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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 increasing irrelevancy of video game journalists Being good at games is now political. Is this a sign of the end times?
Arming the citizens of GTA V leads to absolute chaos Modders have patched in the 'Crazy Peds' cheat from San Andreas.
Woke at the GDC The Game Developers Conference is now about how games are to blame for every social ill — real or imagined.
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Blizzard employee reveals demoralization & drama inside “out of touch” company in massive leak Chaos and widespread demoralization inside dev of the formerly "too big to fail" MMO World of Warcraft.
An anonymous user claiming to work at Blizzard yesterday posted a massive letter to 4chan about the state of the sinking ship that is World of Warcraft. The letter shines a light on the demoralization happening inside the company as well as blaming “social justice” and a “too big to fail” mindset for choices made there in relation to World of Warcraft, which is leaking players like a sieve. The letter is generally thought to be authentic among the thousands of gamers who have discussed it on 4chan and social media like Twitter. Former WoW team lead Mark ‘Grummz’ Kern also reposted the letter and said it rings true based…
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J. B. Harold: the 20-million-selling game series you’ve never heard of With their labyrinthine plots and adult themes, the J.B. Harold games drummed up huge sales in Japan. But despite their success, they never made it to Europe.
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.”
Eleven years on, Resident Evil 4 is still a masterpiece What makes a game that’s as campy as Rocky Horror shine.
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The people obsessed with uncovering gaming’s deepest, darkest secrets For some, playing a video game to completion isn’t enough. They want to reveal the secrets behind its creation.
This article was originally published March 2016. For some, playing a video game to completion isn’t enough. They want to reveal the secrets behind its creation. Turning their fevered gaze towards cut content and cancelled games, these individuals assemble in online communities, their goal being to uncover fresh information about our favourite games and the abandoned titles we never got to play. Unseen64 is one such community. Started by a group of Italian friends in 2001, the website has grown into an international venture, staffed by volunteers from all around the globe. These volunteers are responsible for scouring the web for news about unfinished and rejected games, to archive for…
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The state of health Nobody wants to die. But were games more fun when we still could?
“Taiwan #1!” AngryPug hilariously trolls Chinese H1Z1 cheater "Japan number two, China number four!"
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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ESA doxes over 2,000 journalists and content creators attending E3 The accidentally released excel sheet contains names, e-mails, phone numbers, and addresses.
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has doxxed over 2,000 E3 media attendees by accidentally posting a list containing their sensitive personal data. The excel sheet, first revealed by independent game journalist Sophia Narwitz, contains the names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and private residences of media attendees ranging from journalists to content creators. It has been available online and linked to on a publicly viewable page on ESA’s website since the most recent E3 in June, and only 404’d after Narwitz contacted the ESA to inform them of the privacy breach. We can confirm that at the time of posting, the list remains publicly available on archive websites. According to a…
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The Mission: the most bizarre soccer game ever made "Once you have acquired the ball it is used as your main weapon against the Ninjas."
Finish Him! The innovative violence that fueled Mortal Kombat’s success A journey from its start as a failed experiment to re-birth as a predestined success built by the vision and innovation of its Midway Games developers.
Before Old Kratos, there was PSP Kratos How Ready at Dawn humanized Kratos a decade before the recent God of War did.
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Diablo creator David Brevik spills the beans on Blizzard A noticeably drunk Brevik joins increasing number of former employees speaking out about the issues at Blizzard.
There’s no one else in the world who would know more about the company than the executives who used to work there, and they are now speaking out about the issues at Blizzard. The studio has come under fire for its treatment of its fans following the announcement of Diablo Immortal — a mobile game that no one in the Diablo community asked for. As I described in my previous video, the studio has come into the habit of burning its bridges with the community by focusing on making money and less on delivering quality products. Blizzard appears to have lost its way, and the reason why has been elaborated…
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Development hell: 12 funny tales from game dev history There was a time when lax employment legislation meant development teams could be locked in the office overnight.
Why you pay what you pay for video games We can often feel short-changed when it comes to buying video games, especially in the UK. So what exactly determines what you pay?
What do you do after you’ve made one of the world’s most successful games? King was bought for $5.9 billion by Activision last year. It has two of the most successful games in the world right now. Where can it go from here?
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Inside the troubled development of Star Citizen After five years, more than $124 million in fan funding and nothing close to a finished game, Star Citizen has become a lightning-rod for controversy. What’s really been going on?
