While August sales figures gave the video game 
industry yet another dose of bad news, at least Electronic Arts had something to smile about.
Software sales for the industry as a whole fell 14 percent last month to $403.5 million, according to NPD Group. That’s the worst performance for the month in three years and more than twice as bad as what some analysts were expecting.
Video game publishers aren’t fooling themselves. They
know August is going to be the latest in a string of awful months for the industry.
Sales numbers will be released roughly two hours after the market closes Thursday – and they’re expected to be grim. Michael Pachter, managing director of Wedbush Securities, predicts software sales will drop 6 percent compared to 2009 to $445 million. Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets is expecting things to be even worse – forecasting a 10-15 percent decline.
First announced during the Clinton administration, it
is a videogame title that has been declared dead time and again, yet always manages to come back. After what seemed a devastating (and final) blow in 2009—the disbanding of the game’s development team and a titanic legal battle—the game has surfaced again.
Now planned for a 2011 release on the PC, Microsoft Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation 3, “Duke Nukem Forever” was on display at this year’s Penny Arcade Expo on Friday. The 150,000 attendees got to play it themselves, something most gamers thought would never happen.
Apple might have shined its spotlight 
Wednesday on Apple TV and the new iPods, but at the same time, it had a clear message for the video game industry: We’re coming for you—and it’s going to be an ugly fight.
Over the course of the past three years, Apple has stumbled into a powerful position in the gaming world. The iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad were never designed as gaming platforms, but the app explosion that followed opened up the world of mobile gaming —and now the Cupertino-based company seems ready to capitalize on that.
A look at Playboy’s launch of a game label, with Chris Morris, CNBC.com contributor.
Playboy is getting into the video 
game business—again.
The publishing company, best known for its iconic men’s magazine, will launch a video game label by the end of the year and is partnering with a German online game publisher to release a free-to-play online game.
Another big-box retailer is looking for a cut of the lucrative 
used video game market.
Target has kicked off a pilot program in Northern California allowing customers to trade in their used games, as well as old electronics devices, for store credit. By year’s end, the company plans to expand the program to 850 locations.
“FarmVille” has sure grown a lot of gamers. A new study by The NPD Group 
finds that 20 percent of the U.S. population has played a game on a social network at one point or another. That works out to 56.8 million Americans.
Thirty-five percent of those players are new to gaming, having never previously experimented with any form of video game.
Try as it might, the video game industry 
just can’t catch a break this year.
Sales are down 8 percent year-to-date from 2009’s disappointing numbers. Even the most optimistic analysts are now saying that the best investors can hope for is a flat year. And this week has brought new signs that could indicate further weakness—specifically for Electronic Arts and game retailer GameStop.
Electronic Arts is counting heavily on its Medal of Honor
franchise to help boost revenue in the holiday quarter, but as the title gets closer to launch, it’s finding itself in the crosshairs of game industry critics.
Set in modern-day Afghanistan, the latest version of the franchise casts players as a Tier 1 Operator, a relatively unknown branch of the Special Forces, fighting the War on Terror. Developers say they are striving to present the conflict in an authentic manner, with respect for the soldiers. But the disclosure that gamers could play as the Taliban in the game’s multiplayer mode has raised a few eyebrows.
Chris Morris: Journalist 