Do video games ruin marriages? Survey says yes.

Via Scoop.it — Shezcrafti

Accord­ing to a new study by Brigham Young Uni­ver­sity, exces­sive gam­ing often leads to unhappy mar­riages, and in many cases, divorce.  The Chicago Tri­bune reports:

The researchers sur­veyed 349 cou­ples with at least one spouse who plays a mas­sively mul­ti­player online role play­ing game (MMORPG), such as World of War­craft or Eve Online, about their mar­i­tal sat­is­fac­tion. World of War­craft, by far the most pop­u­lar MMORPG, has more than 12 mil­lion sub­scribers world­wide, about a quar­ter of them in North Amer­ica. The median age of play­ers is about 26, and more than a third are married.

The results con­firmed what Neil Lund­berg, one of the study’s authors, already sus­pected: “Gam­ing wid­ows,” spouses who lose the atten­tion of their sig­nif­i­cant other to gam­ing, aren’t happy with their marriages.

More than 65 per­cent of spouses who don’t play video games said they fight with their hus­band or wife about gam­ing, and 75 per­cent of respon­dents said that their spouse’s habit has neg­a­tively affected their marriage.

Via www.chicagotribune.com

The sur­vey find­ings seem to jive with a sta­tis­tic I found from last year that claims 15% of divorces are due to game addic­tion .

Of course, the flip side to stud­ies like these are those cases where gam­ing is a mutual pas­sion, and some­thing that spouses often share.  When I played World of War­craft, I knew plenty of mar­ried cou­ples who had no issues log­ging four or more hours per day—as long as they were doing it together.  I also knew peo­ple in the game who met, fell in love, and later married.

Moral of the story: cou­ples that play together stay together!

100 Romantic Couples from Video Games

It’s Valentine’s Day!  And what more could you want than yet another list about video game cou­ples?  I know you’re excited. Don’t hide it.

I real­ize there’s no short­age of lists out there about video game cou­ples.  I’ve seen them all:   “Best Cou­ples”, “Great­est Cou­ples”, “Top Cou­ples”, “Worst Cou­ples”, and my per­sonal favorite, “Prob­a­bly Gay Cou­ples.”  (Etc, etc, etc.)

But on my list you’ll find roman­tic cou­ples span­ning decades of video game his­tory: cou­ples from huge, well-known fran­chises to small indie games,  as well as rare, older games you’ve prob­a­bly never played or even heard of.  There are mar­ried cou­ples, doomed/ill-fated romances, cou­ples you know/suspect are more than just friends, cute cou­ples, dead cou­ples, on-again/off-again cou­ples, and a few silly ones thrown in as well.

I began this project with a sim­ple mis­sion: put together the biggest and best unbi­ased list of canon­i­cal, roman­tic video game cou­ples that I pos­si­bly could.

And what did I learn from all this?   That romance is alive and well in video games.

And I’ve got a list of over 100 video game cou­ples to prove it!

Did your favorite cou­ple make my list?

Would you drink this cleverly-named ‘Princess Bride’ inspired wine?

Via Scoop.it — Shezcrafti

Alamo Draft­house has announced the launch of a sig­na­ture wine inspired by THE PRINCESS BRIDE in honor of the 25th anniver­sary of the film. The name of this sig­na­ture wine pro­gram, “The Bot­tle Of Wits,” is derived from the iconic “bat­tle of wits” scene when West­ley first res­cues Princess But­ter­cup from Vizzini and his henchmen.

Via veryaware.com

It’ll go great with an MLT!  (That’s mut­ton, let­tuce, and tomato.)

LABYRINTH Graphic Novel Prequel Explores Origins of David Bowie’s Goblin King

Via Scoop.it — Shezcrafti

LABYRINTH Graphic Novel Pre­quel Explores Ori­gins of David Bowie’s Gob­lin King. Archaia will release a pre­quel graphic novel in late 2012.
Via collider.com

Relive Your ‘Saved by the Bell’ Days with this 8-Bit Style YouTube Game

For every­one who ever grew up watch­ing Saved by the Bell , indie film­mak­ers The Fine Broth­ers have cre­ated this kick-ass “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style YouTube game chron­i­cling a day in the life of Zack Mor­ris as he goes on a quest to date his feather-haired dream girl, Kelly Kapowski (who else?).

You can play it here:

Styled like an old 8-bit game, all the famil­iar char­ac­ters, set­tings and cheese­ball high school plots are sure to con­jure up some good ‘ol SBTB nostalgia.

(Because some­where, deep down, you know you still heart Zack Morris.)

This way to more  Adven­ture Games on YouTube !

Tim Burton’s Gallery of the Weird and Wonderful

Check out the awe­some new gallery over at www.TimBurton.com , which is a teaser to pro­mote upcom­ing limited-edition book The Art of Tim Bur­ton .  The book will con­tain over 400 pages fea­tur­ing 1,000 illus­tra­tions from the imag­i­na­tive (and lov­ably twisted) mind of Tim Bur­ton.  The gallery is com­pletely flash ani­mated, and is one of the coolest and most cre­ative uses of Flash I’ve seen.

Vis­i­tors are invited to user their mouse or key­board to nav­i­gate Stain Boy, the on-screen char­ac­ter who guides you through the gallery.  Kinda like play­ing a video game, you can move Stain Boy through doors, get close-up views of art­work hang­ing on the “walls”, and occa­sion­ally he’ll do some kooky things.  Oh, and be sure to turn your sound up to catch the whim­si­cal Sugar Plum Fairy music.

If you sign up with an email address, you’ll get access to the Pri­vate Gallery, which fea­tures addi­tional Burton-esque good­ness.  Sign­ing up will also get you on the mail­ing list to receive news and updates about The Art of Tim Bur­ton. I imag­ine there’s going to be huge demand for this book, so bet­ter keep your beady lit­tle eyes on this one.

With the first trailer for Burton’s Alice in Won­der­land released ear­lier this week and the announce­ment that both Bur­ton and Depp will begin work on a Dark Shad­ows movie , this is shap­ing up to be one hell of a good week for Tim Bur­ton fans.  Thanks to @simplyburton for shar­ing the gallery news!