Gaming companies join more than 200 US firms in signing document calling on Supreme Court to repeal act that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and Zynga have again voiced their opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The companies have joined with 275 other United States firms in signing an amicus brief calling on the Supreme Court to repeal the act that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

“Although marriages are celebrated and recognized under state law, DOMA, a federal law withholding marital benefits from some lawful marriages but not others, requires that employers treat one employee differently from another, when each is married, and each marriage is equally lawful,” reads a line from the brief. “DOMA thus impairs employer/employee relations and other business interests.”

Other companies signing the brief include Facebook, Amazon, Starbucks, Twitter, The Walt Disney Company, and GameSpot parent company CBS Corporation. No other game companies signed the brief.

EA, Microsoft, and Zynga signed a similar brief last summer. Speaking with GameSpot, EA corporate communications representative Sandy Goldberg explained that this new brief supports a different Supreme Court case, but its goal is the same.

“This brief is similar in nature of course, but supports a different Supreme Court case, this one being United States vs. Windsor. Both have the same implication–that DOMA presents an issue for employers by forcing them to put married employees in two categories which creates regulatory, tax, benefits and morale problems for employers,” Goldberg said.

EA last month joined a Human Rights Campaign business coalition to support the repeal of DOMA.

In addition, the publisher will join with the HRC and the Ford Foundation in New York City next week to discuss LGBT issues in games. The half-day event will see attendees discussing the origin of homophobia in games, the difference between exclusive and inclusive language, and how employers can create and promote inclusive work environments for LGBT employees.

Baltimore Ravens linebacker and recent Super Bowl champion Brendon Ayanbadejo will host a fireside chat at the event that will focus on the challenges of creating an inclusive culture, according to a description of the talk.

The Defense of Marriage Act, which was enacted by the federal government in 1996, legally defines marriage as between one man and one woman. The Obama administration since found the act’s third section (which contains the definition) unconstitutional, and has refused to act upon it.

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Democratic senator Leland Yee says it is “mind-boggling” that National Rifle Association “suddenly cares about the harmful effects of ultra-violent video games.”

California senator Leland Yee, whose high-profile violent game law was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2011, has spoken out against the National Rifle Association’s recent response to the deadly Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

In a statement to his website, Yee said when his violent game law was brought before the Supreme Court last year, the NRA was nowhere to be seen.

“I find it mind-boggling that the NRA suddenly cares about the harmful effects of ultra-violent video games. When our law was before the Supreme Court–while several states, medical organizations, and child advocates submitted briefs in support of California“s efforts–the NRA was completely silent.”

Yee further claimed that the NRA, instead of facing the reality and becoming part of the solution to gun proliferation, is attempting to “pass the buck.”

“More guns are not the answer to protecting our children, as evident by the fact that armed guards weren“t enough to stop the tragedy at Columbine High School,” Yee said. “The NRA“s response is pathetic and completely unacceptable.“

NRA vice president Wayne LaPierre said at a press conference Friday violent video games like Bulletstorm and Mortal Kombat were partially to blame for December 14′s deadly shooting in Connecticut.

Earlier in the week, West Virginia senator Jay Rockefeller introduced a bill to Congress that would direct the National Academy of Sciences to investigate how violent games and other such programming affect children.

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Odd Future have courted controversy from well-meaning progressives and rap-hating right-wingers alike, but their current legal entanglement is unlikely to result in a 2 Live Crew-style Supreme Court case…
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The money has finally started rolling in a lawsuit that could lead to big payouts for many recording artists. Last year, the Supreme Court decided not to review a case involving Eminem, after an appeals court had decided that for Slim Shady, digital downloads count as “licenses,” which carry higher royalty payments than “sales” do…
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The Elder Scrolls V fends off multiple award winner Portal 2 to take home Game of the Year as Fez wins top prize in Independent Games Festival.

After warming up with a handful of special events and focused summits, the 2012 Game Developers Conference officially kicked off Wednesday with the first assortment of sessions and the 12th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, hosted by Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski.

Skyrim is the Game Developers Choice Awards Game of the Year.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim took home Game of the Year honors, just as it did last month at the Interactive Achievement Awards. Todd Howard accepted the award with a chunk of the development team on stage, emphasizing that creating a title like Skyrim is a group effort that depends on a multitude of talented people working together.

