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About a month ago, renewed interest in the "Sega Pluto"—a prototype console that was more or less an online-enabled Sega Saturn—led one guy to rummage through his closet and find he was in possession of one of two surviving units. He quickly put it up for bid, but now a second auction has ended in no sale. Roger Vega, the Pluto's owner, got a high bid of $7,600 when he listed it with GameGavel. That didn't meet his reserve price, so he tried again on eBay. A bid more than double that—$15,500—likewise didn't meet Vega's unspecified reserve, so one must wonder what he considers an appropriate bid. Sega Pluto eBay auction ends at $15,000… reserve still not met [Sega Nerds via Joystiq] To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Oklahoma's most idiotic robbery (this week) ended in the arrest of two teenagers who brandished a firearm at a babysitter and two children and stole a PlayStation 3 from their home. However, one of the suspects forgot to tuck in his bandana properly, helping Nancy Drew crack the case before the commercial break. Cops say that on May 3, three unnamed teens (because they're juveniles) busted in, pistols drawn, on a babysitter (likewise unnamed) watching two kids in a home in Broken Arrow, Okla. They demanded a PlayStation 3 and fled in a sedan. The babysitter recognized one of these criminal masterminds, whose bandana wasn't covering his face well enough. She wasn't going to take his backtalk, so she just up and packed the kids in the car (presumably) and drove 20 minutes into Tulsa to tell his mom he needed a time out—in the slammer. Right as the babysitter was discussing her son's rather antisocial behavior, guess who drove up. One of the suspects took off with the PS3 and ran through an apartment complex. Eventually, the police nabbed two of the kids, they guy who ran away with the console and the getaway driver. The driver said the gun he used to threaten the sitter was not a toy but it was not loaded. That won't do him much good. This is a felony, up and down, and they're being held on $70,000 bond, charged with first-degree burglary and robbery with a firearm. Interestingly enough, the console has yet to be recovered. No word on the third suspect, either. Teens arrested for breaking into babysitter's home and stealing a Playstation 3 at gunpoint [KJRH-TV]

Video games are not a complete and total waste of time. Assassin's Creed teaches you world history. Metal Gear Solid teaches politics and philosophy. And Cooking Mama teaches you, well, cooking. Those are some of the nuggets of wisdom at "Real Things Video Games Teach You," a tumblr that in two days has compiled nearly 60 examples of the positive things a game can contribute to your development. Some seem a little tongue-in-cheek (Grand Theft Auto teaches you "managing consequences.") but all the entries contain some earnest defense of the medium. What have video games taught you? They've taught me how to hit the green with a 5-iron on No. 12 at Pebble Beach. Real Things Video Games Teach You [tumblr] To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Diablo III's real-money auction house, taken down for most of the week by an exploit that allowed players to duplicate their gold, is back online, says Blizzard.

Andrew Wilson, the man in charge of EA Sports and newly in command of Electronic Arts' Origin digital distribution service, sold all of his shares in the company on Thursday, cashing out for about $687,000. It's a curious move but it wouldn't appear that Wilson is going anywhere, and indeed a statement from an EA Sports spokesman says just that: "Andrew is the head of EA Sports and Origin. He has no plans to leave EA." Wilson's rank is executive vice president, and Origin was added to his duties in a shake-up and reorganization the company put in place about two weeks ago. Running Origin is probably a bigger responsibility than just one of the publisher's labels; EA Sports, as I've argued, certainly is symbiotic to the software-as-a-service purpose that Origin intends to grow. The stock sale notwithstanding, this would be a strange time for someone getting that kind of promotion to bail. Electronic Arts' stock price vaulted to a 52-week high at the end of the week, following news that EA and Disney had come to terms on an exclusive deal to make Star Wars-licensed games. Wilson sold his shares for $21.42 each, about $1.30 more than the stock's price on Aug. 4, 2011, the day he was announced as the head of EA Sports. To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

What's happened in the business of video games this past week ... QUOTE | "'We realize that those negative impressions exist."—Precursor Games CEO Paul Caporicci, explaining that the company, composed mostly of ex-Silicon Knights employees, will make better games than the critical and commercial dud X-Men: Destiny. QUOTE | "The disappointing launch of the Wii U, uncertainties regarding next-generation hardware, and subscriber declines in our World of Warcraft business all raise concerns."—Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, explaining why Activision is worried about the second half of 2013. QUOTE | "[THQ] couldn’t change fast enough from a culture of kids licensed games to core."—Former THQ executive Danny Bilson talking about one of the main reasons for the publisher's downfall in a talk at the GameHorizon conference. QUOTE | "Some of the greatest designers out there are just getting their start right now."—Veteran designer Will Wright, talking about how confident he is in the rise of fresh game design talent during his appearance at GameHorizon. QUOTE | "Add things [to your game] that only total nerds care about."—Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester talking at GameHorizon about how game developers can create their own market and dedicated fanbase. QUOTE | "This transition will determine market leadership for the rest of the decade."—EA's Chairman and Interim CEO Larry Probst, explaining how EA intends to win over consumers with upcoming games. STAT | $7.5 billion—Sony's gaming division sales for the fiscal year ended March 31, down 12% from last year; profits were reduced to only $18 million from $310 million last year. QUOTE | "We didn't just want to update somebody else's game … If you're just doing that, you don't deserve success."—Barry Meade of iOS game developer Fireproof Games, talking about why original design is important. QUOTE | "One of the things that we believe first and foremost is to stay in touch with the community."—Greg Ballard, head of Warner Bros.' new SF mobile game studio, talking about how they're going to make great mobile games. QUOTE | "Gree and DeNA ... we don't think they are necessarily the same as gaming companies."—GungHo Online Entertainment president Kazuki Morishita, talking about how he thinks those companies are really tech companies. STAT | $4.8 billion—Revenue for Namco Bandai's fiscal year ended March 31, the highest since 2008; profits were up 67.8% to $320 million, also a five-year high. This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International Image by Shutterstock

