When a child clings a little too long to an imaginary friend, people start to get worried and analyze the reason.  They send them off to therapy and make them talk about their feelings.  However, when a 20-30 year old Japanese man creates an imaginary girlfriend through LovePlus, well, one Japanese resort latches onto it as a way to make money.  Oh, and of course, iPhone makes an app for it.

LovePlus is a game for the Nintendo DS that allows men to choose between a few different virtual high school girls.  Then once they have made their choice, they have to actually maintain the relationship.  There is a town that gets referenced in the game, it’s an area that used to be a booming resort for newlyweds, but in recent years it’s lost a lot of business.  The resort decided to do a full on promotion and create a romantic experience for the men and their virtual girlfriends.  Despite that the men are the only ones in the $500 rooms, they will set up everything for two to make the experience more real.  Then to top off their experience, their iPhone will let them take a picture with their virtual girlfriend.  It’s all just so romantic.

Source: Technabob

People are always complaining about violent video games corrupting the minds of otherwise non-violent people.  We’ve all heard the studies about what harm it could do and the blame game every single time anything violent happens within a school.  Well as it turns out they should have been worried about video games physically harming their gamers.  One gamer was actually injured while playing Modern Warfare 2 on his Xbox 360.

While xAdamWestx09 was playing away he failed to notice that his headset cord had managed to wind itself around a chair.  Then when he tried to get to his feet he was tripped and smashed his head into a Mac, which was conveniently located nearby.  The poor abused gamer had to get himself a total of 6 stitches on his forehead and doesn’t even have a cool story to go with it.  My question is, who would actually tell anyone what happened?!  Then again it’s highly likely he had a buddy around who was more than happy to spread the word about the incident.

Source: GamePolitics

Boy Scouts are a classic club that I’ve always wished I could have joined.  The Boy Scouts get a pocket knife and derby races, while Girl Scouts received a case to hide tampons in and craft classes.  Who wouldn’t rather be in the Boy Scouts?!  One thing that’s similar with both are merit badges.  They’re always something you’ve worked for and in the end you have a badge you can proudly show off.  A great deal of the badges to go with the Boy Scouts have more to do with survival skills and doing general good for the community.  Which makes this video game achievement appear a little lame.

Sure the achievement includes teaching them about age appropriate games.  It’s just that, do kids really need one more reason to play more video games?  Is it a sign of the times or just a sign that the Boy Scouts are getting lazy with their survival skill badges?  What’s next?  A badge for sending out the most texts or the best Twitter account?  I love technology, I just don’t really believe it has a place within Boy Scouts.  Instead Boy Scouts should be making sure that technology addicted kids get a more well rounded education by getting them outside and active.  No longer will taking Boy Scouts camping with you mean you’ll have a knowledgable and smart camper, but hey, thank goodness the Boy Scouts are producing better gamers.

Source: GeekDad

Have you ever had someone advise against you playing those video games right before bed, because they’d make it so you couldn’t sleep?  Well now there’s ammunition to make sure you have a swift comeback should someone try to get on your tail for that again.  At Flinders University, they conducted a little experiment to see how a group of 16 year olds slept after a round of gaming just before bed.  The big shocker, they didn’t have as much of a rough night as many would like to think.

In order to conduct the study, they utilized Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.  Now they did mention that youngsters below the age of 16 might have a harder time with those thrilling games.  After you’ve reached the age of 16, you’re good to go though.  After checking all of the different angles and using all of the best gadgets to test them out, there were no real significant differences found in their sleep patterns.

Source: Crunchgear

The Wii Fit is a very dangerous form of exercise, there are all sorts of injuries that could occur.  You could twist your ankle just stepping off of that huge platform and all sorts of potential disasters.  Well one person discovered there’s another sort of injury that you never would have guessed.  When Amanda Flowers fell off of her Wii Fit Board, it turned her into a sex addict.  Now, according to the Daily Star the catering worker gets a little too excited from even slight vibrations from her mobile phone.

The poor thing has been diagnosed by a doctor as having persistent sexual arousal syndrome thanks to a damaged nerve.  As far fetched as the syndrome sounds, it is an actual authentic issue.  The 24 year old went on to state that, “It began as a twinge down below before surging through my body. Sometimes it built up into a trembling orgasm.”  In order to handle all of that she practices deep breathing.  Considering the source of all this information, it’s highly likely there’s just some random woman trying to cook up a little publicity.  Then again Fox News did cover it, so clearly it has to be some very serious news.

