The Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group will be spending a total of US$ 100 million to develop new multi-player games, virtual worlds, and other similar services that will be targeting children. According to Cyma Zarghami, president of MTV Network's Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group, the network sees the potential for a previously untapped market composed mostly of kids aged 8 to 14 gaming online.

Nickelodeon's online services are designed to cater to the different age groups. Services like myNOGGIN are designed primarily for pre-schoolers; Nicktropolis and the Nick Gaming Club are for young children; and The-NGames.com for girls. These services all promised to provide safe online gaming environments, child-friendly content, and most importantly, protection against predators. These online services will be developed and released over the course of the next 2 years as part of the Networks' plans to be leaders in the casual gaming sector.

Nickelodeon has also announced its expansion of its currently existing sites such as AddictingGames, Shockwave.com, and Neopets.com. The network explains that while these sites will place emphasis on developing new virtual worlds and online games for release, they are striving to keep things very child-friendly.

"Across all of MTVN's online sites, gaming is an important original genre and we are committed to delivering fresh content to our audiences in all of our demos," said Ms. Zarghami. With Nickelodeon's current online casual games logging in almost a billion game plays a month, it's not too hard to imagine its efforts paying off.

Are World of Warcraft gamers also frustrated music video artists? Well, this contest could just prove that. Blizzard, together with Nvidia and Machinima.com, are announcing the latest WoW competition for you internet meme-ifying folk. All you have to do is use one of The Ataris' songs ("Not Capable of Love", "Connections are More Dangerous Than Lies", or "The Cheyenne Line") and come up with a music video for it using some WoW machinima.

The contest is open to anyone over 18 years of age, and entries may be submitted from 12 a.m. PDT on May 1 until 11:59 p.m. PDT on June 5. Ten finalists will be chosen, and those finalists who end up on the top three (based on votes) would receive graphic cards from Nvidia and an autographed copy of The Ataris' latest album.

While MTV music videos in teh r3al w0rldz have some booty shaking by the pools and frolicking down the shore, we're thinking you'd get lots of points if you have some of it too in your video, in the form of voluptuous Draenei or Succubi. It's either that, or your music video would involve a naked troll strutting its stuff throughout the animation.

For more contest details, mechanics, and/or to submit your own entry already, head on over to our Read link below!

In honor of those who were lost in the Virginia Tech tragedy, a Second Life resident with the in-game name of Milosun Czervik built a memorial, a stone heart on a pedestal. MTV's Stephen Totilo reports that when he visited the memorial to pay respect he saw this note left there by one of it's many visitors:

I never wanted to be remembered for such a memorial, so do not praise me for it; but, I couldn't just leave flowers. My heart and soul cries out for those that have lost loved ones, and I, like many others, still ask 'Why?'

Grieving online isn't something entirely new, but there's just something touching about this memorial.

The real life name of mister Czervik is Ross Perkins. At the moment he is a research associate at the School of Education of the VT campus. He notes while being interviewed that this was his contribution. The texture on the virtual memorial is the "hokie stone," which is the stone that covers nearly all the buildings on their campus.

While some people choose to spend their energy pointing their fingers at the evils of a new medium of entertainment, it's heartening to know that those who are immersed in the said medium, in the said culture, are choosing to deal with it in their own humble way.

While Nexon America's MMO dance title, Audition, just rolled out smoothly (it's now available for download at Nexon's official site), there's more good news for you bubblegum pop fans. It turns out that, on top of friendly dance competition face-offs among virtual friends, Hilary Duff of "Lizzie McGuire" fame signed up her latest single to be included in the dance title.

Duff's new song, "With Love" from her "Dignity" album, will be included in the continuously-growing library of hit songs in the game. As response to such a deal, the teenage idol couldn't contain her excitement. She had this to say:

One of the biggest ways I connect with my fans is online. And now with Audition, I have a cool new venue where I can share my music. Not to mention, I can't wait to see all the crazy and original dance competitions featuring "With Love."

Hilary Duff is one of the first artists to announce their contribution to the MMO title. And since she's the first, we're going to be hearing her song plugged in for the game's TV commercial, which is currently being aired on MTV, Nickelodeon, and other channels. As mentioned earlier, the game is already available. And we do have to stress that it's free for download and won't require any subscription fees. So, to get the ball rolling with your dance-athons, we dare you to click the play button below:

As Warren Ellis has asserted, Second Life more often than not means that you are immersed in a virtual world where people have to ability to swarm you with flying vibrating implements, run around clothed in whatever unsociable attire, or pose as a man who loves having slow-motion copulation with polygonal felines.

The Laguna Beach - the MTV show - on the other hand, means teeny-bopper joy mixed in with, well, we'll let the folks from the Daily Show explain:

Well, what happens when televised virtual reality attempts to approximate current attempts at creating virtual worlds? You get Virtual Laguna Beach, The Hills. Virtual Laguna Beach, The Hills is a world created using the There.com platform. Show celebrities can interact with hopeful fourteen year-olds, and folks can go enjoy the never ending teen drama that they crave for in pocketbooks and TV series. Think Second Life without the nasty bits, the economy, the education, the government positioning or the mature content.

We do not wish to go into more detail about this game. We fear for our sanity, and we fear the rain that will wash it away. ~~Let the rain wash down...~~~

David Moore's musings on player housing options for the denizens of Azeroth is nice and all, but it pales in comparison to this:

If you're a bit confused as to what this is, it's a Craig's List apartment listing that uses Blizzard's World of Warcraft to pimp their apartment.

High points of the apartment include an epic supply of beverages, condiments, and three Asians for roommates. The rent should set you back US$ 738, and that's not counting the utility fees, but as mentioned that might be moot since the ad's been taken down already. Thank god for internet mirrors and the preservation of this bit of gamer-culture gold.

We're especially curious about the "Mild Sexual Content" warning found at the lower left portion of the advert. MTV reality-TV shows come to mind.

Everybody is abuzz with World of Warcraft's Burning Crusade expansion these days. And for guys like game designer Jeff Kaplan, it means a recently concluded interview with the MTV crew. In the conversation that took place, Jeff began by reiterating on some of the more interesting events that took place at the launch sites, such as the fans in Universal City asking for a "Tigole" autograph - his in-game name - instead of his real name.

Strange events aside, the crew interviewed Kaplan on his current "What's next?" itinerary, which included a look at what made Burning Crusade a step up from competing MMORPGs. "One of the core tenets of WoW design philosophy is to not design around super-long extended-play sessions," Kaplan said regarding TBC's revamped gameplay.

We really focused on the winged-dungeon approach. That means they've made areas designed for players to quickly get in and out, knocking through one 45-minute wing at a time. We felt that gave people the option of doing a bite-size chunk of content on their own time, and should they choose to take four or five bites in a night, that's kind of a personal decision.

Moving on with the interview, they also delved into the upcoming success of another MMO - Second Life. Instead of using a game developer-controlled atmosphere, Second Life literally puts a blank check in the player's hands with regards to creativity. What was Kaplan's outlook on this MMORPG, which followed a very different design philosophy from WoW?

Obviously some of the elements of Second Life at this point couldn't be integrated into a game like World of Warcraft. It's a very different system, and it would probably be a shock to that system. But should we ever work on a future project that was similar, there's a lot of lessons we could learn from that.

On a related note to this, Kaplan was also excited about other design concepts he picked from a personal favorite: Animal Crossing. As he reiterated:

I want to make sure that when we introduce player housing to World of Warcraft we do it right and give the feature the credit that it deserves, which is a massive amount of production time on the programming, design and art time. It's something we actually wanted to do for the original shipping game.

And what about the rumors of WoW hitting the console scene?, "We are not anywhere close to being on console," Kaplan said regarding the matter. You heard straight, Cartman. For the rest of the interview, which will be covering other hot matters like "The Sword of a Thousand Truths," view the read link.

No doubt, Second Life is a virtual world, in all sense of the word. Here, you can watch your favorite TV shows, purchase Adidas trainers, line up for a Radio 1 event, attend a Reebok block party, go to an MTV Fender promo, and well, meet real people.

So it's no surprise that companies are taking this "real life sim" seriously. As I said earlier, there's Adidas, Radio1, Reebok, and MTV - as well as Philips and 20th Century Fox. It's "big business" after all. According to our source, "90% of Second Life users are also voracious users" who spread the gospel of Second Life in teh intarwebs.

"It's about Second Life going out into the real world. It's going to become part of web services, and be on more devices. It's effectively walking back through the mirror to the real world," says Justin Bovington, CEO of Rivers Run Red, which works with record labels and brands within Second Life.

MTV Overdrive recently paid a visit to what is arguably the Mecca of gaming development. Where else but in Austin! Anyhow, one of the show's segment, My Gaming Block, featured various game developers in the Austin Area such as Midway and NCsoft. It looks like Sway Calloway is having a grand time talking with the devs and lending his voice to an in-game monster or something.

But unlike our previous report, this time we'll dwelve with the specifics and focus on the interview with Richard Garriott a.k.a Lord British, Father of Ultima, and Executive Producer for Tabula Rasa. When asked why he think Austin is perfect for the gaming industry, he mentions that Austin is this "high-tech, art town and computer games is the best high tech, art you can do...and that just matches the personality of Austin really well".

He even divulged that he went to Austin to study and he became a statistic in the classic story of high tech business, in other words he dropped out of school to play and make games. He also compared the early days of the computer business to the Wild West in the sense that "people worked very hard but stayed up all night partying."

And yes, he admits to Sway that in the NCsoft office, they make up some rap tunes. Just what are they rapping, well here's a crude snippet of the lyrics of Lord British's rap song:

I'm a programmer
Code so well I can't bear it
I instantiate, destruct
and virtually inherit

Listen to this guy, he is an ace in our books. You could watch the My Gaming Block video by clicking on the link below.

Nexon just announced today that their MMORPG, Maple Story, will be making its way to North American shores. And it will surely hit U.S. with a bang, as a partnership with MTV Networks guarantees full-blown marketing promotion from the hip network mogul.

The said MMO's success in South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia has led to other tie-ins with various companies such as Coca-Cola. Maple Story features cute characters and colorful backgrounds that will surely make you go "squeee!" Also, we heard that there will be "special content" for the American audience that "reflects gamers' tastes and pop culture trends", so that's definitely something to get excited about.

Maple Story is available for free via online download (click the Via link below), and uses a "cash shop/micro-transcations/item-selling" system, where players buy (in real currency, mind you) various in game items for customization and whatnot.