Good news, Rock Band fans! We've got some juicy new details related to the upcoming Rock Band 2. Find out the platforms the game will be headed on, the number of tracks, and the general release date of the game after the jump!

Players may have been able to get their hands on Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto 4 already, but that doesn't mean that the game has escaped the notice of certain concerned parties. In fact, Jack Thompson and Gavien Mckiernan of the Parents Television Council are still speaking out on this controversial game. It's all in the video after the jump.

It's probably a gamer's ultimate dream to be working in a game company and get a high salary for it. If you're gonna dream, dream high and aim to work for a company like Electronic Arts which got to CNN Money's Top 20 Great Employers.

Coming at second, EA currently has a US$ 3 billion revenue and 7, 200 full-time employees. Aside from the starting US$ 60,000 salary, new average-entry workers also get five to ten free games yearly, an option to purchase heavily discounted copies from a company store, and US$ 100 coupons for any game consoles. There are also restricted stock grants, an on-site gym, free DVD library and a plan that allows employees to buy company stock at a 15% discount.

To be fair, it's quite difficult to get a position in this gaming giant's company. Out of 5,000 graduate applicants last year, only 200 passed. A gamer getting paid for working in the video game industry is still a luxury, so good luck to anyone who attempts getting into EA.

First and foremost, we would like to give our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of those 32 people (33 including the gunman) involved in today's shootout at the Virginia Tech campus. While everyone is still reeling in shock from the events at Norris Hall this morning, we share everyone's sentiment that it is indeed a horrible tragedy. Already, CNN is even calling it the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.

But why post something that's not gaming related? Well, we would have wanted to avoid this whole issue altogether, however, someone had apparently brought videogames (something oh so close to all of our hearts) into the picture. Hence, the relevancy to these blogs.

As Kotaku reports, Jack Thompson spoke on FOXNews about the Virgina Tech shooting, saying that the massacre is linked to videogames. Now, we do not know to what extent Jack Thompson said this and we do not know the exact context in which the attorney said this. While it's pretty hard to form any substantial and unbiased judgment from such a lack of details, CobaltBlue, as a comment to Kotaku's post, sheds some light on what happened in FOXNews for us:

@possiblymalignant: Fox News Live was calling him a "School Shooting Specialist", or that's what he's calling himself now. All he talked about though was linking video games and "murder simulators" to school shootings. I guess we can look forward to a new Jack Thompson crusade now.

Maybe there is more to Thompson's statement than just "the Virgina Tech shooting was due to videogames" after all? And we have yet to find an actual video, transcript, or news clipping from FOXNews or any other news source. For now, this is what we have.

Pic courtesy of FOXNews.

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Update: We've managed to grab the Fox News interview with Jack Thompson over at YouTube which was uploaded by rgbyhkr. Here's the clip.

Contrary to rumors, Microsoft's Shane Kim is saying that the company is not interested in buying Take-Two Interactive, and for good reason.

CNN's Chris Morris talks about the potentially powerful acquisition, citing Shane Kim and some pretty good reasons why Microsoft wouldn't want to take over Take-Two:

One company that says it's not in the running is Microsoft. Because today's independent publishers are platform agnostic - that is to say, they build games for all major systems - taking over one would result in a massive revenue loss for Microsoft, as all development would be redirected toward the Xbox 360.

"We could never launch an acquisition bid at a third party publisher," said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft (Charts) Game Studios.

Of course, where there's a will (for rumormongering), there's a way. "Potential buyers" now include Ubisoft, Activision, Bono (care of Elevation Partners), and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Sorry folks, Cthulthu won't be making any bids this time, so consider that rumor smashed.

Just recently, Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik (a.k.a., Gabe) has written a scathing commentary in response to a story that was published by CNN. In his commentary, he expresses his dissatisfaction at the fact that, once again, a murder happens and it all gets blamed on the under-aged suspect's gaming habits, and not on other factors which may have shaped the individual into a killer.

For those who don't frequent CNN's site too often, the article in question discusses the recent rise of the number of incidents which involves homeless individuals being murdered by teenagers "for sport."

As a primary example of such an incident, CNN uses the story of the 49-year-old homeless man, Rex Baum, who was killed in 2004 after he was beaten to death by Nathan Moore, Luis Oyola, and Andrew Ihrcke. At the time of the incident, the killers were 15, 16, and 17 years old respectively. After Baum's body was discovered two days after he was killed, the police were able to track down the teens and question them about what they've done. According to police reports, the eldest answered that Baum apparently "reminded him of playing a violent video game."

That statement from Ihrcke may actually be enough to raise more than a few eyebrows within both the gaming and the legislative community. However, what caught Krahulik's attention was the fact that even though the original article continued to present more facts and examples, and also mentions several other theories on what may have been prompting minors to go on killing sprees, it is inevitable that many would stop reading at the point where video games are mentioned. As Krahulik laments:

These kids have given the media their angle and just like all the other cases where games are mentioned no one will ever look any further. No one will ask what their family life was like, what their parents were like, what the kid was like before all this happened. Games did it and that’s the end of the story ... I'm perfectly aware that the reality of the situation was somewhere between the two extremes. I know full well that violent games did not create this killer and I also know that his parents did not make him a murderer ... The sad truth is that the reality we're talking about here would probably never actually see the light of day. The media will tell the story they want to tell regardless and that story will be about violent games. The parents of these kids will be lucky to get two lines in an article about the crime. If they tell a reporter that their son hardly played games or that he was f***ed up long before they bought a Playstation do you really think that will make it into the final article? You'd never see that side of the story, not in a million years. [Bold format not in original text. - QJ]

However, all that has now changed, as the stepmother of one of the suspects (they did not mention which one) has bravely come out in the open to let everyone know the truth about these teens. Who would have known that the parent of a so-called "video game killer" can actually be a gamer herself? Who would have thought that she was a regular Penny Arcade reader? Who would have expected that she would choose to trust the folks of Penny Arcade with the truth instead of handing it over to the mainstream media?