Source: Geekologie

Alzheimer’s is a disease that so far has no cure and stays somewhat of a mystery.  However, one group of genetic researchers and neuroscientists are starting to attempt a new angle.  They believe that by strengthening a person’s cognitive fitness at an earlier age, it could help fight the disease.  To do that they work on their physical fitness as well as intellectual.  By doing that early on, it could help to fight the disease.  They have already started using things like brain teasers, quizzes and exercise games.

As of now, they’ve started trying it and have received good results.  The ones that have received the CFIT treatment have managed to improve their cognitive fitness test scores.  One of the tools that they’re utilizing in this treatment happens to be the Wii.  Despite that I don’t hear about the Wii from actual people like I used to, it seems that medical professionals are still finding new uses for it.  I’ll be interested to see if this method really does work in the long run, but right now it’s just too early to say for sure.  Until then, it couldn’t hurt to play with some of your favorite brain teaser games.

Source: Switched

We all know gaming is a great way to escape reality, much like books and movies have done in the past.  You become a parent and realize that it’s actually a whole lot more work and a thankless job at that, so maybe you go online and enjoy a virtual kid much better than your own.  After all, these virtual kids can be shut down when your computer is turned off.  It’s the best of both worlds.  Except that 3 month old real babies don’t exactly take care of themselves.  Who knew?!  Well apparently one couple missed that memo.

The Korean  41 year old husband and his 25 year old wife usually spent about 12 hours every single night in internet cafes playing games.  During which time they’d just leave their child at home alone.  When they did actually decide to go home and do a little parenting, they gave the baby rotten powered milk and when the baby cried she’d receive a spanking.  Why couldn’t she be as good as their virtual daughter and just take what was given to her?!  One night after they spent the whole night away, they discovered their infant daughter at home, deceased.  At least I’m sure they have reached a high level of parenting online.  Somehow I doubt that the police will let them continue their gaming habit in jail though.

Source: GamePolitics

Well now that Ron Jeremy has said they’re wrong, everyone stop creating them!  Surely such an upstanding man as Ron Jeremy will cause developers to look deeply into their soul and realize where they’ve gone wrong.  According to him despite him fighting to keep porn out of the hands of children, he doesn’t believe that porn is all that bad of an influence on the kids at least in comparison to violent games.  Apparently kids playing violent video games is far worse than them watching a porn flick.

That’s good to know, so parents if your kids watch porn that’s kind of bad, but if they play one of these violent games then you should freak out.  He argued that studies have clearly shown that violent video games are far worse than all that porn.  I’m not saying that either one of these categories are great to have around kids.  It’s more that Ron Jeremy is the guy pointing a finger and telling the world what’s right and wrong.  Where would we be without Ron Jeremy’s solid morals to lead us onto the path of righteousness?!

Source

That’s touching, one couple found true love, all through WoW.  Granted it was between a 16 year old boy and a 42 year old woman, but that’s not creepy in the least.  The couple has been enjoying each other’s company for 2 years online, both gaming and engaging in “overt sexual discussions.”  Unfortunately for the boy, his Mom was smart enough to keep tabs on what her kids were up to online and he was caught.  The Canadian teen then found himself grounded for it about a year ago.  It didn’t stop there though, recently they decided to meet.  Which is when the real trouble began.

The 42 year old Texan teacher and mother of 4 took off for Canada to meet her 16 year old lover.  She was arrested in Canada at some point, but unfortunately was released since the age of consent is 16 in Canada.  She then took off for home, only to be arrested once again in Texas.  As it turns out the age of consent in Texas is 17, which means they could press charges in Texas.  She’s now finding herself facing two counts of online solicitation of a minor and then one count of child enticement.  When something like this happens I can’t help but wonder one very important thing.  Were they horde or alliance?!  Which side of WoW manages to acquire more horror stories?  I know, it’s a plaguing question.

Source: Geekologie

Duke Nukem Forever has become legendary, even despite that it never actually came out.  Even if you’re not a gamer, you’ve probably heard about the gamers anxiously awaiting a game that never ever came out.  For years they remained hopeful, but this past year or so it finally became clear that it wasn’t going to happen.  The development of the game started way back in 1997, so gamers were forced to hope that it would come out for over 10 years.  One poor guy actually pre-ordered the game through Game Stop.  He put down his cash way back in 2001.

He  is going to be waiting a long time for his money’s worth.  Hopefully the guys at Game Stop were nice and gave him in store credit after it finally became clear that it was never going to happen.  Perhaps next time Slash000 can invest in something more solid, like the tooth fairy or leprechauns.

Source: Crunchgear