Look back for a sec and try to remember which brand has been the most talked about, most advertised, and most hyped last year. Well, social media services provider Vitrue did more than just that, measuring the amount of mentions of around 2000 brands, naming the 100 most social brands of 2008. The top, the runners-up, and the gaming brands are all in the full article.

Monday morning in Virgina, a 6-year-old kid misses his bus to school. What's a kid to do? He's about to be late! Well, obviously, take your family's car and get your tardy butt to the campus, of course! And that's just what the kid (name undisclosed, so we'll just call him "Lil Nicky" - you'll know why in a bit) did. Aren't kids just amazing these days? If they're not fighting battles in court to legalize hedgehogs, they're driving themselves to school.

*Update* CNN video included!

With his Nintendo Wii and DS consoles conquering millions of homes like welcome alien invaders, Shigeru Miyamoto certainly is making enough monetary impact for him to land in CNN Money's shortlist of 50 People Who Matter Now.

Miyamoto managed to grab the 20th spot (possibly even higher, if us gamers were to be asked). Who hasn't heard of Donkey Kong? Zelda? Surely even your grandmother could recognize the trademark red cap and moustache that Mario sports in each and every game that he stars in. Nintendo is now beyond being a household name; it has evolved into a culture in its own right.

And the reasons that Miyamoto matters right now are his cleverly-marketed new consoles: the DS and the Wii. While the Nintendo DS innovated gaming with its use of stylus controls and dual screens, the Nintendo Wii has given new meaning to console gaming by injecting more physical involvement into Wii games, with its Wiimote controls. Marketing the Wii to an until-recently untapped older demographic, the Nintendo is still going strong in its quest to dominate the US$ 30 billion dollar industry, despite of naysayers.

It's probably a gamer's ultimate dream to be working in a game company and get a high salary for it. If you're gonna dream, dream high and aim to work for a company like Electronic Arts which got to CNN Money's Top 20 Great Employers.

Coming at second, EA currently has a US$ 3 billion revenue and 7, 200 full-time employees. Aside from the starting US$ 60,000 salary, new average-entry workers also get five to ten free games yearly, an option to purchase heavily discounted copies from a company store, and US$ 100 coupons for any game consoles. There are also restricted stock grants, an on-site gym, free DVD library and a plan that allows employees to buy company stock at a 15% discount.

To be fair, it's quite difficult to get a position in this gaming giant's company. Out of 5,000 graduate applicants last year, only 200 passed. A gamer getting paid for working in the video game industry is still a luxury, so good luck to anyone who attempts getting into EA.

First and foremost, we would like to give our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of those 32 people (33 including the gunman) involved in today's shootout at the Virginia Tech campus. While everyone is still reeling in shock from the events at Norris Hall this morning, we share everyone's sentiment that it is indeed a horrible tragedy. Already, CNN is even calling it the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.

But why post something that's not gaming related? Well, we would have wanted to avoid this whole issue altogether, however, someone had apparently brought videogames (something oh so close to all of our hearts) into the picture. Hence, the relevancy to these blogs.

As Kotaku reports, Jack Thompson spoke on FOXNews about the Virgina Tech shooting, saying that the massacre is linked to videogames. Now, we do not know to what extent Jack Thompson said this and we do not know the exact context in which the attorney said this. While it's pretty hard to form any substantial and unbiased judgment from such a lack of details, CobaltBlue, as a comment to Kotaku's post, sheds some light on what happened in FOXNews for us:

@possiblymalignant: Fox News Live was calling him a "School Shooting Specialist", or that's what he's calling himself now. All he talked about though was linking video games and "murder simulators" to school shootings. I guess we can look forward to a new Jack Thompson crusade now.

Maybe there is more to Thompson's statement than just "the Virgina Tech shooting was due to videogames" after all? And we have yet to find an actual video, transcript, or news clipping from FOXNews or any other news source. For now, this is what we have.

Pic courtesy of FOXNews.

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Update: We've managed to grab the Fox News interview with Jack Thompson over at YouTube which was uploaded by rgbyhkr. Here's the clip.

Just recently, Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik (a.k.a., Gabe) has written a scathing commentary in response to a story that was published by CNN. In his commentary, he expresses his dissatisfaction at the fact that, once again, a murder happens and it all gets blamed on the under-aged suspect's gaming habits, and not on other factors which may have shaped the individual into a killer.

For those who don't frequent CNN's site too often, the article in question discusses the recent rise of the number of incidents which involves homeless individuals being murdered by teenagers "for sport."

