There must be a barely hidden message in Mytopia’s name: this new, addictive social gaming site could likely become a large cause of myopia, or at least CVS, for its well cared-for users. The open beta is still under quite a bit of construction, but the current offerings and style seem to indicate a warm, relaxing, and time-consuming world of games to inhabit.

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Far removed from the Reagan era “Ketchup is a vegetable” motto which helped cafeterias skirt nutrition

requirements, schools today are searching for genuine ways to keep kids healthy. The Nintendo Wii may be the next piece of ’sports equipment’ classes raise funding for.

Of course, the current Wii lineup will not replace physical activity. A study funded by Nintendo’s UK marketing branch, Cake, determined that “In a typical week, active gaming rather than passive gaming would increase total energy expenditure by less than 2 percent.” A disappointing, yet not especially surprising result, considering only Wii Sports was tested for the active games‘ camp.

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(The battle for YouTube’s rattle.)

We know gamers are gutsy, competitive, and territorial. So it’s not surprising that games-only, user-posted video sites are now springing up in attempted defiance of Father YouTube. Three new names in particular have niche-carving knives in hand: WeGame, Leet Tube, and GameVee, or GeeVee.

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In spite of the expansion of online gaming throughout China, the Chinese government is planning a crackdown on the burgeoning problem of so-called “video game addiction.” Ostensibly, several highly publicized deaths related to video games are the reason behind the tighter restrictions.
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Bored with your real life? Second-Life starting to get a little too expensive IRL? Just got too much time on your hands? Well then you’re in luck. Following the recent announcement by EA, a brand new Sims 3 website has just arrived, providing sneak peeks and progress updates. Most importantly, the site gives 2009 release date.

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Since their grand debut in 1997, social networking sites have drawn hundreds of millions of users to communities such as Facebook and MySpace. Recently, casual game applications have sprung up within these networking powerhouses, allowing players to compete in wildly popular game variations such as Scrabulous or Texas Hold’em Poker. Half a million users on Facebook have taken up the Scrabulous challenge, and plenty of others kill time in any of the site’s over 500 other game-related applications.
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The American military, already one of the most tech-saavy industries in the US, is now looking at video games as inspiration for their newest project: mixed-reality contact lenses, transparent yet able to depict transmitted images. In their Request for Information (RFI), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) utilized first-person shooters as their primary illustrative point: “This information might be command-and-control information, not unlike information provided to players of first-person, shooter-type video games or synthetic entities and effects in a live training environment.” The US government seems quite fond of our dedication to first-person shooters, though these lenses are hardly the America’s Army style marketing campaign for enlistment.
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Since Apple’s iPhone SDK Press Conference on March 6th, the potential to transform the iPhone into a respectable gaming machine has been greater than ever. Apple demoed their personally developed space shooter, Touch Fighter, alongside Sega’s Super Monkey Ball demo and EA’s Spore variant—each of which took only two weeks to develop, per Apple-enforced restrictions. The former showcased the touch screen’s gaming capabilities, while the latter two mostly utilized the iPhone’s accelerometer to guide Ai-Ai or a custom spore throughout their new iPhone world.
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Last weekend’s “Bash for Cash” Call of Duty 4 tournament showcased the talents of 11 different CoD4 teams and 55 players—but especially those of current GotGame intern Zain Ali, aka zigzag. Zigzag and his team, Fresh Baked Muffins, took home first place and some swag after a five round, double elimination bracket on Saturday in Visalia, CA. The open event offered a variety of gamers a chance to strut their stuff, so long as they paid the $50 entry fee ($40 prepaid), which helped fund the awards zigzag and co. strutted on home with.

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Sony just announced the release of a new firmware update that promises increased interactivity through the use of the more interactive BD-LIVE format, which enables users to download trailers, ring tones and other media content.

The much touted BD-LIVE format already has several compatible titles on shelves now, including War and Saw IV, with Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and The 6th Day slated for release in early April. Disney has also committed to future releases with BD-LIVE functionality.
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Last month at GDC, several of the the global leaders of the gaming world, announced that they had formed the PC Gaming Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to advancing the PC as the gaming platform of choice. Almost all of the members of the PCGA are gaming industry titans: Microsoft, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Epic Games and so forth.
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For the past few years, Amazon has allowed people to purchase and download software directly from their website. Even so, it’s gone widely unnoticed as the only software they’ve been doing this with is TurboTax, though they do offer a similar service for other forms of entertainment, such as ebooks, movies and music. Now it appears they’re looking to expand further, based on a job posting on Gamasutra, which states that they’re looking for a Software Development Engineer, specifically to build the foundation for a game distribution system.
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The folks at GarageGames take after my own heart. Their new browser-based game site, InstantAction.com, will not only support a variety of games intended for the serious player, but also offers instant chat and multi-player accessibility across those games.

But wait—’serious’ games in the browser? As serious as Bejeweled, Snake, and Aggressive Alpine Skiing? Impossible. Let’s pause Sarcasm Quest for a second and take a peek.
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The next big thing in online gaming may be…just being online? It’s possible, and looking probable, as over 5,500 people have signed up and are currently ‘playing’ the Internet through the passively multi-player online game (PMOG).

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Technically the magazine’s owner Ziff Davis hasn’t shut down or anything like that. But they did file for bankruptcy last week and have started throwing around corporate terms like restructuring. We’ve all heard a similar terms before — downsizing, transitioning, and reorganization. The reality to that plan is that some people are going to be out of work.

The company cites poor subscriptions and ad revenue as the central reason for them being in this hole which raises the question — is their core publication, Electronic Gaming Monthly relevant anymore? Is this trouble with Ziff Davis a reflection of our digital, electronic age where people just don’t read magazines any more? The company publishes other mags like PC Weekly and Games for Windows but with less people signing up for subscriptions what does that mean for these publications as a whole. There are certainly enough gaming zines out there. All you need to do is go down to your local Borders to see them. You have to wonder though — who is reading them?
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