This Amazon product pages list a game called Parent C. It's got the Halo Wars box art and the description of...something else. Check the game's feature set:

* 1-2 Player
* 28 fun-filled, adventurous mini-games.
* Collect treasures from the island with Rosella¿ and her animal family.
* Impress the Royal Court with your dance moves.

Locations you and your UNSC troops will visit include the Royal Ship, Harbor Village, Apollonian Castle and the Greenhouse. Unit customisation allows you to "design your own wardrobe of clothes fit for a princess". And the game has an eye on the future by forgoing a disc-based release in favour of a full digital download.

Parent C will sell for $29.99 when it's released....in your dreams.

Parent C [Amazon]

As nauseating as the whole bubblegum-fashion explosion for adolescent girls can be to us "mature" adults, you can't fault Barbie for keeping up with the times. These virtual worlds for kids — the things I've been looking at on Worlds in Motion like Habbo, Puzzle Pirates, Nicktropolis and Toontown — are absolutely huge, able to generate way more hits and user activity than even the most popular MMO targeted at our set. This is big biz to corporations and advertisers right now, but even if it weren't, I guess it's sorta cool to see the evolution of the way children play with dolls keeping pace with technology.

In order to get access to the full version, players have to purchase (or get their parents to purchase for them) the $59.99 Barbie Girls MP3 player that functions as a USB key. The Bratz game requires the same sort of scheme, just at a cheaper price point (you get a doll and some stuff that Sexy Videogameland describes as "some pink computer peripherals (a mouse and pad) that look like Japanese sex toys") of $29.99. I'm fascinated, yet horrified. Yet fascinated. I neither knew about this stuff, nor realized it was so damn popular. BarbieGirls will be going to full release on 13 August.

Do You Guys KNOW About This Stuff? [Sexy Videogameland]

EA's Lcy Bradshow, Veep and head of production and dev for Maxis, is delivering the keynote entitled The Secrets of The Sims Success.

While I think that events like this are a wonderful idea, I can't help but wonder if by creating events to highlight and detail the perceived differences between male and female gamers they're sort of missing the point. Sure there is a difference, but lets not forget we're all still gamers.

We've come a long way since Barbie's adventures and other craptacular games, lets not return to that offal. Hit the jump for the full dealymabob.Brian Crecente

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - January 30, 2007 - Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that it is a platinum sponsor of the 2007 Women In Games International (WIGI) conference and will host the March 6th event at its company headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. The conference theme is "From Production to Profit: Creating and Marketing Games for Women". EA's Lucy Bradshaw, VP and Head of Production and Development for Maxis/Electronic Arts will deliver the opening keynote entitled, "The Secrets of The Sims Success". EA and WIGI are committed to promoting the inclusion and advancement of women in the growing interactive entertainment industry.

Representing 38% of the game playing population, according to the Entertainment Software Association, women players are a growing force within the gaming community. EA is responding to this demand by encouraging and empowering female students and young professionals to take the industry seriously and consider it for a future career.

With over 20% of its population comprised of females, EA is committed to driving that number higher through outreach and education programs such as this. Sponsorship of the conference is part of EA's diversity outreach program which also includes an annual scholarship at the USC Summer Camp which assures an aspiring female game designer a coveted spot in the school's unique computer science summer program. These initiatives are meant to encourage women to pursue their passion for gaming and enter the industry as professionals.

Gabrielle Toledano, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at EA commented that, "At EA, we are fortunate to have some of the industry's most talented women contributing to our teams. We are proud that women represent such a significant and important portion of our population but the ratio of women to men is still too low. We hope that this program and others like it help to inspire young women to consider interactive entertainment for their careers. And for the women already in the industry, the WIGI is a wonderful forum to raise issues and questions that relate to creative expertise, career opportunity and professional growth. We are thrilled to be a WIGI sponsor and to have so many empowered, insightful women contributing to the panels."

