Epic Games CEO and founder Tim Sweeney expressed his opinion on the flagging state of the PC gaming industry. In an interview conducted by TG Daily, he pointed out the different problems the PC marke t is facing as well as some possible solutions the industry can take if it wants to make some headway against its rivals. You can check out the rest of the interview by reading our full article, accessible through the "read more" link below.

With all the talk about video games being a bad influence in general, it's good to hear about gamers actually stepping up to do the right thing - even if it means putting themselves in harm's way. Such was the case with Adam Mapleson, a quiet and gentle IT consultant who tried to prevent two armed robbers from making a clean getaway after a heist - and received gunshots to the chest at point blank for his efforts.

It's a typical case of an ordinary individual responding to the call of duty, really, even if it meant grievous bodily injury. Adam Mapleson was on his way to work when he saw two armed robbers, their faces obscured with scarves, assault a female security guard who was in the middle of reloading a cash machine.

Ignoring common sense and the instinct to run away from danger, he instead ran toward it - tackling both robbers in a mad dash to help the security guard. But even with the element of surprise, it wasn't long before things went completely downhill for our young gamer. Shots were fired, and Adam crumpled to the ground in a puddle of his own blood.

Thankfully, there's no bad ending in this tale of modern-day heroism. Recent news tell us that Adam's doing fine, recovering in a hospital bed, surrounded with loving family and friends. On the other hand, it's quite obvious that things didn't go as planned for the two robbers, with the stolen cash box having set off its security countermeasures: dousing its contents with indelible red dye, effectively rendering the money inside worthless.

An extraordinary feat of heroism from an ordinary human being, indeed. While some people can prattle on about a recent shooting and the culprit's already dubious connection to videogames, friends, family and even Adam himself states on his MySpace account that he's a true gamer at heart. Maybe this could shake some sense into those parties, but who knows?

One thing's for sure, though - Adam Mapleson saw what needed to be done, and he did it. Gamer? Yes. Hero? Definitely.

We know that everyone may be familiar with the online video game news site called Eurogamer. Now, this site recently put up a new community portal for -who else?- video game fans and players.

Basically, the portal is somewhat like MySpace, or Friendster for that matter, and Eurogamer itself is not ashamed to admit this. Community members will be able to set up their own page, update their profile, join and create user groups, and ultimately communicate with other members.

Eurogamer Managing Director Rupert Loman is quite happy with this development and mentioned that they are actually planning to launch the site in five different European languages later this year. He added that there is more to come but for now, they are quite contented with what they have,

The Eurogamers launch is the first step in our plan to offer new ways of interacting with gamers. The reaction to the site from our group of beta testers has been overwhelmingly positive, and we're looking forward to developing the site to its full potential.

Lastly, Ubisoft pledged its full support to Eurogamers by promoting its latest Xbox 360 title Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (GRAW 2), which will also become available in Europe on PlayStation 3 (PS3) a little later.

 

Well, if it isn't April Fools Day, it's certainly a time for strange news. As reported on digg.com">Digg and first broken by Squid News, it seems that Richard "Dampe" Denton, the creator of video game Ocarina of Time 2D, may not actually be dead.

The post on Squid News outlines a rather plausible account of fact-checking the events behind Dampe's death. Furthermore, it seems his accounts on MSN and MySpace have remained active, which does indicate that someone's using his accounts, at the very least.

Unfortunately, due to the timing of this news, we're still calling this a rumor for now. It could just be a very bad joke, but it also could be an attempt of the developer to get away from the pressures of having to work on OoT2D. In either case, we're hoping more evidence points to his being alive than dead, just so everyone can breathe a sigh of relief.

A moment of silence for PC gamers: the world's second oldest dedicated PC gaming magazine and it's MMO offshoot magazine has been shut down by their publisher, TheGlobe.com. This information seeped into Gamasutra from two independent sources. Could it be because on the flurry of online game coverage? Not exactly.

Computer Games Magazine, once competitor to PC gaming-renowned Computer Gaming World (now known as Gaming for Windows), now ends its 19 year coverage of the latest and hottest in the PC gaming industry. MMO magazine counterpart MASSIVE shares the same fate, after comprehensive coverage of popular MMOs World of Warcraft and PlanetSide since it's first issue.

There has been no reply or word from TheGlobe.com on the matter, probably denoting the sheer gravity of the shake up. It also gives us reason to wonder about TheGlobe.com's other assets, such as classic and modern PC games warehouse Chips & Bits, VoIP solutions provider Voiceglo, and marketing wing SendTec.

Rumors persist that the recent lawsuit against TheGlobe.com was the sole reason for the shutdown of the two publications. TheGlobe.com could owe from US$ 40 million to US$ 120 million in damages, for 100,000 unsolicited and unauthorized commercial e-mail messages to MySpace members through MySpace user accounts created by the company.

'Tis a sad day for the PC gaming generation if this turns out to be true.

From NPD's report "Kids & Digital Content" comes these very interesting information: even two-year old toddlers are now into videogames. The study looks closely at how kids between two and fourteen years of age acquire and use digital content for their computers, portable digital music and/or video players, cell phones, and video game systems.

NPD reported downloading and playing games is the most popular activity followed by watching downloaded movies, television, music videos or online streaming video content. The study says kids play games at an average of 44 minutes in one sitting.

By the time kids are 7 years old, more than one in 10 are downloading content in some form. In the 10-year-old age bracket, 22% of all kids included in the online survey are downloading. Half of all 14 year-olds included in the study were into downloading digital content.

How many kids with access to the Internet are actually surfing the net? The figure is a big 75%. Almost half of them are online and surfing the Internet without any assistance. Only 25% are surfing the Internet with their parents or someone else. The top sites visited by kids include Nickelodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network. MySpace and Yahoo! are also fave surfstops.

"Without a doubt, kids are digital content natives, seamlessly navigating between traditional and digital sources of media without missing a step," said The NPD Group. "To kids, there is nothing new or novel about digital sources of entertainment. The real challenge for marketers is to be one step ahead of their competition, providing the content and technology kids crave."