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Cryptocurrency is widening its grasp across the world, especially with many retailers and businesses accepting it as a form of payment. But now Bitcoin can be used to pay taxes in Ohio.

In a landmark move for the United States, Ohio becomes the first state to support Bitcoin for tax payments. Ohio-based businesses can now use Bitcoin to pay a wide variety of state corporate taxes including cigarette sales and employee withholding taxes reports The Wall Street Journal. Companies must register on OhioCrypto.com to use the digital currency for payments.

It's worth noting that businesses aren't technically using Bitcoin to pay taxes, at least not directly. The cryptocurrency is sent to BitPay, an Atlanta-based firm, who then exchanges the digital currency into legal tender and sends it to the state's treasury office. Ohio state Treasurer Josh Mandel says everyday residents could one day use Bitcoin to pay their personal taxes

Lots of old-school Japanese games are coming back into the mainstream and publishers like SEGA, Capcom, and Konami are re-releasing and remastering retro games. Square Enix could do the same with its iconic horror franchise Parasite Eve.

Square Enix recently filed a trademark for Parasite Eve at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), hinting the series could be due for a remaster or perhaps a sequel. It's been eight years since the last Parasite Eve game (The Third Birthday on PSP) and nearly 20 years since the last mainline entry, Parasite Eve II. Square Enix didn't mention anything about remasters or re-releases in its recent quarterly filings, but the publisher's earnings documents have been rather sparse lately insofar as clues and specifics.

It's worth noting this could simply a re-filing or an extension on the older Parasite Eve trademark and may not indicate a new game is happening. Something similar happened with Capcom's Deep Down, and the trademark was just filed again because the maximum extensions had been reached on the old one. But Parasite Eve's EUIPO filing has no renewals and the listing's timeline is blank. Plus it was filed just three days ago on November 22, 2018.

Microsoft loves monetizing engagement on its Xbox-and-PC blend of platforms. But Crackdown 3, the company's most recent gaming ambition, may interrupt this trend.

Crackdown 3 represents a tremendous investment for Microsoft. It'll have online multiplayer with dynamic, destructible environments all powered by Azure cloud servers, all of which sound like typical features of any live service game. And we all know service games are monetized in some way. But if optional in-game purchases aren't included, how will Crackdown 3 make recurring revenues outside of full game sales? The dev team is still figuring that out...and the plan may not include microtransactions. This really doesn't seem likely, however.

In a recent interview with Windows Central, Microsoft Game Studios exec Joseph Staten outright said that microtransactions may not be in Crackdown 3. "We're not committing to anything right now, we're still experimenting with what's best to do. ...We also look at the long-term hooks. We know that we didn't want to go with microtransactions. We're not going with the concept of loot crates," he said.

The upcoming Resident Evil film reboot will channel the creepy, macabre vibes from the early games.

Unlike the horrifying games, the Resident Evil movies are mostly known for ridiculous action and separate themselves apart from Capcom's beloved interactive experiences. But the new Resident Evil reboot wants to change all that and bring blood and guts to the forefront again. In a recent interview with Discussing Film, reboot screenwriter Greg Russo says the film is inspired by two things: a game and a director.

The game is Resident Evil 7, and the director is James Wan (Insidious, The Conjuring, etc). This cocktail of chaos bodes well for fans.

Thanks to a new partnership with Microsoft, over 50 of Razer's gaming mice and keyboards can be used on the Xbox One...but the RGB-obsessed company is making something special for the console.

Microsoft's plan to merge Xbox console and PC gaming has made tremendous progress. They've managed to wrap both platforms together digitally via Xbox LIVE and other services, and now the lines are getting more blurred thanks to official Xbox One peripheral support. Razer is the first to partner with Team Green, and is working on a special bespoke wireless mouse and keyboard that aims at delivering PC gaming-level performance (and lots of RGB flair).

Razer is building this new peripheral combo from scratch specifically for the Xbox One, so expect console-oriented designs that take couch gaming into account. No specifications or exact details are known but Razer did show off a glimpse at the Xbox keyboard and mouse ahead of its big CES 2019 reveal.

Projects and new IPs are cancelled all the time in games development. Most games simply just die out in various dev stages, and the lucky ones morph into the products that're sold in stores. One such casualty of the rapidly-expanding and rigorous business appears to be Agent, Rockstar Games' new espionage IP set in the Cold War.

