After much deliberation, Microsoft has changed its policy about self-identifying one’s sexual preference, race, religion or nationality via its Xbox Live online service.

In an open letter written Friday, Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten said that the Xbox Live Terms of Use and Code of Conduct will now allow players to “more freely express their race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation in Gamertags and profiles.”

Specifically, it is now kosher to use the words “lesbian,” “gay,” “bi,” “transgender” and “straight” in ..read the full article

The venerable heavy metal record label Roadrunner Records has released a five-song EP inspired by the forthcoming videogame God of War III.

God of War: Blood & Metal, featuring songs by Killswitch Engage, Dream Theater, Trivium, Opeth and Taking Dawn, is free to those who purchase the $100 God of War III Ultimate Edition bundle. Otherwise, the EP can be downloaded for just $2 at Shockhound.

Headbanger Ben Apatoff from Metal Injection wasn’t terribly moved by the tracks. Opeth’s “The Throat ..read the full article

First Asteroids. Then Missile Command. Now, Hollywood is making a movie out of Space Invaders.

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that Warner Brothers is negotiating with Taito to grab the rights to the classic arcade game. If the deal goes through, Mark Gordon, Jason Blub and Guymon Casady will produce.

In 2009, Universal won the rights to produce a movie based on the Atari classic Asteroids. Last month, the Times reported that Atari was shopping around another hit shooter, Missile Command.

The ..read the full article

LOS ANGELES — Devoted Tron fans were granted an early look at the trailer for Tron Legacy Saturday.

Both Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinski and original Tron helmer Steven Lisberger were on hand to introduce the two-minute trailer, screened in an Imax theater here as part of an ongoing viral promotion for the movie. Kosinski called his sequel the “first movie in which an actor plays against a younger version of himself,” alluding to Jeff Bridges reprising his role of Kevin ..read the full article

Tickets for five preview screenings of Tron Legacy go up for grabs today at 4 PM Eastern.

The screenings were announced yesterday as part of a viral advertising campaign masterminded by 42 Entertainment. The campaign culminated with the discovery of a new site dubbed Pit Cell, where fans found the details for five screenings, to be held on March 27 at IMAX theaters in New York, Los Angeles, London, Toronto and Sydney.

Considering the fact that Tron Legacy doesn’t come out ..read the full article

Tron Legacy fans from around the world are being called to action Wednesday by a viral ad campaign.

An e-mail sent Tuesday night clued in participants about the event. Operatives are being asked to drop by 27 different locations in 25 cities around the world including London, Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and Madrid. Those who turn up at these spots, like Midtown Bowl in Atlanta (.pdf), will find a contact there, likely wearing a “Flynn Lives” T-shirt. That contact, when ..read the full article

Movie studio executives are blaming videogames for dragging young men away from theaters.

The Sunday Times calls it the “Xbox Factor.” Peter Guber, chairman of Mandalay Pictures, backed them up. “A lot of young males are spending much more time on the internet, games and UFC,” he said. “They have not abandoned movies but they have diminished as a target, while the female audience has remained robust.”

The article explores how Hollywood seeks to tap into the female audience by throwing ..read the full article

John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards. Carmack will recieve the award at the Game Developers Conference on March 11 in San Francisco.

Carmack, who co-founded id in 1991, was a pioneer of 3-D graphics and first-person shooters, instrumental in the creation of beloved gaming franchises Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein. He was selected for the award by a panel of game industry veterans.

Previous recipients of the award ..read the full article

Amy Hennig, writer and director of Sony’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, won the Writers Guild of America award for best videogame writing on Saturday.

This year’s WGA Awards, presented during simultaneous ceremonies held in New York and Los Angeles, honored not only screenwriting and videogames, but also radio, news and promotional writing.

Hennig’s script for Naughty Dog’s PlayStation 3 action game was up against Assassin’s Creed II, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Wet and X-Men Origins.

On Thursday, Hennig and ..read the full article

The battle has begun. 11 contestants have entered the ultimate game of Russian roulette. 10 of them will win. One of them will lose, and have to spend a year bug-testing PlayStation games.

