As the attorney general of South Australia, Michael Atkinson has been one of the most rabid critics against the introduction of an R18+ classification in Australia. This has made him a frequent target for Aussie gamers. GameSpot recently had a chance to ask Mr. Atkinson why he's so against the R18+ rating. Check out Mr. Atkinson's point of view after the jump.

The 59th Create Arts Emmy Awards was held last Saturday and as we've previously reported, South Park's "Make Love, Not Warcraft" was nominated for an Emmy under the Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) category.

The results have now been revealed and right from the red carpet, the foul-mouthed kids just bagged the Emmy for their WoW-machinima episode. (Aww. And I had my bets on that Avatar episode.) Yeah, for those who remember, South Park had some strong competition to go against for the Emmy. Other nominees included:

• Avatar: The Last Airbender - City Of Walls And Secrets
• Robot Chicken - Lust For Puppets
• SpongeBob SquarePants - Bummer Vacation / Wig Struck
• The Simpsons - The Haw-Hawed Couple

Is anyone surprised South Park won though? The now award-winning South Park episode did get some acclaim from fans far and wide - and made an impact on both WoW players and non-WoW players alike. Congrats to the four kids, and likewise to Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Now that the World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King is coming out, let's hope this South Park episode gets a sequel!

Every self respecting World of Warcraft player has seen or at least know the Emmy-nominated South Park episode, Make Love, Not Warcraft. Its lore is just about as viral as Leroy Jenkins and we all know why. The foul mouthed boys of South Park has been addicted to Blizzard's popular MMO and things go crazy with them questing to save Azeroth from a powerful griefer.

And guess what? The guys at Comedy Central are offering a 15% discount for World of Warcraft players who purchase South Park: The Complete Tenth Season. The tenth season of course also features episodes like The Return of Chef and Mystery of the Urinal Deuce.

Anyway, WoW players simply have to use the gift code "WARCRAFT" at the Comedy Central Shop to avail of the said discount and free shipping to boot.

The boys of South Park will once again team up with the orcs, elves, and humans of World of Warcraft with this Comedy Central offering. Unfortunately, no, we're not talking about a followup to the Emmy-nominated South Park episode, Make Love, Not Warcraft. What we have for you is word about a free 14-day trial edition WoW DVD-ROM, which you can get when you purchase the South Park: The Complete Tenth Season DVD.

This offer, to be made available on August 21, is being peddled by Comedy Central Home Entertainment, which currently airs episodes of the said cartoon. South Park: The Complete Tenth Season DVD is an exclusive three-disc collector's edition comprised of all 14 top-rating episodes, including the aforementioned paradoxical take on the popularity of the massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft.

No word yet on its pricing, but if it's got a 14-day free WoW trial it's gotta be worth the price right? Who knows, they might actually decide to throw in the Sword of A thousand Truths as a bonus.

Cartman, Kenny, Stan, and Kyle have done it again. Our favorite grade-schoolers from Colorado has gotten themselves another Emmy nomination with South Park's 147th episode, "Make Love, Not Warcraft".

If you weren't able to catch that particular episode, you might want to check if you've been living under a rock for the past year. In that episode, the foul-mouthed gang go up against an Alliance griefer (supposedly named Jenkins, har har), who ganks them repeatedly in World of Warcraft. Due to a prophesy made by Salzman in Accounting, the boys get a hold of a mythical weapon called Sword of a Thousand Truths to slay the griefer.

Well, that adventure gave the boys some excess weight, acne, and the utter lack of a life outside WoW, plus an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour).

The four other contenders for the coveted prize are the following:

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: City of Walls and Secrets
• Robot Chicken: Lust for Puppets
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Bummer Vacation / Wigstruck
• The Simpsons: The Haw-Hawed Couple

South Park won the same category once (though it was nominated a number of times) with the "Best Friends Forever" episode which centered on Kenny's PSP. Hmm... We'll see if the boys manage to pull a fast one this time, so stay glued.

This is definitely Blizzard's week on the spotlight as The Burning Crusade continues to disappear from shelves faster than you can say, "Hotcakes." WoW has wowed the world over with gamers' warm reception of TBC and we all want to know what their secret is. Itzik Ben Bassat, Vice President of Development at Blizzard gave some insight in an interview with Empire Online.

According to him, the thing that makes WoW last (as it has been online for two years) is its playability, since nearly every guy and his brother can play it. Fantasy is always appealing, as the masses are basically always drawn to anything fantasy-based (read: Harry Potter and LotRO). WoW's popularity has reached beyond the gaming world and crossed over to having a card game, a clothing line, plus an episode of South Park.

WoW has an estimated player count of eight million. Just how many girls do they think play? WoW has made itself playable for girls when the female species are stereotyped as gaming inept. Anyway, it has attracted gamers of all shapes and sizes since the game is role playing, social, and competitive - all rolled into one. It fuels everybody's needs.

The World of Warcraft movie is currently in the works (along with Blizzard's new MMO), with Legendary Pictures, makers of Superman Returns and Batman Begins. So far, all we've had was Fanatik's film so we'll be crossing our fingers and praying at night for that WoW movie.

