SweetRobot is Funcom's newly established subsidiary, focused on the casual and social MMO business, which is a far cry from the sort of games Funcom is used to developing. Age of Conan is a pretty hardcore MMO, and Anarchy Online is so hardcore it requires advanced math to put your equipment on. I'm not kidding.

That having been said, simply slapping the Funcom name on some casual titles would have, quite frankly, confused the hell out of Funcom fans. Instead, the company has launched SweetRobot, which while desperately needing a little Japanese robot mascot still ranks right up there with my favorite studio names of all time.

"SweetRobot will be focusing on publishing games outside the traditional high-end MMO-segment which Funcom has been focusing on the last years," says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. "This will allow us to explore new market opportunities that differ from what we have been doing before while still retaining Funcom's familiar profile. This definitely marks a new and exciting direction for us."

And Funcom isn't the sort of company to found a new subsidiary and then make us wait years before they produce anything. A team of fifteen people have been working on a kid-friendly MMO called Pets vs. Monsters for the past two years, developing a flexible game engine that can be used across multiple projects. Pets vs. Monsters will hit public beta later this month. We'll have more on that later. For now, check out a screen of the game below to get a basic idea of the demographic SweetRobot is aiming for.

Mafia Wars is an addictive little Facebook game that involves building up a Mafia, pulling jobs, shaking down rackets, and taking down rival mobsters in order to achieve fame, fortune, and far less free time than you had when you first started out. Last month the first two episodes of Mafia Wars: Moscow went live, giving players level 70 and above some new people to kill, business to rob, and equipment to acquire, and now episodes 3 and 4 are just around the corner.

According to Games.com, Episode 3 has players taking on the Moscow Financial System as they make their way towards a confrontation with bank president Gregor Belikov. New items in episode 3 include a Taiga Combat Shotgun and an Ex-KGB Bodyguard. Episode 4 pits you against the Russian military led by corrupt General Osipov, with the Orel Armed Helicopter and Razoritel Grenade Launcher at your disposal.

I arrived a bit late to the Mafia Wars game, but I have now tasted power and will not stop until I devour everything you ever loved. See you on Facebook!

Mafia Wars Moscow: Exclusive Sneak Peek at Episodes 3 & 4 [Games.com Blog]

The figures were released by the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, so they of course are a bit biased, but the numbers certainly look good. The games industry brought in $1.96 billion Australian in calendar year 2008, increasing 47 percent over the previous year. For the same period, box office revenues were $946 million and movies on disc took in $1.4 billion.

What's the reason behind the jump in gaming? Casual family gaming.

Ron Curry, chief executive officer of the IEAA, said gaming had evolved from "the guy sitting in his bedroom with his PC being anti-social" to a "much more social and a whole family event".

He cited recent research from Bond University showing that 68 per cent of Australians played video games and 88 per cent of houses had a gaming machine.

"We've seen a 137 per cent increase in family games - things like music and dance games, party games, puzzle games, that sort of stuff is really making up the bulk of the dollars," he said.

Another triumph for the casual and social gaming sectors! Once we've got them all hooked we'll slowly begin scooting the towards more traditional genres. Perhaps a 3D first-person game where you pet puppies.

Video games thrash movies and DVDs [The Age]

Enter Raptr - a new social network for gamers founded by Dennis 'Thresh' Fong (he had to do something with all that prize money) that offers a way of tracking your friends and sharing what you are in to on several popular games networks.

Once you have signed in and chosen a nick, you can enter your IDs on Xbox Live, PSN, World of Warcraft, Steam and others, then start entering the games in your collection.

Where it can, Raptr will pull data from your various networks and update your profile with a list of your current games, achievements and the like. There are plugins for displaying your data on Facebook et al too, of course.

A free client for PC or Mac will display and update data from you and your friends in real time as well as suck data from any games you play on your box — less of an issue for most Mac geeks, presumably.

Raptr [via 1UP]

World of Datecraft

This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young... fearing, hating, and destroying Black people.

This is a really touchy subject. Looking past the mistaken idea that the game is being marketed to children, I can completely see where Platt is coming from to a certain extent. It is a white figure of some authority being attacked by a horde of what appears to be African peoples. This much is true.

