CHINESE TEAM NEWBEE SETS VIDEOGAME PRIZE MONEY RECORD WITH $5MILLION DOTA 2 CHAMPIONSHIP WIN

<b>Chinese-based eSports team <a href="http://twitter.com/NewbeeCN">Newbee eSports Club</a> has set a new Guinness World Records title forgreatest prize money in a videogame competition (team) after scooping an incredible $5,028,308 US dollars (approx. 31 million Yuan in Chinese currency) at a tournament in the US.<br /><br />The five-man team took home the record-breaking prize after beating rival Chinese team Vici Gaming during The International 4 (TI4) at the KeyArena, in Seattle, Washington earlier this month.<br /><br />The annual event sees the best players of multiplayer online battle arena game Dota 2 take each other on, with this year’s event having prize money totalling $10.9m, with the grand final shown on ESPN's sports TV network.<br /><br />Dota 2 makers Valve donated $1.6m of the prize money with the rest raised by the millions of people who regularly play the game.<br /><br /><br /></b><img height="225" src="http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/media/6605094/Dota-main.jpg" width="400" /><b><br />The International (TI4) is widely considered within the gaming community as the “World Cup of eSports” – with Newbee’s triumph marking the first time a Chinese team has taken the world record for greatest prize money in a videogame competition.<br /><br />The Newbee eSports Club team, which comprised of Chen 'Hao' Zhihao, Zhang 'Mu' Pang, Zhang 'xiao8' Ning, Jiao 'Banana' Wang and Zhaohui 'SanSheng' Wang, was only founded back in March.<br /><br />Their huge winnings dwarf the previous world record gaming tournament payout of $1,437,204, won by the team Alliance (Sweden) at the International 3 last year.</b><div> <b><br /></b></div> <div> <img alt="Newbee-2.jpg" height="225" src="http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/media/6605114/Newbee-2_497x280.jpg" width="400" /></div>

News CHINESE TEAM NEWBEE SETS VIDEOGAME PRIZE MONEY RECORD WITH $5MILLION DOTA 2 CHAMPIONSHIP WIN

Chinese-based eSports team Newbee eSports Club has set a new Guinness World Records title forgreatest prize money in a videogame competitio...

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Call of Moral Duty – Making Games for Change

<b><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c5c5c; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;">We’ve been making </span><a href="http://gamethenews.net/" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">newsgames</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c5c5c; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"> with the aim of engaging people with real world issues such as </span><a href="http://gamethenews.net/index.php/endgame-syria/" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the war in Syria</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c5c5c; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"> and the </span><a href="http://gamethenews.net/index.php/narcoguerra/" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">War on Drugs in Mexico</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c5c5c; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;">. But games have become a diverse tool that is impacting on more that just the political arena – they are also going for the personal too. Into this interesting space comes ‘</span><a href="http://bit.ly/LoveDumpster" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Love in the Dumpster</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c5c5c; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;">‘ – a game billed as a ‘serious game about teen dating violence’. This unusually titled game comes from a design challenge asking games developers; “Can you design a game about Teen Dating Violence without using violence itself?”</span></b><br /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #5c5c5c; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"><b><br /></b></span> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5c5c5c; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <b>The challenge was issued by Jennifer Ann’s Group, an organisation that aims to increase awareness about teen dating violence by encouraging video game developers to create games that will appeal to students for self-paced exploration of the issues surrounding dating abuse. The competition has been running since 2008 and the 2013 winner is a quirky narrative driven experience that has the player dealing with the ups and down of high school dating. While some games have tackled the issue of violence, notable examples include the recent Tomb Raider incarnation and the investigative thriller Heavy Rain, having to address it without using violence is a tough design challenge. This years winner has overcome the challenge where its charming lo-fi cut-out graphics meet the small dramas of everyday life. As a player, I found it an interesting emotional experience to be told off by the very character you’re trying to attract in the game, for not being ‘hot enough’. Your happiness suffers in the game-world as your confidence takes a dive. This is apparent in the motivation of the developer, Jean Hehn, who remarked, “Serious games can tend to be too preachy or too obviously trying to teach you something, I wanted to make sure ‘<a href="http://bit.ly/LoveDumpster" style="border: 0px; color: #444444; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Love in the Dumpster</a>‘ would feel like a game while still delivering the message efficiently. I tried to write an engaging story and dialogues and included two main characters (of both genders) to try and have people relate to them, and also show that both genders can be victims.”</b></div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5c5c5c; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <b>So why is <a href="http://www.jenniferann.org/" style="border: 0px; color: #444444; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jennifer Ann’s Group</a>, a non-profit charity based in Atlanta, Georgia taking on this issue? Its a very personal mission as the group was founded by Drew Crecente, father of Jennifer Ann Crecente, a high school senior murdered by her ex-boyfriend on February 15, 2006. If this or any other game even prevents a single death from domestic violence then all the development hours will have been more than worth it, as the developer remarks, “My only hope is that my game can someday somewhere help someone realize they might be in an abusive relationship and do something about it before it’s too late.” <a href="http://bit.ly/LoveDumpster" style="border: 0px; color: #444444; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Love in the Dumpster is free to play and can be found here</a>.</b></div>

News Call of Moral Duty – Making Games for Change

We’ve been making  newsgames  with the aim of engaging people with real world issues such as  the war in Syria  and the  War on Drugs in Mex...

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Sony Discusses PlayStation Now Refinements, But Won't Comment on Subscriptions, Discounts, or Much Else

