In maybe the swiftest escalation of 2022, gaming YouTuber and experimental rapper IShowSpeed was banned from Valorant (and other Riot Games titles) and potentially YouTube for demeaning a female player in Riot’s tactical hero shooter. IShowSpeed has since apologized for his behavior, saying he was “not having a good day” in the clip that went …
Photo: Josh Lefkowitz (Getty Images) League of Legends maker Riot Games is back to the office beginning this week and not everyone’s happy about it, according to a new report by Waypoint. Following local guidelines, the LA-based company dropped its vaccine and mask mandates even as covid-19 continues to spread, leading one current employee to …
Photo: Fayez Nureldine (Getty Images) Electronic Gaming Development Company (EGDC), a subsidiary of a foundation run by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, now owns 96.18 percent of Japanese developer SNK following a massive investment. According to an announcement sent to SNK investors in February, EGDC recently acquired a majority of SNK’s shares on the …
Killjoy, who definitely does not include NFTs among her “work and hobbies”Image: Riot Games Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends and online shooter Valorant, has issued something of an apology to fans of the latter after a tweet appeared to show one of the game’s characters enjoying the works of an NFT artist. …
Image: Riot Games In her recent (and gorgeous) reveal trailer, Neon, the newest agent about to be introduced to Riot’s team-based tactical shooter, Valorant, breaks the cardinal rule of the sweaty, tryhard, head-clicking tac-shooter genre—she can actually move fluidly. This isn’t a shot at Valorant’s movement, which I actually really like, but a way of …
Pictured is Riot’s LA campus. Image: Riot Games Back in 2018, former Riot Games employees Melanie McCracken and Melanie McCracken and Jes Negrón filed a class action suit against the League of Legends publishe over endemic gender-based discrimination and fostering a “men-first” environment. A settlement has now been reached. The lawsuit was originally filed three …
The ongoing lawsuit against Activision Blizzard has made public some truly terrible and horrendous behavior that occurred across multiple studios and offices. Many women were allegedly sexually harassed, assaulted, and psychologically traumatized while the folks in power at the companies involved seemingly did little to stop or limit this behavior. The lawsuit was filed on …
Screenshot: Bandai Namco Studios / Bandai Namco Entertainment There was, I would argue, no genre-defining role-playing game this year, but there were still a hell of a lot of good ones. So many, in fact, that I had a hard time keeping this list from ballooning even larger than it already is. I tried my …
Image: Square Enix / Ubisoft / Kotaku / Drew Angerer (Getty Images) Hell-year 2021 is almost over. It’s been a terrible year for more reasons than I can count. Pondering all the bad, disappointing, or just plain sad news that transpired within the video game industry alone is enough to make you want to jump …