Sony Online Associate Art Director John Roy passed away on October 14th 2014. The cause of his death is unknown as of this writing.

Roy has worked in various positions at SOE since 1998. He started out as a Lead Artist at SCEA; in August of 1998 he took on the role of Assoc. Art Director at SOE. Roy has worked for Sony for nearly 18 years and has contributed to such games as EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies and many of SOE's biggest MMO titles.

An Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign to create an ad blitz (some are calling it a harassment campaign, and in incredibly poor taste given the current climate on social media) for the sole purpose of pressuring Valve Software to get Half-Life 3 into the hands of its fans, has launched. While the game has long been rumored to be in development at Valve, the company has never confirmed its existence.

Two former members of the audio team behind Rockstar Games' ultra popular Grand Theft Auto franchise have struck out on their own. The duo have launched Solid Audioworks, an audio production company "offering a combined 30 years of ground and sound-breaking expertise."

Besides working on Grand Theft Auto series, the Solid Audioworks duo have also been responsible for creating audio content for such games as L.A. Noire, the Manhunt franchise, and Red Dead Redemption.

University of Saskatchewan computer science PhD student Kathrin Gerling is designing video games specifically for the benefit of senior citizens. Gerling, who loves video games, wants to combine her love for her hobby with her passion for her community by working with seniors in local nursing homes to make accessible games. Gerling was inspired to do this by a number of studies that showed that seniors who play games gain mental and physical benefits from them.

Operation Supply Drop was hoping to raise $12,000 in video game systems, gear and games for six care packages. Five of these packages will be sent to soldiers deployed in combat zones, while a sixth package will be sent to Walter Reed military hospitals. This fundraising drive, codenamed "PIXEL FIREWORKS," is already a huge success, bringing in almost double what was needed with several days left to go. For this particular initiative the charity has raised right around $24,736.

Valve CEO and co-founder Gabe Newell will be honored by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) with the Academy Fellowship at this year's British Academy Games Awards. He'll be honored with this prestigious award at a ceremony taking place on March 5 at the London Hilton, Park Lane.

Valve's Gabe Newell took the unusual step of breaking his silence on recent developments inside Valve after it was reported yesterday that as many as 25 employees have been let go. Valve did not confirm that that number was accurate. Among those confirmed to be leaving the company are Valve’s director of business Jason Holtman and hardware engineer Jeri Ellsworth.

Speaking to Bloomberg GameStop VP of public and investor relations Matt Hodges said that the consumer's desire to purchase a next-generation console will be "significantly diminished" if manufacturers were to block the ability to play used games.

Speaking to Polygon, Star Trek and Star Wars: Episode VII director J.J. Abrams says that plans for movies based on Valve Software's hit franchises Portal and Half-Life are in the early stages and that that he's personally interested in bringing those universes to film. Abrams made his comments to the publication at the 2013 DICE Summit going on this week near Las Vegas.

Recently Valve Software co-founder Gabe Newell sat down with Chris Hardwick of The Nerdist Podcast to talk about the company's plans to take over the living room entertainment space with Steam's Big Picture Mode and with hardware like Steam Box. Some of that conversation was transcribed by Games Industry International.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) announced this morning that Valve president and co-founder Gabe Newell will be the 17th inductee into the AIAS Hall of Fame. He will also deliver the 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit as its Thursday conference keynote. The 2013 Hall of Fame Award will be presented to Gabe by Epic Games President Dr. Michael Capps, who serves on the AIAS board of directors and the AIAS awards committee.

Valve Software co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell will be honored at Entertainment Software Association Foundation's 'Nite to Unite – For Kids' event on October 18. Newell is being honored for creating software used to develop problem solving skills in young students. The award ties to a 2011 partnership between Valve and the United States Department of Education to use a modified version of Portal in classrooms across the United States.

Valve Software's Gabe Newell isn't the only one that thinks Windows 8 is a "catastrophe" for game makers, apparently. Responding to Newell's speech made earlier this week at the Casual Connect game conference where he made some disparaging remarks about the upcoming operating system from Microsoft, Blizzard's executive vice president of game design Rob Pardo had similar words for Microsoft.

Speaking at the Casual Connect game conference this week, Valve CEO Gabe Newell described Microsoft's next Windows operating system, Windows 8, as a "catastrophe" for PC game developers. If that isn't an apocalyptic prophecy for gamers, I don't know what is.

Zynga is loaning several of its developers to create a social charity game on Facebook. Development on a "social action" game based on the book Half the Sky by Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn is well underway according to GamesBeat.

The book is about "turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide." The game will be released on Facebook on November 13.

EA's digital distribution platform "has a long way to go," according to Valve's Gabe Newell, who owns Steam. As part of episode one of the Seven Day Cooldown podcast, Newell gave a blunt response when asked what he thought about EA's digital distribution platform.

"They have a lot of work to do to get to where they need to be and where I as a customer would want them to be," he said.

BioWare co-founder Dr. Ray Muzyka has written an open letter to the community about the ending to Mass Effect 3 and what the company plans to do in the future to make fans feel a little bit happier. In that lengthy letter posted on the BioWare forums, Muzyka admits that the company's first instinct is to defend the work they have done on Mass Effect 3, but at the end of the day he has to acknowledge the will of the fans who were clearly not satisfied with how the game ended.