<b><br /><br /><img height="214" src="http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/ignore_jpg_scale_super/917/9176928/2613501-1913360324-25472.jpg" width="400" /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />We talk with Sony about PlayStation Now, which enters open beta on PS4 on July 31.<br /><br /><br />Sony's streaming games service, PlayStation Now, launches into open beta tomorrow, July 31, on PlayStation 4 in the United States and Canada. If you're a PS4 owner in either of those countries, you'll be able to pay to play certain PlayStation 3 games without ever downloading them or putting a physical disc in the system. Even with so many new users about to begin using it in less than a day, there remain numerous questions about Now and how it'll work--questions Sony continues to avoid providing answers to.<br /><br />GameSpot recently spoke with PlayStation Now senior director Jack Buser and Gaikai senior VP Robert Stevenson about the service, which they are happy to note is the first of its kind on consoles. Sony says more than 50 publishers have signed on to offer their games through Now, although an exact list of games planned for it has not been made available. (More will be added "all the time," according to Buser.) The company still won't give exact numbers for how much data you can expect Now to use--a real issue for those in dorms or with ISPs that have data caps--but Stevenson says, "You can think of it [as] very comparable to movie streaming. It's not exactly the same, but it's similar." We'd previously heard you will need a 5 megabits-per-second connection for a "good experience."<br /><br />A closed beta that's been running since earlier this year has provided Sony with a lot of data to work with--more than 300,000 hours have been streamed so far--that it's already used to improve Now. "Some areas we've really focused on have been in the [user experience], making sure that users really understand the service as we go into open beta," Stevenson says. The Now beta has been using its own dedicated app, but the PlayStation Store itself will become the home for the service as it enters open beta, which presents new challenges. Sony has changed the messaging it uses and tried to ensure people aren't confused when they go to rent a game.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Stevenson also highlighted the addition of cloud saves partway through the closed beta, which allow users to save their game and then resume it on another device at a later time. There are also plans for a new $1.99 price option for certain rentals that is $1 less than thelowest price we've previously heard about. And Sony will make it clearer when streaming games offer DLC, which is said to be part of the reason why rentals during the closed beta could be more expensive than buying a brand-new physical copy.<br /><br />These kinds of refinements are to be expected, and are no doubt critical to Now achieving a real degree of success. But just as important are many of the issues gamers have been wondering about since Now was announced in January: How will a subscription option work, and when will see one? Can I get free or discounted access to games that I can verify I already own (reportedly the answer is no)? Who is this for? Unfortunately, neither Buser nor Stevenson were willing to provide us with the kinds of answers we were looking for.<br /><br /><br />"I think, ultimately, you look to this vision of expanding to a wide number of devices and you can imagine that there is this very rich catalog of PlayStation 3 games available to them." -- Jack Buser<br /><br />Repeatedly describing the service as being in "early days," the two shied away from answering questions about the particulars of a subscription option. Sony is aware of the interest in such an option, and Stevenson says it's "researching exactly how to deliver that. We've got some really strong ideas, but nothing to disclose today in terms of timeline or pricing or anything of that sort."<br /><br />Fair enough, but how about the way Now will deal with users who own a supported game and would like to stream it to their PS4? "[We have] nothing to discuss at this time," Buser says. "As I mentioned, we are going into open beta on PS4. It will be a rental offering, you'll see a variety of different durations, and, again, a variety of different price points. You'll see durations as short as four hours for an evening of fun--something where maybe you maybe want to come in and just check out a game--you'll see longer durations, like 30 days, 90 days. And Robert talked a lot about the cloud save feature, where you can try out a game for a short duration, save your game to our cloud servers, decide you want to continue playing, rent for a longer duration, and pick up where you left off.<br /><br />"You know, this is a beta, we are listening to our customers, and if customers want to see features or functions as part of PlayStation Now, they should feel free to let us know. And we'll be collecting that feedback as part of this open beta process."</b>

News Sony Discusses PlayStation Now Refinements, But Won't Comment on Subscriptions, Discounts, or Much Else

We talk with Sony about PlayStation Now, which enters open beta on PS4 on July 31. Sony's streaming games service, PlayStation Now, laun...

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Strong PS4 Sales Raise Sony Profits

<b>Sony's Game and Network Services division posts $41.8m in profit, a 96 percent increase on the same period last year.<br /><br />Strong sales of the PlayStation 4 have helped Sony reach a better-than-expected profit during the quarter ended 30th June, the company reported today.<br /><br />Sony's Game and Network Services division--of which PlayStation is a part--posted a profit of 4.3 billion yen ($41.8m, £24.7m), compared with a loss of 16.4 billion yen a year earlier. That's an impressive 96 percent increase on the same period last year.<br /><br />Overall, net profit was 25.7bn yen ($249.8m, £148m), up from 3.1bn yen a year ago.<br /><br />Sony attributed its successful financials to strong sales of the PS4, as well as a "significant increase" in network services revenues (which includes PlayStation Plus). Sony Pictures also helped boost the financials, posting a profit of 7.8 billion yen ($75.9m, £44.9m) compared with earnings of 3.7 ($35.9m, £21.3m) billion yen a year earlier.<br /><br />While Sony didn't break out individual sales figures for its consoles, combined, 3.5m PS3sand PS4s were shipped during the quarter. This compares favourably to the 1.1m combined Xbox One and Xbox 360 units Microsoft shipped during the same quarter.<br /><br />Combined, the PSP, PS TV, and Vita shipped 750,000 units, which is up on the 600,000 reported last year. 85m games were sold during the quarter, up from 68m.<br /><br />Despite all the good news, Sony still expects to post a net loss of 50bn yen ($486, £287.5m) for the financial year through March 2015.</b><div> <b><br /></b></div> <div> <img height="171" src="http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/ignore_jpg_scale_super/917/9176928/2613501-1913360324-25472.jpg" width="320" /></div>

News Strong PS4 Sales Raise Sony Profits

Sony's Game and Network Services division posts $41.8m in profit, a 96 percent increase on the same period last year. Strong sales of th...

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Capcom Sales Decline Due to "Lack of Major Titles"

<b>However, Dead Rising 3 and Monster Hunter continue to sell.<br /><br /><br />Sales at Capcom dropped significantly compared to the same period last year "due to a lack of new major titles," the company announced today.<br /><br />In its financial statement for the quarter ended June 30, 2014, Capcom confirmed that net sales decreased 9.57 billion yen ($93 million, £55.1 million), down from 45.1% from the previous year.<br /><br />However, operating income was up 75.3% from the previous year, an increase of 1.26 billion yen ($12.2 million, £7.2 million), while net income dropped 7.5% from 828 million yen ($8 million, £4.7 million) the previous year to 765 million yen ($7.4 million, £4.4 million).<br /><br />Capcom said the million selling Dead Rising 3 "continued to show robust sale," whileMonster Hunter Frontier GG "performed steadily with major update." Monster Hunter Freedom Unite iOS also performed well, according to the company.<br /><br />Capcom said it was "on track to achieve full-year forecasts with improving profitability" saying it aims to improve earnings by "reducing the cost of sales."<br /><br />Check out our review of Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha Review.</b>

News Capcom Sales Decline Due to "Lack of Major Titles"

However, Dead Rising 3 and Monster Hunter continue to sell. Sales at Capcom dropped significantly compared to the same period last year &quo...

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PlayStation Now Public Beta Starts Today on PS4 With 100+ Games; Check Out This Walkthrough Video

<b>Sony's much-anticipated game streaming service, PlayStation Now, is now available through a public beta in the United States and Canada for the PlayStation 4. The service has been in closed beta since January, and will come to other platforms and regions sometime in the future.<br /><br />To help get you up to speed on everything the PlayStation Now beta has to offer, Sony released a walkthrough video featuring commentary from Jack Buser, who is senior director for the service. More than 100 games are available through PlayStation Now currently, and you can rent them for a variety of durations (as short as four hours) and for a range of prices (as low as $1.99).<br /><br />If you rent a game and then want to purchase the full product later on, your progress will be saved through Sony's cloud servers, allowing you to pick up where you left off.<br /><br />The first thing you'll want to do when you fire up the PlayStation Now beta (available in the PlayStation Store on PS4) is access the "Connection Test." This will determine if your broadband connection is beefy enough to run PlayStation Now and get good results. Sony recommends at least a 5Mbps connection for an optimal experience on PlayStation Now.<br /><br />PlayStation Now supports both wired and wireless connection types, but Buser says a wired connection is preferable because it is often more stable than wireless.<br /><br />In addition, Buser stressed that the PlayStation Now beta you see today is just that, a beta. It's "early days," he says, adding that it is important that users share feedback with Sony so they can make the product better in the long run. "We're going to be listening closely to what the gamers tell us, and [PlayStation Now] will evolve over time."<br /><br />Though you will only find a la carte rental options on PlayStation Now today, Buserreiterated that Sony is planning to offer a Netflix-style subscription plan sometime in the future. "It's definitely something [that's] in the works. So stay tuned for that," he said.<br /><br />For more on PlayStation Now, check out GameSpot's in-depth interview with Sony about the streaming service.</b>

News PlayStation Now Public Beta Starts Today on PS4 With 100+ Games; Check Out This Walkthrough Video

Sony's much-anticipated game streaming service, PlayStation Now, is now available through a public beta in the United States and Canada ...

