The Entertainment Software Association

More colleges offering gaming degrees
WRAL.com (NC) — By John Gaudiosi
8/28/2008

Want to get into the booming videogame business? Over 200 colleges, universities and technical schools across the country now offer some type of degree in videogame design, programming and art. From certificate programs in 3D Animation & Interactive Media (Boston University) to master’s degrees in Computer Graphics and Game Technology (University of Pennsylvania), the programs reflect the growing importance of video games on the economy and culture of the United States. Locally, Wake Tech made the list put out by the Entertainment Software Association.

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Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked
PBS.org — By Henry Jenkins
8/26/2008

A large gap exists between the public's perception of video games and what the research actually shows. The following is an attempt to separate fact from fiction.

1. The availability of video games has led to an epidemic of youth violence.

According to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low. Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population. It's true that young offenders who have committed school shootings in America have also been game players. But young people in general are more likely to be gamers — 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure. The moral panic over violent video games is doubly harmful. It has led adult authorities to be more suspicious and hostile to many kids who already feel cut off from the system. It also misdirects energy away from eliminating the actual causes of youth violence and allows problems to continue to fester.

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Economy in trouble? Not for video games
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — By Adrian McCoy
8/24/2008

High food and fuel prices are putting a damper on consumer spending in the United States, but not all the money is going into the gas tank. A good chunk is going to the video game industry.

Americans spent $1.19 billion on video game software and hardware in July, up a whopping 28 percent from the prior year. And that doesn't include computer-based games, according to market research firm NPD Group, which tracked only sales of new consoles, software and accessories. For the year so far, video game hardware and software sales have soared 35 percent above the year-ago level, to $9.47 billion.

"While I can't say it's recession-proof, the performance [of the video game industry] in the last few years in light of difficult economic conditions speaks for itself," said NPD Group toys and video game industry analyst Anita Frazier. The industry is entering the "largest, most robust cycle in history,'' Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian wrote in a report to investment clients earlier this year.

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Videogames attract top music talents
Variety — By Jon Burlingame
8/21/2008

A few weeks ago, an album called "Video Games Live: Volume One" debuted at No. 10 on Billboard's Classical Crossover Chart. Within a week, it had muscled out John Williams' latest "Indiana Jones" opus. For Tommy Tallarico, who has spent the last 20 years writing game music (including "Advent Rising") and who produced this collection, it felt like vindication.

"I challenge anyone to pick up the album and tell me that it's not as artistic and culturally significant as any piece of classical music that's been around for 300 years," he boasts. "Videogame music is the soundtrack of our generation. This is only the beginning."

Clearly, game music has come a long way from the synthetic hiccups of Pac-Man and Pong.

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Video game helps young cancer patients
The Examiner — By Angela Spears
8/19/2008

A Bay area nonprofit research lab will be presenting findings of a recent medical study to an international audience in Japan later this month that suggests a specially designed video game helps young people respond better to cancer treatment.
 
The research indicates that in a controlled study the video game helped some adolescents and young adult cancer patients follow their prescribed treatment more closely. Data from the study will be presented in Tokyo at the 10th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine Aug. 27 – 30, 2008.

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Professor Creates Video Game About the Lecture Circuit
The Chronicle of Higher Education — By Jeffrey R. Young
8/19/2008

When a major video-game company created a new Web site that lets visitors create their own simple games online, it invited Ian S. Bogost, an assistant professor of literature, communication, and culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, to be one of the first to try it out. So Mr. Bogost, who is known for his work creating video games that address social issues, made one about lecturing.

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Playing video games offers learning across life span, say studies
American Psychological Association — Press Release
8/17/2008

Certain types of video games can have beneficial effects, improving gamers' dexterity as well as their ability to problem-solve – attributes that have proven useful not only to students but to surgeons, according to research discussed Sunday at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.

In one paper, Fordham University psychologist Fran C. Blumberg, PhD, and Sabrina S. Ismailer, MSED, examined 122 fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders' problem-solving behavior while playing a video game that they had never seen before to show that playing video games can improve cognitive and perceptual skills.

