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This is Gabe Newell in His Freshman Year of High School
It’s only his freshman year, that’s why the Valve co-founder and boss hasn’t yet been voted Most Likely to Succeed. Spied by Redditor electrifuzz in his father’s yearbook from Davis (Calif.) Senior High. I discovered today that Gabe Newell went to the same high school at the same time as my dad. They didn’t know…
By Owen Good -
Guild Wars 2 Pays a Lasting Tribute to an Old Warrior
In whatever he chose to play, Roger Rall was a keystone member of his guild, the consummate teammate. As much as reveled in PvP in Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot or Rift, his voice was unmistakably calm, clear and authoritative above the din of the battle. He went by “Oldroar,” and, at 65, he…
By Owen Good -
This Video Game Studio Says No One Can Taste the Difference Between Coke and Pepsi
Oh come on. Come on. Who can’t taste the difference between Coke and Pepsi? Coke is drier and chocolatey…er. Pepsi is sweeter and … fizz…ier? For real, there is a complete and total difference between the two soft drinks, one that developers at Double Fine failed to recognize with any consistency. Come on. Apparently bored…
By Owen Good -
Some Patent Troll is Suing Minecraft and an Ensemble Cast of Big Names
If Mojang and Markus “Notch” Persson, the creator of Minecraft, end up down at a courthouse in east Texas, they’ll probably see some familiar faces. Hell, it might be enough for a quorum of the Game Developers Conference. This morning, Notch tweeted that he awakened and discovered he’d been sued for patent infringement. And while…
By Owen Good -
The Big Winners in the Madden Lawsuit Are, Of Course, Lawyers
Electronic Arts will set up a $27 million fund to settle a class action lawsuit alleging its Madden NFL series was a price-gouging illegal monopoly. To no one’s surprise, the biggest payment out of that will be to lawyers. Terms are subject to a judge’s approval, but the plaintiff’s lawyers have agreed that when they…
By Owen Good -
Those Brain Butchers Mashed Up Total Recall‘s Trailer with Mass Effect
Illusive Man as Cohaagen, Miranda as Lori, Liara as Melina. And Shepard as Quaid. This is the audio from Total Recall‘s 2012 trailer and visuals from the Mass Effect trilogy, by an outfit called Node Studios. They’ve done three other mashups of recognizable trailers since June; this is probably the best of the four. Now,…
By Owen Good -
Savings on the Horizon
Just one upcoming release gets a discount this week, and Walmart is running a combination sale that’s attractive, but the games involved were released last year at the latest. If you’re looking to get a Kinect sensor, refurbished ones can be found cheap. Those savings and nearly 50 others highlight this week’s roundup of deals…
By Owen Good -
The Best of Kotaku, This Week
Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week’s best content. First up is the image above. The recent Team Fortress 2 excitement following the release of Valve’s Filmmaker and the introduction to the Pyro class still hasn’t died down, as evidenced by Donc-Désolé’s creation you see above. Moving on…
By Tina Amini -
One Writer Must Impersonate 13 Twitter Accounts in Madden
The shrewdly conceived “virtual” Twitter feed that will supplying news updates in Madden NFL 13‘s new unified career mode may be fully branded, and use the real names of real NFL insiders, but neither are supplying the actual content. Back in April, I was told that EA Sports hired one guy whose job was to…
By Owen Good -
Madden‘s Exclusive NFL License Survives in $27 Million “Monopoly” Lawsuit Settlement
Madden‘s exclusive license with the NFL emerged unscathed from the $27 million settlement of a four-year-old class action lawsuit alleging that the deal was an illegal monopoly. Though gamers are entitled to some monetary refund if they bought an American football product from EA Sports between 2005 and now, it is a paltry sum—up to…
By Owen Good -
Would You Pay $260 for Xbox Live? Technically, I Just Did
Helplessly watching this sweating man thrust all of his body weight into my bedroom wall, grunting over the whine of the drill, I realized I was seeing and participating in the perfect metaphor for my attempts to connect my Xbox 360 to the Internet in my new home. “Man,” he said, “you’re a real tough…
By Owen Good -
Sorry, Coach. This Video Game Says You’re Getting Fired.
Poor Paul Wulff. I don’t think I played a dynasty season in NCAA Football 12 in which Washington State didn’t fire him. Like clockwork, his name was on the axe list when the annual “Coaching Carousel,” implemented last year, started to spin. He never had a winning season in Pullman and his two Pac-12 victories…
By Owen Good
