By Chris Kohler 

TOKYO -- An estimated 180,000 of Japan's biggest game fans descended on the Makuhari Messe convention center for Tokyo Game Show 2007 last weekend. Gamers got their hands on early versions of more than 700 new and upcoming game titles from 217 exhibitors.

Lines for the most popular games stretched to nearly four hours in some cases, and bodies packed the convention center from wall to wall. Many fans came in cosplay outfits, dressed up as their favorite game characters. With market-expanding software for the Wii and Nintendo DS topping sales charts, many attendees -- from college-age women to parents with young children -- didn't fit the typical gamer demographic.

Left: Like Darth Vader and Stormtroopers, only smaller, people dressed in Star Wars costumes roam the show floor.

Photo: Carl Wilson

The startling story out of China’s southern town of Guangzhou this week of a 30-year-old man dying of exhaustion after a reported three-day online gaming binge may be an odd curiosity in the West, but it underscores growing concerns about Internet addiction in this country of more than 160 million Web surfers.

With a little more than 10 percent of China’s 1.3 billion population now online – thanks in large part to a booming economy and the nearly 113,000 Internet cafes that dot the country – the past few years have seen a rash of Internet addiction issues popping up and, recently, a serious governmental backlash against them.

Government effort to ‘purify’ the Internet
Responding to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s call in April of this year to "purify" the Internet and nurture "an Internet culture with Chinese characteristics," the Chinese government sponsored Xinhua News Agency and other state-run media began printing stories detailing how Internet addiction had contributed to a slew of real-life problems with minors, such as academic failure, petty crimes and even suicide.

In fact, earlier this year, Reuters reported that police spokesman Wu Heping declared at a news conference that alm

The Fury developer team has released a second video in the "school" series. This video has to do with Growth and shows some of the abilities of this school. Click below to watch the new video.

A Rogue character in World of Warcraft with arguably the best gear in the game right now has been sold for 7,000 Euro (approximately US $9,700). The avatar had both Legendary swords dropped by raid boss Illidan Stormrage, as well as 4/5 of a Tier 6 armor set.

The original owner, Zeuzo from clan Method on Sylvanas server, has been sighted building up a new Rogue. When asked what one could do with $9,700, the Joystiq staffer offered these suggestions:

"Save it toward a house ... or Jet Ski!"
"Buy as many WoW account as I could, build that many new computers and multibox it!"
"A pool of pennies so that you can swim around in like Scrooge McDuck."
"Cybernetic Mongoose"
"I hear Russian mail-order brides are increasingly more reasonable ..."
The buyer, Shaks, currently resides on the Kazzak server but has not had any activity since September 3. Our sister site WoW Insider speculates that his account may have been banned, given the publicity of the auction and Blizzard's policy against selling accounts -- which would be truly sad for Shaks and truly hilarious for the rest of us (especially Zeuzo).

Some of us have probably read that some 250 million years ago, the Earth was pretty different in terms of geography from how it is today. There were no continents back then, just a giant mass of land scientists now call Pangaea.

However, the Earth's plates continually move through the years, inch by inch until Pangaea was broken up into today's continents. That explains why the land masses of this era fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces.

That begs the question: If the continents continue to drift, how will the world look like 250 million years from now? Scientists project that history will probably repeat itself and a new supercontinent will form. It's a bit too early, but it's already been named Pangaea Ultima.

The picture above shows how the world will look. Travel agencies, airline companies, and ocean lining industries will have to rethink how they do business here. Man might not be around to see this anyway, but roaches will probably be smart enough by that time to figure things out for themselves.

By Anders Bylund

This is a tale of two long-term trends, and what happens when they intersect. I'm talking about increasing realism in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, and the gradual shedding of sexual innocence in overall gaming.

The age of ASCII-only MUDs, MOOs, MUSHes, and MUCKs (text-based online role playing, one and all) seems so very long ago when you look at games like Everquest, Ultima Online, the Sims, or World of Warcraft. Gamers have come to expect graphical realism, and online role-playing is no exception, as every new release attempts to suck users into a more perfect and more engrossing alternate reality than the last, and the online, massively multiplayer virtual reality of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash looks more plausible every day.

In a gentle arc, rising to meet our first observation in a softly heaving, gently crooning extension of virtual skin and imagined lust, comes the second part of the equation, ready to mingle, interact, and take full advantage of the first. We're looking back at Leisure Suit Larry's quest for heavily censored love, and on to the "Woo-hoo!" of the Sims II, the virtual Playboy Mansion, and Coffee so Hot you had to hack the

Despite the prevalence of popular video sites like YouTube and networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, casual gaming online has risen to become the most popular online activity in the U.S., according to a new report from Parks Associates. [Update: We speak with Parks Associates]

 
A new report from market research firm Parks Associates, Casual Gaming Market Update, has found that playing games remains the most popular online activity in the U.S. Playing games was more popular than watching short video clips, visiting social networking websites, or other common online activities.

Parks' report said that 34 percent of U.S. adult Internet users play online games on a weekly basis, while 29 percent watch short online videos and 19 percent visit social networking sites with the same frequency.

"Despite the growing popularity of YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, gaming remains the king of online entertainment, driven largely by casual gaming activities," said James Kuai, a research analyst at Parks Associates. "Gaming also has business advantages. Unlike sites for social networking and video streaming, which rely solely on advertising revenue, casual gaming has more mature and heterogene

Oxygen99 writes

"The Times is reporting on a paper by researchers in the US who argue that the spread of 'corrupted blood' in World of Warcraft might provide clues to the way a real world population would cope with the prospect of a global pandemic. In the study, to be published in The Lancet next month, Professor Lofgren of Rutgers University and Professor Fefferman of Tufts University, suggest that: 'If, God forbid, a disease broke out in London, you could see what would happen if people were told immediately of the risk. Would there be panic and chaos, or would it allow them to psychologically accept the danger and act accordingly? What would happen if we made people feel too reassured? These are all things that have a great impact on the number of people who would be affected. They are also things we just don't know, so [virtual games] could be of great value in helping us understand what their true emotional responses would be.'"

It ain't playing World of Warcraft on your iPhone, but it's close enough for now: this neat World of Warcraft iPhone theme was created by user Slugworth and is available on ModMyiPhone.com. It transforms the background image and all the menu icons into WoW items you know and love (the Phone icon is the Hearthstone... cute). Seeing this kinda makes me want an iPhone even more now...

Drunk driving is such a cause for concern in Germany that a team in Frankfurt set out to create what they dub "the Piss-Screen." So how does this Piss-Screen work?

The Piss-Screen - a pressure-sensitive inlay set within urinals, enabling users to play while they pee. We installed this newfangled creation in male restrooms across Frankfurt, teaming up with a variety of bars, clubs and cafés. The game itself was displayed on a screen above each urinal, and would automatically start as soon as someone began to pee. The player could then control the car whilst relieving himself – if they wanted the car to go right, they simply peed to the right (and visa versa).
It's basically a driving game that you control with your urine stream, and if you respond too slowly and do poorly, it results in a nasty crash. In other words, it means you're too drunk to drive (and you should think long and hard about the crash you just saw). When your urination session is over, the game displays a message ("Too Pissed to Drive? Take a Taxi Instead.") with a local taxi number.

It seems like a pretty good idea... but will it work? And what about the ladies?