The big shots are starting to shift their thinking in game creation. Instead of looking at a game as a product that gets created, sold and shipped they are looking at it instead as a media that is consumed, much in the way television is, except it has an interactive twist.

Take Nickelodeon. They have produced some games that have gone on to become viral hits, and many are games that spoof on current events, and promote awareness of culture. Gaming is now being tied into pop culture, and sending gaming out of the category of product and into the category of mass media instead.

News centered games are created around a sensitive subject and designed to provoke thought. Usually they are created within two to four days, and a sleepless night or two. Costs for development can run the range of very cheap, to pretty darn expensive. But budgets are growing because advertisers are starting to jump on the bandwagon, so developers are able to invest more in the content of the games.

Stats show that online gaming sites went from 67 million in December of 2007 to 86 million in December 2008. Even casual games like Solitaire and Tetris have surged up in popularity for many users. Instead of games being something only the gaming geeks did, online games are becoming more and more prevalent and a staple of the new pop culture and it’s habits, especially with the mobility now of the Internet. Who knew?

Because it’s the most popular hidden object franchise out there, you are sure to have an adventure to remember! Offering an interactive and full of depth storyline, as well as challenging brain teaser puzzles, your gaming experience is sure to be unique each time you sit down to play.

And you should know that Mystery Case Files: Ravenshearst is not for the faint of heart or timid. The storyline reads that Ravenshearst Manor has had rumors circulating about regarding it’s history for decades. The latest person in residence, Emma Ravenshearst left behind a diary that may help to fill in the blanks and get to the bottom of things. But according to the story, it looks like someone doesn’t want that to happen, as it seems some of the diary pages have turned up missing.

Anyway, if you want to find the clues and solve the mystery, you have to soldier on despite nerves and fear, and turn the dark, dusty, spooky mansion topsy turvy to unearth the hidden clues. And to top it off, you really have to twist your brain in knots to unravel cryptic problems to unlock a few doors and gain access to other rooms.

With over 32 rooms to discover, two gaming modes you can play in, and a new unique set of clues each time you play, Ravenshearst is the perfect game to keep players coming back again and again.

Mathdoku.com is the online version of KenKen, which is a variant of Sudoku. Math puzzles really, in laymens terms! The site offers several different types of math puzzles, and they start out with fairly simple puzzles in 4×4 blocks, that only use the numbers 1- 4, and work up to puzzles that use 8×8 blocks.

Currently the site is now offering close to 1,500 puzzles, and receives almost 15,000 puzzle lovers daily. Players currently are timed on each puzzle, and the site offers hints to those that find themselves stumped for an answer. It also checks for correct answers, keeping players on track.

Another unique feature to Mathdoku.com is that instead of just offering up one puzzle a day, like you would get if you were playing the puzzle in an off line newspaper or something, you get a randomly generated puzzle selected from one of the many they have available.

There is even a no holds barred special op puzzle, called a no- op that hides the math to make it tougher for the player. As to the owners of the site, while they think Sudoku has already hit it’s peak of sorts with popularity, Kendoku’s future looks quite bright. The websites traffic did a pretty big spike in fact, up to 28,000 visitors when the New York Times started featuring a KenKen puzzle on it’s puzzle page.

So, while Mathdoku.com was born of love and romance, it is sustaining itself with solid growth and numbers, and is the next big thing in online puzzles and gaming. Ready to drop by and test your brain skills?

The latest craze has been invented by a 29 year old creative genius named Keith Schacht who has been starting and growing several on line businesses for over a decade now.

So what is this creative phenomenon? Crafted Fun Inc, which is simply on line games that are played within Facebook and other similar social networks. Two you may recognize are ‘Growing Gifts’ and ‘Hatching Eggs’, that are currently getting about 4 million hits per month.

4 million hits per month translates into a pretty hefty amount of ad revenue for a 3 man operation, whose sole focus is on the next great game they will be creating! In 2005 Keith was named one of ‘The Top Entrepreneurs Under 25′ in Business Week, and with Crafted Fun Inc, is gearing up to becoming a real media mogul in this day and age.

