The gaming industry in the UK has risen exponentially over the last decade; to the point that gaming can now be considered one of the most popular past-times in the United Kingdom.

It’s not just with the younger generation either, as more and more middle aged and elderly people in the UK also enjoy gaming, as the following infographic from 1000Games demonstrates:
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Ever been inspired to go places because of something you’ve seen in a movie? Perhaps not, but it does happen: take World War II period piece Australia, which was backed by a $1 million campaign by the Tourism board of Western Australia. Or on a smaller scale, consider the sustainability of organised tours of the sights of western Austria that tie in with vintage musical The Sound of Music.

It’s not just film either: you may be inspired by the works of Charles Dickens to visit London, and a love of Bob Marley may inspire a trip to the Caribbean. So, what about video games? Studies into the way they alter our behaviour are nothing if not controversial, but surely they have the same power of suggestion as any movie, piece of literature or song? Could we see concerted efforts in the future by tourists boards to capitalise on games that feature real world destinations? Here are some they could have already exploited:

New York

As Seen In: Crysis 2, Deus Ex, Max Payne, Metal Gear Solid 2, Modern Warfare 3 and countless others

Probably the most famous city in the world, New York doesn’t seem like it would need much of a tourist boost. In fact, it mostly shows that video games are inspired by travel: the majority of the games in which it features manipulate our love of the city by destroying it in some way (virtually all the above involve someone damaging a major landmark, especially the statue of liberty).

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Image via Wikipedia

Do you absolutely love World of Warcraft? In this article we are going to talk more about this game and why you should play.

World of Warcraft is one of the most popular MMO games out there. In case you do not know, MMO stands for massively multiplayer online. Not only is this game one of the most popular it is also one of the biggest. You could literally spend years on this game and never run out of things to do.

You can find plenty of WoW addicts who will be ready to help you when you are learning the game or when you are trying to accomplish a hard task.

Whether you enjoy PvP, PvE or roleplaying WoW has something for you. You can get on the game and start leveling up before you know it. The quests are interesting and great fun. You will never stop discovering things and this is what makes the game so great.

There are a couple of different problems with this game though. Some people do not like paying the small subscription fee and the other problem is that if you do not have the proper computer you are not going to be able to play. Make sure you have a computer that is compatible with the game so that you can get in on the action.

This game is a great way to get together with friends. It is fun when you have a bunch of friends on their computer playing the game together. You can communicate with the other players when you use the forward slash. If you want to wave you simply put /wave or if you want to say hello to jimbob you would put /tell jimbob hi. It’s pretty simple but if you do not know how to do it you may get frustrated because you can not communicate.

In this game you are going to be able to have a vocation that will allow you to start making money. There are a lot of different jobs that you can do but you should make sure that this is something that you are going to enjoy because this is going to be one of the ways that you get the gold much needed for the game.

Gold (like in real life) is what drives everyone in World of Warcraft. Making sure that you have enough gold is a must. If you want to level up you should make certain that you are doing your tasks properly and that you have enough gold.

If you want to get more gold you can also go to the mobs because many times the mobs are going to drop money and you can pick that up and keep it for yourself. As you can see there are a lot of things going on in World of Warcraft. You will be able to play for hours on end and still not get bored or wish there was something else to do.

This is a guest post by Jared Lonzer. Jared Lonzer is a huge fan of World of warcraft. You can read his latest posts WoW Quest Helper, choosing between the different WoW Classes and other World of Warcraft topics on his WoW blog.

Related articles

• World of Warcraft experiences a small drop in subscribers post-Cataclysm (joystiq.com)
• Blizzard Accelerating New ‘World of Warcraft’ Expansions To Reenergize Base (techland.time.com)
• TLL Classics: “World of Warcraft” Totally Looks Like Swine Flu (totallylookslike.icanhascheezburger.com)

Over Christmas I was very lucky to get a Wii and have had tons of fun playing the Wii Sports Resort, with Wii Motion Plus that came with it and it’s certainly been an experience in playing games.

But, as I’ve found, this is an ideal way to lose a couple of pounds, work up a sweat and have fun all at the same time, so the other day I decided to go one step further and get myself a Wii Fit Plus bundle. This includes the Wii Balance Board and the Wii Fit Plus game that now features several new games such as skateboarding and more.

Now I have used a Wii Ballance Board before and have had a few goes with @quiffylaa31 so the decision to get was one an easy one to make, but believe me when I say it’s really energetic, as it’s very energetic to use

Once the Balance Board was synced up to the Wii it was time to get going, the Wii Fit Plus game first gives you a body test to test you balance, fitness and your Wii Fit age, enough said about that the better

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This is a guest post by Ryan who is representing a company that deals with cheap Audi cars, he is a keen gamer but believes that parents should look out for their children when it comes to how much time should be spent playing a video game.

It has been announced here in the UK this week that the very first rehabilitation service for children that are addicted to video games is to be rolled out and I was thinking, how on earth do children actually get to this stage?

Gaming has changed a lot since I was kid because the only way that you used to be able to play multiplayer games was to actually invite a few school mates over and sit there and have a laugh. This was always a fantastic way to socialise but times have changed since then and now services such as Xbox Live have been introduced and that allows gamers to sit at home and play with their friends over the internet. Although I am a big fan of Xbox Live I have to say there is nothing that beats having a game with someone that is sitting next to you and I would choose this over the Live service every single time. Read the rest of this entry »

If you read my blog regularly then you may of seen my post on the Twitter game SpyMaster, now I’ve recently been playing another Twitter game called SNODS (Social Online Network Detective Squad).

SNODS is a bit more advanced that SpyMaster and is based on capturing twitters, building advanced cells, getting more guards and of course making lots of money to advance through the game, I’ve not been playing SNODS for long, but I do seem to find it a bit more enjoyable than SpyMaster and there is a bit more to do.

So if you want to have a little more to do than SpyMaster then give SNODS a try, I mean come on we all have to be addicted to something

It seems to be the buzz word, or should that be hash tag, that is sweeping across Twitter at the moment, but what is SpyMaster?

Well to put it simply, SpyMaster is a game that is based around your Twitter profile, your spies are your followers and it is a turn based game that can be very, very addictive but fun to play.

Log into SpyMaster using your Twitter details, which is all done via the Twitter Oauth system, so it makes it that bit more secure to use, then join a side, you can choose from the American CIA, British MI6 and the Russian FSB. Each branch has it’s good and bad points, such as stronger energy, better weapons, you get the gist.

Once in the game you gain your wealth by performing different tasks, assassinations, buying safe house and weapons etc.

It’s all a good bit of fun and as I mentioned above it can get quite addictive, but if your looking to have a bit of fun then check it out..