No more Wii for you, Grandpa!

Following the suicide of a 12-year-old boy on Thursday, Thailand’s Criminal Court has ordered the closure of 72 websites. The Bangkok Post reports that Pongsathorn Wattanabenjasopha leaped to his death from the sixth floor of his school building, after being banned from playing video games by his father. Oddly enough, the 72 sites shuttered by the Thai government include both online game and gambling venues. – From GamePolitics.com

His newest game, Primrose, a compelling puzzle game, was recently released on PC, Mac, Linux, and iPhone.

From the article:

How would you describe Primrose, for anyone that hasn’t heard of it?

Primrose is a tile-clearing puzzle game.  It’s in the same family as Tetris, but it has completely new mechanics that have never been seen before.

How long did Primrose take to complete?

About two months.

… Primrose is a bit of a departure from your other games, in that it isn’t obviously “about” anything. What made you decide to make a straightforward puzzle game like this?

I saw it as a challenge.  I wanted to push myself outside the area that I was comfortable working in.

People often talk about Tetris as being a perfect game or one of the best video games of all time.  They also describe it as a mysterious stroke of genius, never to be equaled or surpassed.  I wanted to try my hand at making a game like this—not a copy of Tetris, but a game with captivating, deep mechanics that could have a very long play life.

I also wanted to make something that was more appropriate for extended play on an iPhone.  My art games can each be played a handful of times at most, and though they might inspire interesting thought, the majority of people do not feel that they’re worth paying for.  The market really values games based on total playtime.

Read more here.

Despite the fact that EA recently announced laying off about 1,100 employees, they also had some good news to report: The Sims 3 will be in stores by June 2. Sims 3 is another upgrade of the Will Wright franchise that has become one of the best-selling video games of all time with about 100 million units sold.

For every NES and Sony Playstation, there are countless game systems that just didn’t make it. Sometimes it’s bad luck, or the marketplace. And other times, it’s because their system was completely retarded. These are the forgotten systems that deserved to be forgotten. Unless the point was to laugh at them, which we shall do now. – From cracked.com