Since AdWords was launched in 2001, Google has expanded to image ads, video ads, and print ads, and has frequently been rumored to be entering radio and television. While many think that television ads (ala Spot Runner) could be Google's next major move, they may be neglecting a potentially larger opportunity: in-game video game advertising.

Earlier this year Massive Incorporated, a video game advertising network, announced a landmark deal with Major League Baseball and 2K Sports to provide dynamic advertising in the popular video game Major League Baseball 2K6. According to their press release, "Massive's Network and technology allow MLB Advanced Media and 2K Sports titles to leverage dynamic advertising for ever-fresh brand messaging in their games, mirroring the rapidly changing and expanding advertising opportunities in the live action sports industry."

Why Should Google Care?

The Entertainment Software Association put U.S. sales of video game hardware and software at $7.3 billion back in 2004, a figure that rivals Hollywood box office revenue. In-game video game advertising is nothing new for the booming game industry - large companies have been buying static advertisements in games for years. What is new is the expansion of online gaming into the mainstream. Once reserved for only PC Gamers, console gamers have now discovered a whole new world of competition over a broadband connection.

In a recent interview with TechNewsWorld, EA's John Schappert, who oversees the largest interactive game studio in the world, was asked about in-game advertising: "In-game ad integration is a growing business where we see both advertisers and consumers looking for more. It's an additional revenue stream that is still small, but growing. There's the potential for scalability in this area with dynamically-served ads. It's still in the early stages [in terms of] how in-game ads will grow in significance."

Starting with Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PS2, and continuing into the next generation of online gaming with Microsoft's Xbox 360, Nintendo's Wii, and Sony's PS3, it has become a virtual certainty that nearly all gamers will be playing while connected to a broadband connection. With that broadband connection comes an advertising opportunity that's hard to ignore.

Is History Repeating Itself?

The potential flaw in what Massive Incorporated does is that their ad network still only includes the large advertisers. Massive's website gives no specific information regarding how to purchase advertising, only mentioning that "blue-chip" advertisers can work with their "veteran" sales team to start an account. I think it's safe to say that small businesses aren't their target market. So while they are implementing dynamic ads, those ads are still only affordable to larger businesses. Anyone familiar with internet advertising can see the potential for history to repeat itself.

Way back in 1996, long before Overture (now Yahoo! Search Marketing) and Google AdWords, a company called DoubleClick pioneered website advertising. Their downfall, however, was that they required a formal sales contract, limiting their potential client base to only large companies. Overture and AdWords made it easy for the small advertiser and small site owner to participate in their ad networks, essentially opening their service to anyone on the web. Several years later, one would think that Google is keeping a watchful eye on what's going on over at Massive Incorporated. Massive may be the first to enter the market, but it's hard to ignore the fact that the small business owner remains shut out. Could Google make Massive the next DoubleClick?

How Would Google Do It

There's no doubt that with the best programmers in the world Google is capable of developing and improving upon the technology that Massive has. It's also not hard to imagine advertisers paying per thousand impressions (PPM) for their text or image ads to be shown in specific games, much like they do now for specific sites. The tough part for Google, however, would be the distribution of those ads.

As opposed to signing up websites to display their ads by copying some code on to their site, Google would have to work with game programmers throughout the development process. This would be much more time consuming and would be a much larger risk for Google. In the same way that Massive signed the contract with 2K, Google would have to sign large contracts with game developers and work with them for several months to integrate their ads.

This enforces the fact that the main difference between what happened with DoubleClick and what could happen with video games is that it would probably be more work for Google to distribute their ads over multiple channels (i.e. more games). Since each game is programmed differently, there is no game equivalent to the JavaScript used in all AdSense ads. Every game would need to be tailored to Google's ad network individually. Difficult: yes. Impossible for Google: no way.

When Will They Do It?

In my opinion it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. The potential revenue from the gaming industry is too big for Google to ignore. Oh, and if you still aren't convinced, consider this: Microsoft, one of Google's main competitors, also produces the Xbox 360. If Microsoft decided to integrate their newly launched adCenter into Xbox games, would it really surprise anyone if Google countered by announcing a deal with Sony or Nintendo to integrate in-game dynamic advertising for the PS3 or the Wii?

