This newspaper sucks, man. It doesn’t suck because it posted something dumb that betrays the paper’s poor commitment to video gaming’s wider place in our culture and artistic landscape. It sucks because it’s doing to games, and AI, what it seems to be doing to every other important beat of the 2020s: taking the worst people at face value.
I just want to be clear here: the price of my plan did not change. Instead, Microsoft moved me to a new plan that contained generative AI features I never asked for; a plan that cost a lot more than I was already paying. Then it lied to me, claiming my existing plan had increased in price and that there was no version of a plan without generative AI — until I tried to stop paying them altogether.
All of which sounds incredibly dystopian; the idea that faceless, unaccountable payment processors--which enjoy vast monopolies over the world's commerce, and by extension its marketplaces--can wield their power so swiftly, as they've increasingly been doing now for years, is downright terrifying.
The studio is also sunsetting the original 2017 game Splitgate in order to reduce server operation costs, which according to Proulx and Bagamian, cost the company "hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past couple years."
We understand no tech company is perfect, and that the problem is bigger than Spotify. But at the very least, Apple Music and Tidal—where we will be hosting our playlists moving forward—care about sound quality, have higher per-stream rates, and don’t seem to be daring music lovers to hate them every single week.
What we’re seeing right now is not innovation, we’re seeing people struggle to contend with the reality that it’s over. They’re coping with the fact that the innovation phase for computing devices has finished. They’re grasping for continued relevance.
I refuse to believe there is anything you are getting there, whether it be social or professional, that is worth the constant exposure to and indirect support of an outwardly fascist social media platform.
There’s just no reason to support Microsoft’s gaming endeavors at this point. It’s had plenty of time to get things right; it’s not going to. The company’s other endeavors aren’t looking great, either.
None of those people were responsible for calling it the Xbox Series X But Also Series S. The person answering phones at Arkane didn't bet the farm on Game Pass becoming the next Netflix then...not becoming the next Netflix. An artist paid to draw spaceships for a Halo game didn't decide that Xbox should mean an actual Xbox but also kinda mean an Oculus Quest 3 and some handhelds and cloud services but also not really.
They are not charming. They are not building anything. They have scooted along amassing billions of dollars promising the world and delivering you a hill of dirt. They deserve our derision — or, at the very least, our deep, unerring suspicion, if not for what they’ve done, but for what they’ve not done.
I’ve watched this story loop around resolution like a broken record for years, clinging to the hope it might land somewhere bold. I’m not that teenager chasing trainwrecks anymore—I’ve got bills, better taste (in trashy anime), and better manga to read.
The Dodgers issued a statement saying the organization denied access to ICE. The team has postponed an announcement regarding their support for immigrant communities.
While reporting on the company, it has been hard to imagine what rock bottom will be, because Meta keeps innovating bizarre and previously unimaginable ways to destroy confidence in social media, invade people’s privacy, and generally fuck up its platforms and the internet more broadly.
Musk’s interest in politics, which kicked into a new and more expensive gear when he went all in for Donald Trump during the 2024 election, was always going to invite more scrutiny for his business empire. But the grassroots movement, which began as a post on Bluesky, has become a boisterous, ragtag, and visible locus of, sorry to use the word, resistance against Musk and Trump.
A list of AT Protocol-based, consumer-facing apps that are either built on top of Bluesky or its underlying protocol, allowing users to take back control over their social networking experiences and personal data.
All because the Dodgers are afraid of offending the 32% of Los Angeles County voters who cast their ballots for Trump in the most recent presidential election, many of whom don’t expect ICE agents to ever show up at their workplace.
Let me be clear: It fucking matters. Truth matters. Documentation matters. Fighting corruption matters. That accountability seems out of reach right now doesn’t change that. When we internalize the belief that nothing can change, we stop demanding change.
Imagine getting up on stage for a presentation that would have cost in the ballpark of $500,000, all to promote your new video game, and instead of having people talk about it, they are instead talking about: a) Your stupid hat b) How your little speech sounded like a wizard breathed life into a downvoted Reddit comment.
If AI companies can take these handy, quasi-reliable text predictors and turn them into an economic revolution, fine. But that seems so far off in the future that Amodei’s warnings feel more like an ad than a PSA. It’s on them to show their work: Show us how AI could be so destructive and how Anthropic can fix it — rather than just shouting about the risks.
