The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press issued a statement praising the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Monday that declared a California law restricting the sale or rental of violent video games to minors was an unconstitutional limit on freedom of speech.

"Time and again, from the early days of radio and television, to 10-cent comic books and now to video games, lawmakers have tried to limit speech for what they believe to be the public good. And each time, they have lost because the First Amendment will not tolerate such wholesale limitations on expression merely because someone has created a new mode of communication," said Reporters Committee Executive Director Lucy A. Dalglish.

"The majority decision ensures that violent content in any medium, including content produced by news outlets, will not come under the same censorship."

News Corp. subsidiary IGN Entertainment confirmed today that it is purchasing Hearst Corporation's UGO Entertainment. Earlier this week reports surfaced that the high profile video gaming network would buy UGO and be spun off as a separate entity.

"This instantly catapults us to another level and positions us to serve and entertain tens of millions more fans," IGN president Roy Bahat said in a statement. "We look forward to providing an even richer service for users and advertisers. We are now actively considering a range of options to maximize IGN's long-term value."

In buying UGO Entertainment, IGN adds UGO.com and 1UP.com to the IGN family, along with the UGO ad network. Under the terms of the agreement, Hearst becomes an IGN shareholder and will have a say in how this new business is grown.

Congratulations to The Escapist, who managed to snag three Webby Awards including Best Games-Related Website, People's Voice Best Games-Related Website, and People's Voice Best Lifestyle Website. Why would we mention The Escapist here? After all this is a site about games and politics. Because it is one of the best games-related web site on the Internet and regularly featured in our daily newsletter for its irreverent commentary, sharp wit and the occasional story relevant to what we do here. We'll close out this congratulatory post with some commentary from co-founder Russ Pitts:

An All Things Digital report claims that IGN Entertainment will buy video gaming network UGO for an undisclosed amount of money. The report also alleges that parent company News Corp. will spin out the brand new network of game-related sites into a stand-alone company. Based on Comscore traffic numbers for both networks, the combined monthly visitors of this new entity would be around 32.8 million visitors a month. UGO is owned by Hearst and is best known for owning 1Up and a massive game-related ad network.

Plans to spin-off IGN into its own company would take months, and would be headed up by long-time IGN front man Roy Bahat. One can expect that the new company would have a number of redundancies and some staff would have to be let go.

Two publications - Pocket Gamer and GamesRadar - take a recent spot study in The Sun (or as some call it, Britain’s version of the Weekly World News) about the effects of playing the Nintendo 3DS. Before we get into the jokes, a recap of a recent study in The Sun conducted by Carol Cooper for an article entitled 'Nintendo 3DS Game for a Barf.' Using a 22-year-old subject named Lee Price, a 3DS, and instruments needed to regulate blood pressure and heart rate, The Sun slaps together a spot study on the perils of playing Nintendo's new hand-held.

A British tabloid report of record returns on 3DS units to retailers are apparently grossly overblown, according to Nintendo. British tabloid The Sun reported that the 3DS "left thousands with dizziness and headaches", leading to a record number of returns. But all parties involved - from retailers to Nintendo, say that the report is erroneous.

For example, retailer GAME told Eurogamer that they have had five consumers complain about the 3DS:

"We've had less than five people complain that they feel sick and want to return [the 3DS]," a GAME rep. told the publication.

Retail chain HMV thinks that The Sun may have become confused over figures for trade-ins for games and hardware, which retailers used to reduce the cost of the new 3DS. The retailer added that they are not "refunding fully" the price of the 3DS as The sun has claimed.

Nintendo also denied the claims:

The global video game community came together to show its love and respect for Japan, and to raise awareness for relief efforts via a special project called "Gamers Heart Japan." The 60-minute special premiered today and offered interviews with veteran game industry journalists from all over the world as well as some of the top video game developers on the planet. Game journalists and game makers shared their thoughts on the Japanese video game development scene.

Gamers Heart Japan interviewees talked about the past, present and future of Japan and reminded viewers that the country needs every gamer around the world to donate whatever they can to help the country as it struggles with the worst natural disaster in the history if the world. Donations for The Red Cross in your area can be made through the GamersHeartJapan.com website.

In the last year research firm NPD Group has drawn a curtain of secrecy on its retail and digital sales data. As a result, journalists no longer have access to hard numbers. Now journalists must rely on the kindness of hardware manufacturers, publishers and the NPD's general top ten lists to figure out what the top selling games are from month to month. Analysts enjoy more access to that data, but it looks like NPD is tightening security even among that class.

