Sons Of Anarchy Game Adaptation Has ‘No Traction,’ But That’s Better Than Being ‘A Piece of Shit Like Game of Thrones‘ Says Creator

Done right, the well regarded FX biker gang series Sons of Anarchy would seem to be a natural fit for a game adaptation. It’s got guns, violence, antiheroes and a natural open-world setting. Doing it right, however, takes a lot of money and commitment. That is is why the series is getting “NO TRACTION” toward…

Epic Confirms Three More People Fly from Gears of War: Judgment

People Can Fly, the Poland-based studio behind 2011’s Bulletstorm and the upcoming Gears of War: Judgment, said goodbye to creative director Adrian Chmielarz (pictured) and two top artists today, according to Gears developer Epic Games and Chmielarz himself. “Gears fans, you’re going to love Judgment. It’s in great hands,” Chmielarz said via Twitter about 1…

Catch the Pokémon World Championships Live This Evening

For the first time in tournament history, the Pokémon World Championships will livestream the both its trading card and video game final rounds in the Masters’ Division. You can see the action here, beginning at 8 p.m. EDT, and you can check the final round pairings here. Pokémon World Championships 2012 [Official Site]

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: The Kitchen Sink

Gang, we’ve gotta save this marriage. The Kotaku ‘Shop Contest has been publishing every week for more than 2 1/2 years, and let’s face it, the thing is in trouble. We haven’t had a full 20 in the finalist pool for more than a month. I can blame myself for uninteresting exploitables; you can blame…

This ‘Airport Virtual Assistant’ Looks Like the Ancestor of Avina from Mass Effect

Meet AVA, a hologram projected onto a human-sized piece of plexiglass. The idea is that AVA, at some time, will respond to questions, offer answers, and provide reliable guidance in multiple languages to travelers who have just landed and need help orienting themselves and understanding local services. Sound familiar? Sounds to me like Avina, the…

Sunday Comics: It’s Not Stealing, It’s Copying

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 Aug. 6.—Read more of Penny Arcade Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Aug. 6.—Read more of Awkward Zombie…

Team Fortress 2‘s Gray Mann Surfaces as Signs Point to All-Robot Faction [Update]

Diehard Team Fortress 2 fans have spent all weekend sleuthing out Friday’s tease, in which a “Gray Mann” is revealed to be the brother of Redmond and Blutarch Mann, owners of the game’s RED and BLU teams. Tons of evidence suggest this is going to mean the introduction of a robot faction, which Valve itself…

Talk Amongst Yourselves is where you should go to talk about video games. And life. And seasoned curly fries.

Someone’s Trying to Sell an “XBOX Durango Development Kit” on eBay [Update]

An eBay seller is attempting to offload what they’re calling a “Microsoft XBOX Durango Development Kit”. At time of posting, a bid of $425 will get you out front with a chance to buy it. Interestingly, the seller’s name is “superdae”, which matches the handle of the person who, last week, was claiming to have…

Crowning King Gary: The Winners

Decked out in plate mail fashioned from Nintendo 64 consoles and cartridges, Gary, King of the N64, certainly looked regal at Otakon 2012. His background, however, seemed kind of stale and bland. We handed Gary over to our smart ‘shoppers to put him in more heroic, noble or leaderly circumstances, and we’ve got this week’s…

All-Star Athlete Rehabs Knee by Using a Leg Press as a Video Game Controller

Wiihabilitation is so 2008 and, yes, Adrian Peterson of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings is doing some of that as he tries to come back from a devastating injury in American football—the torn anterior cruciate ligament. But what’s more interesting here is Peterson has a custom set of exergames to go along with ski jumping on…

Fake Gun, Fake Currency, Real Jail Time Figure in Alleged Runescape Robbery [Corrected]

A 19-year-old Fordham University student is looking at 15 years in the slammer after allegedly putting a BB gun to the head of a classmate Fordham University student and demanding that 4.7 billion Runescape coins be transferred to his character, reports the New York Post [Correction] An earlier version of this story misidentified the suspect…

Zynga Tries to Prevent a ‘Mass Exodus’ with More Stock Options

Zynga’s stock has gone down, and gone down hard, plunging to $2.95 a share since late July, a drop that spawned a shareholder lawsuit and gave a top executive the heave-ho. Sensing that some employees might follow him out the door willingly, Zynga took the unusual step of offering free stock to everyone, Bloomberg reports.…

Jet Set Radio arrives 9/18 on PSN, 9/19 on Xbox Live and Steam, and 10/16 for the Vita. Price is $9.99 for all versions.

Paul Steed, Artist on Wing Commander and Quake Series, Dies

Paul Steed, an artist whose video game career spanned design, publishing and even console development, died unexpectedly, according to The Jace Hall Show. Steed was perhaps best known for work on Wing Commander and Quake and also for controversies arising in his time ad id Software. Steed was most recently the executive creative director of…

Google’s Olympic Doodles: The Kotaku Sort-of Review

As the 2012 Olympics come to a conclusion this weekend, Google this week released four playable versions of its famous doodle, the company’s logo on its minimalist front page. The doodles today returned to static illustrations of Olympic events, apparently ending the series of games. So I figured I’d give them all a good playthrough…

This Week in the Business: ‘Social and Freemium is Not Where Gaming is Headed.’

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “Social and freemium is not where gaming is headed.”—Jack Tretton, head of SCEA, talking about Sony’s rough times and how the console business will be better than ever QUOTE | “Madden did not have the level of innovation that some of…

After Learning It Was Copied From Another Game, Dota 2 Gives a Mace the Axe

Some 25,000 players who had bought a community-created weapon within Dota 2 discovered a new item in their inventories after Valve learned it had been copied directly from the MMO Aion Valve brought this up on its Steam Workshop blog, probably because 25,000 people noticed they no longer had “Timebreaker,” a popular user-created mace that…

The Moneysaver: New Dogs and Old Tricks

Sleeping Dogs arrives on Tuesday along with Darksiders 2; the only considerations these two games are getting are bonus credits. NCAA Football 13 led the retail sales lists in July but not enough, and now is cut to $41. Those three plus more than 50 other deals, bonuses and savings await in this week’s Moneysaver…

The Best of Kotaku, This Week

Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week’s best content. My, my, Mario. You’re looking quite dapper. That look is really working for you. Big thanks to Adam Marton, aka chaos13, for coming up with it. And to Corey for finding it. Moving on to our Best Of content…