Last month, Nintendo was told by the courts to pay Anascape Ltd. the amount of US$ 21 million for patent infringement. They appealed to have the verdict reduced, and now the decision is out. Read more after the jump.

This month saw the exodus of three companies from the ranks of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). Following the trend started by Activision, Vivendi, and LucasArts, id Software of Doom and Quake fame recently confirmed that it will also be taking its leave from the video gaming group. More details on this on our full article after the jump.

When you've got a business going, it's a wise idea to keep track of your cashflow. THQ has been doing precisely that. In fact, the company has recently reported the fourth quarter results of the fiscal year, which ended last March 31, 2008. More financial statistics in the full article after the jump.

With all the flak that video games have gotten from politicians, we're tempted to think that two will probably never mix.

The latest one involves U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama and his comment about video games. You can read an excerpt of his statement n the full article after the jump.

Independent works will always have a hard time finding its niche in an already established market, and video games are no exception. Usually the bottomline in creating a game is creativity versus profitability.

Steve Escalante, Business Development VP of the Gamecock Media Group, talked about this subject during the Texas' Independent Game Conference. Read more in the full article.

These days, GameStop has a lot of reasons to celebrate. It's working on an industry that's growing every day, it's posting some serious numbers financially, and has recently opened its 1,000th store outside of the US.

The Texas-based game and console retailer has opened new stores recently in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Norway to hit the thousand-store milestone. Prior to that, the company has already branched out to Ireland, Switzerland, Australia, Guam, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

GameStop points to the booming hardware sales led by Kyoto-based Nintendo with its DS handheld and Wii console. Microsoft and Sony are also pitching in with the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, respectively.

Total sales posted by the retailer last year amounted to US$ 5.32 billion and is expected to grow even more this year as hot demand continues for pole platforms. The first quarter of fiscal 2007 saw GameStop with its best quarterly performance ever with US$ 24.7 million in profits while gross sales were at an all-time high of US$ 1.279 billion.

A few more details were released today, as the Gamecock media group begins the long and hard preparations they're expecting to face come the Expo for Interactive Entertainment, Independent and Original (EIEIO) event.

The first important detail guys will want to know will be the event schedules - a press release we've picked up indicates that the EIEIO event will be from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on July 11, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on July 12, and 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on July 13.

On the event proper - the second detail - visitors can enjoy quite a number of treats, including playable games, accessible developers, Gamecock suckers - we assume this means the Gamecock dev team - and food and drinks. As for Gamecock CEO Mike Wilson's take on EIEIO, and its comparison to the upcoming E3 event:

EIEIO is going to be a celebration of the amazing lineup of independent developers that Gamecock has been lucky enough to sign on, and I'm thrilled to say that every one of them will be in attendance to give personal demos of their works in progress. And, of course, there will be a truckload of that very special Texas hospitality that our friends have come to expect. While this year's E3 'business summit' might seem a bit strange and uptight, those who still harbor a true love for original games and the talented folks that create them should know that there’s plenty of room at the Hotel California. Such a lovely place...

The EIEIO event is expected to take place in Hotel California, at 1670 Ocean Ave, Santa Monica, CA.

With the multiple patent infringement lawsuits (such as Sony facing at least two concerning Blu-ray) being tossed around lately, it seems that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.

Lonestar Inventions has said that the Wii infringes on a patent it holds for a "high capacitance structure in a semiconductor device."

The said patent was granted back in 1993 and shows the implementation of a method which triples the effectiveness of parallel plate capacitors through the use of layers of conducting strips.

This is not the first time Lonestar has sued other companies with regards to this patent. The said company have already sued Texas Instruments and Marvell Semiconductor over this issue before. Both cases were eventually settled, however.

Also just this month, the company sued Eastman Kodak Company alleging infringement of the patent in question. Given these, we can't help but say that this company is no stranger to litigation. Nintendo, on the other hand, has not commented on this issue.

Not much details have come to the public's attention, so it's hard to tell if Lonestar Inventions does have a legal case with this. Hopefully, more news will turn up to enlighten the general public. Be sure to keep checking back here for the latest development on this matter.

Everybody's got a bad memory of something. At some point, something sears on your mind and you never forget it. In this new video of Manhunt 2, you're bound to remember everything - especially when it involves a lot of blood.

Rockstar Games London's Manhunt 2 will place players in the mess of an asylum. A whole lot more is happening there and one patient is bent on getting out. In this new trailer, some bits of the story was revealed (sort of), though it raised a lot more questions. Who was that lady? Do they eventually get out? What happens to them afterwards? Some parts of it looks and feels a lot like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

You'll see what we mean once you press play. Remember, you'll have to be of legal age. Manhunt 2 for the Wii is set to be released on July 10. In the meantime, check out the video.

Now that evidence shows that Cho Seung Hui didn't own a single video game at the time of the Tragic shooting, a new article over at MSNBC questions Thompson's fervent accusations. This is in light of his recent interview wherein he responded to IGDA criticism.

The MSNBC article notes that contrary to Thompson's claims of counterstrike being a "killing simulator" for youths, Cho didn't need much skill to shoot as many people as he did. Eye witness accounts indicate that many of the victims were shot at point blank range.

Moreover the article notes that Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California and author of the book "Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Today's Youth" points out that before this week's Virginia Tech massacre, the most deadly school shooting in history took place at the University of Texas in Austin way back in 1966, before the days of pong.

The article says that nobody realises that since the advent of videogames, violence rates in the US have declined "precipitously." Sternheimer even notes that it is likely that any 23-year-old man living in America has already played a videogame. How many 23-year-old men go out on a killing spree?

The MSNBC article goes on to note this nice gem:

For those who didn't grow up playing video games, the appeal of a game like "Counter-Strike" can be hard to comprehend. It can be difficult to understand that the game promotes communication and team work. It can be hard fathom how players who love to run around gunning down their virtual enemies do not have even the slightest desire to shoot a person in real life.

As a commenter on Digg noted, the truth is that massive multiplayer killing fests are really just slightly more complex and themed versions of cops-and-robbers. An online and engaging visual form of "tag" wherein players "tag" one another in the form of virtual kills, in a world where there are no real consequences. A game of tag in a world where death isn't really malicious or evil, or "desensitising" - death only means waiting for the next play round or respawn.

It is a competitive environment where sportsmanship is still the norm; where it is expected that after all the boasting and chest-thumping is done, the winning party will get up and shake the losing party's hand and say "good game."