Anyone seen Lollipop Girl, of “Grand Theft Auto IV” fame, around lately?

Because she’s somewhat elusive during gameplay within Liberty City itself. Which is ironic, considering that the character is quite prominent in advertising around New York City, and so presumably is a drawing card for selling the game. It’s like one of those top-billed actors who wind up making a five-minute cameo in a movie…

On top of that, a few nights back I was chatting with a woman in some Upper West Side bar who claimed to have been the flesh-and-blood inspiration for Miss Lollipopper. That’s not her pictured above, but the girl I was talking to certainly held a resemblance. I’m not sure I believed the claim — simply because the ad imagery has been plastered all over town, I figured it might just be a convenient and relatable source of small-talk material. Plus, in the game Lollipop Girl apparently has been IDed as a hooker named Lola Del Rio — a dubious star from whom to draw a rep.

Then again, GTA publisher Take-Two and Rockstar Games are based here in NYC, so who knows? Maybe the programmers did have a real-life model to pixelate.

For several years, the gaming industry has kept up a steady drumbeat about how, based on sales figures, videogames are now a more significant part of the entertainment-media world than the former king of the hill, movies.

Note that “based on sales figures” part, because it’s an obvious reason why the argument doesn’t hold up:

Software publisher Take-Two Interactive bandied the behemoth sales figures [of more than $500 million, for new release “Grand Theft Auto IV”] on Wednesday, days after “Iron Man” vaunted an unexpectedly huge opening weekend box office [of $200 million]. The eye-popping digits left many wondering how such a blockbuster could be so soundly trounced by a controverisal video game.

The simple answer: “GTA IV” costs more to buy…

The standard edition of “GTA IV” is $59.99, while a special edition goes for $89.99 and comes with a soundtrack, art book, duffel bag and safety deposit box. Either way, every time a copy of the game is rung up, what’s added to the week’s tally is significantly more than the $7 average ticket price to see a movie in the U.S.

It’s not hard to figure it out: If Product A costs some nine times more than Product B, naturally a dollar-for-dollar comparison will favor the higher-ticket product, even when unit sales are much lower. Bottom line, there are a lot fewer people buying game discs than there are people waiting in lines outside multiplexes. And as far as what influences the popular consciousness, that’s what counts — movies trump videogames in everyday parlance.

This would seem to be intuitive — except somehow, it’s not. I guess it’s fueled by gamer fervor more than anything else — a desire to deflect the persistent characterization of gaming (especially console videogames) as strictly niche. When Take-Two announced the $500 million-plus opening-week sales of “GTA IV”, it made sure to couch it in language that stacked it against other media: “Breaks Entertainment Launch Records” according to the headline. That’s technically true, and because three-quarters of news-scanners won’t read any further for clarification, a meme is born that videogames have gotten “bigger” than movies and everything else — whatever that means.

In any case, I give AP reporter Derrik J. Lang some credit for bothering to dissect the obvious. It won’t dispel the common misconceptions floating around, but at least it’s out there for the record.

The latest and greatest addicting online timewaster from the Flash gamemasters at Pixeljam: Dino Run (probably have more luck loading the game from the mirror site):

A giant asteroid has crash landed and extinction may just be inevitable. You are a Velociraptor — and you should probably start running for your life! Run, jump, catch a ride with a Pterodactyl, eat power-up plants & other things, save all the dino eggs you can!

Jump into the multiplayer and test your speed against your fellow dinos as you race for glory — and to avoid extinction!

It’s dead simple as far as gameplay: Just keep your finger pressed down on the right-arrow key at all costs. Unless you want to experience the Big Black Wall of Doom coming from the left. Which, actually, you should do, just once — it’s as fearsome as a retro-pixelated disaster scene gets.

Stern Pinball, Inc. is a company that’s in about the most concentrated niche industry that’s possible:

But this place, Stern Pinball Inc., is the last of its kind in the world. A range of companies once mass produced pinball machines, especially in the Chicago area, the one-time capital of the business. Now there is only Stern. And even the dinging and flipping here has slowed: Stern, which used to crank out 27,000 pinball machines each year, is down to around 10,000.

