A University Campus Suffolk (UCS) computer games design student and a graduate are the winners of a prestigious national games award, much to the delight of the UK-based school. Brad Smith, currently studying at UCS, and former student Joe Kinglake, were the overall winners in the Walking Dead 48-hour game jam – held in October 2013. The two students teamed up to enter The Walking Dead’s ‘All-out War’ themed Game Jam where they competed with 140 other game jam teams.

Two graduates from the United Kingdom's Univeristy of Lincoln will have their research highlighted and discussed during ACE 2013 – the 10th international conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. Sean Oxspring and Nick Bull graduated with a BSc in Games Computing in September of this year. Bull currently works as an assistant web developer at Blue Box Software. His research focused on developing mobile games that use interactions in the real world as a lynch pin for gameplay.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and Hispanic Heritage Foundation’s (HHF) Leaders on the Fast Track (LOFT) today revealed the recipients of the ESA LOFT Video Game Innovation Fellowship. The 20 ESA LOFT Video Game Innovation Fellows were awarded grants for creating video games that attempt to provide solutions to specific problems in their communities.

On December 4, the Fellows will present their ideas to influencers and policymakers in Washington, DC after flying in on Southwest Airlines, the official airline of LOFT and HHF.

The V&A Museum and Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland are working together to develop new ways to display video games in museums, according to a report in the Scotsman. The two organizations have formed a new research network to work on a project called Video Games in the Museum.

Five students from universities in Canada were recognized on Tuesday night for research achievements that advance industry innovation, creating new products and services and transforming the lives of Canadians.

Each of the students received an award at the third annual Mitacs Awards Reception, held to honor the contributions of researchers, who have participated in Mitacs programs aimed at fostering research and innovation, as well as forging stronger bonds between academia and businesses across Canada.

Winners include:

Researchers at the University of Michigan Medical Center have been awarded a $4.5 million grant to study the effectiveness of video games and technology in creating more independence in young people suffering from spinal cord dysfunction and neuro-developmental disabilities.

While details on the study are thin, we do know that the $4.5 million grant comes from U.S. Department of Education's National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research and will be doled out over a five-year period.

Playing education games cooperatively with others can motivate students to learn according to a new study from New York University. A study New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development found that when students played a math game collaboratively with another student it motivated them to learn even more, compared to students who played the game alone. The study also found that students' interest and enjoyment of the game increased when playing with another student.

Researchers at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab is researching how sexualized depictions of women in video games can make women feel like they are objects, and that it may alter their perception on myths related to rape.

"We often talk about video game violence and how it affects people who play violent video games," says Jeremy Bailenson, the director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford. “I think it’s equally important to think about sexualization.”

Wargaming has teamed up with the British Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum to share its newly acquired exhibit – the Dornier Do17 bomber - with the world. Using an "Augmented Reality App" created by Wargaming called Apparition: Dornier17, visitors can see a full scale, 3D vision of the aircraft at various locations around the world. In June, the Museum successfully lifted the only known German Dornier Do17 bomber from the waters of the Goodwin Sands, three miles off the coast of England.

In January 2013, the American Psychological Association created a Task Force to review its 2005 Resolution on Violence in Video Games and Interactive Media which found an increase in aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, and a decrease in helpful behavior as a result of playing violent video games.

A new study by the School of Psychology at the University of Leicester comes to the conclusion that first-person shooters can help players better perceive motion... while walking backwards. The research was recently published in a paper called "Selectively enhanced motion perception in core video gamers" in the journal Perception.

New research from the University of Missouri suggests that massively multiplayer online games can serve as a source for what is commonly referred to as "problematic video gaming." While gaming addiction is not a recognized addiction by the global mental health professional community, that hasn't stopped researchers and some mental health professionals from trying to identify and treat it.

A study from UK-based research firm YouGov (as unearthed by Gamasutra) finds that people who think that playing violent video games can lead to real-world violence like mass shootings tend to be older and have no familiarity with playing games.

Christopher J. Ferguson, chair of the psychology department at Stetson University goes head-to-head with Dr. Brad Bushman, professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University in two different editorials on CNN.com.

Twenty-five executives and experts in the interactive entertainment industry are taking part in an event to discuss how New York City lawmakers can attract and support an industry that generates nearly $5 billion a year today. The event is being hosted and sponsored by Polytechnic Institute of New York University (in Brooklyn, NY).

