Divorce Online, a website dedicated to getting rid of that dead weight in your marriage, claims that 15 percent of the divorces it has handled can be attributed to spouses that are addicted to online games such as world of Warcraft and Call of Duty.

According to a press release issued by Divorce Online, an examination of 200 unreasonable behavior petitions filed by women using its service between January - April of this year found that 15 percent complained that their husbands were happier playing video games than they were paying attention to them. They called their "gaming addiction" an unreasonable behavior that lead to the divorce they were seeking.

The release also offers comments from one disgruntled 21-year-old wife from London named Jessica Ellis, 24, who married husband Michael in 2008.

A Greece, New York (a small town northwest of Rochester) has been indicted this week on 19 charges alleging sexual abuse of a 12-year-old boy he met online through Xbox Live. A Monroe County grand jury indicted 19-year-old Greece resident Richard J. Kretovic on nine counts of first-degree criminal sexual act, nine counts of second-degree sexual abuse and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

Kretovic was arrested April 19 on one felony charge of first-degree criminal sexual act and a misdemeanor of endangering the welfare of a child. At the time of his arrest, local police urged parents whose children might have been in contact with Kretovic to come forward. The charges delivered by the grand jury dealt only with one child, according to Assistant District Attorney Jason MacBride. MacBride added that the investigation is continuing.

An Xbox Live status update found here warns Modern Warfare 2 users to be on the lookout for scammers who have a brand new scheme ready to trick you into revealing your personal information. The "scheme" will occur while users are playing the game online, according to Microsoft. While hacking and phishing schemes related to Modern Warfare 2 are nothing new to players on every platform the game is on, users who love the game must be ever vigilant in avoiding getting caught in some sort of trap.

"Users may receive potential phishing attempts via title specific messaging while playing Modern Warfare 2," Microsoft warns via the status message.

Microsoft adds that it is "working to resolve the issue."

We hope they figure it out sooner rather than later. However, if you are an MW2 player, be vigilant.

In theory, former Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella could regain partial control of the Call of Duty franchise. We say in theory because the chances of that ever happening are somewhere between slim and none. But the two counts of fraud that the duo added to its lawsuit against Activision earlier this week also asked the court to rescind the Memorandum of Understanding agreement. If the court were to give them a favorable ruling hypothetically, the duo could co-own Call of Duty and release their own games in the series. It's an interesting scenario to explore, even if it is on par with the plot to Independence Day in terms of likelihood.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter - and most anyone with an inkling of common sense say that this will never happen.

A new study from Simmons College researchers comes to the conclusion that children exposed to more violent games for longer periods of time are less able to sympathize with others. The new study published in the Journal of Children and Media surveyed 166 Boston, MA and southern New Hampshire schoolchildren. The study was overseen by Simmons College professors Edward T. Vieira and Marina Krcmar. They examined the relationship between violent games and kids' attitudes toward violence.

The duo surveyed children age 7-15 about their favorite games, how many hours a week they played, and questions to gauge their ability to sympathize with others, to see things from another person's perspective, and whether they saw violence as an appropriate response in situations where it would be deemed justified or unjustified. The favorite "violent games" included Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Counter Strike, Mortal Kombat: Deception, and World of Warcraft.

Former Infinity Ward front men Jason West and Vince Zampella have added something more to its ongoing lawsuit against Activision: fraud. The duo claim that Activision had no intention of honoring its promises of bonuses and creative control on the Call of Duty franchise. According to a freshly filed complaint, West and Zampella secured a contract with Infinity Ward through a "Memorandum of Understanding" with Activision.

"To protect its interest in consummating its merger with Vivendi Games, Activision needed to do everything it could to keep West and Zampella content with their responsibilities and compensation at Infinity Ward. This gave West and Zampella considerable bargaining power in their negotiations with Activision," reads the amended complaint.

California Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle has ruled (without commenting on the merits of the case) that Activision has provided enough evidence to allow its $400 million lawsuit against Electronic Arts to go forward. The case is tied to Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vince Zampella. A trial is tentatively scheduled to begin sometime in May.

