The revelations of the Panama Papers this past week have rocked the world. The “biggest leak in the history of data journalism,” as described by Edward Snowden, implicated hundreds of the world’s wealthy elite (such as the PM of Iceland, British PM David Cameron’s father, and soccer star Lionel Messi) in tax evasion schemes coordinated by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, stashing billions of dollars away from the prying eyes of government auditors in offshore tax havens around the world. We will all likely spend a long time trying to wrap our heads around the full extent and implications of the leak (which is orders of magnitude larger than similar previous revelations), but fortunately this simple text adventure news game is here to help you grok the basics.
Stairway to Tax Heaven was published this week by the Toronto Star as part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that have been poring over the 11.5 million leaked documents for the last year. The game casts you as one of three different figures representing the implicated archetypes — a soccer star, a politician, and a businessman. A large windfall of money has fallen into your lap, and you want to hide it from the authorities, whether because you simply don’t want to pay taxes on it, or you want to distance yourself from its dubious source. Each of the three scenarios walks you through a series of choices for how to handle the money, breaking down the complicated process of offshore intermediaries into bite-size chunks. Terms of art such as “registered agent” and “due diligence” are conveniently defined when hovered over.
On the one hand, most of the choices you can make lead to failure, showing how tricky it can be to evade national tax authorities and leave a minimal paper or digital trail. The game highlights that risk by showing that certain steps have a chance of failure regardless of what you choose to do.
On the other, though, Mossack Fonseca has built its business on guiding people through this process, and the immensity of the Panama Papers leaks shows just how pervasive these practices are on a global scale. Stairway to Tax Heaven is a chilling reminder of the radically different resources wealthy people have at their disposal to retain that wealth, and how easy it can be to slip between the cracks of sovereign nations when you have the means. You can play it now over on the Toronto Star’s website.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.