The trademark for Rockstar's new Agent franchise is now defunct, which probably means it's been cancelled. Take-Two Interactive failed to renew the Agent trademark in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, leading it to be voided out. "DEAD/APPLICATION/Refused/Dismissed or Invalidated - This trademark application was refused, dismissed, or invalidated by the Office and this application is no longer active," reads the trademark listing.

Given Rockstar's current trajectory this abandonment makes a lot of sense. Agent was announced in 2007 and formally revealed at E3 2009, years before the studio found its billion-dollar stride with Grand Theft Auto V. Rockstar has fully embraced a mix of singleplayer and service-based gaming with GTA V/GTA Online and Red Dead Redemption 2/Red Dead Online, and this combo will take up tremendous amounts of time and resources to both upkeep and pursue. Rockstar might just shift towards safer bets that continually deliver long-term revenues rather than taking a big risk on a new IP. Or maybe the exclusivity deal with Sony broke down, or perhaps there were a million other things that went wrong with the game's development.

Earlier this month Geoff Keighley teased "worlds will change," an interesting message written in the Weyland Corporation script. Everyone thought a new Alien game would be revealed at The Game Awards 2018, and Hideo Kojima's recent visit to 20th Century Fox ignited this speculation further. Could Kojima Productions be involved? Maybe the visit was just a coincidence, or maybe he went along with Keighley to see the mysterious new game. But now we have some concrete evidence: a newly filed trademark.

20th Century Fox just trademarked "Alien: Blackout" on the World Intellectual Property Organization, which should be the name of the new game. The trademark is directly classified as games software and may actually have online elements of some kind, possibly even live service content (it's more likely referring to online digital distribution, though). At the time of writing the trademark hasn't been approved and is still under review.

To celebrate the release of 'The Incredibles 2' on home video, we have five 4K Blu-ray copies of the film to give away thanks to our friends at Disney Home Entertainment!

Everyone's favorite family of superheroes is back in Incredibles 2 but this time Helen (voice of Holly Hunter) is in the spotlight, leaving Bob (voice of Craig T. Nelson) at home with Violet (voice of Sarah Vowell) and Dash (voice of Huck Milner) to navigate the day-to-day heroics of normal life. Its a tough transition for everyone, made tougher by the fact that the family is still unaware of baby Jack-Jacks emerging superpowers. When a new villain hatches a brilliant and dangerous plot, the family and Frozone (voice of Samuel L. Jackson) must find a way to work together again which is easier said than done, even when they're all Incredible.

To go into the running to win a prize, post this article to your social media profiles, answer the below question in 50 words or less and send your postal address to ben at TweakTown dot com before the competition closes on November 30.

Shenmue 3's Kickstarter has come to a close with over $7 million raised.

As evidenced by its successful crowdfunding campaign, lots of gamers are looking forward to Shenmue 3. The devs at Ys net today closed Shenmue 3's Kickstarter, which closed at a cool $7,179,510 from over 81,000 backers. While this may sound like quite the dev budget, remember Ys Net doesn't get to keep all of that cash (Kickstarter takes a cut) and big games take tens of millions to make. Shenmues I & II took upwards of $70 million to make, or about ten times as much as the funding round.

"Quite an impressive score, isn't it!? Seeing the final numbers, all of us here can't help but feel all over again the immensity of the support everyone has given to make this project come true! Thank you!" Ys Net wrote on the update.

A Fallout 76 dev has a little fun at Bethesda's expense.

While roaming around Fallout 76 I came across a curious terminal of one Miguel Caldera (Morrowind reference!), a tinkerer with a sense of humor. The Fallout games are known for their interesting--and often hilarious--computer notes and passages, many of which breathe life into the stale loneliness of irradiated Appalachia. Reading through Caldera's notes, I found a rather fantastic reference to Bethesda's penchant for buggy games:

"Eyebots run on some other system and I don't want to make this work with them. Let's say this isn't a bug exactly, it's just something I don't want to fix," the fictional tinker artist writes under the WORKS AS DESIGNED entry. This is just too perfect to be anything than an easter egg that describes Bethesda games.

Fallout 76 does indeed have big glaring issues, and an ex-Obsidian developer shares his thoughts about Bethesda's new online-only survival sim.

