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…
In America, we're 12 days into our government shutdown, and apparently everyone is cool doing without frilly things like benefits to military survivors or food inspections, because assigning blame for this stupid temper tantrum is terribly uncivil. But we draw the line when it affects our right to bear Pokémon, right?!
Activision has gone out and hired a lobbyist—one of the biggest lobbying firms in Washington—for representation when Sen. Jay Rockefeller's violent video games bill, which would order research into any causal links between violent video games and violent behavior, comes to the Senate floor.
This is the GIF art of 28 year-old Serbian artist Milos "Sholim" Rajkovic. His work takes seemingly bland, but ubiquitous individuals and packs their heads with mechanical parts. The result is surreal.
Rodrigo Guzman is ten. Born in Mexico, he'd lived in Berkeley, California since the age of 2, attending Jefferson Elementary, one of the best schools in the area. That was until he and his parents, en route to Mexico to renew their visas, were expelled from the country by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Though she "did seem to get it," when lawyers for California and the games industry were arguing before the Supreme Court, we weren't sure that Justice Elena Kagan, or justice, played any video games before their landmark Brown vs. EMA decision in 2011. Actually, they did. "It was kind of hilarious," she told the AP.
In Chinese, they're called "nail houses" (钉子楼 or "ding zi lou"). These protest abodes stick up for as long as the owner—and ultimately, the Chinese government—allows them to. Then, they're smashed down.
Back in early June, the Japanese LDP political party released a small, free iPhone game called Abe-Pyon (あべぴょん). In this game you play as Shinzo Abe, the current Prime Minister of Japan, and your job is to jump from platform to platform and climb as high as you can. It’s as fun as it is simple.
As you might already know, there are some big protests and riots going down in Istanbul at the moment, with what's emerging as the "Occupy Gezi" movement clashing with police over President Tayyip Erdogan's aggressive development policies in the historic city.
The Missouri goober who last year was leading a senate race against the incumbent until he decided to mouth off about his personal concept of "legitimate rape" has been immortalized by a pinball machine. In France. And in keeping with Todd Akin's dumbfuck worldview, it's ball out, every time.
At the beginning of the month, Katie Couric got some heat from gamers over her one-sided, fear-mongering episode about violent game addiction. On Friday, Couric gave voice to those dissenters and issued a 'Mea Culpa' follow-up on her show.
In Dark Souls, death can be rough. Why not lighten the mood, then, with this mod for the PC version of the game, which takes the meme to its most brutal conclusion.
In many countries, there's freedom of speech. You can criticize your country's government and leaders on, for example, television. On China's state-run TV, you cannot. Enter Jon Stewart.
This week, South Korean politician Shin Eui-jin announced a bill that stipulated alcohol, online games, gambling, and drugs need to be strictly regulated. The reasoning? They are a source of addiction, the legislation argues.
Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ticked off people in South Korea and China. This weekend, he hung out with nerds and got in a tank.
Ted Kosmatka's Prophet of Bones takes place in a world where absolutely everybody knows that Darwin was wrong, and the world is only 5,800 years old. Until one researcher happens on an archeological miracle: an early hominid who used tools, and clearly diverged from humans longer ago. And then people start turning up…
The new Jabba's Palace LEGO set is one of the best in recent years from the Danish company
Last month, one Counter-Strike fan got in trouble for putting a Montreal metro station in multiplayer map form. Recently, something quite similar has happened.
When it comes to the increasing scapegoating that says video games cause mass shootings
Zombies make everything better. They really do. Even Japanese politics.
Want proof that the maddening campaign to make video games a scapegoat for gun violence is working? Just check out these poll results where the vast majority of people essentially say that video games are scarier than guns.
