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Culture
Sunday Comics: Everything We Offer
Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik published Nov. 26.—Read more of Penny Arcade Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Nov. 26.—Read more of Awkward Zombie…
By Owen Good Published December 2, 2012 -
Culture
This Week in the Business: ‘Wii U’s Fisher-Price Take on Tech Seems a Bit Desperate.’
What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “Wii U’s Fisher-Price take on tech seems a bit desperate.”—Rob Fahey, former editor of GamesIndustry.biz, talking about the Wii U and how no one knows if it will ultimately succeed or fail QUOTE | “It’s good, but it’s not great. And…
By Steve Peterson Published December 1, 2012 -
Culture
Now That is One Good-Looking Future Ship
Long Ouyang is a concept artist who works at WETA, they of The Hobbit, District 9 and Lord of the Rings fame. He’s previously done some game work, including iOS titles. Anyway, today is a good day to show off his stuff, because chances are you saw some of it earlier this week. Where? In…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 30, 2012 -
Culture
I Think This is What Hobbiton Would Look Like in the Distant Future
Jason Stokes is an artist who worked for Guild Wars developers ArenaNet for nearly a decade, contributing to both games in the MMO series. He now owns and teaches at Futurepoly, a digital arts school that specifically targets the video game industry. If you want to see more of Jason’s amazing work, you can check…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 29, 2012 -
Culture
Hope Your Eyeballs Are Ready For This Explosion of Art
If you’re a fan of Roger Dean, 70s sci-fi, old rock n roll posters or just awesome concept art, Pascal Blanché’s work should be just about the best thing you see today. The former art director on Runescape, for which we’ve featured his work before, Blanché is now back at Ubisoft Montreal, a studio he’s…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 28, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
24,000 Games, From 1975 to 2012, Broken Down By Genre & Platform
These two charts turned up today, reportedly from a “recently scraped database of 24,000 videogames to determine percentages of genre and platform releases since 1975”. My inner stats nerd just fainted. Charts like this can tell you a lot about games and the changing way we enjoy them, and even allowing for the fact it…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 27, 2012 -
Culture
The Artistic Origins of Disney’s Video Game Love Letters
Disney’s Wreck-it-Ralph is, in some ways, the best video game movie ever made. It doesn’t do as much with the whole video games thing as it could have, but still, great movie. One of the things it did really well was parody/pay homage to famous video game series and clichés without (usually) having to directly…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 27, 2012 -
Culture
The Official Oreo iPhone Game Isn’t Nearly as Bad as It Should Be
The rise of mobile phone games has done wonders for the normally dark and seedy world of advergaming. With Oreo Twist, Lick, Dunk, PikPok has created an interactive advertisement I’ve actually wanted to play more than once. The setup is pretty simple: Oreo cookies fly into the air. One swipe twists the tops off. The…
By Mike Fahey Published November 26, 2012 -
Culture
The Week in Games: Blank Friday
For the rest of the year, the major release calendar is looking at Far Cry 3 on Dec. 4 and Hawken on Dec. 12, which means this week—the Tuesday after Black Friday—is looking at very little in the way of new releases. Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault is the big name leading the lineup.…
By Owen Good Published November 25, 2012 -
Culture
Sunday Comics: The Kitchen Sink
Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. ActionTrip by Borislav Grabovic and Ure Paul published Nov. 17.—Read more of ActionTrip Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Nov. 19.—Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!!…
By Owen Good Published November 25, 2012 -
Culture
This Week in the Business: ‘Nintendo Has Set Up the Wii U for Failure.’
What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “Nintendo has set up the Wii U for failure.”—Dan Hsu, editor in chief of GamesBeat, talking along with journalists and analysts about the mixed critical reception to the Nintendo’s launch of the Wii U STAT | $500 million—Amount that Call of…
By Steve Peterson Published November 24, 2012 -
Culture
Whatever You Do, Don’t Look Down
David Smit is a concept artist with a ton of experience working in video games, from stints with studios like Guerilla Games (Killzone 2) and Crytek (Project: Ryse). He’s now a freelancer, who in addition to his video game work has also provided art for clients like Adidas and Playboy. If you like what you…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 23, 2012 -
Culture
Happy Thanksgiving, Here’s Some Pin-Up Girls vs Zombies vs Clowns
Damian Schouweiler, of BioWare, works at the company’s social division, meaning he’s contributed to games like Age of Champions, from which all of today’s images originate. In the past, however, he’s been employed at places like Trion and Sony Online Entertainment, where he helped out on Legends of Norrath, Everquest 2, RIFT and the Untold…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 22, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
A Gentleman’s Reading Collection Should Always Begin With Duke Nukem
That up there isn’t some joke image someone tossed up on Tumblr. It’s a real photo, taken from the Library of Congress’ video game collection, and it features vintage strategy guides, rebound and preserved for the ages. The image was taken from a recent in-house interview held on the Library’s site, which goes into detail…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 20, 2012 -
Culture
It’s a Dark, Lonely Frontier In Assassin’s Creed III
William Wu is a concept artist, formerly of Ubisoft, who spent two years of his life drawing fantastic images of colonial America for the just-released Assassin’s Creed III Prior to his work at Ubisoft, Wu was employed at Intel, where he was involved in the ill-fated Project Offset. If you like what you see, you…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 20, 2012 -
Culture
Burger King’s Gingerbread Cookie Shake: The Angry Snacktaku Non-Review
One of my favorite flavors in the entire world is the warm and spicy snap of gingerbread. The taste instantly transports me back to my childhood, to the warm glow of Christmas lights, the scent of pine and the safe feeling of being surrounded by people that love me. People unlike the folks working at…
By Mike Fahey Published November 19, 2012 -
Culture
Free Wii U With $5,000 Box of Twinkies? Now There’s a Bargain.
Why spend a ridiculous amount of cash on one thing that’s not as scarce as people think it is when you can get two in one stupid eBay auction? Sent to us by reader Chris, this timely twofer combines the joy of milking a potential Christmas Wii U shortage with the chance that Hostess will…
By Mike Fahey Published November 19, 2012 -
Culture
The Week in Games: Say U, Say Wii
The Wii U’s release opened a floodgate of new releases today, and also made about a dozen early launches on the new console finally playable. Tuesday returns things more to normal, with Hitman: Absolution arriving on consoles and Assassin’s Creed III coming to PC. Kotaku thanks our bargain-hunting watchdogs Dealzon for assembling The Week in…
By Owen Good Published November 18, 2012 -
Culture
Sunday Comics: A Lot Harder Than It Looks
Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Nov. 12.—Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published Nov. 16.—Read more of Nerf NOW!! Penny Arcade by…
By Owen Good Published November 18, 2012 -
Culture
This Week in the Business: ‘There is a Dark Underbelly to Xbox Live.’
What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “There is a dark underbelly to Xbox Live.”—Rob Fahey, former editor of GamesIndustry.biz, talking about what can be done to rescue Xbox Live and online gaming from abusive bullies QUOTE | “The idea that Microsoft would make a game console was…
By Steve Peterson Published November 17, 2012