We'll never be as eloquent as Tycho or Gabe, so click on the "Read" link below, read on, and brace yourselves for what a lot of people in politics would probably hate to hear.

Google is apparently looking to move its advertising business into the realm of video games. CNN Money reports that Google Inc. is in talks to acquire Adscape Media Inc, a closely held San Francisco firm who has developed technology that allows for the placement of ads over the Web in video games.

The Wall Street Journal cites several people familiar with the mater and reports that Google is negotiating to buy Adscape and that a deal could be reached as early as next week. For now, here's what a Google spokesperson said:

We are always considering new ways to extend Google's advertising program to benefit our users, advertisers and publishers. In-game advertising offers one such possible extension among many others.

Some members of the industry note that Google is eying Adscape because of its AdverPlay technology which enables "two-way communication between in-game ads and the outside world."

Terms being discussed are still not known. However, there was a similar deal sometime ago that we can look at to get an idea of how things will shape up. Last year, Microsoft acquired Massive Inc, a company known for the delivery of in-game ads, for almost US$ 200 million.

It is also reported that Google is discussing a possible agreement with CBS Corp that would include brokering TV and radio advertisements.

Google has declined to comment on any talks.

When a word like "addiction" is pasted right after the words "internet" and "game", you know it's not going to be all that great. This new article on CNN discusses addiction to using computers and consoles, with a Stanford study recounting just how bad addiction to computing (rather than computers) can get.

Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, head of the Impulse Control Disorders Clinic of the Stanford University School of Medicine, mentioned how their earlier poll of people got to them.

As Aboujaoude notes in the article,

We are seeing more people who lost their jobs because of too much time spent surfing the Internet during work. More relationships are breaking up because of spouses sneaking out of bed to check e-mail in the middle of the night.

While this does seem specifically pointed towards just surfing the net, you have to remember that game consoles are also computers, technically speaking. Previous reports have mentioned that symptoms of addiction have shown themselves when gamers play, and let's not forget the personal accounts of people who've gotten attached to World of Warcraft.

While computer use still doesn't have the "mental illness" tag on its head, the symptoms do happen to be there. Gaming might be good for us in moderation, if one study is to be believed, but fostering good relationships outside individual pieces of tech will definitely help to keep gaming a venue to have fun rather than a place to get a fix.

Yes, we love our violent video games, but the truth is, we're entitled to them. Most of us gamers are over 18 after all, so we should be considered "mature" enough to handle and at the same time be entertained by all the blood, sex, and gore that we immerse ourselves in while playing our favourite games.

The problem with that, is that's all that the outside world thinks about us. Outsiders generally view the gaming sub-culture as a collection of violence addicted pre-pubescent-underage or overage-yet-still-stuck-in-the-basement, pimply anti-social avoidant, self indulgent, will never enjoy the company of the opposite sex, individuals. Despite the presence of gamer-culture/geel-culture centric websites and TV channels, a lot of old farts in power still don't "get it."

They tend to forget that a lot of gamers now-a-days aren't only young people who play games, but are people who make art, people who earn billions making games, people who have children of their own, and people who are care.

Think of this post as a collection of recent news stories that show very good examples of how we gamers should represent ourselves to the world.

Giving back to the community...

You've got to hand it to those guys from Penny-Arcade, they know how to give back to the community. They really do their best to make claims that say that gamers are know-nots or that gamers are violence addicted yahoos irrelevant. For one thing, officials of the Child's Play Charity, a gamer-focused toy drive organized by Penny Arcade, has recently announced that more than $495,000 worth of toys, games, and books on the wish lists of more than 35 participating children's hospitals have been donated as part of the gamer supported charity.

It doesn't stop there. The annual charity auction dinner of Child's Play is set to be held next week. All proceeds from the auction will be set to assist hospitals within the charity's network. This year's dinner is scheduled to take place on Wednesday December 13 in Bellevue, Washington.

Items up for bid this year include a Wii console autographed by Reggie Fils-Aime, a speaking line in Halo 3, a PS3 console, an appearance in the Penny Arcade comic strip, Penny Arcade artwork, tickets to the Halo 3 launch party, an Xbox 360, ATI Radeon video cards, collectors edition of Guildwars Nightfall, and a whole lot more.

With items like those, people will definitely bid.

Get the rest of the article after the Jump!

The Christmas shopping season is nigh upon us. Some would even say it's here already. If you still have money after spending for your Wii/PS3 console, then maybe you'd want to hear what other stuff you can splurge your money on. If you have no idea what game to get for your friend, child, nephew, niece, girlfriend, boyfriend, or granny (a gamer-granny...who knows?), then you might want to take a look-see here.

CNN Money has chalked up a roster of 10 titles that would be best for gamers. It definitely folds through the spectrum of the market, including adventure games, action games, shooters, racers, and puzzlers. For some reason, the list doesn't appear to be in any particular order. We're not sure if "1 of 10" means it's the Top 1... But anyways, here's their list:

• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, 360)
• Gears of War (360)
• Guitar Hero 2 (PS2)
• New Super Mario Brothers (NDS)
• Kingdom Hearts 2 (PS2)
• Brain Age (NDS)
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
• Excite Truck (Wii)
• Okami (PS2)
• Half-Life 2: Episode One (PC)

Now take a look at the list again. While we do agree with some of the titles, we're just wondering why there aren't any PS3 nor PSP titles in it... Doesn't that make you wonder? Hmmm... Well, this is just CNN's opinion and suggestion. It doesn't necessarily mean anything about how well the games are doing for PS3 and PSP, right? Riiiight?