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Microsoft Issues Xbox Live "Service Alert" for Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Microsoft today issued a wide-ranging Xbox Live "service alert" for Xbox 360 and Xbox One. According to a post on the official Xbox Live Service Status page, the affected services on both platforms are extensive and affect the following:<br />Accessing all game features<br />Capturing game videos<br />Joining other Xbox Live members in online games<br />Managing friends lists and tracking what friends are doing<br />Posting game performance or viewing the performance of other Xbox Live members<br /><br />In addition, Microsoft says there is an issue affecting the Xbox 360 right now where the console is "getting stuck on a black screen" when attempting to launch games or apps. "Hang in there!" Microsoft says, noting it is investigating all issues currently and will share an update regarding the status of these affected services as soon as they can.<br /><br />"Thanks for your patience during this time," Microsoft said.<br /><br />Are you experiencing any of the issues for Xbox 360 and Xbox One mentioned in this post? Let us know in the comments below!

News Microsoft Issues Xbox Live "Service Alert" for Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Microsoft today issued a wide-ranging Xbox Live "service alert" for Xbox 360 and Xbox One. According to a post on the official Xbo...

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New Crazy Taxi Designed By Series Creator Now Available -- What's Your Favorite Crazy Taxi Memory?

<br /><br />Crazy Taxi: City Rush, the all-new Crazy Taxi game designed by the creator of the zany series, Kenji Kanno, is now available to download for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. You can download the game right now through iTunes.<br /><br />Developed by Hardlight Studios, the Sega-owned developer that previously made Sonic Dash, Sonic Jump, and Sonic Jump Fever, Crazy Taxi: City Rush is a free-to-play game supported by in-app purchases.<br /><br />According to Sega, Crazy Taxi: City Rush was "designed from the wheels up for mobile and tablet devices featuring intuitive touchscreen driving controls, dozens of customizable cars, adrenaline-fueled missions, and a sprawling concrete jungle to unlock, explore, and master throughout the game campaign."<br /><br />Though the game is currently only available for iOS devices, Sega tells Eurogamer that the game is coming to Android soon.<br /><br />What are your favorite Crazy Taxi memories? Are you planning to pick up the new one? Let us know in the comments below!

News New Crazy Taxi Designed By Series Creator Now Available -- What's Your Favorite Crazy Taxi Memory?

Crazy Taxi: City Rush, the all-new Crazy Taxi game designed by the creator of the zany series, Kenji Kanno, is now available to download for...

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Bandicam Crack

<h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; left: 0px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; position: absolute; top: 10px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px;"> <strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bandicam screen recorder</strong> makes it possible to record a certain area on a PC screen, or a program that uses the DirectX/OpenGL graphic technologies. <br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Bandicam will help you carry out a video record with high compression ratio, while keeping the video quality closer to the original work, and provides performance far superior to other programs that provide similar functions.</h2> <h2> <br /></h2> <div> <br /></div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <br /></div> <div> Download Here: <a href="http://www.anafile.com/c37hbq3xmxm6.html">CLICK HERE</a></div> <div> <br /></div>

Software Tutorials Bandicam Crack

Bandicam screen recorder  makes it possible to record a certain area on a PC screen, or a program that uses the DirectX/OpenGL graphic tech...

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New Steam Controller Design Adds Analog Stick -- Report

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 299px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> A new image suggests that the Steam Controller will get a traditional analogue stick in addition to its innovative track pads.</h2> <div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> An image of a new design for Valve’s Steam Controller suggests that it will include an analogue stick.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <img height="195" src="http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/ignore_jpg_scale_super/1535/15354745/2609253-steam1.png" width="400" /></div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Previous versions of the controller we saw included only buttons and its signature dual circular trackpads that players will manipulate using their thumbs. The trackpads are also clickable, turning the entire surface into a button. In the image above, an analogue stick replaces the four directional button beneath the left track pad.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The image, first spotted by Steam Database, wasn’t confirmed as an official design by Valve. However, it seems credible seeing as how the image surfaced following a Steam client update. If you’re participating in the Steam client beta and downloaded the latest update, you’ll be able to find the image on your computer under the Steam\tenfoot\resource\images\library folder.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The last time we saw the in-development Steam Controller, it hadn't changed much from the initial prototype we saw last September. The controller is rumored to go on sale sometime this fall, though Valve has yet to confirm its availability.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> If the latest Steam Controller design looks like the image above, we might get to see it at Gamescom 2014, which takes place August 13-17 in Cologne, Germany. A listing on the Gamescom website states that "Valve Corporation" will have a presence at the show, and that its booth will include "controllers."</div> </div>

Games News New Steam Controller Design Adds Analog Stick -- Report

A new image suggests that the Steam Controller will get a traditional analogue stick in addition to its innovative track pads. A...

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Bandai Namco’s PC-Exclusive Fighting Game Rise of Incarnates Closed Beta Coming in August

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 299px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> Sign up for a chance to enter the closed beta today.</h2> <div> <br /></div> <div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Bandai Namco’s free-to-play 2-on-2 PC fighting game Rise of Incarnates’ will hold a closed beta in the United States from August 8 through August 17.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Designed by developers who previously worked on SoulCalibur, Tekken and Gundam Extreme, Rise of Incarnates features 2-on-2, "unfettered 3D battles" on the ground and in the air, and real-world battlegrounds. The different playable characters, or “Incarnates,” will have their own unique skills and powers, and the game will allow you to craft your own playstyle.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> When the closed beta starts you’ll be able to play as Mephistopheles, Lilith, Grim Reaper, and Ares, while Brynhildr and another level will be added on August 13. Paris and New York City will be the only playable levels at first.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Bandai Namco will also be testing the game’s monetization during the beta, offering a selection of purchasable in-game character customization options, though it hasn’t revealed specific prices.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Bandai Namco says that it’s made significant improvements to the game based on player feedback since its alpha phase. It now has an improved user interface and tutorials, and input improvements should make the controls more responsive as well.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> You can sign up for the Rise of Incarnates closed beta in the United States on the game’s official website.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> For more on Rise of Incarnates, be sure to catch up with our previous coverage.</div> </div>

News Bandai Namco’s PC-Exclusive Fighting Game Rise of Incarnates Closed Beta Coming in August

Sign up for a chance to enter the closed beta today. Bandai Namco’s free-to-play 2-on-2 PC fighting game Rise of Incarnates’ w...