Activision has accused EA of helping West and Zampella breach their contract, that EA received confidential information from the Infinity Ward founders, and that the duo held back the release of Modern Warfare 2 DLC to benefit the release of an EA game. Activision added EA to its long-running legal battle with West and Zempella as counter-claim to their lawsuit. West and Zampella filed a $36 million lawsuit against Activision, claiming they had been let go to avoid making royalty payments on Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

According to NPD group retail sales data for February, the industry grew by 3 percent in overall sales. But the big story coming out of last month's numbers is that Call of Duty: Black Ops is the best selling game in U.S. history. This is great news for Treyarch, who for many years has stood in the long shadow of Infinity Ward. It finally proves that the company can create a Call of Duty game that is on the same level of quality as anything its sister studio can produce.

Overall, consumers spent around $1.36 billion on games and consoles during the month, up from 1.33 billion in the same period last year. Console sales were up 10 percent during the month, even though spending on games was down five percent compared to last year. Console accessories were up 22 percent over the same period a year ago, mostly due to Kinect.

Wholly owned Activision developer Infinity Ward has released a patch that the studio believes will eliminate the ability to use hacks in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on the PS3. An Xbox 360 and PC version of the patch is coming soon, it says.

Players who have had all kinds of problems with online shenanigans welcome the update. The update is also made possible thanks to a firmware update from Sony that dealt with the aftermath of George "GeoHot" Hotz's jailbreak of the system. That jailbreak opened up the floodgates for unscrupulous individuals who wanted to create online hacks and cheats.

While Infinity Ward says this patch should deal with most of the hacks being used in MW2, its effectiveness at this early hour is unknown. We will let you know if this eliminates the problems as promised or is a wasted effort on IW's part.

Source: IGN

Speaking at Iowa State University this week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) said that one of the best ways to deal with the ever-escalating costs of a higher education might be found in video games and technology. Pawlenty is on the stump because - many believe - he will take a run at becoming president in 2012. Pawlenty mentioned remote learning during a brief question & answer session with ISU Republicans. His answer was in response to a question about how he reconciles his goal of improving education with spending cuts.

"Let’s say you can scale the best Econ 101 lecture and not a lecture, not some guy standing in a room lecturing but let’s say it has all the sights and sounds and video and visual components of Call of Duty 3, but now it’s Econ 101. Or instead of learning about WW II, you’re fighting in WW II."

Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling announced via Twitter that a fix is on the way for Modern Warfare 2. The game has been the victim of multiple hacks and cheats - particularly on the PS3 - that have frustrated players to no end. Some suggests that this patch is only possible because of the updating Sony did recently to its firmware. We do not know about that, but fans will be happy to hear that they might soon be able to play a hand or two of MW2 without worrying about filthy cheaters.

Bowling said that a patch would be released on PlayStation 3 worldwide March 8, with an Xbox 360 and PC version to follow in the not-too-distant-future. All of these patches are "to address hacking." Bowling added via Twitter that the patch "will also address a small geo exploit on the map Fuel, which players exploited in order to get inside a rock on the outskirts of the map."

We hope so.

Dr. Walid Phares, the security expert cited by Russia Today in its report on Modern Warfare 2 and a recent Russian airport suicide bombing, has penned an editorial telling his side of the story.

The overall theme of his editorial is at least positive to video game proponents: video games do not create terrorists, Jihadi ideology does.

First he tackles the tenuous link that Russia Today tried to make between the bombing and the "No Russian" scene in Modern Warfare 2:

PS3 Call of Duty: Black Ops players will be happy to hear that Treyarch has issued a patch to deal with the myriad of issues that users have been complaining about for a very long time. The update is supposed to fix game freezes and infinite loading screens, among other issues.

It also adds a new pre-match timer for system link and LAN games, adds some new "contracts," and balance tweaks for several weapons including the PSG1, silenced sniper rifle, RCXD, and AK47U. The full list of fixes, as detailed in forum post are below:

A state-sponsored Russian news program does its best to tie a recent terrorist attack to the "No Russian" level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The Domodedovo Airport in Moscow was the scene of a suicide bombing attack this week that killed dozens of people and injured nearly 200. Looking for the cause of the bombing, Russia Today goes out of its way to blame Activision's Modern Warfare 2 for the actions of the terrorists.