That Chicago connection also played a big part in coin-op videogaming history. In fact, Stern Pinball’s predecessor company produced some 1980s-era arcade videogames. And cross-town rival company Williams went a step further, not only delving into videogames but in fact producing some of the more memorable and challenging games from that era, notably Defender, Joust, and (my personal favorite) Robotron: 2084. As much as Silicon Valley gets credit for birthing Atari, Chicago should get some credit for fostering some eminently playable classic videogaming.

As for pinball, I’m not one who’ll miss it’s eventual passing. I never could get into it. I don’t mind the concept of the ball as a free radical, but so much of the game forces you to be an observer — you watch the ball spring forth, bounce around for a minute or more on various bumpers and bells, and then maybe drop down to the flippers area. Then, even if you get a decent hit, you usually have to wait another several seconds for the ball to descend back down to you. Or, more likely, it drops down dead center, where all your hapless flippering can’t prevent the end of the turn. Woo-hee.

One aside: They still call it the “coin-op industry”. Do any arcade machines still even accept coins — last I noticed, they all had dollar bill feeders, and the newest models even have card-swipe slots. I guess soda and snack machines are part of this business, and they still take coins, so maybe they still justify the industry’s name.

Combine videogames and symphony orchestras and you get Virtural Conductor, a Guitar Hero for the budding classical music appreciator.

No, wait — I forgot. Actually, what you really get when you combine videogames and orchestras is gaming soundtracks recast as classical arrangements, complete with laserlight shows. Which I suppose you could work into Virtual Conductor, thus attuning it more closely to gamer sensibilities.

Casual gaming does, indeed, come more casually than what’s found in online gamelet “You Have To Burn The Rope”.

But most such time-wasters probably don’t reward you with such a cool down-tempo song of gratitude for beating the game (nor reward you so quickly, assuming your brain doesn’t short out). “What will you do with the rest of your day” — isn’t that the ultimate question?

Keep your ultra-complex MMOGs. My affection for oldschool videogames draws me to YHTBTR like, well, a rope to a flame. And if I ever get confused, I can always refer to the manual.

Electronic Arts is revamping its “Battlefield” franchise as part of an attempt to shift its business model to free base-games that pay for themselves via Internet-based subscription and micropayments. (That’s a trend that’s working out well with the “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” franchises, incidentally.)

The revamp manifests itself as “Battlefield Heroes”, designed to be a more accessible gaming environment with a friendlier, cartoony look.

Looking at the sample soldier from the game, pictured here, I have to ask: Is EA also trying to appeal to the gay gamer?

I mean, come on. How else to explain the clam digger combat fatigues? Calves on display don’t exactly say “battle-hardened” to me. Although I’ll grant they seem to be in fashion in other virtual hangouts…

The short pants I could dismiss, but the pose this soldier-boy is striking is suspect as well. One hand on the hip, the other… what? Up as a fist of defiance, or raised to eye-level to check the manicure?

All told, I’m thinking the most appropriate soundtrack for this videogame world would, indeed, be a selection of Pansy Division greatest hits. “Dick of Death” seems appropriately aggressive for a war game.

Illuminating results from the world of pixels and air-guitars: The latest versions of “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero” are proving to be effective cross-sell channels for digital music, with the two games selling a combined 7.5 million tracks in only two months via Web-connected gaming consoles:

By comparison, it took wireless operator Sprint four months to sell 1 million songs on its over-the-air full-song download service. While new digital music services competing with iTunes and free peer-to-peer services have struggled to convince music fans to pay $1 for a single, downloadable tracks for games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are flying off the digital shelves.

“With such a low installation base, we didn’t think that there’d be 2 million songs sold in eight weeks [for “Rock Band” alone],” MTVN Music Group/Logo/Films division President Van Toffler said. “We live in a rough time around music where our audience struggles to pay $20 for a CD but don’t hesitate to pay $50 for a game. The notion to pay 99 cents or $1.99 to have a song and repeatedly play with it apparently isn’t a big hurdle.”

I think that’s the key way to position it: If you’re already paid full-price for the main product, then the add-ons seem like peanuts. And more importantly, they enhance the gaming experience for these two titles, and are the only option for expanding the gameplay.

That’s also where the limited impact shows through. As I understand it, these songs are for use only while playing “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band”, or at most, while using an Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 as a media player. You can’t burn those songs onto a CD or load them into your iPod. Sales are sales, but this falls well short of representing a complete way of selling music.

