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CultureGoogle Play Halves Its Cut Of Devs’ First $1 Million
Google Play developers will see service fees on their first $1 million every year reduced from 30% to 15% starting on July 1, Google vice president of product management Sameer Samat announced today. “Helping developers build sustainable businesses is a core part of Google Play’s mission,” Samat wrote on the Android Developers blog. “We work…
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CultureBandai Namco Speaks Out Against Anti-Asian Racism In America
In an official statement released on Twitter this morning, Bandai Namco took a public stance against the spike of anti-Asian racism in the United States in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. “As a company based in Japan, the recent rise in anti-Asian hate has truly hit home for our employees,” the tweet reads. It…
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CultureOdds and EndsFortnite’s Awful Banana Man Is Finally Dead
Early (and I mean early) this morning, Epic Games unveiled the next season of its mega-popular battle royale shooter Fortnite. As is often the case, there’s a bunch of cool, new stuff for players to mess around with in-game, but in my mind the biggest development is the death of Fornite mascot Peely, the terrible…
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CultureOdds and EndsRatchet & Clank Weapons, Ranked
This weekend, I played through the “re-imagined” 2016 Ratchet & Clank for PlayStation 4 (free via PlayStation Plus this month). And I started feeling that familiar itch, the itch to compile an underexplained list. As such, here’s how I rank the weapons in its arsenal based on various criteria: Omniwrench Pixelizer Buzz Blades Warmonger Pyrocitor…
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CultureFortnite Team Banned From Major Tournament After Player Tells Epic Exec To Kill Himself
I don’t know much about Fortnite, but I’m going to guess harassing an Epic executive probably isn’t a winning strategy. A Fortnite competitor named Wrigley tested this controversial technique on Saturday night, tagging Epic chief creative officer Donald Mustard in a tweet that read “literally fucking k!ll your$elf” for some undisclosed reason. Several letters were…
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CultureUndertale Makes Its Xbox Debut Via Game Pass Tomorrow
Undertale, the quirky 2015 role-playing game from indie dev Toby Fox, finally heads to Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S tomorrow, and it will be free for everyone with an active Game Pass subscription on console. After debuting on PC several years ago, Undertale was ported to several additional platforms, including PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita,…
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CultureOdds and EndsMario Kart Speedrunners Are Racing To Blow Themselves Up With Blue Shells
Do you know you can hit yourself with a Blue Shell in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? Speedrunners do, and they’re going all out to blow themselves up with the first place-targeting item as quickly as possible. Skilloz, the current world record-holder for the hilariously named “Blue Yourself” category, uploaded a video yesterday (h/t Polygon) showing…
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CultureGenshin Impact KFC Crossover Events In China Shut Down Over Covid-19 Concerns
A weekend crossover event between the wildly popular Genshin Impact and Kentucky Fried Chicken had to be shut down at Shanghai and Hangzhou locations after apparently violating China’s ongoing covid-19 prevention measures, the fast food chain announced on Chinese social media site Weibo today. Genshin Impact-themed KFC restaurants across China attracted huge crowds overnight as…
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CultureOdds and EndsBloodborne’s Doll Used To Have A Lot More To Say
Everyone’s favorite video game archaeologist Lance McDonald is back with a new Bloodborne video. This time around, he’s exploring unused dialogue for the Doll, the 2015 game’s level up-granting NPC. And while the alternate voice acting is neat, it’s what she used to say that really piqued my interest. Bloodborne, like most From Software games,…
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CultureBorderlands 3‘s Next Expansion Delayed To April 8
Gearbox announced this morning that it has delayed the release of the upcoming Borderlands 3 expansion Director’s Cut almost a full month due to the severe winter storms that recently swept through its home state of Texas. The update will now launch on April 8. “Thankfully, all of our team members and their families are…
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CultureA Bunch Of Bethesda Games Are Joining Xbox Game Pass Tomorrow
During today’s conversation about Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the panel announced that a grip of amazing Bethesda games will join Xbox Game Pass tomorrow. Some of the games in the above image were already available on Game Pass in some form or another, but there’s a bunch of new stuff getting added as well,…
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CultureSquare Enix Will Reveal New Life Is Strange During Digital Event Next Week
Square Enix announced it will debut the first episode of its very own Nintendo Direct-style digital event, known as “Square Enix Presents,” next Thursday, March 18. Among other things, the studio plans to officially reveal the next game in the Life is Strange series, with “an all-new protagonist wielding an exciting new power.” A new…
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CultureSTALKER 2 Might Get Mod Support On Xbox
STALKER developer GSC Game World is currently investigating the possibility of including mod support for the upcoming sequel on Xbox Series X/S. These details first came to light on Russian podcast “Не занесли,” the most recent episode of which included an interview with GSC Game World public relations manager Zakhar Bocharov. According to translations by…
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CultureOdds and EndsAstro’s Playroom Composer Shares How That GPU Love Song Became Such A Bop
PlayStation 5 pack-in Astro’s Playroom is full of amazing tracks, but the standout is most definitely its ode to the console’s powerful graphics processing unit (“GPU” to friends). In celebration of the game’s official soundtrack coming out on March 12, composer Kenneth C. M. Young recently shared behind-the-scenes details about the process of bringing his…
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CultureOdds and EndsSpongeBob Players Discover Filthy Game Discs Make Speedrunning Tricks Easier
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom may be one of the most improbable video games of all time, a licensed project that turned out to be both a great game and a worthwhile challenge for the speedrunning community. But the absurdity doesn’t stop there: SpongeBob speedrunners recently discovered that smudging their Xbox discs could result…
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CultureNBA Player Drops Antisemitic Slur During Call Of Duty: Warzone Stream [Update]
Miami Heat center and FaZe Clan member Meyers Leonard apparently hates being sniped in Call of Duty: Warzone, so much so that he referred to a long-range online opponent as a “kike bitch” during a Twitch session Monday night. As first noted by sports blog Defector, that particular stream archive doesn’t appear on Leonard’s channel,…
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CultureOdds and EndsCrunchy Dreamcast Loading Noises Make For A Charmingly Retro Twitch Stream
Twitch streamers go to great lengths to make their channels unique and interesting, but sometimes separating yourself from the pack is as simple as miking up your console to capture the sounds it makes while loading data from its disc drive. Hungry Goriya is a retro video game collector who regularly showcases her collection on…
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CultureKotaku Game DiaryI Finally Beat Ghosts ‘N Goblins Resurrection‘s First Level, But The Victory Feels Hollow
I’ve done the unforgivable: I lowered the difficulty in Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection because I wasn’t getting anywhere close to beating the first level. But now, after finally doing so, I have zero motivation to keep playing. I was beyond excited to get my hands on Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection when it landed on Switch…
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CultureKotaku Game DiaryBravely Default II’s Beastmaster Job Is Basically Pokémon
Creating your party in Bravely Default II is less about the characters you use than it is the jobs with which you equip them. It’s a smart strategy to always have basic healers and damage-dealers on hand, sure, but when it comes to my party, I don’t foresee ever not having at least one Beastmaster…
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CultureOdds and EndsMorrowind Mod Lets You Buy Argonian McNuggets
McDonald’s is a massive fast-food empire with 38,695 locations spanning 122 countries. It’s become so ubiquitous in the real world that I’m sure the corporation would investigate franchising opportunities in fictional worlds if it could, even the famously chaotic realm of Tamriel. A recent The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind mod imagines such a scenario, placing…
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