The video game industry got some 
long-awaited good news in February.
Software sales came in slightly better than analysts were expecting, while hardware sales shattered forecasts. For the month, game sales fell 5 percent versus a year ago, according to the NPD. (Analysts had expected a drop of between 6 and 10 percent.) Sales of gaming hardware were up a surprising 10 percent, though.
Cindy Taylor knows her days in her 
current job are limited.
While her alter ego of Jesse Jane is one of the most popular porn stars in the industry, the hard truth is that the adult entertainment industry’s audience has tastes that change regularly. And there’s always someone looking to knock the leaders off of their perch.
With a weak slate of titles, February is shaping up to be another negative month for the video game industry.
Analysts expect game sales, which will be announced by the NPD Group after the market closes Thursday, to be significantly lower than the 2010 figures, as publishers once again had a lack of new blockbusters in the pipeline.
Over the past year or so, Nintendo has taken a fairly 
predictable approach in its reaction to the rise of app-based gaming. The bite-sized titles, company officials would say nonchalantly whenever asked, could be a fun diversion, but didn’t compare to the deeper experience of the more feature-rich games on its mobile devices.
These days, the company sounds a lot more concerned.
Investors looking for a chance to get a piece of the 
fast-growing social network gaming and mobile gaming spaces could have the opportunity by year’s end.
PopCap Games, known for such titles as “Bejeweled,” “Bookworm” and “Plants vs. Zombies,” is mulling an IPO. And while a casual game company might seem an unlikely contender to go public, this one boasts both a rabidly loyal audience (that often buys multiple copies of its titles on multiple platforms) and steady revenue growth. As a result, it has been on Wall Street’s radar for a while now.
You might think that after creating a 
title that has over 12 million customers happily paying a monthly subscription fee, Blizzard Entertainment would be immune to some of the fears circling the video game industry.
But Frank Pearce, co-founder of the development giant, says he’s just as worried about the impact of Facebook and iPhone games as everyone else.
Having been a part of the pop-culture 
landscape for over 30 years now, Pac-Man is a pretty familiar character.
He has adorned cereal boxes, been the star of a Saturday morning cartoon program and appeared on virtually every gaming platform to have ever been released.
Electronic Arts hasn’t exactly been a 
darling of Wall Street in recent years.
Battered by a string of earnings disappointments and underperfoming titles, the video game publisher has seen its archrival Activision-Blizzard take away king-of-the hill status among industry peers, and watched its stock price fall. But Frank Gibeau, the president of the EA Games label, says the company has made the necessary changes to get back on top.
The Wall Street rumor mill has been 
alive with chatter for the past couple of weeks about whether video game king of the hill Activision-Blizzard should buy Take-Two Interactive Software.
It’s a merger that makes sense on some levels—but is absolutely baffling on others.
2011 isn’t looking much better 
than 2010 or 2009 for retail sales of video games.
Despite comparing with weak numbers from a year ago, game software sales were down 5 percent last month versus 12 months earlier, coming in at $576 million, according to NPD Group, which tracks the industry. Overall, the industry was down 6 percent, dragged lower by continued weakness in the hardware category.
Chris Morris: Journalist 