Gadgets and Video Games

Video Games Live continues touring with a few special shows during the month of July. On July 10, the National Symphony Orchestra (which did two sold-out shows at the Kennedy Center in DC ) will perform at the WolfTrap Feline Center in Virginia. Sid Meier, Civilization IV vocalist Ron Ragin and game composer Grant Kirkhope ( Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye, Banjo-Kazooie, Viva Pinata ) will all be in attendance. For Texans, Halo composer Mike Salvatori will make a “special guest appearance” at the Ft. Worth show on July 14.

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Video Games Live to have several special shows in July

Atari’s slow collapse continues with the loss of the company’s most lucrative franchise. No, not Ghostbusters — it’s Dragon Ball , which has produced approximately a billion video games so far. The franchise will now go back to Namco Bandai, the original Japanese publisher of the series.

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Dragon Ball license leaves Atari, returns to Namco Bandai

Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq (”LGJ”), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games : Terra Nova recently posted a note about a Craigslist case that could have some impact on the gaming space. It relates to theories about how players could sue other players, which is something that briefly came up in a World of Warcraft suit two years ago (which settled before going to court). The result of the case was, in no uncertain terms, that a lawsuit under a third-party beneficiary theory could be entirely blocked by a well written Terms of Use. That’s not to say that all cases involving third parties are barred, as another World of Warcraft legal battle, the Glider case, was successful; though primarily based on tortious interference. So, while some potential sources of player-versus-player lawsuits may be now foreclosed, I still think there’s a range of potential suits that could become prevalent.

Originally posted here: 
LGJ: The new meaning of ‘player vs player’

Move over Johnny Lee . Now that you’ve gone corporate , there’s a new student researcher in town ready to take up your mantle. What mantle is that, you ask? The “show us cool tech that can be used in video games via YouTube” mantle, of course.

Originally posted here:
A peek (and head tilt) into the future: head-tracking in FPS games

The good news? We’ve got a copy of Jonathan Coulton’s latest project to give away. It’s a double-disc set that features a DVD full of videos from his “Best. Concert. Ever.” that was filmed in San Francisco last year, and a CD packed with the music from the same event.

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Joyswag: Jonathan Coulton’s latest CD / DVD ‘Best. Concert. Ever.’

British-based retailer HMV is happy to report it has made over

Unless you’ve been competing in a Starcraft lock-in all week, or living under a rock in the sub-Saharan desert somewhere, then you heard the news that Michael Jackson died yesterday in Los Angeles. As strange as the guy was in his later years, he made an indelible mark on the world of music which carried over into the world of gaming. If you were an arcade rat back in 1990, then you probably spent time playing, or at least listening to Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker , which featured the singer doing battle against baddies and rescuing children by performing dance moves and using “Dance Magic” powers, i.e. spinning around and screaming “HOOOO!”. Yes, for real.

Excerpt from:
Moonwalker: the video game legacy of Michael Jackson

Austrailia ’s censorship on mature-themed video games isn’t as strict as we thought … but it soon will be. The government is pushing forward with its national internet filtering system , a program designed to block all the world’s evils — including video games that don’t meet the country’s MA15+ rating standard.

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Australian net filter can block video games that aren’t rated

Whilst staring longingly at Tuesday’s finally released cover art for Br

Whilst staring longingly at Tuesday’s finally released cover art for Br