A recent study shows that violent video games threaten even Saudi Arabia's society, with piracy allowing children to get a hold of these interactive forms of entertainment that contain evil scenarios of combating security forces, destroying state property, and violating people in various ways. More on this at the full article.

Is the US Department of Defense collaborating with the games industry to create an entire generation of perfect soldiers who crave for war like it's something good? The latest statement coming from activist lawyer Jack Thompson seems to indicate that. He also linked this theory to recent shooting incidents in Columbine and Virginia Tech. Does that sound similar to something characters went through in a Metal Gear Solid game? Read on and tell us what you think.

Staying true to his promise of filing more public nuisance suits against violent video games, anti-gaming activist Jack Thompson has now set his eyes on Bungie Studio's Halo 3, a popular FPS game for Microsoft's Xbox 360. Thompson today filed a complaint asking the Florida court to declare Halo 3 as a public nuisance, in effect banning the game's distribution in the said state.

GamePolitics reports that it was Thompson himself who released the full copy of his complaint to the public. The seven-page document calls for the banning of the game's release in the state of Florida, with the lawyer claiming that Halo 3 being "a video game that allows the virtual reality player to rehearse violent acts resulting in the death of one's virtual victims" qualifies it as a public nuisance.

The recent event involving his 15-year-old son being able to purchase an M-rated video game in a local Best Buy was also mentioned in the report, with Thompson stating that "there is no question that this is not an isolated incident and it will occur as to Halo 3 sales" adding that Best Buy is currently pre-selling the game online "to anyone of any age with no verification."

Having stated these arguments, Thompson is asking the 11th judicial circuit to issue a "temporary restraining order, to be followed by a permanent injunction, prohibiting both defendants from selling this Mature-rated video game." It should be noted though, that the 11th circuit is the same entity that junked a similar complaint also filed by Thompson. The junked complaint was directed towards RockStar's video game Bully for the PlayStation 2, released last year.

 

The 2007 Online Game Development Conference is now in full swing, as the agenda for the conference happening this May is now up, live on the official OGDC website. After the announcement of Speaker Force 8...err...the first eight confirmed speakers for the Online Game Development Conference, an official press release also previewed a few more speakers of the 80 speakers to attend the event:

• Herb Sutter - Software Architect, Microsoft
• Mike Goslin - Vice President, Virtual Reality Studio, Disney Online
• Diana Li - Vice President, Shanda
• Charles Manning - President/CEO, PLAYXPERT
• Robert Mitchell - Senior Programmer, Sony Online Entertainment
• Tony Park - Vice President, The9
• Michael Goodman - Director, Digital Entertainment, Yankee Group
• Christian Force - Director of Engineering, +7 Systems

Organized by Evergreen Events, the conference will be delivering "world-class content" to "everyone in the business of making online games." The work and preparation behind the conference soon brought forward a list of sessions and panels including, but not limited to:

• Automating Online Game Balance
• Xbox LIVE on Windows and 360: Are Your Games Dead or LIVE?
• The Chinese Game Market: Latest Developments and Trends
• Casual Games Go Global
• Dirty Secrets of Episodic Video Games
• User Research for Online Game Development
• Adapting your Online Games to the Mobile Platform
• Designing worlds - future directions of tools and technology in MMOs

Peter Freese, chairman of the OGDC, is proud to have finalized the conference's agenda, stating, "It's been a long and involved road to reach this point, but I am very proud of what we've accomplished to assemble this truly impressive slate of speakers and sessions." The 2007 OGDC will start on May 10, 2007 at the Fairmont Olympic, Seattle and will go on for two days. Click on the "Read" link below to hop over to the Agenda page.

Next Generation alerts all of us that during the GDC session entitled Censorship of Video Game Content: Time to Fight Back, attorney Lawrence G. Walters said that "It’s the blurring between reality and virtual reality that worries people, and brings lawmakers to action."

While he cites examples of failed legislation that emphasize the recognition of videogames as a protected form of expression, he warns that missteps from the industry might mess things up in the long-run.

To counter further research and studies that look for the connection of videogames to violence, Walters suggests that the games industry invest in research of their own. As he says: "Arm yourself with evidence."

He says that a research bank of positive studies and positive relationships with parents - the folks ultimately responsible for enforcing ratings - can aid the industry in the fight against games legislation.

While regulators and "ace attorneys" claim that their game legislation is in the best interest of children, that anti-game laws will protect youth, Walters argues: "We don’t want to protect them so much that they have no rights when they become adults."

Yeah, nice idea. We for one would like to hear reports concerning scientific studies that look into the effects of strategy/simulation/planning games like SimCity on children's organizational skills and creative talents. It should be a safe hypothesis that the Master of Orion geek will have an advantage when it comes to socio-economic subjects, right?

Who else is dropping by at the much-coveted GDC this year? Guess no more, 'cause we have the updated list right here. As of the current press time, there are now 35 speakers confirmed to show up to share their expertise. Here's the new list of the who's whos:

• Kevin Bjorke - Art & Technology Evangelist for the NVIDIA Corporation
• Ramon Axelrod - CTO for AIseek
• Bart House - Development Lead - Windows Server Performance Team for Microsoft
• Robert Mitchell - Senior Programmer for Sony Online Entertainment
• Mike Goslin - Vice President, Virtual Reality Studio for Disney Online
• Scott Brown - President and CEO of NetDevil
• Joseph Ybarra - Vice President of Product Development Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment

If you're interested to go, but still has not registered for it, then you'd be glad to know that you still have time to do so. In fact, this may be your last chance to get it at a deal as this is their final week of offering over 40% off on-site registration rates. Hurry, 'cause March 1 marks the price hike from US$ 195 to US$ 345.

