Superstitions are pretty prevalent in almost every sport. Whether its the North Carolina shorts that Michael Jordan wore under his Bulls shorts for every game

News from the virtual world: - MAJOR TOM: Tom Clancy is to Ubisoft as Mario is to Nintendo: a reliable brand name whose appearance in a game title practically guarantees financial success. This, despite the fact that a ''Tom Clancy'' character has never starred in a game, and the author himself appears to have little input on the products bearing his name.

Think you have what it takes to challenge P.O.D. to a game of Madden '08? Now's your chance to prove yourself worthy, as P.O.D. are inviting fans to play Xbox Live Game With Fame with them on April 11th, 2008.

As a fantasy-loving nerd who came of age in the '80s, I was fascinated by the role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons.'' Fortunately, I didn't know anyone else who cared, so I didn't get drawn into the cult. But I've been a sucker ever since for the electronic games that were inspired by it, from 1981's ''Wizardry'' to the ongoing ''Final Fantasy'' series.

NEW YORK (AP) - Video game maker Electronic Arts Inc. on Monday urged the publisher of ''Grand Theft Auto IV'' to quickly accept its unsolicited $2 billion takeover bid, saying it's only a matter of time before it declares ''game over'' and pulls its premium offer.

News from the virtual world: -A RISKY BET: When Billy Levy and Zack Zeldin were roommates in Miami Beach, they played ''Madden NFL'' for $100 a game. Now the guys are betting that there are plenty of other gamers who like to ''make things interesting,'' and they're about to start a Web site where players can put their money where their joystick thumbs are.

No matter how many people are playing ''Halo'' or ''Madden'' at any given moment, you can bet that many more are playing solitaire, poker or Uno. And not with a $5 deck of cards - they're using the awesome processing power of modern computers to play the games their grandparents loved.

If you're reading this I'm assuming that you're a gamer. Perhaps your taste lies in homegrown first person shooters or maybe you anxiously await the new iteration of Madden every year.

For a relatively youthful medium, video gaming has a profound sense of its own history. The majority of popular franchises - Mario, Madden, ''The Sims,'' ''Final Fantasy'' - have their roots in the 1980s, practically ancient times in today's accelerated pop culture.

News from the virtual world: -BEST OF 2007: It has been a terrific year for video games, and boiling it down to a top 10 list was difficult. But here are the games I enjoyed the most in 2007.