Good morning, Kotaku! How're you all this weekend? I'm fabulous because I'm in Austin visiting my brothers, and that is a very, very good thing. We had some previews this week, Zac Gorman returned with a funny comic, Evan checked out NYU's No Quarter event where he talked to the creator of QWOP about his next game, we introduced retro reviews that we kicked off with Jason's analysis of Super Mario World, and I introduced you all to my new Ask Kotaku advice column (ask me stuff!). A fun week, all in all. Unless you hate EA and love Star Wars, that is. You can find all these articles and others from the week over at Kotaku Selects. As for the image up top? Those legendary heroes on a pretty, polka-dotted background is the work of Andrew Hiro-Hideki, and it was brought to my attention thanks to the lovely Ms. Mallory over at Insanely Gaming. Have a good one, guys! To contact the author of this post, write to tina@kotaku.com or find her on Twitter at @tinaamini.

May rages on, but we're still excited to sit back, relax, and just enjoy some dang video games.

Immersion is a curious word, a descriptor trotted out more often than visceral. (Before you start crawling through my own writing, I’m likely as guilty as anyone else.)

But immersion is absolutely the word (feeling?) I’d use when conveying the experience of playing Metro 2033 with Russian voices turned on. I can’t remember who made the suggestion when I decided to play Metro 2033, but it’s a vastly different experience. Metro 2033 is set in Russia, so what sense does it make to hear English voice actors with crap Russian accents? Dmitry Glukhovsky, the Russian author of the book Metro 2033 is based on, shared this sentiment with me at PAX East this year.

Making the switch is interesting for a number of reasons, including the fact that Metro 2033 (and Metro: Last Light) doesn’t translate every piece of dialogue. Delibrate? Technical? I don’t know, but much of the ambient dialogue is lost, meaning chunks of environmental details are left to your imagination. These characters and situations are not often talking at you, though, and you’re free to quietly to fill in the blanks of what’s happening. Exploring post-apocalyptic Russian underground systems feels foreign to me, so I’m not sure why I should expect everything to be politely explained to me, either. It feels much more natural.

I can see why it would bother some people. In fact, the reviewers guide for Metro: Last Light recommends this style of playthrough on the second time around (I’m not following that!). I’ll probably miss out on some plot details and world building, but people who are playing in English are missing out on much more.

Hey, You Should Play This

• ROM CHECK FAIL by Farbs (Browser, Free) -- www.farbs.org

ROM CHECK FAIL is five years old, but I’ve never played the damn thing, so I figure it’s worth passing on. ROM CHECK FAIL is a mashup, but one that mixes and mashes games and mechanics in the most surprising ways. Your best bet with ROM CHECK FAIL is to strap on a seatbelt and go for the ride; predicting where it’s going is pointless. It make you depressed at how little companies do with these older games, and what might happen if they loosened up a bit and stopped trying to reboot everything.

• F*** This Job by James Robinson (Browser, Free) -- http://blockjack.net/gameFTJ.html

Sometimes a person needs a reason to throw a keyboard at the wall, and F*** This Job provides ample opportunities to indulge in possibly breaking some equipment. There’s not much to F*** This Job except to slowly master the few ways to manipulate your character’s ability to jump, and then curse the unbelievable timing needed for some of the later stages. When jumping pads were introduced, I came this close to turning the damn thing off, but a few lucky hops saved me, and I did manage to finish the game.

• Fragments of Him by Mata Haggis, Tino van der Kraan, Elwin Verploegen, and Henriette Sande (Browser, Free) -- http://www.kongregate.com/games/Aceria620/fragments-of-him

It doesn’t take much to cue the waterworks these days, but Fragments of Him, where a man tries to move on from a relationship shattered by a fatal car accident, hit home hard. The “game” part takes the common feeling of avoiding familiar people, places, and things that remind you of what you’ve lost, and makes it the core mechanic. Saying more about how it plays out is best left unsaid, except to provide fair warning to anyone who might be triggered by the game’s sensitive material. I had to walk from my desk.

