Owen Good

Founder of Ultra-Arcade Cabinet Company Gets Two-Year Prison Term

The founder of the Ultracade, a MAME-type arcade cabinet that once was a status item among video game connoisseurs, will spend the next two years in a federal prison for secretly copying and selling video games and code whose rights he had sold to another company. The sentencing of David R. Foley concludes a legal…

Candy Crush Makers Say They’re Going After Copycats, Not Banner Saga

The makers of Candy Crush Saga, who have filed for a trademark on video games with the name “candy,” and are opposing the trademark application of The Banner Saga, (pictured) say they are “not trying to stop Banner Saga from using its name,” but are compelled to defend their position under trademark law. “We do…

How You Know You’re Old: Super Smash Bros. Is 15 Today

There are, probably, very few people who have a living memory of Mario kneecapping Yoshi in this advertisement and who are not old enough to vote. It’s the famous spot for Super Smash Bros., which 15 years ago today released as a Japan-only novelty and exploded into one of Nintendo’s best-loved series. Super Smash Bros.…

Mod Forces Spelunky to Create the Same Levels

A big component of Spelunky‘s appeal and challenge is its procedurally generated levels, assuring you don’t play the same board twice. Some diehards, however, have developed a tool (for the PC’s HD version) that forces the game to generate the same level on replays. It’s called Seedlunky and it cannot be used to hack the…

The demo for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is available for PS3 later today. It released on Xbox Live for Xbox 360 last week. Getting the demo also offers a weapon pack that unlocks when the full game releases Feb. 11.

Madden‘s Ratings Back Up Richard Sherman’s Trash Talk

Seattle’s Richard Sherman didn’t just swat away San Francisco’s shot at a Super Bowl, he also crapped all over the 49ers’ Michael Crabtree in a postgame interview straight out of Piper’s Pit. Sherman mocked Crabtree’s credentials while boasting of his own. So I wondered: Is there any objective proof for his claims? Why, yes! The…

UK Anti-Porn Filters Might Screw Up League of Legends Patches

The strict “anti-porn” filtering taking full effect in the U.K. this month might cause problems for some League of Legends users who haven’t called their ISPs to opt out of the screening. It seems the patcher is trying to access a couple of URLs with the letters S and E followed by X in them,…

Fable Trilogy, a bundle comprising the three HD editions of the series (Fable 2, Fable 3, and the upcoming HD re-release of the original) will be available on Feb. 4 from the Xbox Live Marketplace.That’s the same day that Fable Anniversary launches for Xbox 360.

Once Again, Baseball Sends Up a Pinch-Hitter on the Xbox

For the second straight year we’ve gotten a January surprise with regards to baseball video games. And for the second straight year, it only nominally keeps Xbox as a relevant platform for Major League Baseball fans. The nostalgic pull of the R.B.I. Baseball name notwithstanding, Xbox 360 and, particularly, Xbox One gamers still have little…

The soundtrack for Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver is available now on iTunes. It’s $9.99 and includes 270 tracks. Soundtracks for Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire, Diamond/Pearl, Black/White and Black 2/White 2 will be released later this year, says The Pokémon Company.

The Week in Games: Olli Olli Oxen Free

Not much cooking this week in terms of new releases, outside of Olli Olli on Tuesday for PS Vita. One more week of this and we’ll be done with the usual deep freeze on the release calendar. Jan. 21 Olli Olli (PS Vita) Also in January: Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z (360, PS3, PS…

​XCOM-like Espionage Game Renamed to Invisible, Inc.

Remember Incognita? (I do!) It’s no longer known by that name. Klei Entertainment has renamed it Invisible, Inc., saying that title resonated more with focus groups. “After some focus testing, Invisible, Inc. was better received than the old Incognita,” Klei said on its official forums. “Our focus of the design does not change in that…

EVE Online‘s Two Biggest Factions Had an Enormous Battle Yesterday

What you see in that image is a Doomsday weapon, a superlaser that can only be fired from a Titan, the largest and most expensive ship in EVE Online. More than 50 of them were present yesterday for an enormous, quintessentially EVE capital ship throwdown between the two biggest coalitions in the spacefaring MMO. It’s…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Gabe’s Gaze

This week’s ‘Shop Contest subject is such a no-brainer many of you already have gotten a head start. How could it be anything but Gabe Newell’s proof-of-posting photo from his cameo on a couple of subreddits this week? There’s Gabe. There’s an easily maskable background. There are Starbucks frappuccinos. There is ample space to Gabe’s…

Austria’s Game of Thrones NFL Intro Shows America How to Do a Pre-Game

American football isn’t just popular in America. It’s also an attraction in Austria, whose PULS 4 network concocted this Game of Thrones-style introduction for the two conference championships the NFL plays today. It beats Cleatus, that doofus Fox Sports robot, by a mile, er, several kilometers. PULS 4 also went American-style with its pregame coverage,…

Sunday Comics: Where Everybobble Knows Your Name

Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Double XP by M.S. Corley and Josh Crandall. Published Jan. 13. Read more of Double XP Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published Jan. 13. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Mario Horse: The Winners

The plight of Mario Horse, the equine cosplayer who is either sad or embarrassed, or both, was this week’s study for our ‘Shop artists. There are 19 finalists inside, plus overall No. 1 beerhayzeus! Thanks to everyone who entered this week; we’ll have another ‘Shop Contest, celebrating the fourth anniversary of the feature, tomorrow! [A]…

The Speakys, the reader-voted awards of TAY, Kotaku’s official reader-written blog, have named the winners and runners-up for nearly a dozen categories. Every winner now gets lumped into one final vote for overall Speaky Game of the Year. Vote!

Here Are the Faces of EA Sports’ UFC 2014

It’s going to be a long spring and summer for EA Sports, which thanks to cutbacks and cancellations has two titles between now and August, when Madden NFL Whatever Number Comes After 25 releases. That’s a World Cup edition for FIFA, and EA Sports UFC. Neither game has a release date yet. EA Sports UFC…

The trademark for Star Wars 1313 has been abandoned, according to the mark’s filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Though that game was canceled last spring, this is as sure as sign as any that the concept, which wowed everyone at E3 2012, is completely dead.