As was anticipated a lawsuit has been brought against the computer entertainment industry (Thanks Rosewood) for not regulating itself and being held responsible for the deaths at Columbine. The family of one of the teachers filed a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against 25 media companies.

The suit contends that the $20-billion-a-year video game industry will not effectively regulate itself, and that court intervention is necessary to keep violent games out of the hands of minors.

IGN is making a bold move. They are going to the pay-website model. This isnt the Salon Experiment either. They are calling the new service "IGN Insider". It isnt clear if paying will remove advertisements from their website but they are offering up hot new features for $29.95 a year. Ability to use special messageboard tags and Q&A's with their editors and a few other misc other things. But this is the kicker:

...in the not too distant future, IGN will roll some of its regular features behind the Insider label

I'm not quite sure $30 a year for messageboard tags and a "printable PDF" is exactly a bargain. Maybe if they tossed in DailyRadar's Nintendo coverage!

Here's an interesting article looking at DigiPen, the nations only institute dedicated to teaching people how to make games. The first 5 graduates had their ceremony recently (out of an initial class of 30, 25 dropped... sounds like game developers to me! :P) It's a pretty impressive list of developers who have hired from there:

Many other DigiPen alumnae from its two- and four-year programs have also secured positions with such reputable game makers as Interplay, DreamWorks Interactive, Konami, Electronic Arts, and Iguana Entertainment

Also recently a college on the east coast (Damn I forget which one) announced that they are offering degrees in game design. There have been a number of classes offered at colleges as electives but I believe that one is the first to offer actual college degrees.

Eric J. sent word that the IDSA has just released their report for the gaming industry that has all kinds of interesting stats that you can look through. Here are a few of the latest ones that are of interest:

- 57% men and 43% women breakdown of gameplayers
- $6.02billion worth of game sales in 2000 and 219million games
- 42% over 35, 30% between 18 and 35 and 28% under 18 years old for computer game players
- Computer games are 2/1 more popular as a "most fun activity" as polled by 1600 households over TV
- 21.35% Strategy / RPG , - 17.42% Action , - 14.95% Sports Sim ,  - 12.57% Family/kids - 10.08% Racing ,  - 23.53% Misc Categories

Ok this oughta piss some people off around here for sure. Most people here probably remember the Surgeon General a while back putting out a paper concluding that there is no connection between violence in computer games altering behavior of people. Well I'm guessing the Surgeon General needs to have a talk with the US Attorney General. Look at this: (Thanks Mike)

Attorney General John Ashcroft Wednesday highlighted video games, television and even a game called "Dope Wars" that can be downloaded on the Internet as examples of the "the culture of violence" that may have contributed to a spate of recent deadly school shootings. [...] Ashcroft said a school shooter in Paducah, Kentucky, had never used a gun before, but played violent video games which simulated shootings.

The topic has been beaten to death really, but it's really strange to be getting such hugely differeing mixed signals from the government about their stance on computer games.

Coming Attractions is reporting that The Rock is not only being considered to play Duke Nukem but has also been offered the part in the movie and he is currently considering it. Dimension Films is currently working hard on bringing the character to the big screen and the first rumors were about Ben Affleck playing Duke ;o

Something for your Monday morning entertainment. A .plan update by former Ion Storm CEO Mike Wilson saying that Ion Storm was actually intended as a joke but hey they werent gonna turn down a few million bucks. (The only April 1st related story I believe we'll be posting)

Looks like the articles about PC gaming going away or not. The AVault has a new editorial about PC gaming and why it won't die. The author says it's mostly the appearance that console gaming is doing so much better thanks to advertising on TV and such. Also everyone will still have their PC, how are they going to browse around and send emails otherwise?

The entire point that needs to be kept in mind is that PC markets and Console markets are entirely different. Any comparison between the two should be taken with a grain of salt as they represent different fields, different demands, and different consumer bases. Until Console systems can offer consumers everything that a PC can offer them, the demand for a PC gaming market will still exist, and companies who fill those demands will still make profit

The Indianapolis Star is reporting that the video game ordinance in Indiana has been overturned (thanks /.). This ordinance banned children playing violent video games in arcades and stores (story). Now the court has ruled that this can't be enforced. It might now go to the Supreme Court

The unanimous decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could pave the way for a U.S. Supreme Court review of the arcade ordinance, the first of its kind in the nation.
Mayor Bart Peterson said it was too soon to decide how the city would approach the ruling, but that it would be fought in court on some level.
"It would be a shame to quit at this point without pressing this on to a final decision," Peterson said.

Meanwhile, Salon has a story about Attorney General John Ashcroft who is once again blaming video games and the rest of the entertainment industry for school shootings. Thanks t0m.

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Award winners have been announced at GDC. You can see a run down of who won what here. I grabbed the listing of the PC gaming winners since that's what most of the guys here play:

Deus Ex Action/Adventure Game of the Year Ion Storm/Eidos Interactive
Diablo II Role Playing Game of the Year Blizzard Entertainment
MechWarrior Simulation Game of the Year 4 Microsoft
FIFA 2001 Sports Game of the Year (TIE) EA Canada/Electronic Arts
Motocross Madness Sports Game of the Year (TIE) Rainbow Studios/Microsoft
Age of Kings II: The Conquerors Strategy Game of the Year Ensemble Studios/Microsoft
Deus Ex Innovation in Computer Gaming Ion Storm/Eidos Interactive
Diablo II Computer Game of the Year Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment
Diablo II Game of the Year Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment

There is also a write up of how the awards went down over at CGO (Thanks Blues) if you're wanting to read a bit more about it.

In case you were keeping score, John Carmack of id Software has just been inducted into the AIAS hall of fame for his accomplishments within the gaming and graphics community.

