Culture

PC Game Install Sizes Are Ballooning And I’m Scared

Earlier today, I was reading over the PC hardware specifications for the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and, when I reached the hard drive space requirement, did a double-take. 175 GB. For one game. My hard drive currently has less than half that space free for all games. And Modern Warfare is far from…

College Hearthstone Players Who Held Up ‘Free Hong Kong’ Sign Drop Out Of Tournament

Earlier this week, three collegiate Hearthstone players on the American University team held up a sign that read “Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz” during a stream broadcasted on Blizzard’s official Hearthstone Twitch channel. They expected a suspension similar to the one that, the day before, putpro player Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai on the sidelines for…

New Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Speedrunning Trick Shaves Three Hours Off Previous Record

Grand Theft Auto games are huge, which makes speedrunning them a time-consuming proposition. A complicated new trick discovered for San Andreas has shortened a run that normally took almost four hours to under 30 minutes. The new trick—whose name, “Arbitrary Jump In Skip,” could honestly use some work—is only doable on the Windows Store version…

When I Was A Kid, Spider-Man On Genesis Was The Scariest Shit

Like a lot of people around this time of year, I spend a lot of October thinking about being frightened. This is pretty new for me. I was a nervous, fearful kid who grew up as a teen in a religious home, so I spent my entire youth avoiding horror either by choice or by…

PewDiePie Is Having Second Thoughts About The Whole YouTube Thing

A profile of YouTuber Pewdiepie in the New York Times titled “What Does Pewdiepie Really Believe?” does not quite answer that question. In fact, Pewdiepie himself does not seem to know. New York Times writer Kevin Roose spoke to Pewdiepie, nee Felix Kjellberg, in the aftermath of March’s shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a…

Pokémon Masters Producer Knows His Game Is Boring, Apologizes

Yu Sasaki, producer on mobile game Pokémon Masters, recently issued a public apology for the game’s lack of content. His lengthy statement acknowledges a list of player grievances, which includes poor battle design and usability, and promises to address them. “We’re disappointed we did not meet the expectations of our community, and for this, we…

I Succeed At This Game By Trying The Silly Shit You’d Be Punished For In Other Games

I love old-school adventure games so damn much, but sometimes I just can’t manage to finish them. I get stuck on puzzles but I’m often too stubborn to consult a guide, or I lose patience with their pacing, or sometimes I’m just tired of looking at my laptop screen (most of the adventure games I…

Indie Developer And Her Boyfriend Talk About Making A Game About Their Relationship

Nina Freeman’s calling card as a developer is allowing a player to enter into her life. Some of her games, like Cibele, which is about a relationship that takes place over an MMO, have been semi-autobiographical. Now, Freeman and her real-life partner, Jake Jefferies, have turned their relationship intoan intimate video game called We Met…

Mill Decks In Magic: The Gathering Are A Goddamn Bummer

“Dishonorable” isn’t a word you hear a lot in Magic: The Gathering. It’s good to win and bad to lose, and whatever strategy most consistently gets you that win is good in itself, too. Knights know that’s not the case—that there are both honorable and undignified ways to win—which is a little ironic, because ever…

Soon, Steam Will Let You Play Local Multiplayer Games Online

Sometimes, you’d rather stretch out on the living room couch in your underwear than be the deli meat in a couch co-op sandwich. Valve today shared its plans to make Steam’s local multiplayer games playable online, so from now on, you won’t have to elbow your way into some personal space when you’re already screaming…

Track: Koufukuron (A View of Happiness) | Artist: Sheena Ringo | Album: Muzai Moratorium -Innocence Moratorium-

Pretty Green Forest Kyoto, Japan. By Bill. 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!

The Inevitable Cosplay Of Overwatch‘s Mei Supporting Hong Kong [Update]

Yesterday, when Kotaku reported that Overwatch’s Mei had been turned into a symbol of the Hong Kong resistance, one commenter wondered if there would be cosplay of this at next month’s BlizzCon. Probably! But we don’t have to wait that long. Redditor Zephronica uploaded these photos to r/HongKong of what has to be the first…

Twitch Explains How Another Shooting Got Livestreamed On Its Site

Today, an armed gunman in Halle, Germany attacked people outside of a synagogue on Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar, killing two and injuring at least two others in the process. He livestreamed his attack on Twitch, during which he referred to himself as “Anon” (likely referencing 4chan or 8chan)…

Popular Hearthstone Caster Quits In Protest Of Blizzard’s Hong Kong Punishment

Collectible card game legend Brian Kibler, who casts for Hearthstone, announced today that he will no longer be involved in the digital card game’s Grandmasters competition. In a post on Medium, he blamed Blizzard’s “incredibly harsh” punishment of Grandmasters competitor Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai. Yesterday, Blizzard announced it would suspend Chung for one year and…

Yeah Okay Sure

Google Stadia’s vice president of engineering Madj Bakar reportedly told Edge that the company’s upcoming cloud streaming game console will have “negative latency,” predicting player button presses to reduce lag. “Ultimately, we think in a year or two we’ll have games that are running faster and feel more responsive in the cloud than they do…

The Wonderful Feeling Of Clearing Three Destiny 2 Quests At The Same Time

The best feeling for me when I play Destiny 2 is not a perfectly landed shot, nor is it the widely acclaimed “gun-feel,” nor the rare moments when I understand what lunar mission giver Eris Morn is droning on about. No, it’s when I’m winding down a mission and manage to orchestrate a cascade of…

The Division 2‘s Next Free Expansion Sounds Like A Glass Half Something

What is enough for a free expansion? We’ll find out for The Division 2 this month, as the game’s second expansion, touted by Ubisoft as its “biggest,” starts rolling out this week. Promised for this addition to Ubisoft’s shooter about taking back a besieged Washington DC are two big new missions, one set in the…

Monster Hunter World‘s Latest Update Makes It Easier To Wear The Armor You Want

Monster Hunter World is fantastic, and the most recent expansion, Iceborne, makes it even better. But there have been a few snags, including some pretty ugly weapons and armor sets that lost their original look. An upcoming feature for creating cosmetic armor will make it easier for players to look however they want. In a…

Track: I Love You | Artist: Drop’s | Album: Tiny Ground