… quoth Peter Molyneux in this Guardian piece on AI:
That said, Molyneux doesn’t believe AI can be solely responsible for intense, dynamic emotional experiences; they need to be married with what he calls “smoke and mirrors”.
“You have to define what games developers call AI,” he says, “as opposed to academic AI. There’s actually very little [...]

Henry Jenkins has penned a thoughtful and, as ever, verbose piece on media violence. Excerpt:
So, let me start with an intentionally provocative statement. There is no such thing as media violence — at least not in the ways that we are used to talking about it — as something which can be easily identified, counted, [...]

Nordic Game Program director Erik Robertson in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz stated that European games companies must focus on distribution in order to compete successfully on a global scale.

GAMES:EDU:07, the International conference for games education announces speakers from the leaders of the next generation gaming industry, including Microsoft, Epic Games, Evolution Studios, SCEE, Autodesk, Rare and Disney. Organised by Pixel-Lab and Tandem Events it takes place as part of the Develop Conference in Brighton on Tuesday 24th July.
The conference now in its second [...]

The latest issue of NMA has a profile of Annika Small, CEO of Futurelab. The article is behind a paywall, but this snippet is worth passing on:
“If we apply a fraction of the user engagement that we see in things like massively multiplayer online games to the school and learning environment, then we could see [...]

EA UK’s Guildford studio will host the London and South East centre for 2007’s Dare to be Digital competition.
The collaboration has come about via a partnership between organiser Abertay University, EA, NESTA, the London Development Agency, South East Media Network and chip company AMD.
Four teams of five students each will be selected to spend the [...]

The British Board of Film Classification has published a report about game players’ habits and game effects, throwing up some interesting points concerning game violence and the negative effects of press coverage.
The report is based on qualitative research carried out on gamers ranging from children as young as seven through to players in their early [...]

… Although no jobs have been cut as yet.
Speaking with GameDaily, SCEE’s director of corporate communications Nick Sharples said that “the management of the company has concluded that we need to change our structure, streamline and strengthen our business operations – and that our cost base needs to be significantly reduced.”
Sony’s vast European operation includes, [...]

Big Brother maker Endemol is to launch a virtual world where people can take part in familiar games and shows.
Virtual Me will allow these avatars to compete in online versions of Deal or No Deal, Fame Academy and Big Brother.
Endemol and computer game company Electronic Arts said the site would be launched “in the coming [...]

Gamesindustry.biz has an intriguing tidbit on potential plans for the PS3 given the success of Folding@Home on the console:
“We are discussing various options with companies and exploring commercial applications,” said Sony’s chief technology officer, Masa Chatani.
“A start-up or a pharmaceutical company that lacks a super-computer could utilise this kind of infrastructure,” detailed Chatani.
While the Folding@home [...]