Fans of Nintendo's Virtual Console service in Europe will be excited to know that they'll be getting a number of classics including Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Fatal Fury 2. Interested? Then head on over to the full article for more information.

Recent data released by the NPD Group suggest online gaming subscriptions in the U.S. turn in over US$ 1 billion a year. Worldwide phenomenon World of Warcraft and popular website Pogo.com help boost the industry's revenue. See the full article for details.

EA's casual gaming division is poised to deliver an amped up version of the timeless board game Monopoly to the gaming world. They'll be releasing it this Fall and development is in full swing. We've got details in the full article up next.

Rosie O'Donnell may be hugging the limelight lately because of her future (or lack thereof) in The View, her feud with the Donald, and her usual spats with her conservative co-host, Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Now this time around, she's on the news for a good reason.

Electronic Arts announced recently that their casual gaming portal, Pogo, has teamed up with O'Donnell to launch "Pogo Cares Benefiting Rosie's For All Kids Foundation".The two-month program is designed to raise awareness of kids in need within the Pogo Community of 11 million players. Well, at least they're doing something helpful now.

Rosie also said that she "played a lot of videogames as a kid and now I am an avid Club Pogo member and have been for quite awhile...I'm online almost every night! It is a great way to relax and stay in touch with people out of state. There is a grandmother in Kansas that I play with ... she has no idea who I am. We talk for hours about her grandkids and her latest projects. I love it."

To continue the lovefest, Pogo's vice president and general manager, Karen Schulman had this to say about this philanthropic team-up:

The Pogo community has a history of coming together to raise money and awareness to help those in need. We are very excited to work with Rosie O'Donnell and her 'For All Kids' Foundation to support causes that are important to Pogo players, such as education and early childhood development.

A study, commissioned by PopCap Games, showed that women love a good game of Cake Mania, and they aren't shy about it. After media content providers were determined to deliver advertisements catering to the young male bracket on consoles, the study by Information Solutions Group (ISG) reveals that casual gamers are "predominantly female."

Looking for numbers? Try 76% casual gamers that are female against 24% male casual gamers. And even over at Yahoo! Games and Electronic Arts casual gaming bet Pogo, more casual gamers are female.

The non-gamer bracket that included your girlfriend and your grandmother is now blessed with a gamers' edge on Zuma, thanks to the simplistic, yet entertaining casual game. With Miyamoto's previous speech on catering the Nintendo Wii to women, it's now clear that introducing games to the female bracket shows just how big of a market the game industry can tap into.

The games women play may not be "hardcore," but it's a start for toning hand-eye coordination technique and basic game mechanics. Females are entering the mainstream gaming scene, and not as promo girls on the side (mind you).

Even if the hardcore gamers are predominantly male, it's no indication that it should stay that way. There are already girl gamers around in the professional gaming scene, and it won't be a surprise if that increased this year, too.

One such study back in 2006 highlighted that 42% of adult console gamers were female, and the rest were male. In a broader scale, PC and console games were played by more males than females: 62% against 38%. So in essence, the gaming demographics is becoming more evenly distributed as time rolls on.

And with the success of the Nintendo Wii and MMO games, this year could spell the game industry's renewed focus on delivering games to gamers, and not games to males only.

IGN caught up with Bizarre's community and web lead, Ben Ward, to talk about Boom Boom Rocket, an upcoming game for the Xbox Live Arcade, and Geometry Wars, one of the most played Live games on the Xbox 360 console.

Ben says that EA's Pogo Studio approached the Bizarre Geometry Wars team with a bare bones concept on BBR. Pogo was keen on working with Bizarre, especially after their Geometry Wars pedigree. Bizarre was also excited with the new concept, namely, BBR. And so, Pogo has been involved with Bizarre with nearly every step of the development process.

Although BBR has been compared to Fantavision, Ben says that the only likes those two have is fireworks. BBR is more like DDR or Guitar Hero, says Ben. It's a really fast and frantic game, and Ben adds that Bizarre is willing to make more tracks for downloadable content if the fans ask for it.

The team also looked at the possibility that the fans might want to create their own custom sound track, but Ben says it didn't work out. This is because the level needs to be specifically designed to ensure that the gameplay matches the music. He also says that although there's already a high bar to set from the success of Geometry Wars, BBR is a different game altogether and the challenges are different.

