Culture

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!

A Final Fantasy VII Bedtime Story

Tonight for Fine Art we’re looking at Limetown, a small studio in Brazil comprised of artists Amanda Duarte and Gus Lima, who work on concept art and illustrations for games, books and beyond. You can see more of Limetown’s stuff at their personal siteand ArtStation page

Buildings Have Feelings Too is a city management game about buildings that can walk and talk to each other. They have hopes and aspirations, but also, they’re buildings, and the forces of change and expansion are rarely kind to buildings. Beginning in the Victorian era and progressing into the modern day, you’ve got to figure…

Epic Pledges To Support Developers After Intense Harassment Of Ooblets Team

By now, you probably know the drill: A developer announces that it will sell the PC version of its game exclusively through the Epic Games Store. Cue wailing, gnashing of teeth, and increasingly, harassment from folks used to smashing that “buy” button on Steam. The latest target of Epic exclusivity ire? The developers of Ooblets,…

Two Women Say They Were Sexually Assaulted At Red Bull’s Evo 2019 Party

Last night, Red Bull hosted its annual official after-party for the Evolution Championship Series at the HyperX Esports Arena, a venue at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. This morning, two women have come forward to describe having been sexually assaulted while attending this party. Also, a male attendee has shared his belief that a…

We Do Not Need To Defend Video Games From Politicians

We have reached the point in American society where you can reliably predict the series of events that immediately follow a mass shooting. In 2019, you can set a clock to it: After the shock and scramble to understand what happened amid the chaotic perpetual loop of social media and cable news, we begin to…

It’s Been A Spectacular Few Days For Mario Speedrunning

The Super Mario games are among some of the most popular in all of speedrunning. From console to console, Mario has been pushed to his breaking point. The last few days have formed a watershed moment for Mario speedrunning as new records in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario 64 move into uncharted territory and…

The Latest Twitch Sensation Is Chickens, Goats, And Bees

Each morning, as the sun rises over her Indiana farm, Erica Hopkins wakes up and tends to the goats. She has three major tasks: milk her herd of Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats, bottle-feed the babies, and, of course, respond to the Twitch chat watching it all go down. It would probably take Hopkins less time…

PAX Cancels Controversial Hosts’ Live Podcast, Won’t Say Why [Update]

The Seattle gaming convention PAX West has canceled a planned live recording of the “Sacred Symbols” gaming podcast, hosted by politically controversial commentators Colin Moriarty and Chris “Ray Gun” Maldonado, that was set to take place at the show on September 2. It hasn’t yet given a reason for the cancellation, which has caused a…

I Can’t Help Reading Every Damn Text Box In Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Fire Emblem: Three Houses has been a little bit of a slow burn for me. While I’ve been a fan of the series since Awakening, I found myself beset by choice paralysis in Three Houses when I realized that I did not even remotely feel attached to any of the three precocious rich children with…