The Game Awards are done and the video game marketing machine is winding down for the year, but this industry never fully stops. This week, we’re taking a look at what The Game Awards could have done better (a few things, it turns out) and breaking down some of the biggest announcements from last week’s show.

This week’s stories

Light No Fire

We’re gonna talk about The Game Awards a lot this week, but one of the biggest announcements from last Thursday’s show was the existence of Light No Fire, a new title from No Man’s Sky studio Hello Games. It’s a planet-sized, multiplayer game about exploration and community-building, and it uses procedural generation to fill every valley and mountaintop with life. At least, that’s the promise. There’s no release date for Light No Fire just yet, but Hello Games has been working on it for five years.

The rest of The Game Awards

Also at The Game Awards, we saw the reveal of a Blade game from Arkane Lyon, OD from Kojima Productions, Windblown from Dead Cells studio Motion Twin, and Exodus from Archetype Entertainment, a studio composed of BioWare, 343 and Naughty Dog veterans.

As for the awards, best narrative went to Alan Wake 2, best debut indie game went to Cocoon, and esports coach of the year went to Potter. Indie game Baldur's Gate 3 won game of the year, while Sea of Stars won best independent game over Dave the Diver, a title that was never indie to begin with. Got it? Good. Moving on.

Free Radical Design shuts down

Free Radical

UK studio Free Radical Design, which was working on the TimeSplitters revival, laid off more than 80 people and shut its doors on Monday. It marks another round of layoffs under Embracer this year — the holding company announced in June that a $2 billion funding deal fell through, and it’s spent the last few months closing studios and firing staff at places including Saints Row developer Volition and Chorus maker Fishlabs.

We can do better

The Game Awards

The Game Awards last week ran for three hours, hosted by organizer Geoff Keighley. It was fancy and packed with movie stars — which, honestly, is pretty weird for a show that’s supposed to be about video games. Between abundant ad breaks, rushed speeches for winning developers, and ample stage time for celebrities, this year’s Game Awards didn’t feel like a celebration of the industry.

I’m not the only one who noticed the imbalance. After The Game Awards, plenty of developers, players and critics expressed displeasure with its pacing and priorities. Of the show’s 180 minutes, speeches from award winners took up just 10 minutes, and developers were prompted to ‘please wrap it up’ after just 30 seconds.

Meanwhile, Jordan Peele and Hideo Kojima were given nearly 7 minutes to talk about their upcoming project that looks like it’s more movie than game. There were appearances by Simu Liu, Matthew McConaughey and actors from TV shows based on video games. The Game of the Year award was presented by Timothee Chalamet, for some reason. Gonzo the Muppet even got 2 minutes.

Keighley rushed through most awards by reading the categories and winners directly into the camera back to back to back. Announcement trailers were indistinguishable from ad breaks, and there was no time spared for the industry’s most relevant issues, like the upheaval of mass layoffs, the fight to establish unions, and the medium's relationship with conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.

These topics would feel drastically out of place at The Game Awards, and that alone is an indictment of the show. If there’s no room to discuss, celebrate and condemn these topics at the industry’s most public-facing event, what are we even doing here?

The Game Awards organizers have done a great job replacing the embarrassment that was Spike’s VGX with a show that looks more like The Oscars — but the video game industry is not Hollywood. Where are our luminaries? What are our issues? How are we innovating? Making video games more like movies is not the goal — unless you’re Kojima, I guess.

There are a bunch of other events that give time to video game creators and broader conversations, such as the Game Developers Choice Awards and its Independent Game Festival competition, The Spawnies from Spawn on Me, Gamedev.world from Rami Ismail, and Day of the Devs. And there are always the showcases from indie publishers like Annapurna Interactive, Devolver Digital and Panic throughout the year. But with E3 officially dead, Keighley's two big shows — Summer Game Fest and The Game Awards — are now the premier industry events on the gaming calendar. There's a responsibility that comes with that position, and his organization clearly needs to strike a better balance.

Now playing

It’s been a strangely stressful time, so I’ve been relaxing with couch co-op in Halo: The Master Chief Collection. It’s familiar and comfortable, and the toggle between old and new graphics is still an absolute delight. I’d love to discover some new couch co-op games, so let me know in the comments if you have any favorites.