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Rust Dev Announces Riftlight, A Twin Stick Shooter With RPG Elements

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 299px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> Facepunch Studios’ Riftlight is still in the very early stages of development, but what’s there looks good.</h2> <div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Rust developer Facepunch Studios has announced it’s working on Riftlight, a twin stick shooter with RPG elements for the PC.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> In a post to the company’s website, Facepunch developer Adam Woolridge explained that in addition to traditional twin stick shooter gameplay you see in games like Geometry Wars or Renegade Ops, Riftlight will have loot, character levels, abilities, and talent trees.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> You’ll be able to choose from three different classes, tentatively called Ranged, Caster, and Melee. The Ranged class will play like a traditional shooter with abilities that allow you to avoid damage and increase fire power. The Caster class will be more vulnerable, but able to use powerful area of effect attacks. Finally, the Melee class will have a close range energy beam that gets bigger the more damage you deal with it, and shrinks down as you stop attacking.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Riftlight will also feature cooperative play, and Woolridge hopes you’ll want to replay it to get better loot, and take on random missions with random level layouts.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> He says that the game is still very early in development, but you can read a lot more about what is currently working and what he plans to add to the game here. It sounds like a good premise, and the art that he’s published so far looks colorful and interesting.</div> </div>

News Rust Dev Announces Riftlight, A Twin Stick Shooter With RPG Elements

Facepunch Studios’ Riftlight is still in the very early stages of development, but what’s there looks good. Rust developer Facep...

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AU New Releases: The Last of Us Remastered Launches Exclusively for the PS4

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 247px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> The Last of Us Remastered features upgraded visuals and an exclusive Photo Mode.</h2> <div> <br /></div> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> This week, Naughty Dog's survival horror game The Last of Us Remastered makes its way to the PlayStation 4 at Australian retailers. As the name suggests, this version of the game will feature upgraded visuals, running at 1080p and at 60fps.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Other graphical upgrades include improved anti-aliasing, higher resolution textures, and integration with the PS4 controller's light and touch pad. Fans that purchased the multiplayer DLC content for the PS3 version can download them again for free onto the PS4 version. However, there is no cross-platform functionality for multiplayer.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The Remastered version also includes the PS4-exclusive Photo Mode, which allows players to freeze the action in-game to take a snap. Eight different menu options are available for use to customise the shot, including the options to reposition the camera, change the focus, and choose from a variety of frames and filters. Players can then share the shot using the PlayStation 4 controller's Share button. Photo Mode cannot be triggered during cut scenes.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The Last of Us was first released exclusively for the PlayStation 3 in June last year to positive reception. Earlier this year Sony revealed that a large portion of PS4 owners had not yet played the game. The Last of Us Remastered will launch in Australia on July 30 exclusively for the PlayStation 4. For more details on games launching this week, check out the full list below.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <b style="box-sizing: border-box;">July 30, 2014</b></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Lego Ninjago Nindroids (3DS, Vita)</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The Last of Us Remastered (PS4)</div> </div>

News AU New Releases: The Last of Us Remastered Launches Exclusively for the PS4

The Last of Us Remastered features upgraded visuals and an exclusive Photo Mode. This week, Naughty Dog's survival horror ...

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Destiny Beta Ends, Bungie Says It Was a "Tremendous Success"

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 279px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> "We learned so much about our game and how we can make it better," developer says.</h2> <div> <br /></div> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The beta for Halo creator Bungie's upcoming shooter Destiny has concluded, with the studio describing the trial period as a "tremendous success." Writing on Facebook and Twitter, Bungie said part of the reason why Destiny's beta was so successful was because it allowed the developer to learn many lessons about the game in the lead-up to its full release on September 9.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> "The Destiny beta was a tremendous success from where we sat overlooking the Tower," Bungie said on Facebook. "If you played, Bungie thanks you from the bottom of our hearts. We learned so much about our game, and how we can make it better."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> "Bungie thanks you for playing," the studio added on Twitter. "We made some great discoveries of our own, and we'll use them to make Destiny a great game for all."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> It is unclear how many people participated in the Destiny beta. Bungie community manager Eric Osbornewrote on Twitter that he was "gobsmacked by the numbers."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> In addition, Bungie went on to tease that Destiny's release this September will only be the first step in could be a long journey for the game. "Your next adventure begins on September 9th when we launch Destiny. Once we do that, we intend to keep it in orbit for a very long time," Bungie wrote. "See you starside."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Destiny will be available this September for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4. For more on Destiny, check out GameSpot's feature about the seven big questions that we have after playing the beta.</div> </div>

News Destiny Beta Ends, Bungie Says It Was a "Tremendous Success"

"We learned so much about our game and how we can make it better," developer says. The beta for Halo creator Bungie&...

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Doom Creator John Romero: PC "Decimating" Console, F2P Has Killed 100 AAA Studios

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 279px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> "The PC is decimating console, just through price," Romero says.</h2> <div> <span style="background-color: #f4f5f5; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Game industry icon John Romero, best known for his work at id Software on the Doom and Wolfenstein franchises, says in a new interview that the PC platform is "decimating" consoles. That's because, Romero tells </span>GamesIndustry International<span style="background-color: #f4f5f5; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">, PC games are often less expensive (sometimes free) and the platform itself is more open than traditional consoles.</span></div> <div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> "With PC you have free-to-play and Steam games for five bucks. The PC is decimating console, just through price," Romero said. "Free-to-play has killed a hundred AAA studios."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> "It's a different form of monetization than Doom or Wolfenstein or Quake where that's free-to-play [as shareware]," he added. "Our entire first episode was free--give us no money, play the whole thing. If you like it and want to play more, then you finally pay us. To me that felt like the ultimate fair [model]. I'm not nickel-and-diming you. I didn't cripple the game in any design way. That was a really fair way to market a game. When we put these games out on shareware, that changed the whole industry. Before shareware there were no CD-ROMs, there were no demos at all. If you wanted to buy Ultima, Secret of Monkey Island, any of those games, you had to look really hard at that box and decide to spend 50 bucks to get it."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Free-to-play games have not been without criticism, but Romero argues that developers are getting smarter at designing these games so that they are more player-friendly when it comes to monetization.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> "Everybody is getting better at free-to-play design, the freemium design, and it's going to lose its stigma at some point," Romero said. "People will settle into [the mindset] that there is a really fair way of doing it, and the other way is the dirty way. Hopefully that other way is easily noticeable by people and the quality design of freemium rises and becomes a standard. That's what everybody is working hard on. People are spending a lot of time trying to design this the right way. They want people to <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">want</em> to give them money, not <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">have</em> to. If you have to give money, you're doing it wrong... For game designers, that's the holy grail."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Another reason why Romero said he believes PC and mobile are surging ahead of console is because of the "closed" nature of traditional machines like the Xbox One or PlayStation 4.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> "The problem with console is that it takes a long time for a full cycle," Romero said. "With PCs, it's a continually evolving platform, and one that supports backward compatibility, and you can use a controller if you want; if I want to play a game that's [made] in DOS from the '80s I can, it's not a problem. You can't do that on a console. Consoles aren't good at playing everything. With PCs if you want a faster system you can just plug in some new video cards, put faster memory in it, and you'll always have the best machine that blows away PS4 or Xbox One."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Romero also chimed in on the topic of virtual reality recently, saying that while he is personally excited about technology like Oculus Rift, he--like others before him--questions its mainstream appeal. He co-founded id Software and now works at the Universe of California, Santa Cruz.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The next Doom game was recently officially announced. The game is coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. It runs on id Tech 6 at 1080p and 60fps.</div> </div>

News Doom Creator John Romero: PC "Decimating" Console, F2P Has Killed 100 AAA Studios

"The PC is decimating console, just through price," Romero says. Game industry icon John Romero, best known for his wor...

