Rockstars of videogames

One is 24 and made more than $800,000 this year in tournament winnings and computer-parts endorsements, the other is 69 and works for MTV as a "senior" correspondent and game reviewer. Well, grandmother and gamer Barbara St. Hilaire may not exactly be a rockstar-type figure, but gamers obviously think she's pretty cool. "Grandson Timothy chronicles her Xbox, Playstation 2 and GameCube adventures in his blog, OldGrandmaHardcore.com," the Washington Post reports (see the online discussion with Barbara, Timothy, and people around the US at the Post - it dispels a few myths). As for the 24-year-old almost-millionaire gamer, "Fatal1ty" Wendel has won 5 videogame championships playing various games and is profiled in the New York Times and will be featured on CBS's "60 Minutes" (this Sunday, 12/11). He and other videogame "rockstars" are helping marketers reach the ever more elusive 14-to-21-year-old market, which is "consuming traditional media at lower rates every single year." Here's the San Jose Mercury News and the Associated Press on the growing power of product-placement ads in videogames.