Pandemic News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

The CEO and co-founder of Roblox Corporation, David Baszucki, has announced to employees that many remote staff members will soon be required to work in the company’s office three days a week, and they’ll be paid severance if they can’t relocate.

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically shifted how employees work in several industries, including gaming. As the world recovers, different studios have been trying different strategies to adapt to changed employee expectations. This becomes obvious when you compare Insomniac and Roblox Corporation.

As announced earlier this month by Blizzard, Diablo IV is now live on Steam with a 25% discount offer set to run until next Tuesday.

The golden age of cheap memory and SSDs has been good to us all, but like all good things, it was never destined to last. At least not according to Techspot, which has reported that, due to forthcoming production cuts, the industry is likely to see an upswing in consumer prices towards the end of this year.

LinkedIn today announced layoffs that affect 668 employees.

Roblox is off to a great start on PlayStation. This analysis comes from Mat Piscatella, executive director and leading analyst at Circana (NPD). In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Piscatella said Roblox "ranked 3rd in percentage of PlayStation players that played the title at least once" during its launch on the PlayStation, trailing only Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Fortnite.

It’s hard to know if there’s any information left for Intel to reveal in regard to its 14th gen CPU lineup as retail pricing is now out in the wild. The good news is that the Raptor Lake refresh isn’t going to increase the pricing from last year and will follow the example set by the 13th gen lineup.

Video games are increasingly enmeshed in the business cycle of Big Tech. After the pandemic boom, profit warnings are piling up, from Assassin's Creed developer Ubisoft Entertainment SA to Frontier Developments Plc, and industry layoffs are mounting.

The world's best gamers who can identify a location anywhere in the world after seeing an image in less than a second face off Saturday in a world championship in Stockholm. A picture of a sunny paved road appears on a computer screen, bordered by trees and bushes. A red dirt road crosses the paved road, in what appears to be a tropical landscape. "We're going to be in Indonesia because of the sticker on this pole," Trevor Rainbolt of the United States tells AFP.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

The edge of the network isn’t always where you find the most powerful computers. But it is the place where you can find the most ubiquitous technology.

After some earlier rumour-mongering, confirmation has finally been given by Gigabyte that it is to release a new Radeon RX 6750 card, specifically a GRE edition. This will be exclusive to China but this doesn't mean you won't be able to pick one up, potentially in a pre-built system as with the RX 7900 GRE, if you're looking for something a bit different.

A global pandemic forced us social gamers online and reminded us just how much fun it is to play silly games together for laughs. One of the most accessible game series’ during that period was the hit Jackbox series, which can be played online or in person, making it the perfect party game for any occasion. We’ve had many a hilarious night with Jackbox games, and one of our favorite minigames gets a reboot in Jackbox Party Pack 10 alongside four new games, and we’re offering you the chance to get them all for free.

The shift to a hybrid work environment has led to the emergence of online communication platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and more. While most of these existed before the sudden demand for them during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is now healthy competition to become the number one workspace provider in the market. Consequently, developers keep rolling out new features to keep users from switching to alternate platforms. Earlier this year, Google Meet brought 1080p video calling to one-on-one video chats, and now this feature is being introduced in group calling as well.

Tencent, Apple, Nintendo, and Ubisoft reduced their carbon emissions from 2021 to 2022, while companies including Sega, NetEase, and Unity saw increases year-on-year.

Catan, Carcassonne, Pandemic Legacy, and tons of other board games are on sale at Amazon.

There is a bogeyman lurking behind corporate America's push to bring workers back to the office: the remote employee who is secretly working a second full-time job, not by working 80-hour weeks, but by toggling between Job 1 and Job 2.

The Creator, the latest film from Rogue One director Gareth Edwards, takes a strong stance against war and America’s worldwide interventionism in particular, pointing out its human cost. The movie is filled with anti-war imagery and messaging, but according to Edwards, it also gained a surprising connection to a real-life war in the middle of filming.

The amount of money being invested in the video games industry by venture capital funds hit a three-year low in the three months ending September.

Venture capital funding in video games fell to its lowest in three years last quarter.

I like games about conveyor belts. And trains.

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Nintendo has revealed their latest collaboration with Lego is Animal Crossing.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

Nearly 18 months after its initial unveiling, Blizzard's free-to-play strategy game Warcraft Rumble has a release date and will be launching for iOS and Android on 3rd November, its arrival coinciding with the start of this year's BlizzCon.

Let’s be honest here. One of the “defining characteristics” of the PS5 has been that it’s been very hard to get. At first, it was because of the global pandemic and the semiconductor shortage that plagued the world. But now that this issue has been solved, people have been trying to get their hands on the system so they can finally enjoy its incredible games and upcoming ones like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2! But if you’re one of the people who have been struggling to get a system, and you want the upcoming title from Insomniac Games, you’re in luck!

The surprising revelation that Jim Ryan will retire as Sony Interactive Entertainment’s President and CEO at the end of March 2024 has been, perhaps predictably, met with glee from most corners of the wider video game world. In addition to courting controversy on a number of occasions, the British executive’s tenure has largely been marred by a change in corporate goals: an emphasis on games as a service which has yet to really bear fruit, a lack of engagement with enthusiasts, and a blank slate of upcoming first-party releases.

With Sony announcing that PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan will be retiring in April of next year, this kind of message from Phil Spencer was inevitable. The Xbox boss has taken to Twitter in order to praise 63-year-old Ryan's impact on the industry, as you'd expect.

The PS5 is on track to become Sony's "most successful console yet."