And You Should Read These, Too

• Solving Equation of a Hit Film Script, With Data by Brookes Barnes for The New York Times

While technically this story has nothing to do with games, I couldn’t help but think about games the entire time. Games are scrutinized, broken down, and analyzed in front of test audiences to an incredible degree, especially social games. Some of the metrics mentioned in the story are hysterical, such as the inclusion of...bowling? I have to wonder what the similar processes for games. We hear about some of ‘em. How many times are we told that most publishers aren’t willing to back games with unproven models (women in the main role, no violence, etc.)? It makes depressing sense.

"For as much as $20,000 per script, Mr. Bruzzese and a team of analysts compare the story structure and genre of a draft script with those of released movies, looking for clues to box-office success. His company, Worldwide Motion Picture Group, also digs into an extensive database of focus group results for similar films and surveys 1,500 potential moviegoers. What do you like? What should be changed?

'Demons in horror movies can target people or be summoned,' Mr. Bruzzese said in a gravelly voice, by way of example. 'If it’s a targeting demon, you are likely to have much higher opening-weekend sales than if it’s summoned. So get rid of that Ouija Board scene.'"

• Knight & Damsel by Matthew Kumar for exp.alt

So much of the discussion about sexim and games has happened through impassioned words. Damsel in Distress, a product of the Toronto Independent Game Jam, doesn’t damningly critique the tropes that we’ve been discussing over the past year or so, but rather takes those ideas and riffs on them. In Damsel in Distress, the princess in question is more than capable of taking care of herself, and it’s the knight in shining armor that has a problem with it. It’s not currently available, so I’m pointing you towards the developer’s explanation of intent.

“Knight and Damsel’s inspiration actually comes from a few places, but one worth mentioning is Feminist Frequency’s first Tropes vs. Women in Video Games video, Damsel in Distress. I’m not particularly interested in this context of debating the quality/value of the series, but one thing that struck me was an aside that in your average video game, if a princess is captured, she waits passively to be rescued. Yet for heroes, being captured is just another challenge to be faced (and heroes getting captured happens all the time. It’s basically all James Bond does.)”

If You Click It, It Will Play

Crowdfunding Has Promise, Hopefully Developers Don't Screw It Up

• Energy Hook is just one of many projects starting their funding goal at $1.
• Anamanaguchi is raising money to make a bunch of kick ass music videos.
• Doodle 3D lets you print 3D drawings in a 3D printer, and now I want a 3D printer.

Tweets That Make You Go "Hmmmmmm"

So how does Twitter feel about women drawing sexy women, like Mari Shimazaki (Bayonetta), Mariel Cartwright (Skullgirls), and Anna Anthropy?

— Derek Yu (@mossmouth) April 24, 2013

World of Warcraft subs drop 1.3 million in 3 months. You don't win friends with pandas.

— Aoife Wilson (@AoifeLockhart) May 9, 2013

I will always be more interested in game worlds that define their boundaries with conundrums rather than arbitrary "gates." also, space.

— Nick Breckon (@nickbreckon) April 28, 2013

Oh, And This Other Stuff

• Leigh Alexander argues Candy Box proves there's something to the mechanics of F2P games.
• Former Epic Games designers Lee Perry weighs in on the merit of F2P games, too.
• This was the GDC panel that caused me to rethink my role in the media.
• re/Action is an excellent new publication headed up by Mattie Brice and others. Bookmark it.
• Following in the footsteps of Dustforce, the developers of Spirits break down sales numbers.
• Vlambeer's Rami Ismail rants about providing advice, and provides advice in the process.
• Irrational's Shawn Elliott makes some good points about recent discussions on fair gender pay.
• An excellent profile on what we know about Silicon Knights 2.0 so far.
• Will Wright talks about the future of games, SimCity's launch, and much more.
• Weighing how guilty we should or shouldn't feel about liking stuff made by shitty people.
• A brutal response to Darius Kazemi's "*crag* Videogames" rant. Dang.
• Thoughts on BioShock Infinite from someone who was in Boston during the most recent bombing.
• Make sure to call your mom this weekend, okay?
• Some crazy people are trying to make Mega Man 2 even harder.

Slow and steady wins the tactical naval fleet battle.

