Two articles this morning looking at two different problems a lot of game news sites are having. FragLand's Game Sites Doomed? looks at the problems the game news sites are running into now that advertising companies are going either out of business, or cutting their pay to the affiliate. They have an overview of all the events, and also tries to give some suggestions as to how to get extra income on the site. In more turmoil news, Eurogamer is reporting that another large UK game server / e-commerce provider, Wireplay/Gameplay, is one the verge of shutting down with many jobs already cut.
All the News That's Fit? is an article at The Adrenaline Vault, with the author offering his opinion on the bad journalism that plagues some sites nowadays. Examples of course being Andy Smith's reporting of the Duke4 screenshots "announcement" which wasn't an official announcement at all, and the rather biased reporting of an alleged assault at the Babbage's CPL event in December.

Personal websites will always have their polemics and rants, and discussion boards are always going to be free game for the flamers and antagonists. And there should always be at least a few sites devoted solely to unsourced gossip and muckraking. But the websites "of record" have to start rising above this, just as print papers rise above their crazy mail. If online journalists are going to claim the same professional status as those other kinds of writers--the muckraker, the tabloid reporter, the city daily or the newsmagazine hack--then we are going to have to try to conform to at least one of their ethical principles. By that, I mean the one belief all those other subspecies share in common: the steadfast conviction that just because something may be a good story doesn't always mean it's news.

A little birdie (Thanks Imperator) told me that Rogue Entertainment, most recently responsible for Alice was having some troubles keeping things going. I emailed the CEO of Rogue, Barrett Alexander. Rogue and EA worked together to get Alice out the door. After Alice shipped they of course move on to their next project, preferably staying with EA as their publisher. EA canned their project though, doh.

It is true that our latest project was cancelled with Electronic Arts, however we have other options available at this time.

Barrett Alexander, CEO
Rogue Entertainment, Inc.
www.rogue-ent.com

EA is notorious for offering developers an IP to do a game (while retaining ownership of that IP). What I am assuming happened here is that during the completion of Alice, EA offered Rogue another project. Rogue accepted the project and began working on it. EA changed their mind about the project due to market conditions or how they felt the project was going. This leaves Rogue high and dry. No project, and nothing new they can  even show to other publishers most likely unless they have been working on another project outside of their EA deal.

The new PC game sales list is up at GameWeek. Frogger is still in first place, Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year edition is at #5 probably because of its $18 price. All the way at the bottom is Half-Life: Counter-Strike at number 20.

Stevie 'KillCreek' Case has put in her resignation at Ion Storm. Stevie gained a lot gamers attention for beating John Romero (whom she is now involved with) in Quake. Following that she landed a job at Ion Storm moving up from QA to a level designer position within the year and working on The Daikatana. Stevie has also been a 'voice for the female gamer' over the years. Then she posed for playboy, which garnered her the most prestigious award possible. Her very own GONE GOLD thread, and some pictures she gave me permission to publish.

I will end my two and a half year tenure at Ion Storm. Leaving the company that I practically grew up in has been a very tough decision for me, but one that's been brewing for a while. My time at Ion has been wonderful, and at least when it wasn't enjoyable it was most certainly educational. :)

No word on where she is going, aside from projects like eGamingTV and CPL

Here is one of those the gaming industry is so darn cool! type of articles. Video games not child's play by Robert Kotick.

The fallout of the gaming networks continues. IGN/Snowball recently decided to yank the plug and shaft just about all of their websites by doing stuff like serving blank ads. Scared? What? No way I'm not nervous...

Sad news for all the fans, FASA Corporation is closing down (thanks Mark Merlet). FASA of course most known for the Mech Warrior stuff. As for other properties,

We are selling our BattleTech and Shadowrun properties to Wizkids LLC, along with certain assets of Ral Partha Enterprises.

As most of you know, Wizkids was started by Jordan Weisman, a founder of FASA and the creator of the incredibly successful new game line Mage Knight Rebellion. We know that FASA's properties will be in very good hands at Wizkids.

Well they've finished another one of those studies (Thanks Pete @ GameWeek) recently examining the risks of computer games and how playing games allegedly contriibutes to younger people being more aggressive. Hey the Surgeon General says its true, its just gotta be!

In a forthcoming meta-analysis, Dr. Craig Anderson and Dr. Brad Bushman from Iowa State University statistically analyze 35 different studies involving 4,262 individuals, most of whom are younger than 18. They conclude that "violent video games increase aggressive behavior in children and young adults." Research reported last year by Dr. Craig Anderson of Iowa State University and Dr. Karen Dill of Lenoir-Rhyne College demonstrated such a causal link.

They also have a pretty interesting breakdown of the test group. 86% of all teens own computer/console games and play for 9 hours a week. There is also coverage at CNN. Thanks Eric.

Looks like PC sales have been sluggish, as the growth of sales hit a 7-year low in 2000. Especially the fourth quarter was pretty dissapointing for most PC makers. A lot has to do with the fact that in 1999 a lot of people and companies rushed out to buy new PCs to avoid the year 2000 problem, meaning not a whole lot of people needed new computers last year.

Interested in knowing the PC games sale top 20 of the year 2000? Gameweek has the list. Not very surprisingly, The Sims is number 1. Diablo2 is at the fourth place.