For the past seven months, I’ve been talking to the people who have been making Star Citizen. This includes its directors, a number of anonymous sources who’ve worked on it, and the man who drives the whole project: Chris Roberts. From the outside, Star Citizen appears to have been wildly successful; to date, it has raised more than $124 million from passionate fans. The money has allowed its developer, Cloud Imperium Games, to open studios around the world and employ more than 325 talented developers. Behind the closed doors of CIG’s studios, however, it’s been far from an easy ride, according to staff. They have all faced a unique challenge:…
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The state of health Nobody wants to die. But were games more fun when we still could?
No, game journos, Grand Theft Auto doesn’t make you sexist False interpretations of already worthless and pseudoscientific studies. But hey — narrative.
Metroid Prime like you’ve never seen it before An extract from the new issue of Heterotopias.
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How an activist subverted the Mega Man franchise Leaked chat logs vindicate Mighty No. 9 fans.
Gamers are right to temper their expectations for new games. Given how disappointing some of the most overhyped titles, like the recent No Man’s Sky, have been, the cynicism is warranted. But no one expects a game they’re looking forward to playing to become subverted with notions of “social justice.” Action games like Mega Man have never imparted any sort of political message apart from overly simplistic notions of good versus evil—standard video game stuff. Fans enjoyed these games not just for their gameplay, but for their simplicity in storytelling and straightforward design. When Mighty No. 9 was announced in mid-2013 as a spiritual sequel to the Mega Man series…
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Hardware limitations are holding back Final Fantasy’s butt sliders Naoki Yoshida: "You all really like butts, don't you?"
No Man’s Sky versus the actual universe: a scientific inquiry Time for some mind-blowing space facts.
Leave me alone: speaking out against the rise of co-op The once separate worlds of singleplayer and multiplayer are merging – but there's nothing wrong with playing alone.
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The No Man’s Sky leak is a darkly amusing outragefest A leaker’s early review dashed hopes for those who expected No Man’s Sky to be the gaming messiah.
No Man’s Sky fans, to put it lightly, have been quite spirited surrounding the release of the innovative space explorer. When the game’s creator, Sean Murray, previously announced delays, he was bombarded with death threats along with a Kotaku reporter who wrote about it. No Man’s Sky fans have projected ungodly levels of hype onto a game they knew little about, as the game appears to offer a completely unique procedurally generated gameplay experience, something extremely rare for major releases. And now with a little over a week before the game will finally be available to the hordes of rabid fans, leaked copies are creating all sorts of drama. More death threats, denial, a whole…
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The best (worst) Watch Dogs multiplayer trolls Watch Dogs online has been designed to drive you nuts and here's a compilation of some amazing moments.
The best action games of the 2000s Classic action titles that you should make a point of finding some time to try at least once.
Hardware limitations are holding back Final Fantasy’s butt sliders Naoki Yoshida: "You all really like butts, don't you?"
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Mortal Kombat has kept a secret for three decades That's... a long time to keep a secret. Huh.
Mortal Kombat, the game from 1992, had hidden a secret menu from us all until late in 2015. Now that’s some pretty subtle secret-keeping skills for a series so utterly lacking in subtlety. It’s a developer menu present on Mortal Kombat, as well as its sequels Mortal Kombat 2, 3 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, accessed on the arcade versions by inputting a sequence of button presses. The long-hidden dev menus allows such fun things as checking the arcade machine is running all nice and funky-like, a ‘hello’ shout-out screen and the ability to watch each and every character’s ending at the push of a button. I likely would have…
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Nintendo needs to wake up and realize it’s a video game company The biggest problem Nintendo has is understanding that the internet exists, and there are many useful things on it that could help it out.
From EA QA to Pokémon Go and beyond: the incredible career of E. Daniel Arey He's helped design some of gaming's greatest successes, and is just getting started.
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."
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A conspiracy of silence: How NDAs are harming the games industry Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) have long been a fact of doing business in video games - but their enforcement can have wide-ranging, negative effects.
Big business likes to talk on its own terms, in video games as elsewhere. Announcements about upcoming games are delivered according to strict marketing schedules, while the biggest publishers only allow their developers to discuss their work with both the press and the public within very specific timeframes. To prevent information leaks outside of approved timeslots, most big developers require their employees to sign non-disclosure agreements, usually referred to as NDAs. These legal contracts prohibit developers from external discussion of a project without prior permission. Giving an unsolicited interview, letting slip information on social media, or even discussing a project with friends over drinks, can potentially result in punitive action against the…
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10 fighting game characters that are definitely furries There are some hardcore furries out there in fighting game rosters, and I've put them on a list.
J. B. Harold: the 20-million-selling game series you’ve never heard of With their labyrinthine plots and adult themes, the J.B. Harold games drummed up huge sales in Japan. But despite their success, they never made it to Europe.
It’s alive! How the last decade of horror cinema is influencing indie games The cinematic genre's margins are violently expanding and contracting, and videogames are learning from the best examples.
