Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's (R-Texas) effort in the Senate to kill the FCC's net neutrality rules has failed. The Senate voted, 46-52, against moving forward with a resolution that would have overturned federal regulations enacted in 2010 that govern anti-competitive behavior online.

"It's time to push back" against federal agencies that are overreaching their authority and enacting burdensome regulations, she argued before the Senate voted on a motion to proceed.

I'm all for letters to the editor, but one written by one Tina L. Bechtel, is particularly over the top and needs to be read to be believed. The Marysville, California mother of at least one son (at least the one she mentions in her letter) delivers what she calls her "long-overdue reaction to the 'supreme sellout' of our children," referring to the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year in the Brown v. EMA case.

Perhaps stripping the navigation out of its E3 demo for the Kinect-only Fable title, Fable The Journey. was a terrible idea.. In retrospect, Lionhead Studios boss Peter Molyneux thinks they should have left the navigational features of the game in the demo. Because it was stripped to keep a tighter control on the presentation, many media types and viewers believed the game to be an "on rails shooter."

This, Molyneux has claimed in multiple interviews this week, is not the truth, but he blames himself for that perception. Speaking to OXM after his part in the Microsoft E3 briefing, Molyneux actually apologized for the game's debut, calling the whole thing a "horrendous mistake."

"I made a horrendous mistake on the press demo on taking out the navigation allowing players to move," he stated. "I'll state on record now that Fable: The Journey is definitely not on rails."

Caught with her proverbial pants down, former FCC Commissioner and soon to-be Washington D.C. lobbyist for Comcast-NBC Meredith Attwell Baker issued a statement regarding her new job, the approval of the Comcast-NBC merger and the appearance of impropriety taking a job at the company has caused her.

The Republican commissioner issued the statement on Friday after several publications including the New York Times called into question her role in the merger and taking a job with the same company a mere four months after her vote. From her statement (found in full here - PDF):

"Not once in my entire tenure as a Commissioner had anyone at Comcast or NBCUniversal approached me about potential employment. When this opportunity became available in mid-April, I made a personal decision that I wanted to give it serious consideration.

Be wary of fake Battlefield 3 beta keys, says this Joystiq story. According to Battlefield 3 community site BF3blog, that website BF3nation is offering some fake Battlefield 3 beta keys to visitors. The site's owners were apparently received in a previous phishing scheme, so anything they offer is probably bullshit..

Joystiq says that EA has been trying to shut down the site for a while, but has so far been unsuccessful.

Right now EA isn't offering invites to beta keys for Battlefield 3, so anyone offering them is engaging in some sort of scam that will cause you nothing but trouble. Be vigilant. When Ea does start offering them you'll know because just about every game-related site on the Internet will be offering a chance to get one.

How could Fox News resist attacking Duke Nukem Forever? After all it's a game aching to court controversy - for reasons real or imagined. Fox News writers Jeremy A. Kaplan and Patrick Manning get together to take Gearbox to task for the multiplayer mode of the game, "Capture the Babe." They open by describing the multiplayer mode:

"A new videogame that requires you to abduct women and give them a "reassuring slap" if they freak out has gamers and women's rights-groups crying foul. Brace yourself for the awfully sexist world of Duke Nukem Forever."

Brace yourself for comments from people who know nothing about the game, save the ten minutes of video they found on YouTube:

Electronic Arts has brushed aside complaints that a developer from its studio BioWare had acted unethically in posting a user review disguised as a fan. Electronic arts downplayed a BioWare employee's positive user review of Dragon Age II on Metacritic, saying that it was normal for "people who make games" to "vote for them."

The publisher said it sees no wrongdoing in studios “voting for their own game," comparing it to movie makers voting their film up for an Oscar.

"Of course the people who make the game vote for their own game," an EA spokesperson told Kotaku. That's how it works in the Oscars, that's how it works in the Grammy's and why I'm betting that Barack Obama voted for himself in the last election."

UK TV retail queen Mary Portas (known as Mary Queen of Shops on TV) went after UK-based games retailer GAME in a very public way over the weekend after her 17-year-old son was not allowed to purchase a 15+ rated game at the company's Oxford Street store. Outraged that the store was following the recommended guidelines on ratings, Portas took her fight to the phones to contact the company's CEO and to Twitter.

