Counter-Strike Players Banned Mid-Match For Cheating During Qualifiers

The open qualifiers for the upcoming Eleague Boston Major have been marred by a number of issues, including a sudden spree of cheating bans. Several players have received bans mid-match for supposedly using cheating software to gain an edge on fellow competitors. In the below clip, you can see in the chat log as one…

Which Dragon Ball Game Is Your Favorite?

One of the most prolific game series in existence despite being licensed, Dragon Ball has seen its fair share of the good, the bad, and the why did they even bother. Due out early next year, Dragon Ball FighterZ might well end up being one of the series’ best releases to-date. With everyone focused on…

The Best Minecraft Sculptures Continue To Impress

The piece above, called “The Perfect Marionette,” took first place in a recent Minecraft sculpture contest, reminding us that not only are games art, they can also be amazing platforms for creating it. Dr. Bond’s entry took about four days to complete and was based around the idea of human achievement. Rather than try to…

Blizzard’s Latest Plan To Get Hearthstone Players To Meet Up Is Flawed

This week, Blizzard announced that they’d be releasing a new playable Hearthstone hero called Nemsy Necrofizzle. The catch? It’s only available for players who participate in difficult-to-reach LAN-type events called Fireside Gathering Taverns. This has annoyed some players, but it’s also shown that Blizzard still hasn’t figured out a good scheme to encourage more in-person…

We’re playing the Switch port of Stardew Valley right now on Twitch. Time to harvest blueberries and romance the artist who lives by the lake.

The Weekend In Esports: Hearthstone Summer Championship And Rocket League Regional Playoffs 

Welcome back! While the Worlds 2017 Group Stage finishes up overnight, the top players in Hearthstone will be grinding their way through the HTC Summer Championship in California. Russian wunderkind Pavel Beltukov is already in the quarterfinals, and will be looking for revenge after a dismal showing in the Winter Championship. Also look out for…

Team SoloMid Comes Up Short At League Worlds 2017

Only one hope left for North American League of Legends fans. After being given the “group of life” for the League of Legends World Championships, Team SoloMid was knocked out of group D in a tiebreaker last night. To rub a little salt in the wound, it was European team Misfits that took the win…

Valve Responds To Debate Over Third-Party Dota 2 Tournament Streams

As the 2018 Dota 2 season kicks off, controversy had already begun to swirl around streamers who broadcast or commentate matches from tournaments they aren’t running. While Valve has responded to the issue, the answers ended up being more vague than some had hoped. In a blog post last night titled “Broadcasting Dota 2,” Valve…

This Week In The Business: Much Ado About Loot Boxes

STAT | 25% – Amount of PC game revenue in 2016 that was generated by the sale of additional content like DLC and loot boxes, according to Digital River. The monetization service company believes the games-as-a-service trend has tripled the overall gaming industry’s value. QUOTE | “We think of it as a similar principle to…

A Game About Deciding What Is (And Is Not) Soup

What makes soup qualify as soup? Must it be liquid? What if it’s frozen? Need it be edible, or can it contain rocks or batteries? Those are the kinds of heady philosophical questions posed by Something Something Soup Something Something Something Soup Something is a free browser game made by Italian philosopher and game designer…

Friday The 13th‘s Big Update Makes The Game Feel New Again

For fans of all things Jason Voorhees, any Friday the 13th on the calendar is a time for celebration, and today is no exception. With a physical release on shelves today and free DLC for all players, the studio behind Friday the 13th: The Game is helping ensure that the campfires around Crystal Lake are…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for seriously not being sick anymore, seriously. Also, video games. As ever, I will attempt to play The Witcher 3 then get distracted doing something else. Will this be the Overwatch even where I win something other than junk? (No. No, it will not.) What about you? What are you playing?

Loot Boxes Are Designed To Exploit Us

The influx of randomized loot boxes into games like Shadow of War and Star Wars Battlefront II has kicked off a discussion about their inclusion in games. Discussions of multiplayer imbalance and blocked off game content ignore an important truth: loot boxes are an ethical problem. They exist largely to exploit players and create addicts.…

Abandoned Television Earns Smash Competition A Bomb Squad Visit

It’s an unfortunate truth of our imperfect world that security concerns arise whenever a significant group of people gather in a centralized area. Competitive gaming tournaments are no different, but a uniquely Super Smash Bros. situation arose at a major event last weekend thanks to a piece of dated hardware that continues to be necessary…

Popular Battlegrounds Streamer Apologizes After Falsely Accusing Player Of Hacking

Shroud, one of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ most popular streamers, isn’t somebody who loses very often. A former Counter-Strike pro, he’s rarely outsmarted or outgunned. It’s not uncommon to see would-be rivals try to level the playing field with hacks. Every once in a while, he calls out cheaters on stream. Recently, however, he seems to have…