The Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, is officially dead. "After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye. Thanks for the memories," the Entertainment Software Association, E3's organizer, wrote on X. The industry trade group wrote closed out the statement with "GGWP" or "good game, well played." E3's troubles have been well documented in recent years, with the pandemic arguably exacerbating the video game expo's demise.

The Manitoba First Nation School System is encouraging teachers to leverage students' love for video games and educate them about traditional teachings via e-sports clubs and classes. Over the last decade, a growing number of school leaders both on and off-reserve have started using online applications such as Minecraft. By forcing e-learning into the mainstream, COVID-19 has made unconventional educational tools even more popular. Not only are video games an engaging way to teach collaboration and digital literacy, said Karl Hildebrandt, but the education technology facilitator at MFNSS said they pair well with foundational Anishinaabe principles on conducting oneself towards others. Video games are an engaging way to teach collaboration and digital literacy.

Lamont A. Flowers (lflower@clemson.edu) is the Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership in the Department of Educational and Organizational Leadership Development in the College of Education and the Executive Director of the Charles H. Houston Center for the Study of the Black Experience in Education in the Division of Inclusion and Equity at Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA.

The tragic events of the past weekend – back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio leaving at least 31 dead and more than 50 wounded – has reignited the debate over the alleged correlation between video games and violent behavior. "We must stop the glorification of violence in our society," President Trump said in remarks from the White House on Monday. "This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace." Thousands subsequently turned to social media to challenge this claim, citing easy access to assault-style weapons without background checks as the core problem. Video games are immensely popular in several countries that do not see mass shootings, many noted.

Contrary to popular belief, videogames aren't dominated by 12-year-old boys. In fact, according to the Entertainment Software Association and its just-released report, 2019 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry, the median age of a U.S. gamer today is 33 years old and almost evenly split between male and female players (54% compared to 46%, respectively). Conducted by Ipsos for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), and with additional data provided by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) and the NPD Group, this annual study is billed as the most in-depth and targeted look at the evolving interactive entertainment space. The PDF report is free to download at theesa.com. "Today, there are 164 million adults who play video games in the United States, and three-quarters of all American households have at least one gamer in them," states Stan Pierre-Louis, Chief Executive Officer of the ESA, which serves as the voice and advocate for the dollar video game industry.

King Digital Entertainment's'Candy Crush Saga' is seen being played on an Apple iPad Mini. A federal lawmaker wants to introduce legislation that would ban "pay to win" practices and "loot boxes" from all video games. In a statement released Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican representing Missouri, said video games offering these systems are preying on user addiction, particularly among children. "When a game is designed for kids, game developers shouldn't be allowed to monetize addiction," said Hawley in a statement. "And when kids play games designed for adults, they should be walled off from compulsive microtransactions."

President Trump will meet with "the video game industry" on Thursday to discuss violence in video games and … stopping it? The meeting's agenda hasn't been revealed, probably because the gathering has been a slow-motion face-plant since the White House announced it. To recap: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced on March 1 that Trump would meet with video game executives to discuss violent video games in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting that killed 17. According to Kotaku's Jason Schreier, this was news to the video game industry, and at least one of the attendees did not actually receive an invitation until Monday, four days after the summit had been announced. The list of expected attendees, first reported by CNN's Jake Tapper on Twitter, pretty much clinches how farcical the meeting will be.

As Donald Trump convenes a meeting on Thursday to address violence in video games, in the wake of last month's Florida school shooting, those in attendance will include a group that argues the Muppets drink too much, and another committed to exposing strident liberal bias on television. The president's round table at the White House will be the latest in a series of discussions on school safety after a gunman left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman high school in Parkland on 14 February. And although representatives of the mainstream Entertainment Software Association and executives from other gaming parent companies are slated to attend, they will be seated across from a bevy of culture crusaders who have sought to tie mass shootings to violence in video games and movies – despite decades of research failing to produce such a link. In attendance will be retired Lt Col Dave Grossman, the author of Assassination Generation: Video Games, Aggression, and the Psychology of Killing, a book that purports to "reveal how violent video games have ushered in a new era of mass homicide". Grossman characterizes himself as an expert in "killology". Also present will be Melissa Henson, an advocate from the Parents Television Council, a group that has stood in staunch opposition to depictions of or allusions to sex and violence in entertainment.