve, who unceremoniously removed the erotic dating simulation game from consideration on the Steam Greenlight program in early September of last year. Despite this setback, developer No Reply Games continued to work on the game and managed to complete it for release.

Writing over at the official web site for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), Advisory Chair For Education & Outreach Betsy Gomez points out that Senator Jay Rockefeller’s (D – WV) recent announcement of a bill mandating that the National Academy of Sciences research the effect of video games on children is misguided and a very familiar topic for anyone who understands the history of the comic book industry.

Starting at right around noon on December 29 and running right through New Year's Eve, Extra Lives will host a Pokémon gameplay marathon to raise money for charity. Participants will play through up to three games at a time, including a few unsavory entries in the series and even some bootleg versions of games that are Pokémon-based. The website will live stream the triumphs and tragedies of participants as they attempt to play through multiple versions of the game at once, starting with three different versions of the first Game Boy generation of Pokémon games.

Remember that virtual showroom that linked Medal of Honor: Warfighter to real-life products from its gun maker marketing partners? Well Electronic Arts has decided that it needed to make some adjustments to that whole promotion/connection, according to this Polygon report..

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has weighed in on the rush to place the blame on video games as a cause for the Newtown, Connecticut shootings that resulted in the death of 20 children and six adults. ACLU Legislative Counsel Gabe Rottman wrote on the group's web site that rushing to blame violent video games will lead to "the worst facts, and they will make the worst laws if we let them."

Update: An earlier version of this story erroneously named Chris Vizzini (who own Gaymer.org) as a party in a licensing negotiation related to GaymerCon. The rights holder in question, who Gamer X organizers do not wish to name, was not Vizzini. We apologize for the confusion and have rewritten the story below to reflect the facts.