That said, it does provide a template for packaging music in a way that makes purchases more palatable. In a way, digital music services push songs in a sort of vacuum — what can you really do with them that you can’t do with an mp3 found via P2P? But present the purchase at a point of sale for a related product/service, where it’s perceived as an added benefit, and there are possibilities.

It’s right up there with Star Wars symphony concerts: Video Games Live yanks gaming soundtracks out of the console and into the orchestra pit.

Here’s the sampling rundown, as it’s set to be performed in the Big Apple this April:

Selections from the following games are expected to be included in this performance: “Mario,” “Zelda,” “Halo,” “Final Fantasy,” “Warcraft,” “Sonic,” “Metal Gear Solid,” “Kingdom Hearts,” “Chrono Cross,” “Myst,” “Tron,” “Castlevania,” “Medal of Honor,” “God of War,” “Bio Shock,” “Civilization IV,” “Tomb Raider” and many more.

I’m not nearly enough of a gamer to get much out of this, even with the piped-in video cues. Not to mention it’d be a stretch to find worthy companionship to go with.

Movie posters for current release I Am Legend and upcoming flick Cloverfield are plastered all over the Big Apple, and in both cases, the dominating visuals consist of recognizable New York City landmarks (i.e., the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge) reduced to ruins.

With this in mind, the question is asked: Why is NYC a frequent target for Hollywood-conjured destruction?

The basic answer is that the City is so big and prominent that it serves as a “global shorthand” for conveying apocalyptic impact:

James Sanders, the author of “Celluloid Skyline,” about the history of New York in movies, ascribed the resonance of disaster scenes involving New York to the prospects for special-effects shock. “What would be the point of showing a demolished suburban street? You’d get the point but it just wouldn’t have the punch. You take the most familiar, iconic symbol of civic society in the world — a big city, and for Americans, that’s New York — and that’s where disaster is going to be the most powerful.” He added that New York serves as a yardstick — what architects would call a scale — that illustrates the magnitude for a disaster.

In other words, what would be the point of showing an already flattened-out landscape being destructively flattened? The subtext being that it’s already a wasteland — which might sound like an urban-elitist attitude, and yet that’s how viewers/readers around the world interpret the landscape in this context, by reduction if nothing else. When big buildings fall down, it’s more resonate than if, say, a strip mall or farmhouse gets wasted.

Then again, maybe that’s why those who don’t dwell within urban canyons enjoy watching the big-screen mayhem:

Former Mayor Edward I. Koch, who keeps himself busy by, among other things, reviewing movies for several local newspapers in Manhattan, attributed the persistence of the destruction theme to “edifice envy.”

“They want to see our skyscrapers destroyed because they are envious of them,” Mr. Koch said in a phone interview. Asked whom he was referring to, he said, “‘They’ is the rest of the country.”

But fair’s fair: It’s certainly possible to get across massive disaster on a suburban/exurban scale. Witness this current trailer for the “BlackSite: Area 51″ videogame:

Is this a divide amongst visual mediums: Movies are better at vertical, videogames at linear/horizontal? Either way, plenty of mayhem to go around.

Somehow, the gambling industry is concerned that younger thrill-seekers aren’t taking to the old one-armed bandits as readily as the typical Vegas grandma does.

And yet, the Atari/Nintendo/PlayStation generations are all grown up, with trigger finger itching as much for a controller as for their wallets. So the gaming industry is adding videogaming elements to their slots to make the experience more appealing:

These machines include features like surround sound, flat-panel display screens and images as vivid as those seen on today’s video games. One of the more popular is a slot machine based on the movie “Top Gun,” created by WMS Gaming in Waukegan, Ill..

Joysticks are just around the corner, slot makers say, and over the next several years, industry specialists expect casinos to start investing in network systems that allow for games that mix gambling with the head-to-head competition popular in online computer games like World of Warcraft and Halo.

I think the progression actually got derailed a generation or two ago. When arcades were ground zero for the prime videogaming experience back in the ’80s, the conditioned behavior of dropping quarters/tokens into game cabinets could have easily been ported to casino machines when those players grew up. But arcades became passe (due to a combination of gouging and the ascendancy of more powerful home console/PC gaming), and that linkage was broken. This evolution seems like an attempt to revive that dynamic; I’m not sure it’ll take.

Screw that whole “Guitar Hero” versus “Rock Band” debate. The only way to truly rock out your gaming console is with “Accordian Hero II”:

Hit all the right notes and get the crowd on their feet waving their beer steins in unison - you are an accordion hero! Includes all the great accordion melodies you’ve ever gotten really, really drunk to… from Ein Munchen Steht Ein Hofbrauhaus to Rock You Like A Hurricane.

Accordion Hero comes with one Gloss Black USB accordion controller. Kirschrot (Cherry Red) controller sold separately for two-player squeeze action. Awesomely rad sticker sheet included.

Don’t laugh. Just as the six-string emulators are said to be grooming the next generation of rock-n-roll strummers, so too could the emergence of a rockin’ accordion band foreshadow an eventual culmination in a for-real videogame based on air-wheezing instrumentals.

The idea of a symphony composed of the culled sound effects from the Atari 2600 and Nintendo NES sounds quirky enough to draw my interest.

That’s the premise of Blip Festival 2007, which started today at Eyebeam Gallery in Chelsea and runs through the weekend. I’ll have to find some time to check it out.

From the sound of it, it should be sensory overload, circa 1981:

Each night eight musicians will perform, accompanied by V.J.’s who will live-edit video onstage. Behind them will be a specially designed low-pixel screen that looks like a giant, moving version of Lite-Brite, the electric toy. The effect will be as lo-fi as a high-tech party can get.

Would it be inappropriate to bring along an iPod loaded with a vintage Pac-Man game? Playing a couple of rounds in such surroundings would be an experience unto itself.

Sword-and-sorcery geeks throughout the land are surely agog over tomorrow’s theatrical release of Beowulf.

From my first glimpse of the trailers, I got the same cold feeling that Manohla Dargis experienced:

To be honest, I don’t yet see the point of performance capture, particularly given how ugly it renders realistic-looking human forms. Although the human faces and especially the eyes in “Beowulf” look somewhat less creepy than they did in “The Polar Express,” Mr. Zemeckis’s first experiment with performance capture, they still have neither the spark of true life nor that of an artist’s unfettered imagination. The face of Mr. Hopkins’s king resembles the actor’s in broad outline, in the shape and curve of his physiognomy. But it has none of the minute trembling and shuddering that define and enliven — actually animate — the discrete spaces separating the nose, eyes and mouth. You see the cladding but not the soul.

In other words, it’s the plastic skin problem that’s plaguing otherwise progressively-robust videogames. In fact, Beowulf strikes me as more of a videogame-to-movie port than a literary adaptation, despite the source material.

But more broadly, the rendering techniques to make the film come alive has caused a crisis among more conventional animators, even challenging the perception of what constitutes an “animated” film:

Just don’t try telling [Ray] Winstone, who plays the title character, that somebody changed his acting. “To me, I can’t see where performances were changed,” he said. “We all played our parts.”

Winstone is credited on IMDB as the “voice” of Beowulf.

“No, I beg to differ. No way. That’s a performance,” he said. “It wasn’t just voice, believe me. I broke two ribs doing this film. Probably the most physical job I’ve ever done in my life on a film.”

This is all probably bridgework until all actors are replaced by wholly-generated avatars, playing out stories against digital backdrops. At least the writers will be safe…

This list of the most “controversial” videogames from the past decade-and-a-half makes me think that, really, shock value is judged on a constantly sliding scale.

As Exhibit A, I point to Adult Swim’s collection of online Flash games, which I’ve lately been turned onto. Think Mortal Kombat’s blood-and-gore graphics is unnerving? Load up shock-schlockers like:

- Viva Caligula: Terrorize your subjects with all 26 weapons — including exposing your “Imperial manhood” for shock value — to achieve enough experience point to unlock the Orgy Level. Hey, at least it’s historical.

- Orphan Feast: Orphans in Victorian London tasted good. Not like the orphans you get these days. Dickensian inspiration throughout, including the avoidance of one Artful Dodger and various overweight whores readily jumping on you.

- 5 Minutes to Kill (Yourself): Stick it to the Man by sticking it to yourself. You’ve got a microwave, scissors, some office supplies, a giant shark… and five minutes.