Remember the old Aura Interactor "virtual reality vest?" It didn't really take off, but the concept was a good one. Showing that you can't really put a good concept down, a company named ForceWear">TNGames is looking to take current rumble technology one step forward with the ForceWear vest.

PSU recently had a sit-down with TNGames CEO Mark Ombrellaro and got some details regarding the ForceWear.

In development for roughly six years now, the ForceWear vest is basically a wearable force generation system equipped with eight pressure areas. According to Ombrellaro, the ForceWear vest actually imparts tactile events and impact within the game to the user. This is done through the vest's eight contact points (four in front, four in back) which can generate up to 10 pound of force each.

The whole thing is also directional, so players who get shot in the back will "actually feel the gunfire in their back while they may not be otherwise aware of this using standard visual display cues." It's not just for FPS and fighting games, too. Ombrellaro says that ForceWear can also be used to impart G-force effects for driving/racing or aerial flight content.

ForceWear is first being introduced on the PC platform. Ombrellaro says that TNGames is currently working on having the technology enabled on all of the various console platforms. The ForceWear's controlling code has also been made available to game developers. This will let them integrate ForceWear support into their videogames and control the functionality of the Forcewear vest.

There are no price details yet, but Ombrellaro says that the ForceWear vest is slated for a November 2007 release.

Here's something that you can tell your mom the next time she tells you to stop playing all them darn action videogames. A recent study conducted by the University of Rochester produced results that show some action-based videogames may actually improve eyesight.

The study went like this: A group of students were divided into control groups and given a crowding test where the students in each group were asked to identify the orientation of the letter T on a page full of other distracting symbols and letters. The students' response times were recorded for later comparison. The test groups were then given games to play for a month. One group got Tetris while the other was given Unreal Tournament.

A month of near-daily gaming later (which according to the article translates to about 30 hours' worth. Hmm. These must be pretty serious students.), both groups were given another crowding test. While the students who were given Tetris showed no improvement in their test results, it turned out that those who played Unreal Tournament were able to discern the orientation of the T more easily during the crowding test.

The conclusion? The University of Rochester research team believes that fast-paced action video games push our visual system to the limit, the brain adapts and creates new pathways to process visual information. They are currently constructing a 360-degree virtual reality computer gaming lab in order to further advance the study. If you're interested in the results, their findings will be published in next week's Psychological Science journal.

In the 90's, there was one word you could readily associate with Sega that had nothing to do with a blue hedgehog. That word was "Virtua".

From Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop, and even Virtual On, it was cool to be a part of the virtual reality craze. For some reason, the whole idea of using "Virtua" as a base word in a gaming franchise stuck, and so "Virtua" remains long after the craze for VR ended. Of the fabled titles bearing the "Virtua" mark, there was one title that seems pretty obscure to all but the hardcore sports gamer, and that game is Virtua Tennis.

Now on its third game for Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360, Virtua Tennis 3 is hoping to pick up a place in the memories of gamers, not only for bearing that really old name, but also for letting us play a darned good game of tennis. While we're waiting for the game to come out though, here are a ton of new screens for you to look upon.

We only hope that create-a-player mode will let us look like Brad Pitt, or it'd be a shame that we can't be "Virtua Brad Pitt, Tennis Player" anymore.

  

Do a good hustle on the court, and catch the Full Article below!

Remember that incident on newsman Sam Donaldson's New Mexico ranch a couple of years back, where a 14-year-old shot his father, stepmother and stepsister? Well, Cody Posey is now 16 years old, sentenced early this year to state custody until he is 21, and is yet again involved in another lawsuit, this time, alongside corporate bigwigs.

Surviving family members of Posey's victims filed a US$ 600 million lawsuit, naming Posey, Sony Corporation of America, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. and its subsidiary Rockstar Games as defendants. According to the suit, the companies are just as liable as Posey himself for the killings because they were in on a "civil conspiracy', creating entertainment that 'would spawn such copycat violence'.

The violent entertainment being referred to here is the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, developed by Rockstar Games. The GTA Series depict police killings and other acts of violence. The lawsuit also tags the various editions of the game 'virtual reality murder simulators'. Said the plaintiffs, the game trained Posey 'how to point and shoot a gun in a fashion making him an extraordinarily effective killer without teaching him any of the constraints or responsibilities needed to inhibit such a killing capacity'. The lawsuit goes on to claim that if it were not for Posey's use of these products, he would not have killed.

As if to further strengthen this point, it was also stated in the lawsuit that the plaintiffs' lawyer Jack Thompson was told by a sheriff's deputy that the game and a Sony PlayStation 2 were found at the ranch.

On the other hand, Jim Ankner, spokesperson for defendant Take-Two said they believe that the suit is without merit.

And so we see another instance where video games remain to be the only logical answer why a minor would suddenly go on a killing rampage. From the looks of it, it sure seems like the gaming industry has now got its own McDonald's version when it comes to lawsuits relentlessly attempting to pin the blame on factors and events that do not necessarily have a causal relationship.