Digg reports a Next Generation story that Develop Magazine uses cold hard numbers to exhibit which game studios/developers/companies are the 100 most successful out there. It is ranked and provides a fascinating breakdown on the relative performance of the world's development houses based on their over-the-counter sales (90-95% of retail outlets) in the United Kingdom (UK) market during the past calendar year.

Boing Boing reports that amybabie's Etsy Shop sells Katamari Damacy balls with embedded magnets.

According to Shacknews, Microsoft released the MechCommander 2 Shared Source, offering everything needed to compile a working version of the 2001 strategy game. It is about 1 GB big and was released for XNA demonstration according to this Shacknews comment.

YouTube has a spoof of the original Growing Pains, a television/TV sitcom series from the late 1980s.

GamerFeed says videogame industry is certainly not perfect. As alive as it is with quality software and great system hardware, there are mistakes that are made that leave the competition reeling and gamers fleeing for better pastures. The article lists some of the most significant mistakes to come down the pike in the industry...

Digg mentions a CNET News.com story (also on ZDNet News) about Roomba Frogger. It was a modern, geek version of the famous 1981 video game "Frogger," in which players had to get a frog across a street without it getting crushed by a car or truck.

Who knows if this is real or not, but it still funny to mention. Digg mentions a HEXUS.net story about a hostility between ATi and NVIDIA staff starts to become physical. It occurred at the Münchner Halle, which is a large beer house within the CeBIT Messe, is where NVIDIA traditionally holds its good natured 'partner' and press parties, a really good time is had by all, and in the main without an ugly incident.

Steven Wong's GamerFeed article says and asks video games are meant to satisfy fantasy only, but what happens when the fantasy happens to include a real, living, ethnic group? What is the game developer's responsibility in regards to cultural sensitivity?

Digg mentions a Google video of a Rube Goldberg device in action in Half-Life 2.

Digg mentions an online version of the original Lemmings (Coral cache link works since the original site is being dugg) game.

This AcceleNation story collated the history of desktop 3D graphics at the turn of the Millennium. It left the story at the point where most of the field had fallen away, leaving the two-horse race between NVIDIA and ATI. It was at this point that a new lap of programmable technology had begun. Although the continuance of that race has been well documented across the Web, it is worth updating this record with a brief summary as of 2/8/2006. The whole article timelines major events starting the pre-Voodoo era.

Yahoo! News mentions at a Portland suburb in Scarborough, Maine neighborhood store and at restaurants and bars in more than a dozen states -- customers can plunk down $2 for a chance to catch their very own lobster using a mechanical claw in an arcade-style game. The apparatus is a new version of the old-style amusement game where players put in a quarter or two in hopes of grabbing a stuffed animal. But instead of plush toys, the Love Maine Lobster Claw game has a water-filled tank full of lobsters. When a lobster is caught, the restaurants cook it for free and serve it with side dishes. Seen on FiringSquad.

/. mentions 1UP story in looking at some of the worst blatant rip-offs of classic games. By retooling old ideas and putting new labels on them, a developer can make a pretty penny at the cost of people's childhood memories.

2006 GameTrailers Awards are posted with the nominees and winners for the second annual event. It has following criterias: style, energy, pacing, production value, storytelling, emotional impact, sound design, music, and overall effectiveness.

UserFriendly's link of the day mentions Brickshelf Gallery's photographs on a working pinball machine made out of LEGO. There are details and descriptions on this at Pinball News.

1UP has a preview of the upcoming World of Warcraft v1.10 patch. It has an interview with Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan, the game lead designer, short trailers, screen shots of the weather effects-system, and other goodies.

Mod DB finally revealed its top game modifications (mods) for year 2005: "This competition needs no introduction. For the past month the community has been voting for their favourite mods. Over 28,000 votes and the results are in. There are a few surprize packets but all in all, the results reflect the 2005 mod making year.

World of Warcraft Maps combines Google Maps' application program interface (API) and World of Warcraft's land of Azeroth. It provides an ultra-high detail scalable map and includes more than 15,000 herb, ore, and treasure locations.

Did you know you're playing and in a massive multiplayer role playing game right now? From a /. comment, here is an introduction to it:

Yahoo! News report that the video game industry's 2006 Electronic Entertainment/E³ Expo trade show, in Los Angeles, is getting a make-over. Banned are the swarms of sexy, semi-clad "booth babes" that in years past took the unveiling of new games and technology to titillating new levels.