It's pretty sad when people have a better chance of staying married in a virtual world than in real life, but that is apparently the case, if you compare the divorce rates in the MMO MapleStory with real-world divorce rates. VentureBeat recently talked to marriage expert Athena Carrillo Lee of Mind Body Spirit Therapy in Los Angeles about MapleStory marriages and why people get involved in them.

A sad story from Sky News (by way of The Escapist) details how the dead body of a man in a New Taipei city, China cyber cafe went unnoticed for a full nine hours. The man, who was playing an undisclosed online game, died on Tuesday night according to local reports. The cyber cafe had 30 customers that night, some of which sat next to him, and didn't notice that he was no longer alive.

On February 2 a virtual army will descend on the United Nations headquarters to protest against bullying. The protest will be virtual - in other words, no one is actually going to the real headquarters of the UN in New York. The protest is being put together by the U.K. not-for-profit group Beatbullying.org and will take place online February 2 using cute and adorable avatars.

We know that PETA has said that they were just kidding but that hasn't stopped a number web sites and internet video shows from taking a crack at the subject anyway. The Escapist's The Big Picture is one of those web shows offering a rebuttal to PETA's campaign against Mario for his Tanooki-suit wearing ways. We'll let show host MovieBob do all the talking.

Thanks to Andrew Eisen for the link.

Source: The Escapist

New research efforts at MIT explore how games handle gay, bisexual and transgender characters and storylines... badly. Inspired by the lack of serious LGBT characters in mainstream video games, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab has developed a game called “A Closed World,” which hopes to answer straightforward questions such as "How can video games present LGBT content and what are the challenges that a development team faces when trying to include content about someone different from the perceived norm?"

According to a study by Divorce super site Divorce Online, estranged wives are frequently citing video games as the cause of their failing marriages. Of the wives that cited "unreasonable behavior" for ending their marriage, around 15 percent said that their husbands put gaming before them. According to Divorce Online, this new number represents a five percent increase over 2010. The most common games cited as the cause of the break-ups were World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. So basically Activision could be considered a home-wrecker.

The Australian Classification Board said this week that it will rethink the current PG (Parental Guidance) rating for Ubisoft's We Dare, a game which received heavy criticism earlier this year for its adult content and sexually suggestive mini-games. The review will be carried out on June 17 and will be conducted by the Classification Review Board. The re-review is the result of a formal complaint filed by Federal Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor. Chances are it will result in a higher rating for the title.

In March the board took some heat from the public over its decision to give the Ubisoft-published adult party game for the Wii a PG rating for "mild sexual references." A number of early media reports blamed the board for inappropriately rating the game, because of the trailer, which showed two couples engaged in some saucy and suggestive situations inspired by the game's mini-games.

Adding to the debate on this story about 15 percent of divorces filed via UK-based Divorce Online being related to online gaming and game addiction, Eurogamer picks apart the numbers in this story.

That study conducted by Divorce Online suggested that 15 percent of divorces filed with the company are a result of video game addiction - usually World of Warcraft or Call of Duty. But a deeper look at the methodology, the actual numbers, and what is required to file a divorce in the UK paints a slightly different picture.

Divorce Online, a website dedicated to getting rid of that dead weight in your marriage, claims that 15 percent of the divorces it has handled can be attributed to spouses that are addicted to online games such as world of Warcraft and Call of Duty.

According to a press release issued by Divorce Online, an examination of 200 unreasonable behavior petitions filed by women using its service between January - April of this year found that 15 percent complained that their husbands were happier playing video games than they were paying attention to them. They called their "gaming addiction" an unreasonable behavior that lead to the divorce they were seeking.

The release also offers comments from one disgruntled 21-year-old wife from London named Jessica Ellis, 24, who married husband Michael in 2008.

Connected Tennessee’s Computers 4 Kids "Preparing Tennessee's Next Generation for Success" program awarded the Boys & Girls Clubs of Middle Tennessee with more than 150 brand new computers this week. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-funded the project, which deploys computers, academic support programs, and workforce training to two at-risk, populations: those in the state's foster care system who are "aging out" as they turn 18, and youth who are active in the state’s 76 Boys & Girls Clubs. Over the next three years, the program hopes to impact the lives of nearly 60,000 youngsters across the state.

