The holiday season 
is typically loaded with must-have videogames, but the number hitting shelves this year is unprecedented.
Several top franchises have new installments out and some new games are looking very promising. That’s good news for players, but it’s even better for gift buyers, since few gamers will be able to keep up with the deluge. Here are some sure-fire suggestions.
While there’s 
little doubt the videogame industry will once again end the year with negative growth, publishers are certainly positioning themselves to go out with good fight this holiday season.
The lineup of major franchises releasing games in the fourth quarter is unparalleled this year and could be a boon for both players and game makers — and, ultimately, investors.
The revelation of 
a marketing firm that claimed to be paying writers at high-profile online outlets to insert links to its client websites has dredged up old concerns about the ethical nature of some bloggers.
Gawker writer Hamilton Nolan shined the light on the company, which calls itself 43a, last week, posting a series of emails from what appears to be a company principal that offered up to $175 every time he linked to a site from one of their clients. In those notes, the 43a rep claimed to have worked with notable sites such as The Huffington Post and Business Insider, and had a client list that included Dell, Motorola Mobility and T-Mobile.
Shares of Take-Two 
Interactive Software surged Tuesday as the company confirmed the long-rumored next installment in its hit “Grand Theft Auto” series is on the way.
The logo for “Grand Theft Auto V” festooned the Website of Rockstar Games, the developer of the series, teasing a Nov. 2 release for the first trailer for the game. And despite the lack of a release date, plot information or any other details about the title, the publisher’s stock was up nearly 7 percent in midday trading.
There has never 
been a lot of love lost between Activision and Electronic Arts. The two video game publishers fight over just about everything.
But with Tuesday’s launch of EA’s “Battlefield 3,” the clash is taking on a particular sense of importance. At stake: The supremely profitable shooter genre – and possibly the fate of EA’s long-in-the-making turnaround.
There’s no dancing 
around the fact that the vast majority of movies based on videogames stink. Absurd plotlines are attached to games that barely had a story to begin with — and those rare games that do have a strong narrative typically see that jettisoned by filmmakers for a different story line.
Being a bad movie isn’t necessarily the kiss of death at the box office — need we remind you of Paulie Shore’s cinematic career? Sometimes, however, the audience is just too smart to be fooled and the film tanks.
The history of 
financially successful videogame-to-movie conversions is a pretty short one. The list of critically successful conversions is even shorter.
That doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few solid hits that got their start in the console world. Popular franchises tend to come with a built-in audience, and when Hollywood supplements that with a big star it can be an immensely profitable venture — often spawning one or more sequels.
For the past dozen 
years or so, Hollywood has leaned on classic (and not so classic) television shows as the source catalog for new films. As that trend comes to a close, studios are focusing more and more on the videogame industry.
Despite the tarnished history of videogame adaptations, studios are moving forward with more than dozen big-screen gaming movies. What’s amazing, though, is it’s possible — just possible — that some of these films might not stink.
The hacker world 
has been a busy one lately.
The blend of high-profile cyber intrusions and denial of service attacks, mixed with vague anonymous threats delivered by mechanized voices and curiously timed offline periods for major corporations, have prompted some conspiracy theorists to wonder — Is there a hacker movement underway to undermine big business and/or the economy?
There aren’t many 
tech fields that move faster than the cell phone world. Not only are the devices themselves designed to be disposable within two years, but the back-end technology powering the networks is constantly being upgraded.
That means the transition to the next generation of wireless communications is already under way. The latest is called 4G — and all of the carriers are peppering their marketing with the phrase. What many are failing to do, though, is explain what’s so important about 4G and why consumers should care.
Chris Morris: Journalist 