To end the year in a good light (or start it, depending on where you're reading this from), as well as to spread happiness, cheer, and maybe a giggle or two, we decided to put together some of the WoW videos that have been floating around the internet for the past year. These videos have been selected under the requirement of you-really-should-watch-it-at-least-once, and so we present to you some of our favorite picks which we can look back on and truly smile about.

The Ballad of the Noob

For those who haven't seen this classic piece of WoW fan-made goodness...where have you been? Seriously though, since we're just trying to add a bit of fun into everyone's lives, since it's the Holidays after all, here's something which was originally created by the people from Stone Falcon Productions.

This video is still worth the laughs despite its age, and it teaches an invaluable lesson to both the noobs and the ubers: ubers should remember to take the phone off the hook should they decide to let anyone hit them for any reason, and noobs should remember to not get too cocky as not everyone has got an ex-wife who loves talking on the phone.

"... and so he boldly left town even though he was only level 1."

See more fun videos after the Jump!

Machinama managed to get an interview with the animation staff responsible for the South Park World of Warcraft episode. They managed to talk to Producer Frank Agnone, Tech Supervisor JJ Franzen, and Director of Animation Eric Stough. Since the interview is pretty lengthy, we'll just give you guys the bottom line quote for each topic covered. Things should still flow, so don't worry, you won't miss out on anything.

On what inspired them to do a WoW episode using actual WoW footage.

The idea of doing a World of Warcraft show came from Trey pacing around our office. When he's stuck on a show or is thinking through an idea he paces around the cubicles. One day about a year ago he was walking around and noticed about half the staff playing World of Warcraft. Junichi, his friend from college who animates for us is an expert at it. Trey then bounced around the idea of the four boys getting destroyed by some guy in California.

What about the storyline?

In between animating shots for South Park, Jun is always playing Warcraft. For years it was Diablo. We would all tease him about having no life.

Regarding the custom animations (after all, your avatar could never be that expressive on its own)

Eventually, it was decided that we would push forward in both directions (using models and using in-game footage), starting to model our own characters as well as contacting Blizzard and seeing how interested they would be in participating. We met with several people from Blizzard on Thursday, the 7th of Sept. and it became obvious that they were extremely eager to make this happen, and seemed willing to do whatever they could to make sure it did. Luckily, they also use Maya to do their in-game character animation, which meant we would be able to just grab their files and go...

On their relationship with Blizzard.

Just to give you an example of how easy our relationship with Blizzard was, Trey had written new pages just a couple of days before air that had Stan's dad, Randy came across this Uber sword that was the answer to killing our villain. Later that day the Blizzard crew was in working with us so we approached them about swords and of course they had exactly what Trey wanted. Ask and we shall receive.

Cool stuff, and just in case you guys are wondering, 75% percent of the people in the South Park offices are addicted to WoW. No wonder that episode felt so true. Blizzard of course deserves props for being helpful with this one.

If you guys want more details feel free to click on our read link below.

IGN's WoW Vault has a new section up collecting all the Burning Crusade related maps they have available. If you want a good headstart at planning routes and other things that Cartman, and the gang occupied themselves with during that WoW-South Park episode, you're free to go download the maps they've got up.

Just click on the read link we've got down there and it should lead you to the maps you need.

If you're an old dude trying to get into this game (we meant who isn't in it already), don't be like Stan's dad. Prepare, read up, check guides, and look at maps. That way your nephew (or your son) will think you're cool.

Gone are the days where gamers are portrayed as basement-dwelling geeks who are in terrible need of social skills. It seems that today, gaming has gone mainstream, and has gained "pop-culture status" already (instead of the ancient esoteric association with "geek-dom"). Let's face it: gaming has become the "in thing" and the rapid influx of gaming titles, as well as the growing numbers of gamers, can attest to that fact.

These days, it seems that everybody play games: may it be MMO, RTS, FPS or whatnot. Also, gaming companies such as Nintendo seem to make a conscious effort to "reach out" to the non-gaming masses with wacky rackets such as cooking games, "brain games" and the like, stretching the definition of gaming further.

Also, mass media has contributed a key role to gaming's massive success. Of course, there's always advertising, but you may have also noticed the increasing portrayal of games in TV lately. There's the WoW feature in "South Park" and the Call of Duty 2 episode in "The Office". And no, we're not talking about 3-second subliminal messages here, but gaming as a part of regular people's lives.

Although that claim may not be true for everybody, we can't doubt that the gaming population is indeed growing, and getting more varied by the minute. There are kids, there are yuppies, there are forty-somethings, parents, you name it. Gaming is becoming a past time, and an activity that's not merely scoffed at as a "For Kids Only" thing. Although exaggerations were apparent in the shows, you just can't dismiss that the portrayal of gaming in "South Park" and "The Office" is far from reality.

In fact, Paul Lieberstein, who plays HR Director Toby in "The Office", says that when they write particular episodes for their show, they take snippets from their lives and incorporate it in the story:

After a show's been on the air a couple of seasons, we have to dig especially deep into our real lives, having exhausted our imaginations. We write about other TV shows we watch, websites we visit, trips we've taken, relationships we've had, and, yes, the videogames we play. As gaming becomes ubiquitous, I imagine the references to it will become commonplace.

Call it hyper-reality if you will, but it's still reality nonetheless. The gaming industry is not only gaining respect, but is slowly forming a niche in our everyday lives. And we can't be more happier because of that.