So how is it they are so successful? Simple market research and testing. Within a matter of weeks their operation knows whether or not a game will be a hit or not, and if an application isn’t up to snuff and doesn’t take off like they want, it is killed right away and they are on to the next great app. The ones that prove popular are then virtually syndicated and rerun for profit.

So what’s next for Crafted Fun Inc? Future plans and financial information is being kept pretty carefully under wraps at the moment, but regardless, Keith is still dedicated to supporting his followers and tries to share his knowledge and expertise when possible. So I guess we will all just have to wait and see!

With the push of new technology, gaming has grown to mammoth proportions. Now kids can play games on everything from gaming consoles, to computers, to TV’s and palm pilots, to cell phones! Students these days, instead of heading off to film school, are now heading off to interactive software development in the hopes of creating the next phenomenal gaming experience.

These days, video games are created with down to the minute detail displayed. Whether it’s to retrain your brain, find your focus, or teach you some sort of skills, games are now embedded in our society for ever more.

However, due to the explosive growth the gaming industry has seen, it now takes a budget of close to $10 million dollars to develop a new, hit game. Giant corporations like Microsoft and IBM are starting to favor profit more than creativity. That’s a bummer, because creativity is what exploded gaming in the first place!

Now folks are talking about how games can be improved for the public, by creating games with better stories and graphics, more complex characters, and story lines with hard ethical lines you must decide that you are for or against. The main goal? That a new game really makes you stop and THINK for a few moments!

Currently despite the explosive growth, the gaming industry is still in it’s infantile stages. Sort of like TV when it first came out! The saga will unfold, and nobody knows who will be left standing. Innovation is being demanded, but unfortunately the gaming industry has grown so large that it’s hard to pitch a new game idea to giants like Microsoft or Sony. They have just about seen it all. So, I think future innovations will start to come not in the games themselves, but in how we PLAY those games. Think Wii Fit and Guitar Hero!

Enter TennisPuzzles.com. The site is intended for die hard tennis fans to play free interactive games like tournament themed cross word puzzles, word searches, and wordoku. The games can be printed out so players can have fun off line as well. Intermission anyone?

So what’s the draw exactly? Well, like I said, tennis is a mind game to many. So these tournament themed crosswords, word searches, etc are a great way for tennis players to keep their minds sharp and in tip top shape, as well as bone up on a bit of tennis history and trivia. What an entertaining way to study right? Too bad school work isn’t as entertaining for us!

The site currently features puzzles which give the player clues about the seasons first major. Matt Gaffney authors all three types of puzzles for the Tennis Wire Network exclusively. He has also written The Complete Idiots Guide To Crossword Puzzles And Word Games, among other things if you are interested! They are a great marketing feature for tennis companies looking to spread the word about their products and services to consumers.

They can get the word out by sponsoring a puzzle, and when they do that the puzzle gets logo branding, and customized clues. Pretty neat right? Fans of the puzzles can hold mini competitions between family and friends to feed their need for friendly competition, and exercise their brain at the same time.

So, if puzzles happen to be your thing, and you love tennis, run check out www.tennispuzzles.com. And check out the Tennis Wire Network, this site is only one in several related to the love of all things tennis!

The idea is to collect what is called Doko disks and earn points for them. Every time you get a new disk, you register it online and snag some points. The Doko disk can then be traded up to five times. Each person who registers it after you also snags some points, as well as sending an extra few points your way. Sort of like multi level marketing in a way.

Currently you can trade up Doko points for actual goods. While the selection at the moment isn’t huge, with enough interest and popularity that would definitely change! You have to register online and choose a unique user name and password which is how you log in to track your points.

So how do you snag some Doko disk tokens? Currently the company is hiding them in plain view in public places like parks and things. So take a peek around, you just might find one. Otherwise, they are releasing them in May to Toys R Us and other toys stores. Retail price is $7.99. You will also be able to purchase them online as well.

