videogames

Videogame Makers Duke It Out Arena Style

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Videogame makers have been grappling with many changes in the past few years, from new living-room consoles to the rise of smartphones. Now they face another challenge: arena-style games like “League of Legends.”

Gamers have flocked by the millions to play the Riot Games Inc. title, which typically pits two teams of five players in battles involving mystical characters called champions. The action is viewed from above—more like a simulated board game than the familiar first-person shooter perspective—and typically played online using PCs rather than consoles.

Interview: EA‘s New CEO Pledges to Stay the Course

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Andrew Wilson, an Electronic Arts insider, has been named as the company‘s chief executive. The Australian comes into the job during a period of dramatic transition for the industry, particularly as it looks forward to new videogame consoles being released in November, and the continually rising importance of mobile devices.

He spoke with the Wall Street Journal about his plans for the company.

Fans Take Videogame Damsels Out of Distress, Put Them in Charge

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Playing “Donkey Kong” this spring, Mike Mika’s 3-year-old daughter Ellis asked him why it is always the mustached Mario who saves Pauline, the damsel in a pink dress who gets kidnapped by a gorilla.

The game has no option for the girl to save the boy. It just works like that, the dad told his daughter. “She was bummed out,” he says.

So Mr. Mika, a 39-year-old videogame developer in Emeryville, Calif., hacked the classic game’s software to make the damsel into a heroine who saves the plumber Mario. He published his version, dubbed “Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition,” online, where it has been downloaded more than 11,000 times since it was posted in March.

Microsoft’s New Xbox Girds for a Smartphone Battle

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Microsoft Corp. will unveil its new Xbox on Tuesday. What’s underneath the hood of the latest videogame console represents a multiyear odyssey of trying to figure out how to keep the machine “cool” in the age of smartphones and tablets.

Since the last Xbox debuted in 2005, Microsoft has produced multiple prototypes for a new console and experimented with different technologies for it, said people familiar with the matter. The company has looked at streaming games from far-away servers to the latest Xbox; sending recorded videos of game exploits on the Web from the console; and including various television technologies, these people said.