Valve Software's Gabe Newell has a net worth of approximately $1.5 billion dollars, putting him on Forbes Magazine's list of the richest people in the world. Newell ranks 854th in the 1,226 list of worldwide billionaires. Newell did not disclose his new worth to the magazine and since Valve is a privately-held company, Forbes had to estimate the figure listed above.

Parents with children suffering from amblyopia (referred to by some as "Lazy Eye") frequently have trouble with kids refusing to do vision correction exercises. Since these exercises are important to correcting this type of vision problem, parents need tools to make the activity more fun and engaging for youngsters. Correction of amblyopia typically involves some sort of repetitive coordinative exercise, such as navigating a maze on paper, drawing lines on paper, etc. The problem is that some kids find these activities to be tedious and unchallenging.

Valve front man Gabe Newell fears that Apple will release new hardware that could render traditional gaming consoles obsolete. At least that is what he said during a game panel at the WTIA TechNW conference - as reported by the Seattle Times.

"I suspect Apple will launch a living room product that redefines people's expectations really strongly and the notion of a separate console platform will disappear," said Newell.

Newell also called the rise of "closed" platforms like Apple's iOS and Xbox Live "ominous."

NASA has released an interactive educational video game today called NetworKing that its Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) network operates. The release of the video game coincides with the close of World Space Week, Oct. 4-10. Developed by the Information Technology Office at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, its developers say that NetworKing gives players an insider's perspective into how astronauts, mission controllers and scientists communicate during space missions.

GDC Online organizers announced two programs that will grant free Expo Passes to video game and tech industry locals (to Austin and the state where the event takes place next month) and qualifying students. The new program is part of the event's outreach to local talent including students and working professionals.

IGDA Japan is organizing the Fukushima Game Jam, a developer event that it hopes will stimulate game development following the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last year. The Game Jam is organized with the help 9Leap, a student development contest and will take place from August 27 to 28 in Minami-Souma city. The event is modeled after Global Game Jam hosted by the IGDA each year, where development teams take a theme given by organizers to create a game in a limited amount of time.

The 2011 International Serious Play Awards, which honors "outstanding corporate, military, healthcare and learning" software titles, announced that it has recognized 20 serious games. The medal winners were revealed at the Serious Play Conference, held August 23-25 at Redmond, WA's DigiPen Institute of Technology, as attended by Gamasutra. Air Medic Sky One from University Medical Center Utrecht won Best of Show.

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell says that Microsoft needs to relax the terms and conditions of Xbox Live to allow other platforms onto Xbox Live. Newell made his comments related to the upcoming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive release, which features Steamworks integration. Newell said that Microsoft would do well to emulate Sony, whose decision to allow Steamworks support in the PlayStation 3 release of Portal 2 resulted in better experience on that platform.

Independent video rental stores across the U.S. and Canada are banding together for a common cause: to promote a Video Store Day Oct. 15. The goal of this special day is to show the public that there are still alternatives to rental kiosks like Redbox and from Blockbuster, and streaming entertainment services such as Netflix and Hulu. Clearly local video rental stores have taken a savage beating at the hands of those juggernauts.

Chicago-based technology firm ImmersiveTouch has been working in consultation with the Memphis-based Medical Education & Research Institute (MERI) on surgery simulator technology that looks and feels like a next-generation video game. The inventors say that while it might be video game-like, it has far more serious implications for medical training and surgery.

MERI does not have a financial stake in the company or in the simulator, but many of the doctors and surgeons who pass through the training center have offered their input in developing the product.

"We are engineers. We are not physicians," said Cristian Luciano, Sensimmer's co-inventor and ImmersiveTouch vice president. "The needs that are coming from the physicians and surgeons drive the (product development) efforts as we produce solutions for them."

Konami, along with health professionals, policy makers, students, parents, and teachers, across West Virginia are heading to Charleston later this month to address childhood obesity. Konami is spearheading an event - the Childhood Obesity Summit - to discuss the best ways to deal with the issue. The company will also host the second annual DanceDanceRevolution West Virginia State Championship Tournament at the same time.

The West Virginia University Extension Service, West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA), and Konami organized the summit to promote collaboration and develop a referral base for coordinated prevention and treatment of childhood obesity statewide.

In response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to strike down the 2005 California law regulating violent video games, one Utah lawmaker says that he will not pursue a similar law he tried to pass in 2008. Rep. Michael Morley, (R-Spanish Fork, Utah) told the Deseret News that he felt his bill was very different from the California law that was struck down on Monday.

For one, the bill did not impose a fine on retailers who sold mature-rated games to children, but did give parents the power to file a lawsuit against the offending business. The bill would allow parents to sue under a claim of false advertising. While the 2008 video game bill passed with broad support in both houses, former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. vetoed the bill. Former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff backed the governor's position at the time. Both expressed concern over the impact to local businesses and free speech rights.

Fable series developer and wholly-owned Microsoft studio Lionhead plans to launch a work experience program for local students next week. The company says that it wants to help build a relationship between the British development sector and area schools in the hopes that young people will be inspired to build games for a living. Students from schools in close proximity to Lionhead can get work experience on-site, and will learn about "all of the six main disciplines of making a game," according to Lionhead. Each student will also have a personal mentor to work with.