Netflix has published the first of a new twice-a-year engagement report called “What We Watched.” The first installment, launched Tuesday as a Microsoft Excel file, lists the hours viewed for every title (original and licensed) that has tallied more than 50,000 viewing hours. Although it’s an uneven performance comparison since episodic series will rack up many more hours than standalone films, this is the first ultra-detailed glimpse at what people watch on Netflix.

The first spreadsheet, covering January to June 2023, includes 18,214 entries of eligible content. The first season of the action-thriller series The Night Agent: Season 1 sat comfortably at the top with 812,100,000 hours during that period. Following (far behind) in second place was season two of the drama Ginny & Georgia (665,100,000 hours). Rounding out the top five are season one of The Glory (622,800,000), the inaugural season of the Jenny Ortega-led Wednesday (507,700,000) and the limited prequel series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (503,000,000).

The J.Lo action flick The Mother was the top-ranked movie on the list, raking in 249,900,000 viewing hours and falling at number 20 behind a glut of multi-episode series. Idris Elba’s Luther: The Fallen Sun (209,700,000) came in at 26, while the Chris Hemsworth vehicle Extraction 2 (201,800,000) slotted in at 29.

Netflix

In addition to hours viewed, the spreadsheet denotes each title’s release date and whether it’s available globally. For curiosity’s sake, the lowest-ranking globally available item on the list is the 2020 comedy special Yours Sincerely, Kanan Gill.

Netflix stressed the importance of not using total hours viewed alone to determine a movie or series’ impact. “Success on Netflix comes in all shapes and sizes, and is not determined by hours viewed alone,” the streamer wrote in its announcement blog post. “We have enormously successful movies and TV shows with both lower and higher hours viewed. It’s all about whether a movie or TV show thrilled its audience — and the size of that audience relative to the economics of the title.”

Netflix says the new biannual spreadsheets will combine with its weekly Top 10 and Most Popular lists to paint a more comprehensive picture for viewers, creators and industry watchers.

You can rev up Excel or Numbers and download the inaugural Netflix spreadsheet drop here.

Sony’s 2023 Wrap-Up is now available. The recap, similar to those from music streaming services, reflects on your PS5 or PS4 gaming habits from the past year. The new version will sum up your most-played games, tally your total hours and assign an algorithmically generated “gaming style.” Since, from a business standpoint, these year-end rewinds also serve as crowdsourced social media marketing, Sony created easily shareable digital cards outlining your 2023 habits.

You can view your PlayStation 2023 Wrap-Up by visiting Sony’s web portal and logging in with your account. It generates cards summarizing your top games, trophies earned, monthly gaming stats and your personalized style. (Mine was “Thrill Seeker.”) A button at the bottom of the UI will pop up the cards to share with friends or followers. Sony will also, uh, “helpfully” recommend games you haven’t yet bought that fit your personalized style.

The company says the recap is only available if you’ve played games on a PS5 or PS4 for at least 10 hours from January 1 to December 31. In addition, if you didn’t consent to “Full Data” collection from PS5 settings or “Additional Data” from PS4 systems in certain regions (Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australasia, India and Russia), you won’t be able to use the promotional feature. Sony is also throwing in a bonus “unique avatar” and a PlayStation Stars digital collectible of a Spider-Bot from the Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise as rewards.

Since annual digital recaps have transformed into a popular online tradition in recent years, you can likely expect similar rewinds from Xbox and Nintendo before long.

Google has been working to phase out the Play Movies & TV brand and services ever since it launched its standalone TV app a few years ago. Now, the company seems to be making the last preparations for when Google Play Movies & TV goes away for good in January. As The Verge reports, the company has released detailed instructions on how long-time customers can continue accessing the content they'd already purchased. Admittedly, it can be a bit confusing, since access depends on what device the viewer is using. 

Starting on January 17, 2024, viewers will be able to access the movies and shows they'd purchased in the "Your Library" row under the Shop tab in Google Play... if they're watching on TVs and streaming devices powered by Android TV. If they're on Android TV cable or set-top boxes, they'll be able to access their old content through the YouTube app, where they could also continue buying and renting movies and shows. On browsers, they will have to fire up the YouTube website to see their old purchases and borrow or buy new ones. 

These changes will be complete over the next few weeks, but we can confirm that they've already started rolling out, as we're already seeing old movie buys on the YouTube website.

Apple will reward record labels and artists who offer their music in spatial audio, a relatively new audio format that is more immersive than regular stereo. According to a Bloomberg report, artists who release their music in spatial audio will receive “added weighting” starting next year. That, Bloomberg speculates, could mean higher royalties.

