In a recent interview with the New York Times, Entertainment Software Association (ESA) President Michael D. Gallagher revealed that one of the ESA's priorities is to infiltrate Washington.

The new ESA president noted that while the movie and music industries already have backers in Washington, the video game industry does not quite have the same privilege yet.

According to Gallagher, the main challenge lies in "connecting with decision makers and creating champions for the video game industry in the policy-making arena."

In addition to having a smaller budget, Gallagher also noted that the video game industry doesn't have the star power to seduce politicians.

"Washington is very enamored with glitz and the appeal of stars," said Gallagher. "Whenever Bono shows up he creates this bow wave as he comes through, and it's true that stars do help drive messages. And it is true that Master Chief and Mario are not yet household words on the Hill, but wait for the years ahead."

Gallagher also said that the ESA will be revealing its full agenda after E3.

This is excellent news. Our lawmakers make their decisions based on information. If that information only comes from anti-gaming lawyers and anti-gaming activists, then of course our lawmakers are going to develop an anti-gaming bias. So it's good that our industry strengthens its representation.

PC gamer sales are currently having a resurgence in the U.S., and one of the reasons behind it is the steadily growing popularity of MMORPGS. In particular, Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

New York Times reports that according to an analyst from the NPD Group, U.S. retailers sold US$ 203 million worth of PC games in the first two months of 2007. NPD's Anita Frazier said that sales in the same period last year peaked at US$ 136.8 million.

According to Frazier, sales of RPG titles were 43 percent higher than in the first two months of 2006, and the release of The Burning Crusade in January is likely to have accounted for a great deal of these sales. "The robust performance we're seeing in PC game sales can be tied to several key titles across several genres," said Frazier. "But we'd be remiss not to address the continued success of World of Warcraft."

 A virtual version of New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz will be giving a virtual reading of his upcoming novel "The Good Guy" in the huge virtual world of Second Life. The virtual reading will take place in Bantam Dell Publishing's new virtual store in Second Life, the Bantam Dell Book Shop and Cafe.

That's five times that you've read the word "virtual" in this post, six if you count that last one. Just wanted to see if you still know your arithmetic.

Anyway, the actual location of the reading can support only 40 people. Any more can cause computer glitches in Second Life, so the reading will also be simulcast in several other Second Life destinations and an audio feed will also be broadcast on Koontz's Web site and on Bantam Dell's.

Koontz's avatar will be assisted by two Bantam Dell employee avatars, one of which is Betsy Hulsebosch, senior vice president and director of creative marketing for Bantam Dell. According to Bloomberg, she will field audience questions via instant and text messaging and relay them to the author, who will answer in his real voice via an audio feed. We're thinking that the other employee avatar will be there to field flying appendages or something.

When it comes to balance and honest news reporting, we have no doubts regarding the work ethics of several companies like Reuters among many others. As everybody knows, the news agency recently joined the growing ranks of real life companies entering Second Life's virtual world. They have to keep in mind though that 'round here, the rules are a bit different.

We haven't had the chance to check on Reuters' virtual work yet, but residents are on to The New York Times. While the newspaper is not yet in Second Life, it published a story about Linden Lab's MMO creation. The article did a good job of covering the bases and it focused on commerce. But one sentence reads, "Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, 50, a member of Second Life who in the real world is a Russian translator in Manhattan is a figure well-known to other participants called Prokofy Neva, who runs a business renting real estate to other players."

A good number of residents do not quite approve of the above mention of Prokofy Neva's real life. As they put it, it defeats the very reason and purpose of virtual freedom. They also believe that NY Times thinks having a nom de virtual is a form of aberration. While we here at QJ thinks that the newspaper do not have any ill intentions whatsoever, we suggest just the same that they observe the norms, rules and the culture of a virtual world.

The New York Times recently decided to state something patently obvious to many gamers. In a nutshell, WoW rules the world, both in an economic and a personal sense.

It's been less than two years and World of Warcraft really has taken over many gamers' lives, affecting them in different ways. While this article does happen to gloss over the seedy underworld of farming and addiction that occurs with games, it does a good job of representing video games in a positive light on a very mainstream (perhaps we can even say "uptight") news medium.

One of the main ways WoW affects people, according to this article, is opening up a venue for socialization that couldn't normally exist. For instance, Jason Pinsky is a dedicated player clocking in around 3000 hours on his hunter character. He says of playing WoW,

I’m a 33-year-old guy with a 9-to-5 job, a wife and a baby on the way. I can’t be going out all the time. So what opportunities do I have to not only meet people and make new friends but actually spend time with them on a nightly basis? In WOW I’ve made, like, 50 new friends, some of whom I’ve hung out with in person, and they are of all ages and from all over the place. You don’t get that sitting on the couch watching TV every night like most people.

Very true.

At the same time, the only way WoW gets its broad base of fans is by appealing to both hardcore and casual gaming. Take Kim Daejoong, a Korean doctor of herbal medicine and also a WoW gamer. He mentions that for a game to appeal to even the mainstream, "it has to be easily accessible, and there have to be lots of things for you to do, even alone. What WoW has done better than other games is be able to appeal to both audiences — hard-core players and more casual players — all within one game and bring them together."

If the New York Times is putting out articles to get the word out on World of Warcraft, then the doctor's proposition couldn't be more true. Perhaps it'll even be more pronounced once the Burning Crusade expansion comes out, don't you think?