How many kids on your block own a game console? Less than 20% if you live in a third'ish-world country? Over 50% if you're among the more privileged Earthlings? Well then, imagine a whole country where over 95% of kids (fifth-year elementary school kids, to be more precise) have at least one game console of their own. Welcome... to the land of Japan!

This utopic figure came up from a survey released by the National Congress of Parents and Teachers Associations of Japan (PTA), according to Mainichi (here's a backup of the soon-to-disappear report). The survey, called "Attitude Survey on Children and the Media" revealed a 2% increase from last year (when "only" about 93% of kids had a console), and a similar trend was observed among high-schoolers, almost 91% of them enjoying the same playful status.

Genre wise, action games seem to be the most popular ones (30.9%), followed closely by RPGs (28.4%). And, not surprisingly, adult games with sexual content are also played by elementary school kids, even though only 2.5% of them would admit it. There are a few more mobile- and TV-related stats in the report, if you're curious.

If all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, you can imagine how we feel after our overly-extended leave of absence, most of which we so shamelessly spent by playing WoW day in, day out (well, that and doing various other highly-enjoyable and equally-unproductive activities). We're still not entirely prepared to get our asses back to this thing we call "work", but - as cruel as it may be - subscriptions don't pay themselves, neither does the booze, nor the cabs you have to take for drinking too much, nor the tons of milk you have to drink the next morning for similar reasons. Because it's no fun farmin' an' grindin' with a nasty headache. Heed my words!

So, time to start making some money again. I mean, time to follow our unending passion for writing about this rotting rotten industry that we vaguely recall having admired, once upon a time. But it still has its moments, every now and then, so we're not about to give it the finger just yet. Not when id announces Doom 4, giving us the perfect reason for getting back in the pseudo-journalistic game. Right then, let's make this quick: my SSC raid is starting in an hour!

Can you say… Cnet? Hell yea, I bet you can. This little company has been responsible lately for all sorts of scandalous decisions regarding (so far) the online gaming press. We all know they have acquired major known websites to do their dirty work, one of which is some’s favorite Gamespot.

Problems started appearing when the likes of Eidos (and other bullshit producers that cannot face the reality that their games SUCK MAJOR ASS) let Cnet know that… well, the site’s review for Kane and Lynch, one of the biggest failures in the gaming universe so far, was rated… too low. This, after Eidos spent tons of money painting the whole fucking Gamespot with Kane and Lynch commercials.

The quick follow-up was awesome – in a very bad way, at least for us gaming journalists – Mr. Gerstmann, the one responsible for the said review, was fired without notice. Because, you see, If Eidos tells you to rate its game high, YOU MUST RATE its games high. Otherwise, go work in the fucking construction department. It was a surprise for all, but not quite that big, considering we all know Cnet is a money-hungry bitch with absolutely no respect for gaming journalism.

After that, people came and went from Gamespot, with other sound and good names leaving the sinking boat because of the same reason – the absolute lack of freedom of speech. And now another Senior Editor, Brad Shoemaker will kiss the crew goodbye and will travel to, we hope, better places, where people can actually say what they think about a game. We wish you good luck, Brad, may your writing days be long and prosper, and Eidos bashing days even more prosper.

What a fucked up industry we have, for Christ’s sake. It is becoming like politics. You can listen to the related Hotspot here.

Just how do you call an official shit-mouth with the likes of Jack Thompson, that seems to constantly shoot idiocy from between his teeth, poking the gaming industry for “inciting to violence and weird sexual behavior”? I, for one, call them clowns or attention whores. Or trolls.

But when the said individual is also involved in a massive prostitution ring, is also a New York Gov., and is also licking Monica Lewinski’s ex-boyfriend’s wife, Hillary Clinton, under the tail for some good earned attention? I’d just say… a hypocrit.

Mr. Eliot Spitzer is mainly (not manly) known for his 2006 campaign, when he went on a rampage about video games, violent content, rating systems, and so on, and so forth. His video game bill was supposedly approved by the New York Assembly, and should have been re-discussed in 2008, but it seems now it is not the case…

…since this here dude was caught by federal assassins prosecutors on tape while he was fixing up for a hooker to travel from New York to Washington where he was, not surprisingly, paying a “business” visit at the same time. In short, he needed to get a piece of pussy before getting back to work. One little statement regarding the “issues” of gaming sounds like this:

Like all parents, I know it is increasingly difficult to protect our children from negative influences… we have learned that when self-regulation fails, government must step in… we must do more to protect our children from excessive sex and violence in the media…

How extremely satisfying. A Game Politics awesome scoop.

And here we are, standing like donuts and waiting to be swallowed by angry policemen, wondering all day long why the fuck more and more publishers and developers are running away from hardcore gaming. And when I say running, I have in mind a level 10 Loladin being chased by a bunch of bloodthirsty level 70 Tauren Warriors.

Technically speaking, why the hell would YOU, as a developer, produce a super-duper Panzer General for the brutal wargaming communities, when you know your income will be close to zero? Sure, that game will be purchased by a couple of thousands old dudes who still haven’t forgotten what a real game looks and feel like, but today, when gaming means business, that is not enough.

So why wouldn’t you just make a Panzer General Solitaire, replacing the long hours of tactical thinking with some good ol’ card game with tanks and guns (all of them American, of course), that must win against another bunch of tanks and guns (all of them Arabian, Russian, Vietnamese, or any other nation that the US would like to… disappear)? A card game that even my all-knowledgeable grandma could play, while taking a break from her usual moaning that her leg hurts? There sure are more grannies out there than casual gamers, that’s for sure.