Nearly all of Apple’s audio hardware such as AirPods, HomePod, the iPhone and the upcoming Vision Pro headset, support playback in spatial audio, so the company’s move to incentivize artists is almost certainly to ensure that most music available on Apple Music is available in a format that Apple has positioned as a selling point. Notably, Bloomberg notes that Apple Music listeners wouldn’t necessarily have to stream a song in spatial audio for artists to be rewarded. Simply having their music available in the format would be enough.

Apple added spatial audio, which is powered by technology from Dolby Atmos, to Apple Music in 2021. Most of the company’s original shows and movies on Apple TV+ are also offered in the format. Artists also have the option of mixing their older music in the new format, something that bands from all decades are already doing. Mixing music in the format isn’t wildly expensive, according to Bloomberg; if true, this push could help get independent musicians and smaller acts on board.

Some Apple Music competitors like Amazon Music and Tidal also offer spatial audio on their services. But Spotify, Apple’s biggest music stream rival, is a notable exception, even though rumors about a high-quality music format on the service have swirled for years.

Hannah Shaw, better known as the “Kitten Lady,” teaches people how to care for neonatal cats, and has raised more than $1 million for animal shelters and rescues. Her Facebook page has gained over a million followers since she began making cat content, but she almost lost it all to a social engineering hack that took over access to her Meta business account.

“I built that community for more than a decade. Thinking that I might lose it was pretty devastating,” Shaw said.

Influencers rely on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for their income. These sites have evolved from side project enablers to the sole source of income for some content creators. However, bad actors have found ways to also take a piece of the piece from those earning an honest living there. Yes, high-level hackers tend to seek entities with deep pockets, targeting them with highly complicated attacks. But much of the cyber criminality today is social engineering jobs, ripping off mid-level creators with much fewer resources than a multinational corporation, but also significantly less technical know-how.

A creator who goes by Hobby Bobbins — who gained a cult following within her niche of vintage clothing restoration — walked me through how all of this happened to her. The attack occurred in almost the exact same steps that led to Shaw’s account takeover. It started with an interview request from an individual going by Rex Hall, who claimed to be a manager for the show “Podcast and Chill with MacG.” This appears to be a real podcast, although no one named Rex Hall seems to be publicly associated with it. (We reached out to the podcasters to determine if they're aware their brand is being used to perpetrate a social engineering scheme and have not heard back.) "Podcast and Chill" is based in South Africa, and according to its Twitter bio, its purpose is in part for "documenting black excellence.” It doesn’t specifically focus on the topics Shaw or Bobbins cover, like animal wellness or vintage clothing. But influencers receive these requests constantly, the podcast hosts had a digital footprint and "Rex" was able to answer any questions that Bobbins had.

The malicious actor asked their targets to hop on a Zoom call for pre-interview prep, including setting up Facebook Live to bring in revenue. “Everything seemed normal at first, the only odd thing was his camera was not on. But even that is not too odd, a lot of people don’t want to be on camera,” Shaw said. After a labyrinth of back and forth over backend settings, the scammer leads their targets to a backend setting called “datasets.” It’s an obscure page, often used to give people admin access to a business account. But victims thought it was a normal part of setting up for Facebook Live because it does include event management options.

Both Shaw and Bobbins pushed back on the request to access datasets and turned off their screen sharing to avoid giving too much away. But the hackers still got in by insisting they help with setup, saying that they needed to view one seemingly innocuous link. In datasets, creators generated a unique URL that the scammers could use to get into the account. “When he captured that direct URL, it basically generated that email invite for him without ever having to access my email without him even needing to know a password or anything,” Bobbins said. “All he had to do was put in the link and accept the invite and then it automatically added his own personal Facebook to my page.”

After gaining access, "Rex" was able to make themself an admin of the page. With that power, they could remove Bobbins’ ability to log in. Support tickets with Meta sent her in circles trying to get her account back. Bobbins’ lost her way to communicate with her 400,000 followers, and hackers deleted years of content she had dedicated her career to making.

The scammers cleaned the page to make room for bogus links that led to ad-filled sites to generate easy revenue. They put in a list of about 100 blocked words so that followers couldn’t flag to each other that the account had been hacked. “Anybody who commented on my page that said ‘stolen’ or ‘hacked’ or ‘scam’ or whatever would be automatically blocked out. So, none of my other followers could see the people who knew that my account was hacked,” said Bobbins. She lost an unknown number of views and “hundreds of dollars” worth of sales each day that her account had been taken over.

