Major retailer Amazon has released a list of its top-selling items in the video game category for 2009, with Wii hardware and software dominating the Top 10 for the year thus far. According to the current listing through December 2009, the top four best-selling game-related items - whether consoles, accessories or games - are all Wii related hardware. Specifically, the Wii hardware bundle itself is in top spot for the year from the U.S. version ...

The Queen's New Year Honors list in the United Kingdom has honored several game industry veterans, including Championship Manager creators Oliver and Paul Collyer, Codemasters' Rod Cousens and ex-ELSPA head Paul Jackson, according to media reports. According to the official announcement made today and passed on by BBC News, Oliver and Paul Collyer were made Members of the British Empire (MBE) in recognition for their services to the UK's video game industry. The duo created ...

[Gamasutra is teaming up with game criticism weblog Critical Distance to present Christopher Hyde's round-up of the wealth of excellent games being produced outside the realm of 'AAA' titles in 2009, compiling his take on the best 99 free to download video games released this year.] This past year will go down for me personally as the year in which my spending on video games plummeted, due to personal dissatisfaction with the costs in money ...

Swords & Soldiers WiiWare developer Ronimo Games has told Gamasutra about the importance of playtesting games of every size, as part of a new postmortem published today. In it, the Dutch independent developer -- and original creator of the student version of IGF finalist and subsequent THQ console game De Blob -- discusses what went right and wrong in creating critically acclaimed WiiWare side-scrolling console RTS. A key point that went right during the game's ...

In a new Intel-sponsored feature, part of the site's Visual Computing section, the technical experts behind Mythic and EA's Warhammer Online discuss the mechanics of keeping the MMO running across multiple servers and data centers. As the article notes by way of introduction to the high-pressure world of keeping an MMO running smoothly: "Late at night in unattended server rooms around the world, noiseless except for the soft whir of cooling fans, the peculiar entities ...

Infinity Ward's Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ended up as the most pirated game via BitTorrent in 2009, according to media reports, with 4.1 million unauthorized downloads of the PC version alone. A report from BitTorrent-related site TorrentFreak compiled its own estimates from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers. Due to its distributed nature, with peers seeding data to each other, BitTorrent sites have proved relatively difficult to stamp out as ...

Animal rights group PETA has awarded Electronic Arts a Proggy Award for 'Most Animal-Friendly Game 2009', thanks to The Sims 3's ability to create a vegetarian lifestyle for your Sims. According to a PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) statement, the organization's yearly Proggy Awards ("Proggy" is for "progress") "recognize animal-friendly achievements in commerce and culture." The organization notes that The Sims 3 allows players to create vegetarian Sims, commenting: "In the game, ...

[Veteran indie game creator Edmund McMillen, known for his work on 2005 IGF Grand Prize winner Gish, Time Fcuk, and Super Meat Boy for WiiWare, shares his opinions and manifesto on making indie games, with 24 clear do-s and don't-s to make your art thrive.] One of the most common questions I'm asked in interviews is, "Do you have any advice for independent game developers who are new to the scene, or tips for developers ...

Game packaging is becoming increasingly elaborate. As Collectors Editions and limited steelbook cases become more and more prevalent -- in an effort to make games stand out on the shelves and lure in hardcore collectors -- the art of designing packaging becomes incredibly complicated. So what exactly goes into the process? What makes a good game package, and how do you handle the restrictions of working with marketing departments, and working within the templates the ...

Gamasutra has announced its readers' Top 12 picks for Game Of The Decade vote, after yesterday's Honorable Mentions, with titles like Wii Sports and The Sims battling for the top spot for the last ten years. To divine the top titles, readers responded to this question of naming a game released this decade for any console, handheld, PC or online platform, and why they believe it outdid any other: "Gamasutra is asking its users to ...