Why Video Games Cost So Much To Make

Video game publishers are notoriously secretive about the budgets behind their games, but when a number does slip out, it can be shocking. Games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, which is tough to fathom—until you do the math. While reporting for my recently released…

Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite Could Do Without Story Mode

Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite arrives this week, bringing a revamped two-character tag-team battle system and cinematic storytelling to the long-running crossover series. The fighting is a blast. The storytelling could use some work. Since X-Men Vs. Street Fighter back in 1996, Capcom’s been pitting heroes and villains from Marvel Comics with its own character creations…

Parasite Eve Had More In Common With Final Fantasy Than Horror Games

Square wasn’t pulling punches when they developed their very first M-rated survival horror game, Parasite Eve. In the opening scene, the main character, Aya Brea, attends an opera where the entire audience spontaneously combusts. But what makes Parasite Eve so unique is that it shares more in common with Final Fantasy than it does other…

Nintendo Games Used To Be Released On Japanese PCs

Nintendo characters very rarely appear on non-Nintendo hardware, but that wasn’t always the case. For a few years after the release of the original Famicom in 1983, Nintendo licensed its games to Hudson Soft, which produced versions for the major Japanese PC platforms of the day. As of late, many of the game shops in…

Japan Lines Up For Super Famicom Mini Pre-Orders 

This Saturday, pre-orders for the Classic Mini Super Famicom kicked off in Japan. At stores in Tokyo and Osaka, fans showed up in droves. The Classic Mini Super Famicom comes packed with 21 games, including the never released Star Fox 2. There were lines at stores across the country. At 5:30am on Sunday morning, there…

Misty Sunday Morning. Wilkens Fruit & Fir Farm, NY. By Narelle Ho Sang. 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! 

Here Are A Bunch Of Other Video Game Nipples

Last week the world was shaken by the startling revelation that everyone’s favourite former plumber has nipples. We should have seen this coming, really. Despite some debate, we’ve been told in no uncertain terms that Mario is a human. And the standard configuration of a human includes two nipples. But this revelation raises more questions.…

Old Soldiers Never Die

Victor Quaresma is an artist who works across both video games and animation at visual development studio Volta. You may have recently seen some of his designsin Mass Effect Andromeda. You can see more of Victor’s work athis ArtStation page To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the…

Why Some Video Game Fonts Are Better Than Others

What makes video game fonts look good? And why does Final Fantasy VI’s Steam and iOS text feel so amateurish? Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, we’ve got an expert typographer to give us the answers. First, Kirk and I talk Mario + Rabbids before jumping into news like L.A. Noire Switch(19:54), Apple announcements (25:38), and Pewdiepie’s…

Half-Life 2 Is Being Demade In Half-Life 1’s Engine

While most modders are intent on making 2004’s Half-Life 2 look better, the guys behind Half-Life 2: Classic are doing the opposite: they want to make it look worse The small team of five have released a small playable demo showcasing their work, which transplants the areas and action of Half-Life 2 and rebuilds it…

The Week In Games: Infinite Cross-Over Appeal 

Fall starts later this week. The kids are back at school. And you can once again find Captain America shield-bashing the little tin knight from Ghosts ‘n Goblins I’ll never stop pining for a return to the animated 2D fighters Capcom nailed in the late 90s, but a new Marvel vs. Capcom is better than…

Pickle Rick vs Fallout 4

Here is an incredibly elaborate tribute to Rick & Morty’s Pickle Rick episode (and the third season in general), put together in Fallout 4 by UpIsNotJump, the world’s foremost expert in this kind of business. There is a lot of editing here, but it’s the good kind.

European Counter-Strike Team Dashes North American Hopes In Brutal Three Game Sweep

Fans were excited about the prospect of a Team Liquid upset on home soil after the squad’s triumphant run leading up to the ESL One New York grand finals, but Europe’s FaZe Clan had other plans. For a game dominated so consistently by teams abroad, seeing Team Liquid rally to win the $250,000 prize pool…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Bad Dudes Revival 

The ‘Shop Contest returns this week with a blast from the past as we celebrate a long tradition of really lazy Bad Dudes entries. “You have some pretty bad dudes on the other side,” the President said earlier this week in his latest attempt to “both sides” white nationalism and Nazis. It’s not even the…