“Jeff Koons Must Die!!! is a video game made by Hunter Jonakin. The goal is to virtually destroy work by the artist, Jeff Koons.” (via TodayTomorrow)

“Born in 1981 at the height of 2600 mania, this devout dread from Trelawny insists he wasn’t named after the famous tan-and-brown console.  A five-year vet with the Packers, a groin injury pitfall left him in game-over status.” (From EgoTripLand’s “You Got a Bad Name Like Dick Butkus: 11 of the Greatest Names in NFL History“)

Its remarkable enough that a 14 year old kid and his mom developed a hit iPhone game (Bubble Ball), but perhaps even more interesting is seeing Angry Birds developer Rovio framed as the “big guy” in the battle for Top Free apps. VentureBeat states:  “On Thursday alone, Bubble Ball was downloaded 400,000 times. Since its launch on Dec. 29, the game has been downloaded 1.5 million times. The top paid app is still Angry Birds. That’s pretty good for a solo effort. By contrast, Angry Birds was created by a team at Helsinki-based Rovio, which has dozens of employees and has made more than 50 mobile games since 2003.” Its not just the huge traditional publishers being eaten away at by companies like Rovio, even smaller operation are making a dent in Rovio itself!

…And in the world of videogame inspired art, that is truly saying something. Check out the full gallery of “Gadgets Anatomy” on Trendland.net.

The excellent BLDG BLOG took a  look at the design of virtual New Yorks in a recent piece title “The Inevitability of Prophecy Among Models of New York”, claiming cities in videogames can be visions of urban planning and development in the future. Definitely worth a read.

It’s been difficult to explain the malaise that has set in among fans of professional basketball. Everyone has their own reasons. But Deadspin has nailed it by looking at the recent release of NBA Jam (and NBA 2K11) and stating that “the video game industry, which is almost always a few years ahead of the curve, understands that the league, as a product, is kinda broken, at least here in America. The only workable option is to recycle and rebrand until the public runs out of nostalgia. What does it say about the modern NBA, after all, that the two biggest video-game releases are expressly designed to transport you to the 1990s?”

If you haven’t checked out Kill Screen magazine, then you are not smart. In fact, if you don’t represent with one of their Tshirts you are officially an idiot.

Was the freeing of the Chilean miners the first feel-good news story in… like a decade? Anyway, the event has inspired a classic bit of Photoshop work. Click through for full image.

The videogame industry has been undergoing its own quiet recession over the last year or two, as one big studio lays off 40 people here, and another prominent publisher lays off 20 there. The commonly held wisdom is that a handful of mega-games are raking in the loot, while title that is merely “good” (or mediocre or downright bad) is likely to bleed money. August 2010 sales numbers stuck to this narrative, as only the usual suspects (ie, Madden and Nintendo 1st party games) succeeded. But a lot isn’t counted in the month’s NPD numbers, considering no digital sales are included, and Apple keeps delivering success after success (40 million iPhone/iPad gamers? We believe it) while the Android market continues to grow. Fact is, there is basically no growth of the core games market despite increasing installed bases (new buyers of a 360 or Ps3 probably buy a sports game or two and perhaps Modern Warfare 2, not much more), and millions of new or dormant gamers absolutely love the quality and price of the titles on smartphone and tablets. Parents are buying their kids iPod Touches for gaming, and getting them a new game every week for $.99, not like the “old” days where you’d need to get them a $29.99 DS title to shut them up. What’s even more interesting is the behavior of core gamers - they are playing games on their iPad too, not shunning them as inferior. Perhaps, just maybe, the $60 price point for console games needs to be put out to pasture before the games biz is packed with Ishtar after Ishtar?

NY Times:

Besides caffeinated culture fatigue, young audiences accustomed to a more interactive experience are bringing that expectation to the theater, said Mark Ball, the artistic director of the London International Festival of Theater. The festival, which ended on July 18, included performances of “Beloved,” by Nicole Blackman, in which audience members wandered Rainham Hall, a Georgian house owned by the National Trust.

“With the exponential increase in gaming culture, people are used to being at the center of attention, of controlling their avatar, of getting immediate feedback,” Mr. Ball said.

Don’t know about that. The only Broadway performance where I saw gamers in real numbers was the One-Man Star Wars Trilogy.