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."

Anyone that follows the indie game scene knows what GameTunnel is. Founded in 2002, it was - for a while - one of the few sites dedicated to games developed by small studios around the world. A few years ago the original owner sold the site to Indie Game Magazine. For one reason or another, the new owners were forced to stop updating the site with new content.

Now they have started a Kickstarter project page to raise a small amount of funds to relaunch the site. Details below:

Evolve Media Corp has acquired PlayStationLifeStyle, a US-based site dedicated to all things PlayStation and sony related. The web site will become part of Evolve's flagship website, GameRevolution. According to GameIndustry.biz, PlayStationLifeStyle is the largest enthusiast PlayStation site in the US. The site it joins forces with, GameRevolution, enjoys approximately 4.5 million average unique users a month. The editorial staff at both sites will be merged, with GameRevolution handling the overall administrative duties.

"PlayStationLifeStyle not only provides great coverage of PlayStation-focused news, but also has a very enthusiastic community of gamers," said Paul Hanges, MD of GameRevolution. "We recognized PlayStationLifeStyle's potential and wanted to bring it to a larger platform by coupling it with GameRevolution's extensive reach, therefore creating the ultimate gaming destination."

The Eurogamer Network has purchased Hammersuit, the owner of IndustryGamers.com and mobile gaming site Modojo.com. This is particularly interesting for two reasons; first it extends the European-centric company's reach into the United States. Secondly, it brings its sister publication GameIndustry.biz and IndustryGamers under the same banner. IndustryGamers was founded in in May 2009 by Hammersuit and journalist James Brightman.

"We have been looking for the right opportunity to expand our business across the Atlantic and we are delighted to complete the acquisition of Hammersuit," said Rupert Loman, MD of the Eurogamer Network. "They are a great fit for us and the potential as we expand our business to North America is huge. We already have a significant US readership that values our distinctive editorial voice so adding a local team will greatly strengthen our offering for readers and advertisers in both Europe and North America."

Internet television network Revision3 has inked a deal with gaming web site Destructoid to bring some original game-related programming to market. The new TV show will feature Jonathan Holmes and Tara Long and will air weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The Destructoid duo will deliver news, dish industry rumors and give reviews on the latest video game releases. Special episodes will feature interviews with developers, publishers and other players in the video game industry.

And now for some completely silly quotes:

"Our community demanded a nude cooking show where baby snow leopards maul a Nintendo," said Yanier Gonzalez, Destructoid's founder and publisher. "Revision3 is the ideal platform to launch this bold new vision in video game entertainment. Even your grandma will be tickled."

 

I imagine that, after spending four to five years of your life creating a game, to see it (from that perspective) being shat upon by critics is a hard pill to swallow. It is even more difficult when you believe that your creation is good. It is at these moments that the urge to go on defense is natural, but how far is going too far?

That is the subject of an article by Ben Kuchera over at Ars Technica. The game in question is an Xbox Live Arcade title called Hydrophobia and the zealous defenders are UK-based Dark Energy Digital. At first, it seemed like the game was going to sail through the review circuit relatively unscathed. Official Xbox Magazine and IGN gave it decent scores, which the company's PR department happily plastered all over the game's official web site. Some other smaller sites gave it some decent scores as well. All seemed right with the world.

The sad story of a U.K. woman so addicted to an online game that she neglected her kids and let her dogs starve to death has been settled in court, but the details of the game she was involved with still continue to swirl.

Originally reported in the U.K. by the Sun, the game was Small World from Days of Wonder. Other U.K. papers picked up on the story, continuing to hammer on the game and offering detailed descriptions of it. Unfortunately, the information they gathered was on the wrong game.

The Sun reporter pulled the name from court proceedings, and while he got the name right, the other facts of the case did not fit. Small World has no online component and is not a Facebook game. It is a board game. The Daily Mail even reported as much, but failed to make the connection that the board game did not have an online component. The Mail even used a Warhammer Online photo as part of its story.

The real game in question appears to have been SmallWorlds by Outsmart, which indeed is online.

CBS Interactive appoints John Davison, GamePro's former Executive Vice President of Content, to the position of Vice President of Programming for Games and MetaCritic this week. Davison is a seasoned veteran with 20 years of experience in game journalism, working for Electronic Gaming Monthly, IDG Games' GamePro, the Official PlayStation Magazine, What They Play and many others.

