Baltimore County Public Schools plans to incorporate video game development education into its curriculum with the help of serious game applications. Along with Learning Port strategies, the public school district has developed a program called L.i.V.E., or Learning in a Virtual Environment, which includes a "virtual high school" and a game development contest that will encourage students to create games based around topics related to science, technology, engineering, and math. Baltimore, Maryland-area schools hope that ...

['What the (Game) Papers Say' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford that documents the history of video game magazines, from their birth in the early '80s to the current day. This time -- an analytical look at the latest video game magazines released in the last couple of weeks, alongside a tribute to closing UK magazine PC Zone.] It was with a sad heart that I learned recently that PC Zone, the oldest English-language ...

In an exciting week for new job postings, Gamasutra's jobs board plays host to roles across the world and in every major discipline, including opportunities at Blizzard, Eat Sleep Play and more. Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly. It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites ...

Sales of the three-model DS line were steady week-over-week in Japan, where the platform once again led other hardware platforms on a static weekly sales chart, Media Create revealed Friday. The Nintendo DS line -- which includes the DSi LL, DSi and DS Lite -- sold 47,450 units, flat compared to DS sales from the prior week. By model, the DSi LL sold 24,189, the DSi sold 18,202 and the DS Lite sold 5,059 units. ...

Multimedia group RealNetworks reported a 5 percent drop in revenues for its Games division during Q2 2010, and announced the promotion of chief revenue officer Matt Hulett as the new head of that unit. The company's revenues from its Games business during Q2 2010 (ending June 30th) was $28.1 million, 5 percent less compared to the $29.6 million the department generated in the same period last year. RealNetworks' total revenues for the quarter from all ...

Virtual camera control company Gamecaster said Friday that its camera hardware is now usable to all licensees of the widely-used Unreal Engine 3 and UDK through Epic Games' Integrated Partners Program. Through the partnership, San Diego-based Gamecaster's hardware technology can be used in conjunction with UE3's cinematic production software Unreal Matinee. The Gamemaster GCS3 camera hardware (pictured) is used to capture virtual footage in the same manner a film director would operate a camera for ...

[Gamasutra is pleased to present this excerpt from the full Al Lowe interview found in the new book "Graphic Adventures: Being a Mostly Correct History Of the Adventure Game Classics By Lucasfilm, Sierra and Others, From the Pages Of Wikipedia", available at http://blogoscoped.com/graphic-adventures.] Al Lowe, born in 1946, is a musician and games programmer & designer. He created many of the classic graphic adventures for Sierra, including the Leisure Suit Larry series, The Black Cauldron, ...

Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communications is placing restrictions on public internet access and banning ads for online games following complaints that games help lead to juvenile crime, according to the country's state-run news agency. Minister Le Doan Hop announced the decision on Tuesday. The Vietnam News agency said citizens are concerned about online games' "negative influences on the youth." The restrictions follow public outcry that blamed increasing reports of juvenile crime and school truancy ...

Free-to-play online publisher Nexon America (Maplestory, Dungeon Fighter Online) revealed that its revenues grew 26 percent for the second quarter of 2010 ended in June. While Nexon America, which is the Stateside arm of South Korean developer and publisher Nexon Corp., hasn't yet provided exact revenue and profit numbers for Q2 2010, it noted that in June alone, its revenues were 36 percent higher compared to the same period last year. This announcement continues a ...

Analyst Mike Hickey with Janco Partners said in a Friday research note that Chinese World of Warcraft operator Netease and Activision Blizzard could ink a new licensing deal to bring a rumored Call of Duty subscription service to China. If established, Hickey said, the service could bring in $50-100 million in first-year sales for Netease, which picked up the lucrative operating rights for Blizzard's World of Warcraft from former Chinese operator The9 last year. The ...