The Hartford Courant is highlighting a story about a 12-year-old Newtown, Connecticut boy who has started a campaign to "stop playing violent video games." Max Goldstein, a 12-year-old student who attends Newtown Middle School, says that he decided to stop playing games like "Call of Duty" after attending the funeral of one of his brother's friends who had been killed during the Sandy Hook Elementary School shoot

Concordia University communications professor Mia Consalvo conducted a study to find the correlation between sports video game fans and their media consumption. The results of that study were recently published in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies.

While we're not sure if it will ultimately sway the publisher and developer of Dark Souls II, we applaud the efforts of the people behind a petition on Change.org, who managed to get 10,000 signatures on a petition asking From Software and publisher Namco Bandai to bring the game to the Wii U.

A new report from GameTrack shows that America is a gaming super power, with American gamers outnumbering the rest of the world when it comes to playing games online and across a wide variety of platforms. The data finds that 48 percent of the American gaming audience play online games, compared 42 percent who play packaged games. Around 27 percent of that online gaming in America is done through browsers. Around 31 percent of American gamers enjoy playing through apps on their phones and tablets.

We often like to point out when companies crush fan-made projects under a barrage of cease-and-desist letters and threats of punitive court actions, but Capcom has taken a different and positive tact for the fan-made mash-up game Street Fighter X Mega Man. The game pits the Blue Bomber against the stars of the popular Street Fighter series of fighting games, and as Mega Man beats the snot out of the likes of Blanka, Ryu, and Rose, he gains their special powers to use against other folks in the Street Fighter universe.

While some may want to live in the past and engage in behavior that is less than savory while playing online games competitively, professional gamers are increasingly finding out that aggressive, abrasive, misogynistic, racist, and homophobic language is no longer acceptable.

Epic Games President Mike Capps announced today that he will retire from the company after ten years of helping to create such hits as Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Bulletstorm, and Gears of War. He'll be handing off his presidential duties to someone else at Epic and will take on an advisory role. He'll remain on the Epic board of directors.

Capps did not disclose who would replace him as President of the company.

Capps issued a lengthy statement explaining why he was leaving, which you can read below:

In what has to be a record take-down of a questionable piece of marketing, Square Enix pulled a Facebook app promoting Hitman Absolution two hours after it was deployed after a scathing report from Rock, Paper, Shotgun. The company later apologized for the app. The trouble began after RPS wrote about how "Hire Hitman" app allowed users to target and assassinate their Facebook friends, complete with death threats to your intended target.

CCP Games has revealed its plans to explain a typical day in the life of someone in the EVE Online universe as part of being included in The Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. EVE Online was one of several games selected by MOMA to be on display for most of next year as part of an exhibit the explores and celebrates the history of gaming (more details here).

In an inspirational post on IGN, Greg Miller announces that "Greg Miller Beats Cancer (For Now)." We are excited to share the news that IGN's popular commentator, podcaster, and all around good guy Greg Miller has undergone treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and has successfully (so far) put the disease into remission. Miller announced that he had cancer back in early August.

According to this Reddit thread Sega has been forcing YouTube users to remove videos relating to the Sega Saturn hit strategy RPG Shining Force III. Many are speculating that Sega is doing this to prepare for the launch of a new PSP installment in the Shining series, Shining Ark, which will launch in Japan in February.

While Grand Theft Auto V is coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next year, Rockstar Games has said that other platforms such as the PC and Wii U are still "under consideration" at this time. This is apparently not a strong enough response from PC gamers who want the game on their preferred platform and in a timely fashion. To that end a petition on Change.org has been launched. So far that petition has over 50,000 signatures from gamers who want to see GTA V on the PC.

A regular GamePolitics reader (who has asked to remain anonymous) points out that something is a little screwy with Wal-Mart's prices listed in its ads and how they ring up at the cash register. His tale begins with this leaked Black Friday flyer at theblackfriday.com, which shows select video games with price points set at $10, $15,and $25.

UK games Retailer GAME and IGN announced a partnership this week that will see the two companies team up in 2013. Under the terms of the new deal IGN and GAME will work on a range of community based initiatives including special events, live-streamed gatherings and events, and "special guests" at GAME store locations.

Major League Gaming, Dreamhack and the Electronic Sports League revealed today a partnership that unifies pro-gaming tournament activities throughout their 2012 and 2013 eSports seasons, according to this press release from Dreamhack - as reported by Polygon.

nFluence media has released a survey that it commissioned about the concerns of consumers when it comes to online security and privacy related to mobile and broadband usage in the United Kingdom. Before sharing the results, it should be noted that nFluence is in the business of providing software solutions to consumers that allow them to take control of their personal data.

