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Former WoW Team Leader: “This won’t stop. WoW gamers are leaving for good. “ Mark 'Grummz' Kern acknowledges explosive leak and writes about failures of AAA culture and why World of Warcraft is dying.
[Editor’s note: On July 11th, an anonymous user claiming to work at Blizzard posted a massive letter about the state of the sinking ship that is World of Warcraft. People generally seeing the leak as authentic now have even more reasons to hold that belief, because Mark Kern, the former team lead for the celebrated classic era of WoW, has reposted the leak and commented that it rings true. He also in reply posted his own perspectives and experiences and elaborated on what’s happening at Blizzard.] Supposedly this is Blizzard leak about the current state of WoW. It may not be legit, but the attitude described about monetization and how…
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The weirdest fighting games of all time Most fighting games have some degree of strangeness to them, but there are those who are downright bizarre.
Turn your Excel spreadsheet into an RPG with Arena.Xlsm Just because you’re stuck in Excel all day doesn’t mean you can’t do some questing.
17 years ago today, a wild Pikachu virus appeared! W32.Pokey.Worm was not very effective...
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Why Final Fantasy 7 is (still) unstoppable 25 years since its release, the cultural phenomenon is still generating headlines.
Search “Final Fantasy 7” on YouTube and some of the titles coming back at you read “The Life Changing Impact of Final Fantasy VII,” “What Made Final Fantasy 7 A BIG DEAL?” and “Why FFVII Is So Important To So Many People” – and videos along this theme have hundreds of thousands of views. There is no denying the impact of FF7 on its fans. And, in fact, 25 years since its release, the original PlayStation and Square masterpiece is still generating headlines. There is no denying that the game has also made a cultural impact. Apart from the multiple spin-off gaming appearances, movies, remakes and merchandise, the story of…
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The largest ever MMO battle—3000 players!—was an accident Someone forgot to pay rent, resulting in a space battle involving over 3000 players and $300k worth of the game's currency gone forever.
Ventrilo Harassment: Duke Nukem (Balls of Steel) The funniest Ventrilo harassment video ever produced.
10 Xbox things to remember on Xbox’s 15th anniversary Did you know the console was almost called 'Odyssey of the Mind'? Really.
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Hardware limitations are holding back Final Fantasy’s butt sliders Naoki Yoshida: "You all really like butts, don't you?"
The director of Final Fantasy XIV says hardware limitations are keeping characters’ bums smaller than their players want. In an interview with Gamespot, Naoki Yoshida explained the work that would have to go in to butt customization. The issue dates back to FF14’s Nier: Automata crossover, where a character outfit based on 2B had a larger behind than other characters, which caused clipping problems with certain animations. That model had its butt shrunk down, but community backlash caused Yoshida’s team to reverse its decision. Additional information about the 2B outfit in FFXIV, it fucking increases the size of your character's ass. Taro you madman. pic.twitter.com/WatsfMIDmj — Buttons Montgomery (@HBJohnXuandou) October 29, 2019 pic.twitter.com/WShEmjawV4 — Dace…
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You can now play 10,000 Amiga games in your browser for free, on archive.org Take a nostalgia trip with some real retro classics.
Why Zelda dungeons are so great Let's dig into how the dungeons work so well with Mark Brown's great crash-course.
Repetition as a feature: gaming’s best groundhog days When repetition is used as a narrative technique, it can be super effective.
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The heartbreaking story of how one man spent $16k on Final Fantasy and nearly lost his family Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius' combining of characters that people love with gacha-esque monetization can end up going very badly.
Everyone knows that Square Enix’s favorite activity is milking Final Fantasy. And fair enough, the fans love it too — for the most part. Personally I find the ‘extended universe’ of Final Fantasy a bit of a turn-off, and I suspect others do too, which is why Square Enix increasingly focuses on bringing its most iconic characters into any new title – such as the announcement, a few days ago, of Cloud coming to Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. Good old nostalgia, eh? Thing is, when you combine characters that people love with a gacha-esque monetization model, which is what Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius does, it can end up going very…
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5 plot twists that would have made great games even better When done right, a twist can be truly spectacular. Here's what they should have done...
Maps that matter: how to build great multiplayer FPS maps We spoke with a group of top game designers and covered just about everything about making maps people want to play again and again.
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Love in a time of Warcraft Sarah found herself cast as the Yoko Ono of WoW, being blamed for the dissolution of what has been a successful raiding guild.
Heidi met John playing Final Fantasy XIV. They were part of the same Free Company, and would often help each other out with quests. Getting to know each other, the pair soon realized they had plenty in common, and began to spend more time together. “Seeing his name light up when he logged on brought a huge smile to my face,” says Heidi. John later tells me that he spent weeks carrying his laptop around at work or college on the off-chance she signed in. Eventually, John drove from Tennessee to North Carolina to meet Heidi in person. They spent a week together in which time they realized they weren’t…
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It’s time to admit that Ocarina of Time sucks Ocarina of Time is responsible for many awful trends that, like a bad cold, games have been unable to shake. Here's the case against Ocarina of Time.
The video games about nothing Seinfeld is famously a show about nothing, but indie developers continue to find plenty of something to work with.
No, game journos, Grand Theft Auto doesn’t make you sexist False interpretations of already worthless and pseudoscientific studies. But hey — narrative.
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Year in Review: 2016’s biggest freakouts over video games A shortlist of all the video games moral crusaders lost their minds over in 2016.