The University of California at Santa Cruz has hired Brenda and John Romero to lead a new program that inevitably earns students a master's degree in games and playable media at the school's Silicon Valley Center. Brenda Romero was appointed as the school's first game designer in residence at the Center for Games and Playable Media in January 2013.

Worcester, Massachusetts-based Becker College and the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (MassDiGI) have been awarded a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) to help build the MassDiGI New Ventures Center (NVC). Becker College also announced that it will match the EDA grant, making a total of $2.8 million available to build the state-of-the-art facility.

A new study led by neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley of the University of California, San Francisco found that the video game "NeuroRacer" helped older participants improve their ability to multitask, which also carried over into their everyday lives. The study also showed how patterns of brain activity change as those cognitive skills improve.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced a partnership with the Black Association for Science and Engineering, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF), HHF's Leaders on the Fast Track (LOFT) and other groups to create the ESA Loft Video Game Innovation Fellowship.

Researchers in the United Kingdom are warning MMO developers that they need to consider limiting the amount of time the average player spends per session to combat "pathological addiction," and avoid inevitable government intervention. Researchers at Cardiff, Derby and Nottingham Trent universities said some gamers play up to "90 hours a session,"  and that if game companies did not create in-game limits for players, governments might have no choice but to follow Asia's model for limiting play time.

A new research paper published in the Pediatrics 2013 medical journal concludes that young boys with autism spectrum disorder spend much more time playing video games than boys with average development. Researchers also conclude that boys with autism spectrum disorder and ADHD are at greater risk for "problematic video game use."

Stefan Svallfors, a professor of sociology at Umea University has submitted former NSA contractor Edward Snowden as his pick for the Nobel Peace Prize. Recently he sent a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee nominating Snowden because of his leaks on several secret NSA surveillance programs being run in the U.S. and in Europe.

New research from Penn State Altoona suggests that new technology such as the motion sensing technology used in the Wii does not increase aggressive behavior in players. The research, which was recently published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, was conducted by Eric Charles and a team of researchers at Penn State Altoona (thanks to PHX Corp. for the tip).

An extensive and exclusive report over on Polygon reveals that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are getting closer to pursuing the Obama Administration edict to study the correlation between violent media (music, movies, television and video games) and gun violence. The President called for more research in January of this year in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe announced today that educators and academics can apply for PlayStation 4 development kits beginning tomorrow as part of the PlayStationFirst Academic Programme. The PS4 joins other kits made available to educators and academics including those for PlayStation 3, PS Vita, PlayStation Portable - as well as kits for PlayStation Home and PlayStation Mobile. These Academic development kits include access to PlayStation software and hardware, lessons in programming, computer engineering, and developing software.

The University of California, Davis announced grants for vocational education, child poverty, international migration and the cultural impact of video games. All of these topics are part of the Interdisciplinary Frontiers in Humanities and Arts program, which will receive combined funding of $3.6 million over three years. The goal is to kick start new research that can go on to compete for funding from "external sources." The funding comes from indirect costs of grants awarded to UC Davis under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or stimulus funds.

Researchers from North Carolina State University are using cockroaches and Microsoft's Kinect sensor for an experiment that allows them to drive the little insects around. Using Microsoft's motion-sensing Kinect technology and some electronics, they've figured out how to control a cockroach in real life.

The team of scientists working on this bizarre project hope that a remote-controlled cockroach could one day be used in disaster search-and-rescue scenarios, such as mapping out a collapsed building or finding survivors.

ReasonTV has an interesting interview with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, who continues to evangelize the use of video game-like components as a means to enhance the public educational system through his new company Brain Rush. Bushnell is also known as the founder of the Chuck E Cheese chain of restraints, the author of the new book "Finding the Next Steve Jobs," and is often referred to as the "Father of Video Games."

New research from Duke University published in the journal Attention, Perception & Psychophysics finds that first-person shooters (or action games) help gamers to develop increased visual sensitivity that can be used to react quickly to stimuli in their field of vision. Games mentioned include Call of Duty and BioShock. The more immersed they are in the self-contained world of a video game, the better gamers become at quickly making "probabilistic inferences" about what certain visual indicators might lead to, even with limited information.

Monash University researcher Dr. Andy Ruddock from the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies and Brendan Keogh from the School of Media and Communication at RMIT (both in Australia, in case you didn't know) will host a seminar to discuss how better collaboration between media effects researchers and games studies researchers can find common ground and work together to improve understanding on the effects of violent video games on real world behavior.