ReadWriteWeb

When film critic Roger Ebert posted on his blog that "Video Games Can Never Be Art," he seemed to incur the wrath of the gaming community, and the entry now has over 3,000 comments, many protesting Ebert's claims. Ebert wonders why the designation of art or not-art matters to those who play video games: "Do they require validation? In defending their gaming against parents, spouses, children, partners, co-workers or other critics, do they want to be able to look up from the screen and explain, "I'm studying a great form of art?" Then let them say it, if it makes them happy."

According to this year's Comscore stats, consumer publishing platform Wikia has surpassed DIY social network competitor Ning for monthly unique visitors. Since July 2008 the company's traffic has more than doubled from 2.8 million to 6.5 million unique US visitors per month. Despite abandoning Wikia search in early March, it seems Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has built another great company. As of this evening, Wikia's CEO Gil Penchina is announcing the company's profitability due to its custom sponsorships program.

Blizzard Entertainment, owners of World of Warcraft, announced this morning that the game now has more than 10 million paying subscribers around the world. Online gameplay costs an average of $15 USD per month.

That's a huge number and one that I honestly think signals that with sufficient value delivered, consumers will still pay for software. This might be an anomaly of historic proportions, too, though.