It could be a great little way to get kids interacting and trading with each other. The premise is that you can trade them all over the world, and you never know when the Doko disk you happen to nab has been to China and back. Each disk has a serial number and each time it’s registered it records the location. So you can go online and see where it’s been once you have one!

It’s a pretty neat idea and it will be interesting to see how much it grows. Although personally I can’t see myself paying $7.99 for a little Doko token. My kids will just have to seek out the free ones!

With the spark of games created for self help purposes, designed to improve memory and train your brain, and the advent of the Nintendo Wii Fit to get gamers into tip top physical fitness, gaming is becoming a trend with just about everyone. It is becoming a preferred method of entertainment and almost a staple in every household.

But kids aren’t the only ones going gaga for video games, it’s their parents too! Consider the wildly popular World Of Warcraft. That game has some 11.5 million monthly subscribers sitting in front of their PC’s at home, creating characters and slaying fantasy creatures. Going on raids and forming guilds.

Considering the fact that WOW is a paid membership, how likely do you think it is that the bulk of the players are children. Not very likely! Nope the bulk of the players are adults, and even seniors. Some play alone, some play with their spouse or partner and some play with their kids. But the majority are definitely not 13 and under and are quite serious about their online gaming roles.

But why are these games becoming such a trend? One idea is that with everyone going through such hard economic times at the moment, video games are a welcome escape from reality. It’s easy to get lost in a virtual world, and pretend you are something that you might not necessarily be in real life. It’s nice to forget about the worlds problems for a moment and focus on fantasy.

The problem is letting the fantasy take over the real world indefinitely. Addiction could be a very real problem with the current gaming trend, especially in adults that have a weakness in that area. It remains to be seen what kind of a long term impact this may have on people in the future.

On the flip side, if children don’t have access to online games and social networks they are going to lack the skills that are needed to get on in the world as computers become more prevalent at home, at school, and in the workplace. The problem lies not with the fact that we are becoming so digital, but in teachers and parents who stop at nothing to keep their kids from playing online games.

It’s no surprise- the older generation simply didn’t grow up this way. The trouble is that children and teens really do need these skills or they will be held back socially and technologically in their lives.

Some children become so good at using video games, computers, and the Internet that they gain the skills that will help them get a great job after school. Building webpages and tweaking game code are skills that are incredibly high in demand and will be in increasing amounts.

This study concludes that schools, teachers, and parents basically need to loosen the strict guidelines that hold students back from playing games and joining sites like MySpace and Facebook. Of course, this does not mean that safety is not an issue! While children need to be able to join and explore these sites, it is still up to the parent to make sure they are safe at all times. Monitoring your child is the best way to ensure this safety.

The next time you’re tempted to tell your kid to turn it off and get to learning, take a second and think about the skills they are really going to need to make it through life. Homework is important, but so is becoming adept with technology.

First, it’s helpful to understand what the differences between online bingo and standard Bingo are. When you play Bingo locally you are restricted to playing when other people are available to play. You might have a weekly or monthly Bingo night where you can win prizes. That’s really where online Bingo sets itself apart! You get to play Bingo with people from all over the world whenever you want to.

When you join a Bingo site you’ll generally receive a cash bonus to sign up. When you do sign up and create a profile you’ll get the opportunity to play games to win even more cash. Some of the cash prizes go up into the thousands of dollars, and one top site claims to give away $7 million a month. That’s some pretty big cash.

In addition to monetary prizes, some sites also offer physical prizes. In fact, one lucky lady just won herself a big screen LCD TV over Halloween! That’s a pretty great deal for getting to play a great game like Bingo online.

Of course, not everyone will come away a winner. Still, half the fun of joining an online Bingo site is getting to interact with other Bingo fans. You’ll instantly become part of a community with like-minded people. You will find chat rooms, forums, and other great ways of communicating with other players.

The top online Bingo sites are:

• Bingo.com
• RanbowBingo.com
• BingoMania.com

You really can’t go wrong when you join any one of these sites. Browse through their prize listings and playing style and see if you can find the online Bingo games site that’s right for you.