While the report does not emphatically blame Modern Warfare 2 as the cause, reports for the news outlet examine the scenes from the "No Russian" mission and try to draw some parallels to the "all-to-real" violence this week. The report talks about the "American-made" game, its popularity and sales figures and the similarities to the events.

If you have already read our story about Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward blaming Sony for the rash of hacks and exploits, then you get a good sense of how the PS3 Call of Duty community feels. They are pissed off, frustrated and feel like no one wants to help them. No doubt, Infinity Ward and Treyarch are equally frustrated with the problems they have encountered on the PS3 related to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops.

Modern Warfare 2 players complaining about hacks and exploits on the PS3 should blame Sony and not Infinity Ward, says Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling from Infinity Ward. Bowling jumped on the official Infinity Ward forums recently to talk about the PS3's latest security issues, and how much power Infinity Ward really has in dealing with the problems that have cropped up on the platform related to the company's games.

"Sony has recently acknowledged a breach in security on the PS3 which resulted in games to become exposed to exploits and hacks," Bowling said. "Modern Warfare 2 is no exception to this security exploit and we understand that some of you have experienced problems with stats and other issues associated with this."

Video game retailer GameStop reported record sales of $3.02 billion for the nine-week holiday season that ended on January 1. This marked a 5.4 percent increase over the same period last year, driven by Kinect sales, and "strong sell through" of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 titles such as Call of Duty: Black Ops and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. The company also reported 32 percent growth in gift card sales during the month of December.

New hardware sales improved 7.4 percent based mostly on the successful debut of Microsoft's Kinect. New video game software sales increased 3.3 percent.

The Pennsylvania man accused of stealing a Game Boy from a deceased teen's coffin this week has been arrested by police.

Police alleged that 37 year-old Jody Lynn Bennett, stole a "Game Boy" from the coffin of family friend 17 year-old Bradley McCombs, during a wake in Montgomery Township. According to the Tribune-Democrat, the boy's uncle, Robert McCombs Jr., confronted the "family friend" outside the funeral home, and Bennett handed back the Game Boy. When the uncle returned to the wake, he realized that Bennett did not return all of the items he stole: three game cartridges and a "Game Boy Light" were still missing.

Activision is suing Electronic Arts, adding the company to an existing lawsuit against former Infinity Ward co-founders. The amendment to the lawsuit filed in court this week claims that EA induced Jason West and Vince Zampella to break their contracts with Activision during the development of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This, the company says, was done so that the duo would be free to establish its new studio, Respawn, and sign with the EA Partners program.

According to the filing obtained by GameSpot, "starting as early as July 30, 2009, Electronic Arts and [West and Zampella]--with full knowledge that the executives were under contract and legally committed to Activision for more than two additional years--conspired to set up an independent company."

Activision's latest Call of Duty game has cracked the billion-dollar mark. The Treyarch-developed Call of Duty: Black Ops has raked in over $1 billion dollars in retails sales, according to publisher Activision. The game managed to hit that sales number in a little over a month and a half after release. On a related note, Xbox Live players have managed to rack up an impressive 600 million hours of online play.

This is certainly good news for Activision, who needed to prove to its investors that Treyarch could fill the shoes of Infinity Ward after that development studio lost a good portion of its developers after a dispute with Activision. For now, it looks like Treyarch has pulled the company's fanny out of a potential fire.

Source: LA Times Blog

WedBush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter says that the technical problems associated with the Windows PC and PS3 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops will have "no impact" on the reputations of developer Treyarch or publisher Activision.

Pachter says that, despite the number of errors the game has had on the platforms and post-patch problems for some users, there will be no backlash from the community because Treyarch is responding quickly to the problems.

Treyarch released a patch this week to address the known issues with the game, but some users are complaining about connection issues still.

Yesterday Treyarch community manager Josh Olin issued a statement on the official site for the game, letting the community know that the company was aware of problems post-patch and working on a solution:

The East Valley Education Center, an Oakdale private school for special needs children, has been making an effort to help its students come out of their shells and be more social by allowing them to play video games.