Skyrim wasn’t the only big winner of the evening. Portal 2 won the game design, audio, and narrative categories, while Supergiant Games took home Best Downloadable Game and Best Debut for its first effort, the Xbox 360 and PC game Bastion. The GDC also doled out special awards for developer Dave Theurer (Missile Command, Tempest), Junction Point Studios founder Warren Spector (Epic Mickey, Deus Ex), and Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith, the two lawyers who successfully argued on the game industry’s behalf before the Supreme Court.

The GDC Awards were preceded by the 14th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards, created “to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers.” Although it only won one of the two categories for which it was nominated, Fez loomed large over the ceremony by winning the Seumas McNally Grand Prize Award. Designer Phil Fish, who had stirred controversy at a Monday screening of Indie Game: The Movie by saying modern Japanese games suck, appeared overwhelmed at winning, only able to offer a blanket “thank you” as an acceptance speech.

An archived version of GameSpot’s live video stream of the event should be available later tonight.

A full list of the night’s nominees with winners in italics follows below.

GAME DEVELOPERS CHOICE AWARDS

Game of the Year

Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios)

Portal 2 (Valve)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Eidos Montreal)

Dark Souls (FromSoftware)

Best Game Design

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios)

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Nintendo)

Portal 2 (Valve)

Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios)

Dark Souls (FromSoftware)

Innovation

Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure (Toys For Bob)

Portal 2 (Valve)

Bastion (Supergiant Games)

Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik)

L.A. Noire (Team Bondi)

Best Technology

Battlefield 3 (DICE)

L.A. Noire (Team Bondi)

Crysis 2 (Crytek Frankfurt/UK)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios)

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Naughty Dog)

Best Handheld/Mobile Game

Tiny Tower (NimbleBit)

Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo)

Jetpack Joyride (Halfbrick)

Infinity Blade II (Chair Entertainment)

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (Capy Games/Superbrothers)

Best Audio

Bastion (Supergiant Games)

LittleBigPlanet 2 (Media Molecule)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios)

Dead Space 2 (Visceral Games)

Portal 2 (Valve)

Best Downloadable Game

Stacking (Double Fine)

From Dust (Ubisoft Montpellier)

Bastion (Supergiant Games)

Outland (Housemarque)

Frozen Synapse (Mode 7)

Best Narrative

Portal 2 (Valve)

The Witcher 2 (CD Projekt RED)

Bastion (Supergiant Games)

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Naughty Dog)

Saints Row: The Third (Volition)

Best Debut

Supergiant Games (Bastion)

Team Bondi (L.A. Noire)

Re-Logic (Terraria)

BioWare Austin (Star Wars: The Old Republic)

Eidos Montreal (Deus Ex: Human Revolution)

Best Visual Arts

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Naughty Dog)

Rayman Origins (Ubisoft Montpellier)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios)

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (Ignition Japan)

Battlefield 3 (DICE)

Pioneer Award

Dave Theurer, creator of Missile Command, Tempest, and I, Robot

Ambassador Award

Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith, game industry lawyers for the Supreme Court case against California

Lifetime Achievement Award

Warren Spector, founder Junction Point Studios

INDEPENDENT GAMES FESTIVAL AWARDS

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

Dear Esther (thechineseroom)

Fez (Polytron)

Frozen Synapse (Mode 7 Games)

Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik)

Spelunky (Mossmouth)

Technical Excellence

Antichamber (Demruth)

Fez (Polytron)

Prom Week (Expressive Intelligence Studio, UC Santa Cruz)

Realm of the Mad God (Wild Shadow Studios & Spry Fox)

Spelunky (Mossmouth)

Excellence in Visual Art

Botanicula (Amanita Design)

Dear Esther (thechineseroom)

Lume (State of Play Games)

Mirage (Mario von Rickenbach)

Wonderputt (Damp Gnat)

Excellence in Design

Atom Zombie Smasher (Blendo Games)

English Country Tune (Stephen Lavelle)

Frozen Synapse (Mode 7 Games)

Gunpoint (Tom Francis, John Roberts, and Fabian van Dommelen)

Spelunky (Mossmouth)

Excellence in Audio

Botanicula (Amanita Design)

Dear Esther (thechineseroom)

Pugs Luv Beats (Lucky Frame)

To The Moon (Freebird Games)

Waking Mars (Tiger Style)

Best Mobile Game

ASYNC Corp (Powerhead Games)

Beat Sneak Bandit (Simogo)

Faraway (Steph Thirion)

Ridiculous Fishing (Vlambeer)

Waking Mars (Tiger Style)

Nuovo Award

(Designed “to honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development.”)

