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Lionhead and Gaming's 'Boys Only' Culture
Lionhead and Gaming's 'Boys Only' Culture
Lionhead and Gaming's 'Boys Only' Culture
It’s a story anyone who follows the gaming industry has become familiar with: a corporate Twitter account posted something that may have shown poor judgment. Responses were angry, Tweets were deleted, and an apology was issued. Microsoft’s Lionhead Studios, or the social media manager behind the account, certainly isn’t the first to commit this kind of gaffe, and I have no doubt that it was meant to be a harmless joke. Sadly, when you’re constantly bombarded with imagery that conveys the message that you’re not wanted, it’s not hard to read more into it.
Hotline Miami Jacket Kickstarter Makes the Digital Physical
Hotline Miami Jacket Kickstarter Makes the Digital Physical
Hotline Miami Jacket Kickstarter Makes the Digital Physical
Last August, ESC Toys and Dennaton Games turned to Kickstarter in an attempt to bring the protagonist of Hotline Miami to life in action figure form. The hope was to turn Jacket into a sixth-scale collectible, with all manner of accessories and authentic clothing pulled from the game itself to accompany him. With a fairly modest $60,000 goal, the venture was funded in less than 24 hours, and went on to secure nearly two and a half times its target by the time all was said and done.
How Impact Winter's Kickstarter Failure Became Steam Success
How Impact Winter's Kickstarter Failure Became Steam Success
How Impact Winter's Kickstarter Failure Became Steam Success
In October 2014, a little-known UK indie studio launched a Kickstarter campaign for Impact Winter, a survival RPG described as “Fallout meets Oregon Trail.” It was an ambitious project for the small development team, with the Kickstarter description touting “open-world gameplay with dynamic weather, haunting interiors and fearsome wildlife” on a relatively small budget of £95,000 (around $150,000). One month later, the campaign concluded with Mojo Bones reaching not even a quarter of its fund-raising goal, and that was the last we heard of Impact Winter… until last week, when the project reemerged on Steam Greenlight and was approved in under three days.
What a Game Like No Man's Sky Means
What a Game Like No Man's Sky Means
What a Game Like No Man's Sky Means
I’m old enough to remember some of the earliest days of the space flight sims, so when I saw the first advertisements for No Man’s Sky, I watched it with all the awe of a child watching ads for Star Trek or Star Wars for the very first time.
Destiny is an Online Experience All its Own
Destiny is an Online Experience All its Own
Destiny is an Online Experience All its Own
Destiny is not an MMORPG. Call it a shared world shooter or make all of the Borderlands comparisons you want, but bundling it with all of the current MMOs does Destiny a disservice. Destiny doesn't fit into conventional labels, and perhaps it shouldn't.
Ask Chris #226: Pitching The 'Final Fight' Comic
Ask Chris #226: Pitching The 'Final Fight' Comic
Ask Chris #226: Pitching The 'Final Fight' Comic
Q: Which video game series would you love to pitch a comic series for? -- @rrob_IV A: I'm not going to lie to you, Rob: I have always wanted to make comics about video games. I think I've talked about this before, but the first memory I have of actually trying to make comics was laying on the floor of a hotel room at Myrtle Beach one summer vacation, drawing a version of the junkyard scene from Batman #425 that had Blanka and Dhalsim from Street Fighter in place of the standard thugs. It was actually a pretty big dream of mine, and a few years ago, I actually got the chance to pitch a comic based on one of my all-time favorite games. I even ended up writing a pretty big chunk of the script. So, since you asked, let's talk about the time that I almost wrote a comic based on Final Fight.
Mega Man: Forgiveness, Ethics And The Nature Of The Soul
Mega Man: Forgiveness, Ethics And The Nature Of The Soul
Mega Man: Forgiveness, Ethics And The Nature Of The Soul
Back when it first started up, I wrote a review of Archie's Mega Man comic where I called it "the smartest superhero comic on the stands," mostly because of the way that it took on some pretty serious ideas without detracting from the accessible, all-ages adventure that made it such a fun read. That bit in the first arc where Mega Man starts to withdraw from his family, becoming cold and, well, robotic because of the psychological toll of destroying other robots like himself is still one of my favorite scenes in comics from the past few years. Forty issues later, I can still stand by that statement. Mega Man hasn't just continued building one of the most enjoyably action-packed stories around the bare-bones plot of "go right, shoot robots" that it got from the video games, it's also having conversations about ethics, forgiveness and what it means to love someone that nobody else in comics is coming close to. And it's great.
Best Games of 2014
Best Games of 2014
Best Games of 2014
We'll be here making sure you remember all the great games that arrived throughout 2014 with this continually updating list of the Best Games of 2014 (So Far).
The Mystique of the Loot n’ Shoot
The Mystique of the Loot n’ Shoot
The Mystique of the Loot n’ Shoot
With the launch of Destiny and the latest installment in the Borderlands franchise, the genre is arguably straddling the line between strong and stagnant. What keeps this genre that does the same things wrong, time after time, floating and lucrative?

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