September typically 
marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season for the videogame industry. From this point through late November, publishers will release at least one potential blockbuster each week.
Holiday sales make up roughly 40 percent of the overall industry revenue—and the year’s biggest hits are born then. But as publishers prepare for the fourth-quarter battle, what better time to see what has been driving sales this year?
Perhaps more than 
any other entertainment field, video games are seasonal. While an occasional blockbuster is released in the first or second quarter, the Sept.-Dec. timeframe is when publishers really make their bank.
The last four months of the year not only make up more than half of the industry’s annual sales, but the titles released in that period can pay dividends well into the following year, as illustrated by the best-selling games of 2011 (through the end of August).
It’s hard to stay 
out of trouble on the Internet. Even if you avoid sites with questionable content, there are plenty of pitfalls and traps that subtly install programs which then wreak havoc on your computer.
It’s known as malware — a generic term for the various ways your PC can be infected, compromised, and crippled.
Got $500? If so, 
you could be a very popular person on Twitter.
While the social network can be a powerful platform to build brands and reputations, building up a network of followers takes time – even for the famous and powerful. But for some impatient users, it’s easier to simply take a shortcut and buy followers.
The dollar, euro and yen 
might be the primary language of currency traders today, but online, all the talk is about bitcoins.
The digital currency has been around for nearly two years now, but it burst onto the radar of the mainstream world in June, when Gawker published a story about an underground Website where you could trade the currency for illegal drugs. The chatter surrounding the story eventually faded, but a lot of people were left confused about bitcoins. What are they? How do they operate? And what, aside from illegal narcotics, can they be used for?
As the video game industry 
celebrates Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which formally recognized video games as entitled to First Amendment protection, many are assuming the political fight that has loomed over the industry for years is finally over.
That’s wrong. In fact, it’s simply the start of Act 2.
The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down California’s attempt to restrict the sale of violent video games to children, saying the state’s controversial 2005 law was a violation of free speech.
In a 7-2 ruling, the court said that despite California’s argument that strict scrutiny laws (which govern the distribution of adult entertainment to minors) should apply to this sort of material, the First Amendment protections outweighed those concerns.
After a surprisingly strong April, 
the video-game industry crashed and burned in May.
Software sales, the most closely tracked number by investors, were off 19 percent according to the NPD Group, the industry’s worst monthly performance since October 2006.
After spending a week looking into the 
future, the video game industry must once more face the reality of the present.
May sales figures are expected to be announced after the market closes Monday – and they’re not likely to add any sort of boost to the goodwill that often accompanies the E3 trade show. Analysts expect sales, at best, to be flat compared to last year.
E3, the video game 
industry’s yearly convention, is the ultimate tease for gamers.
They’re shown well-polished bits of upcoming games that whet appetites and ramp up their enthusiasm, then told to wait – often for a couple of years. It is, in some ways, rather cruel.
Chris Morris: Journalist 