"This is an outstanding partnership," said Sheri Graner Ray, Executive Chair of Women in Games International. "WIGI is focused on getting the word out about the importance of women in this industry and we are so pleased that EA is helping lead the way. With our topical focus at this conference on women as players and consumers, this is also the chance for the industry to learn how EA and other publishers are re-considering the needs and interests of the female customer in their game production and marketing processes."

The Women In Games International Conference-San Francisco will be held at Electronic Arts' headquarters, located at 250 Shoreline Drive in Redwood Shores, California. Attendance is $45 for general attendees, $35 for WIGI members and $30 for students with I.D. Space is limited, so interested attendees are encouraged to secure their spot by registering at: www.womeningamesinternational.org.

Attention, people who have not read Lolita: little girls are messed up in the head. Usually they grow out of it, and learn to subvert these manipulative little sadisms into the irritating head games lampooned on endless sitcoms and greeting cards.

Some of them don't ever really turn into "women", preferring to remain in the far more entertaining Play stage, but my thesis on nymphetry can wait until grad school. Or at least until Rule of Rose comes out. Here's what the Telegraph has to say about how little girls are playing the Sims:

Caroline Pelletier, a project manager at London University's Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, says: 'The Sims inspires quite a patronising attitude - that it's OK for girls to play with computers so long as it's in a domestic space, controlling characters in a maternal way, caring for them and attending to their needs.'

Yet when Pelletier's team observed girl players, they discovered a different reality. 'Girls usually use The Sims to explore subversive behaviour. They get rich and try out a wealthy lifestyle, then see who can lose the most money. They drown their babies and call in social services - they deliberately play against the game's conventions.'

Indeed, most little girls do not treat their characters nearly as maternally as their parents might hope. 'We like to put characters in the swimming-pool and then take the ladder away and see how long it takes before they drown,' explains Ellie Priest. 'Or you keep giving them drinks and won't let them go to the loo until they wee on the floor.'

I saw this back when I did the last Weekly Geek, but a reader just sent it to Tips@, marveling at how creepy it was, and wondering how legit it could possibly be. I was amused.

I forget that most of you have never seen into the brain of a wee lass, and even those that have (I know we have some female readership) may have either forgotten it, repressed it, or lived one of those bizarre, "innocent" childhoods. But rest assured, when given a safe place to practice cruelty free of consequence, most children will take the opportunity with stunning eagerness.

Boys have a well-documented and wholesome love of destruction, but when girls display similar sadism, people become hilariously unsettled. Eliza Gauger

Living Dolls [Telegraph]

From the "Sony can't get a break" feed comes this post over on GamesDaily.biz, which suggests that Playstation advertising just doesn't make you feel good about yourself.

On the flip side, the Xbox ads they were up against seemed to increase levels of "distrust". The actual implications of this study are irritatingly obfuscated by the article, but the gist seems clear.

Anderson's study found that boys who were exposed to Xbox pictures were "higher on power motivation" than those who viewed the PlayStation images. Along with "power motivation," the Xbox images also seemed to elicit higher self-confidence scores than those in the PlayStation group. Furthermore, images of the consoles themselves also had different effects on the respondents. Interestingly, boys in the Xbox group had higher levels of distrust after seeing the ad, while this phenomenon was not observed in the PlayStation group.

What's weirdest about this study, I thought, was the sexual dimorphism in the test groups. I can't be sure, but the article seems to say that the children were separated based on gender, with girls being tested only in the Bratz vs. Barbie branding category, and the boys in the Xbox vs. Playstation.

I despise people who run around spouting nonsense like this, but jesus christ that's sexist. Eliza Gauger

More here [GameDaily.biz]

She's plastic, knows how to capitalize on a trend and costs about $20. No, I'm not talking about Paris Hilton, I'm talking about Otaku Barbie.

OB comes dressed in faded jeans and a Hello Kitty T-Shirt (when you wet it soda, Cheetos and chocolate stains magically appear). She also comes with a notbook of anime fanart, a J-Pop CD collection, a stash of Pocky and candy hamburgers and a tackle box of art supplies.

The best part is you can dress her up cosplay style and she becomes Magical Bargie Sailor Senshi. Weeeeeee.

Otaku Barbie [Amethyst Angel]