Now that Microsoft has increased the size limit of XBLA games, IGN asked Ben if BBR would exceed the previous size limit of 50MB, but Ben remains mum on the specs of the game, assuring only that every bit of space needed will be used to make BBR the game that it deserves to be.

When asked if Bizarre is also thinking of making games for the Playstation Network, after having produced games only for the XBLA, Ben promisingly replied that he sees no reason why they can't produce for Sony, being an independent studio that they are. But, having seen huge success from having produced for the XBLA, Ben says Bizarre might still continue down this road.

Currently brewing in EA Canada's labs is Pogo Island, which compiles five of the most popular games found over at Pogo.com - Word Whomp, Poppit!, Phlinx, Tri-Peaks Solitaire, and Squelchies.

• Word Whomp - kinda like Text Twist, requires you to guess the word by unscrambling the letters
• Phlinx - you have to group together stones of the same color
• Poppit! - good old balloon-popping fun
• Squelchies - nah, contrary to what this writer thought, you won't be using the DS's mic and letting out loud squelches (awwww. haha!). Instead, you'll get to manipulate three same colored aquatic creatures to make way for more creatures as they advance downward
• Tri-Peake Solitaire - (need we explain this one, folks?)
  

But in addition to all these, there's also reportedly a meta game that'll require players to look for Pogo mascots found scattered all over the backdrops of Pogo Island. Kinduva healthy distraction, if ya ask me.*winks*

So anyway, another cool thing about Pogo Island is that you'll get to collect tokens while playing the game which you can then transfer to Pogo.com and earn bragging rights. Hahaha. Pogo Island is set to bounce your way on March 26 and will sell for an SRP of US$ 29.99.

More screens await in the full article!

Time to open up a can of pixie dust and do some wand flicking ("It's levi-O-sa, not levio-SA.") - the demo for Electronic Arts and Pogo's Fairy Godmother Tycoon has sashayed in and is now available. You can download it below via the link to our DL site.

So, how proficient are you with Potions Management? You'll have to learn the tricks of the trade in order to rise in fairytale-landia, and along the way, you're going to be encountering a couple of your favorite princes, princesses, pigs, wolves, trolls, goats, and other character favorites. Help them and they help you.

The demo allows you to play for an hour. It's easy to catch on with the game, whether you're familiar with other Tycoon games or not. Pretty pick-up-and-play, actually. For a 32MB demo, this is worth all the wand flicking.

Download: Fairy Godmother Tycoon demo

Just when you thought they released every possible Tycoon game out there, think again. From Sid Meir's Railroad Tycoon to all those other spin-offs (zoos, lemonade stands, space stations, beer, etc.) comes this new title from Electronic Arts and Pogo: Fairy Godmother Tycoon. Now who ever said being a fairy was bad?

As Tycoon games go, this will have you rising the Fairy Godmother corporate ladder. Yes, apparently, there's such a thing. You'd have to cast spells, create potions, and "defeat villains through superior store management." Looks like things can get violent, eh? Ha, we kid.

Seriously though, an interesting aspect of the game is that it will reintroduce you to some certain classic fairy tales, but with a fresh twist. You'd be helping familiar fabled characters un-curse themselves or earn their lover's hand, so you better price your potions right.

To check out more screenshots and a video, you can head on over to Pogo's official site of the game by clicking the magic wand of a Read link below.

The company Electronic Arts (EA) and iVillage have decided to create a co-branded casual game channel driven by EA subsidiary Pogo. Through this partnership, Pogo will be the provider for the over 16 million following of iVillage. Pogo in itself is not a small site featuring free games to those who visit - it has 1.4 million patrons of its pay area Club Pogo.

The amount of patronage that iVillage will bring to the table will definitely bring in some funds that EA may be needing, especially if you consider first quarter of the company's fiscal year last 2006. At the end of the first fiscal year, June 30, 2006, the company reported an US$ 81 million loss. That was US$ 23 million more than the US$ 58 million the company lost during the same period in 2005. Both groups are extremely optimistic in their venture and are hoping that big things will come from it.