Blizzard has finally disproved the old adage that videogames rot your brains. In fact, they impart essential survival training on players. Earlier this month, 12-year-old Jørgen Olsen survived a moose attack in Norway by playing dead — a skill his World of Warcraft character had recently learned. And then the game taught a 17-year-old in Bejing how to deal with schoolyard bullies. After losing a fight, he took a cue from the game’s Fire Mage and set a match to his real-world opponent, after dousing him in gasoline.

You’re a spaz with the ribbons and paper. And of course, as an engineer it’s all about optimizing for my time, etc. Don’t show up with sloppy giftwrap this year. Take your gifts to the nearest poshtastic shopping center and let someone who knows what they’re doing handle it. I called ahead for you, and Gridskipper helpfully mapped out the coordinates.

San Francisco

Westfield San Francisco Centre
865 Market St.
San Francisco, CA

Papyrus, on the 3rd floor. While you’re almost there, may I recommend the top-floor spa to get away from the holiday craziness. Bring lots of cash for that.

Macy’s
170 O’Farrell St.
San Francisco, CA

Go to the 6th floor of the main store, not the separate menswear building. They’ll gladly wrap your non-Macy’s purchases for a few bucks.

That other part of San Francisco

Macy’s
1 Stonestown Mall
San Francisco, CA

Again, they’ll wrap non-Macy’s purchases for a tiny fee.

Palo Alto

Stanford Shopping Center
680 Stanford Shopping Center
Palo Alto, CA

WaMu — the bank, not the killer whale — has an outdoor stand in the center of the mall near Abercrombie & Fitch.

San Jose

There are two gift spots. One by Nordstrom’s, and one by the food court and Armani Exchange, where you should ask if they carry Armani (Red) sunglasses for Africa and if they don’t, tell them Bono and I are personally hurt.

Westfield Valley Fair
2855 Stevens Creek Blvd.
San Jose, CA

East Bay

Bayfair Center
15555 14th St.
San Leandro, CA

Don’t go to Bay Street in Emeryville. They told me to go to Bayfair. No one answers the phone at Bayfair, so I haven’t verified this one.

Source:Valleywag

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Here’s the infamous Blockles, the Tetris clone from Iminlikewithyou founder Charles Forman. “I dont know what Tetris is,” Forman told me. “Blockles is a falling block puzzle game.” Right. One that I kicked your ass at, boyo. (Check out the sweet swap move I pulled about 25 seconds in. Bam.)

Compete.com says Iminlikewithyou, Forman’s online dating site, has grown 58 percent in the last month. But that’s only up to 21,000 or so “people,” so big deal.

Even if growth keeps up at that rate, marketing expert Seth Godin — who otherwise raves about Forman’s site — will tell you, “There’s no way, none, that tradtional online ad models will generate revenue for sites like this.”

No revenue? No problem! Forman just wants to own the market, he says: “You look at games on the internet in the U.S., and they are all shit. I will own the casual gaming space in the U.S. within the next year.”

Keep in mind, this is the guy whose business card reads, “So … chances are, you were in like with me. And … chances are, I gave you this card because I didn’t feel like talking to you anymore. Just kidding! LOLZ!”

Ads by Pheedo

… sorry, no punchline. Scott Johnston, who’s been working at Google since it acquired his former employer, JotSpot, more than a year ago, Twitters:

Just walked past Sergey in an empty hallway, but didn’t say hi because I couldn’t remember his name. Does that make me a bad Googler?

No, Scott, it doesn’t. Sending a Twitter about it makes you a bad Googler.

Source:Valleywag

Silicon Valley’s armchair athletes may want to rethink their training regimen. A recent study shows that Nintendo’s Wii tennis is no substitute for real exercise. In fact, it’s only 2 percent more taxing than playing Halo 3. [Ars Technica]

There are murmurs of surprise that videogame retailer GameStop has made its way onto the S&P 500 index. More than a decade ago, it was bankrupt. Now it’s eaten not just its competitors’ lunch, but its entire competition, consuming Babbage’s, Software Etc, NeoStar and Electronics Boutique. It’s one of those great adversity-toppling stories business writers love.