At a Distance (Terry Cavanagh)

Dear Esther (thechineseroom)

Fingle (Game Oven Studios)

GIRP (Bennett Foddy)

Proteus (Ed Key and David Kanaga)

Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik)

Storyteller (Daniel Benmergui)

Way (CoCo & Co.)

Best Student Game

The Bridge (Case Western Reserve University)

Dust (Art Institute of Phoenix)

The Floor Is Jelly (Kansas City Art Institute)

Nous (DigiPen Institute of Technology)

One and One Story (Liceo Scientifico G.B. Morgagni)

Pixi (DigiPen Institute of Technology – Singapore)

The Snowfield (Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab)

Way (Carnegie Mellon University)

Audience Award

Frozen Synapse (Mode 7 Games)

XBLA Award

Super Time Force (Capybara Games)

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State agrees to reimburse Entertainment Software Association for fees incurred during violent game bill battle; some portion to be donated to after-school programs.

It wasn’t enough that California lost its bid to slap restrictions on the sale of violent games to minors; now the cash-strapped state is forced to pay nearly $1 million for its failed law.

Today, the Entertainment Software Association announced that the state of California has agreed to pay the trade group $950,000 in legal fees to reimburse the trade group’s costs incurred during the Supreme Court proceedings.

For that much money, California could have become a dues-paying member of the ESA instead.

California’s debt to the ESA is lower than what the trade group originally sought. In July, the ESA announced it was hoping to be paid $1.1 million from the state.

Previously, the ESA was paid $280,000 by California in 2008 from lower court legal fees. Further, the ESA said it has received $1,773,000 from other states–including Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota–who sought to “unconstitutionally regulate video games.”

The ESA will donate an unspecified portion of the proceeds to create after-school programs for “underserved” California communities in Oakland and Sacramento. According to the ESA, its new charitable education endeavor will be launched in spring 2012. The ESA says it will “harness young peoples’ natural passion for playing video games and connect them to development of critical 21st century job skills.”

Drafted by State Senator Leland Yee and signed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005, the law would have criminalized the sale of violent games to minors. It also would have required a 2-inch-by-2-inch sticker with a solid white “18″ outlined in black to appear on the front cover of such games.

“Senator Yee and Governor Schwarzenegger wasted more than $1 million in taxpayer funds at a time when Californians could ill afford it,” said ESA president and CEO Michael D. Gallagher.

For more on the overturned law, check out GameSpot’s previous coverage.

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Dave Theurer being given 2012 Pioneer Award for work on Atari arcade games; Brown v. EMA lawyers presented with Ambassador Award for this summer’s Supreme Court victory.

The 2012 Game Developers Choice Awards don’t kick off until March, but the event’s organizers have started doling out its accolades, today announcing its Pioneer and Ambassador award honorees.

Missile Command was important not only for Atari, but also the industry at large.

GDCA event organizers today said Dave Theurer will receive its 2012 Pioneer Award, presented each year to a person who “creates breakthrough video game genres or concepts.” Theurer is most famous for creating Atari arcade games Missile Command, Tempest, and I, Robot.

“It’s very difficult to find a game developer who doesn’t have a single memory of Missile Command or his other classic, Tempest,” said Game Developers Conference general manager Meggan Scavio. “We’re delighted to honor Dave Theurer for his work as a designer, which resulted in shaping so many developers’ creative drive in the genre.”

As for the Ambassador award, this accolade is presented to a person or persons who “helped the game industry advance to a better place.” This year’s award is being given to Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith, the lawyers who fought on behalf of the game industry in the Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association Supreme Court case concerning the sale of violent video games. The case ended this summer with the court siding with the gaming industry.

Doroshow is senior vice president and general counsel of the Entertainment Software Association. Smith, the lead external lawyer in the Supreme Court case, currently works at US law firm Jenner & Block LLC. Smith has worked Supreme Court cases for nearly 30 years, delivering oral arguments in 13 Supreme Court cases.

Doroshow and Smith helped the gaming industry win its recent Supreme Court battle.

