Grand Theft Auto dominates the list, but some suprise entries from Need for Speed and Medal of Honor lower down the list...
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Lost among the piles and piles of Playstation 3 and PSP announcements, we were totally unaware Rockstar were releasing a fabulous new package for the Playstation 2 which consists of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto Vice City and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. If you've never touched said games then the Grand Theft Auto Triple Pack launches on July 31st for £17.99.

Yes, £17.99.

That's about 100 hours worth of game for under £20. Bar-gain.
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Speaking in an earnings call following the release of Q3 financials last night, Take-Two CEO Ben Feder said that old GTA titles have sold in seven figure units for the quarter.
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Kotaku writes: "While we've seen countless story regarding children using Grand Theft Auto as their inspiration to do wrong, it's extremely rare that we see news about GTA being cited as a cause for good. It happened on August 27th around 9pm, as the Norris family of five was heading to Diamond, Illinois to visit relatives. Their 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee swerved off the road, hitting a guardrail and flipping four times before coming to a stop, caving in the roof and smashing out the back window. With her mother hanging upside down and her father pinned against the steering wheel, 11-year-old Audrey Plique climbed out of the back window and helped her parents and two younger siblings escape the car. The motivation for her heroic act, according to her mother Karen Norris?

'She just knew, from playing 'Grand Theft Auto.' She saw on there that when a car rolls over, it can blow up. She knew that could happen to us'"
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shacknews.com: The use of Grand Theft Auto as a scapegoat isn't going anywhere, says law professor Ashley Lipson. The trick is worth too much money.

"A good defense lawyer will blame everyone in sight, except of course the client. When he or she runs out of people to blame, it's time to look around for objects. What could be better than a popular videogame?"
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WSBTV writes: "Fulton County officials said they have arrested three teens and charged them with 57 felony counts in connection with a recent series of car bombings with Molotov cocktails in the city of Milton, north of Atlanta.

The felony charges include arson, criminal damage to property and possession of explosive devices in six vehicle fires between 11 p.m. July 24 and 3 a.m. July 25. Each teen is charged with 19 counts.

Officials said the teens -- ages 15 and 16 -- told authorities they learned "how to do it" from playing the video game 'Grand Theft Auto.'"
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MCV: The Rockstar co-founder looks back over his amazingly successful career, discussing his biggest challenges, successes - and what's he's still to achieve.
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VGB writes: Here's the Top 10 10 million selling games. Since the year 2000, there have been few games that sold over 10 million.
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Kotaku reports:

In the June issue of Playboy, Rockstar's Dan Houser gave a somewhat rare full-page interview on Grand Theft Auto 4 and violent video games. Why, Houser was asked, don't other entertainment industries offer more support for video games, since their controversial content is often targeted for criticism in the same fashion?

"It's about economics. We take market share and audience from other media - video game makers are challenging the Hollywood hegemony - so they're going to fight us. But I'm not going to fight them. I believe your Constitution protects us."

When interviewer Scott Alexander asked Houser about inequity in the way adult games are treated as compared with film and other media, Houser said:

"These are works of fiction. Playing a game that features violence is no different from choosing to see a violent movie. We're not trying to create a 'here's real life' sensation in a video game; it's "you're the star of a movie. We want to re-create the sensations you have watching movies. We're putting those in a video game."

When asked to isolate why Rockstar's games seem to provoke a swath of mainstream anger from certain circles, Houser said:

"We're trying to give gamers freedom. It boils down to critics not liking the fact that people can choose to do 'bad' things in a fantasy world - which to me is silly."

The full interview is print only, so to read the whole thing you'd have to look at a copy of June's Playboy. You know, for the article, of course.
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A state court has rejected a move to reinstate a wrongful death suit which sought $600 million from PS2 manufacturer Sony and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City publisher Take-Two Interactive. The game played by a teenager who killed three of his family members in 2004.

The killings occurred on newsman Sam Donaldson's ranch in southern New Mexico.

The lawsuit had alleged that the video game "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" contributed to the killings because Cody Posey played the game "obsessively" and it trained him to act out the violence when he shot and killed his father, stepmother and stepsister in July 2004. He was 14 at the time of the killings.
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EDGE writes:

"Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter believes that the PS3 outsold the Xbox 360 in the US during April, while monthly software sales hit $830 million, up 113 percent on last April's total.

Ahead of the NPD Group's April videogame sales data release, expected this Thursday after market close, Pachter forecast that Nintendo once again came out on top in terms of hardware sales, shifting 600,000 Wii consoles and 550,000 DS systems. He cited greater Wii and DS availability in his investor note as contributing factors to the systems' sales success. He also said he expects the PS3 to have outsold the Xbox 360 by 290,000 units to 275,000..."
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Only $4,000 stands in your way to owning the single greatest piece of gaming irony.
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An exhibition entitled "Love & Money: The Best Of British Design Now" is touring Asian countries currently. The synopsis is below:

"...Love & Money, organised jointly by the British Council and UK Trade & Investment, features twenty projects and designers that balance business ambition and commercial success with the invention and experimentation for which Britain's creative industries are internationally renowned."

Within the exhibition is a space dedicated to Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto Series.

GTA is considered to be a benchmark for modern design values. This is a very positive nod towards gaming and in particular one with such a criticized content.

Had this N4G member not have stumbled upon this showcase, it may well have slipped silently into the night. Here is a link to the offical exhibition page

http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-design-love-and-money.htm

Enjoy
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Sep 28, 2007 Game over. Continue? If only life was that simple. We've all died thousands of times in videogames. But never do we think 'well, that's it then' and put the pad down. There's nearly always the prospect of another life or a continue, or at worst having to start afresh with a new game. But game death has given us so many memorable sequences. Ever since Pac-Man's mouth widened to envelop his entire self with that classic descending soundclip, game developers have sought to make ... » Read More

Ever since the release of 2001's groundbreaking Grand Theft Auto III, there've been seemingly hundreds of games that shamelessly rip off its free-roaming, carjacking open-world formula. But as hard as the pretenders try, there's still only one ... » Read More

The funny thing about inventing a genre of videogames is that, until it becomes completely played out, every game that emulates your formula is going to be attached to your name. Games that feature a wide-open, freely explorable world, for example, will have a hard time avoiding the label of "Grand Theft Auto clone," especially if their worlds are littered with vehicles to steal and drive. In the six years since Grand Theft Auto III, a slew of games have tried to become "the next GTA," but so ... » Read More