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Kotaku’s Biggest Gaming Culture News For The Week November 18, 2023
18.11.2023
From mergers to memes, the landscape of interactive entertainment is always in motion. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.Read more
Former Mass Effect Lead Forms New Studio To Make Narrative-Focused Games
16.11.2023
Chinese publisher NetEase is opening a new studio with the lead writer behind the Mass Effect series at the helm.Read more
Devolver Digital Just Set A Precedent More Studios Should Follow
19.10.2023
Occasionally, in times of crisis, gaming studios and publishers have worked to raise funds for people in dire need of humanitarian aid. Last year, for instance, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red contributed to a fund for victims of the war in Ukraine, and Fortnite publisher Epic Games...
Upcoming Star Wars Game Has No Game Over, 'Anyone Can Die'
22.9.2023
Since Star Wars Eclipse was first revealed two years ago, we’ve seen and heard little about the next game from Quantic Dream, the developer behind Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human. However, the devs behind the game have revealed that as in the studio’s previous adventures, Eclipse’s storyline...
I Can't Tell These Anime RPGs Apart But They Both Look Rad
24.8.2023
Whenever a gaming event like Gamescom rolls around, I wait with bated breath for an action role-playing game with stylish combat, fashionable characters, and a litany of anime action sequences to make my head explode in excitement. And Gamescom, like Prometheus descending Mount Olympus, delivered...
Report: Embracer's $2 Billion Deal That Blew Up Was With Saudi Arabia
14.8.2023
Embracer Group, the Swedish holding company that’s been buying up everything from Borderlands maker Gearbox Entertainment to the rights to The Lord of the Rings, saw its stock plummet earlier this year when a mystery $2 billion deal collapsed at the last minute. Axios now reports that the partner...
Overwatch 2 Is Steam’s Worst-Rated Game, But It’s Complicated
14.8.2023
Overwatch 2 is, by far, the worst rated game on Steam, and developer Blizzard’s messy breakup with China in 2022 is, in part, responsible for it. Read more
The Overwatch League As We Know It Is Dead
19.7.2023
Things are looking dire for the Overwatch League (OWL), the competitive esports scene built around Blizzard’s popular hero shooter, as the company laid off some 50 employees on July 18.Read more
Yakuza Games Scrub A Bunch Of People From The Credits, Including Series Creator Toshihiro Nagoshi
27.6.2023
The Yakuza Complete Series dropped on retailer Good Old Games last week, bundling the first seven games in the franchise in the one offering. It is a great deal, but fans testing out the release to see if there was anything different about it have turned up something weird.Read more
What It Looks Like When A $2 Billion Gaming Deal Collapses Overnight
24.5.2023
Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors looked dejected during his gaming conglomerate’s latest earnings presentation. Despite recently acquiring the gaming studios behind Deus Ex and Tomb Raider at a bargain, Dead Island 2 releasing to strong sales and good reviews, and now owning the rights to The Lord...
Fans Are Already Revolting Against AI That Make Their Games Feel Cheap And Soulless
12.4.2023
Despite all the discourse about what effects that AI will have on game development, we don’t have to speculate about what can happen. We can just take a look at how AI is transforming game development in China right now. A combination of AI adaptation and regulatory setbacks have reportedly caused...
Activision Blizzard May Have Pulled Out Of China Over Messy Miscommunication
29.3.2023
Last November, Activision Blizzard made a shocking decision when it suddenly ended its partnership with Netease, the company which brought games like Overwatch and World of Warcraft to China, after 14 years. Now we know why. According to the New York Times, Netease suggested it could sway Chinese...
Bobby Kotick Is Stoking Chinese Fear To Champion The Microsoft Acquisition
8.2.2023
In order to ease UK regulators’ reluctance to approve the Microsoft acquisition, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick went on CNBC to make a case for the merger. His comments about the UK becoming “Death Valley” if the merger was not approved have earned him well-deserved ridicule. But maybe...
NetEase Dissolves Team That Maintained Blizzard Games In China
13.1.2023
Back in November, Blizzard and NetEase ended their 14-year partnership to bring the Warcraft developer’s games to China. Now, it sounds like the NetEase team that handled the company’s games has been dissolved completely.Read more
The Ben Brode Creator Interview
12.1.2023
Marvel Snap is just shy of three months old, and it’s fair to say it’s been a success. While the exact number of users hasn’t been shared, Google Play reports over five million downloads, even before you include iOS numbers. And with such popularity comes great scrutiny. Why are the store prices...
2022 Was The Year The Video Game Industry Ate Itself
6.12.2022
The video game industry went on a shopping spree in 2021. Epic Games bought Mediatonic (Fall Guys), Sony bought Housemarque (Returnal), and Embracer bought Gearbox (Borderlands). It seemed like things might slow down in 2022, but instead they ramped up even more into an acquisition free-for-all....
Report: Big Game Companies Like Square Enix And Roblox Are Ignoring Climate Change
23.11.2022
AfterClimate, a research and consultancy business “on a mission to decarbonise the games industry”, have this week published the results of their “game industry net zero 2022 snapshot”, a report that takes a detailed look at how most of the world’s biggest video game companies are responding to...
Blizzard Games Are Disappearing From China Thanks To 'A Jerk'
17.11.2022
NetEase, the service provider Overwatch creators Blizzard have been using to bring its games to China for the last 14 years, is ending several licenses with the developer. Overwatch 2, Diablo III, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm will no longer receive service...
China’s Metaverse Gaming Market Might Explode to Over $100 Billion According to JPMorgan
14.9.2022
Analysts from JPMorgan believe that the metaverse gaming market could explode in China even with the current state of regulation, which presents certain difficulties for adoption. Companies like Tencent, Netease, and Bilibili are JPMorgan’s picks when it comes to taking advantage of this...
Head Of Halo Infinite Studio Is The Latest To Leave
12.9.2022
For as long as 343 Industries has existed, Bonnie Ross has been in charge of it. No longer. The Microsoft veteran announced on Monday that she would leave the studio in charge of Halo Infinite to deal with a family medical issue. It’s the latest high-profile departure on a pivotal Xbox game that...