News::'League of Legends' will keep adding new champs for 'many' years

League of Legends is 10 years old, and like a fifth-grader riding his first two-wheeler, it's just getting started. Riot Games announced this week that League of Legends boasts 103 million monthly active players, up from 67 million in 2015. Compare that with Dota 2, which had 13.5 million players in the past month, or Overwatch, which has a total player pool of about 15 million. League of Legends is a massive phenomenon, helping pave the way for eSports as it enters mainstream consciousness and partnering with universities to kick off the next generation of competitive gaming.

The game itself is also huge. There are 132 champions in League of Legends, each with individual abilities, personalities, backstories, voice acting and costume choices, and Riot is constantly adding more. Just today, the company teased a new champion, bringing the revised total to 133.

That number is going to keep growing for a long while, Lead Game Designer Greg Street tells Engadget.

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News::UC Irvine debuts the first public college eSports arena in the US

The University of California, Irvine is serious about eSports. This fall it will officially launch a competitive gaming initiative, complete with scholarships and an already-decorated League of Legends team, and it's just finished construction on a 3,500 sqft eSports arena that's set to open on Friday, September 23rd. The arena is packed with 80 gaming PCs loaded with top eSports titles, a webcasting studio and viewing screens.

The arena will serve as a home base for the university's gaming community and a place for its competitive players to train. It also represents another step forward for collegiate eSports across the country.

"I think eSports is the future of competition. Period," UCI's acting director of eSports Mark Deppe says. "It transcends language, geography, race, age, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical ability and many other identities. In five years many more schools will official programs and more structure will be in place to regulate and provide guidance to schools. I think eSports also has a huge opportunity to learn from the successes and shortcomings of traditional sports and provide a model for collegiate competition in the 21st century."

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News::'Rick & Morty' co-creator unveils his first VR game

Squanchtendo Games, the recently founded VR studio from "Rick & Morty" co-creator, Justin Roiland, has just unveiled its first game: Accounting. But don't let the benign name fool you, this virtual reality experience appears to be just as ingeniously deranged as its animated predecessor.

Squanchtendo collaborated with Crows Crows Crows game studio to create the game which, according to the Squanchtendo release, only took about a week to craft. It is available for the HTC Vive for free through Steam VR. Details are thin as to what exactly you do in the game -- besides account, of course -- but you can bet there's going to be a whole lot of messed up shit in there.

Source: Accounting VR

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News::Disney-Square mashup 'Kingdom Hearts 2.8' is delayed to 2017

Kingdom Hearts 3 is a long way off. To tide keyblade fans over, Square Enix has been remastering the previous games -- both the console and handheld instalments -- and releasing them as three-part collections for the PlayStation 3. The latest instalment, Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, was due to come out on the PS4 in December, but that's now changed to January. The slight delay was announced at the Tokyo Game Show alongside a new trailer, which teases the ongoing adventures of Sora, Riku and Kairi, as well as older keyblade wielders Aqua, Terra and Ventus.

Source: Kingdom Hearts (YouTube)

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News::Sex and sexuality: The Jane Austen game breaking the MMO rules

Ever, Jane is an online role-playing game set in the dramatic, romantic worlds of Jane Austen. It invites players to attend sophisticated dinner parties and fancy balls, share gossip, keep secrets, fall in love, get married and climb the ribbon-lined social ladder of Regency-era England. It is definitely not a sex game, though sometimes players get wrapped up in this universe of exquisite gowns and forbidden desire, and they simply can't help themselves.

"Let's just say that we had to put in private chat," Ever, Jane creator Judy Tyrer says with a laugh.

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News::Valve is changing how Steam reviews work

Valve is cracking down on Steam reviews in an effort to prevent developers from artificially inflating a game's review score on the service. Valve says that the fixation on review scores is driving some developers to use nefarious means to boost them, thus potentially driving sales higher.

Via: Gamastura (1), (2)

Source: Steam

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News::Twitter comes to the Xbox One, Apple and Amazon TV boxes

Much like Shia LaBoeuf declaring that he isn't famous anymore, Twitter is now out and proud about not being a social network. No, instead, Twitter is now a broadcasting platform, which means that it needs to put itself in the sort of places you use to watch TV. That's why the company has announced that it's launching apps for Apple TV, Amazon's Fire TV and Microsoft's Xbox One. It'll be on these that you can watch some of the new video content that's coming to the service, including Thursday Night Football.

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News::Nintendo made a special 3DS XL for Pokémon Sun and Moon

You probably already have a Nintendo 3DS if you're waiting for the new Pokémon to drop. But if you're always on the lookout for special editions to add to your growing collection, you can get a Pokémon Sun and Moon-flavored New Nintendo 3DS XL on October 28th (or November 18th in the UK). This one's definitely for those who want something much simpler than the colorful bundle released for the franchise's 20th anniversary. It's just a black console with minimalistic illustrations of Sun's and Moon's legendaries, Solgaleo and Lunala.

Source: Nintendo

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News::'Pokémon Generations' YouTube series dives deep into game lore

If you love the world of Pokémon, but can't stand the official anime's whiny protagonist, stay tuned: the next Pocket Monster animated adventure has nothing to do with him. On September 16th, a series of shorts will launch under the title Pokémon Generations -- with each episode diving deep into the stories of the original games. Better yet, the show will be launching for free on YouTube.

Source: YouTube

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News::Futuretown's modular platform turns VR into simulator rides

When we last met Futuretown's CEO Johan Yang back in February, his startup appeared to be merely a virtual reality game studio, with its popular title Cloudlands: VR Minigolf currently owning 30 percent of the HTC Vive market share. Today, the company is entering the hardware space by announcing its 5D Totalmotion at the Tokyo Game Show. This aptly-named device is a cylindrical motion feedback machine that can fit any module on top to simulate different types of scenarios, such as riding, standing and seated experiences. To demonstrate these, Futuretown also announced four new VR games: Whiteout: Ski VR, Infinity Rider: Motorcycle VR, Wave Breaker: Surf VR and Stallion Adventures: Horse Riding VR.

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