Zynga 
shares soared Monday, after an analyst’s report mentioned the social game maker was a possible candidate for a takeover — by Yahoo!, of all companies.
Wunderlich Securities’ Blake Harper got the ball rolling, noting that while Yahoo! has been reported to be sniffing around Yelp and OpenTable, Zynga (along with Tumblr and FourSquare) would be a good match as well.
Two 
years ago, Frank Christopher Olivera was scheduling media conference calls with GameStop executives.
He was also illegally pocketing a lot of money from the company.
The 
most formidable protagonist in videogames is a 21-year-old woman who must protect her friends and fight off well-armed enemies hell-bent on dispatching her.
The game is “Tomb Raider,” launched March 5, and critics are already singing its praises as a masterful reboot of the 17-year-old franchise. In the relatively short history of videogames, that series, perhaps more than any other, has shown that players are more than willing to accept a female lead character in a fantasy action game.
But when it comes to games that are set in more realistic scenarios, women are rare — and they’re never cast as the primary hero.
For 
over three decades, Mario has been the hero of Donkey Kong.
But when Mike Mika’s daughter didn’t understand why she couldn’t play as damsel-in-distress Pauline in the coin-op classic, the Oakland father turned the tables on the plumber — and hopped away as a shoo-in to win a few Dad of the Year awards.
Were 
this any other transition period for the video game industry, GameStop stock would be soaring these days.
Instead, the stock has been largely flat — climbing less than one point year to date, noticeably underperforming the market’s seven percent gains — as well as other companies in the gaming space.
Camping? 
First Aid? Swimming? Today’s Boy Scouts are looking for a bigger challenge.
The organization, perhaps in a bid to stay in tune with more technologically-minded youngsters, has announced a new merit badge for scouts, one that’s specifically centered on games.
Want 
to keep grandma happy? Hand her a Wiimote!
A study out of North Carolina State has found a link between elderly people who play video games and not only improved happiness, but better overall health.
Want 
to play the new SimCity? We can’t blame you — it looks terrific. But good luck getting it working.
In what’s becoming a familiar tune to early players of eagerly-anticipated titles that require an Internet connection, the game’s servers were completely overwhelmed when it launched Tuesday, preventing users from playing and angering the long-running franchise’s legions of fans.
Most 
people think video games and reading don’t mix, but it turns out a little Halo here and there might actually be effective in treating dyslexia.
So says a group of neurologists from Italy’s University of Padua, who found a correlation between a dyslexic child’s visual attention span and their ability to read. The results of their study, published in the most recent edition of Current Biology, indicate that playing video games for just 12 hours is more beneficial than a full year of intense therapy.
The 
unveiling of the next game in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise didn’t exactly go as planned. Early leaks of the game’s poster and nautical plot hook — along with some earnest hand wringing by gaming media outlets — lessened the impact of the reveal, but that doesn’t mean the game is any less intriguing.
Ubisoft has now formally pulled back the curtain on Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, due out November 1. The new game takes the popular franchise in a different direction, this time turning gamers into pirate assassins rampaging on the high seas. While there will be plenty of dry dock skullduggery to perform, developers say roughly 40 percent of the game will be spent sailing the ocean blue.
Chris Morris: Journalist 