Google and Epic Games have reached a settlement that would bring their years-long court battle to a close. The companies have filed a proposal in the federal court of San Francisco, asking US District Judge James Donato to approve a modified version of the order he originally imposed on Google when it lost the case. “Together with Epic Games we have filed a proposed set of changes to Android and Google Play that focus on expanding developer choice and flexibility, lowering fees, and encouraging more competition all while keeping users safe,” said Sameer Samat, the President of Android Ecosystem at Google, on X.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney praised the proposal for “genuinely [doubling] down on Android’s original vision as an open platform to streamline competing store installs globally, reduce service fees for developers on Google Play and enable third-party in-app and web payments.” Epic Games sued Google in 2020, accusing it of an illegal monopoly on app distribution and in-app billing services for Android devices.
The court sided with Epic Games in late 2023, and Google lost its appeal in July this year. Google tried to ask the Supreme Court to block the injunction Donato handed down, which required the company to make major changes to the Play Store, while it appealed the case again. But the Supreme Court denied its request. That means Google will be prohibited from paying manufacturers and app developers to exclusively install and distribute on the Play Store, respectively. It will also be prohibited from forcing developers to only use its payment system, and it will have to allow third-party app stores to be installed on Android devices.
Google will still have to follow most of Donato’s orders under the proposal, but the companies made some modifications. To start with, they’ve worked out how to “allow developers and users to seamlessly use alternative payment mechanisms,” both in-app and via external links, while adhering to Google’s security and safety standards. They’ve also specified the maximum fees Google can charge for both in-app and linked transactions, which are 9 percent or 20 percent, depending on the type of transaction. This fee cap also depends on when the app in question was installed. Specifically, the commission caps on third party in-app payment systems would only apply to new app installs.
The companies have identified “reasonable, neutral criteria” that third-party stores would be required to meet, as well. Users will easily be able to download stores that meet those criteria so they can compete against the Play Store and each other around the world.
Samat said that the companies are meeting with Judge Donato on Thursday, and if he approves of the proposal, it “would resolve [the] litigations.”
Update, November 5, 2025, 2:22PM ET: This story has been updated with more details on how the fee caps for in-app purchases and linked transactions work.
This past weekend, after the latest episode of Peacemaker lifted the lid on a long-simmering twist—that much of the second season had taken place in a riff on DC Comics’ Earth X, a parallel reality where Nazi Germany extended and ultimately won World War II—Epic Games and its perennial crossover platform Fortnite found itself in hot water when a recently released emote to tie in with the show’s return became central to a theory in confirming the Nazi-connected link.
Mostly, that audiences believed that one of the ways they could guess the Earth X twist ahead of its reveal in season 2’s sixth episode, “Ignorance Is Chris,” was because the season’s new opening dance number begins with John Cena’s titular vigilante performing a dance move that seemingly shaped his arms into the form of a swastika. The exact dance moves that Epic had, just a couple of weeks prior, added to the game alongside a Peacemaker skin as the “Peaceful Hips” dance emote.
After the release of last week’s episode and the dance move theory going viral, Epic moved to disable the “Peaceful Hips” dance, telling players over the weekend that it would eventually either restore the emote (or recompense players for the virtual currency spent to purchase it should the emote remain disabled permanently) after an internal discussion with Warner Bros. to see if Epic had unintentionally added Nazi imagery to one of the most popular video games on the planet.
We’ve worked closely with our partners at Warner Bros. Games to confirm there were no creative intentions to connect the Peaceful Hips Emote and the current Peacemaker storyline. To avoid any confusion, we’re modifying the Emote choreography in next week’s update. If they prefer,…
Good news, then: this afternoon Epic announced on social media that Warner Bros. had not intended the dance moves to be perceived as a hint to the swastika and Peacemaker‘s Earth X reveal, and the emote will be restored soon. “We’ve worked closely with our partners at Warner Bros. Games to confirm there were no creative intentions to connect the Peaceful Hips Emote and the current Peacemaker storyline,” Epic’s statement reads in part. The emote will be restored to functionality in Fortnite in an update next week, but it won’t return in its original form. Epic will modify the emote choreography to “avoid any confusion” between the dance and the seeming-swastika imagery, as well as offer players refunds for the emote if they so desire.
Epic has had to disable and modify player emotes in Fortnite many times in the past, either for incorrect functionality or to avoid them being misconstrued in various manners. But the incident with Peacemaker is one of the rare times that Epic thought it had had the wool pulled over its eyes, especially in order to potentially maintain secrets for an airing TV show’s current plotline. Especially when said secret was “oops, all Nazis.”
Jayden Griffin, a 19-year-old from South Dakota, has pleaded guilty to sending death threats to Epic Games, the developers of the battle royale crossover hub Fortnite.
According to court documents verified by GameSpot, Griffin will face up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and a period of supervised release for up to three years after his sentence. Griffin was charged in December 2024 for messages he sent to Epic Games employees between October and November of that year. Griffin stated in a court document filed on September 16, 2025, that he “intended for the messages to be viewed as a threat at the time [he] sent the messages.”
Griffin’s hearing concluded on September 29, with him entering a guilty plea after he’d previously pleaded not guilty in January.
“The Court finds that the defendant is competent and capable of entering an informed plea, is aware of the nature of the charges and consequences of the plea, that the plea is knowing and voluntary and is supported by an independent basis in fact containing each of the essential elements of the offense and orders that the defendant shall be adjudged guilty of the offense,” the document reads.
Online death threats are sadly pretty commonplace in the gaming space, though it’s not often they go to court and someone is sentenced. A lot of people view this toxicity as just an expected part of being online, so it’s often allowed to permeate without any consequences. You can check most social media sites and find anonymous profiles throwing them out left and right. Pretty much everyone is fair game in the eyes of people who make these threats, as developers, actors, and even critics and journalists who write about video games have had to endure torrents of threats.
We’ve reached out to Epic Games for comment on the situation and will update the story if we hear back.
Fortnite maker Epic Games said that Apple’s new installation workflow, implemented in iOS 18.6, has had a positive impact on its user growth, with a 60% decrease in drop-offs.
Apple started allowing EU users to install alternative marketplaces earlier this year under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). At that time, the installation process was lengthier and involved multiple “scare screens” — warnings about the potential dangers of installing apps from sources other than the App Store.
Image Credits: Epic Games
Developers complained that Apple’s tactics resulted in people abandoning the installation process. Earlier this year, the EU slapped a $568 million fine on Apple for not complying with DMA rules.
In July, Apple released a new process for installing third-party app marketplaces on iPhones with iOS 18.6. The new process includes only one screen showing users that they might miss some features, such as subscription management offered by the App Store. The screen also informs users that the alternative app store’s developer will handle their data directly.
