Owen Good

Following stops in Las Vegas and then Paris, Minecon 2013, the annual gathering for Minecraft fans, will be held in Orlando, Fla. Dates, ticket and hotel information will be announced in July.

Aaron Hernandez might not make it back in time for the next Madden, but if you want to play a topical video game (not about a crack-smoking mayor), try Snowden’s Leaks: The Game. It was made by Dutch developers in 72 hours. No, it won’t report your high scores to the NSA.

A Beer With a Clean, Crisp Taste That Says ‘Anomaly: Warzone Earth’

Why would a tower defense “offense” game be the perfect inspiration for a beer? Because “warzone,” spelled exactly that way, in Polish means “brewed.” And the guys behind the Polish-developed Anomaly: Warzone series like to hoist a pint, too. This is Tower Offense Stout—”the very first brand of beer in the world created by game…

Xbox Live Stops Charging Studios to Patch Games; Fez Creator Upset

When a rare—but utterly game-breaking bug—crippled the indie sensation Fez, its maker said it would issue no patch to fix it. That’s because Microsoft would have charged “tens of thousands of dollars” to put out the patch out over Xbox Live. Yesterday, the company revealed it did away with those charges back in April. Eurogamer…

If NCAA Football 14 Still Sounds the Same This Year, You Can Blame Me

On Oct. 6, North Carolina’s Tobacco Road triumvirate of State, Duke and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill all played home games on the same day, and all of them won. Audio from all three games wil be in NCAA Football 14, on shelves in two weeks. Some of that may come from a microphone…

Here’s Your First Look at WWE Under 2K Sports

Different publisher, same developer. 2K Sports picked up the WWE franchise from THQ during the bankrupted publisher’s firesale back in Japan. The game revealed its cover art on Monday night, dropping this trailer later. The Rock is WWE 2K14’s cover star. He was announced for the cover one day before he lost to John Cena…

Microsoft’s development conference, Build, just got underway but don’t expect big Xbox news. “Probably won’t show you a lot of … Xbox because we’ve been kinda sharing that” news among other events, CEO Steve Ballmer just told attendees.

Crackdown Hint at Xbox One Event ‘Wasn’t Accidental’ Says Exec

A month ago at the Xbox One’s debut event, Crackdown fans thought they spied a sly visual reference to the game’s agility orb collectibles. They did, according to Phil Spencer, the boss of Microsoft Studios. Spencer told IGNthe inclusion (above, as originally spied by NeoGAF) was on purpose. “The homage to Crackdown in the reveal…

Here’s Your Chance, Do Your Dance at the Kerbal Space Program Jam

Kerbal Space Program is a space exploration sandbox game—think Minecraft in space. Most folks assemble spacecraft and try to launch them without killing their occupants. Others, as seen here, build orbiting basketball goals and go for extra-vehicular dunktivity. The first half of this video is someone lobbing what looks like Telstar 1 at the hoop—the…

Artist Says The Last of Us Ripped Off His Boston Subway Map Redesign [Update]

A transit-map enthusiast who painstakingly redesigned Boston’s MBTA rail map says The Last of Us took his work, without his permission and without compensating him, for use in the game. He’s not happy about it. In his own words, Cameron Booth said he was “fucking furious,” before cooling off later today. Still, via his Twitter…

Ouya Provokes Piracy Argument with Retweet Touting Emulation

Ouya, which launched today even if many donors don’t yet have their machines, is an Android-based, open source console. It’ll run emulators. So there’s some sensitivity to the issue of piracy, which Ouya didn’t help by retweeting out a picture of Super Mario Bros. and adding the hashtag #freethegames. Yesterday an enthusiast—in a tweet removed…

Late Deliveries to Ouya’s Backers Cast a Shadow Over Console’s Launch

Ouya, the Android-powered, crowdfunded indie console, arrives in stores today but shipping snafus mean many backers have yet to receive their consoles, threatening to cast a cloud over a big day for the machine. It could be another two weeks before all backers have their consoles. Backers, particularly those overseas, had already sensed trouble getting…

Borderlands‘ Psycho and Handsome Jack Arrive In Time for Halloween

Commence to placing finger guns to your temple (or under your chin). NECA, makers of all sorts of plastic goodness for gamers, will have a latex Psycho mask from Borderlands 2—and another for insufferable baddie Handsome Jack, available in September. The quick-and-dirty cosplay deploys in time for the New York Comic-Con (and Halloween) for $26.99…

PlayStation Network Goes Offline for Maintenance Tomorrow

PlayStation Network will be down for maintenance from 12:30 p.m. EDT to about 7 p.m. tomorrow. This is probably related to last week’s console-bricking patch, as Sony generally tries to avoid performing maintenance on the same day the PlayStation Store updates. So, PlayStation Store will be down, in addition to PlayStation Home and Account management…

Steam Trading Cards will launch on Wednesday at 2 p.m. EDT, Valve says. Several games will get cards on that day, too, with updates on Tuesdays and Thursdays to follow. Trading offers and a virtual binder to house the collection will be implemented later.

Zillion-Dollar Madden Lawsuit Survives Another Verdict

Despite all efforts to kill it, the lawsuit over who really made the Madden we all play today keeps chugging along. A jury ruled that a statute of limitations does not apply to the claim of Robin Antonick, credited on the cover of the first John Madden Football for PCs back in 1988. This would…

An Xbox 180 Drags Sports Back From the Future of Gaming

Until Wednesday there seemed to be very little selling the Xbox One to a sports video gamer. The questionable ability to rent, share or re-sell its games—fundamental to a culture built on annual releases and punching friends on the couch—was only the beginning. It’s a console that cost $100 more than its competitor, with no…

Ultra-Real Assault Rifle Controller Pushes Ahead Despite Uproar

We first got wind of the “Delta Six,” a super-realistic assault-rifle controller for those who like to put the FP into their FPSes, back in October. Predictably, the gun’s purpose and look didn’t play well in mainstream coverage, so it was pulled off the market. Now it’s back, after a successful $200,000 Kickstarter. Delta Six…

Police Blotter: Someone Stole an Xbox 360 from the U.S. Open

Crime is a constant feature of video games writing. Somewhere, someone is doing something illicit with them—sometimes comically stupid, sometimes tragic. Games and consoles are currency, objects of dispute, sometimes even weapons themselves. Kotaku‘s Police Blotter is here to round up the latest in games crime. Xbox 360 Tent Finishes 1-Under for the Tournament ARDMORE,…

Dragon Quest X Coming to PC in Japan

Dragon Quest X was conspicuously absent from E3 and its Wii U version may not make it to the west. A PC version might stand a better chance, though, and Siliconera reports Japan is getting Dragon Quest X on PC at the end of September. Currently a beta for the PC version is underway (not…