Welcome to 2013, and yet another exciting year for the avid gamer, whether it's watching the Wii U's promising first steps, anticipating the next generation consoles, or looking towards new products like Valve's home system

Last year was an odd one for video games trends, as Microsoft and Sony wound down their Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 operations in anticipation of launching new machines in 2013. While the big players backed off a little, however, the games market itself was evolving rapidly.

Here in the UK, 'Black Friday' might conjure up images of Allied bombing attacks, or dark moments from the history of women's suffrage. But in the ...

Explaining the decline of high-street retail as a channel for games distribution isn't as simple as saying "well, gaming is going digital" and waving at "the cloud" (a gesture that is "post-peak", in terms of its credibility as an explanator).

You'd be forgiven, looking at this holiday season's blockbuster line-up, that the video games industry is suffering from the worst kind of content-churn.