Look, I am really sorry you are heading into the worst weekend of your life. I'd try to warn you, tell you what sorts of people, places and things to avoid, but fate doesn't work that way. You'll either ignore me completely, thinking I'm some sort of psycho, or you'll adjust your plans and fate will adjust right back. It's inevitable. Might-as-well have some games along for the ride. Do they make fireproof phone cases? Oh, no reason. If you had to choose between fireproof and waterproof, really it's a toss up at this point. Either way you go, you'll still only be conscious long enough to play two or three of this week's selection of mobile gaming goodness. Let's see. Impossible Road? Might be a little too poignant, all things considered. By the time Monday rolls around, Running with Friends will carry a certain bitter irony, but it'll be fun in the meantime. Blaster X is pretty safe, unless... no, nevermind. Bellyfish is actually perfect. You should play that. Pay extra attention to the air bubble collecting bits. Try not to panic. Fear is the mind-killer after all. I am sure everything will be fine. You should just forget I said anything. Maybe focus on... What We Played This Week Impossible Road - iOS - $1.99 An incredibly striking, deceptively simple game about getting a white ball to follow a blue road. Nearly lives up to its name. Blaster X HD - iPad - $.99 400 levels of gorgeous action puzzles. It's a skill-based gameabout flinging a ball to collect energy modules, which takes a great deal more skill than one would imagine. It's challenge week! Mosaique - Android, iOS - $.99 Developer Winning Blimb calls Mosaique the favorite pastime of another world, and it very well could be. It's a color matching game with a pleasing palette and endless variety. Soothing and relaxing. Perfect for the bath. Running with Friends - iOS - Free From Zynga, in collaboration with David Jaffe's Eat Sleep Play, comes an endless running of the bulls against friends. It's a nicely-polish endless-runner that doesn't stray far from the regular formula. The twist is, you are playing back and forth against your friends, instead of playing for yourself, you selfish bastard. Bellyfish - iOS - $.99 A harmless little endless-riser, in Bellyfish the goal is to reach the surface of a never-ending sea. If you think about it, that's the stuff of nightmares, so don't think about it. App Reviews for the Week of May 6 - 10, 2013 Children Slaughtering Zombies Is More Fun When They're Animales Do not ask why Little Mexico has a zoo containing hundreds of elephants. Do not ask why the only people fighting the animal victims of a zombie plague are a pair of small Mexican children. Do not ask how a Roman candle can take down a full-grown pachyderm brought back from the dead via evil forces. Don't ask…Read… It's Like Pokemon, Only With Cats and Baked Goods I do not understand why I am playing this, so here's a kitten with a steamed bun on its head. Read… It Only Took A Legendary Developer To Make Strategic Air Battles Fun When I'm in the cockpit of a fighter aircraft, the last thing I want to do is slow down — I certainly don't want to wait my turn. I need a joystick in my hand, a first-person view and buttons for machine guns and/or missiles. I was pretty sure Sid Meier of Civilization and Pirates! fame had finally created a game I… Read… I'd Rather Be Playing This 'Meditative Space Strategy' Game Right Now Some games nearly make me miss my subway stop. Some games tempt me to keep on playing them while I'm walking down the street. This is one of them. Read…

Maybe you've seen the name "Xbox Infinity" floating around on the Internet this week. Maybe you've been wondering just what people are talking about. Don't worry: we're here to help. Let's address some Frequently Asked Questions. Is that the real logo for the next Xbox? Nope. It's a Photoshop by a Redditor named C-Ron. So why do I keep seeing it everywhere? Because it is an image on the Internet, and images on the Internet never go away. Also, because a lot of people are talking about Xbox Infinity this week. Where did "Xbox Infinity" come from? Umm... well, really, the name has been floating around the web for months now, along with Xbox Infinite, and Xbox 8 (trademarked by Microsoft last year), and Xbox Fusion, and Xbox 720, and Xbox [INSERT WHATEVER]. Why are people talking about it this week? International Business Times UK reported earlier this week that their sources told them the next Xbox is called Xbox Infinity. They also posted the above photo along with the caption "The Xbox Infinity logo that was leaked on Reddit," which kind of calls into question the entire article, since that logo is a fake. Is Xbox Infinity really the name of the next Xbox? We don't know. If you hear something, let us know. Why do they call it Xbox Infinity? Because when you see it, you turn infinity degrees and walk away. Oh. Okay. Thanks! You're very welcome. We'll see the new Xbox on May 21, and we'll probably find out what it's called then. Stay tuned.

Jamie Fristron has worked on a lot of games during his time in the video game industry, but he says that his most well-known creation was the web-slinging system in Spider-Man 2. Now, he's making a new game called Energy Hook that combines Spidy-style rope-slinging with jetpacks and extreme sports. Okay then! The key to Spider-Man 2's traversal was that you had to actually anchor your webs to buildings, unlike in other Spider-Man games, where you could just sort of attach webs to the sky (yawn). Energy Hook works with much the same system, albeit with a notable lack of radioactive spiders. You can see a breakdown of how the game'll work in the video here, which is a pitch for the game's Kickstarter crowdfunding drive. You may also notice that the campaign has already blown past its initial goal… of $1. Fristron explains that in his FAQ: As I’ve been working on this game I’ve fallen in love with it, and I’m going to finish it, no matter what, even if I don’t raise a dime. Now, since I went indie years ago I’ve been bleeding money, and I don't know how much indie resolve I have left. And having a family to support, it would be irresponsible of me to keep working on the game for too much longer or blow what’s left of our savings on it, which is why I’m trying to raise some money—to get an idea of how much people want this game, and find out how much more time and money I can responsibly spend. Okay, I guess that makes sense. Anyway, the game looks pretty cool. For more info, head on over to the Energy Hook Kickstarter page. (Via Chris Kohler)

Hello Kotaku! My name is Tina. Have we met? I'm here to answer your questions with savvy advice. What questions? Any questions! Be they game-related or life-related, I want to hear you out. And I want to offer an ear and perhaps a shoulder and a few wise words. Or funny ones! Sometimes laughter beats out logic. I'll be running a weekly column called Ask Kotaku where I answer your questions on the site. If you've got a question for next week's column, email it over to me at tina@kotaku.com. Now, I know what you're thinking. What's someone who uses an image of a cat on a laptop to introduce her advice column got to say to me? I'll answer your question with a question: what's someone who doesn't use an image of a thug-looking cat got to tell you? Eh? Eh? See, we're already off to a good start. To contact the author of this post, write to tina@kotaku.com or find her on Twitter at @tinaamini.

Maybe you live in Toronto. Maybe you’ll be at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival this weekend. But if you won’t be in the upper part of the North American continent over the next few days, you won’t be able to see some incredible video game art. But we can show some of it right here. Running this weekend, the Comics vs. Games 2 showcase will feature awesome new work from creators from both mediums. Part of the associated events will be an art show with eye-popping work from Zac Gorman, Corey Lewis, Chris Furniss, Asid Siddiky, Jacob Frerguson and more incredible illustrators. Toronto is a hotbed of indie game creativity that companies like Capybara Games, Drinkbox Studios and many other developers call home. That means that if you’re at TCAF and go to the Bit Bazaar zine/arcade event, Comics vs. Games 2 gallery show or panel talk with Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley, you will probably meet someone who’s made something you like a whole lot. The rest of us will have to pine away from afar. Tell us how it all goes down, won’t you? TWO CITIES, TWO SHOWS, PART TWO: TORONTO & TCAF [Attract Mode]

Zynga invites you to run with your friends, Crazy Taxi can be hailed for a buck and Team Fortress 2 inspires Gameloft's latest shooter.

Heck, I've got no problem with some good, fun, free games! Also, related, Doritos have some ok flavors.

I have to admit that—of all the “who’d win” nerd arguments over the strength of pop-cultural metahumans— the Man of Steel vs. The Hero of Eternia is one I never really thought about. Superman and He-Man? Science vs. magic is always a good clash but so much about the characters’ respective universes was just so different. Could it work? Who knows? Besides, they’d never meet anyway, right? Well, the two strongmen are going to clash this summer. Consider the mind of my 12-year-old self blown. Clark Kent and Prince Adam will be facing off in DC Universe vs. Masters of the Universe, a miniseries written by Stephen Totilo’s favorite comics writer Keith Giffen and drawn by Dexter Soy, with covers by Ed Benes. DC Comics has been running MotU comics for the last few months and this new project picks up where that storyline leaves off, with Skeletor coming to Earth after getting his blue butt kicked yet again. Buzzfeed has some teasers about what might happen in the book. What match-ups do you want do see?

Reality becomes slightly blurry at EVE Online’s Fanfest, an annual gathering--nay, pilgrimage--for the online space game’s most dedicated schemers, dreamers, and astronauts.

Don’t play EVE Online and expect to succeed. Success is relative. Understanding failure and the cruel, unfair nature of humanity is lesson one. A consistent story I heard from its players was the day they lost their first ship. It happens early, but late enough that players have spent hours and hours with the game. In a moment, it’s all gone. There’s no checkpoint. Most games are designed to ensure the player, if found to be putting in a reasonable effort, will be victorious. Games are, largely, not about failure anymore. There is no winner in EVE Online, at least not a permanent one, and many players are happy to squash you under a virtual boot--the whole reason Something Awful’s GoonSwarm alliance exists is to ruin everyone's time. It’s an experience that asks you to totally forget the concept of a backlog and submit.

When you attend the Penny Arcade Expo, it feels like a big club. Everyone is kind of sort of into the same things, but we’ve come here for different reasons. You might not be into what I'm into. Fanfest is a brotherhood. No one spends hundreds of dollars to visit EVE Online’s home unless EVE Online is like home to them. It fashions a completely different kind of atmosphere, one that inspires an intimate camaraderie usually left to goofy chat room banter. Here, it’s safe to be obsessed. Here, you can cheer at new scanning options in the upcoming expansion, Odyssey, and get a stiff high-five in return.

When Drew and I showed up, we found a makeshift tattoo parlor where players could have logos, flags, and other treatments made permanent. Drew quickly filmed the first person we spotted, figuring it would be a rare occurrence. The whir of ink-on-skin was there all weekend.

The event is held in chilly Reykjavik, both the capital and largest city in Iceland. The tiny country is home to just 319,000 people, and more than 120,000 reside in Reykjavik itself. As an American whose handful of years learning a foreign language went out the window years ago, traveling to Iceland is a surreally familiar experience. Residents speak pitch-perfect English, and nearly every menu starts in English, not Icelandic. This is true of many tourist-centric locations around the world--tourism was 5.9% of Iceland’s GDP in 2010--but it’s even more prolific in Iceland. Residents told me there was an easy explanation for this: nothing is translated into Icelandic. If you want to experience games and movies, you learn quickly.

Roughly 1,400 cadets showed up for Fanfest this year, the biggest gathering yet. But that number surprised me. Doesn’t a convention mean thousands and thousands of people? If Fanfest was held in Los Angeles, it would probably attract more of its 500,000 active users, but it wouldn’t be Fanfest. Iceland feels magical, mysterious, and one isn’t surprised it birthed the band Sigur Ros. EVE Online is set in an alien part of space, and Iceland is appropriately alien to most of its players.

Being held in developer CCP Games’ backyard--it’s literally blocks away--has benefits. Many of the developers who build the worlds players spend their time in are right in front of them. There’s a keynote each night of Fanfest, where CCP gathers the troops and unveils what’s next. Behind the enormous screen are seats filled by developers. When fans hoot, holler, and applaud, they aren’t just hyping up each other--they’re thanking EVE’s creators. A senior developer announced he was moving to mobile development at CCP, and the house gave him a standing ovation for minutes. There were few dry eyes.

It’s enlightening to watch the interaction between players, too. The stories that bubble up from EVE Online involve conflict, backstabbing, and warfare. When one side succeeds, the other isn’t merely defeated, they’re buried, beaten, embarrassed, and immortalized. It wouldn't be surprising if people, then, hated one another in real-life, but it’s the opposite. Fanfest is all hugging, swapping stories, swilling beer, and taking shots (in Iceland, the preferred spirit is the native Brennivín, a not-so-bad liquor with the misleading name “Black Death”). Quiet meetings occur at Fanfest, including a nightly gathering of the leading members at high-level corporations and alliances that rotates bars to keep it all secret.

That isn’t to say there isn’t some tension. EVE Online has villains, perhaps none more infamous than Alex “The Mittani” Gianturco, one of the game's most powerful entities. The outside world learned his name due to a drunken comment at last year’s Fanfest, in which he encouraged people to track down and harass a specific player who had aired suicidal thoughts. (The alcohol involved in the incident, Jagermeister, was jokingly banned during this year's equivalent panel, a roundtable presentation by popular and upcoming alliances in the game.) CCP was forced to respond. Gianturco was banned from EVE Online for 30 days, removed from the player-elected council, and issued a formal apology. But as the leader of GoonSwarm, EVE Online’s most notorious and troll-y group, Mittani is both celebrated and reviled. GoonSwarm is known for a number of passive aggressive harassment tactics, including spamming “local chat” (which allows players to talk with those immediately around them) with links to dick pictures. A group of us were walking from the convention center and discussing Mittani. Another set of attendees walked past, and yelled “Mattani is a faggot!”

Soon, Mittani and others will be memorialized outside the game itself. CCP is asking players to contribute their best stories from playing EVE Online, some of which will be included in an upcoming book celebrating EVE Online’s first decade of existence, while others may inform the storylines for an in-development television show based on the game. CCP is trying to bribe players into giving up their secrets, a task more difficult than you’d imagine. Time and time again, when I’d ask players for their craziest stories from playing EVE Online, each would play it close to the chest and keep some details secret, as those details still had an impact on the ongoing game. Furthermore, CCP is building a literal monument to EVE Online in Iceland, and players active in the game during May will have their names inscribed at the base. When this was announced at Fanfest, someone in the crowd shouted “Vile Rat!"

Vile Rat, known to friends and family as Sean Smith, was EVE Online’s chief diplomat, a trader of words and promises, and often at the center of EVE Online's biggest moments. He also worked for the U.S. State Department, and was killed during an attack in Bengazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. There was little mention of Vile Rat during Fanfest, but when someone shouted Smith’s virtual name, the room went quiet. CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar said the monument would remember those alive...and no longer with us.

The crowd applauded.

(There are excellent profiles of Vile Rat at Kotaku and, of all places, Playboy.)

I joked at the start of our travelogue video that coming to Fanfest was a lark, and it’s true. I’ve wanted to attend Fanfest since I joined up with Giant Bomb, and CCP provided an opportunity to do so this year. (Thanks!) Much of my work involves preparation, but I didn't do any here. We’d be immersed in the subculture of EVE Online for several days, and I wanted to trust my gut on what was interesting, and pass that on to you. After a day or two, you pick up the lingo, and it’s easy enough to have conversations about a game you actually know very little about. By the end, you’re itching to head home and start playing, and it generated lengthy reflections about my playing habits, and what I value out of my game time.

To be fair, EVE Online does look much cooler in screens. It looks REALLY cool, though.

