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The gaming industry is a huge industry that consumes as much news space as any other widely known enterprise. It’s so large in fact, if you take a walk down the aisle of any store that sells magazines, you’ll find at least two or three gaming magazines to select from – and this includes stores that you would least expect to find them in, like the Walgreens Drug Store for Pete’s sake.

What’s even better, is that regardless of what your skill level with games is, you can take advantage of this news coverage and use what you learn to improve you knowledge, your equipment, and your play. You can additionally find out about gaming events that you can attend or even participate in.

To start, take a trip to your local game shop. Game Crazy and Game Stop are two popular gaming stores that regularly carry related magazines (although you may discover that your local game shop carries only one). One of the things that you’ll want to do while looking over these magazines is to compare prices of both games and game systems. The Gamer Informer magazine shows no preference, and provides a one to two inch thick critique of the newest stuff out there. Inside this resource, you’ll find commentary on the Wii, EA games, the PS3, the Xbox 360, PC games, the PS2, the PSP and the DS system.

As a no holes barred manual to what’s hot and what’s not, gaming magazines show you how news in the mainstream media affects game production and how it can affect not only your purchase decisions, but the type of games you play as well. It isn’t uncommon for a game to experience a rise in sales just from being mentioned in the 5:00 news hour.

You could learn what’s happening with new and competitive gaming businesses before investing in their products, however if you dig a little deeper, you can even find out what’s influencing the market that you’re a part of.

Here’s an example of what we mean:

“Today, professional gaming took a giant leap forward. DIRECTV, Inc., the nation’s leading digital service provider and key partners are taking the professional gaming industry to the next level with the creation of a new video gaming professional sports league that will be the standard for the industry and redefine the consumer gaming experience.”1

You can also discover what influence the news has on gaming within an international level:

“The British Academy of Film and Television Arts today announced that its 2007 British Academy Video Games Awards will be held on the evening of Tuesday 23 October at Battersea Evolution in London.”2

Interested in console specific information? How about Nintendo:

“Nintendo plans to boost Wii production (AP via Yahoo! News) Nintendo’s president acknowledged Friday that the shortage of the hit Wii game machine was “abnormal,” and promised production was being boosted to increase deliveries by next month.”3

Of course, there’s always the chance that you’ll find out things you’re weren’t exactly supposed to find in the first place:

“Halo 3 gameplay leaked online (The Inquirer) A VIDEO HAS has appeared online showing seven minutes of fresh, crisp Halo 3 gameplay.”4

From these few, small examples, you’ve learned about the creation of a new video gaming professional sports league, the Academy Video Games Awards, a boost in Wii production, and the leak of a “certain” video from a “certain” game. Just imagine what you’d find out with a monthly subscription to GamePro (www.gamepro.com), Computer Games Magazine (www.cgonline.com), or GameSlice (www.gameslice.com)!

Ask most gaming addicts what their favourite career would be and you will probably hear, Computer game design! This really would be work perfectly fused with fun with the potential for earning vast sums of money in the process.

For most, though, it remains just that a lifetime fantasy. However, it could be a career that someone with a passion for gaming should look at seriously. The industry is massive and there is always room for more people with the right skills and qualifications.

What exactly does it take to break into this world and make it your dream work for life? It is a very tough world to get into as it requires a very good knowledge of various programming languages. You could start by getting a computer science degree which is a tremendously tough course but worth it if you can get through the masses of tedious subjects you will need to study.

The great thing is and what you should always keep in your mind is that you will have a career that you can put your heart into at the end of it all. However, what you study in no way prepares you for what will be getting into – a giant behemoth in most cases where you will probably only be working on on very small part of what will end up a massive game. Games are so intricate and complex today, they might take many people a great many years to complete! It is a far cry from when a only couple of people would be needed work on one game. Needless to say, the remuneration for this kind of work can be sky-high what with the business of games so large globally really, the sky is the limit.

It is not only the programmers who can break into this industry, though it has to be said that they form the largest component. There is also always a huge demand for artists and writers as well. These are very often the ideas people who contribute massively to the visual and verbal aspects of the game – deciding how exactly a character should look, what he should wear, what he should be called, how he should sound and so on. They basically put the meat onto the bones of a game.

It is a young industry essentially as it caters to the young. And if your hearts in gaming, may be this is where you should be!

It can be best summarized and stated that many in the computerized high tech gaming field think that writing those video games software and software routines might well be their “dream job”. Peachy keen. After all they well consider themselves video gaming aficionados. “After all I’ve got 10 Zillion points on Counterstrike”. ‘Why don’t girls like me?”

