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Super Tim Tebowl I - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
Let's be honest, the only thing that mattered this year in the NFL was Tim Tebow. Join GameSpot for the first annual playing of the Super Tim Tebowl!
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Warren Spector getting Lifetime Achievement award at GDCAs - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
Thirty-year industry veteran noted for Deus Ex and Epic Mickey to be honored at next month's awards show in San Francisco.
Next month at the 2012 Game Developers Choice Awards, Deus Ex and Epic Mickey designer Warren Spector will leave with a piece of hardware only 11 others have ever received. GDCA event organizers today announced that Spector will be the recipient of the group's Lifetime Achievement award.
The award, which was given to Lionhead Studios leader Peter Molyneux last year, "recognizes the career and achievements of a developer who has made an indelible impact on the craft of game development and games as a whole," according to event organizers.
Previous winners include Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, Metal Gear Solid designer Hideo Kojima, and Civilization studio head Sid Meier.
Presently the founder of Austin, Texas-based Junction Point Studios, Spector has been in the game business for 30 years. Arguably his most famous work was 2000's original Deus Ex, which he served as producer on at Ion Studios.
Spector left Ion Studios in 2004 and formed Junction Point Studios. Disney Interactive Studios acquired the company in 2007, and the shop put out Epic Mickey in 2010 to mixed reviews.
Spector will accept his award in person at the 12th annual GDCA ceremony on Wednesday, March 7, as part of the 2012 Game Developers Conference. GameSpot will stream video of the event live.
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The Last Story Screens - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
96 new shots posted.
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Sega Sammy's game business weighing down earnings - Fri, 03 Feb 2012
Publisher treading water as booming slot machine business offsets poor home gaming numbers due to weakness in the West.
It's not that Sega Sammy is doing especially poorly, per se. It's more that the Japanese company continues to struggle in the Western market.
Today, Sega Sammy issued its April-December 2011 earnings, reporting revenues of ¥312 billion ($4.07 billion), down .5 percent from the same period in 2010. Profit also gave up some of its massive gains from the year-ago period, falling 6 percent to ¥34.384 billion ($449 million).
Sega Sammy's slot-machine business in Japan continues to be the company's moneymaker, as the segment posts an operating profit of ¥67.495 billion ($881 million) on revenues of ¥177.716 billion ($2.32 billion). The consumer business, of which console, handheld, mobile, and social games are party, is Sega Sammy's second-largest segment and did not fare so well.
Net sales for its home-gaming segment fell 4.9 percent year-over-year to ¥64.101 billion ($837 million). The segment also reversed last year's modest operating profit, posting a ¥5.51 billion ($71.9 million) operating loss during the period.
Though Sega Sammy proffered no console unit-sales figures, the company said top releases during the period were Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games and Sonic Generations. The company also said that it found significant success with its mobile title Kingdom Quest, which sold 2 million units.
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Shooters, MMOGs linked to problem game playing - Study - Thu, 02 Feb 2012
A new study conducted by the Institute for Special Populations Research in New York reveals that some game genres are more prone to problem game-playing habits.
Video game addiction has become a widely debated public health issue both in the US and overseas in the past five years, despite the lack of a formal diagnosis. While the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently rejected a proposal to include video game addiction in the next Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V)--to be published in May 2013--researchers around the world continue to investigate methods of determining, treating, and preventing what has now become a recognized mental-health issue.
A recent study conducted by the National Development and Research Institutes' Special Populations Research branch in New York has discovered a link between problem game playing and particular types of game genres.
Luther Elliott, Andrew Golub, Eloise Dunlap, and Geoffrey Ream (the latter from the School of Social Work at Adelphi University in New York) surveyed 3,380 adult participants over the age of 18 who said they played video games for an hour or more during the last week.
The survey paid particular attention to characteristics of video game use, including time played, titles played in the past year, and problems associated with playing. The research team then used Gamefaqs.com to sort the 2,652 valid titles into 15 mutually exclusive genres: massively multiplayer online role-playing games, other role-playing games, action adventure, first-person shooter, other shooter, sports general, sports other, rhythm, driving, platformer, real-time strategy, other strategy, puzzle, board and card games, gambling, and other.
The results of the survey showed that only 5 percent of respondents reported moderate to extreme problem game playing; of that 5 percent, the most problems showed up among those who reported playing either first-person shooters, action adventure, role-playing games, and gambling games during the past year.
The most common titles reported by participants in the problem categories were: Call of Duty (first-person shooter category); Grand Theft Auto (action adventure category); World of Warcraft (MMORPG category); and poker (gambling games category).
This led the team to conclude that there is evidence to suggest that problem game playing is linked to particular kinds of game genres, but that future research into this area is needed, particularly research that pays attention to the game-design elements specific to the problem genres.
"Recent sales figures for blockbuster series such as Call of Duty and Halo indicate a huge audience for the FPS genre in America; our findings suggest that a considerable sub-population is experiencing at least moderate degrees of problem video game playing," the study says.
"Perhaps the immersion potential of a first-person perspective, commonly combined with online competition, largely accounts for the higher rates of problem game playing. For action adventure games, a trend toward nonlinear 'open-world' style environments in which extensive, time-consuming exploration is encouraged may create a context for more pervasive experiences of problem game playing."
"These interpretations are speculative at this point, but suggest important avenues of exploration for future research."
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Need for Speed The Run - Feb 02, 2012
The Last Story - Feb 02, 2012
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Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games - Jan 24, 2012
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