The stories of EVE Online’s grand clashes are the envy of every game, online or not. There’s the player who doesn’t even play EVE Online but simply spends his time researching other players and selling that information to the highest bidder. There are alliances who fight one another based on time zones, and will attack the other’s most vulnerable locations, based on when those people sleep. There’s the player-elected council that’s issuing “no comments” on a recent scandal involving the leaking of Skype conversations between the council and the game’s developers. These stories are why so many players and journalists are fascinated by EVE Online, even as they give it the stink eye from a distance. It seems impossible to not be jealous of the adventures these fanatics are having in EVE Online. When I think about how I spend much of my time playing games, so many of them hollow experiences purely designed to “keep up with the conversation,” it prompts me to ask...why? These renegades have tossed the rest of gaming aside to roll the dice with the most important currency of all: time. Games try so hard to create impact and consequence, while EVE Online does so effortlessly by robbing you of your time investment when things go wrong, or another player *crag*s you over. The stories are so gut-wrenching because it can all be measured in time.

My other response was confusion over the general contempt for EVE Online from anybody who doesn’t play it. “It’s a spreadsheet game,” is far and away the most common way to describe the game. It’s true for a couple of reasons--much of the game can be controlled through an interface that looks like a page from Excel, players manage their resources and corporations through actual spreadsheets--but destructive and disingenuous for so many others. EVE Online largely succeeds is because it is a spreadsheet. EVE Online isn’t a twitch game, but requires just as much if not more skill than games that garner much more respect. If EVE Online were a twitch game, one in which the best pilots were the most successful, it would limit the time and interest the players had exploring the way crazier aspects of the game, which directly results in the drama and political intrigue we love to chat about after a well-written feature summing up a forum post about a past weekend’s crazy series of events. By removing the traditional skill barriers, an increasingly archaic way of defining a game, EVE Online invites so much more. The very thing people lodge against the game as a negative helps produce the moments everyone loves.

Fanfest reinforced a personal theme of 2013: don’t judge a book by its cover. Or, at least, judge that book once you’ve had a chance to actually judge it. Love and hate things on your own terms. I was wrong about Monster Hunter. I was wrong about EVE Online. Wrong is, perhaps, inaccurate. My preconceived notions of both were reinforcing ongoing narratives that both are inscrutable, only for crazy people. These crazy people are having way more fun with their games than I often am. Who’s really crazy?

Also, you should go to Iceland. It's really great.

Ryan and Drew go back TEN YEARS to the point in the franchise when things really... revved up.

A deal so hot it's molten. Looking for the current Moneysaver roundup? Click here. 5600dpi, 17 MMO-optimized buttons, crazy backlighting, and a whole lot of good reviews combine to make the Razer Naga Special Edition MMO Gaming Mouse - Molten an easy recommendation. It's hovering right around its lowest price ever today, so the time to strike is now. If the Call of Duty SteelSeries we recently featured was too much branding or too few buttons for your taste, then this should be just the ticket. Grab it from Amazon for $59. [Amazon] Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. This is a Moneysaver One-Shot, a post focusing on a single deal, sale, or category. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

Video game lovers haven’t had reason to think about Uwe Boll for a couple of years. The German-born filmmaker hasn’t put out one of his retina-scarring game adaptations for a while. But he hasn’t stopped making films. Over at CriticWire, Matt Singer argues Boll’s newer movies have gotten better but they’ve gotten more disturbing, too.

Do you like Kotaku's longform content? Be sure to check out Kotaku Longreads, our collection of in-depth reporting and research. And if you know of a story that you'd like to see us cover, let us know in the comments.

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: A Mother’s Day micro-memoir from The Geek Empress might make you all misty. GiantBoyDetective wants you to discuss your Best Racing Game of All Time. It’s definitely a Burnout game for me, but choosing between Takedown or Paradise is really tough. And TheUnfathomableTruth asks what you want to do before you die. Happy Friday! And you can always go join the voices talking about video games and life in TAY Classic and in the TAY: Open Forum.

Nokia's Lumia 928 will be launching May 16th for just $99.99. Is this the Windows Phone handset that Verizon owners have been waiting for?

I still kind of can't believe this expansion exists, but I am absolutely not complaining.

Patrick gets scared stiff! Well, maybe not scared...and more like frozen...he definitely stopped moving.

