Hate speech mars gaming

Many gamers exchange hate speech over their headsets as they stalk each other across virtual battlefields, says the Associated Press.

Players trade racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic insults so frequently that game makers are taking steps to tone down the rhetoric.

Microsoft, maker of the XBox 360, has taken numerous steps to clean up the language on its Live service, which is by far the biggest online gaming service with some 23 million members.

A report by comScore states the US mobile games market is expected to grow despite the number of mobile gamers dropping 13% in the past year, according to Strategy Eye.

The growth will be driven by heavy mobile gaming on smartphones, which are more suited to mobile gaming than feature phones.

The overall decline in mobile gamers was driven by a 35% drop in mobile gaming among feature phone users, who make up the vast majority of mobile gamers. In comparison, the number of mobile gamers using smartphones grew by 60%.

Google is getting serious about gaming, particularly in regards to Android as a platform, writes CoolTechZone.

The company has hired a gaming industry veteran Mark DeLoura to be the company's developer advocate for games.

In a statement, DeLoura says: “I personally feel that Google hiring someone specifically to focus on games is a signal from the company that they recognise the growing importance of games as a medium.”