At a recent anti-Japan protest in South Korea, participants carried signs with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's face crossed out. They also carried signs with Anne Frank. One protestor appeared to stomped on both. Or did he? Whatever is going on?
Nintendo is having a truly difficult
Tax credits are the kinds of things that most video game lovers wouldn't think about when considering where their favorite releases come from. But the publishers and developers that distribute and create games depend on them when figuring out the financials of their particular businesses. Now, a Republican tax proposal …
Thanks to his "anti-gay propaganda" laws, and stuff like the imprisonment
Earlier this week, China's State Council sneakily released a document about regulations in the nifty Shanghai Free Trade Zone. Due to this release, media outlets have been calling China's archaic 13-year ban on video games consoles to be over. I'm here to rain on everyone's parade.
This week, Soni Ani Super Sonico The Animation began broadcasting in Japan. The series features Super Sonico, the mascot character for Tokyo-based game developer Nitroplus. And one short, subtle sequence is raising eyebrows among some online in neighboring South Korea.
Since relations with Japan have come to a low of late
Marcel "Dexter" Feldkamp, a pro gamer on the League of Legends circuit, landed in Washington on Friday on the way to a tournament in California. It's as far as he got.
In case you weren't scared enough of the reach of the US National Security Agency, reports coming out of Germany are accusing the intelligence agency of literally seizing shipments of computers, installing malware and sometimes even hardware bugs on them.
Some environmental activists in Oklahoma used a Hunger Games banner as part of a protest against Devon, an energy company. For their trouble, reports say they were locked up and are now facing terrorism charges.
Yesterday, a bunch of America's leading tech sector executives met with US President Barack Obama. They were meant to be talking about the failure of Heathcare.gov, but things got really interesting when the conversation moved onto the fate of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Electronic Arts' Battlefield 4 has been out for some time now, but now it seems China's got a problem with its portrayal in the game. An opinion piece in China's patriotic military newspaper, Zhongguo Guofangbao, says that games such as BF4 portray China in a bad light and purposely mislead Chinese youth.
China, the land where game consoles are currently still in a quasi-banned state
An entrepreneur in Dallas got in touch with me last month saying he had a product called Political Prisoners of China Playing Cards, asking if I'd like to review them. Chinese political prisoners. Playing cards. Dallas. I live in Beijing. It made no sense. How could I say no?
In South Korea, some politicians (certainly not all) seem to have it out for gaming. These politicians want video games in the same category as alcohol and even illegal drugs.
Cuba has formally cracked down on its nascent arcade businesses, specifically forbidding their operation after they had opened and operated in a gray area uncovered by the law there for the past three years.
Retired US Army Capt. William Swenson was awarded the Medal of Honor
It all started with a promise. If Korean team SK Telecom T1 won this year's League of Legends World Championship, Congressman Jun Byung-hun said he would cosplay as a LoL character and post the photo proof online.
Considering how violent video games have been scapegoated by gun-rights hardliners, this defense seems to come from an unusual source. But a man who sued the District of Columbia—and won—over a handgun ban says lawmakers scapegoat video games because they can't win on the gun debate.
It can often feel as though some people who like video games want to have it both ways: They want games to be taken seriously and acknowledged as an exciting artistic medium, but the moment someone critiques a game's politics they respond, as if cued by an invisible conductor: "It's just a game! Stop taking it so…