Microsoft Excel isn't only for spreadsheets. It can also be used to create art. Don't believe me? Just ask 73 year-old Tatsuo Horiuchi. He'll tell ya. But why Excel? "Other specialized graphic software is expensive, and Excel came pre-installed in PCs," Horiuchi told Japanese website PC Online, adding that he found the program easy to use and more capable than actual paint. The retiree said that he didn't use Excel at his job. "I saw other people neatly drawing graphs, and I thought it seemed like Excel could be used to draw art." Before he retired from his company, he felt like he wanted to do something new, bought a computer, and started using Excel. And in the last ten years, he has established himself as a digital artist, showing his work in exhibitions. Other artists have used Excel to draw and paint in, sure. However, how many of them are senior citizens creating traditional and stunning Japanese motifs? Not many! 堀内辰男のエクセルで描くパソコン画 [Tatsuo Horiuchi] エクセルで本格的な絵画を描く、油絵や日本画の画家が「仲間」[PC Online] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

Each year, Japan produces dozens of live-action drama series. While some are original, many are instead adaptations of popular manga—and even, occasionally, games. Such is the case with the first CLAMP live-action adaptation: xxxHolic. Good – Beautiful Costumes and Visuals If there is one thing CLAMP is known for, it's beautiful visuals in its manga. And while the drama can't hope to live up to the stylized source material, it gives a valiant effort and is easily the most beautiful Japanese drama I have ever seen. This is due, in large part, to the costumes, especially those of Yuko, the Witch of Dimensions. Everything she wears could have been simply pulled out of the manga. The other characters look great as well—whether that be Watanuki's fictional school uniform or Ame-Warashi's Lolita style of dress. Simply put, the costume designer is the real star of this drama. Good – A Japanese Horror Vibe Perhaps the most interesting thing about the xxxHolic drama is how well it walks the line between horror and mystery. Ghosts, spirits, and other evil aspects of the supernatural world are drawn to Watanuki, but only he can see them. At first, they don't seem all that disturbing—hands coming out of trees or evil mist seeping out of a person's finger isn't really very scary. But as the episodes go on, the series begins to evoke images from popular Japanese horror like the Ring and the Grudge—with a white clad ghost, face covered by her hair, crawling into a room and an insane school girl carving the words “help me” into her flesh. The soundtrack in this series is often no more than ambient noise, which just adds to the horror feeling. Even normal seeming conversations in supposedly safe locations take on an air of menace when the music sounds like something out of Fatal Frame. But while the drama does definitely have some horror moments, it still remains true to its mystery genre roots—so while you feel the characters are in danger, you never feel that they are helpless in the face of supernatural threats. Mixed – Thematic Adaptation Adapting a 19-volume manga into eight 29-minute episodes is hardly an easy task. But as a standalone entity—one completely removed from the source material—xxxHolic is a solid drama with an intriguing mystery, well-developed characters, and a beautiful art style. That said, as an adaptation, the TV show is often radically different from the source material—especially as it nears the ending. Instead of trying to cram the whole story into these eight episodes, the creators opted (wisely, in my opinion) to take several stand-alone stories, expand them into full episodes, and use the mystery surrounding love-interest Himawari as the overall plot. The climax then hits notes from several different stories strewn across the manga's chapters and combines them into the finale. This will no doubt interest some viewers and alienate others. Mixed – The Casting Trying to match well-known anime characters with real world actors is never an easy proposition. The male side of the cast, Watanuki and Domeki, actually look to be high school age (instead of in their late-twenties like many male leads in Japanese dramas these days). But the real star of the show is Anne Watanabe who does a great job in the role of Yuko. She manages to play the strange and enigmatic witch with consummate ease. Really, the only weak link in the casting is Miyazaki Karen as Himawari. While the youngest in the cast (19), she looks more like she's in her mid-twenties—especially when her hair is in pigtails. Thus pulling off the role of the cute and innocent-seeming Himawari doesn't quite work. Moreover, her smile—a key plot element—always looks forced and not in the least bit happy. In fact, it often looks plain creepy. Final Thoughts While xxxHolic is not the best live-action adaptation of a manga/anime I have ever seen, it is easily the most beautiful. The costumes, sets, and often good-looking CG really make it a joy to just watch. And as a stand-alone story, it is quite entertaining—though purists may not enjoy the massive abridgment of the plot. However, if you are a fan of xxxHolic or are a fan of Japanese horror—or of things that are just plain weird, for that matter—xxxHolic is definitely worth your time. xxxHolic aired on WOWOW in Japan. There are currently no plans for an international release. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. To contact the author of this post, write to BiggestinJapan@gmail.com or find him on Twitter @BiggestinJapan.

This Sunday is Mother's Day in Japan. At supermarkets across the country, children can submit drawings of their moms to have tacked up in the store. The drawings are cute, simple reminders of the joys of motherhood. There's nothing sweeter than children's art. This is not children's art. First published in 2012, this post has been updated with new Mother's Day drawings. Convenience store chain 7-Eleven also has children draw their moms in "Mother's Portraits" that are displayed for all to see. Many of these artists are little kids. Some of them are big kids—like really big kids. And they are much more skilled at drawing, resulting in some amusing pictures of dear old mom. Some artists write their real age, while others scrawl lies in childlike handwriting. This isn't just a gag or a way to troll 7-Eleven. It's a way to do all that and show mom the appreciation she deserves. Happy Mother's Day! Photos: 2ch, togetter, TweetBuzz, @pancake_yuzu, @17_atsushi, @kyamom34, セブンイレブン武蔵小金井本町2丁目店公式ブログ To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.