From sexy clothing to political references, no video game is without sin when you’re on an eternal search for content to be outraged by. The moral crusaders, who embed themselves firmly within the games press, blast their outrage to millions in the form of “hot takes” across social media and video game publications. Here are some of the many things they lost their minds over in 2016. Tracer’s Pose in Overwatch Given that Overwatch has one of the most diverse casts in any game, you’d think social justice warriors would love it. They do, to the extent that people who shoot at health packs can enjoy a video game – but…
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The many, bizarre emotions of FIFA 15’s emotion engine Thanks to FIFA 15’s new Emotional Intelligence, all 22 players on the pitch can now employ 600 new emotional reactions. It's... not always the most natural-looking thing.
The making of Until Dawn The story behind one of the best horror games of recent times.
The worst (best) ads in early video game history We remember some horrific advertising campaigns in gaming.
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Are Final Fantasy XV fans sexist pigs? Check your ‘toxic masculinity’ at the door, gaming fans.
Like many other popular, highly anticipated games, Final Fantasy XV is no stranger to controversy. First announced in 2006 as a spin-off title to the Final Fantasy cycle, it was repeatedly delayed and endured a complete overhaul before a demo was released last year. As the first Final Fantasy to feature an all-male main cast, Final Fantasy XV has suffered through no small amount of outrage and criticism. The upcoming title features four male leads who go on a road trip and fight fascist stormtroopers along the way. Dressed up like members of an edgy, leather-clad J-Rock boy band, the four must discover what it means to become heroes and…
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How great puzzle games deconstruct our world The Witness, Gorogoa and Baba Is You reflect the societies they come from.
Why esports needs to ditch online aliases Gaming handles may not be holding esports back now, but it can only harm the scene in the future.
11 franchises that need to rip off Pokemon Go Already popular video games, movies, and other stuff that could—should—jump into the alternate reality world and make bucketloads of money.
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The only way to save Final Fantasy was to change it: talking FF with XV’s Hajime Tabata Final Fantasy XV’s director Hajime Tabata talks about his approach to the series, the necessity of change, and reading the comments.
Final Fantasy is in the midst of a comeback… though of course one shouldn’t call it that. Final Fantasy XIII sold millions and Square-Enix has been doing gangbusters with its various mobile and handheld releases (and re-re-re-releases), but the series’ reputation took a steep dive after XIII and the original version of XIV left fans disappointed. Since then, Square-Enix has taken a rather odd decision for a studio of its size and pedigree and changed things up, making cuts and moving the people around in order to restore the name of Final Fantasy. The key moment when everyone realized Square-Enix was listening to people came back in 2010, when Naoki…
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The world of video game vinyl Down the video game record collection hole.
10 ways to instantly end your streaming career To end—or ignite??—your streaming career, you need to get naked, say naughty words, lie, and cheat.
How ‘Untitled Goose Game’ went from meme sensation to real game House House partner Stuart Gillespie-Cook went into the company’s Slack channel in August of 2016, posted a picture of a goose and wrote “Let’s make a game about this.”
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Sitting down with World of Final Fantasy director Hiroki Chiba We sit down with the man behind the gorgeous-looking Final Fantasy monster collecting game.
At E3, Square Enix unveiled World of Final Fantasy, a monster-collection RPG based on the Final Fantasy series. As a huge fan of Final Fantasy, this is a game I’ve been dreaming of for a long time, and I’m honestly quite surprised it hasn’t happened before now. With the outrageous popularity of games like Pokémon and Yo-Kai Watch, and Final Fantasy’s impressive roster of recognizable critters, it seemed inevitable. I had a chance to sit down with Hiroki Chiba, the director of World of Final Fantasy. Previously, Chiba held scenario writer and event planner roles on the likes of Final Fantasy Type-0, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, and Final…
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25 years later, how Super Metroid came to define a genre It drastically reimagined how people would think about action games, and still shows up on “best game of all time” lists to this day.
5 pixel art games you need to play right now Who doesn't love breezing through a colorful, simplified world that resembles something from their childhood?
What survival games could learn from real-life survival stories If you’ve idly wondered about the everyday lives of your little survivors, Ernest Shackleton’s failed Trans-Antarctic Expedition may prove a treasure chest of enrichment.
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10 biggest influences on video game history Marquee moments that have helped gaming get to where it is today, and laid the groundwork for what we'll hear about in the future.
Gaming, embedded in our culture as it might be, is still a relatively new phenomenon. Invented in 1947, the first videogames weren’t realized in any real way until 1971’s release of Galaxy Game – the first ever arcade machine (first color arcade game? Color Gotcha). This was followed up by the formation of Atari and the release of the Magnavox (the first ever home console system), both in 1972. From there, things moved at an ever increasing speed, while the industry steadily gained attention, notoriety, and value. In the forty years since, gaming has become one of the most important facets of the entertainment industry, with sales expected to tip…
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‘Experiment 12’: the disturbing result of 12 indie devs taking turns to make a game Our look inside the strange chaingame made by 12 different indie developers.
How 007: Everything or Nothing left other third-person games shaken and stirred "Everybody knows who he is and — like him or not — everyone has an idea of what he should be. Your Bond and my Bond — not the same Bond."
The making of Virtual Springfield: a journey through the Simpsons at its peak Remember when The Simpsons was good and VR was futuristic?