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Rust Fans Angry Over Dev's New Project; Dev Says Rust Continuing as Planned

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 279px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> Gamers angry at Facepunch for announcing new game before Rust is finished, but founder says, "Should HBO make one TV show at a time?"</h2> <div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Rust developer Facepunch Studios announced a new project last week, the twin-stick shooter Riftlight. Some fans immediately rallied against this announcement, expressing their anger over the fact that the studio--founded by Garry Newman--is working on a new title before Rust is even finished. Now, Newman has responded, writing a blog post today explaining that it's not out of the ordinary for a studio--even a small studio like Facepunch--to have multiple games in development simultaneously. He also makes it clear that development on Rust is continuing.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> "Are we crazy? Are we doing it wrong? Should every person in the company be working on the same thing?" Newman said. "Should HBO make one TV show at a time? Should Warner Brothers make one movie at a time?"</div> <blockquote data-align="left" style="background: rgb(244, 245, 245); border: none; box-sizing: border-box; clear: left; color: #141415; float: left; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin: 0px 30px 1.42857rem 0px; max-width: 40%; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; position: relative;"> <div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"> "I think a good company develops continually, and the more things we're working on the better. I think this strategy is working out for us so far" -- Garry Newman</div> </blockquote> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Newman went on to say Riftlight is not the only new game Facepunch has in development alongside Rust. The studio is also working on three other prototypes, he said. "And guess what, we haven't finished Rust, and we haven't finished Riftlight, and we haven't finished those three other prototypes," he said. "And we want to hire more programmers to start even more prototypes."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> He also pointed out that Facepunch is not launching a Kickstarter for Riftlight or the studio's other in-development prototypes. All of the funds for production and hiring are coming from the studio's own coffers. "We are spending money [from] Rust and Garry's Mod to do this. Arguing that we should be re-investing that money back into only those games is like telling apple they can't spend the money they made from iPhone and Macs to fund the development of the iPad," Newman said. "Keep in mind that we spent money Garry's Mod made to develop Rust--and that turned out pretty good, right?"</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> "I think a good company develops continually, and the more things we're working on the better," he added. "I think this strategy is working out for us so far."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Newman also took a moment to clear up some misconceptions about Rust. He said it's not true that Facepunch has abandoned the game. The game is getting updates "very regularly," he said, going to on note that Facepunch even created a special Twitter account to keep people in the loop. "I fully accept that this is our fault for not communicating the experimental branch properly, but it hurts when we're working all week on it and people don't acknowledge that," he said.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> He also addressed the issue of funding for Rust, which is available for $20 as an unfinished game through Steam Early Access. He said some people have claimed that they "funded" Rust and now Facepunch is running away with that money to work on new projects. But it's not true.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> "We funded Rust for 1-2 years before it eventually became what it is. You bought early access to it," he said. "When you buy a pizza you aren't funding Domino's, you're just buying a pizza. It's true that the sales of Rust have been insane and we have stepped up development to suit, and I think you only have to compare the experimental version to the live version to see that."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Another piece of the puzzle that Newman hopes people will understand is that the developers working on Rust right now are not working on Facepunch's other various prototypes. "That should be very obvious by the dev-blogs we post every Friday," Newman said.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Finally, Newman said community anger about Facepunch working on multiple games at once is a result of the developer's decision to be transparent about how it operates. He estimates that many other studios--big and small--are working on more than one game at a time, even if they don't tell you. "I am guessing that a lot of game developers bigger and smaller than us have multiple prototypes in the works, but they aren't showing them to you," Newman said. "The only thing that makes our situation remarkable is that we're willing to talk about our process and show our experiments."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Megapublisher Electronic Arts is taking a similar approach. The company announced recently that, in an effort to become more "player-first," the studio will reveal--and in some cases make playable through betas--new games earlier in the development process.</div> </div>

News Rust Fans Angry Over Dev's New Project; Dev Says Rust Continuing as Planned

Gamers angry at Facepunch for announcing new game before Rust is finished, but founder says, "Should HBO make one TV show at a...

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The Last of Us PS4 Both Far Exceeds and Is Restricted By Its PS3 Origins, Analysis Finds

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 289px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> A breakdown of all the improvements in The Last of Us Remastered finds that parts of the game are still hampered by the tech made for the PS3.</h2> <div> <br /></div> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Tomorrow, The Last of Us Remastered launches on PlayStation 4. It features an array of graphical overhauls, and it runs at 1080p and 60 frames per second. Many people wondered if the original PlayStation 3 version was actually always meant to be on PS4. In a new graphics and performance breakdown, from Eurogamer's Digital Foundry, however, it seems that the PS4 re-release is still occasionally restricted by its PS3 origins.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> GameSpot also did a graphics comparison, which you can see above. Digital Foundry then went into technical detail and discovered where the game's graphics shine and where they still come up short. What the group finds is that there are still graphical problems and anomalies that developer Naughty Dog's remastering couldn't fix. As Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter explains, "What Naughty Dog has done is to scale up both physical and temporal resolution, but the core technologies are very much PS3 in nature. The mind-bogglingly good anti-aliasing seen in the Uncharted 4 teaser isn't here, for example. Instead, it's a reasonable enough post-process effect."</div> <blockquote data-align="left" data-size="small" style="background: rgb(244, 245, 245); border: none; box-sizing: border-box; clear: left; color: #141415; float: left; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.26564rem; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.71429rem; margin: 0px 30px 1.42857rem 0px; max-width: 40%; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; position: relative;"> <div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"> "Some effects--such as water reflections--put a lot of full-blooded PS4 and Xbox One titles to shame."</div> </blockquote> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> He continues: "Lighting can appear rather basic and harsh in some scenes, the pre-baked global illumination isn't a patch on top-end PS4 titles, and while texture detail is enormously improved to next-gen standards, geometry remains unchanged--those hexagonal pipes, squared-off edges and bisecting polygonal foliage textures look jarring in the new current-gen era."</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Although certain specific parts fail to stand up to current-gen standards, the group also found that Naughty Dog's work made other elements look far better than games made specifically for the PS4 and Xbox One. Leadbetter writes, "The more detail-rich exterior scenes, enhanced with longer view distances, look especially beautiful bathed in the ambient lighting and god-rays from a setting sun. While effects work can look a little basic in places, the higher precision marries up perfectly in most cases with the full HD resolution, while some effects--such as water reflections--put a lot of full-blooded PS4 and Xbox One titles to shame."</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> What Digital Foundry suggests, then, is that The Last of Us Remastered moves between two generations. In some parts--especially small-scale details--the game's PS3 lineage is obvious, but in others--environments and water--the graphics surpass even games developed exclusively for current-gen systems. As Digital Foundry concludes, "Some scenes can look rather plain, while others look absolutely spectacular, but the one thing that is constant throughout the experience is that gameplay in The Last of Us is golden." And this is true--gameplay is identical across both versions.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> You can check out our review of The Last of Us Remastered here. Tonight you can also watch a stream of The Last of Us' voice actors performing some of the game's scenes live.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Are you planning on buying The Last of Us Remastered? Let us know in the comments!</div> </div>

News The Last of Us PS4 Both Far Exceeds and Is Restricted By Its PS3 Origins, Analysis Finds

A breakdown of all the improvements in The Last of Us Remastered finds that parts of the game are still hampered by the tech made f...

