A press release today confirmed that the Burning Crusade expansion to Blizzard’s MMORPG World of Warcraft has gone gold and is scheduled for release on January 16, 2007.

Blizzard Entertainment® announced today that World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade™ the highly anticipated expansion to the world's leading subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft, will be in stores on January 16 in North America and Europe. […] In addition, Blizzard today announced that the subscriber base for World of Warcraft has reached a new milestone, with 7.5 million players worldwide.

The Burning Crusade is to introduce a level cap from 60 to 70 which is known to take nearly several months of a player's life. We consider this a severe threat to children and teens, and are urging all parents to take extra precautions leading up to release day.

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Researchers at the University of Rochester have found children and teens are addicted to video games to fulfill their psychological needs.

We think there's a deeper theory than the fun of playing," says Richard M. Ryan, a motivational psychologist at the University and lead investigator in the four new studies about gaming. Players reported feeling best when the games produced positive experiences and challenges that connected to what they know in the real world.

This discovery comes as no surprise to the video game industry, as they were the first to implement the exploitive “high score” system into its games to addict players.

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The New Zealand Herald reported three Auckland teens were killed in a vehicle crash while attempting to outrun police in a high speed pursuit.

National's transport spokesman Maurice Williamson says today's young people think they are bullet-proof. He blames Playstations and X-boxes for making teens think they can drive stupidly and just push the reset button if anything goes wrong.

Though police said the Playstation and Xbox are not suspects, they are "definitely of interest" in the still ongoing investigation.

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Parents and friends of over 7 million World of Warcraft gamers were outraged today as Blizzard Entertainment revealed plans to remove its weekly maintenance downtime in favor of a no-interruption approach.

In the upcoming weeks, we will be testing the effect of a live maintenance, where regular maintenance tasks are run during off-peak with realms live. On Tuesday, December 26 there will be no scheduled downtime for weekly maintenance. We will perform all necessary maintenance tasks while the realms are live.

Blizzard’s weekly maintenance schedule along with its “rest experience points” system have long been criticized as ineffective precautionary measures to curb long hours of continuous gaming.

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We have launched the new MAVAV website in celebration of 4 successful years of raising awareness against video game addiction and violence! We have received thousands of letters throughout the years. With this re-launch, we hope you may again share your responses with us in our comment sections for all members to read.

Visit our revised Articles and Resources section.

You may Email us with any questions and suggestions you may have. Thank you for your continuing support and have a safe and wonderful holiday.

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Burger King released sales figures today revealing its three promotional video games, Sneak King, Pocketbike Racer, and Big Bumpin’ have sold over two million copies and over eight million combo meal deals in the United States in just four weeks.

There is controversy surrounding these games as they promote fast food, mischievous behavior, and sneaking and surprising.

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