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What the latest Inside PS Vita is trying to say is that by purchasing a Vita you're becoming a member of a global gaming community connected by glowing threads of gaming-infused light, wrapping about you like a brilliant cocoon in which you'll never feel lonely ever again. I might be reading a bit much into it. More »
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The city-state of Neverwinter has never been quite as social as it is in Atari's new turn-based tactical Facebook role-playing game, Heroes of Neverwinter. More »
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This booth was one of the biggest booths at the Tokyo Game Show. It took up one tenth of the entire show floor. It wasn't Sony's. It wasn't Square Enix's. It wasn't Capcom's. The booth belonged to Gree. So what the hell is Gree? More »
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Welcome everyone to the final discussion about CivWorld for the Kotaku Game Club. So we've now played two games back to back: I imagine that some of you are, like myself, beginning to feel a bit "Cived out". I hope, however, that some of you have stuck with it. More »
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Along with a series of Sony-built applications for keeping players playing together, the PlayStation Vita will come fully equipped to keep them connected to their favorite social networks. Wow, it's like a mobile phone that plays games! More »
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Tiburcio de la Cárcova, co-founder of social games studio Atakama Labs, doesn't sell things at a cash register. His games go out over the internet. Meaning a sale isn't as satisfying as seeing cash in the hand! More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5822930&view=rss&microfeed=true Jason Citron, one of the guys behind OpenFeint—the other social gaming backend for Apple iOS devices—just sold his company for $104 million American megaducats. Business Insider has an astoundingly gloat-free interview. [Business Insider] More »
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How do you expand a farming game played by more than 44 million people a month? You give them another farm. FarmVille English Countryside expansion gives FarmVille players a whole new row to hoe. More »
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Street Pass is the new, always-on wireless connection for the Nintendo 3DS through which multiplayer gaming is possible. The idea is, a couple of perfect strangers, both with 3DSes, will be buzzed when they're near each other, inviting them to connect. A 3DS StreetPass group is forming, a week before the device's release, to take the happenstance out of such encounters. More »
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Insomniac Games, the makers of the Resistance and Ratchet and Clank series, will push into mobile and Web-based games development with a new division - Insomniac Click - that the studio unveiled on Saturday. More »
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Monica Potts a feminist graduate of an all-girls college that would never take her husband's name or dream of ending her career to raise children. In the Sims 3 she's a married mother that stays home with the kids. More »
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If you've ever felt like comparing how much money a "traditional" video game makes as opposed to how much a Facebook game makes, check out this chart. It makes for interesting/depressing reading. More »
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Zynga, makers of Farm- Frontier- and all things -ville on Facebook, slapped Disney with a lawsuit after it acquired social games competitor Playdom and, Zynga alleges, hired off ex-Zynga workers to learn its "secret sauce." The matter is now settled. More »
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You have one minute to reach 88 miles per hour before being trapped forever at the bottom of the leaderboards in Telltale Games' Back to the Future: Blitz Through Time, now available on Facebook. More »
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Square Enix takes the winning formula from Zynga's Mafia Wars and applies it to Final Fantasy to create Knights of the Crystals. Will you party up, or spend some quality time breeding chocobos in Chocobo's Crystal Tower? More »
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Fresh off cameos in NBA Jam and NBA 2K11, President Obama and his two predecessors are appearing in Mafia Wars. As novelty masks, anyway. A bank heist weekend offers the chance to get them, and a badass machine gun. More »
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Yesterday, the Tampa Bay Rays succumbed to the Texas Rangers in the playoffs. We're not blaming iPad Farmville clone "We Farm," but David Price, who made a costly fielding misjudgment in that game, is a big fan of the game. More »
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To triumph over their friends in Grab's new Facebook game ManStruggle, players need to bring their "A" key. More »
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Tech Crunch sources report that not only has Google quietly invested somewhere between $100 and $200 million dollars in FarmVille and Mafia Wars creator Zynga, the developer's games will form the base for Google Games, launching later this year. More »
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Fans waiting patiently for Sony Online Entertainment to get The Agency together can get a small taste of the spy game via The Agency: Covert Ops, one of the deepest Facebook games I've ever seen. More »
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Masters of the Ville Zynga are making a move into Oregon Trail territory with FrontierVille, the latest social game to devour the time and productivity of people the world over. More »
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Experience the thrill of social networking and casual gaming convergence with Tweet Defense, an iPhone zombie tower defense title that boosts your units' power based on your Twitter activity. More »
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Age of Conan developer Funcom wants to explore the world of social and casual MMO titles, but to break out of the high-end MMO segment the company is going to need one SweetRobot. Well now they've got one. More »
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The Mafia Wars escalate in Russia this Thursday with the launch of Mafia Wars Moscow Episode 3: Bragadir and Episode 4: Avtoritet. More »
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The video game industry is exploding in Australia, with new figures released today showing games revenue double that of box office revenue and 40% larger than the DVD market. More »
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Sometimes Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Orkut and OpenSocial just aren't enough. Too much real world stuff, not enough gamerscore bragging. More »
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Yes, you read that correctly. Some enterprising folks have put together a Warcraft social networking site with the specific purpose, as they put it, of " Provide[ing] a simple and intuitive website which assists and facilitates the building of relationships between World of Warcraft enthusiasts." Now given the name of the site, one would assume that these "relationships" are meant to be romantic in nature although whether they are meant to be real life or in-game dates is unclear. Maybe both? I just wonder if they'll be able to drag people away from the game long enough to actually go on dates. More »
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For many people the trailer for Resident Evil 5 was seen as an exciting new direction for the definitive survival horror franchise. For others, it's racist hate mongering at its worst. Kym Platt at Black Looks, a blog dedicated to exploring issues concerning African women, expresses her concerns over the trailer which depicts Chris Redfield in what appears to be an African setting, struggling against a horde of black zombies. More »
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I rolled up to the Saddle Ranch Chop House around 9PM last night, once again finding myself a guest of Bethesda Softworks, The Saddle Ranch is Western-themed restaurant and bar that touts down-home cooking and a friendly atmosphere, with one corner of the dining area taken up by the most menacing looking mechanical bull I have ever seen. Under bright lights it sits, waiting for the unsuspecting drunk member of the press to be lured by its deceptive protective padding. There is no way I am getting anywhere near that thing. More »
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Lisa Baertlein, a Reuters reporter who occasionally writes about gaming, has an interesting item up today about how support groups are looking to Web 2.0 for new ways to help support returning U.S. war veterans. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=245877&view=rss&microfeed=true Writer Richard O. Jones has a lengthy article up at Black Voice News, where he discusses the dangers of racial stereotyping in video games. Citing examples like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, he contends that young Black and Latino children who constantly see themselves portrayed as thieves and killers are more likely to emulate them. More »
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