The problems with modern advertisement isn’t just the attention it takes from us but that it’s supported by an entire industry that threatens our privacy and democracy through tracking our every action and building profiles of us, even when we don’t actively interact with the platforms.
The way I see it, we’re family. It really does disappoint me that so many brilliant colleagues—whose genuine breakthroughs I’ve profited from for years—would be so quick to condemn this newer, stupider way that I and others like me can make money off your life’s work, through stealing.
I think some dipshits fleeced some even bigger dipshits out of $22 million, failed to make enjoyable video games because they were never interested in making video games in the first place and now someone–anyone who owned any of these games’ now-worthless tokens–is left holding the bag.
A phrase that kept coming up during my time at Remedy was “dad game”. This is a game that is deep enough to be fun to come back to over and over, but doesn’t require the time investment or dedication that simply isn’t offered to most parents.
I was stuck with a $50 Uber bill, and 28 ten-year-old kids went from thinking the Cybertruck was the coolest vehicle to pointing and laughing as it was towed away on a flatbed truck.
seeing a bunch of gen x or millennial developers lament "cancel culture" while logging off, going to their six-figure tech job, and living an ultimately private life is embarrassing. calling community owners out on their shit isn't being canceled—please learn accountability.
There are certainly risks to Apple if it were to do more to stand up for the LGBTQ+ community, but those risks pale in comparison to the increasing threats trans and other people in the LGBTQ+ community face in the U.S. and around the world every day. It’s time for Apple to step up and do more than wallpapers and a watch band.
Here is Sweeney, the boss of the company responsible for Fortnite and the Unreal Engine, pillars of the video game industry, agreeing with an overtly conspiratorial and openly racist post from the most unloved person on the planet
This is what keeps “normies” away from the Fediverse. It’s not the LGBTQ+ people, it’s not the immigrants trying to establish a voice for themselves online, it’s the “politically neutral” tech-obsessed foss-bros who are so insulated from harm and hatred, that they can’t tell the difference between a guy who would ship you off to prison for being gay, and someone who thinks everyone should have equal rights.
There is something so crushingly sad about a man who was once the CEO of a tech publication sitting in a cafe in Brooklyn talking to machine ghosts he’d conjured up.
Meta cited an expert witness who downplayed the books' individual importance, averring that a single book adjusted its LLM's performance "by less than 0.06 percent on industry standard benchmarks, a meaningless change no different from noise."
Last year OTK laid off employees working in production, sales, and marketing. This was the culmination of an arc that began promisingly, with ambitious ideas from streamers and behind-the-scenes staff, but which ultimately descended into scandals and conflicting priorities on the part of some streamers.
As some companies dismantle their programs and walk back their commitments, we would like to state our stance clearly: Medium stands firm in our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
There are thousands of years between them, but the NieR games don't stand apart. We explain how NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... and NieR:Automata are more connected than you think…
Some owners are reportedly being forced to go through the Lemon Law process, which some states have implemented to protect car buyers by requiring carmakers to repurchase or replace vehicles with significant defects.
It may not always be easy to know how to best show up as an ally, and you may often wonder if or wish that there was more you could do. Being open to learning and having a desire to create change are two of the most important components of your allyship.
An elbow-injury epidemic has become an existential threat to the sport, prompting the M.L.B. to brainstorm new solutions, such as the use of a heavier ball.
When following someone on a different server on the Fediverse, the remote server decides whether you are allowed to do so. This enables features like private accounts. Due to an implementation mistake, Pixelfed ignores this and allows anyone to follow even private accounts on other servers.
But mostly, video games occupy the space in my life that a lot of people reserve for TV. Of the hundreds of games I’ve played and finished, many have moved me, but I’ve only found one or two genuinely upsetting. They seem to be a better fit for my psyche: I feel more relaxed playing a game than I do watching a show.
Earlier this week, four top senior executives at Tesla dumped their stocks amidst an ongoing freefall caused by poor quarterly sales, tons of recalls, and global protests against CEO Elon Musk. Now, after the loss of some of his highest-moneyed investors, Musk is pleading with Tesla employees not to do the same.
The Pokémon brand already has a series of buildable toy sets with Mattel’s Mega Bloks and Mega Construx lines, but it appears that Lego’s taking over that business starting next year.
Microsoft said that it's working to address the issue, and reminded users that they can reinstall the Copilot app from the Microsoft Store and pin it to their taskbar in the meantime.
But who actually wants to do that is unclear.