• Playstation3: The Next Generation Of Video Game Systems
• You Have a Great Idea for a Video Game – What Should You Do?
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Video Game making is a pursuit that involves creativity, visual design, writing, logical thinking, collaboration, and many other skills. It is something that your teenager could get very enthusiastic about and it can be done at no cost whatsoever.

Making video games is not about computer programming

Video game making is no longer the pursuit of the cliched nerdy computer programming types of individuals. There are freely available software programs that take the “programming” right out of the process and free the user to explore the creative potential of making video games.

What skills are developed?

When building a video game a person is building a world and this processs entails a wide variety of skills and disciplines that begins with the generation of ideas then progresses into design of buildings, landscapes and characters. During this process the game maker learns writing skills, storytelling skills, graphic design and architectural skills. Then the game progresses into playability where the game maker will learn logic, flowcharting, storyboarding and even the basics of economics and trade. The process for making a video game is a complete creative cycle that starts with the generation of ideas and ends with the completion of a project.

The Feedback and Positive Reinforcement comes quickly and often

The first lesson learned by a game maker is the lesson of persistence. But this persistence is done in gentle steps with frequent positive feedback. A game maker can have his or her first small game up and running in one afternoon. From there the challenges get more complex and more rewarding. The only limit to the complexity, size and creativity of a game is the limit that the game maker puts on himself.

Scalability, the Learning Curve, and growth

Game making is an extremely elastic pursuit that challenges and develops a person from the absolute beginner to the very advanced. Someone new to video game making can actually have a small working game completed within a few hours and this can be developed and expanded into a very large world with challenges in economics, player interactions, complex design of worlds and cities and more. There is always a new set of things to learn and a new set of skills to learn.

Applicability to the regular career world

The biggest gain in making video games is the gain of learning how to manage projects small and large but game making also brings experience in a variety of creative pursuits from visual design to computer skills, writing, and even music. Your teenager, while learning to make video games, will be exposed to a whole host of different creative pursuits. He or she can get a good look at all these pursuits and even if he or she doesn’t want to be a game designer the skills learned will apply to almost any career path imaginable. And all of this is neatly wrapped up in something your teenager can get excited about.

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• Zany Video Games From Insomniac Games

The following is a review of the Top 5 video games searched for on the Internet.

Looking for a game? Looking for a gift for a gamer? Just curious?

Rank 1 Grand Theft Auto IV:

Grand Theft Auto IV is an upcoming sandbox-style action adventure video game. It will be the ninth title (and the first in the fourth generation) in the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise. It will be released worldwide on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game will be set in a redesigned Liberty City, based heavily on New York City and New Jersey.

Niko Bellic is Eastern European, between 28 and 32 years of age and has come to Liberty City to pursue the "American Dream". Niko was persuaded to move to Liberty City by his cousin Roman, who claimed in multiple e-mails to Niko that he was living a fabulous life, with a mansion, women, hot tubs and sports cars. Roman's claims turn out to be lies to hide his own failures, however, and in reality he only owns a small taxi business, which he wants Niko to work for.

Roman is the only person Niko knows in Liberty City to begin with, and is one of his major connections in the first part of the game. Niko is a tough character, whereas Roman is friendly. Roman is heavily in debt and a lot of people are after him. He desperately needs Niko's support, hence the reason he deceived Niko into travelling to Liberty City. They are constantly bickering. It is later revealed that Niko has also been avoiding other, as yet undisclosed, problems at home. Both characters are new and there are virtually no returning players.

Price: Approx. $59.99

Game Rating: M (Mature)

Blood

Intense Violence

Partial Nudity

Strong Language

Strong Sexual Content

Use of Drugs and Alcohol

Rank 2 Saints Row:

Saints Row is an action-adventure video game published for the Xbox 360 console. It was developed by Volition and published by THQ. The game arrived in stores in wide release on August 29, 2006 in North America, and on September 1, 2006 in Europe and Australia.

The game has been described as being in the same vein as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in terms of story and gameplay, with the developers referring to it as an emerging genre called "open world"; both games focus on urban gang activity, with the main character attempting to strengthen his gang's standing amongst three other rival gangs. Saints Row makes additions to the genre, adding an extensive character customization feature and online multiplayer modes.

Price: Approx. $29.99

Game Rating: M (Mature)

Rank 3 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas:

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a sandbox-style action-adventure computer and video game developed by Rockstar North. It is the third 3D game in the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise and fifth original game overall. Originally released for the PlayStation 2 in October 2004, the game has since been ported to the Xbox and Microsoft Windows, and has received wide acclaim and high sales figures on all three platforms.

Set in late 1992, the game revolves around the main character, Carl "CJ" Johnson returning home from Liberty City to Los Santos after learning of his mother's murder. CJ finds his family and his old gang, the Grove Street Families, in disarray. Over the course of the game, CJ gradually unravels the plot behind his mother's murder while reestablishing his gang and exploring his own business ventures.

Grand Theft Auto series is rich with controversy, the most notable for San Andreas was over the "Hot Coffee" minigame, which was disabled but left in the code, which caused San Andreas to be re-rated briefly as an adult game and pulled from shelves. Since its re-release the game is rated as follows;

Price: Approx. $19.99

Game Rating: M (Mature)

Rank 4 Guitar Hero II:

Guitar Hero II is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane. It is the second installment in the Guitar Hero series and is the sequel to Guitar Hero. It was first released for the PlayStation 2 in November 2006 and then for the Xbox 360 in April 2007, with additional content.

Like the original Guitar Hero, the player uses a guitar-shaped peripheral to simulate the playing of rock music as notes scroll towards the player. Most of the gameplay from the original game remains intact, with new modes and note combinations being the major additions. The game features more than 40 popular licensed songs, many of them cover versions recorded for the game, spanning five decades (from the 1960s to the 2000s).

Since its release, Guitar Hero II has been met with both critical and commercial success, helping the Guitar Hero series become a cultural phenomenon.

Price: Approx.

Bundle with Guitar $79.99

PS2 $39.99

Xbox $49.99

Game Rating: Teen

Rank 5 Mortal Kombat:

Mortal Kombat (commonly abbreviated as MK) is a popular series of fighting games made originally by Midway Manufacturing Company. Mortal Kombat began as a series of arcade games, which were picked up by Acclaim Entertainment for the home console versions. Now Midway exclusively creates home versions of Mortal Kombat. It is especially noted for its high levels of blood and gore, including, most notably, its graphic fatalities - Finishing Moves, requiring a sequence of buttons to perform. These were so extreme that they, in part, led to the founding of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) 1 Mortal Kombat is available in PS2, Xbox, Mobile and PC.

The original Mortal Kombat was developed as a reaction to the popular fighting game Street Fighter II, with digitized graphics of real game actors as opposed to animated cartoon graphics. Critics said the game's graphic violence was only included in order to generate a public outcry and controversy that would gain publicity for the game. Although highly controversial, the mix of realism and violence propelled Mortal Kombat to widespread and historic renown.

Price: Approx. $19.99 - $39.99

Game Rating: M (Mature)

1. Descriptions in large part by Wikipedia.

Wikipedia - The biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. Over 7 million articles in over 200 languages, and still growing.

Please visit us at The Software Spot! Educational Computer Software and Games

• Zany Video Games From Insomniac Games
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Gone are the days when video games were just sources of fun, where players would be satisfied playing games and completing them from start to finish, marveling at the graphics on the path. This is the age of experimentation. The average video game player is becoming more and more daring, and is looking out to try out new things with his or her gaming consoles. This is no longer the age of cheats and walkthroughs; this is the age of tinkering with the gaming consoles themselves and making games more adventurous to play.

Several video game secret has been leaked out onto the Internet slowly but steadily about the popular video game consoles such as the Xbox, PlayStation and GameCube. Even most twelve-year old players nowadays know that they can copy their console games onto CDs and DVDs so that they can be played on the personal computer, or simply distributed to friends in return for other games. Howsoever, there are many more developed things that players do. They adapt their gaming consoles in such a way that it becomes possible for them to play their games on their projection televisions. This does need some knowledge and expertise, but the whole setup can be done very cheaply, within about $200.

Using emulator resources is not precisely a secret, but it can be counted as one because very few people decide about it. By making use of an emulator resource, you can play video console games directly on the personal computer. This is becoming a very popular trend among people who have consoles but are more skilful with their traditional personal computers.

Knowing a video game secret and then implementing it on the console has become a commonplace thing to do for gamers today. It does increase the fun they get out of the game and also increase the replay value for the games. And also, it satisfies their urge of experimentation. People are even writing e-books about them and putting them on the Internet for other gamers to know about them.

Howsoever, implementing a video game secret wrongly could damage the console irreversibly. Thus, it frequently does require a person who knows about consoles to put them to use. For example, it is easy to attune a console to a projection TV, but if it is done wrongly, there could be damage to either the console or the TV. For this reason why, it is needful to exercise some warning when applying such changes. Some players also try out funky things like making their controllers glow and things like that, which could damage the console controllers. In short, though you may know a video game secret, you must think twice before you exactly go ahead and apply it.

• You Have a Great Idea for a Video Game – What Should You Do?
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Visit any video game outlet and you are bound to get overwhelmed by the hundreds of choices available especially if you're new to gaming. Interestingly, children and teens seem to know their way around these places as if they were their second home. But for the adult, the typical video store looks like some sort of color paint explosion and sooner or later, all the games start to look the same. This guide is for the adult who's buying a game for a younger person perhaps as a birthday gift or as a bribe. Whatever the reason, you're going to appreciate the following tips.

1. Research this strange phenomenon before setting foot inside a video store. There's plenty of information available about video games online, so to reduce frustration offline, fire up your web browser and do a little homework. Visit the website of the gaming outlet nearest you and then look for a link to the games section of the system that your youngster plays. Here's a helpful chart to explain what all those strange letters mean.

Wii = Nintendo's Wii System

EA Sports = Entertainment Arts System

PS3 = Playstation 3 System

XBOX 360 = Microsoft's XBOX 360 System

PC = Personal Computer

PS2 = Playstation 2 System

PSP = Playstation Portable System

DS = Nintendo's DS System

The key is to locate the system on the store's website first. The system, it's accessories, and all of the games that work on that system will follow. If not, you may need to use the website's internal search engine.

2. After locating the appropriate games section for your youngster's machine, check out the ratings of each game and create a temporary shopping list of age appropriate material. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) gives each game a rating in an effort to inform parents what their children are playing. Here's a handy reference to what the ratings mean:

C = Appropriate for Early childhood

E = Appropriate for Everyone

E 10+ = Appropriate for Everyone aged 10 and older

T = Appropriate for Teens

M = Appropriate for Mature Adults

3. Within your temporary shopping list, try find a game that's built from the latest movie release. Little people love the new animated movies put out by Disney and Pixar, and they really enjoy re-living precious moments in the movie in a video game. That's why when these movies come out on DVD, their producers put a few games in the "Special Features section" of the CDs.

4. If you can't find a game that's built from a movie that the child likes, try to find a game that centers around a popular cartoon character or one that attempts to educate.

5. If you still can't find one that resembles something that you've heard this particular person rambling on about, first give yourself a slight slap on the hand. You should pay better attention. Then point your browser to the nearest Blockbuster or Hollywood Video website. Follow the same procedure outlined in steps 1 - 3 only this time, elect to rent 5 or 6 games that look appealing. This will give your tot a chance to play some games and select one to keep forever while you return the others.

6. If on the other hand, you did find a game in step 3 or 4, you can either check out online, or drive up to the store and buy it there.

They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but the illustrations on the both video and pc game cases do a pretty good job of representing the game's content. So if you see an illustration of fighting warriors, chances are the game will be more violent than you prefer. If on the other hand, you see an illustration that resembles what you'd see on the cover of an interesting children's book, the game should be age appropriate.

• Xbox Shooter Game
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• Xbox Fps Game

There are various reasons why kids these days love video games. One of these reasons would be the employment of comical characters and vibrant colors which undeniably looks attractive to the young ones. You might have also observed how they would flock in front of the monitor and laugh excitedly as if they are watching an early cartoon morning show every time they see a video game displayed on screen. And for them, knowing that you can control these characters through a game controller pad is even more exciting. That is why every time you turn on your game console they go crazy and tend to grab the controller from your hand. You can not blame them for reacting this way. As kids, it is part of their nature to be playful. When they have the controller on their little hands, they imagine themselves playing with the characters on screen.

A child is naturally curious. It is through playing that he discovers and learns how the world reacts when introduced with certain stimuli. The video games offer him an area to discover all these things. That is why parents should also be careful in choosing the right games for their children. But since children have a natural attraction to games, parents can be able to use video games to educate their children. In fact there are a lot of informative video games out there which will help the young kids to have fun and learn at the same time.

Although kids are not capable of doing things on their own yet, their mind is basically oozing with creativity. They tend to find and do things that their little bodies can handle just to be able to express themselves. Video games and the kid's creativity and active imagination are coherent and complementary with each other. The video game serves as an outlet for the child's creative side.

One more reason why kids love video games is that they love to bond with us. They feel that if they get involve in such activity, they are being one with us. In other words, they just wanted to belong and to tell us that they want to play a game and have fun with us. It does not matter if they lose or win the game as long as the people around him is also having fun, that is what really matters to him.

If you want to show your appreciation to your child, buy a video game for him this holiday. It does not have to be the most expensive ones. There are a lot of cheap video game or used ones for sale. There are websites out there like squidoo.com that can tell you where to get such video games. Just make sure that the games that you are getting for your child is the one which is suitable for him. You can refer on the labels rating to find out which one would be perfect for him to play and have fun with.

• Video Games and Your Kids: A Review
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Maybe you have thought up a really neat and unique idea for a video game and you are thinking "If I can just get in touch with the right people I can sell it and make a lot of money.  And I get to see my idea turned into a game that people will play".

Well, that may be true, and it is possible to do but, to be honest, it is very unlikely. Developing a video game takes a lot of work. A typical game for today’s mass market takes a team of people two years and thousands of hours of work to create. There is a tremendous amount of work involved and much of this work is very creative which can be expensive.

Maybe all of that is a bit discouraging and if you really think you have an idea that is unique there are some things you can do and I will explain the steps and processes you can take to move your idea for a game out of the world of fantasy into the world of possibility.

The big obstacle to getting your idea made into a game is the question of who is going to do all that work? It is an important question. A group of people have to believe in the idea and have to do the work to take it from idea to reality, and generally you have to rely on yourself. If you believe in your idea you need to be the person that will spearhead the work and get it from idea to reality. If you can do this, and if your game is unique and different the rewards can be astonishing.

Three Possible Paths to Success

There are three possible ways to get a game made from your idea:

Get in touch with a heavy hitter in the game making industry and convince him or her that your game is worthwhile. He or she will then set the wheels in motion for your idea to be bought and developed. (This is highly unlikely although it has happened on rare occasions) Companies will occasionally buy video game ideas and keep them for future potential projects.

Get in touch with independent developers with game design skills and get them to come on board with your idea. You have the ability to allow them to patch together their time in developing your game. Gamedev.net is a good place to network and find people for this endeavor.

Spearhead the development yourself. Learn some basic game making skills and put together a group of people willing to spend time (and money) on your game. You become the evangelist for the game and the Project Manager. (This is the best option if you want to succeed and it answers the question of who is going to do all the work - You!)

Protecting your Idea

You probably have questions about your idea and how to protect it from being stolen. Well, I guess this is a possibility and maybe it has happened but it is unlikely. It goes back to the fact that it takes thousands of hours to take a game from idea to actual game and the number of unique ideas is relatively unlimited but here are some things you can do to get started in protecting yourself.

The Problem of Copyrighting Ideas

Ideas cannot be copyrighted! It sounds funny but it’s true. You can research this on the official government copyright website. So, just having an idea means you have very little. If you draw pictures of your game and hopefully develop your idea into a game you can get copyright for those things. In any case here is some help with protecting yourself.

Send yourself a letter!

Put together an exhaustive package of materials about your idea. Include a summary, pictures, drawings and anything else that will describe your idea then seal it in an envelope and mail it to yourself registered mail. When you receive it you sign for it but do not open it. Leave it sealed. This gives you an amount of legal protection that establishes a time line for your idea.

NDA's (Non Disclosure Agreements)

A Non disclosure agreement is a legal contract between two parties. In this case it is between you and the person you want to reveal your idea to. It can be a useful tool that will help you protect your rights. Generally it outlines the confidentiality of your idea and prohibits the other party from using the idea. If you are serious about your idea you should do some research on NDA's and even speak with a lawyer about them. Outside of the United States these agreements are often referred to as Confidentiality Agreements and sometimes they are referred to as Secrecy agreements or Confidential Disclosures (CD's).

Okay let’s get started with something solid you can do

No matter which of the three paths you want to travel down there are some things that you can do to get your idea rolling on its path toward becoming a real video game.

1.       Write out a very extensive overview of the game. Make it as detailed as possible. And put this in the package you mail to yourself!

2.       Draw up pictures and artwork of game scenes, characters, maps and anything else that is unique about the game. In effect you are creating a library of images in the game. Put this in your package too!

3.       Write up an executive summary - This is a one or two page summary of the game idea and it outlines the things that make it unique. This is your introduction to people in the gaming industry and it is the first thing you can give them so they get a grasp of your idea (of course you would get an NDA first!)

4.       Start your research into the game industry. Hang around forums where developers and game makers chat and start learning about what it takes to make a game. You can make some good contacts and there are hordes of people willing to give you solid advice and some help with your dream. gamedev.net is a great place to start

5.       Start learning how to make a video game! It is totally possible for a person with average computer skills to develop a single level of a game or a portion of a game. This can be used as a calling card and example for what the game would be about.

 

If you want to follow step number five and learn how to make your own game there are lots of resources available that will help you learn how to do it relatively inexpensively. With lots of perseverance you can even create the whole game yourself and have it ready for sale.

The Paragraph you might not want to read

Okay, after going through all of that I am glad to see you are still with me. But, if you are thinking all of this stuff about NDA's, sending letters, writing up summaries and putting together packages just seems like too much work then you can see my point about making a video game from your idea. It takes a lot of work and if you are not going to do the work why should somebody else? If you really think your idea is a great one then I recommend you find the time and the motivation to make it happen! Nothing worthwhile is ever easy and hey it is totally possible that your idea can someday be an actual game. Every game ever made first started out as just an idea.

 

 

• Xbox Shooter Game
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Modern-day psychological problems are related to compulsive playing of computer and video games. That is a fact! Modern societies are now struggling to meet the new face of addiction. Virtual games such as computer and video games seem to be perfectly harmless. They even managed to convince parents that they provide their kids with safer and more enriching ways of spending free time. For this reason, the underlying effects of playing these games have sneakily gotten worse. Since they provide fun, excitement and thrill, the common factors that are related to promote addiction, kids are most vulnerable to be affected with compulsive gaming disorder. Since this form of disorder is less likely to be recognized and are more often not considered serious, they tend to develop into video game addiction or computer game addiction. The ignorance in handling and controlling the new trend of addiction in modern societies only made things worse, for affected virtual game players.

Virtual and simulated video and computer games are originally meant to be a past time or a therapeutic way of passing free time from work or school. However, developing a sense of dependency to this activity is one of the modern societies lurking problems. While these games are supposed to be harmless, many are still compelled to abuse the good feeling that playing this games bring, as in deep sense of satisfaction and sense of power by living out a virtual role that is entirely different from his own real-life roles. A person who is socially withdrawn can live out an aggressive personality through the realms of these games. In a way, playing the game compensates or whatever a person may be lacking, social wise. This can be helpful, but once it starts replacing the role of friends, work and family to a person's life, there must be a form of intervention to convince the person to succumb to psychological evaluations and treatments to prevent the onset of video game addiction or computer game addiction.

Gaming addiction has become a modern-day phenomena, its exact cause is yet to be determined. Similarly, there are still issues regarding the grounds on which the conditions can be diagnosed. What doctors do is make separate diagnosis, as to finding and devising treatment to the behavioral patterns that relates to video game addiction or computer game addiction.

The seriousness of the issues caused by computer game addiction and video game addiction was even claimed to have created a new face of addiction in modern-day societies. Since this kind of addiction roots from seemingly harmless sources, what leads to addiction is the people's abuse to the effects or benefits that they bring. Since no one will ever prevent using computer these days, at work or in school, theorists predict that this kind of disorder will be much harder to manage. After all, no one has been jailed for spending too much time playing computer games and no one has been condemned in exhausting himself to death, reaching the highest levels of online games. None yet!

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Video games have always been given a modest nod of tolerance by parents who struggle to see the benefits of learning how to crash a car into a tree at 120 miles per hour. But new evidence is proving that video games have a new respect in the medical field. And if you suffer from chronic pain, you soon may be knocking on your children's door asking, "can you show me how that controller-thingy works?"

One of the best benefits is that there are now video games like Dance Dance Revolution that can help you get physically fit. If you've been to a movie theater or mall lately, you may have noticed the 3-foot square platform with an arrow on each side of the square pointing up, down, left and right. The player may appear as though they have joined the toddlers in a dance along with The Wiggles, but the game does take skill. The player faces a video screen that has arrows scrolling upward to the beat of a song, and the player steps on the correlating arrow. Tempted to try it but not in a public place? The home version costs about $80 for the game and plastic dance pad and it includes a "workout mode" that actually will track how many calories you are burning.