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Bravely Default's Strong Sales Continue, Reach 1 Million Worldwide

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 273px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> The bulk of those sales have come from outside of Japan.</h2> <div> <br /></div> <div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Well-regarded JRPG Bravely Default has sold more than one million units around the world, according to Square Enix.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The publisher revealed its 3DS RPG has topped 400,000 units in Japan and 600,000 everywhere else in the world, reports Japanese website Dengeki Online. That brings its total sales to over one million units, a number confirmed by the game's official Twitter account (via NeoGAF).</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> It's an impressive number for a game that--despite starting out as a Final Fantasy game--does not actually carry the name of the franchise, which many feel has been struggling for years. The game earned a strong response from critics and fans alike, who felt it returned to the core of Final Fantasy that has been lost in the series' most recent entries.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Bravely Default was developed by Square Enix but ended up being published outside of Japan (where it was released in 2012) by Nintendo. That proved to be a wise decision, as Nintendo announced earlier this year that it had sold over 200,000 copies in just the three weeks following its North American release in February.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The game's success prompted Square Enix to realize it may have been focusing too much on building games for a global audience, rather than its core fans. "For the new games we'll be developing from this point on, while this may sound a bit extreme, we've been talking about making them as heavy JRPGs," Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda said in March.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> A sequel to Bravely Default called Bravely Second is currently in development, but neither a release date nor any confirmation about a western release has yet to be announced.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Are you happy to see a more traditional-style JRPG like this succeed? Let us know in the comments.</div> </div>

News Bravely Default's Strong Sales Continue, Reach 1 Million Worldwide

The bulk of those sales have come from outside of Japan. Well-regarded JRPG Bravely Default has sold more than one million uni...

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Report: More Competitive Gaming Coverage Coming to ESPN

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 279px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> Sports media giant reportedly "delighted" by response to recent Dota 2 tournament, and is now in talks with MLG for more coverage.</h2> <div> <br /></div> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> ESPN's multi-day broadcast of Dota 2 tournament The International earlier this month was so successful that the studio is now in discussions to expand its eSports programming.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> That's according to a source close to the sports media giant, who told The Daily Dot that ESPN was "delighted" by its recent broadcast of The International. Though viewership figures have not been disclosed, the source says the numbers "exceeded expectations across the board," going on to note that Xbox was the top viewing platform for the event.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Looking ahead, The Daily Dot's source says Major League Gaming (MLG) is in "advanced talks" to bring some of its programming to ESPN web properties and TV stations. Juggernaut shooter franchise Call of Duty and "other games" are reportedly part of the deal, which the source said both parties are hoping to finalize soon.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> An ESPN representative told GameSpot, "We recognized The International as an opportunity to deliver a championship event, but have not committed to any other eSports coverage at this time."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> MLG and ESPN partnered up in June to bring Call of Duty tournaments to X-Games Austin, marking the first time in history that MLG professionals would compete at the extreme sports event. This event, along with ESPN's coverage of The International--a massive tournament with a prize pool of over $10 million--gave the competitive gaming scene a legitimacy boost.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> You can argue that competitive gaming is not a "legitimate" sport--and some well-known sports reporters have made that argument--but it seems ESPN isn't too interested in defining what is and is not a sport. After all, as this Atlantic opinion piece points out, ESPN also broadcasts poker, billiards, and spelling bees.</div> </div>

News Report: More Competitive Gaming Coverage Coming to ESPN

Sports media giant reportedly "delighted" by response to recent Dota 2 tournament, and is now in talks with MLG for more ...

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Gears of War Creator Opened a Beautiful Bar in North Carolina, Has Plans for Another

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 279px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> Cliff Bleszinski opens The Station in Raleigh, reveals plans to open another, bigger pub in 2015<span style="font-size: 1.60186rem; line-height: 2.14286rem;">.</span></h2> <div> <span style="font-size: 1.60186rem; line-height: 2.14286rem;"><br /></span></div> <div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Let's just get the "Beers of War" joke out of the way now. OK. Here is the story...</em></div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski doesn't just make video games. Following his exit from Epic Games in 2012, he opened a restaurant/bar in his home town of Raleigh, North Carolina, and plans to set up another establishment in the city in 2015. All of this is happening as Bleszinski also gets to work at his new game studio, Boss Key Productions, which recently announced its first game--a free-to-play shooter currently called Project Bluestreak to be published by Nexon.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> As reported by <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Men's Journal</em>, Bleszinski opened the watering hole--called The Station at Person Street--earlier this year. It's been open for a few months now, and is described as a "modern take on a 1910 Amoco gas station." In fact, The Station was built on the exact location of an Amoco gas station. The image at left shows what the establishment looked like then and now.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The bar serves plenty of popular beers and local brews. There is also a food selection with pretty much everything you'd expect. Bleszinski opened The Station with his friend Niall Hanley, a man Bleszinski says is like a big brother when it comes to learning how to run a business.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Bleszinski said he got the idea to open his own restaurant a few years back while having a meal in New York City. "This restaurant looked like chaos and then I realized everything is just systems," Bleszinski said. "The video game is systems that are operating together that the player manipulates. One thing I've learned about the restaurant business is to keep an eye on your ticket times and keep an eye on your customers. Make sure they're happy. If something's messed up, give them a free dessert, etc. And one of the other rules I've learned is keep an eye on the bathroom. Because if the bathroom is not clean, that kitchen sure as hell isn't."</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Bleszinski visits The Station from time to time to check up on things and further immerse himself in the food business. But he's not limiting himself to The Station alone. In spring 2015, Bleszinski plans to open a second bar/restaurant business called The Raleigh Beer Garden.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> This establishment will be three times the size of The Station and have more than 300 draft beers available. You can also expect this pub to have some geek flair.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> "I want to make sure that the Beer Garden has a bit of a geek influence," Bleszinski said. "We'll have a couple of old school arcade games and some pinball machines to have that geek DNA. West Coast Barcades are absolutely huge, so we hope to have a little bit of that with 350 beers on draft and a great outdoor space for people to enjoy a pint on a nice Raleigh 80-degree day."</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Bleszinski is not the first video game developer with professional ties to beer. After retiring from BioWare in 2012, studio co-founder Greg Zeschuk launched a craft beer-inspired web video series called<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> The Beer Diaries</em>.</div> </div>

News Gears of War Creator Opened a Beautiful Bar in North Carolina, Has Plans for Another

Cliff Bleszinski opens The Station in Raleigh, reveals plans to open another, bigger pub in 2015 . Let's just get the &quo...