As a primary example of such an incident, CNN uses the story of the 49-year-old homeless man, Rex Baum, who was killed in 2004 after he was beaten to death by Nathan Moore, Luis Oyola, and Andrew Ihrcke. At the time of the incident, the killers were 15, 16, and 17 years old respectively. After Baum's body was discovered two days after he was killed, the police were able to track down the teens and question them about what they've done. According to police reports, the eldest answered that Baum apparently "reminded him of playing a violent video game."

That statement from Ihrcke may actually be enough to raise more than a few eyebrows within both the gaming and the legislative community. However, what caught Krahulik's attention was the fact that even though the original article continued to present more facts and examples, and also mentions several other theories on what may have been prompting minors to go on killing sprees, it is inevitable that many would stop reading at the point where video games are mentioned. As Krahulik laments:

These kids have given the media their angle and just like all the other cases where games are mentioned no one will ever look any further. No one will ask what their family life was like, what their parents were like, what the kid was like before all this happened. Games did it and that’s the end of the story ... I'm perfectly aware that the reality of the situation was somewhere between the two extremes. I know full well that violent games did not create this killer and I also know that his parents did not make him a murderer ... The sad truth is that the reality we're talking about here would probably never actually see the light of day. The media will tell the story they want to tell regardless and that story will be about violent games. The parents of these kids will be lucky to get two lines in an article about the crime. If they tell a reporter that their son hardly played games or that he was f***ed up long before they bought a Playstation do you really think that will make it into the final article? You'd never see that side of the story, not in a million years. [Bold format not in original text. - QJ]

However, all that has now changed, as the stepmother of one of the suspects (they did not mention which one) has bravely come out in the open to let everyone know the truth about these teens. Who would have known that the parent of a so-called "video game killer" can actually be a gamer herself? Who would have thought that she was a regular Penny Arcade reader? Who would have expected that she would choose to trust the folks of Penny Arcade with the truth instead of handing it over to the mainstream media?

We'll never be as eloquent as Tycho or Gabe, so click on the "Read" link below, read on, and brace yourselves for what a lot of people in politics would probably hate to hear.

Nintendo DS has finally convinced game designer Shigeru Miyamoto's wife, who's never played computer games all her life, to actually try her hand at gaming - a difficult feat, indeed.

The 55 year-old creator of well-known Nintendo games said that his wife never played any kinds of games even Tetris, until recently, when the DS came out. In a CNN interview, Miyamoto adds,

Although we have not gathered figures about this, I think games such as Wii Sports can interest women. Hopefully women will begin to enjoy games more. I think our target will be mothers. In a common family with a mother, father and children, I think mothers take the initiative in family entertainment and I think they would respond well to the Wii. And we might go as far as saying that we designed the Wii to that effect -- as something that mothers would want to buy.

When asked about what he thought of what people say about Wii's motion sensitive wireless console being a gimmick, Shigeru gamely replies, "First thing I would say is 'Give it a try'. If you use it you would know that you had the wrong impression about it. I became more and more confident in the Wii since I started to make the software for it."

In a parting statement, Miyamoto also said that the secret to lasting in the design side of the gaming business is to think of how to surprise the gamers, and to keep working with the younger generations. A lot more surprises from one of the fathers of modern video gaming to look out for, then.

To check out the word-per-word account of the interview, click on the read link below.

The Christmas shopping season is nigh upon us. Some would even say it's here already. If you still have money after spending for your Wii/PS3 console, then maybe you'd want to hear what other stuff you can splurge your money on. If you have no idea what game to get for your friend, child, nephew, niece, girlfriend, boyfriend, or granny (a gamer-granny...who knows?), then you might want to take a look-see here.

CNN Money has chalked up a roster of 10 titles that would be best for gamers. It definitely folds through the spectrum of the market, including adventure games, action games, shooters, racers, and puzzlers. For some reason, the list doesn't appear to be in any particular order. We're not sure if "1 of 10" means it's the Top 1... But anyways, here's their list:

• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, 360)
• Gears of War (360)
• Guitar Hero 2 (PS2)
• New Super Mario Brothers (NDS)
• Kingdom Hearts 2 (PS2)
• Brain Age (NDS)
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
• Excite Truck (Wii)
• Okami (PS2)
• Half-Life 2: Episode One (PC)

Now take a look at the list again. While we do agree with some of the titles, we're just wondering why there aren't any PS3 nor PSP titles in it... Doesn't that make you wonder? Hmmm... Well, this is just CNN's opinion and suggestion. It doesn't necessarily mean anything about how well the games are doing for PS3 and PSP, right? Riiiight?