Shaw and Bobbins both went to Meta for help, but it was fruitless. “There is zero support for a problem like this with Facebook,” Bobbins said. Resetting her password went nowhere, because it couldn’t change the admin settings that the hackers had changed. When Bobbins finally figured out how to contact the help desk at Facebook with a support ticket, it was closed out “almost instantly” with no help received, she said. In response to our questions about this attack vector or what they’re doing to help creators keep accounts secure, Meta recommended users implement multifactor authentication and report any issues to its support center. But Shaw and Bottoms both have two-factor authentication turned on, and their accounts still got taken over. Meta did, however, introduce better customer service as a feature in its paid verification package earlier this year, another way social media platforms are charging for security features.

Shaw got her account back in about 72 hours from the initial attack by using her following to find a person who could help, but Bobbins wasn’t as lucky. She’s still struggling with access today, over a month since the hack occurred. She briefly got back in and was able to begin manually reuploading her past content. Beyond that, those who accessed the accounts changed location permissions, turned off messaging capabilities, removed her shop from her page, blocked certain followers and took away her $5 per month subscribers. The web of damage became so widespread, Bobbins created a list of the footprints left by the attacker to help others undo the changes. Since the account takeover, Bobbins has struggled to keep access to her account, with unusual flags on seemingly unwarranted copyright violations and other issues kicking her out.

“There’s no extra step that can be taken right now to protect somebody from the thing that I just went through,” Bobbins said. The only prevention for a crime like this is spreading the word, so that others don't fall for the same social engineering trick. That’s why Shaw is helping bring together more than a dozen of other victims of the same scam to minimize damage and call for greater creator security.

Still, there’s no real solution without the platforms creating major change. Platforms should do a better job of quickly investigating complaints from followers because right now the onus is on the page owners to figure it out, said Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center. While there are a lot of prescribed processes for traditional identity theft, like freezing your credit, there aren’t well-defined practices for social media account takeovers because creators are at the mercy of these platforms.

If you stumble upon what appears to be an account takeover as a follower, Velasquez recommends getting in touch with the creator outside of that specific platform to let them know a hack is occurring. Victims of an account takeover can also alert the Internet Crimes Complaint Center about the incident, but there’s not much else they can do. Or, creators can avoid using the platform altogether. “At this moment in time, I don't recommend that anybody accepts Facebook Live interviews,” Shaw said.

Between Fortnite’s propensity for big-name concerts and Epic’s purchase of Harmonix two years ago, the inclusion of some kind of music-making feature in the game was inevitable. What Epic is releasing today is actually far grander: an entirely new mode called Fortnite Festival, a social space where players can team up to perform their favorite songs or jam together on new mixes.

There are two options, or stages, for users to play in the new mode. The main stage, or championship stage, is basically the Rock Band experience recreated inside Fortnite. You’ll form a band with friends and choose a song to perform. Then you play the song using the standard music game format where notes slide down vertical bars, hitting the correct button when the note reaches the bottom. Players can, of course, hear the song as they play it, which can be embarrassing if you’re not that good. Each performer earns points, which in turn leads to XP and character progression in the greater Fortnite ecosystem.

While the main stage may be old-hat to anyone present during the zenith of music games in the 2000s, the jam stage draws from Harmonix’s more recent (and less popular) mixing titles, Dropmix and Fuser. While both of those games had competitive modes, they were a lot more fun as music-making toys, where players could just throw different parts of popular songs together and see what comes out. Jamming in Fortnite Festival is pretty much that, but collaborative.

Epic Games

When you first drop into a jam, your avatar will be standing in a virtual world full of stages, clubs and green spaces. It has an amusement park-like feel, similar to Disney World’s long-gone Pleasure Island. Despite the world’s appearance, you don’t have to climb on stage to play music, you can start jamming wherever you want by pulling up the emote wheel. The actions here have been replaced with song options. Just pick a song and instrument, and your character will start playing. It’s not the entire song, but rather one particular piece of it. To assemble something more complete, you need to collaborate with other players.

Jamming with other players is incredibly easy. All you need to do is walk up to someone who’s already playing (helpfully indicated by a wavy circle) and activate your own emote wheel. The system will automatically mix the two songs together no matter the genre or style. You want to add the vocals from The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” to the synth from “Gangnam Style?” Go right ahead, and don’t be surprised when someone else drops in the beat from The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights.”

