Students in the U.K. county of Merseyside are learning about violence from a product all-too-familiar to gamers: Grand Theft Auto. The BBC reports on the Merseyside Police Department and a charity group called Support After Murder and Manslaughter (SAMM), who’ve organized a program at local schools to teach 10 and 11-year-old children about the difference between right and wrong — and, likewise, the distinction between real and unreal.

SAMM calls the workshops “Get Real,” and they use everything from Grand Theft Auto screenshots to Itchy and Scratchy clips from The Simpsons to educate kids about good and bad behavior. These images are mixed with flashcards featuring real-life photos of intoxicated adults and arguing parents, and the students are asked to differentiate between the good, the bad, the real, and the unreal.

“Almost any media can be edited to be educational and if the material already attracts children’s interest, it can have a greater impact on them,” explained a Liverpool City Council spokes-person. “This may well be depicting knife-using car thieves as the selfish morons that they are — which of course we would welcome.”

After a strong early showing on the U.K. charts, Just Cause 2 has been bumped out of the #1 spot by another “Just” title — Ubisoft’s Nintendo Wii party game Just Dance. Nevertheless, Just Cause 2 continues to hold steady at #2, followed by mainstream favorites Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Modern Warfare 2 and Pokemon Soul Silver.

Dropping out of the top 10 this week are March releases God of War III and and Final Fantasy XIII, falling to #14 and #15 respectively. Six of the top ten titles were launched in 2009.

You can find the complete top 10 below. Charts are courtesy of GFK Chart-Track.

Canada has now topped the U.K. as the third largest videogame development community in the world. According to data from the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, roughly 14,000 people are currently employed at the over 247 game companies in Canada — a number surpassed only by the U.S. and Japan.

GamePolitics sat down with president of the London Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) and member of the Ontario Technology Corridor (OTC) Peter White, who discussed the reasons behind the game industry boom in his part of the country.

“It’s really been in the last 24 months that the government brought in some more aggressive tax incentives,” White told GamePolitics, claiming that the digital media-focused government hasn’t required a ton of persuasion. “We’re able, actually, to go out and tell the government ‘Look, you’re thinking of doing this, this is why this works even better’ and it just helps back up their strategies around that.”

Selling third-party videogame accessories can be a lucrative business, but not, perhaps, if you stick a little too closely to a system’s official wares — which is what Microsoft is alleging U.K.-based Datel did with a couple of their Xbox 360 controllers.

Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against Datel in federal court in Seattle, seeking unspecified damages for allegedly infringing on “a number” of Microsoft patents (via Reuters). The lawsuit centers on Datel’s “TurboFire” and “WildFire” 360 controllers, which Microsoft claims are too closely copied off of their official Xbox 360 game pads.

In addition to the damages, Microsoft is also seeking a payment of any profits or royalties Datel has made selling the controllers (which run around £35 in the U.S.), as well as an injunction on manufacturing them any further.

Activision is shaking up its corporate structure, upon the promotion of former Chief Financial Officer Thomas Tippl to Chief Operating Officer. Gamasutra reports that along with Tippl’s promotion, Activision Blizzard is splitting its properties into four units. They will be centered around the Call of Duty franchise, internal properties such as Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk, licensed games, and Blizzard Entertainment.

Philip Earl will be heading up the Call of Duty division in the absence of Jason West and Vince Zampella. Maria Stipp is set to head the internal property group, and David Oxford from Activision Value is said to be put in charge of the licensed games division. Blizzard will remain under the leadership of Mike Morhaime. Each of them will report to Tippl, though he is remaining in his current role as CFO until a replacement is found. Under his new title he’ll be earning £850,000 per year, with percentage increases agreed upon by the Board and bonuses based on company performance. He’ll also be receiving stock options, which have served CEO Bobby Kotick well.

Amid the restructuring news, though, comes word that lower level employees in the U.K. may soon have their positions cut. Job losses are expected in I.T. and marketing, along with some publishing positions. “Like any successful business, Activision Publishing consistently works to align its cost with its revenues – this is an ongoing process,” the company said in a statement.

Just Cause 2 may have just hit retail last week, but it looks like developer Avalanche is already buoyed by strong early sales numbers. Speaking to Develop, studio head Christofer Sundberg said gamers “shouldn’t be surprised” to see an announcement for Just Cause 3 in the future.

“I think there are a lot of connections with [Avalanche and] the IP,” Sundberg said. “And so we hope there’s still a future in it, and that future to live as long as us. We are absolutely interested in working with the Just Cause IP again.”

It’s only been on sale a week, but Just Cause 2 already shot to the top of the U.K. sales charts, beating out such heavy competition as Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver. Combine that with strong game review scores, and it’s no surprise Avalanche sees a bright future for the franchise.

Despite not being available for a full week, Just Cause 2 has managed to soar to the top of last week’s sales charts in the United Kingdom. It was competing with Pokemon SoulSilver and and HeartGold, both of which were also launched just last week. SoulSilver and HeartGold landed in the number two and four spots, respectively.

While we don’t have specific figures to compare how the two Pokemon games would have fared against Just Cause 2 if their sales were combined, we do know that the Xbox 360 version of JC2 accounted for 53% of the title’s sales and the PS3 version made up 43%, according to Eurogamer. The remaining 4% comes from the PC version of the game — or, at least, copies of the PC version sold at retail as opposed to digital distribution services like Steam.

The full top 10 for last week in the U.K. follows:

1. Just Cause 2

2. Pokemon SoulSilver
3. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
4. Pokemon HeartGold
5. Just Dance
6. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
7. God of War III
8. Final Fantasy XIII
9. Nintendo Wii Sports Resort
10. Nintendo Wii Fit Plus

Aliens: Colonial Marines was put on hold by Sega last year when the publisher decided to focus on getting Rebellion’s Aliens vs. Predator out the gate first. With that game now out of the way, can we expect to finally get a closer look at Gearbox’s take on the franchise? MCV sure thinks so (via Big Download).

Gearbox president and CEO Randy Pitchford spoke with the U.K.-based gaming site about what’s next for his company. “We have an Aliens game with Sega and 20th Century Fox which we’re really excited about,” raved the Gearbox co-founder. “It’s the thing I’ve been stealing from all my career. Now I’m really working on it, but we’ve been quiet about that so far.”

The prolonged silence on Colonial Marines seems at least partially due to Gearbox being totally swamped with the development of Borderlands and its post-launch DLC. “Borderlands took over Gearbox,” Pitchford told MCV, adding, “We had so much fun working on that and when we finished we wanted to carry on. And the DLC — we’ve launched two so far and there’s a third to come which take us to a new level in every way.”

U.K. gamers will soon be able to pick up all three DLC expansions for Borderlands in one convenient package. Publisher 2K Games confirmed to Eurogamer that “The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned,” “Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot,” and “The Secret Armory of General Knoxx” are all headed for store shelves on a single compilation disc this April 9.

2K has only made mention of PC and Xbox 360 versions of the DLC bundle so far, and a Stateside release remains unconfirmed. We’ll keep you posted if and when the publisher sends official word on a U.S. compilation.