Epic Games said that prior to the iOS 18.6 update, 65% of users attempting to install its game store abandoned the process. However, after the update, that figure dropped to 25%. The company noted that this drop rate is closer to the rate it observes with Windows and macOS users installing its game store.
Image Credits: Epic Games
Despite this improvement, the company remains critical of Apple’s policies, including charging a core technology fee, imposing notarization and approval policies, and implementing rules that make it difficult for developers to distribute their apps through alternative app stores.
New Installation process after iOS 18.6 rollout Image Credits: Epic
Epic Games repeated an argument from its lawsuit against the iPhone maker: that Apple allows users more freedom to install apps from outside the App Store on Mac computers. During that lawsuit, Apple’s SVP of software, Craig Federighi, said that if the company allowed the same level of freedom on iOS as on Macs, the platform would be overrun by malware.
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Apple is not the only company Epic Games is battling. Epic Games is also criticizing Google for having a lengthy process for installing third-party app stores, along with screens that warn users against installing apps from unknown sources. The gaming company said that Google misleads users by suggesting that apps from competitors like Epic Games might be harmful.
This week’s Peacemaker episode ended with a twist fans have been calling for weeks, and now it’s affecting the show’s Fortnite presence.
At the end of Thursday’s “Ignorance is Chris,” the 11th Street Kids go to find Chris in the alternate universe he’s been hanging around in. Turns out it’s the Nazi dimension, made clear by Adebayo getting chased down by white people and the swastika in place of the 50 stars on the American flag. On Saturday night, Epic Games revealed it was disabling the “Peacemaker Hips” emote while it “inquires into our partner’s creative intentions. Assuming it’s not coming back, we’ll issue refunds in the next few days.”
Peacemaker’s dance emote from Fortnite has been disabled.
“As we inquire into our partner’s creative intentions in this collab emote. Assuming it’s not coming back, we’ll issue refunds in the next few days.” pic.twitter.com/hwHqOiid1o
The “Hips” emoji references the show’s season two intro, which has its cast flap their arms up and down in a way that makes them look like swastikas. That dance may also have been hiding the Nazi twist in plain sight (boy, what a sentence), so Epic’s spent two weeks potentially unaware that it was charging people 400 V-bucks (or $3.29) to make their characters dance like Nazis. At time of writing, neither WB or James Gunn have commented on the emote being disabled.
Fortnite’s no stranger to emote-related controversy, but the apparent secrecy behind the Peacemaker dance’s intent makes this all so fascinating from different angles. Is Gunn and WB at fault for not giving Epic a heads up about the meaning, or did the developer not do its job in properly vetting it? Is this just what happens as IP collaborations become so normalized, which Fortnite itself has had a hand in? The aftermath of this will be interesting to watch play out, and probably make the emote itself feel like an important part of the game’s ever-evolving life.
Google is asking the Supreme Court to step in and pause the ruling the company received in its lawsuit with Epic Games, according to a filing the company shared with Engadget. The company is making its request following a major legal loss to Epic Games in October 2024, which required it to open the Google Play Store to third-party app stores for a period of three years.
Google is asking the justices to intervene by October 17, three days before the injunction Epic won starts to go into effect. The company hopes that after offering a stay, the Court will take up the case for a full review. Asking the Supreme Court for relief wouldn’t have even entered the picture if Google’s appeal hadn’t already been . The company’s filing includes multiple technical reasons why the Ninth Circuit Court’s ruling should be overturned. It also offers several examples why the original injunction Epic won is bad for Google, developers and consumers.
Google believes the injunction “[creates] enormous security and safety risks by enabling stores that stock malicious, deceptive or pirated content to proliferate,” and that it burdens developers with “constantly monitoring dozens or hundreds of stores that might suddenly carry their apps without their knowledge.” The company also notes that the injunction will make it “substantially easier for developers to avoid compensating Google,” for Play Store services that have nothing to do with payments.
On the losing end of its four-year legal battle with Fortnite developer Epic, Google wasn’t just ordered to open up the Play Store to third-party app stores, it’s also no longer allowed to make deals around pre-installing the Play Store on phones or force developers to use its billing system. In contrast to Epic’s case with Apple, where the developer only won a small, if meaningful concession, Google’s loss gave Epic nearly everything it asked for.
When both Apple and Google asked the Supreme Court to review their case last year, the court denied their requests without explanation. It’s not clear if Google will get what it wants, but given the much larger changes it’ll be forced to make if the injunction moves forward, it’s possible the court could respond differently.
What began as a decentralized dream is being remade into a corporate infrastructure with gatekeepers and tolls. Observer Labs
When blockchain first emerged, it was treated as a “great leveler”—a system where anyone could build, trade and innovate without a green light from banks or tech giants. Exactly that vision powered the first crypto wave in the early 2010s and inspired hopes that a more democratic financial internet was within reach.
But today, the reality looks very different. What began as an open playground for developers has become an arena where the world’s largest corporations compete for dominance. Google is building its own blockchain-based payment network, while Samsunghas launched Cello Trust, a logistics platform built on the technology.
Are these just signs of healthy adoption? Not exactly. A tool designed for decentralization is gradually turning into a profit center, with rules increasingly shaped from the top rather than the edges.
Why big tech moved in
Before diving deeper, it’s important to look at the movement’s origin. The story started quietly enough. When blockchain first appeared, little more than a few Fortune 500 companies launched pilot programs, treating it as just another novelty in the innovation lab. It didn’t seem to be a full-scale shift, just prototypes and proof of concept. But then money started flowing.
Stablecoins, once an oddity, began to take center stage. They nowsettle transactions in the tens of trillions each year—numbers that confront, or sometimes even surpass, Visa’s throughput. Suddenly, those “pilots” stopped appearing as side projects. They turned into early positions for the next phase of financial infrastructure.
Regulators then signaled legitimacy. U.S. courts clarified custody and payment rules while Europe introduced the legal framework MiCA, offering a single standard across member states. Meanwhile, Asia, the Gulf and others began openly courting digital-asset firms. As a result, big corporations got the message: It’s finally safe to commit capital and play for keeps.
By the time all three pieces lined up, the picture became clear. Blockchain had transformed into a stage where the largest players could step in with full confidence and enough power to shape the market to their advantage.
The subtle mechanics of enclosure
Once the giants moved in, the technology started to bend. Simply put, blockchain, which earned its reputation by being borderless and permissionless, is now being reshaped into controlled environments. Take Google’s Universal Ledger, whichis labelled as “neutral” but in fact functions as a permissioned system. Access, upgrades and participation are dictated by the operator, not the global network. Thus, the promise of openness is replaced by the comfort of compliance.
That shift goes on. A blockchain tied to the corporate stack—a cloud that hosts your data, a wallet that holds your funds or a system that processes your transactions—is a lock-in mechanism. Once you’re inside this mechanism, switching to a different one becomes costly. So, as in the case of Google, convenience often means less control, and moving away becomes harder over time.
Even the meaning of “trust” is changing. Back in the day, trust came from code and consensus, rules that no single person could rewrite. However, in a corporate-led world, trust is a service-level agreement or a compliance guarantee, which, perhaps, feels safer, but is not the same thing. Naturally, once a public good, trust has now become a “private contract.” That’s the irony.
And so, adoption accelerates, though it comes at the expense of openness. The infrastructure is being built quickly, but the more it resembles traditional corporate infrastructure, the less it looks like the financial internet blockchain was meant to be.
The real cost of corporate rails
What’s happening these days is no longer just an abstract fight over competition. It’s about who captures values, who gets to set the rules and what kind of market will be handed over to the next generation. When the core layer is privately controlled, the obvious outcomes, such as higher user costs, fewer independent innovators and a fragile stack that can be rewritten by boardroom decisions, are predictable.
And there’s a close precedent. In the U.S., Apple’s App Store has shown how quickly a platform can turn into a toll road. Epic Gamesmade clear how a single operator could impose steep fees on every transaction and block competing payment options. This is about higher costs both for developers and consumers, who pay more and get fewer choices. So, blockchain, if enclosure hardens, risks following the same path.
If we’re aiming for a different outcome, then it’s high time to appeal to practical guardrails that keep the benefits of scale while preventing enclosure. Start with interoperability. That means corporations that operate ledgers for payments or logistics should support open messaging and data-portability standards. In that case, users and services can leave without losing history or liquidity.
Then, stop self-preferencing on platforms that work both in the cloud and as ledgers, because pricing, listing and priority should be transparent and disputable. Finally, demand clarity around validator and token custody concentration so regulators, customers and markets can spot every failure long before they break.
Here, Ethereumoffers an interesting case. One staking service provider’s dominance had grown so large over the last year that researchers warned it had almost started to outsize its influence over the entire network. Eventually, that share has fallen as new competitors entered, but the fear was enough to prove the key point: too much power in one provider’s hands is a risk no system can afford.
Keeping the promise alive
Blockchain’s future will be shaped less by code and more by control. If it becomes another corporate toll road, innovation will slow and profits will concentrate at the top. Again, that’s not the future this technology was meant to deliver.
It’s still early enough to swing the axe. Guardrails like interoperability, transparency and limits on self-preferencing—already basic lessons from telecom, payments and antitrust—can maintain the benefits of scale while preventing enclosure. Applied now, these rules could mean the difference between an open financial internet and a corporatized one that simply replicates the old order.
Creators building experiences in Fortnite are getting a new way to earn revenue. Epic says developers will soon have the ability to make and sell in-game items in Fortnite, and earn a cut of the V-Bucks users spend to buy them. Previously, developers only earned money through Fortnite based on the amount of time users spent on their “islands,” the in-game name for third-party experiences creators can offer through Fortnite.
Developers will be able to create their consumable and durable in-game items using soon-to-be-released tools in Unreal Editor for Fortnite and a new “Verse-based API,” according to Epic. The company also plans to be generous with the revenue split its offering, at least at first. Developers “will ordinarily earn 50 percent of the V-Bucks value from sales in their islands,” but from December 2025 through the end of 2026, they’ll get to keep 100 percent.
Epic says its 50 percent cut — notably more than the 30 percent popularized by Apple’s App Store — is to help “contribute to server hosting costs, safety and moderation costs, R&D and other operating expenses” of running Fortnite. It’s also a make-good of sorts, since Epic claims it’s been “investing and operating the business at a loss.”
How much 100 percent or 50 percent of “V-Bucks value” actually equals in real money unfortunately isn’t as simple as converting Fortnite’s digital currency to dollars, though. Epic offers the following explanation for how it calculates V-Bucks value:
To determine the V-Bucks value in US dollars in a given month, we take all customer real-money spending to purchase V-Bucks (converted to US Dollars), subtract platform and store fees (ranging from 12 percent on Epic Games Store to 30 percent on current consoles), and divide it by the total V-Bucks spent by players. Fortnite’s average platform and store fees are currently 26 percent (with specific fees ranging from 12 percent on the Epic Games Store to 30 percent on console platforms). So, 50 percent of V-Bucks value translates to ~37 percent of retail spending, and 100 percent of V-Bucks value translates to ~74 percent.
Alongside the new ability to create in-game items, Epic says Fortnite developers will be able to pay to be featured in a new “Sponsored row” inside Fortnite‘s Discover feed. And to better engage new and returning players, developers are also getting access to new tools for creating community forums and sharing updates on their islands.
All of these changes are in service of further extending Fortnite‘s ability to act as a platform for games and social experiences, rather than just a battle royale game (with racing, rhythm game and LEGO spin-offs). Epic clearly wants Fortnite to be Roblox, and reap the benefits of having an active community of adult and child users creating experiences for its platform. Cultivating that audience has led to all sorts of child safety problems for Roblox,but Epic clearly views the risks to be worth it.
Welcome to our latest recap of what’s going on in the indie game space. Folks, it’s here. You know it’s here. So, we’ll touch on it, but briefly. Some developers and publishers opted not to delay their games out of this week (others have done that to get some breathing space from you-know-what), so there are several other newcomers to highlight.
Before we get there, there’s a sale worth mentioning on a PC storefront that does not offer Hollow Knight: Silksong. The Epic Games Store’s End of Summer Sale is running until September 18 and there are some pretty solid deals. Cyberpunk 2077is 65 percent off for the base game and 50 percent off for the ultimate edition, which includes the Phantom Liberty DLC (which is also 30 percent off for those who have the base game already).
The Epic Games Store offers totally free games every week (no need to have a subscription for those!), and the freebies tend to be for well-known games whenever there’s a major sale on the store. Right now, you can pick up an all-timer in Monument Valley for exactly zero dollars. You have until 11AM ET on September 11 to claim the classic puzzle game. When that game cycles out, Epic Games will rotate three more titles into its lineup: Monument Valley 2, Ghostrunner 2 (which I enjoy very much but am terrible at) and a strategy game called The Battle of Polytopia. Again, you’ll have a week to claim those.
Meanwhile, if you have an Amazon Prime subscription, there’s usually a solid selection in the Prime Gaming library. Games you claim here are yours to keep forever, even if you don’t maintain your Prime membership. Amazon offered up a particularly tasty one this week in the shape of Into The Breach, a hugely acclaimed strategy game, but there are plenty of others to check out. And speaking of games you can play right now…
New releases
Yes, Hollow Knight: Silksong is finally here. It’s out on consoles and PC for $20 and it’s included with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. It’s broken storefronts and probably some controllers that players have hurled at the wall after dying to a tough boss.
After a seven-year wait, Silksong is by some distance the highest-profile indie game to arrive in 2025 so far. Perhaps if we start mentioning another long-awaited game — say, Kingdom Hearts 4? Beyond Good and Evil 2? — it may arrive sooner rather than later. Or in, like, another five years.
I made a few attempts to play Hollow Knight, but bounced off quickly each time. I’ll be sure to give Silksong a proper go, though.
It might be the case that Silksong isn’t quite your thing. Never fear, there’s lots of other new stuff from this week for you to dive into.
If a game pops up that reminds me of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (aka the best game of all time) in terms of looks, I’m duty bound to mention it. Fortunately, Rogue Labyrinth seems like it could be fun to play too. This action-narrative roguelite from Tea Witch Games and publisher indie.io hit Steam this week. It usually costs $15, but it’s 20 percent off with a limited-time launch discount.
Another thing that’s very much in Rogue Labyrinth‘s favor is that your weapon is a smacking stick, which you can use to turn objects (including vanquished enemies) into projectiles. The combat is a blend of bullet-hell dodging and hack-and-slash action. Being a roguelike, there’s randomization when it comes to things like the arenas, enemies and powers you’ll encounter on each run. The game is also said to feature dynamic narrative systems and you’ll forge alliances with other characters as you try to survive a lethal reality show.
Although so many other indie games scrambled to get out of the way of Silksong, Hirogami stuck to its September 3 release date. I had to chuckle when a press release with a title of “3D origami platformer Hirogami refuses to fold” hit my inbox last week. An easy pun, but I appreciated it.
Anyway, this is indeed a 3D platformer with an origami focus. You can flatten out your character into a sheet of paper so that a gust of wind can send you soaring to an elevated platform. You can transform into an armadillo to roll through enemies, an ape to explore treetops and a frog to jump higher. That seems like a real bananza of animal transformation options. Hirogami is available now on Steam, Epic Games Store and PS5.
Fling to the Finish has been out on PC for some time, and now this co-op platform racing game from SplitSide Games and publisher Daedalic Entertainment has swung over to consoles. You and a friend are tethered by an elastic rope that will inevitably snag on parts of the environment. But you can actually use this to your advantage to swing your teammate onto a ledge or send you both hurling through the air.
The obstacle-filled courses bring to mind Fall Guys, while the items that players can deploy to slow down race leaders remind me a bit of the Mario Kart games. Fling to the Finish does support solo play, as well as local and online multiplayer, where communication will be key (cross-play is available too). As was the case with Overcooked, you and your pal can play the game by sharing a single controller, which may make it easier to play the game in splitscreen if you’re with a bunch of friends.
Jetrunner is an action platformer in the vein of Ghostrunner and Neon White from Riddlebit Software and publisher Curveball Games. The folks behind it say it has “a gameplay loop that can be best described as Trackmania meets Titanfall.” So, there are lots of comparisons to make here. Ultimately, you’ll be parkouring your way through various courses while shooting targets, hooking onto grapple points and looking for shortcuts.
Finding the optimal route — and, of course, actually completing it with as few errors as possible — is the path to climbing the global leaderboards. You can race against ghost replays of your previous runs for a clear visual comparison. In addition, there’s a story mode that sees your character Nina (voiced by Sara Secora) trying to become a legendary jetrunner, with commentator Mick Acaster (Matthew Mercer) charting her progress. I’m digging the visuals here too.
Jetrunner is out now on Steam and the Epic Games Store for $20 (there’s a 10 percent launch discount on Steam). There’s a speedrun contest that’s taking place until September 11 with a $2,000 prize pool. You can snag a share if you can complete all of the campaign levels in a row quickly enough in the marathon mode and stick to the rules. It also seems that the exodus of other games this week due to Silksong helped Jetrunner gain extra visibility on Steam.
Upcoming
A rhythm RPG in which you can use your own music and manually adjust the BPM is interesting enough. But add giant, repurposed mechs to the mix, and now we’re really cookin’. In Steel Century Groove, you’ll compete in robot dance battles as you try to claim a championship. These mechanical beasts were used in warfare long, long ago. Now they’re just literal groove machines.
Steel Century Groove, which is from Sloth Gloss Games, is coming to Steam on January 28. A demo is available now, and your progress will carry over to the full game.
When I was assembling the list of games to include in this week’s roundup, I left myself a single, two-word note about The Legend of Baboo: “big floof.” The floof in question is the large, titular dog that accompanies human hero Sepehr in this third-person action adventure from Permanent Way and publisher Midwest Games.
You’ll play as both characters as you take on enemies, solve puzzles and navigate treacherous lands. When you conquer bosses, you’ll learn powerful magical attacks. Most importantly, you can zhush up Baboo with outfits and ornaments that you discover on your journey. He’s the best boy and he deserves to look and feel good. It’s also crucial to note that, as Sepehr, you can pet, ride and high-five Baboo.
A release date (or even a release window) has yet to be announced for The Legend of Baboo. It’s coming to Steam, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
Dreams of Another looks quite unlike any game I’ve seen before. It uses point cloud rendering tech for its remarkably pretty visuals. This fantasy exploration game from Q-Games (under the leadership of Baiyon, the director of PixelJunk Eden) is set in a dream-like world where you create the world by shooting at it.
Dreams of Another is coming to PS5, PS VR2 and Steam on October 9, and it might just prompt me to set up my VR headset again. A demo dropped this week on Steam, but it’s only available until September 16.
Tombwater looks kinda rad. It’s a 2D pixel-art Soulslike Western from Moth Atlas and publisher Midwest Games. The developers took (another?) leaf out of FromSoftware’s playbook by pitting you against creepy eldritch horrors. This one is coming to Steam on November 12.
I always appreciate when a labor of love comes to fruition. Former Uber, MapQuest and Microsoft engineer John Lansing said that, nine years ago, “I built a Final Fantasy Tactics inspired football prototype, and 691 commits later I am proud to present the Fantasy Football Tactics Demo!” This is a turn-based RPG in which the aim is to outscore your opponents rather than taking them out in combat.
The demo hit Steam this week. There’s no release date as yet for the full game.
We’re in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential election and both sides are pulling out all the stops to get those all-important undecided voters. The Harris/Walz campaign is exploring an unconventional option: a map in Epic Games’ mega online multiplayer hit Fortnite.
The “Freedom Town, USA” map available at 7331-5536-6547 is a little different from the usual Fortnite matches. Forbes senior contributor Paul Tassi played the new map and reported that there aren’t any guns in Freedom Town (probably for obvious reasons). Instead, the game focuses on racing with cars and parkour style. The map also has some campaign signs and decorations for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz’s presidential run.
Video games have become a cornerstone of the Harris/Walz campaign. Harris’ camp has its own Twitch page that’s been broadcasting games like World of Warcraft and the latest Madden title as a way to spark discussions with the voting public. The Fortnite map, however, doesn’t look like it’s doing a great job of getting the message out to players. As of this story’s publishing, the map only has less than 300 active players.
Political ads and recruitment in video games isn’t just limited to this campaign cycle. Then-candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign introduced the concept to politics when they purchased ads in 18 games including Need for Speed: Carbon and Madden NFL 13 on Microsoft’s Xbox Live service and the mobile version of Tetris, according to NPR.
Google has formally filed a motion [PDF] asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to put a pause on the order that forces the company to open the Play store to competitors. If you’ll recall, Google lost an antitrust lawsuit filed by Epic Games after a federal jury found that the company held an illegal monopoly on app distribution and in-app billing services for Android devices. Earlier this month, US District Judge James Donato ordered Google to allow third-party app stores access to the Google Play app catalog and to make those stores downloadable from its storefront. Now, Google is asking the court for a stay on that order while it’s appealing the Epic antitrust lawsuit decision, saying that it will expose 100 million Android users in the US to “substantial new security risks.”
The company called the order “harmful and unwarranted” and said that if it’s allowed to stand, it will threaten Google’s ability to “provide a safe and trusted used experience.” It argued that if it makes third-party app stores available for download from Google Play, people might think that the company is vouching for them, which could raise “real risks for [its] users.” Those app stores could have “less rigorous protections,” Google explained, that could expose users to harmful and malicious apps.
It also said that giving third-party stores access to the Play catalog could harm businesses that don’t want their products available alongside inappropriate or malicious content. Giving third-party stores access to its entire library could give “bad-intentioned” stores a “veneer of legitimacy.” Moreover, it argued that allowing developers to link out from their apps “creates significant risk of deceptive links,” since bad actors could use the feature for phishing attacks to compromise users’ devices and steal their data.
One of court’s main proposed changes is to allow developers to remove Google Play billing as an option, allowing them to offer their apps to Android users without having to pay the company a commission. However, Google said that by allowing developers to remove its billing system, it could “force an option that may not have the safeguards and features that users expect.”
In its filing, Google emphasized that the three weeks the court gave it to make these sweeping changes is too short for a “Herculean task.” It creates an “unacceptable risk of safety” that could lead to major issues affecting the functionality of users’ Android devices, it said. The company also questioned why the court sided with Epic in its antitrust lawsuit, whereas it sided with Apple in a similar case also filed by the video game company. “It is pause-inducing that Apple, which requires all apps go through its proprietary App Store, is not a monopolist, but Google — which built choice into the Android operating system so device makers can preinstall and users can download competing app stores — was condemned for monopolization.”
Apple tried at the last second to get out of producing a trove of documents by Monday as it was ordered to in its ongoing dispute with Epic, and Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson is not having it. In early August, the company was given a deadline of September 30 to produce documents relating to the this year, which was its attempt to satisfy an injunction. Apple initially told the court that the task would entail reviewing roughly 650,000 documents — but in a status report on Thursday, it said the number had ballooned to over 1.3 million, and asked for a two-week extension. Hixson denied the request on Friday in a strongly worded spotted by , and called out Apple’s move as “bad behavior.”
Apple and Epic have been submitting joint status reports to the court every two weeks, and the issue of Apple’s documents exceeding its earlier estimate never previously came up, the judge noted. “This information would have been apparent to Apple weeks ago,” Hixson said in the order. “It is simply not believable that Apple learned of this information only in the two weeks following the last status report.” The judge said the request raises other concerns, calling into question the quality of Apple’s reports and its intentions around complying in a timely manner. Apple has “nearly infinite resources” that it could have tapped to get the task done in the allotted time, according to Hixson.
“This is a classic moral hazard,” Hixson said in the order, “and the way Apple announced out of the blue four days before the substantial completion deadline that it would not make that deadline because of a document count that it had surely been aware of for weeks hardly creates the impression that Apple is behaving responsibly.”
The best thing about the free games that the offers is they’re genuinely yours to keep forever. They’re not locked behind a subscription of any kind. The only form of payment you provide is a little personal information in the form of your email address and whatever else is required to create an Epic account. It might be worth signing up if you haven’t already, as are pretty notable.
First up is The Callisto Protocol, a from Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield. It’s cut from the same cloth as Dead Space, but — stellar visuals aside — . (In fact, a Dead Space remake that arrived shortly afterward was .) Still, it can be yours for absolutely zilch right now.
The Callisto Protocol hit Epic’s free game lineup just as the studio behind it announced a spinoff called . The upcoming title from Striking Distance, which is no longer led by Schofield after , is a stylized, roguelike dungeon crawler in which you play as a prison guard.
You must try to survive the threat of infected inmates and escape a penitentiary on Callisto, an icy moon of Jupiter. [REDACTED] will arrive on October 31 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
This week’s other Epic Games Store freebie is interesting too. It’s a MOBA-hero shooter hybrid called Gigantic that has a long and convoluted history. To keep things brief, the game debuted in 2017, was killed in 2018 after and revived under a different studio this year. I played it for a bit and found the matches to be fun and chaotic.
The original Gigantic was free-to-play. While the revival — dubbed Gigantic: Rampage Edition —typically costs $20, it has zero microtransactions. So you won’t have to worry about being nickel-and-dimed after claiming this one.
You’ll have until August 29 to snag those two games. There’s some good stuff to look forward to on the Epic Games Store next week as well. Starting on August 29, you can claim a Fallout bundle that includes Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics for free, along with an arcade-style football game called Wild Card Football.
Video game actors are going on strike for the first time since 2017 after months of negotiations with Activision, Epic Games, and other big publishers and studios over higher pay, better safety measures, and protections from new generative AI technologies. They’ll be hitting the picket line a year after Hollywood actors and writers wrapped up their own historic strikes in an escalation that could have big consequences for the development and marketing of some of the industry’s biggest games.
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Members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) voted last fall to authorize a strike citing an unwillingness of big game companies to budge on guaranteeing performers rights over how their work is used in training AI or creating AI-generated copies. Roughly 2,600 voice actors and motion capture artists, including talents like Troy Baker from The Last of Us, Jennifer Hale from Mass Effect, and Matt Mercer from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, have been working without an Interactive Media Agreement since November 2022. The strike starts on July 26 at 12:01 a.m.
“The video game industry generates billions of dollars in profit annually. The driving force behind that success is the creative people who design and create those games,” chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said in a statement. “That includes the SAG-AFTRA members who bring memorable and beloved game characters to life, and they deserve and demand the same fundamental protections as performers in film, television, streaming, and music: fair compensation and the right of informed consent for the A.I. use of their faces, voices, and bodies. Frankly, it’s stunning that these video game studios haven’t learned anything from the lessons of last year – that our members can and will stand up and demand fair and equitable treatment with respect to A.I., and the public supports us in that.”
“We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations, spokesperson Audrey Cooling for the companies involved in the Interactive Media Agreement said in an emailed statement. “We have already found common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, including historic wage increases and additional safety provisions. Our offer is directly responsive to SAG-AFTRA’s concerns and extends meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working under the IMA. These terms are among the strongest in the entertainment industry.”
While games set to come out this fall like Dragon Age: The Veilguard, who’s recently revealed voice cast includes several guild members, likely already have their voice and motion-capture work completed, the strike means SAG-AFTRA members would be unavailable for projects that are years out, and wouldn’t be around to record for any potential last-minute re-writes for things that are closer to coming out. Games relied much less on actor performances in the past, but most popular franchises are now fully voice-acted, with the biggest-budget productions using motion capture to transfer actors’ real-life performances, frame by frame, into the game.
The last time video game actors went on strike in 2016, it was primarily over pay rates and lasted a entire year. It’s unclear if the strike this time around will be over any sooner. Unlike with the issue of higher pay, people involved in the current negotiations say that the lack of AI protections poses an existential threat to actors and their creative output. Just this week, Wired reported that companies like Activision Blizzard and Riot Games were moving ahead with using generative AI tools to help create concept art and even potentially assets that would make it into finished games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
“Eighteen months of negotiations have shown us that our employers are not interested in fair, reasonable A.I. protections, but rather flagrant exploitation,” said negotiating committee chair Sarah Elmaleh said in a statement. “We refuse this paradigm—we will not leave any of our members behind, nor will we wait for sufficient protection any longer. We look forward to collaborating with teams on our Interim and Independent contracts, which provide A.I. transparency, consent and compensation to all performers, and to continuing to negotiate in good faith with this bargaining group when they are ready to join us in the world we all deserve.”
SAG-AFTRA video game voice actors are set to hold a panel featuring Ashly Burch (Horizon Forbidden West), Noshir Dala (Red Dead Redemption II), and others at San Diego Comicon later this week on July 26.
Update 7/25/2024 3:42 p.m. ET: Added a statement from the game companies.
A jury in December found that Google broke US antitrust laws through deals and billing rules that gave an unfair boost to its Google Play app store. On Thursday, a judge began laying out how Google could be forced to change its business as a penalty. The remedies under consideration could drive the most consequential shakeup ever to Google’s dominance over the Android universe.
Fortnite video game developer Epic Games, which beat Google in the trial that saw a jury declare the Play store an illegal monopoly, is demanding that federal judge James Donato ban Google from contracts that deter competition. Epic also wants Google to be forced to help competing stores list more apps, giving them a competitive boost. The changes could enable Epic to realize its long-held plan to increase revenue by processing in-game purchases in Fortnite and other titles without using Google’s payment system, and marketing games via its own app store.
Google contends that Epic’s demands would threaten its users’ security and impair the businesses of partners, including Android device makers and app developers. The search company is appealing the jury’s verdict, which could delay the rollout of any penalties for many years—or void them altogether. But Google over the past few years already has had to make some costly changes in Europe and Asia due to court losses and new laws affecting the Play store, and a trial with Epic is currently underway in Australia.
“I want to be clear: Google as an illegal monopolist will have to pay some penalties,” Donato told Epic and Google at a hearing in San Francisco on Thursday. He explained that Google’s loss requires him to pry open the company’s grip on the Android ecosystem in a way that ends Google’s illegal monopoly and also removes its ill-gotten gains from years of unfair dominance.
That would mean major changes for the industry that has built up around Google’s Android operating system—and potentially more choices for consumers. It could require Google investing cash into new projects to make things right, Donato said.
Donato expressed frustration with Google’s claims that any changes would be bad for consumers and other businesses. “To jump up and down and say the new way is going to be a world no one wants to live in, it’s unfounded,” he said. But he also spent hours in the hearing quizzing two economists, one appearing on behalf of each company, about how to craft penalties for Google without being unreasonable.
Among Epic’s requests is that Google be barred from striking deals that prevent or discourage companies from working with alternatives to its app store. In the past the company has required hardware companies that want to offer Google Play on their devices to agree not to work with or promote alternative app stores. That prevented most consumers from ever seeing other app stores, since most device makers want to offer Google’s app store, because it is the largest.
Rival app stores such as those from Amazon and Samsung also have struggled to persuade developers to list their apps outside of Google Play, because maintaining apps in multiple stores takes extra work. To even the playing field, Epic proposes that Google be required for six years to provide rival stores a way to list apps that are hosted on Google Play. That would allow people to browse alternative stores without feeling they are missing out on popular apps, giving the store a better chance of success in the long term.
Last month, Epic Games filed a motion asking a California judge to hold Apple in contempt for what it claims are violations of a 2021 injunction relating to the company’s App Store practices. Now, Apple is asking the judge to reject Epic’s request, alleging in a new filing spotted by that the motion is an attempt to “micromanage Apple’s business operations in a way that would increase Epic’s profitability.”
The original injunction by US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers required Apple to let developers provide an option for external payment methods, which would allow them to avoid fees of up to 30 percent on App Store and in-app purchases. Apple for developers in January that do allow linking to external websites for purchasing alternatives, but the new rules also require they get Apple’s approval to do so and impose a commission of 12-27 percent for these transactions. Per Reuters, Epic argued that this makes alternative payment options “commercially unusable.”
Epic also said at the time that Apple’s “so-called compliance is a sham,” and accused the company of violating the injunction with its recent moves. Apple maintains that it has acted in compliance with the injunction, stating in the new filing, “The purpose of the Injunction is to make information regarding alternative purchase options more readily available, not to dictate the commercial terms on which Apple provides access to its platform, tools and technologies, and userbase.”
Europe changed the rules of the internet this week when the Digital Markets Act took effect, holding the biggest tech companies to tough new standards. Now the world is waiting to see which giant will be first to fall foul of the law. One of the architects of the DMA says Apple is a strong candidate for the first formal investigation, describing the company as “low hanging fruit.”
Apple has faced intensifying pressure in recent years from competitors, regulators, and courts in both Europe and the US, over the restrictions it places on app-makers who must rely on its App Store to reach millions of users. Yesterday Apple terminated the developer account of Fornite publisher Epic Games which has challenged the company in US courts and recently announced its intention to launch a rival to the Apple App Store.
German MEP Andreas Schwab, who led the negotiations that finalized the DMA on behalf of the EU Parliament, says that makes Apple a likely first target for non-compliance. “[This] gives me a very clear expectation that they want to be the first,” he tells WIRED. “Apple’s approach is a bit weird on all this and therefore it’s low hanging fruit.”
Schwab is not involved in enforcement of the DMA. That’s overseen by the European Commission, which has already demanded “further explanation” as to why Apple terminated Epic’s account and is evaluating whether this violates the DMA.
“Apple’s approach to the Digital Markets Act was guided by two simple goals: complying with the law and reducing the inevitable, increased risks the DMA creates for our EU users,” says the company in a statement sent to WIRED by Apple spokesperson Rob Saunders. Apple has said on its website that alternative app stores carry the risk of malware, illicit code and other harmful content.
The DMA’s rules that aim to “break open” tech platforms require Apple to allow iPhone users to download apps from places other than Apples’ official App Store. The Epic Games Store, announced in January, intended to be launched by the Fortnite-maker Epic, would have been the first alternative app store to take advantage of the new system.
Apple tells WIRED it had the right to terminate Epic’s accounts according to a 2021 California court ruling. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has been a vocal critic of what he styles as Apple’s “app store monopoly” for years, although in January the US supreme court denied a request to hear the latest episode in a lengthy antitrust dispute between the two companies in a victory for the smartphone maker.
The DMA went into force at midnight on March 7 in Brussels—3 pm in Silicon Valley. From that moment, six of the world’s biggest tech companies—Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and TikTok’s Beijing-based owner ByteDance—must comply with a suite of new rules designed to improve competition in digital markets.
In addition to Apple having to allow outside apps, Microsoft Windows will no longer have Microsoft-owned Bing as its default search tool; users of Meta’sWhatsApp will be able to communicate with people on rival messaging apps; and Google and Amazon will have to tweak their search results to create more room for rivals. Companies that don’t comply with the new rules can be fined up to 20 percent of their global turnover.
The Walt Disney Company and Epic Games will collaborate on an all-new games and entertainment universe Image: Disney / Epic Games
Disney is making its biggest push yet into video games. On February 7, the Mouse House and Fortnitecreator Epic Games announced plans to create new games and an entertainment universe where consumers can “play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more,” company representatives said in a press release.
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“Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney’s beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe,” said Disney CEO Robert Iger. “This marks Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. We can’t wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways.”
“Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite, and they use Unreal Engine across their portfolio,” said Epic CEO Tim Sweeney. “Now we’re collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities.”
Disney x Epic Games
This isn’t the first time Disney and Epic have collaborated. Fortnite has hosted several Star Wars-themed events over the years, including last year’s Find the Force event honoring the Prequel Trilogy. Back in 2020, Fortnite’s Nexus War with Galactus event based in the Marvel universe drew more than 15.3 million concurrent players, according to the press release announcing the deal.
While it’s tempting to think of Disney as primarily a producer of movies, TV, and Baby Yoda merch, it’s had a finger in the gaming pie for some time. This little nugget from the press release surprised me a little. “Licensed games from Disney garnered more than 150 award nominations, wins and other accolades in 2023, including multiple Game of the Year nominations for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Disney mobile games have 1.5 billion global installs, and to date, nine Disney games franchises have each grossed more than $1 billion in sales.” Who knew?
Anyway, congratulations to both these desperately cash-strapped companies who so sorely needed a chance to make more money.
Video game publisher Activision Blizzard has been embroiled in controversy within the last few years, from allegations that a culture of sexual harassment was allowed to thrive to reports of union-busting by management. But in January 2024, when a new lawsuit was filed against the Call of Duty and Overwatch publisher, many were shocked to read what it was in reference to: A 57-year-old former ActiBlizz exec alleged that he left the company because of ageism. According to the lawsuit, then-CEO Bobby Kotick said that the company’s problem was that there were “too many old white guys” working there.
Though race and gender traditionally get more attention in calls for a more diverse game industry—one where whiteness and maleness remain the norm—age discrimination is a hot-button issue as well. According to a 2019 survey from the International Game Developers Association, only 9% of game developers are 50 years old or older. As the people behind iconic, genre-defining games approach and surpass middle age, how do their peers treat them? Have they noticed a shift in the way developers work, or how games are made?
I sat down with Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinksi on one call and Ultima Underworld creator Warren Spector, Apogee Software founder Scott Miller, and Nightdive Studios head of business development Larry Kuperman on another, to chat about navigating the game world after spending decades in it.
Photo: Mark Davis (Getty Images)
The demands of game development
“I’m gonna go on record saying I think I’m the oldest person who isn’t running stuff or on the business side,” Spector, who is 68, proclaims early on in the conversation. He’s referencing the phenomenon by which former developers transition to the business side of game dev, which many chalk up to the intense demands of video game development cycles.
Spector started in the board game world before moving to digital games in 1989, Miller (who pioneered gaming’s episodic release format) shipped his first in ‘85, Kuperman has been involved in games since 2001, and Bleszinski joined Epic Games in ‘92. Of the four, Spector is the only one solely working on the development side, while the rest are now mostly focused on the business end or, in Bleszinski’s case, out of games almost entirely.
I ask if the volatility and demands of the industry, which has seen more than 6,000 layoffs in the first month of 2024 alone, are why companies can’t or won’t retain older talent. “Some people find an ever-changing environment invigorating,” Spector suggests. “That’s one of the reasons I’ve lasted this long…things change so rapidly that you’re constantly acquiring not only new knowledge but new skills.”
But he acknowledges how competitive and tough the games industry can be. “The difficulty of the work, the low pay, drives even young developers away,” he points out while suggesting that, in his experience, the average “lifespan” of a programmer is about five to seven years due to the intense nature of their work.
“There’s a certain type of developer that’s a kind of self-flagellating monk that lives for that [intense] work ethic,” Bleszinski says during our conversation. “And then there’s a certain amount of peer pressure where you have deadlines and then someone goes home at six o’clock at night to their family, and then the other people are still at their desks—they don’t say it, but deep down they’re thinking, ‘I’m gonna be here until midnight, fuck that guy.’ A lot of that comes from the top…my producer on Gears, Rod Ferguson, I believe is one of the best in the business, but he lives for the work. He’s just an absolute workaholic.”
With crunch becoming an increasingly popular issue within the industry, and workers campaigning for union protections and a better work/life balance, can studios expect their developers to work the way they once did?
“The industry thrives on hungry game developers that are just happy to get an okay salary and free Mountain Dew and Doritos,” Bleszinski says. “If crunch is enforced, they’ll do it, but they’re gonna be very resentful towards the company…plus you get to a certain age where you hit the point where you’re like, ‘fuck you, pay me’.”
Image: Apogee Entertainment
The promise of indies, the problem of layoffs
Though Spector, Miller, and Kuperman don’t hesitate to disagree on the topics we cover (they playfully throw barbs about the validity of the games-as-a-service business model), they wholeheartedly agree on one thing: The nuts and bolts of game development have dramatically shifted since they started their careers, and much of that shift can be attributed to the availability and approachability of today’s game engines.
“We used to have to create engines from scratch, and that limited access,” Spector points out. “Now, youngsters right out of school, in their garage, can actually make games without learning Assembly, like Richard Garriot [the creator of the Ultima series] had to. So I think that’s a large reason why you don’t see as many older developers, because the youngsters are using those available tools.”
Miller, who is still “deeply involved” in making games, concurs: “We’re in the era now where two people can do what 20 people did back in the ‘90s.” He brings up last year’s action game, Turbo Overkill, which Apogee published. “95% of that game was made by one guy. We helped him up with the music and voiceover, but this is a game that would’ve taken 25 to 30 people back in the ‘90s. It’s just a remarkable piece of work.”
And for them, in today’s game economy, innovation like that can only be found at indie studios. “I like being at the indie level,” Miller says. “I think we can all agree on that,” Kuperman chimes in. “There’s just so much innovation going on at the indie level that you’re not seeing at the big boy level because it’s too costly to take a risk,” Miller suggests.
What about those “big boy” studios, and the thousands of layoffs they’ve doled out in the last month alone? How do industry mainstays feel about the layoffs, and the future of the industry? For Spector, there’s no fear in gaming’s future, just apprehension towards those leading it: “It sounds like [companies] just over-hired during the early days of the pandemic, and it’s bad management that’s resulting in overstaffing. That doesn’t mean there’s a fundamental flaw. It means we have some bad managers at the top of companies.”
Kuperman steps in, pointing out that “Scott [Miller] has been kinda leading the way in hiring back up people from kindred companies.” Miller reiterated Spector’s talking points, suggesting that “games suddenly were selling 30 to 50% better than normal” during covid, and studios went on a hiring spree.
The conversation circles back around, once again, to the promise and allure of indie studios in the modern financial climate. “I don’t have 150 or 200 employees to lay off…but the layoffs are coming at Mega Corp,” Kuperman says. “And in the meantime, there are lots of indie developers that are not only thriving, but are looking to scale up.”
Variety
Ageism and diversity in the video game industry
Though we laugh a bit about how we all came together—thanks to Bobby Kotick (himself a 61-year-old man) allegedly partaking in ageism—the tone does get somewhat serious when discussing the issue of age discrimination. Miller and Spector deny facing any sort of ageism during their decades in the industry, but Kuperman has a personal anecdote that’s stayed with him for years.
After working remotely for GameStop for two years as a business development manager, he was let go at 57 years old. “There I was, with a great resume, you know, successful in games, I had worked with every major company, my client list went from Activision to Zenimax…I sent out my resume, my applications to all of these companies that I had worked with—they all knew what I could do and my capabilities. And they all turned me down,” Kuperman recalls. “And the one that was the most offensive—I won’t say who it was—but they took the time to explain to me that I was not a ‘cultural fit.’ I got this explanation that I was not a cultural fit while I was working from home wearing a Ramones T-shirt. I knew what they meant, right? That I was not gonna fit in with their twenty- and thirty-somethings.”
Bleszinski believes older members of the industry are still in it either because they didn’t get “fuck you” money or because they genuinely love what they do—from our convo, it’s clear that his time churning out AAA games left him somewhat jaded. “Talking about ageism—once a person gets married and has kids and whatnot, you know, they’re going to put in their eight hours and they’re gonna go the fuck home,” Bleszinski says. “I tell people, get ‘fuck you’ money, and then get the fuck out.”
Spector, Miller, and Kuperman are all now indie darlings, so their experience is vastly different from Bleszinski’s, who had to be the face of a massive AAA franchise while still actively working on it. But all of them still agree that game development can often feel like a young person’s, well, game. Part of that has to do with the demands of the work, sure, but there’s an accessibility problem, as well.
“My twitch skills are not what they used to be,” Spector points out. “People don’t believe me that there are physical changes in your body as you get older. But there are, and I am physically not able to work the kinds of hours I used to. I am physically not able to keep up with 12-year-olds, 34-year-olds [referencing my age] playing games anymore. So I need to find a somewhat different role in development, and I’m lucky enough that I’ve been able to carve out a different role. But a lot of people might just say, ‘I don’t want to do that anymore’ and self-select out.”
Image: Naughty Dog
“The thing is, for me, my vision,” Kuperman says. He struggles with contrast in games, and can get frustrated when he can’t see important features like doors. “But I’m lucky because [my studio] NightDive is now part of Atari, so I now have support mechanisms that I didn’t have before.”
But how does the industry, as a whole, do when it comes to accessibility and diversity?
“It’s not just age and it’s not just physical—divergent thinking is not very well-supported,” Spector says. “Every way you can think about diversity, we do a bad job…we don’t get a lot of resumes from older developers or people who think differently or people of color…that’s an area where I think younger developers are going to have to lead the charge.”
He continues. “I’m only speaking for myself but, I like the past when I was able to work until three in the morning and sleep under my desk and drive home and have no idea how I got home. I kind of miss those days of comradery in the foxhole. Younger developers don’t wanna do that, and it’s a good thing ‘cause I can’t do it anymore. So it’s good that they’re thinking that way…the world has changed for the better.”
Over the weekend, I downloaded Palworldon my PC. I was excited. After all the weird trailers and screenshots showing Pokémon-like creatures using assault rifles or being shot with handguns, I was ready to earn official Xbox achievements as I killed Pokémon facsimiles using modern guns. It was hunting time. And then, after playing for over six hours, I realized that I had been tricked into playing another goddamn survival crafting game that wanted me to punch trees and mine stone for a few hours before it got fun. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
