Video Game

Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia strides to the plate and begins his ritual. Tap the bat twice on the ground. Circle it overhead. Adjust the gloves. Stand straight, bat upright, awaiting the pitch. A voice interrupts: "And cut!" Pedroia is in a Sony Corp. studio in San Diego, suited up in a spandex bodysuit studded with 55 white sensors.

While other sectors hit the reset button during the bleak holiday season, the video game industry rang up a 9% increase in U.S. sales during December as consumers hunkered down at home, many with their Wii game consoles. The gain was led by a 15% uptick in sales of games, including Call of Duty: World at War, Wii Fit, Mario Kart and Guitar Hero World Tour, market research firm NPD Group Inc. said Thursday. For the year, sales of games, consoles and accessories grew 19% to $21.

It was March and British Columbia-based game designer Andy Moore was sitting at his computer checking his email. Moore's studio, Spry Fox, had recently launched a browser-based title called Steambirds, a turn-based game that allowed players to pilot World War II aircraft and engage in dogfights with enemy pilots. Thus far the game had been well-received, with more than 2 million plays of the game weeks after launch, and now that the initial spike in traffic had died down, Moore and his colleagues were planning for future releases of the game on mobile devices such as the iPhone.

Not even Batman and Spider-Man could pull the interactive entertainment industry out of its sales funk, as sales of video games and consoles fell 20% in August from a year earlier despite chart-topping titles featuring the two superheroes. Last month's sales were $515.6 million, compared with $647.2 million in 2011, according to a report from NPD Group Inc., a market research firm. Sales of console hardware such as Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 were hit hardest, registering a 39% drop, as consumers may have held back spending in anticipation of newer consoles on the horizon.

WASHINGTON — Seven Navy SEALs, including one involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, have been reprimanded for divulging classified information to the maker of a video game, Pentagon officials said Thursday. The seven received letters of reprimand and forfeited half of their pay for two months after a Navy investigation found they had served as paid consultants to the designers of "Medal of Honor Warfighter," one official said. All are members of Seal Team 6, the secretive commando unit based in Virginia.

When Dave Wittenberg began his acting career at a community theater in Boston, he never imagined that one day he'd be making his living as a voice artist for video game characters, portraying the likes of Hades, Tweedledee and Jerry Seinfeld. But in the last decade Wittenberg's voice has been heard in more video games than he "can remember." And, though it's not the traditional actor's stagecraft, he still draws extensively on his thespian skills. "You get to create characters you wouldn't be able to create in any other medium," said Wittenberg, 38. "From an acting standpoint, it lets you flex your muscles that you wouldn't ordinarily use."

"The Dark Knight Rises" doesn't hit movie theaters for nine months, but Batman is at the heart of what may just be Warner Bros.' most important release of the fall. With the launch Tuesday of video game Arkham City, a sequel to 2009 hit Arkham Asylum that lets players control the Caped Crusader, the studio's Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment unit has one of the best-reviewed and most anticipated titles of the year. It's expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.

With the film version of "Les Miserables" opening at the top of the Christmas Day box office there's renewed interest in the classic musical around the Internet. This is causing people to discover all kinds of fascinating aspects to "Les Miz" fandom, including the Japanese video game "Arm Joe," a "Street Fighter"-style combat game that was released in 1998. "Les Miserables" has long been popular in Japan, where Victor Hugo's original novel has been adapted into anime series and specials multiple times and so it's not entirely surprising that a video game version once saw the light.

A new basketball game and a sequel to the combo game/toy line "Skylanders" were two spots of good news in what was otherwise a grim month for the video game business. Take-Two Interactive's "NBA 2K 13" was the best-selling video game during October, according to the NPD Group, and outsold last year's "NBA 2K 12" by more than 60%. Activision Blizzard's "Skylanders: Giants" was only the No. 10 game, but outsold last year's "Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure" during its first month on sale.

In an unusual marketing partnership, Electronic Arts will promote the upcoming film "Zero Dark Thirty," about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, with a pair of downloadable maps for its military video game "Medal of Honor Warfighter. " Although the video game will be released in stores in October, EA will make the digital content available on Dec. 19, during the same week that "Zero Dark Thirty" is scheduled to hit theaters. The "Medal of Honor Zero Dark Thirty Map Pack" will cost $9.99.