The 15th annual Nite to Unite - For Kids gala raised $822,000 for the ESA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Entertainment Software Association, the event's organizers announced today. The black-tie event took place last week in San Francisco, where various game industry luminaries and the media got together for a good cause. Valve co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell was also honored at Nite to Unite as the 2012 ESA Champion Honoree. Previous honorees include Blizzard president and CEO Mike Morhaime and Star Wars franchise creator George Lucas.

In Episode 26 of the Super Podcast Action Committee hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight celebrate Halloween with tales of horror about bugs and glitches in video games, offer their opinions on Activision editing a Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer map because of complaints from the community, and share several true ghost stories. It's spookier and creepier (or hotter depending on your perspective) than Mitt Romney making out with President Barack Obama and Gary Johnson in the balcony of a seedy New York City movie theater!

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) announced what they are calling a "streamlined, no-cost service for assigning ratings to all digitally delivered games." The ESRB's new "Digital Rating Service" gives developers and publishers access to a "brief but detailed online questionnaire" to define a product's content, age-appropriateness, interactive elements, and platforms.

In Episode 25 of the Super Podcast Action Committee hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about what happens when a fully funded Kickstarter project (in this case the game Haunts: The Manse Macabre) fails to become reality, the wisdom of knowing when to shut down a failing Kickstarter campaign (the focus of that topic being Loot Drop's attempts to fund the 'Old School RPG'), the latest on the "six strikes" copyright enforcement scheme adopted by U.S. ISPs, Andrew's latest video, and the horrors of using voice chat on Nintendo's Wii U.

It is shocking just how many gamers have at least one or two games lying around that they haven't finished or haven't played. In episode 24 of the Super Podcast Action Committee Andrew and EZK spend a fair amount of time talking about that topic and revealing the results of the latest GamePolitics poll. They also dissect the latest lawsuits including one against Turbine Entertainment and a settlement agreement between Spry Fox and 6Waves over some unauthorized cloning of a popular iOS app. FX Network's Archer also gets an honorable mention..

A "day late and 30 minutes short" would be the best way to describe Episode 23 of the Super Podcast Action Committee as host Andrew Eisen struggles with being sick and co-host E. Zachary Knight rails against the wickedness of the state of Oklahoma keeping his preferred candidate off the ballot. In between these trials and tribulations, Andrew and EZK talk about Kevin Butler being sued by Sony, Nintendo's non-gamer ad, the latest poll on GamePolitics, and troubles at the drive-in.

In Episode 22 hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight laugh at the ridiculousness of fan requests to give the ladies of Dead or Alive 5 bigger breasts, discuss region locking consoles, and talk about cable providers who are considering more game-related services. This episode will chafe you more than an iron thong on a female fighter who can't stand up straight because some Japanese guy gave her an unneeded mega boob job... Someone call a chiropractor!

In Episode 21 hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight ponder the excitement levels of the Wii U amongst early adopters, wonder why Walmart and Amazon are not stocking certain products like Kindle Fire and Wii U pre-orders, and look at twenty predictions on future consoles. It's fun for the whole family... Download it now: SuperPAC Episode 21 (1 hour, 13 minutes).

In Episode 20 hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight throw all conventional limitations on time out the window as they discuss the "Adults Only" ESRB game ratings category, political ads in games, and all the news about the Wii U. Download it here: SuperPAC Episode 20 (1 hour, 27 minutes).

E. Zachary Knight makes a triumphant return in Episode 19 of the Super Podcast Action Committee. After a near-death experience (we might be slightly exaggerating) last week, he rejoins host Andrew Eisen to discuss getting older (be sure to wish him a happy birthday today!) Steam Greenlight's early hurdles, the latest GamePolitics poll, and Ubisoft's new DRM policy. Download it here: SuperPAC Episode 19 (57 Minutes).

Episode 18 of the Super Podcast Action Committee sees host Andrew Eisen team up with GP Managing Editor James Fudge, who sat in for E.

Episode 17 of the Super Podcast Action Committee is here and that means more fun with hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight! This week they talk about Apple's patent victory over Samsung, OnLive's CEO Steve Perlman giving a donation to former employees, the results from our latest poll and a whole lot more. An earthquake guest stars, causing Andrew much consternation. We didn't feel a damned thing.

In Episode 16 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and James Fudge (filling in for E. Zachary Knight, who had to take a well-deserved time-out to fawn over a new addition to his family this week) talk about Mugen Souls, Resident Evil 5, the chaos of OnLive, the irony of Ubisoft turning Uplay into a digital distribution platform, and the controversy over "girlfriends" and Borderlands 2. Download Episode 16 here: SuperPAC Episode 16 (1 Hour, 12 Minutes).

In episode 15 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about Harry Potter games, OUYA's Kickstarter success and pre-order, a dehydrated teen, piracy, free-to-play spending, and Nintendo and Sony's trouble getting third-party developers to love their hand-helds. Download Episode 15 here: SuperPAC Episode 15 (1 Hour, 5 Minutes).

