Girl Gaming - Down a percentage

A recent UK study observed at female presence in the games industry and showed a drastic decrease within the past four years. 12% of gamers in 2006 were female, compared to only 4% today. The survey, conducted by Liverpool PhD student Julie Prescott surveyed 450 UK women. The results showed the rise in females in business as a major factor.

32% of the sample claimed to work over 45 hours a week, with 22% that worked between 6 and 55 hours a week, and 10% that worked more than 56 hours. 43% of surveyed women said their long work hours negatively impacted their well-being.

Rumors in Games - Bioshock 2 No Multiplayer for you!

Ken Levine, the original creator of Bioshock has been leaning towards to removing online multiplayer in the next chapter of the epic series. Bioshock Infinite, which is to take place in the roaring 1910s and most likely a prequel, is going to be in the ranks of Metroid Prime, where being in a series that had multiplayer in one title of its series, then didn't have it in the next. While this isn't really set into stone for Bioshock Infinite, Ken Levine stated that adding multiplayer on games are both not all that interesting and can be a bit of a financial drain. He says

Gamer News - More Marvel vs. Capcom 3 characters revealed!

As if Capcom couldn't give us more of an excuse to get us fighting game fans to bulk up our fingers and prepare our Evil thumbsticks, just as of this past weekend, at Gamescom in Germany, it is revealed that both Viewtiful Joe (from Viewitful Joe) and Dormammu (the nemesis of Marvel's Dr. Strange) are going to be in the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3. In addition, if you were to search back, the confirmation of Dormammu has significance in the leaked possibility of the Silver Surfer for Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Back around the end of July, in a Japanese video game magazine's interview with the producer of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Ryoto Niitsuma, the magazine accidentally revealed Dr. Doom (already confirmed a week or two ago), Dormammu (just confirmed now), and Silver Surfer. If Dr. Doom and Dormammu are already confirmed then most likely the Silver Surfer is probably now 95% confirmed. I left five percent, because the

Gears of War 3 won't be out till April 5^th 2011, so until then, Sega's got your back.

Vanquish is a third-person cover based shooter inspired by the success of Gears of War. The man behind the title is Shinji Makami, more famously known as the father of Resident Evil. Vanquish is Platinum Games' attempt to break into the American market. Something they weren't able to do with Bayonetta and MadWorld.

Vanquish attempts to appeal to both the western and eastern audiences, but it's still a very Japanese game. It's got all of the Japanese trademarks: non-realistic settings, humans stylized like 3D anime, mechs, and ridiculously large boss sequences. Platinum games is doing to Gears of War, what's it's done to Devil May Cry with Bayonetta, adding a gratuitous amount of over the top action. However, it's also adding complexity to the game's core mechanic, cover based shooting. Gears of War fans may find the game's screen seemingly cluttered and not as streamlined

Gamer News - Activision not finding Female Leads to be Profitable

Activision recently admitted they believe games with female protagonists do not sell, referencing a number of male fronted top selling games in previous years. As a result, Activision and other companies avoid using female leads in games directed toward the general gaming population, only showing female leads in licensed games such as Barbie and Dora. Furthermore, according to Gamasutra reports, companies like Luxoflux have even attempted to create titles with female protagonists but changed their concepts based on Activision's narrow-minded focus on current high sales of male driven games. Sadly, since little chance has been given for female fronted games to prosper, it looks like this trend will continue. This derives from a lack of faith in a potentially outstanding product, based solely on gender rather than quality itself.

Luxoflux started to take a step in the right direction with their original notion

Gamer News - Billy Mitchell to Continue being a Record Holding Champion

Billy Mitchell was the first world record holder in the game of Donkey Kong, achieving this feat back in 1982, officially recognized by Twin Galaxies (Videogame authority). Billy has been recognized as somewhat of a prophet when it comes to arcade gaming, being called the "greatest arcade "€œvideogame player of all time". His score went untouched for years.

In 2007, "The King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters" came out, chronicling the journey of Steve Wiebe, a Washington state teacher, and his attempt to dethrone the hot sauce king. As a documentary there is obviously some bias involved, but the filmmakers do Billy Mitchell justice, portraying him as an egocentric, and incredibly arrogant human being. He talks a big game, yet refuses to actually play.

Steve Wiebe went on to become the Donkey Kong record holder for both the live and recorded scores. On August 3, 2006, with a score of 1,049,100

Gaming News - Check your Email for Kinect Invite Exclusives

August 11,2010
Excited for Kinect? Go check your email! Microsoft is offering a "limited audience" of Xbox 360 owners an opportunity to beta test Kinect and changes to Xbox Live before they are due out in November.

If you receive an email, you may be sent pre-release software and hardware. Not everyone who receives an email will have the opportunity. But if they are one of the privileged few that do, they will get a chance to experience Kinect and the anticipated dashboard re-design before anyone else.

Follow the link below for the full article.

http://kotaku.com/5608705/kinect-beta-invites-going-out-are-you-in

What to play this month, July 2010

There was definitely a wide range of great games that were released these past few months and July was no exception. For Play Station 3 and Xbox 360 NCAA Football 11 took the cake. The PC game was obviously the highly anticipated StarCraft II. Nintendo Wii struggled and didn't have a great game this month. Nintendo DS had Dragon Quest IX. Nintendo DSiWare had Steamworld Tower Defense. Nintendo WiiWare also didn't have any great games unfortunately. For the Play Station Portable, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable was a great one. PSN came up with DeathSpank. XBLA had Limbo. And the iPhone game that was great this month was Archetype. For the article follow the link below.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1109728p1.html

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IGN Shares their 25 Most Wanted Games of 2010.

Every year IGN editors compile a list of the most anticipated games to be released on the upcoming year. With the year more than half way done, and E3 in the past, IGN releases the list. Agree with their picks?

Need for Multiplayer Games rises

As both Xbox and Playstation's online multiplayer communities grow, game developers are feeling the pressure to add multiplayer modes to their games. Rockstar left the multiplayer mode off their previous generation games and now feels the need to add extensive online support to this round of games. Some argue the multiplayer modes are superfluous and take away from the single player focus. Others say the multiplayer adds to the life of an only single player game. Most fall somewhere in the middle, and feel that the multiplayer mode is needed and/or used most often depending on the game. Where do you fall? Necessary or wasted resources? Follow the link below for the article.

http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/07/14/is-multiplayer-a-requirement-for-new-games.aspx