Gamertell

Not much can make the heart race like doing something you know you’re not supposed to be doing. Perhaps that is why so many games rely on big-time crimes to provide adrenalin-boosting activities - stealing cars, massive property damage and murder.

Although videogames do allow people to partake in ethically questionable activities without actually hurting anyone or anything, not all illegal activities would make good games.

In the spirit of Grand Theft Auto, here are a few theoretical games with illegal activities for names that would simply never sell (which should make at least a few parents happy)…

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Minnesota is another state in a long series that has passed video game legislation only to have it mercilessly beaten down by the US court system. The Minnesota law was a little unusual in that it would have fined game purchasers rather than retailers. Children age seventeen or younger trying to buy a Mature-rated video game (or an Adults Only game, if you can find a store that sells them) would face a $25 fine for the transgression. 

It was struck down first by a US District Court judge back in July 2006, then finished off for good by a…

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According to Wired and KHQ news, a 20-year-old man was recently arrested for stalking and threatening a 15-year old girl he met playing Halo online. Joshua Stetar (the perpetrator) had apparently driven cross country from to Spokane, Washington to see the girl he met on Xbox live. His other obscenely creepy behaviors included driving by her house, leaving thousands of text messages on her phone (which he found online by googling her name and address), sending unwanted gifts to her house, and threatening to rape her and her sister.

Thankfully, the girl’s parents contacted the police, who found him at an econo lodge in Spokane before he could do any further damage. He’s facing a felony stalking charge.

Ouch - let this be a reminder to never give out personal information online. Maybe Nintendo’s friend-code system isn’t so bad after all.

Read [KHQ] Via [Wired]

These days an ideological line seems to divide the whole world into two halves. On one side of this ideological equator are the gamers and on the other side are the detractors of video games. Due to the increasing number of controversies around video games, some of which lead to court cases, video game lawyers are experiencing a windfall. Another major reason for video game lawyers earning serious bucks is the fact that the video game industry is flooded with cash and future growth prospects look even better.

The games industry is on an all time high and is expected to overtake even the music industry in terms of sales sometime next year according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. The firm has also pegged video game sales this year at $10.4 billion, an increase of 15.5% 2006. The boom in the video gaming industry has provided new, lucrative avenues to lawyers. They tend to perform a wide array of legal tasks within the games industry…

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I swear I’m not trying to dig up an old news story. No, really. Former footballer and occasional film actor, O.J. Simpson, was ordered by the Los Angeles Superior Court to pay all the money he earned from his likeness being uses in All-Pro Football 2K8 to the family of the late Ronald Goldman.

The order was to satisfy part of the judgment for wrongful death passed on Simpson back in 1997, with 33.5 million to be paid by Simpson. The amount of the money Simpson was paid by Take-Two was not indicated.

The game, by Take-Two Interactive Software, includes images of 240 former pro football players including Simpson. It also features a knife-wielding mascot for a…

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The California state law prohibiting the sale or rental of “violent video games” to minors has officially been stopped by the courts. The law, originally proposed by now Senator Leland Yee (then an Assemblyman) would have gone into effect would have gone into effect on January 1, 2006, but was temporarily stopped when Entertainment Software Association (ESA), Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) and Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association (IEMA) sued to stop the law.

According to GameDaily, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed the original law, responded....

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