Culture

Riot Employees Say Company Has Made Real Progress Fixing Its Sexism Issues

In the year since Kotaku’s investigation into sexism at Riot Games, the 2,500-person company behind League of Legends, the company has crafted and self-injected its proposed antidote to its so-called “bro culture.” Over the last week, 14 current or recent Riot employees spoke with Kotaku about the game company’s forward momentum toward equitable workplace conditions.…

As Police Investigate Threats To Twitch Offices, Employees Told To Work From Home

After multiple threats were sent to Twitch’s offices in San Francisco, California, the company has asked employees to work from home for the day. Police are investigating. Business Insider first reported on the situation earlier today. Twitch confirmed the publication’s report in an email to Kotaku “We were made aware of a threat against our…

Perfect Character Balance Is ‘Boring,’ Says Samurai Shodown Director

During Evo 2019, I sat down with Samurai Shodown director Nobuyuki Kuroki to discuss his work on the new game. Since the game’s release in June, players have noticed some character balance issues in Samurai Shodown. In our interview, Kuroki admitted he’s not a fan of making the power diversity in the game’s cast “too…

ESA Says Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo Will Start Disclosing Loot Box Odds

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has announced that Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony will be required to implement new policies requiring the disclosure of all loot box odds for games on their platforms. “I’m pleased to announce this morning that Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have indicated to ESA a commitment to new platform policies with respect…

Fire Emblem: Three Houses Captures The Challenge Of Fostering Your Students’ Passions

In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, you split your time between fighting battles and teaching students at a monastery. As you teach, there are key moments where you can encourage students down different paths toward new jobs. While the mechanic mostly exists for you to grind stats and try new battle combinations, these small moments realistically…

Latest Pokémon Sword And Shield Trailer Reveals Villain Team And New Galarian Forms

Fresh information about Pokémon Sword and Shield, shown this morning on the official Pokémon YouTube channel, tells more about the game’s cast. Alongside new monsters—including new Pikachu-adjacent creatures—there’s a quick look at some of the game’s rivals and villains. The trailer outlines a handful of monsters and characters coming to Sword and Shield. Among these…

A Bewitching Tree. Langøyene, Oslo, Norway. By Marcus Patai | Instagram JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

Fallen Angel

Yakun Wang is a character artist and illustrator at Tencent Games. You can see more of Wang’s workat her ArtStation page UPDATE: Some artwork removed at artist’s request.

Oh Man Look At This Enormous God Of War Cosplay

German cosplayer Kes von Puch and her boyfriend Marcel are to thank for this incredible piece of God of War cosplay, which didn’t just require the creation of a costume, but the transformation of a man. While Kes was spending over 1000 hours crafting Kratos’ outfit, making everything from his belt to his pouches to…

Epic Store Rage Has Gotten Out Of Hand

The developers of cutesy Animal Crossing–Pokemon mashup Ooblets just had a weekend from hell. After trying to preempt a tidal wave of rage over their newly announced Epic Games Store exclusivity, they got hit with a swirling tsunami of foaming-at-the-mouth anger, up to and including death threats and anti-Semitic hoaxes. This is the worst overreaction…

What Mixer Has That Twitch Doesn’t (Besides Ninja)

Microsoft recently put their streaming service Mixer back in the spotlight by securing exclusive rights to Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, who had been one of the top streamers on Twitch. Exclusive streamers aside, there are several compelling reasons to stream and watch streams on Microsoft’s platform instead of Amazon-owned Twitch. Mixer started life as Beam, an…

Remastering Resident Evil Games Kept This Indie Developer From Giving Up

Resident Evil is one of the biggest and most important names in video game horror. The first three games in Capcom’s survival horror series defined a genre and influenced generations of developers and players. So it’s strange how hard it is to play the original trilogy on modern hardware. It’s a problem that would largely…

PUBG Is Steadily Improving And Winning Back Players

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds officially released a year and a half ago. In that time, competitors like Fortnite Battle Royale and Apex Legends have arguably surpassed it for popularity. But PUBG has quietly persisted, and the developers continue to address player concerns. In the last month, it’s drawn back popular streamers and breathed fresh life into the…

After Months Of Delay, Anthem’s Cataclysm Event Is Finally Live

Without any fanfare, today BioWare dropped Anthem’s biggest update since the game was released in February. Update 1.3 adds a bunch of new loot, a guild system, and the game’s long-awaited Cataclysm event, which was originally due out in May After a rough launch, BioWare announced a series of updates that would be coming to…

I Love When A Book Feels Like A Good Role-Playing Game

Role-playing games are one of my favorite genres. They’re also the genre I came latest to. I didn’t play video games for most of my teenage years, the time when I would have lost entire weekends and nights to them. Coming to love them as an adult has been a minor tragedy, because the amount…

Cook, Serve, Delicious 3 Takes The Intense Restaurant Sim On The Road

The first two Cook, Serve, Delicious games cast players as the head chef and principle operator of small restaurants, cooking and managing their way to foodie fame. Announced today for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC, Cook, Serve, Delicious 3 sends players on a journey across war-torn America in a food truck with…

Months After Labor Controversy, Rockstar Converts Game-Testers To Full-Time

Workers at Rockstar Lincoln, the British studio that does the lion’s share of testing for the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption games, are being converted from contractors to full-time employees, three sources familiar with the studio have told Kotaku The move will remove the uncertainty of working on temporary contracts, a positive turn…

The Star Ocean Mobile Game Is Shutting Down

Barely a year after launching in the West, free-to-play mobile RPG Star Ocean: Anamnesis is shutting down. Players have until November 5 to finish collecting characters before Square Enix pulls the plug. Star Ocean V was not good. Instead of Star Ocean VI, we got Star Ocean: Anamnesis, a mobile gacha game in which players…

Track: Home | Artist: Depeche Mode | Album: Ultra 

Monkeying Around. Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. By David Leonard. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!