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Duck Hunt for a Dollar, ’til Ninty Bags It
A Duck Hunt knockoff for the iPhone and iPod touch is available for 99 cents, but it lacks two key things: Nintendo’s approval, and the Asshole Dog. Venture Beat’s MG Siegler found the app, which calls its emulator the iPES, probably another reason Nintendo’s gonna smash it, as if the dead ripoff quality of gameplay…
By Owen Good -
Valve’s View: Pirates are Customers Too
Speaking this week at a forum on game industry law, Valve’s Jason Holtman said the company views pirates as “underserved customers” and used a win-win anecdote about Russia showing how they deal with them. According to GameDaily, Holtman said all Valve games are released simultaneously in Russia, a market rife with game piracy. The reason:…
By Owen Good -
Chinese Online Gamers Must Now Give Real Names
Two paragraphs is all the China Daily puts to this topic, so I can’t give much context here. But the Chinese government will start “real-name registration” for online game players this year. The item, in the China Daily, also notes that four online game companies had their operations suspended because they did not have “the…
By Owen Good -
EA Sports Offering Immortality to Pryzbylewskis of the World
If you’ve tried to live vicariously through NCAA Football as a big man on campus, but have such a F-ed up last name the announcers only referred to you by number, now’s your chance. EA Sports is asking you to submit your last name and its phonetic pronunciation for inclusion in NCAA Football 2010. Log…
By Owen Good -
Nirvana Bassist Vexed by Own Song on Rock Band
“I knew the bass line to the song, of course, but I couldn’t quite master this new, different way of playing it,” writes Krist Novoselic, bassist for Nirvana, of his encounter with Rock Band 2. Novoselic wrote about confronting a song he’d played hundreds of time – in studio, live, you name it – on…
By Owen Good -
U. of Wisconsin Bulldozes Its Last Arcade
The idea that the University of Wisconsin-Madison is razing its second arcade in as many years isn’t surprising — for-profit arcades are suffering terribly. But demolishing an eight lane bowling alley? In Wisconsin? Jeepers. Wisconsin’s Union South, the campus student union for the past 38 years, is being cleared off to make way for a…
By Owen Good -
Wii Helping Snowbound Schools Make P.E. Fun
Anyone who’s ever lived in upstate New York can imagine the difficulty gym teachers face in winter, when kids simply can’t go outside. Many schools, however, are using the Wii to get kids some exercise. A story in the Post-Star of Glens Falls, N.Y. reports about the mushrooming uses of video games in local schools…
By Owen Good -
“Mortal Kombat Killer” Gets 36 Years
Lamar Roberts, a teenager convicted of beating to death a seven-year-old, will be an old man when he gets out of prison. The so-called “Mortal Kombat Killer” received a 36-year sentence yesterday. The 2007 beating death of Zoe Garcia, 7, was described by prosecutors and law enforcement in Greeley, Colo. as a reenactment of fight…
By Owen Good -
Microsoft Retires Gamerscore Blog
Gamerscore Blog, an important part of Microsoft’s Xbox community outreach for several years, is being retired. Microsoft will now focus that effort through Xbox.com and the Xbox dashboard. In the final post, published yesterday at 5 p.m., Gamerscore said that internal housekeeping had organized community outreach into several channels, making Gamerscore a little redundant, making…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku Originals: Obi-Wat?
Flipping Obi-Wan from good to bad? Is this pro rasslin’? Apparently Free Radical’s decided to turn eternal Force face Ben Kenobi to heel. I’d rather see a bunkhouse stampede with Zuckuss, Porkins, and a Dianoga. The retcon or newcon or noncon or whatever it was that eagle-eyed Crecente spotted in the leaked Battlefront III footage…
By Owen Good -
A Whirled All Its Own
My impressions of Puzzle Pirates developer Three Rings’ new project were colored by the minor car accident I got into on my way to check it out. Escaping into a virtual world was just what I needed after filing an insurance claim in a San Francisco parking lot. I began the process by walking through…
By AJ Glasser