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ATM Hacked To Give You the Original Doom Instead of Money

<br /> <div class="authorCard authorCard--base" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; display: inline-block; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.999980926513672px; margin-bottom: 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> <div class="align-vertical--contain" style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; display: table !important; width: 289px;"> <div class="align-vertical--child authorCard-avatar hide-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <h2 class="news-deck" itemprop="description" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.71429rem; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> Australian hackers have modded an automated teller machine to run Doom using the ATM's buttons.</h2> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The quest to port games to unusual platforms continues, as Australian hackers have found a way to get the original Doom running on an automated teller machine. The ATM is, of course, significantly modified, but the hackers made it work using the machine's buttons on the sides of the screen.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Originally posted on Hack A Day, the video shows off the hackers messing with the machine to get id Software's classic shooter to work on it. You can clearly see the game working on the ATM, accompanied by Doom's sound effects and music. Of course, this isn't a miraculous feat of programming because the machine already runs a version of Windows XP. But this isn't to take away from the effort necessary--the project also required the installation of MS-DOS emulation software and of a keyboard emulation device to allow for the ATM's keypad to be used as input.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> This is just the newest entry in a long list of interesting ports. Recently, a programmer managed to bring mobile hit Flappy Bird to the Apple 2 computer.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> You can play Doom on any one of many devices while you wait for the next installment in the Doom series. The new Doom will launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and will unfortunately be too resource-intensive to run on unusual machines. Keep an eye on GameSpot for more news about Doom as it becomes available.</div> </div>

News ATM Hacked To Give You the Original Doom Instead of Money

Australian hackers have modded an automated teller machine to run Doom using the ATM's buttons. The quest to port games to u...

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Report: Soon There Will Be a "Gamer" LEGO Minifigure

<div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> An upcoming line of physical LEGO minifigure toys will include a "gamer" character who wears glasses and headphones, as well as a t-shirt that has the phrase "Player 1" on it. That's according to LEGO enthusiast website The Brothers Brick (via CNET), which this weekend posted a first look at the upcoming Series 12 lineup of LEGO minifigures.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The "gamer" LEGO minifig, which may not be the official name, also has brown hair and is shown wielding a classic-style game controller. We should be getting more information about the "gamer" minifig, and other new toys in the line, as Series 12's arrival this October gets closer.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Other geek-oriented minifigs include a staff-wielding wizard and some sort of futuristic-looking character who wears a space suit and holds some kind of orange drill. Oh, there is also a pizza delivery guy and someone dressed in a pig suit with an apple. Each figure will reportedly cost $4.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The LEGO video game franchise is one of the biggest in the history of video games. In passing 100 million units sold to date recently, the LEGO series joins other big-name franchises to reach that mark like Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, and Mario. The next entry in the series is this year's Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, which is coming to Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC, PlayStation Vita, 3DS, and Wii U.</div>

News Report: Soon There Will Be a "Gamer" LEGO Minifigure

An upcoming line of physical LEGO minifigure toys will include a "gamer" character who wears glasses and headphones, as well as a...

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Building a PC: Everything You Need to Know About Monitors

