Average age of adult video game player is 35: US study

July 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A comprehensive study of gaming characters has revealed that video games do not accurately represent minorities. The study encompassing the top 150 games in a year across nine platforms and all rating levels, and weighted by each title's popularity, shows that the video game industry showed that less than 3pct of game characters were "recognizably Hispanic." Latinos were nearly invisible and women and other groups were underrepresented.

August 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - People who play video games may get addicted for life to their consoles, just like gamblers get hooked to cards, warn health experts. This is quite evident from the growing sales of the games and the hardware amid the ongoing economic slowdown.

June 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Previous research has suggested that playing violent videogames is linked to aggressive behaviour in kids. Now, three new studies have concluded that the other side of the coin also holds true: playing prosocial video games promote friendly behaviour.

September 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - What do hide-and-seek, police searches and video games have in common? More than you would think, say two University of Alberta (U-A) researchers. Experimental psychologist Marcia Spetch and computer scientist Vadim Bulitko at U-A are using their research to understand the reasoning and decision-making process involved in hide-and-seek objects.

June 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Most of us are aware of the relationship between violent video games and aggressive behaviour. But now for the first time, researchers have found that some video games can make children kinder and more likely to help other people.

August 21st, 2009 WELLINGTON - Teenagers who are addicted to video games are more likely to develop obsessive and antisocial tendencies leading to gambling, says a new research. A survey of 2669 teenagers aged between 13 and 17 by Adelaide University researchers found 56 per cent had gambled in the past year.

September 23rd, 2009 LONDON - The first ever "virtual census" of the human characters used in US video games has shown that males, adults and white people are over-represented in such games, while females, black people, children and the elderly are under-represented. Dmitri Williams of the University of Southern California-Los Angeles (UCLA), who carried out the study with colleagues at Indiana University, Ohio University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute, says that the mismatch between real-world and videogame populations could be excluding some groups of potential players from games.

August 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Whether video games can boost memory and thinking skills in the elderly is being investigated as part of a new study, funded by the National Science Foundation in the US. Having received a 1.2million-dollar grant for the study as part of the federal stimulus package, researchers at North Carolina State University and the Georgia Institute of Technology now hope that their findings will eventually pave the way for a prototype video game that will be helpful in boosting thinking skills among old people.

September 13th, 2009 LONDON - Two researchers at University of Birmingham, UK claim to have found the key to designing a hit video game. According to Russell Beale and Matthew Bond, it may just be a matter of social interactions and avoiding bad pricing.

October 8th, 2009 'Project Runway' to become Wii gameLOS ANGELES — "Project Runway" is strutting to Nintendo's Wii. Atari Inc. is developing a video game based on the popular reality TV fashion competition.

September 22nd, 2009 Game over: Fla. cops caught playing Wii on the jobLAKELAND, Fla.

July 17th, 2009 June video game sales drop sharplyNEW YORK — Squeezed by the economic downturn, U.S. retail sales of video games dropped sharply in June.

September 23rd, 2009 Fla. cops caught playing video game during raidBARTOW, Fla. — A Florida sheriff says he is embarrassed that investigators from a narcotics task force were caught on camera playing a video game while searching a convicted drug dealer's house.

August 14th, 2009 Sector Snap: Stocks shrug off low video game salesNEW YORK — Investors seemed to look past dismal July video game sales on Friday to expectations of a better second half to the year, with shares of game makers holding up despite the fifth straight month of declines. Market researcher NPD Group reported a 29 percent drop in sales of game hardware, software and accessories Thursday, an even steeper decline than analysts were expecting.

August 14th, 2009 July video game sales show sharp declineNEW YORK — Hurt by the recession and few hit game launches, U.S. retail sales of video games dropped sharply in July, market researcher NPD Group says.