One analyst remarks, “Everyone argued that games would be distributed online … but these guys stuck to their game plan.” That’s true, but GameStop’s success is mostly due to the nascent state of digital distribution. Broadband is still too slow, and console hard drives are still too small. Those limitations hinder the sale of full-length, multiple-gigabyte games. GameStop’s success has been a matter of luck as much as timing. Playing videogames has grown as a mainstream obsession even faster than the broadband pipes that were supposed to make GameStop’s business model obsolete. That, and it’s still really hard to download a Wii. (Photo by maulleigh)

Remember SimCity? Remember what a joy it was to build up a fully functioning, living, breathing city, full of life and wonderment? Then, at some point down the road, after you’ve built up your city to the peak of its productiveness, you’d start mashing the disaster button and a wide variety of tornadoes, earthquakes, and fake Godzillas would come tromping through, laying fiery waste to every bit of what you’d worked so painstakingly to create? Yeah. It’s a little bit like that. Except someone hit the disaster button for me.

— GameSpot editor Alex Navarro on the state of CNET after the tech publisher fired his colleague Jeff Gerstmann, editorial director of the videogame-reviews site, on still-unexplained grounds.

Venture capitalist and blogger Fred Wilson has a lot to be thankful for, he tells us. “Three awesome kids,” “a work life that is stimulating,” and, of course, “a wife who loves me even though at times she threatens to kill me.” If the image Wilson embedded with his post is any hint, it seems he might be having a little trouble pulling himself away from his laptop this holiday. Let’s all take Mrs. Wilson’s advice this holiday weekend, shall we?

Source:Valleywag

Casual games are those Web-based entertainments your mom is no doubt playing while you hog the Xbox. But are they a real business? According to GigaOm, casual gamesmake up 10 percent of the videogame industry’s $30 billion in revenues. A “hit” casual game can get as many as 7 million plays a month. And these free, ad-supported games may actually be a better prospect for marketers than regular videogames. Their audience is far more tolerant of TV-like interruptions than hardcore gamers. But when it comes to actual dollars, few developers are going to make real money from casual games. Most make a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars a month, and no one is getting rich off an ad-supported model. Some developers are turning to micropayments — small charges for in-game items, new levels, or extra play modes — to help pad their wallets.

Ever wonder why people spend 20, 40 or 80 hours a week playing massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft? It’s to meet hot chicks. That’s why a band of intrepid entrepreneurs has developed a cleverly-named social network to “facilitate the building of relationships between World of Warcraft enthusiasts.” The wondrous World of Datecraft has currently attracted 300 lonely WoW fanatics (judging from forum registrations). We suspect the appeal of World of Warcraft players is understated. Sure, there’s the deathly pallor. But what girl doesn’t swoon over a guy capable of back-handing his enemies across the Swamp of Sorrows with an Infinity Blade? That’s all part of the attraction: You know he’s capable of obsessively focusing on a single goal. All you have to do is switch his attentions over to you.

Source:Valleywag

“About three in four parents of young gamers never or hardly ever touch the stuff,” reports an Associated Press poll. That might explain why so many tweens wind up with Grand Theft Auto in their Christmas stockings. What They Like, a startup, aims to guide out-of-touch parents through today’s media landscape. Helmed by the Ziff Davis-fleeing executives Ira Becker and John Davison, the company’s first project, What They Play, is a resource for clueless parental units. You know, so they don’t wind up buying the ultraviolent Manhunt 2 for their toddlers.

I recently wrote that videogame developers can’t follow in the footsteps of Radiohead and give away their wares for free. Wired editor Chris Anderson — known around Valleywag for his theory of the “Long Fail” “Long Tail” — disagrees. He disagrees with Valleywag — “>and with Wired. Anderson’s “free games” manifesto, in which he argues for in-game advertising, virtual item sales, and shareware business models, has one severe flaw: he’s talking about the games no one wants to play. In fact, he didn’t name any titles, which makes me wonder if he ever plays. Mr. Anderson, I’ll be glad to return to this debate if we agree to discuss games that are actually, you know, fun.

Radiohead has stirred up a lot of hoopla with its name-your-own-price album download In Rainbows. Naturally, the curious wonder whether the do it yourself model can be transferred to videogames. The answer: no. Videogame developers and publishers are dependent on games sales — there’s no equivalent of the concert tour or other sideline business where they can make money. Some independent studios are attempting to become their own publishers, effectively freeing themselves from a record label equivalent, but selling directly to consumers online isn’t as easy as it sounds. Setting up a true digital distribution arm like Valve Software’s Steam, is expensive — and that one is only for PCs. Console gaming doesn’t yet have the storage capacity, business model, or open access to be a viable digital solution to retail stores, for which you need the backing of a large publisher. In other words, stop dreaming of getting away with paying a nickel for Halo 4. Master Chief wants you to pay up. (Photo by GameLuv)