Pretty groovy, no?

Well, according to a CBS Sacramento report, some of these games are M-rated titles such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Yeah, probably not the best pick and to the surprise of no one, there has been a complaint.  The parents of one autistic boy told CBS that their son had been acting angrily and even violent towards his sister.

Sales of video games rose 8 percent in November to $2.99 billion, according to data from research firm NPD Group. November's numbers were driven by Kinect, and sales from Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops. Year-to-date sales were still down 5 percent to $14.06 billion, despite a good November.

Accessory sales were up 69 percent to $413 million thanks to Kinect - and Sony's Move to some degree, while hardware sales rose 2 percent to $1.08 billion, and software rose 4 percent to $1.46 billion.

Call of Duty: Black Ops was the top-selling game in November, with 8.4 million units sold.

The Nintendo DS remained the top-selling gaming device (over 1.5 million sold in November), but the Xbox 360 saw a 68 percent sales increase of 1.37 million consoles. Some of that came from bundles that included the Kinect and games.

A Call of Duty denial of service attack has landed a 17-year-old in the pokey, according to the BBC (thanks beemoh). The teenager was arrested on "suspicion of offences" under the UK's Computer Misuse Act. He is currently enjoying the hospitality of the local police. The 17-year-old was arrested in the Beswick area of Manchester by the Metropolitan Police's central e-crime unit.

I would assume his name was withheld in the report due to his age.

The arrest is related to a DDoS attack against Activision's Call of Duty online servers in September, though details of the crime were not revealed at the time of this writing. Activision contacted law enforcement shortly thereafter.

A warm-up event took place this past Saturday at the Sacramento Public Library in advance of a Call of Duty: Black Ops tournament scheduled for mid-December. The event, which drew controversy when it was originally announced, went off with a hitch—approximately 20 people protested the event outside of the library.

Protestors included members of the local chapter of Veterans for Peace, reports the Sacramento Bee. The picketers held signs with slogans like “War is not a game,” and handed out fliers that stated, “End War games at the Public Library.”

Last week we alluded to the problems some people have with libraries recruiting youngsters by lending games and scheduling videogame-based activities, now the Sacramento Public Library is getting criticism for scheduling a Call of Duty: Black Ops tournament.

The event, scheduled for December 11, is just one of a slew of game-centric events offered by the library; a Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament is slated for tomorrow, November 23 and similar upcoming events ask players to come and try out Rock Band and Mario Kart.

Whatever you think of the ad for Call of Duty Black Ops, it sure has captured the attention of the public, and it’s still generating press weeks after its debut. The ad cleverly captures the interactivity of videogames and further dizzies viewers with appearances from Kobe Bryant and Jimmy Kimmel.

Aside from the violence being portrayed, the other real sticking point with critics seemed to be the youthful looking girl blasting away with a shotgun, pausing only for an enraptured smile. The female who played shotgun girl? The (aptly named) actress B.K. Cannon, who has also appeared in episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, ER and House M.D.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops ad that has inflamed columnists and moronic sports writers alike is also generating a split reaction from the general public.

Ace Metrix, a company that measures the effectiveness of television advertising, reports that the Black Ops ad scored high with male viewers, but offended older female viewers.

Green Bay Press Gazette columnist Leonard Pitts has authored an open letter to Cuba in response to that country’s outrage over a mission to assassinate Fidel Castro in the recently-released Activision game Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Pitts tells Cuba that there’s “virtually nothing” that can be done about the game and calls a claim by state news agency Cubadebate that the game “stimulates sociopathic attitudes in North American children and adolescents,” “naïve, at best” and “hysterical at worst.”

Pitts does have some empathy however:

In light of the Cuban government’s dissatisfaction with a mission in Call of Duty: Black Ops that has players attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro, the Washington D.C.-based Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ) has called for a boycott of the game.

Noting that Wal-Mart, Best Buy and “dozens of other retailers in your community are today dealing this pornography to the children in your community,” AFGJ called Black Ops “part of the whole culture of US militarism with the entertainment industry’s role being to desensitize us to violence.”