On the other hand, zombie stories originated in the Afro-Caribbean Vodoun belief system, so for a series that relies on zombies as its main antagonists, exploring the voodoo origins of zombie mythology seems only natural, and in order to do that you are going to end up exploring villages that just don't happen to have many Caucasians in them.

If the game does anything it bolsters the hatred of black zombies already present in the well-established hatred of zombies in general. It teaches us that no matter what color they are on the outside, flesh-hungry reanimated dead people are really fundamentally the same, and should probably be avoided at all costs. When the zombie apocalypse comes, I'd like to think that mankind will band together regardless of race or nationality in the name of preserving the future of humanity and the safety of our precious brainmeats.

Resident Evil 5 [Black Looks via Game Politics]

Seven Drinks Later

They make me sign a waiver in case I accidentally die on the mechanical bull, but I sign it with all the bravado alcohol brings. Even if my choice of drinks this night has been the subject of much ridicule (I honestly didn't know a Cosmo was that girly), belly full of hearty cowboy cooking steels my resolve. Well, most cowboys probably didn't eat fried chicken fingers, potato skins and dainty little hamburgers on the open range, but I would like to think that somewhere there is a special range, just for those cowboys that do.

I am humming the Mario Bros. theme as I hand my waiver to the scrappy-looking tattooed bull operator, courtesy of the roving violinist who played an excellent version of said theme by special request earlier in the evening. He played it quite well, suggesting that underneath his gruff, ACDC song-playing exterior there was a gamer trying to get out. His music joins with the food, drink, and the egging on of my fellow members of the press, creating a cacophony of influence that makes my date with the bull an inevitability.

Michael Fahey's Midnight Ride

I struggle long and hard with the beast, but after almost twenty seconds I am triumphant, finally getting my leg up and over the mechanical monstrosity. Maybe six seconds later I am kissing the padded floor. Oh no, that just won't due. Filled with bravado and just a little shame I leap atop the bull again, gripping tight with my thighs and my left hand. I focus my concentration on the rhythm of the creature, centering myself. I breathe. Five seconds later I breathe floor padding.

Mechanical bulls are not to be trifled with, and unless you are a professional bull rider, no one's advice can save you. Leaning back when the bull dips down will make you fall. Gripping with your thighs will make you fall, with the added bonus of making your thighs hurt. I suspect that the trick might lay in actively attempting to fall, but I have neither the time nor the feeling in my legs to try again. This time the bull has won.

In Summation

Bethesda throws a damn fine party. The food was very filling, perfect for a gaggle of starving industry professionals. The drinks were excellent despite being a little girly, and the company was excellent, plus watching countless members of the press being thrown from a robot cow was cathartic for everyone involved on so many levels. Now if you'll excuse me I am off to ice up my thighs.

Lisa Baertlein, a Reuters reporter who occasionally writes about gaming, has an interesting item up today about how support groups are looking to Web 2.0 for new ways to help support returning U.S. war veterans.

The article doesn't get into much detail, but at one point it mentions that this new generation of war vets have different needs.

Those who are working to heal the physical and mental wounds of this new breed of veterans are looking to virtual gathering grounds like MySpace, YouTube and even Xbox Live to help connect like-minded individuals.

Dr. Larry Albers, chief of mental health at the VA Medical Center in Long Beach, California, says young soldiers grappling with the psychological trauma of war are not big fans of group therapy, but they are very computer savvy. Many soldiers use e-mail and Web-enabled video phone services to stay in touch with family at home.

"They are much more comfortable on MySpace than on my couch," he said.

That's a neat idea, a support group in-game. What about the PS3's Home? It seems to me that a virtual apartment could be the perfect place for this sort of cyber support group. Brian Crecente

Web sites for injured U.S. veterans need Web 2.0 [Reuters]

"If Blacks and Latinos are always portrayed as the villains, or as the victims who get killed often and easily, that is code for powerlessness," said Kansas State University psychologist John Murray, who's studied violence and stereotypes in the media for the past 30 years. "These image persist because too few minorities are in the industry."

Jones goes on to suggest that the solution lies in more young Black and Latino children stop playing the games and start making them, and I agree completely. Not only would it help with their own self-image, it could help everyone understand each other a little bit better. Michael Fahey

The Bad News and Good News of Obsessive Video Games Part 1 [Black Voice News via GamePolitics]