The recent Steam hack may have compromised Steam users’ account information, including user names, passwords, billing information, and even encrypted credit card numbers.

This is Hayao Miyazaki. Arguably one of the more famous animated film directors presently in Japan. His studio, entitled Studio Ghibli, produced many animated films throughout the years — from My Neighbor Totoro to Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo.

In the town of Mitaka, Japan, lies a homely looking building amidst a fair amount of trees and brush, next to a fairly large park. This is the Ghibli Museum — a museum dedicated to the works of Miyazaki and his studio. The studio is surrounded by luscious trees and foliage grows all around the museum itself. It definitely gives off the naturalistic feel that is present in many of Miyazaki’s film.

Throughout Tokyo, there are a number of different types of “themed restaurants”. As you may imagine, each restaurant caters to a certain theme.

My friend and I decided to go to the Alice in Wonderland themed one, which, naturally, was themed just like Lewis Carroll’s classic — waitresses were dressed like Alice, tables were separated by the Queen’s large maze, Disney songs played throughout the restaurant, and the menu was shaped like a book and adorned with “classic” looking Alice in Wonderland images. Even the food was Alice and Wonderland themed, or presented to look like various characters from it!

It was all pretty amazing. Continue on for more details and images.

BlizzCon, Blizzard Entertainment’s Annual Convention, wrapped up Saturday night. Among various announcements and previews regarding Diablo III and Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard officially announced the next World of Warcraft expansion, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.

Hit the break for details.

The following is an editorial about my first experience in a Rater Battleground from September 28.

Tonight I did my very first Rated Battleground! Cheers all around!

Not just “soon,” but possibly this week!

According to a blue post on the forums, the 4.3 PTR could possibly be released this week.

-Welcome to Akihabara!

Akihabara, also known as Akihabara Electric Town, is an infamous place within Tokyo filled with electronics, video games, and various otaku merchandise. During my visits to Japan, I have gone to Akihabara multiple times. The intrigue of having an entire section of Tokyo dedicated to such things were too good for me to pass up.

The merchandise initially drew me to the area, but the different shops and the people who frequented the area is what kept me coming back.

Read on to get a glimpse of this town!

One year is a long time. It’s eons in Tumblr years; an eternity in general website years. It’s a wonderment how a bunch of GO’s can keep together a place online for that amount of time; yet, here we are, celebrating our one year with a delectable Mr. Burns cake.

A lot of occurrences have happened in the world of GO culture during this period as well, whether newsworthy events, or personal experiences. Therefore, each and every staff member would like to take this time to a share with you their favorite moment from within the time Pop GO has been in existence.

My favorite GO experience from this past year? Being able to watch (in shock and awe) Pop GO grow. It’s a clichéd and cop-out answer given this day, but dammit, nothing comes close. I’ve been able to work with so many great people, interact with so many great readers, learn so many things about this culture I never opened myself up to in the past, all because of a side project that wasn’t suppose to last 3 months. It’s an ongoing and humbling experience that has yet to come close to peaking, and I will try to do my best to make sure we’re treating our readers to GO goodness for another year.

Enough about me! Read on to view the favorite GO moments and experiences of this past year from the rest of the Pop GO staff!

It’s been discussed on many World of Warcraft sites, but it’s finally been announced on the official site!

In patch 4.3, you will be able to customize the gear on your character! Now what does this mean? Say your toon is boasting a full Tier-12 set, but you don’t like the way it looks. With this new Transmogrification feature coming in 4.3, you can change the look of your gear to look like another tier set, but keeping the same stats as your Tier-12.

At this point, Blizzard hasn’t set any specific gold amount to this, nor do we know what the restrictions to this is. Regardless, although this is a purely aesthetic addition to the game, it is definitely being welcomed by the majority of the WoW community.

[Joystiq]

Tamagotchi. Small pocket virtual pet. Three small buttons, used to take care of a pixelated black and white character, which would evolve depending on how well you took care of it. you probably remember them looking like this.

[via]

During my stay in Japan, I discovered a number of interesting items, one of which was a Tamagotchi. I saw the display from afar, amidst a collection of various other toys, and went over to inspect it. 

The Tamagotchi’s now are a lot more advanced than I remember.

Blizzard Entertainment has tickets on sale for their live stream of their yearly convention, BlizzCon.

Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind the World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo series, is holding their 2011 BlizzCon on October 21-22. For $39.99 (may differ depending on region), you will have access to many of the features BlizzCon has to offer, including streams of all the panels, contests and concerts.

Virtual Ticket coverage will be available as a multi-channel Internet stream and also via Pay-per-View on DIRECTV in the United States, granting viewers a front-row seat to all of the action on the show floor including exclusive interviews, demos, and more! (via)

For more information, visit the BlizzCon website here (US).

To order your tickets, visit the Visual Ticket portion of the BlizzCon site: http://us.battle.net/blizzcon/en/live-stream/

Today I bring to you a short write-up of another store I went to while I was in Japan: The Pokémon Center! As you’d imagine, it’s an entire store full of Pokémon merchandise!

I was probably the oldest person in the store who was happily geeking out over everything.

This episode introduces Meo, a Thai girl who comes to Alice for help after she receives an urgent phone call from her father. Alice and her NEET crew are pulled into more dangerous circumstances as they come together to help Meo.

Upon my short adventure back to Japan this past month, I made sure to hit up a couple of key places in the Tokyo area. One area was the Square Enix Character Goods Shop Show Case located in Shibuya.

It’s a very organized store, with many Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts goods. Among lines of figurine products and accessories, they also have on display a number of figurines behind glass, and large stuffed animals of iconic characters such as Cactuar and Tonberry.