Well, it's officially Labor Day, and the gods of capitalism will be damned if they don't turn an event into an excuse for discounts. Not that I'm complaining—I'll take any morsel I can during the ongoing global memory shortage. And actually, the deals right now aren't too bad at all.Gaming PC deals are what I keep my eye on week-in, week-out, and while we definitely have to adjust our expectations...

One of the many things making this feel like a particularly dumb epoch to be living through is the way the US government has taken to using videogames as a tool for self-aggrandizement and disseminating its pro-war and anti-immigration messages. A bunch of people who usually argue politics should be kept out of videogames have suddenly found themselves defending the use of videogames in politics, and the rest of us...

Sometimes it's nice to just find something cool and fun and free on the internet, and the Cartographia Imperialis is just that: A 3D galaxy map of the Warhammer 40K Milky Way you can peruse in your browser.It has the same simple, awe-inspiring majesty as Mass Effect's take on the concept, and you can explore it like an isometric videogame: Left click and drag to pan around, right click to...

On September 5, Rebel Wolves took to Twitter on the official Blood of Dawnwalker account to announce that the dark vampire RPG had already surpassed one million copies sold just three days after its September 2 launch. "Thank you for playing, sharing, supporting, and being part of the community," the developer wrote in its celebratory post.I was in a Star Wars Zero Company-shaped hole during Dawnwalker's contemporaneous review period, but...

In a Gamescom interview with IGN, Saber CCO and former id Software dev Tim Willits said that the company's upcoming Space Marine follow-up is not using generative AI in its development. The studio has otherwise been embracing the technology, which was at the heart of the recent Rideshare Stimulator controversy."There is absolutely no generative AI in Space Marine 3 or Hellraiser or Stuntman or Turok or Jurassic Park, or [Saber's...

AI in gamedev is about as hot as hot topics get—the tech is polarizing for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is its environmental impact. The data centers AI relies on come with grave heat and water use concerns at a time when our species' ecological footprint is already leaning toward the catastrophic. Developers like Saber Interactive are still experimenting with the technology to make videogames, though...

Given that Anthem and Mass Effect Andromeda were widely considered disappointments, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard had a divisive reception, there's a certain amount of skepticism about the Mass Effect game BioWare is currently working on. Some have even suggested it might not come out at all.Armando Troisi, a cinematic designer on the Mass Effect trilogy and lead cinematic designer on Mass Effect 2, thinks it's all a bit much....

At the Game Developers Conference earlier this year, Aggro Crab developer Nick Kaman told me that he thinks there's a lot of meat left on the bone when it comes to co-op "friendslop" games, and that he wants to keep working in the space. Aggro Crab is still down to zig and not zag, though, and will be publishing and supporting a very different sort of game, the upcoming platformer...

As reported by The Korea Economic Daily, top-ranked Go grandmaster Shin Jin-seo became the first human to defeat the AI platform KataGo on July 21. It's a surprising, encouraging sign of human capabilities almost 30 years after supercomputer Deep Blue's historic defeat of Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.Go is believed to be the oldest board game that is still widely played, originating in China and beating out Chess by at least...

First reported by Dexerto, former Jagex employee Andrew "Mod Jed" Lakeman has been sentenced to three years in prison (suspended for two years) for using dev tools to remove items from player accounts, then selling them online. An investigation found that Lakeman had earned more than $400,000 through this activity.Former OSRS developer Mat K elaborated on some of the saga in a 2021 episode of OSRS Podcasts. Lakeman was a...