State Senator Bill Ketron, an enthusiastic supporter of the program since its launch a little over three years ago, said that the program's impact in Middle Tennessee is "significant."

New York City-based social games developer Playmatics has managed to raise $1 million from several Swiss-based angel investors. The company will use the investment to further develop its social networking game Shadow Government.

Shadow Government uses real countries, political systems, and worldwide events as its key elements to allow players to build, manage, and destroy virtual nations. Playmatics is working with government-modeling software developer Millennium Institute for the project.

Along with the simulation tools, which real-world organizations have been using to test responses for real-world events, Playmatics is using economic and sustainability data to create Shadow Government. The Millennium Institute hopes this educational game will eventually be incorporated into school curricula.

A new Facebook social game that combines elements of an ARG (alternate reality game) and an RPG with video footage and serious messages is getting lots of attention this week. Set in a dystopian future, America 2049 charges players with confronting human-rights issues that plague the society. Players serve as agents in the Council on American Heritage, who deal with such issues as sex trafficking, racial discrimination, abortion, immigration, labor, religion and LGBT issues. This is all played out in storyline that spans 12 weeks.

Lorne Lanning (Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey), and Spencer Halpin (director of the documentary MORAL KOMBAT) will be joining founder/director Susan Johnston for the second Annual New Media Film Festival, to be held May 20-21. Showcasing the best in new media and featuring award nominated and winning filmmakers, the New Media Film Festival is dedicated to the creation, development, and distribution of new media content in all forms and across all platforms.

Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat is a documentary that offers both those for and against video games a chance to speak their minds. The documentary explores whether violent games should be banned or be protected as free speech under the First Amendment. Lorne Lanning is the creator of the Xbox launch title Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey and co-founder of the video game development company Oddworld Inhabitants.

A new survey from Bigpoint reveals that the stereotypes associated with online gamers are false. A global survey of 6,663 "online gamers" found that most considered themselves well-rounded individuals with real world friends, good looking, and in relatively good health. The Bigpoint Gamer Survey presents a different image of online gamers - attractive, healthy, cultured, and popular with the opposite sex.

Around 62 percent of players said they had more friends in real life than online. Around 55 percent of players under 20 said they have more real friends than online friends, and 73 percent over the age of 50 claimed to have more real-life friendships. A total of 28 percent of the people met most of their friends online and went on to meet them in real life. Only a tenth of all gamers said that their only real friends were online gamers.

Correction: The U.S. Commerce Department contacted us to let us know that the national I.D. program is completely voluntary. In our earlier report we erroneously reported that it was not a voluntary program. Our original wording was "The Internet I.D. would give every American a unique online identity overseen by the Commerce Department."

According to the public affairs officer for the Commerce Department, "Every American will not need an ID and private organizations or others that conduct online transactions would opt in to a system that is led by private industry in partnership with federal agencies like DOC."

Details on what the program consist of can be found at www.nist.gov/nstic.

A game appearing on the website of a Spanish political party, in which players shot down illegal immigrants, was quickly yanked from the Internet after objections to its content.

The game, entitled Rescue, appeared on the website of the Catalan branch of the conservative Partido Popular (or People’s Party). Further describing the game, the Telegraph indicated that the goal was to “shoot down targets including ‘illegal immigrants’ parachuting from a plane and donkeys intended to represent Catalan separatists."

Once culminated, the game urged players to vote for the PP in the November 28 elections.

UK developer Red Redemption is finishing up work on a global strategy game for the PC that will have players attempting to solve a variety of world crises, including climate change, over population and an under abundance of food.

Fate of the World is set in the year 2020, and will have players serve as the president of the Global Environmental Organization, described in the New York Times as a “fictional group with the ability to dictate economic, environmental and social policies around the world,” or, as a Red Redemption developer labeled it, “a U.N. with teeth.”

The tense, often bloody relationship between Chinese law enforcement and street vendors has led to the creation of a free downloadable game inspired by that confrontational environment.

Hawker War City Management appears to be the name of the title, and, according to a piece on the game on TheWorld.org website, the downloadable title features plenty of social commentary, designed to highlight the plight of common citizens “left outside in the cold as China’s economy grows.”