In his new position, Davison will oversee content for CBS Interactive’s GameSpot, MetaCritic and GameFAQs.

[Full Disclosure: the author contributes to GamePro.]

Source: Gamasutra

Decatur, Georgia-based Paste Magazine has fired the bulk of its employees and is closing its print publication, according to an Associated Press report and several tweets from former employees. Paste Editor-in-chief Josh Jackson told the AP Wednesday that the print magazine will keep its website, but will no longer send print copies to its 200,000+ subscribers. Nine employees were let go on Tuesday afternoon. Three employees - including EIC Jackson - will help keep the website running for the time being.

Paste Magazine is best known for its thoughtful writing on the music industry, indie artists and a variety of mediums including books, television, movies and video games. The website gets 1 million unique visitors each month, according to Jackson.

Last year the magazine asked its readers to donate money to help it survive a downturn in advertising revenue, drawing hundreds of thousands of dollars. The donations did help the company stay open, but Jackson says that the company simply "ran out of fumes."

Gamasutra announced today that it has added several high profile game journalists to its regular team of contributors and editors. The new hires include such notables as Kyle Orland, Chris Morris and Simon Parkin, who have - collectively, worked for such publications as Edge magazine, Eurogamer, CNNMoney, Variety, Official Xbox Magazine, CNBC.com, Yahoo! Games, Crispy Gamer, Electronic Gaming Monthly, National Public Radio, GameSpot, Joystiq, and The Escapist.

Simon Parkin joins Gamasutra as its new European editor, providing UK-based news reporting to the U.S. based publication. Parkin is a veteran journalist and regular contributor to Eurogamer and Edge Magazine and was nominated for Best Writer in both the 2009 and 2010 British Game Media Awards.

Chris Morris, a household name among gamers, will join Gamasutra as its new editor at large, taking the place of Chris Remo - who recently joined Irrational Games as a community manager for "Bioshock Zero." Morris is best known for his CNNMoney 'Game Over' column and regularly contributes to Variety, Official Xbox Magazine, CNBC.com, Yahoo! Games and more.

A lot of journalists that cover video games do not enjoy being called the "enthusiast press." Some are even embarrassed when their colleagues cheer at press events or have a "f**k yeah!!" moment caught on film during a new game announcement. AJ Glasser from GamePro is one of those journalists that takes what she does seriously.

In an editorial about QuakeCon and journalism (where, she says, developers at the "Building Blockbusters" panel seemed to take issue with quiet games journalists), Glasser talks about the popular sports journalism rule "no cheering in the press box." The good news is that some games journalists are following the rule.

Recalling a sports journalism course she took at Stanford University and a book with the same name, she lays out the fundamentals of it:

Some would argue that Kill Screen magazine's price point per issue is just too much to bear. Even those that staunchly support decent game writing are taken aback by the $20 an issue price point that seems obscene in our current economy. But as Ben Kuchera (Ars Technica's Games Editor) points out in an article on the mag, Kill Screen is a great value because of the mature writing and custom artwork that creates what he calls a "sensual experience."

If there's one issue games journalists love to argue about besides the best scoring system for reviews, it's got to be press junkets. In case your not familiar with the practice, it's when a game publisher or developer pays for a journalist to go somewhere to see something. It could be as simple as the publisher paying for airfare, or it could be as extravagant as a trip to Hawaii - all expenses paid.

The Game Beat tackles the topic, using Capcom's Captivate event in April, where several prominent publications accepted “all expenses paid” trips to play Capcom's newest games at a resort in Hawaii for three days.

Journalists really are divided on the issue. Some see it as an acceptable practice that has no influence on what these journalists will be writing about, while others believe that the practice creates an "appearance of impropriety” or “undue influence” - real or imagined – and is not worth the hassle.

Metacritic says that videogame quality has proven to be better in the first half of 2010, according to the review scores the site aggregates. This is interesting because, despite the data Metacritic has gathered, videogame sales have started to decline considerably. Metacritic's "2010 midyear report" cites scores for Super Mario Galaxy 2, Mass Effect 2, and Red Dead Redemption. These games outscored 2009's highest scoring game, Street Fighter IV. Review scores were generally higher in the first half of 2010, with only 16 games falling below the 50 point mark - that's down from 25 in 2009.

By platform, Nintendo DS titles scored an average of 75.5; PlayStation 3 and PC each recieved an average score of 75; and the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation Portable were slightly under an average score of 75. While the Xbox 360 seemed to suffer the most in its average score, it was also the platform of choice for writers reviewing multi-platform games. Basically that means that crappy multi-platform games didn't affect other platforms like PC and PS3.