Though the fines levied on Meta Platforms Inc. over the past few years have reached into the billions of dollars, I've long felt the greater punishment for Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg was the paralysis his company endured. A dorky engineer at heart, Zuckerberg appeared ill equipped and disinterested in playing the diplomatic role needed to pull the social network's reputation up from the gutter.

The artificial intelligence revolution is fully underway, but soaring demand for its most crucial component has startups scratching their heads on how they can deliver on AI's promise.

Apple launched its iPhone 15 series at the Wonderlust event on September 12, and the devices went on sale on September 22. However, even before Apple started shipping these devices, the iPhone 15 series sold out for weeks, leaving prospective customers empty-handed. While this shortage is not limited to any one variant, the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which is the top-of-the-line device, is seeing the most demand, with the device being sold out until November in some places. Although initial reports attributed this to Apple struggling to make components required for its top-end iPhone, a new report has surfaced that has shed light on another reason behind this shortfall - scalpers.

More than three years after acquiring fitness startup Mirror to go after Peloton’s explosive pandemic-era growth, Lululemon will discontinue the Mirror interactive fitness device and join forces with Peloton on fitness content and apparel.

There are quite a few fans waiting to get their hands on BioShock 4. After three main installments were released, the franchise was thrown on ice. After 2013’s BioShock Infinite, we saw the closure of Irrational Games, which led to some fans fearing this was it for the franchise. Fortunately, we know that’s not the case, as a new studio is taking control of the IP. Cloud Chamber is the company working on BioShock 4, and while details have been kept secret, a new shed of evidence points towards a release sometime in 2028.

Epic has revealed that they are raising the prices for Fortnite’s V-Bucks.

Epic Games is reportedly laying off around 16% of its workforce.

Jim Ryan, President and CEO at Sony Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation), will retire in March 2024 after 30 years of working within the company. Sony has decided to place President, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki as the new Chairman of SIE (PlayStation) starting next month to help Jim Ryan with the transition. Totoki will also assume the role of interim CEO at SIE starting on April 1st, 2024, while Sony seeks a successor to Ryan.

Sony has announced PlayStation boss Jim Ryan will be retiring from his role in March 2024. To help with the transition, Hiroki Totoki will assume the position Interim CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment from next month. «Mr. Totoki will work closely with Sony Group Corporation Chairman and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida and the management team of SIE to help define the next chapter of PlayStation’s future, including the succession of the SIE CEO role,» a press release states.

Insomniac are putting a lot of extra detail in to Spider-Man 2 to make the open world feel more alive, and that includes being able to jump on the rides on Coney Island and take spin. Project manager Jeannette Lee spoke to Golem and was asked about her thoughts open “future of open-world superhero games”.

Five years after the elimination of net neutrality regulations in the US, FCC chairwoman Juliana Rosenworcel has begun the process of bringing them back, saying that restoring the FCC's authority over broadband service in the US is needed to ensure the internet «is not only open, but fast and fair, safe and secure.»

If at first you don't succeed, patch, patch, and patch again. You might already have noticed, but Cyberpunk 2077 is having a bit of a renaissance this month, on the back of its sweeping 2.0 update and yesterday's release of its (really rather good) Phantom Liberty expansion. In No Man's Sky-like fashion, Cyberpunk seems like it's finally making good three years after its disastrous launch, and hey, it looks like people are taking notice.

Insomniac are putting a lot of extra detail in to Spider-Man 2 to make the open world feel more alive, and that includes being able to jump on the rides on Coney Island and take spin. Project manager Jeannette Lee spoke to Golem and was asked about her thoughts open “future of open-world superhero games”.

Blizzard has revealed that longtime veteran Chris Metzen has returned to the company to work on WarCraft.

Starfield was extensively playtested by Bethesda devs often working from home, and Todd Howard says this approach worked so well that the studio's going to apply the method to its future games, with the studio's next confirmed, albeit far-off project obviously being The Elder Scrolls 6.

Meta has shipped six VR headsets in seven years. Only one has been an obvious success.

Between 2017 and 2013, the number of smartphone brands out there has dropped by an astounding 500 companies.

Ubisoft has confirmed Tom Clancy’s The Division 3 is now in development at Massive Entertainment.

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You may have heard about a little space game called Starfield, the gravitational pull from which risks swallowing all games discourse for months and possibly years to come. Perhaps that's no surprise for a game that's been in development and hyped for as long as any title that I can remember (well, ones that have shipped anyway) but it's easy to forget now the thing's in our hands that it was subject to multiple delays along the way.

After a rough post-pandemic downturn, the PC market may see a rebound in 2024, according to Monday data from IDC.

Sea of Stars is almost here, and to build excitement, The Escapist has released a new documentary about the upcoming JPRG with the developers. In it, we get some insight into the game’s creation and the team’s philosophies, as well as some interesting tidbits about the game’s development, including their decision to self-publish their newest title.

Hideo Kojima has finally detailed how Death Stranding 2's story was completely rewritten due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Hideo Kojima has explained why he had to completely rewrite Death Stranding 2 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

What a wild couple of years we went through. The pandemic feels like an eternity ago for some, while others still cope with all the problems it brought. 2020 is a year we can’t forget about, and it’s being credited to the new storyline change for Death Stranding 2. Hideo Kojima is a well-beloved developer, and fans have gravitated toward his line of video games for decades. Since the split between himself and Konami, the first title release from the creative mind that brought out so many thrilling games was Death Stranding. While you might have enjoyed that first game installment, its sequel will be different from what Hideo Kojima initially had in mind.