Correspondent Mary Kay Magistad offered this description of the game:

A Lightspeed Research study reveals that 17 percent of respondents who played social networking games believed that they were "addicted" to them. Lightspeed did not define what they meant when they said that they were "addicted" - were they simply overly enthusiastic about playing their favorite social game or actually suffering from a "psychological dependency" to the game? We do not know.

Lightspeed also said that 58 percent of users said they had played a social game, with 68 percent saying they had played a social game in within the last year. 53 percent of social gamers played daily, with the 55 - 64 age bracket proving more frequent players than those age 18 - 34. 17 percent of identified social gamers played on mobile devices as well; 34 percent of social gamers said that they took advantage of marketing-promoted in-game rewards; 18 percent had followed an advertisement to do so, while 3 percent had signed up for a new credit card that offered bonus virtual goods.

Social game powerhouse Zynga may be the most powerful force on Facebook but it may find itself faced with a challenger it can't overcome: the San Francisco City Attorney's office. The San Francisco City Attorney's office is going after Zynga for what it is calling an "illegal and actionable" act involving a marketing campaign to promote the company's latest product in the Mafia Wars franchise - Mafia Wars: Las Vegas.

In a letter released today, Deputy City Attorney Alex Tse said that Zynga committed "documented acts of sidewalk vandalism" to advertise the new Mafia Wars game using fake $25,000 bills that were glued to sidewalks in San Francisco. The fake bills contained a message directing people to a Mafia Wars website. While the stunt might sound amusing to the casual observer, the City Attorney isn't laughing.

If you haven't been living under a rock, you've probably heard about "Jessi Slaughter", a.k.a. "Kerligirl13", and her controversial attention-seeking videos on Youtube and other video sharing sites. Now, it's nothing new for kids to act like fools on Youtube. But Jessie took her videos just a bit too far, and the Internet struck back.

After becoming something of an internet meme for posting threats like "I'll pop a glock in your mouth and make a brain slushie" she aroused the unstoppable ire of /b/, which began a campaign of trolling her videos. And so it began, with /b/ posting her personal information, and bombing search engine results to make things like "Did Jessi Slaughter's dad give her PCP?" a trending topic. You know, the usual stuff.

It’s been a long year already for Tiger Woods and sales figures from his latest Electronic Arts videogame probably aren’t going to provide him much, if any, respite.

Venture Beat notes that, in its first month at retail, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 has sold only 32 percent of what the previous iteration of the game did one year earlier, causing Dean Takahashi to conclude:

The results apparently show that reputation matters in all sorts of businesses, including video games, and that gamers aren’t necessarily blindly devoted to buying certain kinds of games year in and year out.

An EA spokesperson blamed the soft sales on a “number of factors,” including the overall softness of the Wii game market.

Tiger is currently battling competitors at St. Andrews in the 2010 British Open Championship.

As part of a bid to understand why so many Chinese gamers are obsessed with online games, a “preliminary” study was conducted with hopes that the findings could assist in the prevention and treatment of those afflicted.

Researchers Wei Peng and Ming Liu began by defining online gaming dependency as “a psychological state characterized by psychological discomfort experienced by online gamers when they are unable to play online games as they wish.”

The study (PDF) sampled 166 Chinese online gamers, who, on average, had been playing online games for around six years. On a normal weekday, those queried averaged 3.06 hours in-game, a figure that shot up to 5 hours per weekend day.

The main contributing factors to online gaming dependency, according to the researchers, were:

While there is very limited information on the intersection of games and psychotherapy—studies are extremely few and far between, and by some accounts, only a single “game” broaches the subject—one child psychiatrist is using videogames in a different way; as an icebreaker.

Dr. T. Atilla Ceranoglu is an instructor at Harvard Medical School and a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, in addition to running his own practice. In a session at Games for Health, Dr. Ceranoglu detailed how he makes use of videogames.

In light of Canadian kids receiving an “F” grade from Active Healthy Kids Canada (AHKC) for time spent in front a screen, MP Dr. Keith Martin (pictured) is proposing a “national turnoff day.”

The proposed date would encourage kids to switch off TVs, computers and videogame systems in a bid to stimulate physical activity. The StarPhoenix writes that Martin will present a motion to Parliament that would “…encourage the federal government to work with the provinces to promote a one-night a week TV/video game free night."

