Gaming addiction is a highly debated issue among medical and psychological professionals around the world. Some believe that gaming fixation can be an official addiction and thus a type of mental disorder. There have been many incidents in countries like China and South Korea where gamers engage in gaming marathons that has resulted in the occasional death of the player. Yet despite these incidents, the American Medical Association still doesn't recognize the addiction.But a recent study in Sweden recently found that gaming is not only addictive, but also found the psychological effects of gaming addiction to be more severe than those of crack cocaine addiction. Wait, what? Video games are more harmful than cocaine!?!? Sounds a little ridiculous. Yet that doesn't stop many professionals from looking for at ways to treat it. Among the professionals trying to treat said video game addiction is prominent London Psychologist Dr. Richard Graham.
Graham is taking a slightly different approach to the treatment of the "disease". His method? Entering the world of the gamers by joining World of Warcraft this fall. By doing this Graham hopes that other mental health experts and therapists will follow his lead. Graham states that "Those affected don't exhibit the same outward warning signs as most teenage anti-social behavior issues do because they're in their bedrooms most of the time, seemingly out of trouble. Because of this we can't get through to them in the traditional educational environment or intrude on their actual bedrooms. We need to turn to the internet itself to tackle these problems."
Graham is taking this approach seriously and has even taken his plan to Blizzard, the creators of the game. Graham is attempting to negotiate a deal in which Blizzard will provide him and his colleagues free subscriptions to the game (yeah, good luck with that). Graham is also working in tandem with other World of Warcraft players in order to create per advocacy groups in which players can report other players who they believe are suffering from the addiction.
An interesting paradox arises from Graham's noble quest. While joining the masses if addicted, will Graham and his colleagues themselves become addicted? Is the will power of Graham and his army of "shrinks" strong enough to withstand the draw of WoW? Whichever way it goes, this study should bring forth some interesting developments of this potential "video game addiction" disorder.
Source: G4TV
Video games have become the newest Hollywood cash in for producers and directors. It seems that whenever the film makers are in a slump for new ideas, they turn to the latest big blockbuster game and hope to cash in on the name. The only problem is that film makers have a history of taking our most beloved video games and making craptastic movies out of them. Time and time again gamers are teased with the thought of seeing their favorite game turned into a killer movie and time and time again we are drastically let down. 
By: Kyle Fella
Microsoft is looking to improve there Xbox 360 player’s gaming experience with there newest wireless product. To enhance games like Lips, Guitar Hero Metallica, Rock Band 2, and Disney Sing It: High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Microsoft has developed a Xbox 360 Wireless Microphone. This will easily turn your living room into a rocking concert stage without any clutter from wires. The microphone provides you with the best possible performance due to its high-quality voice reproduction technology and even includes chic interactive motion sensors and lights. The Xbox 360Wireless Microphone will be available this fall and is estimated to cost around $49.99.
It is no surprise today that a majority of kids would rather spend their free time huddled in a dark room in front of a t.v. playing video games for hours on end instead of being outside or doing some other type of activity. Video games have become the most distributed and most productive area of entertainment all across the world grossing the highest revenue in years. Kids are becoming so enthralled in their games that parents are sometimes having difficulties making their kids turn off the game.
gamer out there does not have a spare power cord lying around mainly because you can't buy them in stores. Another negative factor for the GameDr is that similar products have failed to catch on. But probably one of the biggest problems with this device lies with the gamers themselves. If you play video games then what I am about to tell you is common knowledge. In all video games, you have an option of saving your progress so you can quickly pick up where you left off. Some games even have it save for you automatically at places in the games called "checkpoints". When a game is saving, a message appears that says something like this: "Saving Game. Please Do Not Turn Of Your Console." The reason for this is that turning off your console during a save corrupts the data of that saved game file, rendering it unplayable forcing the gamer to completely restart the game. A potential problem is the gamer becoming so encompassed by the game that they forget to save until the last minuet where in the GameDr shuts off corrupting their game data. But there are alternatives to buying a device like this. Some systems, like the Xbox 360, have a parental control systems setting area built in. This comes with a "Family Timer" that works the same way as the GameDr. 
Awhile ago, the gaming blog Kotaku quoted Shane Kim of Microsoft saying Natal's launch would be as big as a launch of a console. Well this isn't a surprise now that Natal is actually going to be new console from Microsoft. If yo don't know about it, Project Natal is Microsoft's new motion controlled system which completely removes the use of a game controller making the players entire body essentially the controller. Project Natal uses the latest motion capture technology to scan the body of the gamer and different objects, like skateboard for example, that the player can use. The player then uses their body to play the games.