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Working in or around the games business, it's easy to become focused on issues which seem to be of crowning importance, but which are actually only one facet of a much wider picture. The industry obsesses over the pace of the transition to digital distribution, for example, and its debates often fail to give full credence to the much broader debate over the future of copyright, intellectual ownership and property of which that is merely one aspect.
Equally, every industry conference or gathering in recent years has talked at length about conquering "mainstream" markets - the march of progress into casual or downstream sectors, the opening up of new fronts in social and mobile gaming, and so forth. This, too, can be seen as merely one expression of a larger movement within society - a movement on which the games business can enjoy a unique perspective.
That movement is, in simple terms, the integration of video game mechanics into non-gaming tasks - the steady "gamification" of the world around us, as more and more actions in our daily lives come to be governed and (perhaps arguably) enhanced by interactions, rules and systems learned from the world of games.
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Today's top stories
Screen Digest: "Room for iterative Wii" before 2012 new console
11:31 - Analyst also feels Kinect has "potential to have more of an impact" than Move
Sale of SouthPeak assets generates £50,000
11:38 - Bailiffs poised to take Two Worlds II; decision on frozen £30k to be made next week
Black Ops launch is Activision's "biggest investment ever"
09:38 - Marketing opportunities and installed base of hardware justifies cost, says Kotick
Today's feature
Game of Life
Social and casual gaming are only one facet of wider change, as society embraces games in exciting new ways
The rest of today's news
GAME reshuffles commercial team
10:03 - Specialist retailer currently in consultation process as team structure review continues
Kotick: Activision shareholder value has grown 30% per year
10:15 - Only minor success outside of WoW and CoD, but predicts "much larger audiences" from Kinect and Move
Dragon Quest, FFXIII boost Square Enix profits
10:48 - Just Cause sequel also helps publisher swing to profit in strong quarter
Guillermo del Toro in negotiations with THQ
12:32 - Deal reportedly forged by director and THQ's Danny Bilson
Namco Bandai US merges casual division
11:04 - Divisions pool resources to take advantage of shift to digital delivery
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