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AOL launches gaming resource for parents

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AOL announced the launch of PlaySavvy.com, a site that targets parents of children ages 5-17 and helps them decipher the world of games, both PC and console. PlaySavvy also helps parents stay aware of their kids’ entertainment choices including assisting them in making informed decisions about buying games for their children.

The PlaySavvy.com launch is a continuation of AOL’s overall programming goal to offer consumers interactive and engaging experiences with relevant sites that target people’s passion points. This year, AOL launched several targeted sites including ParentDish.com, Lemondrop.com, WalletPop.com, and Holidash.com.

“Playing video games is one of the top pastimes for children these days, almost more than watching TV. We created AOL PlaySavvy to help parents navigate through all the gaming information out there in order to decide what’s appropriate for their children,” said Libe Goad, Editor-in-Chief, AOL PlaySavvy. “In addition, PlaySavvy provides advertisers the opportunity to reach this targeted user base by creating appealing campaigns around the content.”

Originally posted on December 1, 2008 @ 1:56 pm

Boing Boing launches gaming blog Offworld

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Boing Boing announced the launch of Offworld, a new gaming blog edited by Brandon Boyer with regular contributions from all of the ‘Boingers.’ Offworld aims to distill the fractured, esoteric world of gaming forums, academia, communities, websites and blogs, into an easily digestible feed of the most important and interesting developments in the gaming world.

Offworld covers everything from major mainstream gaming titles to the world of small, independent game developers. Keenly aware that most gamers don’t have the time to troll through all the scattered news sources and sample all of the new games, Offworld contributors will do all the heavy lifting for their readers and profile only the clever, innovative, interesting and fun games that get released.

Originally posted on November 18, 2008 @ 9:22 am

Zynga launches social platform “Zynga With Friends”

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Have you ever played any of Zynga’s multiplayer enabled games and had trouble compelling your friends to play with you? Or maybe you’ve been playing Cityville and you want to increase the number of people you interact with? It was relatively difficult to find like-minded players before. Apparently, Zynga also thought so.

Zynga has now addressed the actual social aspects of its games by announcing the creation of Zynga With Friends, a social lobby where players of Zynga’s many games can meet and play regardless of the social network they’re using or the platform on which they play. [Read more…]

Originally posted on June 26, 2012 @ 10:02 pm

ZTE to Announce New “Advanced Gaming Smartphone” Next Week

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Smartphone users who are serious about gaming will have something to look forward to next week when ZTE releases a new smartphone that has gaming in its DNA.

ZTE made an announcement through Twitter that it is going to launch a new advanced gaming smartphone at a special event in London. The phrases “advanced gaming smartphone” came from ZTE itself so it’s going to really fire up the interest of smartphone gamers. [Read more…]

Originally posted on July 13, 2012 @ 8:02 pm

Nokia Pirates Nintendo Games in N900 Demo?

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Nokia N900 SNES EmulationOh Nokia, how far you’ve fallen from your once-lofty mobile gaming ambitions. The Nokia Mosh repository carried so many wild and wacky games — until you threw away your entire developer community in favor of your clean and shiny Ovi app store. Now you can barely give away top-tier titles for free. N-Gage held so much promise as a mobile online gaming service, boasting such big titles as Tomb Raider and The Sims and Metal Gear Solid — until you unceremoniously killed the whole thing.

Now, to demonstrate the gaming capabilities of your new N900 smartphone, you’ve resorted to running classic games on retro console emulators. Never mind the sheer absurdity of using software emulation to sell the native capabilities of a piece of hardware. Sure, emulators are legal, and hardcore mobile gaming aficionados love emulators, but the game ROMs in your promo video are of questionable legality.

Now Nintendo’s thinking of taking you to court for copyright infringement. Considering that you’re the world’s largest cellphone manufacturer, that’s pretty frickin’ embarrassing.

Originally posted on November 29, 2009 @ 2:51 pm