Hearing what other developers think about big new games is always fascinating, especially since they're familiar with the rigors of game creation. Thanks to Fallout: New Vegas, this goes double for Obsidian Entertainment devs, and one such creator expressed their opinions about Bethesda's new experimental online Fallout game. Ex-Obsidian dev David Lockwood says Fallout 76 has lots of problems, but it also has lots of potential--a sentiment I echoed in my Fallout 76 impressions.

"I am completely in love with this game, despite's its flaws. It has many, many flaws but I can see and already feel the potential," Lockwood said in a lengthy Reddit review post.

Fallout 76's future may be as bleak as its NPC-less Appalachia wasteland.

Fallout 76 is a brave experiment at its core, and it took lots of courage for Bethesda to release an online game with so many problems. There's lots and lots of risk involved here, much of which Bethesda has already suffered from: alienating core fans, terrible reviews, public disdain on social media and damning PR, and ultimately underlining the belief that the studio only releases broken, buggy games. All of these things and more could mean Fallout 76 doesn't grow very much from its failures and may not evolve into the experience it really should be.

Although Bethesda and its live service teams undoubtedly have a vision of what Fallout 76 can become, the game's continued development depends on many factors. Gaming is a business, after all, and these companies are in the biz to make money. Sales figures are hugely important to corporate execs at Bethesda's parent ZeniMax Media. All of the negative reviews, press, and player sentiment is likely damaging Fallout 76's potential sales (and current sales thanks to refunds), thus dramatically shrinking the gateway the point of sale represents for live games.

We are only a couple of weeks out from the official launch of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and it appears some very lucky pre-ordering fans have already received their copies.

It appears that some retailers have released a few copies of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate prematurely and they have arrived in some players' hands. Before I continue reporting on this, I would advise anyone who doesn't want spoilers for the game to stop reading now and avoid as much Smash news as possible. The fact that a user has already received their copy of Ultimate could suggest that other people have as well, meaning that spoilers will no doubt be posted online ahead of the games official launch.

The images that I have provided come from a Twitter post of the user revealing that he/she has already received their copy of Smash Ultimate. The images quickly were saved by users who saw the post, but now as writing this the Twitter post has been removed. We can see from the images that the user received the Nintendo Switch cartridge and is using the game as intended. I would assume that no one would be present on the online service as the majority of masses still haven't received their pre-order copies. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will be releasing exclusively on the Nintendo Switch on December 7th.

Bandai Namco have announced today that they will be bringing JUMP FORCE fans a Premium Edition to purchase. The Premium Edition will be arriving with a bunch of goodies but will set you back a pretty penny.

According to the announcement on the Bandai website, the Premium Edition will include the full game with additional 9 characters, a steelbook, 3 art boards and a set of postcards that give buyers a "unique souvenir of each places visited in the game and get a nice view of all the battle stages."

This Premium Edition will be for players that want everything they can get with the coming JUMP FORCE and don't mind paying the extra money. According the Amazon listing, the Premium Edition will be coming in at a price of $260, view the listing here. JUMP FORCE is planned for release on February 26th for the PC, Xbox One and PS4. In other news about JUMP FORCE, Cell, Piccolo, Kenshin and Shishio have been announced for JUMP FORCE's roster, check that story out here.

One of the most well known games published by Square Enix is undoubtedly Yoko Taro's NieR: Automata, now news has surfaced regarding a special edition for the title which is planned for PS4 and PC.

Before an official announcement could be made, the Entertainment Software Rating Board has revealed that the a special edition titled 'NieR: Automata Game of the YoRHa Edition' will be coming to the PC and PS4. Unfortunately, this means that there would be no new content coming with the re-release, but more so this edition will be similar to that of the Xbox One's Nier: Automata - Become as Gods Edition.

The Become as Gods Edition arrived on the Xbox One with the DLC "3C3C1D119440927" which blessed the game with the Xbox One X's 4K display capabilities. It is unclear whether the Game of the YoRHa Edition will be bringing visual and performance enhancements to the PS4 or the PC but it is entirely possible. We should hear some official announcement regarding the coming special edition release sometime soon. For more information, visit the official NieR: Automata website here.