In episode 14 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the UK researcher who thinks parents should be arrested for buying their children age inappropriate games, Ubisoft's rootkit controversy, the results from last week's poll at GamePolitics about Humble Bundles, EA's lawsuit against Zynga, the death of the Cybersecurity Act in the Senate, and a whole lot more.

We ignore the taboo of the number 13 to present you with Episode 13 of the Super Podcast Action Committee. We have no fear in us. This week Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about Gamers Against Bigotry, GameStop's plans for selling used digital games in Europe, the Humble Music Bundle, and Gamasutra's article about developers working in war-torn countries.

In Episode 12 of Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss Fez developer Phil Fish's decision not to fix the patch for the game before re-releasing it to Xbox Live (because it costs too much money), Uniloc's patent infringement claims against Minecraft maker Mojang, last week's results from the GamePolitics poll, and the media trying to blame Batman comics, movies and games for the horrific Aurora, Colorado theater shooting.

The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) has reappointed board members from six companies including Dish Network, Giant Eagle, Rain City Video, Redbox, Rentrak, and Target have been reappointed to the board for a term of three years.

Episode 11 of the Super Podcast Action Committee almost didn't happen this week. Oh, Andrew and Zachary sat down and talked for a full 60 minutes, but an upgrade to the recording software we use managed to throw a wrench in the works leaving us with only 32 minutes of questionable audio to work with.

We hit a milestone this week - our 10th episode of the show (although we could argue that it is actually the 11th or 12 episode of the show if you count the lost episodes we determined to be not suitable for public consumption)! This week Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about patent wars, the European Court's ruling that digital games can be resold, Verizon's claim that net neutrality violates its first amendment rights, the controversy over Blizzard banning some Linux-using Diablo III players, and a whole lot of other interesting topics.

Episode 9 of the Super Podcast Action Committee is dedicated to Independence Day, the ECA's Declaration of Internet Freedom, and complaining about games. Andrew and James b*tch and moan about Battlefield 3, LEGO Batman 2, and some other topics that rub them the wrong way. This episode contains colorful language. Moms were dispatched with bars of soap to deal with these filthy mouths.

In Episode 8 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew and Zachary actually manage to stay close to the 60 minute mark this week! Santa is real! The topics for this week's show include the Tetris cloning case ruling, Australia's new R18+ rating category for games, various topics related to Microsoft, and much more. Download Episode 8 it here: SuperPAC Episode 8.

This week on the SUPER PAC, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the Tropes vs. Women Kickstarter (and the controversial comments some on the Internet made about it), Humble Bundle V's amazing success, the Lara Croft-Tomb Raider E3 trailer "attempted rape" controversy, Warren Spector's  lament about the fetish of violence in games, and a whole lot more.

In Episode 6 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, James, Andrew, and Zachary talk about the Electronic Entertainment Expo which took place last week in Los Angeles. We discuss the hits and misses of the show at length and realize that both Zachary and Andrew have no earthly idea who Aisha Tyler is. I know, it’s an unforgivable sin. This is probably the longest show we have had ( it was cut it down from three hours to its final length - 1 hour, 42 minutes). Admittedly we did talk about other things like how dumb the last Superman movie was.

Sony is on the fence about having a major presence at the popular European gaming event Gamescom later this year. Sony Computer Entertainment's German communications director Guido Alt told the German arm of GamesIndustry International that a decision has yet to be made on Gamescom and that they are still negotiating terms with the event's organizers.

In Episode 5 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, James Fudge talks to GaymerCon organizer Matt Conn about the first-of-its-kind LGBT-focused gaming event (find it at 12:36 mark - you can also find a transcript here). Meanwhile hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk way too long about E3, Nintendo, the Wii U and the Game Genie (the segment begins at 25:48 mark).

In Episode 4 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about censorship in the European version of Frogster's MMO TERA (check out Andrew's latest YouTube video for some context on the discussion), and the controversy over game cloning - this time involving an iOS game from Ustwo called Papa Quash that copied the mechanics from the popular PlayStation Move title from Die Gute Fabrik - J.S. Joust. 

What do Diablo III, Torchlight II, and Rhode Island have in common? All three get the full attention of the Super PAC this week. In this week's show Andrew and James wonder where Zachary is, talk about the horrors of connecting to Battle.net during the Diablo III launch, and why "always connected" gameplay is for the birds.

This week on the podcast we talk with Ben Sawyer, Project Director for Games for Health. Ben gives us a preview of what the event will offer next month and even talks a little bit about the impact of gamification on our privacy.

Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight delve into the fine print of Microsoft's recently announced $99 Xbox 360 and detail why it's not really a good deal for anyone. They also discuss the sorry state of the big three console makers.

Episode #1 of the Super Podcast Action Committee takes on the thorny issue of used games. Why do some developers and publishers hate them so much and why do they think it would be "awesome" if the next generation of home consoles from Sony and Microsoft blocked used games altogether? We try to figure it all out... Hosts Andrew Eisen and E.