<div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> You can have a water-cooled, overclocked PC with a hi-spec CPU and GPU, but you might be wasting some of your investment if you don't choose the right monitor. While any old display is theoretically capable of fulfilling the bare minimum requirement of a monitor--displaying a picture--you owe it to yourself to choose the right display for your day-to-day needs. Say that you're into competitive first-person shooters and cherish every frame that you can get out of your rig; you should probably invest in a monitor with a refresh rate greater than 60Hz so that you can actually benefit from the extra frames. On the other hand, you could also put your money toward a monitor that's designed for high-level color accuracy if you aren't concerned about pushing your games to run faster than 60 frames per second.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Before we begin to weigh those options, there's one question you have to ask yourself: How big do you want your monitor to be?</div> <h2 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.02736rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> Size and Resolution</h2> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Despite the old adage, bigger isn't always better when you're talking about monitors. Depending on the size of your workstation, a 27-inch monitor might be too large. On the other hand, there's no point in going too small either. Unless you're talking about laptops, a 20-inch display is about as small as you'd ever want to consider, but so long as you aren't limited to a diminutive desk, you should probably look for something larger. However, if you have to shop for a 20- or 21-inch monitor, the good news is that the pixel density relative to the size of the monitor will produce a pleasingly sharp image at a resolution of 1920x1080.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Monitors between 23 and 24 inches are neither too small nor too big, offering just enough screen real estate for most people who sit an arm's length from their screen--the commonly recommended distance for proper ergonomics during extended use--while still delivering a sharp image at 1080p.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Once you go beyond 24 inches, it's worth looking into displays with a native resolution of 2560x1440 . Essentially, the higher the resolution is, the smaller the pixels become, and the clearer the display looks as a result. At 27 inches, choosing a 1440p monitor over a 1080p monitor can make a big difference in terms of overall clarity.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">What to look for: Make sure any monitor you're buying is greater than 20-inches with a resolution of at least 1920x1080 or 2560x1440 if it's 27-inches and above.</em></div> <h2 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.02736rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> What About 4K?</h2> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> When people talk about 4K monitors or TVs, they are really referring to ultra-high-definition displays that support a resolution of 3840x2160. As the name implies, UHD displays are sharp and capable of displaying images with exceptional levels of detail, but when these resolutions are applied to monitors between 20 and 27 inches in size, you begin to experience diminishing returns. The hardware required for your computer to render games at high settings at such a high resolution is going to be prohibitively expensive for most people, and given that 1440p and 1080p monitors are plenty sharp for computer displays at that size, there's no appreciable difference relative to your investment.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> It's only when you get into the range of 40-inch TVs that 4K becomes a worthwhile endeavor, because the difference between 1080p and 2160p is easily distinguishable and great enough to get excited about. 4K may be the future of gaming since it stands to eliminate the need for power-hungry anti-aliasing techniques, but it's hard to recommend investing in a 4K monitor at the moment due to the associated cost of the monitor and the hardware needed to render games at such high resolutions.</div> <h2 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.02736rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> Refresh Rate and Response Time</h2> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> In the world of gaming, refresh rate and response time are two important factors to consider when shopping for a monitor. Refresh rate can be thought of in a similar way to the familiar frames-per-second measurement, in that it denotes the number of times a new image, or frame, can be displayed onscreen in a given second. Essentially, a monitor that is rated at 60Hz is capable of displaying 60 frames per second.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"></em></div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> One of the great things about PC gaming is that you can, if you're willing to spend the money, create a really powerful machine that can push games to their limits. In a lot of cases, this means ticking off every box in the graphics settings menu to enhance the quality of the image onscreen. For other people, particularly competitive players, this means pushing for the highest frame rate possible, and any game running over 60 frames per second needs a monitor with an equal or higher refresh rate. Otherwise, those frames are effectively lost on the player. Thankfully, there are monitors out there that support a refresh rate of 144Hz, and quite often, they support 3D media, if that's something you're interested in. Despite their rising popularity, prepare to spend more than usual for a 144Hz monitor.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <br /></div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> The response time of a monitor indicates how long it takes for a pixel to change luminance, or in other words, from black to white, although it is typically measured while shifting from gray, to white, to gray. A monitor with a slow response time, say 16ms, may produce a blurring effect when there are fast-moving images onscreen. These days, it's easy to find monitors with response times between 2ms and 5ms. These are ideal for gaming given the amount of motion onscreen at any given time, but these monitors also tend to sacrifice in other areas in order to achieve such low response times. It all comes down to the type of panel used in the monitor.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">What to look for: Assuming that you're purchasing a monitor for gaming, look for a monitor with a refresh rate of 144Hz and a pixel response time of 5ms or less.</em></div> <h2 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.02736rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> Panel Technology</h2> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> It's imperative to consider the type of panel that's driving your display because it can have a significant impact on color accuracy, pixel response time, brightness, and viewing angle, and you're usually trading one of these factors for another. The four types of panels commonly found today include TN, VA, IPS, and PLS panels.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> TN, or twisted nematic panels, have inherently fast response times, and they also tend to be relatively cheap. Those are two good qualities to have, but they come at a cost; TN panels have poor viewing angles, relatively inaccurate color reproduction, and adequate but unimpressive brightness levels. They can be great for gaming, but only if you care about cost and response time over the quality of the image.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> VA, or vertical alignment panels, aren't as responsive as TN panels, but they sport far better color accuracy, better brightness and darkness levels, and a wider viewing angle. They also cost more than TN panels on average.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> These days, IPS panels are sought by users with strict needs for color accuracy. For non-gaming applications, IPS-based monitors are some of the best around, with great viewing angles, but they are also typically the most expensive. Like VA panels, IPS displays can't compete with TN-based displays when it comes to response time.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Samsung introduced PLS panels through its line of tablets, but PLS-based desktop monitors can now be found on the market. PLS monitors are actually brighter than IPS-based displays, with similar viewing angles, but are typically less expensive on average.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">What to look for: If you're gaming career lives and dies by frame rates and response times, you probably want to look for a monitor with a TN panel, but if image quality is more important, consider a PLS monitor instead.</em></div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"></em></div> <h2 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.02736rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> Stands</h2> <div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Most monitor stands allow you to tilt your display or raise the height of the screen relative to the base of the stand, but there are also monitors that can rotate from a landscape to portrait orientation, or put another way, from a wide screen to a tall screen. There are also some that allow you to swivel the screen without moving the stand. It's important to know what you're looking for, and if you can, invest in a monitor with a stand that features as many of these options as possible. You'll usually pay a little more for these added features, but they can come in handy.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">What to look for: You may not need every adjustment option under the sun, but so long as your other requirements are met, you might as well look for a model that supports tilt, swivel, pivot, and rotation adjustments.</em></div> <h2 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.02736rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> Inputs</h2> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Not all video connections offer the same features, and not all graphics cards support every type of connection.</div> <h3 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> HDMI</h3> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> HDMI has become the de facto standard for HD displays, and it supports the same video signal as DVI cables. The difference is that the HDMI connector is much smaller while also carrying an audio signal with up to six channels (5.1 surround sound). It's used by everything from PCs, to video games consoles, to multimedia devices such as Blu-ray players and streaming boxes designed for services like Netflix and Hulu.</div> <h3 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> DVI</h3> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> DVI connections support digital HD video signals similar to HDMI, albeit without an accompanying audio signal. DVI ports are slowly being phased out in favor of HDMI and Display Port connections.</div> <h3 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> Display Port</h3> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Monitors and graphics cards that support the Display Port interface are finally becoming commonplace in the world of consumer electronics. While similar to HDMI in some ways, in that it's essentially capable of delivering the same video and audio signal, Display Port comes with advantages of its own. Monitors no longer need to rely on the added internal hardware required for HDMI inputs, thus allowing for thinner displays. More importantly, the Display Port standard can support up to four monitors at once with a breakout cable, while HDMI can carry only a single signal.</div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">What to look for: Make sure any monitor you buy has at least HDMI and Display Port inputs. A DVI port can come in handy, but considering DVI to HDMI adapters are cheap, it's not necessary.</em></div> <h2 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.02736rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> Try Before You Buy</h2> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> With all of these considerations under your belt, you're likely going to have an easy time narrowing down what size and type of monitor you want to purchase, but if possible, it's important to try a monitor in person before making a purchase, especially if you plan on investing a lot of money. Granted, that isn't easy when shopping online, but there's nothing stopping you from testing monitors in a physical retail store first, and then making your purchase over the Internet. No matter what, when you're using a computer, you're looking at your monitor, so it's important that you choose one that works for you. Despite the standards that exist, IPS monitors from Dell and Asus aren't going to look identical, for example. Arming yourself with the knowledge to understand what you're getting into with a monitor is invaluable, but it's your firsthand experience that will ultimately determine if you like what you see.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <br /></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">What to look for: A monitor that meets your other criteria, but also one that produces an image that looks good to you.</em></div> <h2 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.02736rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> I Still Don't Know What to Get. Can't You Pick for Me?</h2> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> While we firmly believe that you should try a monitor before purchasing it, that's not always an option. If you can't make it out to your local electronics store, or prefer to shop online, here are a few monitors that are worth considering. These aren't hard recommendations, but they're good starting points depending on the size of the screen you're looking for.</div> <h3 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> <a data-ref-id="false" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001834" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">SAMSUNG S22C650D 21.5" 60Hz 5ms</a></h3> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> If you're looking for a smaller monitor, Samsung's S22C650D is a solid choice. It's got the right inputs, resolution, and response time, but most notably, it's a PLS monitor that's less than $200.</div> <h3 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> <a data-ref-id="false" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313&cm_re=ASUS_VG248QE-_-24-236-313-_-Product" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">ASUS VG248QE 24" 144Hz 1ms</a></h3> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> This monitor from Asus has a lot of things going for it. Though it doesn't support any resolution higher than 1080p, that should be good enough given the size. Given that it's designed around a TN panel, it doesn't sport the best color-accuracy (photographers beware), but it does have amazingly fast response times, and at 144Hz, you can enjoy games that run at frame rates higher than 60 FPS. It also supports all four common monitor adjustments.</div> <h3 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: quatro-slab, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.60186rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 2.14286rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.42857rem; padding: 0px;"> <a data-ref-id="false" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236294&cm_re=pb278q-_-24-236-294-_-Product" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">ASUS PB278Q 27" 60Hz 5ms</a></h3> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> Asus 27-inch PLS monitor is a beast. It's big, has a native resolution of 2560x1440, and the PLS panel inside means that you can expect great color accuracy, black levels, brightness, and a wide viewing angle. Even though PLS monitors aren't known for their response times, at 5ms, a monitor like the PB278Q won't disappoint. The once catch: it's limited to 60Hz.</div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">What to look for: For the best features, reliability, and support, look for monitors manufactured by Asus, Samsung, and Dell.</em></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f5f5; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141415; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;"> What size and type of monitor are you using with your computer? Do you think one display is enough, or should people run as many as they can at the same time? Let us know in the comments below.</div> </div>

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