Instruments can be swapped out on the fly, and the key and tempo can also be tweaked to make a slow song fast or vice versa. There’s a lot of room for creativity here, as well as cacophony as the levels fill up.

While Fortnite Festival draws heavily on Dropmix and Fuser it has one key advantage over those two titles, one that could lead to success where its predecessors failed: it’s free. All three of the new Fortnite modes will be free, but Festival is a standout since it relies so heavily on licensed music. One huge barrier to entry for music games has always been the additional costs, especially the song packs. $2 for your favorite Nirvana or Bad Bunny tracks might not seem like much at first, but it adds up, and any online cost can be insurmountable to a kid without a credit card. The fact that this is a music game that anyone can download for free on their computer, console or mobile device without being bombarded with ads means it has the potential to make music games popular again.

The Game Awards is over and done with, leaving an empty theater in Los Angeles and plenty of happy game developers placing pointy statuettes on their mantels. To that end, Larian Studios and its massively successful RPG Baldur’s Gate 3 was the big winner of the night, taking home the prize for game of the year, player’s choice, best multiplayer game and more.

Remedy’s Alan Wake 2 was also on fire, winning best game direction, best narrative and best art direction, among others. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom paraglided away with the statue for best action/adventure and the RPG Sea of Stars won for best indie game, with Cocoon being awarded best debut indie game.

Okay. Now that the actual awards are out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. The main reason people watch The Game Awards is for reveals and trailers, and this year didn’t disappoint. There were over a dozen announcements, and here are the best and brightest of the bunch.

Light No Fire

Boy oh boy, a new title from Hello Games, the makers of a little-known space sim called No Man’s Sky. The studio has finally announced a follow up, which has been in development for five years. Light No Fire, another three-word monosyllabic game name, is being billed as the “the first real open world” title, a lofty promise that Hello may be able to pull off. The world is allegedly the same size as Earth, with secrets and mysteries around every corner. It’s also multiplayer, which is neat. Who knows when this one will come out, but it looks gorgeous.

Jurassic Park: Survival

It’s been a couple of years since a new Jurassic Park game, and more than that for a proper adventure title. Jurassic Park: Survival actually takes place one day after the events of the first film, and looks to feature plenty of stealthy action as you hide from hungry dinos. There’s no release date, but it’s launching on Xbox X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC.

OD

Did you think Hideo Kojima would be spending all of his time on Death Stranding 2? Heck no. The legendary developer has also been busy preparing the cinematic horror game OD, previously called Overdose. It’s described as something “no one has ever experienced or seen before,” which is entirely possible, given Kojima’s pedigree. Filmmaker Jordan Peele is also on board, as are actors Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer and Udo Kier. Details are scant, as it’s a Kojima joint, but the game will release for Xbox X/S and PC at some point.

Marvel’s Blade

That’s right. Everyone’s favorite vampire hunter is getting his own video game. Even better? It’s being developed by Arkane Lyon, the talented team behind Deathloop and Dishonored 2. Sure, the dev also made Redfall, but maybe Arkane can take some of the best parts of that vampire shooter and translate it to Marvel’s hero. There’s no release date and no announced platforms for this one.

Exodus

This is the first game from Archetype Entertainment, a studio staffed by former developers from Bioware, Naughty Dog and other AAA developers. Exodus is a sci-fi RPG that deals with the effects of time dilation, the notion that time passes more slowly to those experiencing high-velocity space travel. It looks cinematic and gorgeous, with a major emphasis on player choice. Exodus has no release date, but it's in development for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Monster Hunter Wilds

Capcom is busy working on a new Monster Hunter entry. Monster Hunter Wilds is a direct followup to Monster Hunter World and it looks to feature all of the big, bad beasties you can shake a sharpened stick at. It’s on the way to PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, with more information coming this summer.

Windblown

Motion Twin, the developer of Dead Cells, is back with another roguelike. Windblown looks to be a fast-paced release that promises “a whole new level of speed to the action rogue-like genre.” It’s also not a sidescroller, which is a definitive break from the Dead Cells formula. Windblown launches in 2024 for PC, though consoles are likely to follow.

Big Walk

Looking to relax? House House, the developer behind Untitled Goose Game, has got you covered. Big Walk is, well, a multiplayer walking sim with plenty of secrets to uncover. Cooperation is a major part of the game as you and your friends work to explore the wilderness. Big Walk is slated to arrive on Steam and the Epic Game Store in 2025.

