Gamertell

Gaia Online just announced the release of celebrity-inspired items for Gaia users. This week’s items now allow registrants the opportunity to dress up their avatars as Snoop Dogg or The Incredible Hulk with hairstyles, purple pants, green fists and more. This marks the first time fully licensed celebrity-branded virtual items have been sold in the virtual world.

In a partnership with virtual goods sales and distribution system Virtual Greats LLC, Gaia Online will allow users to collect or “snare“ quality celebrity items each month to create…

MORE »

In the Los Angeles Times, writer Alex Pham reports that the San Fernando Library encourages youth to play video games and even invites them to be as loud as they like.

“It lets teens be more comfortable with the library and become familiar with librarians,” San Fernando librarian Lydia Harlan told Pham. “And it’s what kids are into these days.”

In the article, Pham reports that more libraries are turning to video games to connect with technologically savvy youth who might be losing interest in books and stories. In New York, the New York Public Library has even added a collection of books, films, music and maps about video games.

Click through for the full article and a list of recommended books…

MORE »

From July 21 through 27, 2008, Gaia Online will host its very own Rejected Olympics. The event is free and open to registered Gaia members.

Gaia Online is an online hangout that was founded in 2003 and has since become the leading hangout with more than 5 million visitors a month to make friends, play games, watch movies and participate in monthly activities.

This year’s rejected Olympic will have up to 100 new games and Olympic-themed…

MORE »

This is getting ridiculous. In the second major news story involving games, teens and violence this week, Wired is reporting that a Chinese teenager set fire to a classmate on the pretense of being a “fire mage” from popular MMO World of Warcraft. The 17-year-old apparently lost a schoolyard fight and later sought revenge by pouring gasoline on the classmate and lighting it up, claiming that he “had lost himself in World of Warcraft and had transformed into a fire mage”. The victim suffered burns on 55% of his body, and the boy himself has received an 8 year prison sentence along with a 760, 000 RMB (approximately $100, 000 USD) fine as a result.

While it’s encouraging that the boy’s claims that the game was at fault weren’t taken terribly seriously by the Chinese legal system, one wonders why he was only given 8 years for such a heinous crime. In any event, it hasn’t been a very good week for the games and violence debate between this and the Mortal Kombat teens in Colorado.

Read [Billsdue] Via [Wired]

• Micro Center’s Black Friday 2008 weekend sales
• Swedish teen suffers seizure after 24-hour World of Warcraft: Lich King marathon
• Hey, you stupid teen.  Learn something.

Teenagers are always looking for adventures, but how bored do they have to be to go on a “mission” at their local high school in Kingston, Washington?

According to the North Kitsap Herald, police busted five teens, four 18-year-olds and a 15-year-old, who entered Kingston High School November 4, 2007 by climbing the school and entering a door located on the roof. Once inside the teens relieved their boredom by pushing each other around in a wheeled garbage can through the halls.

While playing around and having fun, the teens set off the school’s security alarm around 1 a.m. and, because the alarm included an audio device, the dispatchers could hear the teens talking. The teens were so busy trying to find a place to hide that when the sheriff’s deputies could see one of the students walking through the hallways wearing a black mask and tactical vest.

It wasn’t long before the deputies figured out how the kids got into the school. They found a ladder propped against the wall to the school’s second floor roof and a rope they were using to access the third floor roof. Which the deputies used to gain access to the roof and quickly found all five students hiding inside an air conditioning unit.

Once the deputies got all five teens on the ground, the kids pleaded that they never intended to vandalize or steal from the school, they just wanted to “climb something.” The youngest of the group said she and her friends just wanted to go on a mission after playing Splinter Cell and decided to go to the school.

Three of the 18-year-olds were booked at the Kitsap County Jail for second degree burglary with bail set at $10,000, the fourth 18-year-old was charged for second degree burglary and possession of burglary tools setting his bail at $10,500. The 15-year-old was sent to juvenile detention for second degree burglary.

Read [North Kitsap Herald] Read [Game Politics]

• Obama, technology and the future - Part Three
• Ghost Recon gets novel treatment
• Bill Cosby equates Grand Theft Auto with an entrance exam to prison