Earlier today, a rumor broke out like wildfire that Valve, the ever-intrepid studio of FPS games, was going to be bought by Google "any minute now." Yes, Google. I was all "buh?" So I waited around a bit to see where that was going before I decided to share the news with you guys, and true enough, it really was just rumor. So if you hear that Google suddenly decided to become a video game magnate, approach it with skepticism.

This one's for everyone who misses the Science blog. So that includes me? *Grin*. Anyway, In case you didn't know, the Large Hadron Collider's atom smasher will start today.

So how would you feel about contributing to the research of the Large Hadron Collider? You know, help destroy the world and everything. I kid. But someday you might be able to contribute to the LHC's research. That part's true. Following in the footsteps of Folding@Home is LHC@Home. Dun dun dunnn.

And a big load of thanks goes to trigger for the tip!

In-game advertising may tend to be amusing or sometimes even intrusive during play, but we haven't seen the full potential of it yet. Google is reportedly testing "AdSense for Games," an in-game advertising system that involves in-game characters initiating product plugs and other sort of advertisement. More in the full article.

You're in good company with the gang of Battlefield: Bad Company. Electronic Arts has announced the official release date for the game, and the details on the game's Gold Edition. Details in the full article.

If you can't get enough of Madden NFL 08 (Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, DS, PC, and PS3), then you might want to know that Electronic Arts has revealed the launch date of Madden NFL 09 and that they will be releasing a Collector's Edition of the game. To find out more, head on over to the full article.

The Casual Games Association has announced that it will be hosting Casual Connect Europe. This event will run from February 6 to 8 in Amsterdam and is being held to gather industry leaders in the hope of promoting casual games as well as securing its future development.

Want to know more? Check out the full article via the "read more" link below.

It is yet another tale that exhibits the dangers of the Internet: a New York man met a Spokane girl on Xbox Live while playing Halo in 2006. The guy, Joshua Stetar, started stalking the girl. This went on for months until he decided to make the trip to Spokane. The rest of the story follows in the full article.

Irrational Games split into two after the completion of Bioshock, introducing the 2K Boston and 2K Australia studios. Now it looks like a new studio is being set up in the Bay Area. According to a cached job listing in Gamasutra, the new studio is to be called 2K Marin and will comprise of some of the people who created Bioshock. More at the full article.

From sports games to irreverent parodies on platformers, the world of in-game advertising has pretty much grown since video games have been on the rise the past few years. Bernie Stolar, Google's "Dean of Games", talks about the role of advertising in today's gaming industry and how AdSense for Games - an ad serving program run by Google - is planning to take on the in-game advertising scene.

Read the full article right after the jump!

(Editor's Note: Well... Gunpowder treason and plot aside, last week's QuickPeek was a bit of a riot - and had a lot of things not to be forgot. But hey! Today marks QuickPeek's 20th edition! Wohoo!)

Hellzyeah. It's QuickJump QuickPeek 20! The big Two-OH, baby! To celebrate, we're adding a whole new section to QuickPeek (sorry, no spoilers)! More on that and other industry news behind the jump!

Article originally posted on Nov 10, 2007 at 02:38 PM.