You might think something as innocuous the American Library Association’s third annual National Gaming Day, held this past Saturday, might be beyond the scope of criticism, but when you have an agenda (and a book) to push, logic, perhaps, goes out the window.

Psychology Today is hosting a column by Ryan Van Cleave, author of Unplugged; My Journey Into the Dark World of Video Game Addiction and the man behind the Video Game Addiction Awareness Week (VGAAW) website.

An article penned by the Editorial Board of the Oregonian calls violent games “poison to the teen mind,” and cites “a fragmented but growing body of research,” to back its hopes that the California legislation will at least “find footing” in order to “set a promising example.”

The opinion piece states that Schwarzenegger vs EMA is not exclusively about free speech, since the law does not seek an outright ban on violent games.

The California law, according to the Oregonian, would “simply prevent the neighborhood video store clerk from deciding to sell ‘Postal 2’ to a 14-year-old.”

The editorial continued, stating:

A mission in the newly released Call of Duty: Black Ops that has players attempting to assassinate a young Fidel Castro has caused the Cuban government, or at least its mouthpiece, to denounce the game.

The author of an opinion piece appearing in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a piece ostensibly related to the Schwarzenegger vs. EMA Supreme Court case, takes a hatchet to videogames.

Author Jack Markowitz offers, “grudgingly,” that “the Supreme Court will uphold the precious freedom to sell stupid, overpriced electronic games to children.”

A total of eleven state attorneys-general backed California in its Schwarzenegger vs EMA Supreme Court run, with ten signing on to an amicus brief (PDF) penned by the eleventh, James “Buddy” Caldwell (pictured), the Attorney General of Louisiana.

Keeping abreast of where these eleven enemies of the game industry are after Election Day could allow us to possibly anticipate what vantage point they might pull off their next attack on videogames and gamers from.

Let’s see where they are now:

A Vancouver high school student was assaulted by a group of people on Monday, all because the victim and his friends reportedly trash talked opponents after a victorious WarCraft III skirmish.

The student in question was roughed up at Eric Hamber secondary school during lunch hour. The Vancouver Sun reported that the beating came following a WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos online battle in a Defense of the Ancients custom scenario, after which the winning team mocked the losers.

“Four or five assailants,” described as in their late teens, tracked the boy to Eric Hamber, and “made him kiss their feet before hitting him with batons, breaking his fingers.” No arrests have been made yet, though Vancouver’s police youth squad continues to investigate the assault.

After dancing around the question of whether tattoos are okay for Christians, marriage and family therapist Dr. Linda Mintle (pictured) turned her attention to the subject of violent videogames.

On the CBN website, a “preteen” stated that “My mom and dad don’t want me to play violent video games,” and asked the doctor “What’s the big deal?”

Mintle, who is also Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School, before responding with a laundry list of maladies she attributed to playing violent games, said that the “big deal” is that playing such games can lead to aggression and “increase delinquency.”

Among her claims:

Upon visiting a local sports bar, a San Antonio man made a new friend and invited him home to play videogames. Unfortunately the man’s new friend, a “self-proclaimed” mixed martial arts fighter, allegedly beat up the friendly gamer and robbed him.

Patrick Lockhart (pictured) was eventually arrested after his victim picked him out of a lineup. According to WOAI.com, the injured party was purportedly attacked, and knocked out, once the pair entered his home.

The victim suffered a broken jaw and black eye, in addition to having $2,000 in cash and his television stolen.

Lockhart was charged with aggravated robbery.

The potential moral to the story? It’s probably safer to play games on PSN or XBL rather than in person with strangers.

Following a recent rash of violent crime, the district attorney for the Massachusetts county of Middlesex is attempting to pin at least some of the blame on violent videogames.

District Attorney Gerry Leone, when asked about the recent transgressions, stated that “None of this surprises me,” adding, “I find young people have a more cavalier attitude toward crime than they've ever had.”

Continuing, Leone stated that today’s youth are “not really drawing the boundaries between a bad choice and a really seriously bad choice.” Why? “I attribute that to the numbing of our young people,” answered Leone.

