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When a colleague brandished last Friday’s Metro at me, I imagine my response was the same as everyone else’s: I just rolled my eyes. After the Change4Life outrage last year, the Manhunt/Manhunt 2 furores before that, and even the Daily Mail’s last-minute storm in a teacup ‘goat gate’, not much can surprise when it comes to the various ways some people in the media who just don’t get games can vilify the hobby.

A fast-moving games business means an ever-changing trade awards, so our 2010 event features some tweaked categories and voting procedures.

Another firm looking to challenge industry convention has emerged in the form of Green Man Gaming. The firm’s very business plan will be startling to some – it certainly has split opinion amongst our team. And the service isn’t even live yet.

There is a lot for the games industry to learn from the BBC’s return to games this week. Firstly, there’s the opportunity for developers across the country. There’s now scope for smart teams to put themselves forward with clever ideas that turn In The Night Garden into the next Wii kids’ hit, or transform Top Gear into a Facebook gaming phenomenon.

Ubisoft MD Rob Cooper takes a look at the challenges the UK industry faces over the next decade from a publisher’s point-of-view...

ELSPA’s director general Michael Rawlinson toasts another successful year for games, and discusses the key issues the trade body and its members will face over the next year...

The Christmas trading report for GAME, released last week and just as we went to press on the last edition of the magazine, makes for interesting reading. As is usual for such financial documents penned during a market dip, it was carefully worded and cautiously written.

So what’s next for the best-selling games machine in the world?
The Nintendo DS has been a phenomenon, with 10m sold in the UK and over 130m sold globally. But when a format reaches numbers like that (and only PSone and PS2 have come close), it tends to mark the curtain call for the hardware.

The by-all-accounts-brilliant Bayonetta and Darksiders hit retail shelves today. The first major releases of the year – in its first working week. Not bad.

One evening in November, a Northern lad had a reality check while walking the red carpet in Leicester Square. Moments like this – at the fantastic Modern Warfare 2 premiere – make one think twice. Not in terms of industry bragging (promise!), but how far gaming has come as a form of entertainment.

You can’t help but notice the absence of Woolworths on the High Street this Christmas. Others have tried to fill the gap; Tesco and Asda have been promoting their non-food departments, and even GAME has started stocking CDs (more on that next week). But it’s not quite the same, especially if the centrepiece to your High Street is a pound store, an Iceland, or worse… nothing at all.

Last year MCV estimated that the games industry had spent nearly £140m on marketing over Christmas. At the time we called this ‘the figure that says it all about the rude health of video games.’

When MCV broke the story that Square Enix was sniffing around Eidos a year ago, it was admittedly a strange rumour. We said as much at the time. But a savvy £80m swoop later has proven Square Enix to be one of the most cunning and surprising.

The numbers speak for themselves. 1.2m sold in its first day in the UK – making £47m revenue. Another 500,000 sold in the following four days – taking the number to £67m. Around one in five British console gamers now own it; one in 49 UK citizens; one in every 27 houses.