Pinned
-deep breath-
I’m going independent!
After a career of covering video games for MTV News, Kotaku and Axios, I’m launching Game File, a reader-supported site and newsletter for my reporting about video games.
gamefile.news
Stephen Totilo
36.6K posts
- Just went into Destiny 2, and, yeah, players are gathered around Commander Zavala, paying tribute to his actor, the late Lance Reddick Really touching. RIP
00:00
Destiny players are gathering in The Tower to honor the tragic passing of actor Lance Reddick, who played Commander Zavala in the franchise - Two cops were fired from the LAPD after they failed to respond to the report of a robbery and drove off to hunt a Snorlax in Pokemon Go. They appealed (said it wasn't okay for squad car recording of them to be used against them). They lost. From our newsletter today:
- “We love you. We miss you. We hate money.” An electronic billboard from New Blood Interactive in downtown LA mourns the closure of Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Roll7, Sony’s London Studio, Volition and more “Gone but not forgotten”
00:00 - BREAKING: SAG-AFTRA video game voice/performance actors are going on strike at midnight tonight. Basically over AI "We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse A.I. to the detriment of our members. Enough is enough." - AG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher
- Breaking: Bethesda Game Studios workers have unionized. Not the same as the QA union. This time it’s “wall to wall”… “241 developers including artists, engineers, programmers and designers”, per the CWA. And they say Microsoft has recognized the union.
- I played Assassin's Creed Shadows yesterday and can confirm that it has excellent bamboo-slicing tech. I'll have more coverage of the game in Game File, probably tomorrow
00:00 - Phil Spencer calls for industry-wide support of emulation for older games to preserve the past “If we said, ‘Hey, anybody should be able to buy any game, or own any game and continue to play,' that seems like a great North Star for us as an industry.” axios.com/microsoft-old-…
- I got some clarifications from Unity regarding their plan to charge developers per game install (after clearing thresholds) - If a player deletes a game and re-installs it, that's 2 installs, 2 charges - Same if they install on 2 devices - Charity games/bundles exempted from feesUnity introducing new fee attached to game installs gamedeveloper.com/business/unity…
- PlayStation shows that way more girls and women own their recent consoles than was the case with PS1
- NEWS: A worker says Nintendo of America violated their right to organize and has filed a National Labor Relations Board complaint against them and a hiring firm Nintendo had largely avoided the industry's labor scandals, but an investigation will follow axios.com/nintendo-nlrb-…
- NEW: Nintendo is suing the creators of popular Switch emulator Yuzu, saying their tech illegally circumvents Nintendo's software encryption and facilitates piracy. Seeks damages for alleged violations and a shutdown of the emulator.
- Having sat two rows behind the person managing the clock (via a laptop just to the right of this set-up), I can confirm there was manual control of when to start the 30-second countdown to the "Please wrap it up" sign, manual control of when to make it flash Was tweakable
By the way - I do agree that the music was played too fast for award winners this year, and I asked our team to relax that rule as the show went on. While no one was actually cut off, it’s something to address going forward.