No Rest for the Wicked

No Rest for the Wicked is the new project from Moon Studios, the team behind Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel. It’s a top-down action RPG, departing from Ori’s metroidvania roots, set during the middle ages. The graphics are stunning, which is no surprise considering the developer. It's due to hit early access on Steam in the first quarter of 2024, and will eventually launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Pony Island 2: Panda Circus

Indie developer Daniel Mullins made a name for himself with Inscryption and the original Pony Island. Now he’s back with Pony Island 2: Panda Circus, a game that’s not actually about ponies. The trailer is weird and creepy, as one would expect, with sudden shifts from a 3D adventure to a 2D point-and-click and back again. Voice actor SungWon "ProZD" Cho is also on board. The game may not be released until 2026, so put on your waiting cap.

Sega Embraces its Roots

Sega dropped a trailer for not just one game, but a whole bunch of games based on classic IPs. You can look forward to forthcoming reboots of Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage and Shinobi. Wait, that’s not all. There’s also Space Channel 5 and Panzer Dragoon. Everything old is new again. But, where’s Seaman?

Final Fantasy XVI and God of War Ragnarok Get DLC

The DLC faeries were good to us this year. There’s a God of War Ragnarok update launching next week, bringing a new roguelite game mode to Sony’s hit adventure. We also got a surprise drop for the first Final Fantasy XVI DLC. Echoes of the Fallen, set before the base game’s final battle, is available now, with a second DLC planned for next year. To that end, Square Enix dropped a trailer for next year’s installment, The Rising Tide.

Everything Else

Those were the biggest announcements, but not all of them. The Game Awards also saw a title reveal and trailer for Supermassive’s Dead by Daylight spinoff, The Casting of Frank Stone. There was an announcement trailer for a remake of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and one for the music-tinged VR title Thrasher, by the makers of Thumper. Finally, we got an actual release date for Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones, February 16, and a surprise launch for Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox systems.

Hideo Kojima said his documentary, Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds, will be distributed exclusively by Disney+. The legendary game designer posted Thursday on X (formerly Twitter) that the film, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this summer, will launch globally in the spring of 2024.

Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds tracks the pioneering auteur during the development of Death Stranding while providing a rare glimpse into his creative process as he launched his studio, Kojima Productions. The film also includes “shots from the early days of our independent studio, memories from my childhood and my creative journey,” as the designer said. The film strives to capture the artistic side of gaming, which Kojima embodies as well as anyone.

Kojima Productions

The documentary announcement follows the official reveal of Kojima’s next game, OD. Although we don’t know much about it yet, its trailer blends a cinematic art style with horror, aligning with previous leaks. Director and comedian Jordan Peele is even involved. Xbox Game Studios is publishing the title, which Kojima has said will lean heavily on Microsoft’s cloud technology.

“Video gaming is an art,” director Guillermo del Toro summarizes in the documentary trailer (below) about the Metal Gear creator. “But the only person in charge of the orchestra is the auteur.”

We made it to 200 episodes folks! This week, Cherlynn, Devindra, Producer Ben Ellman and Senior Writer Sam Rutherford dive into some of the biggest tech developments since we rebooted the podcast in 2019. Remember, that was a pre-pandemic, pre-generative AI world! We also highlight a few guest interviews worth revisiting, like our chats with Bill Nye and Ann Druyan.

As for recent news, we quickly recap the OpenAI drama around Sam Altman’s ouster, discuss Google’s new Gemini AI platform, and chat about the revelation that governments are spying on our push notifications. Cherlynn also details her experience with Apple’s Personal Voice feature for iPhones and gives us a demo of her AI-generated digital voice.

Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!

Topics

• It’s our 200th episode! We look back on what’s changed in tech since the show relaunched – 1:02

• Sam Altman sacked and reinstated, a recap of the OpenAI drama – 44:29

• Google announces Gemini AI, its answer to GPT-4 – 50:04

• Microsoft upgrades Copilot with OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo and DALL-E 3 – 54:23

• Governments are spying on push notifications, Google and Apple can’t do anything about it – 55:41

• Mark Gurman reports Apple is working on revamped iPad Pros and an M3 MacBook Air – 58:02

• Cherlynn’s experience with the new iOS accessibility feature Personal Voice – 58:58

• Pop culture picks – 1:05:01

Subscribe!

• iTunes

• Spotify

• Pocket Casts

• Stitcher

• Google Podcasts

Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Guest: Sam Rutherford
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien