Craig Smallwood, a 51-year-old man from Ewa Beach, Hawaii, will have his day in court. U.S. District Judge Alan Kay made sure of it when he dismissed half of Smallwood's eight charges against NCSoft related to alleged videogame addiction, leaving four charges still to be resolved.

According to Hawaii's Star Advisor rag, Smallwood claims he has a tough time bathing and even waking up in the morning because of "phenomena of psychological dependence and addiction" to the game "Lineage II." Smallwood further alleges that the game caused "extreme and serious emotional distress and depression."

None of us here have a degree in medicine, but it seems like Smallwood could have avoided these claimed ailments by spending a little less time plugged into Lineage II's network. Naturally, the plaintiff disagrees.

"NCSoft is a discretionary and discriminatory in its applications of the rules," Smallwood said in his original October complaint. "Often they will allow certain players to break rules ... while they enforce these rules on others."

The Judge threw out claims of misrepresentation/deceit, unfair and deceptive trade practices, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and punitive damages. The charges that remain include defamation, negligence, gross negligence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Let the comments begin.

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Electronics chain Best Buy has been experimenting with the used game business by offering customers store credit for trading in their pre-owned titles, a service which just recently was expanded to include 600 stores across the nation.

"The expansion of our trade-in program reaffirms our commitment to consistently pursue new ways to bring a better gaming experience to consumers," said Chris Homeister, GM of the home entertainment group at Best Buy. "Fall marks the launch of several highly-anticipated gaming titles and new technology, and we're thrilled to provide gamers with innovative ways to connect with the games they love."

By October, Best Buy will have rolled the service out to the rest of its 1,089 stores, and while there haven't been any specifics yet, the company is also reportedly going to start selling used games at its stores soon.

Trade-In Details

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THQ's Cory Ledesma didn't come out and say that used game buyers are the scum of the earth, but it's hard not to feel like you've just been given a verbal wedgie if you've ever shopped at Gamestop or bought a used game off of eBay.

"I don't think we really care whether used game buyers are upset because new game buyers get everything," Ledesma told Gamasutra. "So if used game buyers are upset they don't get the online feature set I don't really have much sympathy for them.

"That's a little blunt but we hope it doesn't disappoint people. We hope people understand that when the game's bought used we get cheated."

And therein lies the point of debate. While Ledesma and those who share his opinion feel that the used game business cheats publishers and game developers out of hard earned profits, it's based on the assumption that a used game sale is taking the place of a new game sale. To some extent that's probably true, but across the board? Not likely.

Ledesma's comments come on the heels of U.S. analyst Micheal Pachter claiming that DLC codes are having very little effect on Gamestop's bottom line. There's also been some talk that THQ plans to raise the price of online access to $10.

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Zynga just can't help making a mess of things. Updates from games like Mafia Wars and Farmville nearly ruined the Facebook experience until the social networking site cleaned up the application spam. But out in the real world, cleaning up Zynga's mess is proving costly.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a letter to Zynga last week threatening to hit the company with a lawsuit over a messy guerrilla marketing campaign. Apparently Zynga thought it was a good idea to glue fake $25,000 bills to select sidewalks in five locations in Hayes Valley to promote the latest version of its Mafia Wars game.

According to the city's Department of Public Works (DPW), cleaning up the mess involves bringing in a steam cleaner and is a 45 minute affair, plus administration time.

"We don't have any staff to spare," said DWP spokeswoman Christine Falvey.

The city is demanding that Zynga fork over all its information about the marketing campaign, including "emails, work orders, scope of work, contracts, marketing plans, or other records -- that show when and where the graffiti in San Francisco was placed, and by whom." In addition, the city wants Zynga to come up with a "proposal to fully resolve the issue," one that goes beyond just paying for the cleanup.

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