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Georgia courts video game developers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution — By Chris Megerian
8/13/2008

One video game pits deadly super agents against each other in a dystopian virtual world. Another has players roam a fantasy world filled with vampires and werewolves.

The games — both in development at local studios — might not be fun for the whole family, but they're just the type of thing the Georgia Department of Economic Development is looking for.

For years, video games were the whipping boy of politicians, blamed for everything from antisocial behavior to teaching kids "the skill and the will to kill."

But with game sales at $9.5 billion last year, some politicians are seeing dollar signs where they might have once seen a campaign issue.

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On the Job Gaming
Forbes — By Lisa LaMotta
8/11/2008

Not long ago, playing digital games at work was considered a violation of company policies. But now many businesses are making it a job requirement.

In an effort to connect with their growing ranks of 20-something workers who practically popped out of the womb wielding a cellphone and laptop, companies around the world are using digital games to train young employees who don't respond well to traditional methods, such as reading manuals.

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Video game helps young cancer patients take meds
Reuters — By Anne Harding
8/5/2008

Playing a specially designed video game can help adolescents and young adult cancer patients adhere more closely to their prescribed treatment, according to a report in the journal Pediatrics.

"Targeted video games can help improve the lives of young people with cancer, most importantly improve their adherence to their treatment," Dr. Pamela M. Kato of the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health.

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Startup uses video games to heal young people
San Francisco Chronicle — By Bernadette Tansey and Ryan Kim
8/4/2008

Like many health care startups, HopeLab of Redwood City thinks it has a compelling idea that can improve the health of millions of people.

The nonprofit recommends parking patients in front of a video game. HopeLab, however, is trying to reinvent that sedentary pastime as a powerful means to improve the health habits of young people.

The organization developed its first game, Re-Mission, to motivate young cancer patients to stay on their medicine. Now it's designing a game to spur children to play actively, so they won't join the rising number of seriously overweight kids.

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On a 'Re-Mission' to save lives of kids with cancer
USA Today — By Liz Szabo
8/4/2008

Although Rashida Wilkins is only 18, she has already weathered eight years of cancer therapy, including four brain surgeries, six weeks of radiation and nearly two years of chemotherapy.

She knows she should follow her doctors' advice. Yet Wilkins, like many teens with cancer, has at times deliberately stopped taking pills that are vital for her health.

Of all cancer patients, teenagers are the least likely to consistently follow their care plans, says Steve Cole, associate professor at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Medicine.

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Game helps young patients keep focus
San Antonio Express-News — By Cindy Tumiel
8/4/2008

Scientists have made great strides in treating childhood cancers, but the treatment works only if the young patients take their medicine and follow their doctors' orders.

That has proven to be a challenge for teens and young adults, who may spend one or two taxing years in treatment for bone cancer, brain tumors or leukemia. They must follow rigid schedules for taking drugs that are precisely timed for maximum effect, and some medications have unpleasant side effects, which makes patients less likely to take them.

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Gaming industry appears to be recession-proof
The Examiner (NY) — By Andrew Cannarsa
8/3/2008

Video game sales have developers and gamers asking, “What recession?”

In April, “Grand Theft Auto IV,” one of the most anticipated games of the year, sold more than 6 million copies in its first week, generating more than $500 million for its publisher, Take-Two Interactive, which owns Hunt Valley’s Firaxis Games.

The debut was the biggest for a video game, and one of the most profitable weeks in all of entertainment, at a time when consumers are curbing their spending in the face of high gas, energy and food prices.

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A Video Game Improves Behavioral Outcomes in Adolescents and Young Adults With Cancer: A Randomized Trial
Pediatrics — By Pamela M. Kato, et al
8/1/2008

Suboptimal adherence to self-administered medications is a common problem. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a video-game intervention for improving adherence and other behavioral outcomes for adolescents and young adults with malignancies including acute leukemia, lymphoma, and soft-tissue sarcoma.

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