Round-Up: SSB's Reboot, Mojo Master Protests, NY Deathmatch

Today's wrap-up includes information on the Super Smash Bros. creator's return to his smashing fold, some unexpected student protest for a well-publicized advergame, and a New York 'Deathmatch in the Stacks' book promotion event, as well as the latest product news and Gamasutra job postings. - Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series, has announced that he'll return to the series, as head of independent contributing company Sora, in order to direct the next SSB entry for Nintendo's next-generation Revolution system. Sakurai left Nintendo in 2003 to set out on his own, and has since contributed to Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Q Entertainment, where he developed Meteos for Nintendo DS. Nintendo announced at E3 that the next Smash Bros. will make use of the company's new Wi-Fi Connection service for online play, though no other details such as release date are yet known. - Deodorant manufacturer AXE met with protests at the University of Oregon, where it was using game kiosks running PC game Mojo Master, which drew the ire of student groups. The promotional game, developed by WildTangent, involves weakening successive stages where the player must weaken a woman's resistance and obtain her phone number. Protestors decried what they saw as the sexist message of the game, carrying signs that said "F*ck the white, patriarchal, heterosexist, capitalist PARADIGM" and "My body is NOT a game!", according to the Oregon Daily Emerald student paper. "Pretty much all I can say is nothing like this ever happened before," said spokesman Nick Ferrara of the protests. - The launch of the new Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman-edited book The Game Design Reader, from MIT Press, will be marked with an event titled "Deathmatch in the Stacks" at the Tishman Auditorium in New York City on December 9th. Beginning at 7:00 P.M., the event will include eight of the contributing authors reading selections from their essays, as well as a panel discussion on game design. Admission to the event is free of charge. - Also updated today: product news, including the SpeedTree foliage middleware's official announcement of PlayStation 3 support and the extension of Perforce's support to SoftImage, plus today's Gamasutra job postings, including positions from Blue Fang Games, CNET Networks, FASA Studio, Floodgate Entertainment, Networking People, Point of View, Rockstar Vancouver and The Art Institute of California - San Francisco. [Job seekers can now also sign up to a Career newsletter as part of Gamasutra's new suite of free newsletters, which include a daily digest and specific newsletters for mobile game, casual/indie game, and 'serious game' professionals.]