Well this is a pretty interesting development. The other day word came out that the quite huge Salon.com website had decided to start offering a subscription option for people to pay $2.50 a month to view their website ad-free. But according to this news item quoting the CFO, (Thanks mike burbidge) the page will be going out of business in just 3 months. They are burning through over a million dollars every month to run the website and the clock is ticking. There are quite a few large websites actually right now on the chopping block, the fallout round1 is completed, but we're gonna see a bunch of websites implode over the next several months as the newly adjusted values on advertising on the web just cant support those crazy budgets. Trying to sell a website right now in hopes of jumping ship are pretty slim too.

"Rather than acquiring the whole company, a strategic buyer could wait until the site's dead, and then hire its talent," said another source who wished to remain anonymous. "And there's no money in it for a financial buyer. Ad revenue models have been hammered and a paid subscription for content model has not played well."

Why is this all here? You guys can absolutely count on losing a few of the big-name gaming websites in the coming months. Everyone is getting toasted right now. The good news is, for the guys who can weather the storm there is a pretty bright future. But damn that seems a long ways off right now.

It looks like we're gonna start seeing government regulations on videogames in the future. (Thanks pup) British Columbia is currently considering government enforced and regulated restrictions on videogames sold in the area.

"We are making sure minors cannot buy or rent inappropriate video games," said Graeme Bowbrick, attorney general of British Columbia. "Such games will also be separated from general release games to prevent minors from viewing or playing them in stores."

Which sounds pretty reasonable right? But then you start to wonder if the government really has a grasp of what videogames are really suitable for what audiences. Rating systems that involve such fuzzy lines as suitability, morality,  and maturity will always come under scrutiny with no clear cut answers. When I see blanket statements like these made by politicians though: ""Video-game violence hurts children and their families," I get the feeling videogames may fall victim to political agendas instead of the greater good much like so many other laws seem to be these days. Just a note, is the rating system on movies voluntary or government regulated? Why should videogames be handled differently?

The carnage over at EA continues, according to this report the folks at EA are planning a bunch more layoffs as a side effect of the Pogo merger. In addition there was a confirmation that "other games will be cut" ouch.

You guys are gonna like this one. Despite a number of recent rulings and even an announcement by the Surgeon General saying there is no link between videogames and violence of young kids, New Hampshire is considering taxing video games and movie rentals in their state with the money to go towards the victims of sex crimes.

Supporters say that the tax is fitting, because video games and movies often feature sexual violence or portray woman as objects of sexual gratification. The bill would tax film and game rentals 5 cents each, video game and game players $1 each.

You would think they would tack a tax like that on alcohol?

Something for the weekend... I've been watching this little episode of the web with a lot of interest. One of the larger website networks out there, eFront.com recently had something pretty horrible happen. ICQ logs of internal dealings leaked onto the net. Included in the logs were statements that pointed towards fraud and a few other naughty things. Duke of URL has an excellent write-up of exactly what happened. I actually talked with the eFront guys a long while back when they approached me offering to buy Shack (heh!). Having caught the guy I was talking to in a lie within the first couple of messages I continued to talk to him mostly just for my own amusement to see just how bad it would get. It was entertaining. The best time I had was actually talking to the CEO on the phone for about 30 minutes where he said "vertical marketplace" to me at least 15 times. I then presented him with a simple question about stocks and their IPO (Specifically a share dilution clause) to which he responded "vertical marketplace" a few more times.

The story also recently made its way to CNET btw.

Razer, creator of the Boomslang "gamers mouse" has gone bankrupt according to a report on ShackES. Razer was targetted at the hardcore gamer and was an avid supporter of the CPL. Razer currently still owes several thousand dollars to recent participants in the Babbages Counter-Strike tournament.

Confirmation came from the mouth of the CEO herself - according to my source - who said that an investor backed out recently, and that Razer (and the parent company, Karna) was unable to stay afloat without the support

However a couple of days ago (in an entirely different thread) when the topic of CPL having troubles finding other backers was mentioned, the CEO of CPL Angel Munoz had this to say:.

We are up to almost $300,000 in cash prizes just for the US events (one more to be announced), add the international events and that number increases to $450,000 in cash. I think that says it all.

The Adrenaline Vault has a new developer article, which is about the current state of the game industry. Basically it's not going real great. Even when you do think a game is selling well, it probably isn't despite what the publisher is saying. Besides touching on how publishers are faking sales numbers, the author also shows how hard it can be to get your game into stores.

So if you don't get your game onto retail shelves you're left with electronic distribution. Here's the flat out numbers based on experience and talking to other publishers and developers. If you put your game on a download site, you can expect it to get about a 1% conversion rate -- downloads converted to an actual sale.
Try it for fun: Go find a game that displays how many downloads it's received. Let's say it got 100,000 downloads. That means the demo generated around 1,000 sales on that site. Sounds unbelievable? Probably but it's true, ask any game developer.

In the end though, the author believes that the Internet will help out those who are having problems getting their games onto shelves but of course it will mean a big change of game distribution.

This is really horrible news but a lot of people are sending it in because we are anticipating the link to be made to the gaming industry in just a matter of a few days. A 15yr old student just went on a shooting spree at his school shooting 13 people and with 2 confirmed dead.

Bush called the shooting "a disgraceful act of cowardice," adding, "When America teaches our children right from wrong and teaches values that respect life in our country, we'll be better off."

Condolences to everyone involved Also since gun control is also sure to come up, this artice linked by a anon brings up an interesting point.

The newest PC Game Sales list is up at GameWeek as usual. No One Lives Forever has finally entered the list, at number 17, most likely because its $23 price tag. Also new on the list is Clive Barker's Undying at #15. The rest of the list is pretty much the same with The Sims still in first place, with Frogger following.