Pleez, Don't Stop Playing... We'll Show You the Mario Bros. Naked!

The Nielsen Co., which is best known for tracking television ratings, will produce monthly reports on video game usage beginning later this month. Sony will cooperate by helping to collect data from hundreds of thousands of PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable users.

What's in it for Sony? According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, Sony is looking ahead to the day when advertising inside of game environments becomes a major source of revenue. But to sell those ads in any meaningful numbers, audience numbers have to be verified by a well-respected outside organization such as Nielsen.

But what about privacy? Shouldn't it be between you and your game terminal what you play and how often you play it? A Sony spokesman said that the company will protect privacy by providing data organized by game, not by individual player.

If this takes off, will video games eventually have the equivalent of TV's infamous sweeps periods, where programming goes a little nutty in trying to maximize audiences? How could games get more extreme than they already are?

The Autry National Center is always a well-attended MC101 field trip. This outing on July 10 was no exception.