Simon Parkin, NewStatesman:

Video games are the most profitable medium in the entertainment industry. In the early 1990s Nintendo generated more annual profits than all of the American film studios combined. But despite its size, the medium’s audience is often referred to as a homogenous group. Players and commentators talk of the ‘gaming community’, as if the cross-cultural, socially diverse mass of humans who play video games is somehow uniform in gender, race, age and class. The idiocy of the term is only too clear when applied to other media such as literature (the ‘reading community’?), music (the ‘listening community’?) or film (the ‘observing community’?).

A delightfully provocative read about the idea of gaming as a community. I will also recommend that you swing by GamesAndLearning.org and play through Gone Home:

Tracey Lien, Polygon:

The event has also drawn criticism. One of the key issues raised during last year’s event was the way in which a “ceasefire” inadvertently created a connection between violent video games and violent actions in the real world. With the media, politicians and various lobbies frequently making that connection on their own, it was seen as fuel for an already problematic image of video games.

According to technology and entertainment writer Daniel Nye Griffiths, whose work has appeared in Forbes and Wired UK, while he doesn’t doubt that the ceasefire is coming from a sincere place, such an event is tricky for multiple reasons.

Shooter “ceasefire” sincerity stimulates sticky situation.

Dave Tach, Polygon:

Cropland Capture, a game hosted on the Geo-Wiki Project’s website, tasks players with identifying cropland from Google Earth images. Players get points for identifying land and could win an Amazon Kindle, a Samsung Galaxy S4 and more through the game’s ongoing tournament. According to a recent tweet from the game’s official Twitter account, players have combed more than 300,000 square kilometers of land.

Crowd-source gaming initiative to find better cropland.

Luke Karmali, IGN

Speaking about the global 2.1 million figure, House said, “It’s an impressive and record-setting accomplishment for our company and for our industry, and we couldn’t have done it without you. I want to personally thank PlayStation fans, both old and new, for your vote of confidence.

PS4 sells gangbusters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qyVoAfkAuk

Jude Ower, Playmob CEO:

Over the past couple of years, gamers have raised over 80 million dollars for charities that they care about through games that they love to play. Now this is us just getting started and we can do so much more. So we at Playmob have setup Give8Bit, a channel on Youtube where you can find out the latest campaigns to give as you game. Please subscribe and get involved.

Make a difference while gaming.

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