Psychologists use video game Rock Band to study work flow

November 18th, 2009 'Uncharted 2' leads Video Game Award nominationsNEW YORK — "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves" has seized a leading eight nominations for this year's Video Game Awards, Spike TV announced Wednesday. The action-adventure "Uncharted 2" is bucking for Game of the Year, as is "Batman: Arkham Asylum," which logged a total of seven nominations, according to Spike TV, which presents the awards.

August 18th, 2009 LONDON - The average age of an adult video gamer has been found to be 35, which is higher than previously believed, reveals a new US study. According to a team from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), players were also less healthy, fatter, and more depressed than those who stayed away from the device.

September 11th, 2009 US video game sales slide in August for 6th monthNEW YORK — Video games sales declined in August for the sixth straight month, following what analysts called a disappointing showing from the latest "Madden" game. Nonetheless, game makers are eyeing a stronger September, boosted by the much-hyped launch of "The Beatles: Rock Band" as well as "Guitar Hero 5." Although the video game industry held out longer than many other sectors in the recession, it began recording double-digit declines in March when compared with the same period in 2008.

September 9th, 2009 Beatlemania back as Britain celebrates B-DayLONDON — Beatlemania is back as Britons snap up copies of the Fab Four's remastered albums and the new Rock Band video game. Critics are raving about the sound quality of the albums and the video game that were released Wednesday.

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.

July 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Rock legend Jimmy Page has clearly said that no Led Zeppelin-based video game will be made, insisting that the band's musical compositions are impossible to replicate. He says that he does not have any plans to follow in the footsteps of bands like Aerosmith, Metallica and The Beatles who have allowed the makers of computer games, such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band, to use their songs in the software, giving fans the chance to recreate the music.

July 28th, 2009 Viacom's 2Q profit falls 32 percentNEW YORK — Viacom's second-quarter profit tumbled 32 percent as revenue fell amid a weak advertising market, slower video game sales and fewer movie releases. The media conglomerate controlled by billionaire Sumner Redstone earned $277 million, or 46 cents per share, compared with $407 million, or 65 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.

September 11th, 2009 NPD: Video game sales slide again in AugustNEW YORK — Retail sales of video games have declined for six straight months. Analysts are blaming the slow August — which was expected — in part on a disappointing showing from the latest "Madden" title from Electronic Arts.

November 2nd, 2009 Earnings Preview: Viacom to report 3Q resultsNEW YORK — Viacom Inc., the media conglomerate controlled by Sumner Redstone, reports third-quarter earnings before the market opens on Tuesday. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period.

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.

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 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.

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.

June 5th, 2009 The Electronic Entertainment Expo, commonly known as E3 - the world's largest convention for video games - has ended this Thursday with a total of 40,000 attendees compared to about 5,000 over the past two years. We have to wait till June 15th to 17th, 2010 for the next E3 to be held at Los Angeles Convention Center.

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.