The first episode of Sony’s The Tester, a reality show only available through the PlayStation Network downloads store, went live last week. The premise is simple: 11 gamers will put themselves through all sorts of humiliations at the hands of their cruelly whimsical masters at Sony, and at ..read the full article

Mike Newell, the man behind the camera for the forthcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time movie, isn’t terribly good at playing the videogame he was hired to adapt for the big screen.

“I was completely hopeless at it,” Newell admitted in an interview with /Film Tuesday. “I just about managed to get him to run along a wall before he fell off into some appalling scything machine and was chopped to bits.”

Luckily, being a good gamer isn’t the first ..read the full article

For the second year in a row, employees from Electronic Arts’ Tiburon studio in Orlando stopped by the Florida Hospital for Children to deliver games and swag to sick kids.

The Orlando Sentinel reported Monday that EA art director Tony Stanley, among others, donated thirty games including Madden NFL 10 and Boom Blox.

“I’ve never met anyone who made the games,” said patient Raymond Ortiz, a 14-year-old with juvenile diabetes. Ortiz and friends had the chance to chat up game designers ..read the full article

HOLLYWOOD — When metal fans filled The Roxy Thursday night to hear the blackened thrash of Skeletonwitch, the band’s charismatic frontman used his time in the spotlight to extol the virtues of beer, marijuana and videogames.

“Who here comes home from work and plays videogames?” asked Chance Garnett between songs at the Sunset Strip club. The crowd roared, raising their devil horns into the air. “This next song is from a new videogame called Brütal Legend,” said Garnett, whose vocals veer ..read the full article

Vin Diesel will produce and appear in a third Chronicles of Riddick movie, and there’s a good argument to be made that videogames helped keep the sci-fi/fantasy franchise’s flame alive.

The second film in the series, 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick, was a critical disappointment. And though the film eventually grossed $116 million worldwide, according to Variety there’s a good chance there wasn’t much profit to be gleaned from that take. Some reports peg the movie’s budget at $105 million.

So why ..read the full article

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced Thursday its nominees for best videogame of 2009.

The games are: Batman: Arkham Asylum, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks , Street Fighter IV, The Beatles: Rock Band, Assassin’s Creed II, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Uncharted 2: Amongst Thieves, FIFA 10 and Wii Sports Resort.

The second annual GAME British Academy Video Games Awards will be held March 19 in London. Gamers can vote ..read the full article

Game|Life readers are filled with help for gaming grandpas.

I was overwhelmed by the response to yesterday’s story about aging gamers playing shooters like MAG. Game|Life readers piped in with their experiences and opinions in the comments section, and I was deluged with emails full of advice for old fogies. I’d like to share some of it with you.

Reader mysticerf told me that faction matters when you’re playing MAG. He said swearing allegiance to the S.V.E.R. faction is best way to ..read the full article

Team Teamwork, reacting to a copyright infringement claim, has removed the videogame-themed mash-up album Vinyl Fantasy 7 from the website Bandcamp.

Vinyl Fantasy 7 mashes up hip-hop artists like Jay-Z and Ghostface Killah with Nobuo Uematsu’s hit score from the 1997 videogame Final Fantasy VII. Artist “Team Teamwork” is Tim Jacques, a 24-year-old graphic designer from the Boston area.

Jacques doesn’t know who filed the claim against him. “I received the notice with Bandcamp as the proxy,” he told Wired.com by email.

He ..read the full article

Soul singer Bill Withers croons the tune “Ain’t No Sunshine” in the Dante’s Inferno ad that will air during the Super Bowl this Sunday.

Blame Gears of War for the trend of pairing seemingly inappropriate pop music with videogame footage. But the juxtaposition works.

In 2006 the melancholy tune “Mad World” sung by Gary Jules (covering the Tears for Fears original) was matched with the burly space marines and post-apocalyptic wreckage of Gears of War to great effect. The new clip for ..read the full article