A recent report from the research firm Interpret has revealed that, in the US, two out of three people aged between 12 and 65 have played casual games in 2007, with an average of 5.1 hours per week played. According to the study, that’s like… 740 million hours spent on gaming, which surpasses other almost-as-cultural activities, like, let’s say, reading. Revenue-wise, Interpret estimates that games like EA’s Pogo, and other accessible stuff like that, will add an income of about 700 million dollars till 2010. Not as much as 40 billion dollars, like the whole gaming industry, but still, it’s about casual, low budget games, not some big-ass title which sucked an investment of 10 million dollars faster than any Taiwanese prostitute would suck you dry.

The Stick of Joy scoop.

Price cut rumors are always welcome, particularly when they come true. And for this one, we'll only have to wait a few more days to find out if it's bogus or not. According to this fresh TechRadar story which already spread all over the webs, the price of the Xbox 360 will be cut by €50 on 14 March in Europe. They say the reduction will apply to all Xbox 360 SKUs, and that they confirmed the story with "numerous UK retailers" - none of which agreed to go on record, though.

"This effectively means that the cost of the Xbox 360 Elite system on Amazon will be in the region of £240 (ed. - €313) and the basic Arcade system (without a hard drive) will cost in the region of £150 (ed. - €195)", TechRadar predicts.

Indeed, that would put the price of the lower-spec Xbox 360 Arcade bundle below that of a Wii console. But the numbers are still wildly fluctuating - from £150 on TechRadar, to £170 on MCV, and down to £140 for the Arcade bundle (from what MCV seems to have seen back on TechRadar... weird). Only time - and Microsoft - will tell what's the right price.

I said it before, and I will say it again: Uwe Boll is a pure genius when it comes to “promote” his… creations. Negative publicity stunts are made of pure win, and his are even better than that. You probably do remember his previous accomplishments, like the boxing challenges made towards various dudes around the world who were methodically trashing his work… Sure you do, it was priceless.

Now, Uwe is trying to verbally own Spielberg, because his much anticipated (by me) Postal movie is supposed to hit the theatres in the same day that the latest Indiana Jones will, more precisely on May, 23th. Uwe gets on a ranting rampage, predicting his movie will outperform Sbielberg’s. Oh, and that Harrison Ford sucks ass.

“On the Indiana Jones weekend - May 23 - we will go out and destroy Indiana Jones in the Box Office! We all know that Harrison Ford is older as my grandpa and his time is up - would Michael Moore say!”

While I personally await Postal with tons of more anticipation than yet another dungeon crawling, temple plundering Indiana Jones for personal reasons, I am still puzzled at the guts that Boll has. He is a funny dude, I’ll give him that, but as a director… Oh boy.

Via Kotaku.

I'm pissing in the wind, just pissing in the wind, what a wonderful feeling, my e-peen is happy again... Just when we thought we had finally gotten away from all those silly "make / don't make that [X game sequel]", "close / don't close that [Y studio]" petitions... something new comes along. A boycott, no less! A boycott against the holy mother of monopolistic corporations - Microsoft - and all the developers and publishers jumping the Games for Windows Live bandwagon. Sort of a PC Gaming Axis, to combat the evil (?!) PC Gaming Alliance, and gas all the new-age untermenschen who don't agree that online PC gaming should be free. Sieg Heil!

As much as we cherish our fragging memories from the good old LAN parties with Doom 2 and Quake, we no longer live in the '90s, nor does the rest of the gaming world. Well, except for a select few, like the ones mentioned above - with their inspiring futile Boycott Games for Windows - Live initiative. Do they have a point? Sure. Should the Windows Live [gold] service be free? Sure. Should Halo 2 be natively playable on Windows XP? Sure. Should lolis be legal? Sure. But hey - there's not much we can do about any of these, no matter how many clicks we give. And God knows we keep clicking for lolis like madmen!

Heh, what do you know, so the stupefying rumour was true, after all. Phil Harrison, the former president of Sony's Worldwide Studios, has exchanged one presidency for another, like a dirty pair of corporate socks. Very, very expensive socks... As announced last night by Atari's parent company from France, Phil has become the new President and Directeur Général Délégué of Infogrames Entertainment (thank God for copy-pasting, those accents are killers), while also joining the company's Board of Directors.

The genuinely surprising move follows shortly after the appointment of David Gardner (ex-EA executive) as CEO of Infogrames, and now the two white-collared buddies are promising to "form the basis of a transformational leadership team at Infogrames that will grow the Atari brand into a leading online game company". Phil's daily duties will range from "reinforcing [Infogrames'] franchise portfolio of products, developing its new packaged and online games, and strengthening its internal and external studio capability through attracting world-class design and development talent to the organisation". Sounds like... umm... fun. So how does Phil feel about all this? (...)

 Continue reading 'Phil Harrison, From Sony To... Infogrames'...

Which would explain why the vast majority of MMOs in recent years were relative failures, and why the situation won't change much for those upcoming hot-shots, either (I'm not giving names... *cough*). After all, who on Earth is so filthy rich to afford spending up to $1 billion, just to make a WoW-killer MMO, instead of buying a couple of African countries and playing a real-life war-game.

The billion-dolar figure was estimated by Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium 2008 Conference this Tuesday, as reported by GI.biz.

"We don't think that even if we made the USD 500 million or billion-dollar investment to get a product out [to compete with WOW] that we would even be successful doing it. (...) When you... Look at all the money that's already gone to these businesses that have failed (ed. - EA, Microsoft, Sony & co.), there didn't seem a likelihood that even a well-managed company like Activision would have the prospect for profit any time soon in this category."

When you look at it that way, Activision were really the smartest guys around. Honestly, why spend a crapload of money and waste people's time trying to develop a WoW-killer, when you can just merge with Vivendi-aka-Blizzard-aka-WoW itself. Kind of makes you wonder how much Funcom is investing in Age of Onan...