Mag Announces Top 50 Developers

A new study from Gamasutra and sister divisions Game Developer magazine and Game Deveolper Research division has selected the top 50 developers in the gaming industry today. It was based on reputation and sales data, through anonymous surveys and assessments of sales charts in the US, the UK, and Japan, the number of games released each year, and the average metacritic rating. While the sales data is handy, the all-encompassing approach taken by the study to include reputation, as well, makes this study interesting. According to Gamasutra, "the resulting report is the only multi-input empirical ranking available for game development studios."

Hit the jump for the top 20 devs on the list.

Kids Can Burn Calories While Gaming

There's yet another study on obesity, children, and video games. Y'know, just for a change of pace. But wait! This one was done by The Mayo Clinic, making it somewhat reputable! And what makes this study different from all the others? Instead of looking at, "Do video games make kids fat? Y/N," the study looked at just how much energy kids used while playing traditional games, watching TV, playing virtual camera games placing the child on the screen, watching TV while walking on a treadmill, and playing a dancing game. The study had a small sample group, with 15 children considered in the "normal" weight range for their age and height, and 10 children considered mildly obese.

The most interesting result of the study? The dancing game actually expended more energy than walking on the treadmill. Hit the jump for exactly what those results were.

Stuff We Already Know About Female Gamers: Now In A Study!

A report by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has released the SHOCKING findings (re: not so shocking) that 38% of gamers are female. The study also showed that the average female gamer played for 7.4 hours a week, with the most common platforms of choice being the Nintendo DS and the PC (particularly The Sims). According to the article on dbTechno, females are also the people who predominantly make up the casual gamer market. It was also found that many female gamers enjoy social games, such as MMOs.

Jeez, I feel like such a statistic. As a female who is permanently attached to her DS and spends way too many hours playing The Sims, I fit the profile they describe to a T (although accounting for all the DS-playing I do on the bus and Sim playing I do in front of the TV, 7.4 hours is - ahem - a conservative estimate). Does this describe other female gamers, too?

ESA report shows 38% of gamers are female [dbtechno.com, via Gamasutra]

Boys' Brains Make Them Want To Win

Can't figure out why your old lady won't sit and play Halo 3 with you, guys? Don't know why the man in your life won't stop playing Call of Duty 4 until the wee hours of the morning, ladies? According to a new study by the Stanford School of Medicine, the part of the brain that gives of a feeling of reward and accomplishment is more active in men than in women.

Twenty-two men and women were given a simple game, in which they had to control a number of balls and a wall in a certain way to protect territory and ultimately win the game, while their brain patterns were tracked on a fMRI machine.

"The females 'got' the game, and they moved the wall in the direction you would expect," said Reiss, who is director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research. "They appeared motivated to succeed at the game. The males were just a lot more motivated to succeed."

Both groups showed activity in the mesocorticolimbic center, which is the part of the brain associated with rewards and addictions, but the males showed a lot more activity.

So there you have it. Could this really be the reason your girlfriend won't play Xbox with you? I guess it would account for the higher number of males that play video games than females, and would also make sense why not all guys love games, and why not all girls don't. After all, having a gendered brain doesn't mean that your brain is exactly the same as everyone else of your gender, just similar. I think it also comes down to nature vs. nurture, too: video games are becoming a bigger part of our culture, so regardless of how your brain is wired, you'll be more inclined to play games. More information on the study in the press release after the jump.

Video Games Damage Your Frontal Lobe

Noting that the study focused on subjects who played video games for only 30 minutes, Chou said many youngsters spend far more time on video games each day, unaware that doing so on a long term basis could damage the frontal lobe of the brain, as well as the anterior cingulate gyrus.

About 63 percent of the U.S. population play video games, and a majority of them see game playing as a way to alleviate stress and to help them unwind, according to a new study conducted by the NPD Group.

The report is based on online survey responses from 5,039 members of NPD's online consumer panel conducted from Oct. 11 to Oct. 18.

Of those who game, 30 percent said they are spending more time gaming this year than last year while another 30 percent or so said they are spending less time and nearly 40 percent say they are spending about the same amount of time. The heaviest gamers in the survey were 18 to 34.

"The new type of game experiences brought to the market over the past several years are succeeding in reaching a broader audience. The challenge for the industry is that consumers are a fickle group, and with the great variety of options pulling at their limited free time, they're going to be easily distracted unless something really compels them to stay with gaming," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. "To reach these less involved consumers, the industry has to work even harder, but doing so can produce great rewards."

Study: Violent TV, Video Games Make Adults More Violent

Video Game Content "Concerns" European Parents

• 75% of parents are concerned about video game content.
• 43% of parents were not aware of ratings system.

A Renter Does Not A Buyer Make

Here's some confirmation of what most of us already knew: a study by Frank N. Magid Associates shows that renting is bad for game sales. In particular, check out these two findings:

1. Nearly 50% of all console game renters didn't purchase a single game they rented last year.
2. Only 9% of renters bought 11% or more of the games they rented.

In short: if you rent a game, you don't buy it. But who ever bought that whole "try before you buy" argument, anyway? Though I will admit to keeping a few games from my monthly mail rental service of choice.

Game Rentals Eating into Purchases [via maxconsole]

Who Knew: Men Like Casual Games, Too

Nick Yee had an unenviable task last week.

The Stanford research assistant and massively multiplayer online gaming expert was flown in to Denver to explain online gaming to a room full of criminal investigators, educators and internet safety experts from area district attorney offices, police departments and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Yee, whose landmark Daedalus Project continues to study behavior in MMOs, hoped to present to these members of Qwest Colorado Coalition for Online Safety a take on online gaming that they may not have heard before: That it can actually be good for you.

Kids Spending Even More Time Playing Video Games

Video Games Fix Weak Woman Brains

Our second experiment showed that both men and women can improve their spatial skills by playing a video game and that the women catch up to the men...

Study Finds Fault In Parental Controls, Parents

IBM - MMO Players Can Make Corporate Leaders

Eric Lessner is a member of the IBM think-tank Institute of Business Value, and as part of a study collaboration with MIT and Stanford, studied Everquest and WoW players. And he saw the games as excellent preparation for the business world.

For example the ability to bring together distributed groups of individuals - often who are on a volunteer or semi-volunteer basis - to be able to make more rapid decisions under conditions of uncertainty. To incorporate and use different sources of data and make decisions rapidly. To recognise people for their contribution. To be able to motivate.

Gamers 10,271 Stupid People 0

Gaming's business end [via maxconsole]

Kids Like M-Rated Games

Kyoto Students Use DSes In Class

Game Addiction And Aggression Link "Weak"