The sad truth of the matter is that the video gaming industry is multi-billion dollar cutthroat industry full of what you might well consider cut throat characters as to well what might be considered in the regular impoverished world of most computer gamers , absolute “low lives ” of the worst variety , kind and temperament. Lol, Lots of Luck when it comes to your fantasy job of computer gaming video software designer, designers and developers.

It can and might well be said that the biggest companies – those with the most marketing resources and push , as well as the deepest pockets to pay you , as a software designer and developer the highest salaries and pay bonuses can often be the hardest to get a job with. Everyone else wants to work for that well known branded company as well – with that great visibility, product as well as brand name recognition in the computer gaming field and fields. Welcome to the real world. Goodbye fantasy. Reality what a concept.

Still it can be said that big companies, with the marketing will, budget and muscle for promoting their product in this competitive marketplace as always on the prowl for new talent with newer fresh innovative ideas, themes as well as product. One has to only look at the very competitive LCD / Plasma big screen TV market to note such a case. Not long ago it was Japanese Sony electronics that had the cachet and demanded a premium dollar price tag if you wished to purchase their product at your local big box high tech electronics store. Skip foreword in time and it next was Japanese manufacturers who manufactured their goods offshore from the island of the Rising Sun – such as Sharp Electronics. Currently in 2009 / 2010 the market leader in the electronics high tech Plasma / LCD TV video displays is held by many experts and commentators in the field to be Samsung – a strictly Korean as opposed to East Asian or East Asian Japanese rim company organization. How time changes the most highly competitive markets and marketing plans – video game platforms, consoles as well as the software integral to the satisfaction of most video gamers and video gaming junkies as well.

Thus as a competent and dedicated video gamer have heart that you at your best may well be able to implement and coordinate your best efforts and influence as well as enhance and develop those very video games and scenarios that you enjoy and relish so much. First of all develop of stable of your best products that you have worked on, or if you do not have software development of marketing skills – write your scenarios and projects on paper or word processor. This is your resume, work plan and business plan so speak. Make it polished and professional in appearance and presentation. The video marketing video authority Riteway Strokon has commented again and again “Presentation”. Lastly it’s up to you to hit the pavement or the email or fax road.

June 2010 – perfect time to buy a new gaming computer!

Intel still is the king of the hill with Core i7 processors – real quad cores with Hyper Threading (8 virtual cores), also Extreme Hexa Core available – i7 980X that can be pushed over 4Ghz overclocked on air! Also Intel brings unlocked parts (like only in extreme editions before) to the market – i5 665K and i7 875K – both for socket LGA 1156. Core i5 665K has unlocked multiplier for awesome and easy overclocks above 4Ghz – you only have to change multiplier. It’s only a dual core processor but it has Hyper Threading technology so you can consider it a virtual Quad Core – great for multi threaded applications. Though Core i7 875K is so better at that. It’s basically the same as older i7 870 – same frequency and characteristics, but it has much lower price tag (0 vs 0) and it has unlocked core – essentially making i7 870 a no go processor. Even i7 860 with lower price tag is not that attractive any more.

AMD – still the best for the low-mid range gaming computers (and high end to some extent). Bringing to the table new Athlon II and Phenom II processors and lowering overall prices across the board it has achieved much in the last months. Six Core Phenom II processors are really good for gaming and multi tasking and are very poplar in enthusiast lines. AMD fights ACC – advanced core calibration but board manufacturers still offer (and even more than before) ACC on their motherboards – it lets you unlock dormant cores on Phenom and Athlon X2 and X3 – many times making them great triple and quad core processors without any effort. For example I had just got Athlon II X3 440 3.0Ghz running as a quad core Phenom II B40 X4 at frequency 3.5Ghz – without voltage increase and with stock cooler – below 50′C loaded! So AMD is doing really good these says.

Videocards – same as before – Nvidia GTX 470 and 480 leading the way competing with ATI 5850 and 5870. Nvidia just released a new videocard GTX 460 – it’s a cut down GTX 470. Still expensive to manufacture it’s not really anything new – pretty hot and power hungry. As of now it has hard time competing with ATI 4830 which is cheaper by the way. Let’s just hope that new drivers will increase performance.

Memory is not going in price too much over the late times so it’s good for now. Really nothing else major happened on the gaming computer hardware front, unless you’ve missed release of new AMD 870, 880G, 890GX and 890FX boards. Same great cases from Antec and Thermaltake and Cooler Master are recommended as before. Cooler Master Hyper 212 is still the best cooler for the price.

Stay with us and we will keep you updated on the latest in gaming PC hardware!