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Backbone: The Kotaku Review
9.6.2021
I’m pretty tired of fantasy racism. At this point, portraying racism in video games through the proxies of elves forced into squalid ghettos, stateless space alien nomads, and disenfranchised robots feels a cop out. So I was surprised that I enjoyed Backbone so much, a noir adventure set...
Backbone Is A Noir Adventure About Racism In Anthropomorphic Vancouver
28.5.2021
Backbone, a noir adventure game set in an anthropomorphic version of Vancouer, is coming out on June 8. I have already played the free Steam demo, Backbone: Prologue, six times.Read more
Call Of Duty Has Banned Over 350,000 Players For Racism And Toxicity In The Past Year
26.5.2021
Call of Duty big. Now Call of Duty ban number big, too. Read more
Twitch Adds Over 350 New Tags Like 'Black', 'Transgender' And 'Disabled'
24.5.2021
Starting this week, streamers on Twitch are going to have over 350 new tags they can use to help classify their streams, related to “gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, ability, mental health, and more”.Read more
Valorant Pro Jay “Sinatraa” Won Suspended For Six Months Following Sexual Assault Investigation
17.5.2021
Jay “Sinatraa” Won has been suspended from competing in professional Valorant matches for six months following Riot’s investigation of claims he sexually assaulted his girlfriend Cleo Hernandez. Announced today, the six month suspension will last until September 10 and require Won to participate...
How Studio Ghibli Helped With The Latest Evangelion Film
13.5.2021
Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno has a history that goes way back with Studio Ghibli—before it was even founded. One of the first big jobs he got in the industry was working on Hayao Miyazaki’s 1984 classic Nausicaä. Read more
Humble Bundle Rethinks Unpopular Charity Split
5.5.2021
Two weeks ago, Humble Bundle announced a controversial plan to remove sliders that allow users to customize what percent of their game purchase goes to charity. Today, Humble announced that it’s rethinking that plan.Read more
Please Enjoy Epic's Tim Sweeney Apologising Profusely To Ubisoft For Screwing Up
5.5.2021
While the documents and emails being released as part of the Epic v Apple case are often important and full of detailed information, I am very much enjoying the ones—like this—where billionaire executives are forced into embarrassing apologies when their company fucks up.Read more
Witcher 3 Director Leaves CD Projekt Following Bullying Allegations
4.5.2021
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, director of The Witcher 3, has resigned from his position at CD Projekt after being accused of workplace bullying, Bloomberg reports.Read more
T-Pain Throws Racist Call of Duty Players Straight Into The Trash
30.4.2021
T-Pain may have been in the news today for his heartbreaking Instagram confession, but don’t let that distract you from the fact he has also been busy distributing swift and remorseless justice to racist assholes on Call of Duty.Read more
Gearbox Threatens To Leave Texas Over Anti-Trans Bill
22.4.2021
During a committee hearing held yesterday in the Texas House of Representatives, Gearbox exec David Najjab testified against Texas House Bill 4042, which would force transgender athletes in public schools to compete in sports according to the gender they were assigned at birth.Read more
Troll Makes Up Path Of Exile Ban Over Accessibility, Is Jerk
17.4.2021
This week, a supposed player claimed to have been banned from action RPG Path of Exile for using a macro to make the game accessible. Other players and accessibility activists took up their cause. Now, it appears the whole thing was a troll. In my professional journalistic opinion: what...
Care Has Always Been Infrastructure
13.4.2021
The emerging debate over whether care is infrastructure isn’t new or surprising. The question “what is infrastructure?” was triggered by President Biden’s announcement that the American Jobs Plan includes a $400 billion investment to expand Medicaid coverage of home and community-based services...
Korean Overwatch League Player Shares His Experience With Anti-Asian Racism In America
10.4.2021
As opening day for the fourth season of the Overwatch League looms, Korean players on North American teams are dealing with the precipitous rise in anti-Asian racism. On April 5, Eui-Seok “Fearless” Lee, main tank for the Dallas Fuel, talked about his experience being Korean and living in America...
Hey, Magic: The Gathering, Your Story Is Doing Great Without The Racist Tropes
6.4.2021
Ever since Jordan Peele gave us Get Out, there’s been a trend in pop culture entertainment that upsets the shit outta me—everything (and oh my Lord, do I mean everything) is centered on Black Pain. It feels like the only shows or movies that prominently feature Black people involved in fantastical...
Arkansas Governor Belatedly Realizes Wanting Trans Kids to Die Is Perhaps a Bad Look
5.4.2021
On Monday, in a rather surprising turn of events, Arkansas’s Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson vetoed HB 1570, a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for trans youth in the state, which sailed through Arkansas’s Republican-dominated legislature. Read more
God I Wish That Were Me
2.4.2021
Resident Evil Village comes out May 7.Read more
Still Nickel and Dimed: Unpacking Tipping, Minimum Wage and the Fight for Equity
24.3.2021
If you’ve been paying attention to the news, then you’d notice that there’s been a lot of talk about the federal minimum wage lately. Read more
Twitch Streamer Gross Gore Banned After Years Of Sexual Assault Allegations
19.3.2021
Today, Twitch banned and de-partnered Ali “Gross Gore” Larsen, a longtime streamer and subject of controversy, after sexual assault allegations old and new came to light last weekend.Read more
More Game Companies Take A Public Stand Against Anti-Asian Racism Following Atlanta Shootings
17.3.2021
A white man entered an Atlanta, Georgia spa yesterday and opened fire, killing four people and wounding another. He then drove across town and repeated this heinous act at two more locations, killing four more people. Six of the victims were Asian women, four of them of Korean descent.Read more