Gen. David Petraeus, who resigned recently from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) due to a scandal related to an extra-marital affair (which continues to play out in the news this week) has apparently received a promotion in the latest chapter of the Call of Duty series. In the latest game - released this week - Black Ops II - Petraeus is the Secretary of Defense in the year 2025. He appears in part of the story, riding aboard the U.S.S. Barack Obama.

Major League Gaming announced a whopping 334 percent year-over-year growth in live streaming video viewers of its gaming competition. According to the pro gaming event company, more than 11.7 million unique viewers tuned in to watch the four 2012 MLG Pro Circuit Championships online, compared to the 2011 Pro Circuit season which drew 3.5 million unique online viewers. They also claim that more than 15 million hours of live online video were watched during Pro Circuit weekends by MLG's audience.

In Episode 27 of the Super Podcast Action Committee hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the 2012 presidential election - including some candidates you may not have heard of because the media has done its best to ignore them. They also talk about Barack Obama's and Mitt Romney's past statements on video games, net neutrality and other important issues that impact internet users and gamers... It can't hurt to listen to this show before you go and vote on Tuesday, November 6.

Apparently some XCOM: Enemy Unknown players have declared to 2K Games' Firaxis that easy mode isn't all that easy and that they wouldn't mind something done about it. Firaxis has listened to the community (as detailed in this forum thread) and plans to tone things down a bit with a second patch - release date to be determined.

Besides making the game a lot easier in easy mode across all platforms, the patch will deal with a number of other issues that have cropped up:

Megaupload co-founder Kim Dotcom has launched a teaser site for "Mega" at Me.ga. Dotcom says that the placeholder site is already getting millions of hits despite offering very little to visitors beyond information on how it will work when it launches. Kim Dotcom claims that Mega will use encryption methods that make it so that only those users who are uploading something know what it is. By hiding what users are uploading, Dotcom hopes to avoid the long arm of U.S. law enforcement.

In Episode 26 of the Super Podcast Action Committee hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight celebrate Halloween with tales of horror about bugs and glitches in video games, offer their opinions on Activision editing a Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer map because of complaints from the community, and share several true ghost stories. It's spookier and creepier (or hotter depending on your perspective) than Mitt Romney making out with President Barack Obama and Gary Johnson in the balcony of a seedy New York City movie theater!

Jonatan Soderstrom, one of the co-creators of the popular indie PC game Hotline Miami, apparently noticed a thread over on The Pirate Bay complaining about bugs in his game. So what does he do? He joins in and promises a patch!. Yes, Soderstrom offers support even to people who pirated his game. From the thread (uncovered by PC Gamer):

The The Entertainment Consumers Association announced that its local chapters are working together to collect and share food in their local communities in the United States and Canada.

The ECA is also asking the gaming community to pitch in in whatever way they can by volunteering or by giving food to your local ECA chapter. You can find an ECA chapter near you by checking out this list.

A new United Nations report calls for internet surveillance in the name of fighting terrorism, reports C|Net. The report points out the lack of international agreements on the retention of data, and concerns about open Wi-Fi networks in places like airports, cafes and libraries that are likely prime spots for terrorists and cyber terrorists chatter.

41-year-old Justin Success Brooks of the United Kingdom found out the hard way that it's not a good idea to mess with the folks at Nintendo. He has been charged with the "fraudulent sale of counterfeit Nintendo games," according to a report in the Croydon Guardian. Brooks was caught red-handed in an investigation conducted by Nintendo and the UK Interactive Entertainment association.

The Twitch community has managed to raise more than $1.5 million for the Extra Life 2012 charity, which is set to see thousands of gamers partake in day-long marathon gaming sessions to earn money put up by thousands of sponsors. The fund goes to hospitals that are part of the Children’s Miracle Network.

Over the weekend pictures and forum threads started to illustrate that players had somehow gotten their hands on early copies of Halo 4 - which isn't set for release until November 6th. Microsoft was obviously not very pleased with this news and promised that it would conduct an investigation into the early leaks of the game and would do so in conjunction with law enforcement.

It is shocking just how many gamers have at least one or two games lying around that they haven't finished or haven't played. In episode 24 of the Super Podcast Action Committee Andrew and EZK spend a fair amount of time talking about that topic and revealing the results of the latest GamePolitics poll. They also dissect the latest lawsuits including one against Turbine Entertainment and a settlement agreement between Spry Fox and 6Waves over some unauthorized cloning of a popular iOS app. FX Network's Archer also gets an honorable mention..

With eight more days to go, Andrea Seabrook has managed to raise $36,669 of her $75,000 goal to help fund her innovative podcast, DecodeDC. Seabrook says that "Washington D.C. is broken." She should know - she spent many years as a national correspondent to Congress at National Public Radio. A few months ago she had had enough of lawmakers "lying to her face" and decided to leave NPR to do something different.