Monday was a historic day for video games. The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the games industry, shooting down a California law restricting sale of violent games to children. Game developers have celebrated the ruling as a victory for free speech and a coming-of-age for video games as a medium, putting it officially in league with film, music, theater and literature.It warmed my heart to hear the good news that day, tha

It's that time of year again. E3, the massive video game conference in Los Angeles, has come and gone. As in the past, the conference was a perfect glimpse into what we can expect from the video game industry for the next year or two. Looking past the glitz, the glam, and the booth babes, a number of trends stood out.

This week, Zynga launched "Empires and Allies," the latest in its line of addictive, microtransaction-based building/strategy games ahead of its rumored upcoming IPO. Despite being the most successful Facebook game developer nearly since its inception a year ago, Zynga has drawn the ire of respected voices in gaming spheres, and "Empires and Allies" appears to be an attempt at addressing some of the criticisms leveled at Zynga, especially the idea that its "social" games aren't really that social at all.

Three tidbits came out of Google I/O that will impact the mobile/social gaming ecosystems.

Two weeks ago, Valve Software released -- to critical and popular acclaim -- the highly anticipated sequel to its comedic first-person puzzle game, Portal. The game was originally scheduled to launch on the digital distribution platform, Steam, on Tuesday, April 19, in the early morning. But it ended up being released nine and a half hours earlier as part of a promotional augmented reality game (ARG) designed by Valve and a group of indie game developers.

The other month when I wrote the article "If You Can't Beat Them, Invite Them In" about Sony's response to PlayStation hackers, I wasn't being as literal as Sony seems to have been. In what is anticipated to be the second largest exposure of consumer data from a corporate network breach, Sony's PlayStation Network has been hacked, and is down for the count.

At the recent MI6 Game Marketing Conference, EA Sports honcho Peter Moore issued a challenge to competitors in the world of social games, including market leader Zynga. EA Sports is planning on dominating Facebook, leveraging its stable of existing properties like Madden Football and FIFA Soccer, two of the dominant sports franchises in the gaming world. "There's a big dog in front of us," he said. "But we aren't far behind, and we're confident that we can catch up. What we can bring to the market in terms of blue-chip IP is phenomenal."

Digital entertainment, gaming included, would seem to be entering a golden age. Access, usage, diversity of content and audiences, sound financial models -- all of these things should be taking us to a nirvana of sorts, populated by iPads, flat-screen TVs and advanced set-top boxes, and smartphones. There's just one problem. The foundation of our digital paradise has been built on a swamp.

This week, photo-sharing start-up Color made huge news by securing a boatload of venture capital, banking on the idea that people in close proximity to one another will want to share photos. CEO Dan Nguyen said that Color was designed to be used with groups, but its effect is often to connect strangers through their photos on their mobile phones.

We've gotten quite used to talking about the staggering numbers of women playing games when talking about casual or social games. But typically, these gamers do not self-identify as "gamers." It is the core gaming audience that largely self-identifies with the hobby.