The result was a very public display that some gamers responded harshly to - like this Eurogamer forum thread where users called her everything from a "see you next Tuesday" and a moron, to a b*tch and a drama queen. Good job, Internet.

Her initial argument was that staff at the store recommended games to her son, but then refused to sell them to him because he didn't have a proper form of ID.

As a general rule, everyone loves the antics of Sony Computer Entertainment America's fictional executive, Kevin Butler. His TV commercials are hilarious, and even his online chatter is good for an occasional chuckle. But a recent back and forth on Twitter may have put some egg on the face of SCEA’s marketing department. During a short exchange of tweets with Linux and Mac enthusiast Travis La Marr, Butler inadvertently retweeted the PS3 root key to all of his followers. The story is particularly embarrassing for Sony, who is in a mad dash to stop people from sharing that root key on the Internet.  

La Marr tweeted the code at Butler, and signed off with "come at me @TheKevinButler." Whoever handles that Twitter account for Sony did not notice the long string of code in the message. That person retweeted the entire message, adding the comment: "Lemme guess ... You sank my Battleship?"

Gamasutra runs down the Top Five Disappointments of 2010 in a new feature that is part of its Best of 2010 series of articles. So what were the biggest disappointments of 2010, according to Gamasutra?

The list includes the on-going vagueness of digital sales figures (we're still dealing with estimates and not actual sales numbers); the failure of Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix recently reshuffled the development team); EA backing down over criticism of "Taliban" in multiplayer and renaming the faction to an "Opposing Force"; the UK government ditching tax breaks for the video game industry; and the collapse of APB maker Realtime Worlds.

It was widely reported that the trapped Chilean miners received PSP systems to keep them occupied while they waited to be rescued. It turns out that that story is not true. According to a Washington Post report, a request by miners to receive music players and portable game systems was denied by rescuers.

The miners do get TV, three hot meals a day, ice cream, personal letters from loved ones, and their clothes laundered on a regular basis - all part of a well crafted routine to keep the miners productive and working as a team. Instead of keeping busy with games and music, the miners are engaging in therapy sessions, and regular daily work clearing the debris.

The rescue plan is being aided by lead psychiatrist, Alberto Iturra Benavides, who wants to leave them with "no possible alternative but to survive" until drillers finish rescue holes, which the government predicts will be done by early November

"With earphones, if they're listening to music and someone calls them, asking for help or to warn them about something, they're not available," Iturra said. "What they need is to be together."

Dutch-based publisher Playlogic has filed for bankruptcy, according to documents from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Yesterday the company told the press, who had caught wind of its financial straits, that it was not going bankrupt. But late yesterday the board of directors confirmed it had voluntarily entered into "surseance van betaling," – apparently the Dutch equivalent to Chapter 11, for both Playlogic International and its development studio Playlogic Game Factory.

The company blamed a combination of "Tough market conditions, late payments by large customers and delays in projects" as the cause for the filings. One of the big companies that Playlogic alluded to was distribution partner Koch Media, which Playlogic is suing for unpaid bills totaling €1.7 million. Add to that a first quarter loss of $2.2 million, and a $20 million loss for the full 2009 financial year, and it is easy to see why Playlogic is struggling to stay alive.

Source: GI.biz

Only the Daily Star could make the New York Post look like the New York Times.

We’re a little late to this one, but last week that bastion of accurate reporting, the UK’s Daily Star, ran an article insinuating that Rockstar was making a Grand Theft Auto game based on the criminal actions committed earlier this month by ex-con Raoul Moat, who killed one and injured three across a six-day spree throughout the NorthEast UK. 

GTA Rothbury, as the game was called by Star writer Jerry Lawton, contained a series of animated quotes from relatives of the victims, outraged by the thought of a game, book or movie based on the criminal’s exploits, as reported up by CVG.

The story was eventually taken off the Star’s website entirely (since it was made up) and the newspaper issued an apology (thanks again CVG) stating: