Video site Metacafe has launched a new video games hub featuring trailers, reviews, news, interviews and walkthroughs for popular video game releases.
"Online video is increasingly a primary source of entertainment for today's consumers, so it's important we showcase content in key entertainment categories - such as video games - about which people are passionate," said Erick Hachenburg, CEO of Metacafe.
China has banned websites that feature online games, which glamorize violence, saying violators will be "severely punished," state media said on Tuesday.
China's Ministry of Culture said such games violated regulation on Internet administration, because they "advocate obscenity, gambling, or violence," and "undermine morality and Chinese traditional culture," a posting on the ministry's website said.
U.S. video game sales of hardware, software and accessories declined 31 percent in June to $1.17 billion, according to the NPD Group.
The year-over-year decline was the sharpest since a 41 percent drop in September 2000. "This is one of the first months where I think the impact of the economy is clearly reflected in the sales number, said Anita Frazier, NPD Analyst.
Fans of video games are spending increasingly more time playing games, according to a new survey from Nielsen.
The survey, "The Value Gamer: Play and Purchase Behavior in a Recession," found since the beginning of the year and through May, gamers are spending an additional one to two hours a week playing games, compared to 2006, when Nielsen started tracking video game data.
U.S. video game sales fell by 23 percent in May from a year ago, dipping below the one billion dollar mark for the first time since August 2007, the NPD Group said in its new report.
Sales of videogame hardware, software and accessories dropped to $863.3 million in May from $1.2 billion in May of 2008.
Hardware sales declined 30 percent to $302.5 million and software sales were off 17 percent to $448.9 million. Sales of accessories were 25 percent less at $112 million.
The number of American households that play computer or video games has risen to 68 percent, a three percent increase over 2008, according to the Entertainment Software Association, a group that represents U.S. computer and video game publishers.
"This is the new golden age of entertainment software. Our products are now being enjoyed by over two-thirds of Americans," said Michael D. Gallagher, CEO of the ESA.
As Blockbuster.com continues its struggle to compete with the much more popular Netflix movie rental service, the company is starting an online video game rental offering to compliment its movie offering.
This was announced a while back, but today's announcement puts a date to its launch - June 30. It will start in Cleveland, but is planned to go nationwide by the end of the year. The Cleveland pilot test will be open to all Blockbuster Total Access and Blockbuster By Mail subscribers.
U.S. video game sales of hardware and software increased 13 percent in January from the previous year according to the NPD Group.
In January, consumers purchased $445.4 million in video game hardware, a 17 percent year -over-year increase, proof that the video game industry is doing well despite the recession.
According to figures from Top Global Markets, an integrated monthly report from the NPD Group, GfK Chart-Track Limited and Enterbrain, combined video game software unit sales across the world's largest three markets experienced 11 percent growth in 2008.
Sales totaled 409.9 million units compared to 367.7 million units sold across these markets in 2007.
Some video games can have beneficial effects, improving gamer's dexterity and their ability to problem solve according to research from the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.Fordham University psychologist Fran C. Blumberg, PhD, and Sabrina S. Ismailer, MSED, looked at 122 fifth, sixth and seventh-graders problem solving behavior while playing a video game they had not been previously exposed to. They found that playing video games can improve cognitive and perceptual skills.
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