When I first put Zelda: Breath of the Wild into my Nintendo Switch I was immediately shocked at how I was just thrown into this vast world with barely any direction. The game wants you to make your own story and encourages you to do so, this is why Breath of the Wild isn't linked to other Zelda games lore wise.

Despite Breath of the Wild adapting aspects and having similarities from previous Zelda titles, when looked at it from a lore standpoint there is no relation. This news was confirmed by the Lead Producer of Breathe of the Wild and long time Producer of the Zelda franchise, Eiji Aonuma. Aonuma said "In books like the recently released The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia, we revealed where each Zelda game fell on a timeline and how their stories related, but we didn't do that for Breath of the Wild."

Aonuma continues "There is a reason for that. With this game, we saw just how many players were playing in their own way and had those reactions I just mentioned. We realized that people were enjoying imagining the story that emerged from the fragmental imagery we were providing. If we defined a restricted timeline, then there would be a definitive story, and it would eliminate the room for imagination, which wouldn't be as fun." Aonuma further explains that Nintendo noticed that many players were already throughly enjoying the world that they were immersed in, and for this reason "We want players to be able to continue having fun imagining this world even after they are finished with the game, so, this time, we decided that we would avoid making clarifications. I hope that everyone can find their own answer, in their own way."

After the reveal of Piranha Plant in the latest Super Smash Bros dedicated Direct, many fans of the series were disappointed with the development choice Smash Director Masahiro Sakurai made, here is why Sakurai chose Piranha Plant.

If you have been following the Smash Bros. series and have been reading up on what Sakurai is like when developing these games you probably already know that he loves to keep his fan base guessing. Sakurai drops hints for coming characters, never confirming their inclusion or even acknowledging the developing conspiracies surrounding a supposed hint. In other words he loves to mess with the Smash fan base and throw us off at any chance he can get, the Piranha Plant reveal was one of those chances.

As I reported yesterday, Sakurai sat down with Gameinformer to discuss development details of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and throughout that interview the question was raised about why he choose to include Piranha Plant in the games final roster. Despite "too much focus on the surprise element when we introduce a new fighter" as "The surprise element quickly fades once the announcement has been made." The choice of including Piranha Plant was made due to Sakurai believing "it's important to have a good balance as a game. In the past titles in the series, Mr. Game & Watch, R.O.B. and Duck Hunt Dog were some of the examples we offered outside of people's typical expectations."

Blizzard is working on plenty of new games but the mobile-based Diablo Immortal and the developer was absolutely slammed by criticism, but today is a new day and now we have rumors that Warcraft is going to be turned into a Pokemon GO-inspired mobile game.

According to a new interview with Blizzard from Kotaku, a new Warcraft game is in development for the mobile world. According to sources, Kotaku said "a Warcraft version of Pokemon GO" is in development. Cory Stockton, Lead Designer on the game and had worked on World of Warcraft previously, is a huge Pokemon fan. He said that plenty of Blizzard employees play Pokemon GO competitively at the Blizzard HQ everyday.

The new Warcraft game is similar, but not identical to Pokemon GO with Stockton saying Blizzard's new game has "a lot more to it" than Pokemon GO, and will have a single player element.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is being updated with developer Nixxes and publisher Eidos Montreal announcing the new update improves multi-GPU stability, voice chat functionality for co-op multiplayer, and much more.

The new update also includes fixes for problems with things like stereoscopic 3D being enabled under DX12, which would normally crash Shadow of the Tomb Raider on specific rigs, which should now be fixed. Nixxes has also tweaked the game data to drop HDD space use with smaller downloads of Shadow of the Tomb Raider for new gamers, but this new patch is just 5GB.

Here's the full PC Patch #7 notes for Shadow of the Tomb Raider:

If you need a new pair of shoes or you're a shoe collector of some sort, you might want to check out the PlayStation-themed shoes that Sony and Nike have worked together on.

The new PG 2.5 X PlayStation shoes are themed exactly like the original PlayStation console, right down to the original gray color and PS logo on the tongue of the left shoe. They look slick as hell, and I'm sure that if you purchased them you wouldn't even want to put them on.

The design of the new PlayStation kicks saw the creators being influenced by the old school PlayStation, with the tongues of the shoes rocking the PG and PlayStation logos that light up. The strap across the top front of each shoe provides stability that keeps your feet locked into the shoes, while the iconic PlayStation symbols are embossed in patent leather on both shoes.