Tracey Lien, Polygon:

President of the marketing firm A Squared Group Amy Cotteleer says that marketing is so powerful that it can shape our values and beliefs, and we’re often not even aware that it’s happening. Coca-Cola’s marketing campaigns in the 1920s are the reason why the modern-day image of Santa Claus is a jovial, plump man in a Coca-Cola Red suit. Prior to Coca-Cola, there was no consistent image of Santa. He was often represented as a skinny man who sometimes wore green and sometimes wore brown. So if Coca-Cola could sell us the modern-day Santa, the game industry would not have had much trouble selling the idea that video games are for males.

Kick off this detailed and gorgeous read explaining why video games are for boys and why that needs to change with this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CU040Hqbas

Tracey Lien and Polygon, thank you for this amazing feature. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think there’s something in my eye.

USA Today

“Disney Infinity producer John Vignocchi says the Princesses’ arrival marks the biggest rollout of toys for the action game since launching in August.

‘The female characters, especially the Princesses, were among the top requests,’ says Vignocchi.

The House of Mouse brings more girls to gaming.

Alexa Ray Corriea, Polygon

New software sales for the quarter increased by 43.1, which the company attributed to the “strong performance” of recently-released games — using Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto 5 as its strongest example example. New hardware sales rose 15.3 percent due to sell-through of the Nintendo 2DS and 3DS handhelds. Conversely, pre-owned sales decreased by two percent.

Keep in mind that Nintendo does not offer hardware sales directly through digital retailer Amazon.com. This also does not reflect sales of next-fen consoles Xbox One or PS4.

High hopes for video game retailers?

Games and Learning

Headed into the study, the authors wanted to study both television and video games, arguing that connections with attention disorders, anger and other problems might be connected to both. Still, researchers wondered if “games may have more powerful effects due to active user engagement, identification with characters and repeated rehearsal and reinforcement.”

KEY FINDINGS

• Exposure to video games had no effect on behavior, attention or emotional issues.
• Watching 3 or more hours of television at age 5 did lead to a small increase in behavioral problems in youngsters between 5 and 7.
• Neither television nor video games lead to attentional or emotional problems.
• There was no difference between boys and girls in the survey results.

In my own experience, the participatory nature of video games adds stress, problem solving, and exploratory functions that can enhance one’s imagination. Speaking for myself (and hopefully many others), I feel that this medium has helped flesh-out ones creative passions be it storytelling, pattern assessment, communication, and/or technical know-how.

As I am currently writing a book, I have found it easiest to open up a world by envisioning how I would explore a video game. I am able to more effectively envision the world through a first or third person view by relying on the mechanics that have been built into some of my favorite video games. The ability to attach myself to video game characters has had a profound impact on my writing abilities. My book may or may not be very good but the ease of writing it has been nurtured by a lifetime of gaming.

How have you benefitted from gaming?

Samit Sarkar reporting for Polygon

In order to investigate this, the researchers asked 23 adults with an average age of 24 to play Super Mario 64 for at least half an hour a day, every day for two months. Compared to a control group of individuals who did not play any games during the study, the gamers evinced “significant gray matter increase” in three areas of the brain: the right hippocampal formation, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and bilateral cerebellum.

Two study’s on the positive size effects of game in one day?!