The Thing I’m The Most Excited About On The PS4 Isn’t The Game Lineup…
There was one feature—should Sony actually deliver on their lofty promises with the PS4—that left me feeling rather excited. It wasn't the games, or the hardware.
Feed Starving Children and Build Them a Place to Play in Safari…
Launched this week by Desert River Games, Safari Challenge is an example of the sort of Facebook games I admire the most, one that harnesses the actions of gamers sitting at computers in their comfortable homes to create a living charity engine. I feel much better building a virtual village when I know my lazy clicking …
Legends: Rise of a Hero is the Perfect Example of a Mid-Core Action RPG
"Mid-core" is a term being bandied about quite a lot lately, indicating the evolution of social games from passive clicking affairs to experiences that flirt with hardcore gameplay while remaining accessible to casual players. Need an example? Play Mob Science's newly-launched Legends: Rise of a Hero.
Goodbye, FarmVille 2. It's Been Fun, But I've Had Enough.
This past weekend, I took a trip out of town. I went outdoors, I sat in the sun. I drove through Northern California, past vinyards and polo fields, plots of land with a strip of earth out front for growing tomatoes and corn. I didn't really have my computer with me.
This Store Was Killed by Mobile Games, Says Owner
Surprised and saddened by this, I asked the…
The Age of True Platform-Free Gaming Begins with Goko
The screenshot you're looking at is for the video game adaptation of Donald X. Vaccarino's wildly popular card game Dominion running on iOS. And Android. And Facebook, Google+, Chrome, Safari — anywhere HTML 5 can be used, this game can be played, online and off.
It's a Sad Day When City Building Social Games Attack Each Other With…
In case there was any doubt in your mind that EA's SimCity Social has it out for Zynga's pretender to the city building social game throne, CityVille, this rousing rendition of "More City, Less 'Ville" should put it to rest.
The Last Thing I Want to Do is Push This Button
This week Zynga released its The Sims Social clone The Ville on Facebook. This morning I started up the game with the intention of doing some quick impressions. I logged into Facebook, got to the character creation screen...
Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM Might Be the Best Incarnation of the Card Game I've Played
What has always fascinated me about the colorful kid-focused card game Yu-Gi-Oh! has been the way the card statistics morph with each new skill and spell introduced to the play field. Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM captures the essence of that numerical dance in a fast paced Facebook game.
EA Pulling Dragon Age: Legends from Facebook and Google+ on June 18th
EA hasn't been shy about blatantly saying that they're going to extend their big games across as many platforms as possible. The recent example Mass Effect Infiltrator on iOS—which links back to the console game via the mega-publisher's Origin online service—shows how EA probably wants this kind of thing to work in…
Insomniac Explores the Wild Facebook Frontier with Outernauts
Breaking with a long tradition of creating Sony-exclusive console titles, the studio behind Ratchet & Clank and Resistance brings the full weight of its wit and style to bear in Outernauts, a quirky new adventure role-playing game... for Facebook.
The Emotions Free-to-Play Games Prey on to Get Players to Pay
"In a freemium game it's not a rational decision to pay; it's an emotional one." Wednesday at the East Coast Games Conference in North Carolina, former BioWare design manager Ethan Levy explained how free-to-play games can harness to emotions of their players in order to profit.
Marvel: Avengers Alliance Lets You Assemble Your Own Oddball Avengers…
Cyclops! Black Cat! Invisible Woman! Facebook Avengers Assemble! Facebook's Marvel: Avengers Alliance cares not for comic book continuity, focusing instead on giving players some sweet choices, and then making them pay for them.
The PS Vita is a Social Beast That Will Entangle Us All in Its Loving…
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.
Dungeons & Dragons' Heroes of Neverwinter Venture Forth on Facebook
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.
Short Name. Big Booth. Mystery to Westerners.
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?
It's Time to Give Your Final Thoughts on CivWorld!
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.
Wario Helps Show This Developer the Money
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!
26-Year-Old Programmer Behind OpenFeint Gaming Network Just Made $104…
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]
FarmVille Grows Into The English Countryside
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.
3DS StreetPass Groups Forming to Play Together Outside
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…
Resistance, Ratchet & Clank Creators Push Into Facebook with Insomniac…
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.
Are Video Games Turning Liberals Into Virtual Conservatives?
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.
These Facebook Games Are Bigger Than You Think
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.
FarmVille Maker Settles Trade Secret Lawsuit With Disney
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.
Knights Of The Crystals Is Final Fantasy For Facebook
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?