“It's just kids are not physically active. They're sitting down for an appalling length of time. We weren't designed to live like that as human beings,” stated Martin, continuing, “Kids need to be active and parents need to lead by example by getting their children away from the TV and video games to engage in free play.”

Boycotts of Arizona in reaction to the state’s controversial immigration law SB-1070 are having a trickle-down effect on a lot of businesses, including a local indie videogame developer.

Mojo-Bone Software Studios is on the cusp of producing its biggest title to-date, but the company is now having trouble luring the 30 cast members needed for the production to Arizona, according to AZ Family.com.

A new game, designed to “explore the limits of pervasive gaming,” takes place in real airports and prompts players to plant drugs on other travelers in a bid to get the contraband through security.

Blowtooth is the work of the UK-based Lincoln Social Computer Research Center and relax, the drugs are virtual, though the airport security forces a user is trying to dupe are real. The game operates like this: once in an airport—and before passing through security—a user fires up the Blowtooth application on their smart phone. The application will scan the nearby vicinity for Bluetooth devices, allowing the player to “conceptually dump or retrieve contraband,” on other people’s devices.

The goal is to then retrieve the “contraband” on the other side of security, with points being awarded for how many “couriers” "drugs" can be retrieved from and how fast the roundup was. The “couriers” or “mules” remain blissfully unaware of their involvement in the game.

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam is awash in a sea of pornographic games, which are displayed—and often can be played—out in the open.

An article in the Vietnam Vet Bridge details the spread of such games, from touch-screen, table top interfaces in malls or trading centers, to being offered for sale in markets (for use with game consoles like the PlayStation 2) and ultimately, to their availability online. One shopkeeper claimed that she sells “many games with sexy girls daily, adding that they were a favorite among teens.”

A reporter from the paper Tuoi Tre purchased one game disc for the price of 20,000 dong (approximately $1.07 U.S.), prompting the paper to corner Le Manh Ha (pictured), Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communications, for some answers regarding an apparent lack of government regulation.

An Ireland-based Catholic marriage counseling service claims that the Internet, gaming and pornography are among factors contributing to a current rise in marriage problems.

Accord saw demand for its counseling services grow 10 percent in 2009, which Accord Director Ruth Barror blamed on financial problems, cyber sex and gambling, while Acting Director of Counseling Liam Lally told the Irish Examiner that Internet-related marriage problems have “jumped dramatically in recent years.”

A figure applied to these issues claims an 87.5 percent jump in marriage complaints related to the Internet since 2007.  Over the same period, financial issues grew 71.0 percent, while depression and stress-related claims rose 14.0 percent and 12.0 percent.

Lally continued:

A law introduced last year that would ban violent videogames and toys in Venezuela was enacted last Wednesday, according to various news sources.

Under the law, importers, producers, distributors or sellers of the banned toys and games could face fines and jail time ranging from two to five years. In a story dated March 3, Prensa Latina reported that the law had been passed.

The law, when initially proposed to Venezuela’s National Assembly, proposed that the country’s consumer protection society be granted full power in determining what games and toys were deemed violent, though no indication was given into what criteria might be used to judge the goods.

As it was drawn up, the law also featured provisions for teaching crime prevention classes in school, public campaigns to warn about the dangers of videogames. A government campaign to promote games that taught children “respect for an adversary” was also included, though no word on if this, or any, additional provisions were a part of the new law.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is apparently not a big fan of videogames as witnessed by an outburst earlier this year in which he labeled the PlayStation as “poison.” The ban on violent games and toys is apparently seen as a way to somehow combat crime and violence in the country.

An Overseas Security Advisory Council report on Venezuela had this to say about the country's level of violence:

The U.S. Department of State has rated Venezuela a critical threat country for crime.  The capital city of Caracas has been named murder capital of the world by many experts and that violence extends to the entire country.  Murder, kidnappings, armed robberies, carjackings and residential break-ins occur with impunity and perpetrators are rarely brought to justice.

While officially banned, handguns are readily available and a common sight throughout Venezuela.  Armed robberies occur in broad daylight including areas frequented by tourists.

|Via SlashDot and Cheater 87|