Another study has just been released about the ability for video games to actually reduce chronic pain. A group of students from Wheeling Jesuit University reported from their study that playing sports and fighting video games produces a dramatic level of pain distraction. The students presented the results of the study, "Effects of Video Game Play Types on Pain Threshold and Tolerance," during the University's Seventh Annual Student Research and Scholarship Symposium, April 4, 2006. The study examined 6 genre types (action, puzzle, arcade, fighting, sport, and boxing). Sports games and fighting games were able to "produce a dramatic level of pain distraction." Some are suggestion that physicians install more video game consoles in their waiting rooms to lower the tension of upcoming surgical procedures. That seems fair, since many surgeons are now requesting Ipod players in their surgical rooms.

The video game may not help just the patient either! If you must have surgery, you should be glad to hear that your doctor actually spends some down time playing video games. Surgeons who play video games three hours a week have 27 percent fewer errors and accomplish tasks 27 percent faster, claims Dr. James Rosser Jr., a top surgeon and director of the Advanced Medical Technologies Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. Rosser and his colleagues recently brought together surgeons, movie makers, and video game designers to discuss ways that better tools to train physicians can be developed. Players are hooked up with heart-rate and skin-conduction monitors on their fingers and they must calm their body and mind to make the game respond.

All good news, but don't be surprised if your teenagers here about this news soon too. When they ask for the next PlayStation sports game and you say no, he may just respond with, "but it's good for my health and I may even be training to be a surgeon!"

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During the early years of video games, it was incredibly popular for young children to go down to the Arcades and play video games.

In the modern ages, children now save themselves the journey of a five to ten minute walk and now easily plug in and play their desired games in their very own home.

Playing video games at home began in 1977 when the company, Atari, released their video game system, ‘VCS' (later known as Atari 2600) for a princely sum of $249. In the same year, Nintendo released their console, TV Game 6, to rival the Atari 2600.

Arcades were very popular in those days, as it still is in the modern world, as Midway released the first video game that could keep high scores.

It's name? The world-renowned ‘Space Invaders'.

In 1980, many classic arcade games were made. Video games such as Atari's ‘Asteroids' and Namco's ‘Pacman' which can now be easily played in handheld consoles such as the Nintendo DS.

By 1994, many sagas of Video Game history came and went. There was a Video Game Console market crash which made many companies pull out of the business leaving Nintendo, Sega and Atari - the leading competitors of the market.

In 1995, Atari pulled out of the market and a new competitor emerged - Sony - which would famously go on to lead the console market. In that year, Sony released the ‘Playstation' - a 32-bit CD-based video game console, Sega released the ‘Saturn' and Nintendo released the ‘Nintendo 64' which was the last video game console that used cartridge media.

By the year 2000, Sony had a firm grip on the Video Game Console market as it released the Playstation 2 with many loyal game developers such as Namco (Ridge Racer, Tekken) and selling over 100 million units. The Playstation 2 was the first console which was able to play games of its predecessor.

In the following years, Microsoft entered the market with the ‘Xbox', Nintendo released the ‘Gamecube'. Nintendo led the handheld console with the release of Gameboy Advance which could play Gameboy and Gameboy Color cartridges.

Sega eventually left the Console industry, happily residing to be a software-only designer.

Now in 2006, there seems to be a gradual switch of the market leader with Microsoft releasing their Next-Gen console faster than Sony and Nintendo.

The ‘XBox 360' features razor-sharp graphics and enables users to play online with each other. It was released at Christmas 2005 but many consoles were sent back to the manufacturers because of faulty parts.

The Sony Playstation 3 is set for launch on the November 2006 after the delay of its original release date Spring 2006 because of copyright complications. It is rumoured that there will be over 30 launch titles. It is also rumoured that Sony has invested over $800 million in development, research and production.

Nintendo will release its console ‘Revolution', now renamed as ‘Wii' (pronounced We) shortly after the PS3 with its release date being scheduled for Christmas 2006.

The end of 2006 will certainly entail some turning points in Video Game History.

• PSone System – Video Game Console
• Playstation System – Video Game Console
• Nintendo NES System – Video Game Console