“The dedication that both Doroshow and Smith brought to the Brown v. EMA case will forever make them heroes to anyone who understands the value of this industry,” added Scavio of the two winners. “With their legal teams, these two lawyers advanced the games industry in such a way that developers’ livelihoods and intellectual properties are protected.”

The 2012 Game Developers Choice Awards will be held on March 7 beginning at 6:30 p.m. PT. Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski will present the awards at this year’s show, to be held at Moscone Center in San Francisco. Those who can’t make it to the awards show in person can see a live stream of the event at GameSpot.com. For the full list of 2012 GDCA nominated games, see GameSpot’s preview coverage.

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Universal Music Group is fending off lawsuits from all comers over how it calculates artist royalties from digital downloads, according to the Hollywood Reporter. On Tuesday, a federal judged denied the label’s motion to dismiss one such class action suit led by Rob Zombie and the estate of Rick James. On Wednesday, Public Enemy’s Chuck D filed his own class action accusing the label of failing to give artists their proper cut of royalties from MP3s, ringtones, and other digital sales.

The lawsuits could lead to a massive windfall for royalty recipients. The argument boils down to whether digital downloads should be considered a “license” and what’s considered a “sale.” While copyright owners receive only 12 percent to 20 percent share of royalties from sales, they receive a 50 percent chunk of royalties from licenses, according to a previous report. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court opted not to review a case involving Eminem, in which an appellate court ruled that — at least when it comes to Slim Shady — digital downloads count as licenses and therefore require the higher royalty payment.

That difference in definitions could put labels on the hook for as much as $2.15 billion, the Future of Music Coalition has estimated — and that’s from iTunes sales alone. Of course, Universal has downplayed the significance of the Eminem ruling, saying the judge’s decision “does not create any legal precedent.” Now it will be up to a federal court in California to figure out what royalties might be owed to other recording artists and producers nationwide.

The Eminem lawsuit took a couple of years to wind its way through the courts, so a final decision — let alone any potential payout — might not be here for some time. “Chuck D has been ‘fighting the power’ for over two decades and will continue to do so through this suit in order to help all musicians, including many legacy artists who are living on fixed incomes,” a lawyer for the rapper tells THR. A UMG spokesman is quoted as saying, “This complaint suffers from serious flaws and weaknesses, not the least of which is that the claims asserted are not appropriate for class treatment.” Billions of dollars could be at stake for the ailing record biz.

Academics from Florida State, University of Illinois question methodological rigor of studies that point to improved perception and cognition from gaming.

If there’s one thing the recent Supreme Court case over California’s game restriction law made clear, it’s that psychologists don’t agree on the negative impacts of gaming. It turns out they don’t agree on the positive impacts either.

Dr. John-117 may not be an impartial source.

A trio of researchers from Florida State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are criticizing the bulk of studies showing that games improve perception and cognition in players. The group published its concerns this month in a perspective article in the Web-based journal Frontiers in Psychology.

The three academics took interest in the issue because the benefits of training in specific perceptual and cognitive tasks have generally been confined to the tasks being trained at, rather than improving perceptual and cognitive abilities across the board. Because there have been multiple publications and researchers coming to the conclusion that the benefits of gaming in those areas do carry over to broader tasks, the article’s authors sought to examine the methodological rigor of the papers in question.

“Although provocative, the conclusion that game training produces unusually broad transfer is weakened by methodological shortcomings common to most (if not all) of the published studies documenting gaming effects,” the researchers determined.

One of the most common concerns cited centered on how the researchers found their test subjects. The paper suggests that if scientists told gamers what they were studying for, the subjects may expect to perform better or have a reason to try harder, both of which could create a sort of placebo effect, amplifying the gamers’ test scores. Of 21 papers documenting differences in test performance, 19 of them either overtly told the recruited subjects the purpose of the study or did not specify how the test subjects were recruited.

The new paper’s authors acknowledge that experienced gamers outperform non-gamers in cognition and perception tests, but they questioned whether the relationship was causal. For example, they suggested that people with a natural talent in those areas may be drawn to games in the first place, which frequently require those traits in players. They also suggested that frequent gaming encourages players to pick up different strategies, such as looking in every nook and cranny of a level for hidden power-ups. Such a strategy change might not actually make players more perceptive so much as it changes their behaviors in ways that boost test performance.

Rather than pick a side on the question of whether games improve cognitive and perceptual abilities, the researchers suggested adopting a handful of methodological changes that would address their concerns in future studies.

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