Technology

Geoff Keighley, the executive producer and host of The Game Awards, sent out a tweet to confirm that outside of its nominations, Activision Blizzard “will not be a part of this year’s #TheGameAwards.” This is in light of claims about the company’s toxic culture, as well as allegations of CEO Bobby Kotick’s history of abuse and harassment. Beyond its nominations, I can confirm that Activision|Blizzard will not be a part of this year’s #TheGameAwards — Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) December 4, 2021 In an interview with The Washington Post, Keighley hinted at Activision Blizzard’s potential removal from the award show, noting that he was contemplating how to “navigate” the situation with the company without harming its developers or employees. Although Activision Blizzard won’t have a role ...

Fortnite’s big chapter-ending event just ended, and it was a big one. After an all-out war against UFOs, zombies, and the Cube Queen, players were saved in a rescue mission led by Dwayne Johnson. (Well, his in-game character.) Then, the island flipped over. The event Let’s back up a bit. The game’s latest season has been all about the cubes, and right when the event loaded up, a mysterious giant blue cube spawned on the map next to all of the players in my lobby. Jumping at the cube bounced players away, but it otherwise, didn’t do anything beyond loom ominously. We also could look at the Cube Queen in the distance, which has been floating in an energy ball over the center of the island for part of the season. Hello, blue cube.Screenshot: Jay Peters / The Verge The Cube Queen floats menaci...

Just three days after Ludwig Ahgren left his massive Twitch following for YouTube, he was hit with what he thought was a suspension from the platform. According to a report from Kotaku, Ahgren was playing other YouTube videos during his stream, when he landed on the infamously catchy Baby Shark song. His stream was shut down shortly thereafter, giving his viewers — and himself — the impression that he was banned for violating YouTube’s copyright policies. However, Ahgren wasn’t actually struck with a copyright strike or a suspension. “Ludwig wasn’t suspended,” Lauren Verrusio, the head of creator and consumer communications at YouTube told The Verge. “Our Content ID tool picked up his playing of an unlicensed video while he was going live to fans.” The whole incident was just a case of con...

Twitter has reportedly suspended a number of accounts by mistake after far-right extremists began exploiting the platform’s new private media policy, according to a report by The Washington Post. The platform has since launched an internal review of the matter and has made the necessary corrections, The Post notes. Twitter’s new policy, which allows individuals to request takedowns of photos or videos that contain them, has become the target of far-right activists who seek to remove pictures of them taken at hate rallies. The platform originally said that the rule was put in place to “curb the misuse of media to harass, intimate, and reveal the identities of private individuals,” which Twitter says disproportionately affects “women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communitie...

Best Buy is still hosting its mix-and-match sale featuring some excellent titles from the Nintendo Switch game library. Right now you can get a third game of equal or lesser value for free if you buy two other select titles. This offer includes first-party titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Mario Tennis: Aces that rarely see discounts. While this offer is limited to 11 titles, this is one of the best ways to stock up on games that are exclusive to the Nintendo Switch. While not quite as enticing as Black Friday prices, Best Buy has discounted all models of the 11-inch iPad Pro that launched in 2020, with some versions receiving discounts of up to $200. This tablet is available with up to 1TB of built-in storage and comes with many of the same features you’ll find on t...

One of the studios responsible for Call of Duty’s success is laying off QA testers that are reportedly earning $17 an hour for their work on the franchise Activision Blizzard said brought in $3 billion dollars in 2020. Raven Software, known for its work on Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and CoD: Warzone has now laid off a third of its contract QA testers, according to reports by Kotaku and The Washington Post. Raven’s Associate Community Manager Austin O’Brien said that team members were being called into individual meetings to be told whether or not they would still have a job come January 28th. So far, the company has reportedly laid off about a third of its QA testers, or around a dozen people, but it’s possible more could follow. The Post quotes an anonymous Raven contractor who said...

Courtney Love Cobain, Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders, and Kendall Roy are all in the running to be Friday’s Main Character on Twitter after a single tweet where the queen of ’90s grunge music Twitter-scolded the Tesla CEO for his mean reply to the Vermont senator (we’ll get to Kendall in a sec). According to Love, she was bcc’d on Musk’s “str8, male, PayPal mafia email group” for months. “With that information in mind, don’t you think in a ‘civilized society’ one should embrace paying our fair share of tax?” she tweeted on Thursday. She attached a screengrab of Musk’s November 14th reply to Sanders’ tweet that asserted, “We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share. Period.” Being one of those extremely wealthies, Musk apparently took umbrage and replied to the 80-year-old sen...

Google Photos’ Locked Folder feature, which promises to keep sensitive photos out of your main photo roll, is starting to roll out to non-Pixel phones, according to Android Police. Google said in September that the feature would be rolling out to more Android phones “soon,” and it’s reportedly started to show up on some Samsung and OnePlus devices, according to Android Central. Older Pixel devices that didn’t originally get access to it are also getting it now, based on our tests. The feature lets you choose specific photos or videos and put them in a passcode or biometrics-locked folder, taking them out of your main photo feed and keeping them off the cloud. It was introduced on Google’s own phones (Pixel 3 and up) in June, after being announced at Google’s I/O presentation in May. The Lo...

The individual user profiles that were expected to arrive on Google TV last month have been delayed, meaning those personalized content recommendations are unfortunately on hold. The company had initially said the new user profiles would arrive on Google TV last month, but Google spokesperson Ivy Hunt tells The Verge today that the profiles will now begin rolling out “in the coming months.” News of the delay was earlier reported by 9to5Google. That’s a bit of a bummer for multi-user households who were looking forward to profile features like customized watchlists, personalized help from Google Assistant, and weeding out the content interests of others using the same device (e.g., roommates, kids, etc. — although Google previously introduced kids’ profiles earlier this year). Having to sha...

In March 2020, Bandcamp started a promotion where it would forego taking a revenue share from sales artists made on its platform, providing some additional support to performers with suddenly limited opportunities due to the coronavirus pandemic. The arrangement turned into a monthly event, as Bandcamp Fridays encouraged fans to keep the support coming by purchasing audio tracks and merchandise over the last two years. Bandcamp pledged to keep things going throughout 2021 and has dutifully turned off its cut on the first Friday of each month. The only question left is, what happens next? The note about Bandcamp Friday sticking around for 2021 is no longer included on the blog post announcing the promotion, and no one has updated customers or creators about the plan for 2022. We have vaccin...