A Pennsylvania man was arrested on a variety of charges after his live-in girlfriend, enraged that the unemployed man was playing games all day, snatched his PlayStation and took off in her car.

42-year old Darren Suchon took off after Colleen Frable down Route 248, driving her 1996 Porsche. According to a story on the Morning Call, Suchon was “waving his arms and yelling, trying to get her to pull over,” and when she eventually stopped at a traffic light, his car rear ended hers.

Suchon was yelling at Frable “to give him the PlayStation and trying to force down her driver side window.” Two men from a nearby business came out, scaring off Suchon.

Using data provided by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, researchers recently presented an overview of videogame-related injuries at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in San Francisco.

Between January 1, 2004 and January 1, 2009, there were a total of 696 game-related injuries in the U.S., of which 604 were suffered from “traditional games,” while 92 were attributed to “newer interactive games” that require a greater investment of interactivity, like Nintendo’s Wii. Of the 92 injuries caused by “newer” technology, 49 injured parties were male and 43 female.

The mean age of the injured was 16.5 years old. Those injured were more likely to hurt their shoulder, ankle or foot. Bystander injuries were also “significantly” more likely to occur when playing games using the “newer” interactive technology.

The decision by Utah Attorney-General Mark Shurtleff to support the game industry side of Schwarzenegger vs. EMA has made him a target in the Beehive State.

The latest person to bash Shurtleff is the failed politician, and Utah’s “common sense conservative” Cherilyn Eagar. Eagar, who was running for Senator in the state as a Republican—and against Shurtleff, before he withdrew from the race—but did not make the final run-off, took to her blog to bash Shurtleff’s decision to oppose the California law.

In the article, entitled “Children Must be Protected from Video Games,” Eagar writes that Shurtleff’s rationale in backing of the game industry could be adapted in order to “logically argue that it is free speech to allow minors to purchase cigarettes or drugs.”

Over the past month, the “pro-family” Eagle Forum attempted (and failed) to lobby Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff into supporting the California side of Schwarzenegger v. EMA, while its founder, Phyllis Schlafly, scribbled out a withering column on the “evil products” and “highly disturbing”  content emerging from the videogame industry. Now another Eagle Forum member is attempting to pin the group’s anti-videogame stance on protecting children.

The courting of Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (pictured) by both sides in the Schwarzenegger vs. EMA  U.S. Supreme Court case ended with him signing onto an amicus brief supporting the game industry, where he was joined by fellow attorneys general from Arkansas, Georgia, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina and Washington.

A disjointed op-ed in Utah’s Standard-Examiner praised Shurtleff’s decision, yet still managed to take some pot shots at the game industry.

Shurtleff stated that he backed the game industry because he was “convinced” that the First Amendment protects games, a point agreed with in the op-ed:

Is it right for the government to freeze speech -- in this case the video games -- because some people are offended by the violence? The answer is no.

In delivering a presentation on the threats modern media poses to youngsters, a retired Maine police officer said about the entertainment industry, “They don’t care what happens to your child.”

Dan Frazell (pictured) now travels extensively giving similar presentations on the subject of “How the Media is Killing Our Children,” which is also the MIA-like URL of his personal website. According to the Chronicle Herald, Frazell uses his talks to warn about the perils (for kids) of social media sites like Facebook and MySpace, lists websites that show users how to beat drug tests or evade police searches and shows sexually-charged and/or violent scenes from shows like South Park and various music videos.

Results from a recent study appear to indicate that playing violent videogames could increase aggression a full day later, but only when certain conditions were instituted.

“Violent Video Games Cause an Increase in Aggression Long After the Game Has Been Turned Off” (link) was authored by Brad Bushman and Bryan Gibson, the former a professor at Ohio State University and Amsterdam’s VU University and the latter a professor at Central Michigan University. The study was conducted on 126 college students.

The flip of a coin decided whether participants would play a violent or nonviolent game for 20 minutes. The violent games were Mortal Kombat: vs. DC Universe, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Resident Evil 5, while Guitar Hero, Gran Turismo 5, and Shaun White Snowboarding made up the nonviolent entries.

Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the “pro-family” Eagle Forum has authored a column in which she takes a hatchet to videogames, while attempting to outline the fight by both sides in the Schwarzenegger vs EMA case to rally state attorneys general to their respective squads.

A few of the descriptors used by Schlafly to portray videogames in her piece include: “extremely violent and addictive,” “polluting,” “increasingly realistic bloodshed,” “highly disturbing,” “heinous acts of terrorism” and “evil products.”

In case you hadn’t guessed it yet, Schlafly is not a huge fan of games. A sampling of her more inane arguments against videogames follow:

Some games are programmed to become more violent while the game is being played, and parents usually don't or can't play the games.

Quinn Pitcock, the defensive tackle attempting an NFL comeback following a self-diagnosed bout with videogame addiction, was cut from the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday (thanks sister site GameCulture).

Pitcock managed to survive until the final round of cuts after a preseason in which he appeared in four games, accumulating the same number of tackles.

The Ohio State University alumni recently expanded on his problem with games, saying that in his heyday, he would typically wake up at 3 PM and then play Call of Duty until 6 or 7 AM the next day.

As Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff continues to decide whether to throw his state’s support behind an amicus brief opposing California’s violent videogame bill at the heart of Schwarzenegger vs EMA, Texas A&M International Associate Professor Christopher J Ferguson sent a letter to the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune urging Shurtleff to join the game industry’s side.

Ferguson, best known around these parts for his videogame research, outlined three reasons why Shurtleff should oppose the California bill:

A judge’s ruling earlier last month that Craig Smallwood’s lawsuit against Lineage II maker NCsoft could continue (a suit in which Smallwood claimed he was addicted to the game), could have an impact on End User Licensing Agreements (EULA).

A lawyer at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy named Steven Roosa took to his blog (thanks Slashdot) to discuss the Smallwood case, using the headline “A Software License Agreement Takes it on the Chin.”

Roosa detailed NCsoft’s attempt to stop the lawsuit by using Section 12 of its User Agreement, which is entitled “Limitation of Liability.” The judge eventually only partially granted NCsoft’s motion to dismiss.

Roosa wrote:

Quinn Pitcock, the almost 300-pound defensive tackle attempting a comeback with the Seattle Seahawks following a bout of depression-induced (and self-diagnosed) videogame addiction, has survived the first round of cuts with his NFL team and racked up four tackles in the Seahawk’s first three preseason games.

Pitcock also opened up to the Dayton Daily News (he attended Ohio State University) about his trouble with videogames, labeling Call of Duty as his game of choice. Pitcock indicated that on a “typical day,” he would wake up at 3 PM and then play until 6 or 7 AM the next day.

Playing as Randy the Random 1, Pitcock said, “First-person shooter games were my thing. I was ranked at one point 55th in the world.”

Kotaku points us towards an interesting Ted Talk in which David McCandless, a self-proclaimed “data journalist” discusses overcoming information overload by visualizing and designing information so we can focus on what’s important.

After showing a graph a “landscape of the world’s fears”, or a chart showing off popular scares over the last decade, which included Swine Flu, Bird Flu, SARS, the Millennium Bug, Asteroid Collisions and Killer Wasps, McCandless pulled up a slide charting the landscape of violent videogames.

Fans of LovePlus, the Konami-developed dating simulator that was released only in Japan, now have a vacation destination where they can integrate virtual girlfriends into their daily activities.

Using augmented reality (AR), Konami and the resort town of Atami, Japan have teamed up to offer 13 “romantic locations” throughout the town, where love struck gamers can pose, thanks to augmented reality, with images of their favorite LovePlus characters, like Rinko, Manaka or Nene.

It was reported by AFP that the girls “have all swapped their usual sailor-style school uniforms for casual summer wear.”

A local hotel offers additional entertainment for LovePlus fans:

The local Ohnoya hotel even offers traditional rooms to the unusual couples, which feature two sets of futon beds and another barcode panel that allows the men to visualise their girlfriends in a flattering summer kimono.