It’s a bit apples-to-oranges to compare commercially sold games to Adult Swim’s freebie applets, although in practical terms, they’re both targeted toward younger-skewing audiences. And the Adult Swim offerings are more explicitly tongue-in-cheek. But if the usual uptight types have some bottled-up outrage to uncork, they know where to point their mouses.

Back to the Yahoo! controversial list. All of them deal with videogame violence, save the one which I find to be the funniest:

SimCopter (1996: PC) - Before Rockstar was scalded by Hot Coffee, sim developer Maxis was burned by Hot Guys In Speedos. Upset with what he considered unfair working conditions (i.e. too many hours, not enough margaritas), a SimCopter programmer named Jacques Servin decided to play a bit of a prank by making a few alterations to the game code just before it shipped: on certain dates, scads of shirtless male sprites (dubbed “himbos”) would gather in great numbers to hug and kiss. When word of the unauthorized code leaked, sales skyrocketed and Servin was summarily fired. Where’s the love?

Pity the unsuspecting Sim jockeys whose eyes were assaulted by himbo make-out sessions! Given societal mores on sex vs. violence (with attitudes toward homosexuality mixed in), maybe if the scene concluded with those sprites getting decapitated by the SimCopter rotors, controversy would have been averted.

With current release The King of Kong creating a minor stir around town (it’s playing in two theaters — not that I’m going to go see some documentary on Donkey Kong freaks), and the impending release of ping-pong farce comedy Balls of Fury, I’ve conjured up this silly little fake title:

The Ping of Pong.

It probably would be a more fitting title for the latter flick. Or, it could be a companion piece to the former, this time chronicling the quest for an all-time high score in the venerable granddaddy of videogames, Pong (I’m sure someone out there is burning his retinas out on a 35-year-old machine).

Risk of physical injury during videogame play goes all the way back to the days of Space Invaders wrist.

I’d rather suffer that carpal-tunnel malady than a broken arm from trying to beat a Japanese arcade game sporting a plastic limb:

Arm Spirit, which is distributed by Atlus, is to be removed from 150 game emporiums as “a precaution”.

“We think that maybe some players get over-excited and twist their arms in an unnatural way,” a spokesman said.

The game manufacturer is less than sympathetic, considering:

“The machine isn’t that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it,” company spokesman Ayano Sakiyama told AP news agency.

Arm Spirit gamers advance through 10 levels, pitting their strength against a French maid, a drunken martial arts master and a Chihuahua dog before reaching the final challenge - a professional wrestler.

I wonder which character is racking up the bone-snapping cred? My money’s on the Chihuahua.

Kongregate, with its user-contributed videogame showcase meets social media content delivery meets affinity community dynamic, is framing itself as the YouTube of gaming.

What I like about it — which might or might not be a limitation as the site scales up — is that the game contributions are limited in complexity. Because Flash is the only format allowed, the games tend to be rather fundamental. Which is right up my alley, actually.

I’m sure there’s an old-school vibe underlying Kongregate. Heck, it’s implicit in the name: Kong-regate. As in Donkey Kong, perhaps? Which is also the root for new movie release The King of Kong.

Further evidence of classic gaming inspiration: Popular entries like The Fancy Pants Adventures (a Sonic the Hedgehog clone, albeit stylin’) and Asteroids Revenge. Yes, a definite time-sucker here.

Interesting. Independent game design seems to be taking off, with Nintendo fostering it via a nascent WiiWare support system.

I’m guessing this will spawn various knock-offs of Doom and other complexity-rendered games. I’d rather see a renaissance of old-school games like Robotron: 2084, along those lines. Not likely to happen, I know, but here’s hoping.

It took nearly two decades, but finally, computers are now wholly unbeatable when facing humans in checkers matches.

Don’t believe it? Take on Chinook and just try to win a game. The running play-by-play indicates you simply can’t win.

The computer science professor who perfected Chinook is moving on to Polaris, another program that will perfect artificial-intelligence poker-playing. Nice idea, except that poker bots are already raking in big-money pots online.

It’s one thing to organize a Nintendo Wii tennis tournament.

It’s quite another to stage Wiimbledon, where motion-sensitive backstrokes are accompanied by guys dressed like Luigi.

Only at Barcade in Brooklyn, which — despite this — I’m going to have to hit at some point.