Realtime Worlds is doing a little media dancing today after a dustup over the review embargo date for its action MMO All Points Bulletin. It started with an email to journalists, as these kinds of things often do, saying that "all reviews would be under a July 6 embargo.

The game is set for launch on June 26 in America, and June 29 in the UK. It is common practice to hold reviews under embargo until the day of release but is fairly rare to set one after release day - in this case, a full week later. Anyway here's what Realtime said:

You may recall this story on the Federal Trade Commission's plan to save the floundering newspaper industry with taxes on consumer goods. A poll conducted by Rasmussen finds that Americans wholeheartedly reject such a move by a striking margin. The national telephone poll found that 84 percent of those surveyed oppose a 3 percent tax on monthly cell phone bills, while ten percent support it; 76 percent of Americans oppose a 5 percent tax on consumer electronics like computers, iPads, and other electronic devices to support newspapers, while 16 percent support it.

The survey also found that 74 percent of Americans do not like the idea of taxing Internet web sites like the Drudge Report, Reddit or Digg (news aggregators) to support the newspapers they "get their news from." Finally, 71 percent oppose the creation of a taxpayer funded program to hire young reporters for newspapers around the country.

A post by Kyle Orland on his The Game Beat blog examines the practice of beta code giveaways, and why it's not necessarily a good thing for game journalist to be participating in. The beta codes in this case are for the Halo Reach Multiplayer beta.

His first point is that Microsoft or Bungie could have done this themselves, without the participation of the enthusiast press:

Kotaku reports that N'Gai Croal will exit the video game beat at Newsweek as of Friday.

The news mag, which has fallen on hard times, is re-inventing itself - and so, apparently is N'Gai. After 14 years with Newsweek, he has accepted a buyout. N'Gai explains:

I always thought I was going to do end up in movies or something else, but I kind of got sidetracked into journalism. It's one of the most amazing things that's happened to me. But when the buyout came around again, I said to myself if I don't do this now when am I going to do it?

I want to do something more creative than when you are on the journalism side of things. I think it's going to be a combination of things, I'm still in the process of figuring that out. There is some interest in me consulting on games, that's something I'm interested in as well.

I wont be doing pre-release coverage of games the way I was for Level Up and Newsweek because that can be a conflict of interest.

In other game journo news, our buddy Mike Antonucci, lately of the San Jose Mercury-News, has started a new blog, Sector Earth. Among his first posts, Mike sets the record straight concerning a controversial interview with Peter Moore on the Xbox 360 RROD fiasco.

Don't invite Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica and Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick to the same party.

Yesterday, Kuchera penned a surprisingly personal criticism of the long-time CEO, including a photo of Kotick with devil's horns added (left). In the column, Kuchera refers to Kotick as "a carpetbagger," "the devil," "brazen," and possessed of a "cash lust."

At issue seems to be Kuchera's feeling that Kotick is all about the Benjamins, not the games:

That's why I find Bobby Kotick so distasteful—the man is a carpetbagger... usually, when you put the devil in charge, you have the good graces to at least keep a smooth-talking demon or two around to deal with the press. With Kotick, he's very brazen about his need to squeeze every last dollar he can out of every franchise under the Activision Blizzard label. He wants to exploit his games. He wants to make sure he has a sequel every year, and don't forget the Wii and DS ports. Why have one StarCraft game if you can have three?...

Kotick doesn't play his games, and it shows. He has a tin ear when it comes to speaking to investors or the press. This is a guy who looks at the balance sheets of World of Warcraft and wants more, more, more... and it's doubtful he even knows the name of Azeroth. Under his control, Activision Blizzard has started to look and feel like the Shire at the end of the Lord of the Rings (and by that, I mean the books' vision)...

World of Warcraft may look like it will go on forever, but the only thing greater than the loyalty of those players is Kotick's cash-lust. The only question is if the two will ever collide...

Whatever one might think of the man, Kotick clearly has business acumen. He was runner-up as Marketwatch's CEO of the Year for 2008 and is currently featured on the cover of Forbes. In fact, the business mag's profile of Kotick comes in for a mention by Kuchera. Some gamers are upset by a line penned by writer Peter Beller and not attributed to the Activision Blizzard CEO:

EA also teamed with MTV to sell Rock Band, a shameless knockoff of Guitar Hero that added drums, bass and a microphone to the world of make-believe rock stars.