A law blog contributor believes that the Hawaii man suing Lineage II creator NCsoft for making the game so addictive has an uphill battle in order prove his case.

Craig Smallwood sued the game maker after reportedly spending 20,000 hours playing Lineage II between 2004 and 2009. He claimed that NCsoft neglected “to warn or instruct or adequately warn or instruct plaintiff and other players of Lineage II of its dangerous and defective characteristics, and of the safe and proper method of using the game.”

In a column on the blog LegalMatch.com, "Rusty Shackleford" asks if such a case demonstrates the need for tort reform, or if the plaintiff and court are “on to something.”

On Smallwood’s chances:

Yesterday we told you about a nasty rape and murder that occured in South Hill Puyallup, Washington, in which an 18-year old man raped and murdered a 16-year old disabled/developmentally challenged girl. The story mentioned that the man had returned home after the murder to play Dungeons and Dragons Online in order to try and “forget” the crime.

However in a new story published yesterday on The Seattle Post Intelligencer website, detectives in the case (or the author of the piece) appear to be playing up the videogame angle even more, as evidenced by the headline, “Murder Motive May Have Been Video Game Fantasy.”

Craig Smallwood of Hawaii has a lawsuit in the works against the creator of Lineage II, claiming that he became so addicted to the game he became “unable to function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends.”

In a Wired piece on the suit, Smallwood, in his proceedings, claims to have spent 20,000 hours playing the game between 2004 and 2009. He claimed that developer NCsoft is negligent because it failed “to warn or instruct or adequately warn or instruct plaintiff and other players of Lineage II of its dangerous and defective characteristics, and of the safe and proper method of using the game.”

The suit appears to be moving forward as the presiding judge refused to dismiss some of Smallwood’s claims earlier this month.

A 29-year old who robbed at least four GameStop stores last year in Louisiana was sentenced to 10 years for each incident, giving him a total of 40 years in prison.

Gregory Reaux (pictured) was an ex-GameStop employee, who was fired from the videogame retailer in 2008 for “improperly using employee discounts and store deals,” according to NOLA.com. A graduate student, Reaux robbed the GameStops armed with a box cutter while wearing a “cut shirt sleeve as a mask.” He reportedly absconded with several thousand dollars from the robberies, along with “various merchandise.”

An earlier story detailing Reaux’s arrest put the tally of robbed stores at six, in the towns of Slidell, Jefferson Parish, Hammond, Walker and Denham Springs, Noting that he had not yet robbed a store in Mandeville, officers staked out the local GameStop and promptly busted Reaux as he was preparing to commit his next crime.

The wife of a Lake County, Florida police officer tried to push her husband’s buttons by taking away his PlayStation 3 and, unfortunately, succeeded all too well, with the end result that the sheriff’s deputy reportedly grabbed and choked her.

A WFTV.com story on the incident names the officer as 29-year old Gary French. His wife, a sheriff’s office dispatcher, came up with the ill-conceived plan to threaten to take away French’s PS3 following an argument. When she touched the console, he “grabbed her by the neck, put her in a choke hold and lifted her away from the PS3.”

Neighbor Joyce Roberson wasn’t impressed with French’s actions, stating, “Well him being a cop he ought to know better, that's not cool.”

Dr. Acharya Shree Yogeesh is a spiritualist and practitioner of Eastern philosophy with a Doctorate of Philosophy in “The Six Substances of Jainism: A Comparative Study with Buddhist Texts.” Acharya Shree is also founder of Yogeesh Ashram, a California-based non-profit whose sole purpose is “to uplift and awaken souls.”

The National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) is not pleased about the possibility of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the California side of the Schwarzenegger v. EMA appeal and is asking for assistance from the gaming community as it prepares an Amicus Brief for submission to the Court.

In a blog post, the NYRA theorizes that no Supreme Court member has ever played a game, nor, (most likely) have the lawyers arguing for either side. As a “defender of the rights of youth,” and “as gamers,” the NYRA stated that “we need to make it clear that video games are more than random violence and that no one should be denied access to them.”

Here is what the organization is looking for: