You'll soon have the chance to watch the 2022 World Cup with vibrant image quality — so long as you have the right cable provider, anyway. Comcast has announced that it will be the only company in the US to air the Qatar-based World Cup in Dolby Vision HDR. You'll need an eligible Xfinity X1 set-top box and a Dolby Vision-capable TV (sorry, Samsung fans), and you'll have to tune into Fox's coverage. If all the ingredients are in place, though, the players' colorful uniforms are that much more likely to pop.

Comcast also has a familiar World Cup hub for X1 users that lets you follow favorite teams, track the tournament bracket and watch AI-selected highlights from recorded matches. And no, you don't always need conventional TV service to watch. Peacock is streaming live and on-demand games in Spanish, and Tubi will offer English replays of every game at no charge.

HDR isn't necessarily a make-or-break feature. You may be content to stream through Fox Sports or watch plainer-looking footage on traditional TV. With that said, the Dolby Vision support might give you an incentive to watch on cable if you live in a Comcast-supported region and are determined to make the most of your World Cup experience.

Apple's Major League Soccer streaming finally has a launch date and, importantly, a price. The company has revealed that the MLS Season Pass will debut February 1st, 2023 at a price of $99 per season, or $15 per month. As you might guess, Apple TV+ subscribers get a discounted rate of $79 per season and $13 per month. The regular season kicks off February 25th, so you'll have a while to decide before the competition begins in earnest.

Full-season ticket packages will include MLS Season Pass. You won't always have to subscribe, however. Some MLS and Leagues Cup matches will stream at no extra charge for Apple TV+ viewers, and certain matches (such as those from the "MLS is Back" opening weekend) will be completely free to view.

The allure, as mentioned in June, is the complete coverage. You can watch every match, including the playoffs and League Cup, without running into regional blackouts. Replays, highlights and other content will be available if you miss the live action. MLS games will be available through the Apple TV app and the web. English, Spanish and (for Canadian teams) French commentary will be available, and you can also tune into a team's local radio broadcast.

The premiere marks the start of a 10-year deal between Apple and the MLS. It's also a significant expansion of Apple's sports strategy. Until now, live sports from Apple were limited to free, weekly Friday Night Baseball double-headers. Now, the company is streaming whole seasons and charging for it like the leagues themselves. MLS Season Pass might not be as desirable as offerings like NFL+, but it could put pressure on Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+ and other streamers using live sports as a selling point.

The sheer variety of streaming services can make it difficult to know just where and how to tune into sports, but Roku thinks it can help. The company has debuted a revised sports "experience" that puts live and upcoming matches in one place. You can tune into a live NCAA football showdown, or see when your favorite NBA team plays next. While you can browse a carousel of apps, the emphasis is on the games — select a match and you'll know which service you need to tune in.

The new hub also includes zones specific to certain leagues and sports, and there are rows of free content if you're not ready to subscribe. The initial service roster includes Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, DirecTV, Fox Sports, FuboTV, Paramount+, Sling, TBS, TNT, truTV and The Roku Channel. More options are due in the "coming months," Roku says. You won't get heavyweights like ESPN+ as a result, but you will have access to at least some major leagues.

The addition doesn't come as a shock. Sports coverage increasingly serves as a hook for streaming platforms, with services like Apple TV+ and Prime Video even offering a handful of matchups for free. A central location might persuade you to stick with Roku hardware if you love live games, especially if you're used to the simplicity of watching sports on conventional TV.

Google Search can help ensure that you don't miss any FIFA World Cup match you want to see when the even takes place from November 20th through December 18th. If you search "World Cup" on Google, you'll now see a dedicated section at the top with the list of upcoming matches, along with their dates and your local time. 

On mobile, either on a browser or on the Google app, you'll have the option to set up notifications for specific teams by tapping the "bell" icon at the top right corner of the screen and then choosing the squad you want to follow. You'll also be able to keep up with the score in real time anywhere you are by tapping on the match you want to track and then dragging and dropping it anywhere on your screen. 

Google

Notifications don't seem to be available for desktop, but the dedicated Google panel for the World Cup will show you in-depth stats and win probabilities across devices. When the games begin, you'll also be able to watch recap videos from FIFA+, the association's streaming service, and official broadcasters that include the BBC directly on the results page. Plus, you'll be able to play with or against fellow fans in a multiplayer game, wherein you can pick your side for a real match and score virtual goals for them. 

Google is also launching a label for businesses that can help you find a venue showing the games. For the upcoming matches, you simply have to type in "Where to watch the world cup near me?" Rather watch alone? You can also do that via YouTube TV, which will give you access to the live matches on FOX and FS1, or on Telemundo for Spanish-language broadcasts. If you have a Wear OS device, you can ask Google through your wearable to set match reminders for you and then view them all in the Agenda app. And in case you can't get enough of everything football, the tech giant is also launching a new row on Google TV's For You tab that showcases FIFA content and highlights.

Play just about any big competitive online game for long enough and you'll surely run into some toxic players who say offensive things in voice or text chat. Activision is doing a bit more to take on those jerks with more in-depth moderation tools in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Call of Duty Warzone 2.0.

When they confirm a player has engaged in toxic voice or text chat, the games' moderation teams now have the option to mute that person in all chat channels. So, while their remarks might not warrant a complete ban, players who abuse in-game chat might find themselves silenced. Activision will still rely on users to flag disruptive players through in-game reports. Riot Games, on the other hand, has started proactively monitoring Valorant voice chat for toxicity.

Before they start playing Modern Warfare II or Warzone 2.0, players have to read and agree to a code of conduct. This includes an acknowledgement that they won't engage in bullying or harassment, nor make any bigoted comments.

In addition, when you report a troublesome Call of Duty player, you'll be able to add more context. The reporting system now includes a dialog box, where you can explain what happened in more detail. Activision says it will use these tools in all future Call of Duty titles.

These moderation tools aren't particularly novel. For one thing, Overwatch has long allowed players to type in their reasons for reporting someone. However, Modern Warfare II is already one of the biggest games around, having racked up over $1 billion in sales in just 10 days. There's no doubt that Warzone 2.0 will also have a large player base after that game goes live on November 16th. Having better moderation tools to clamp down on disruptive cretins and offer a more positive experience for other players is rarely a bad thing.

At the tail end of last year, a curious new entry into the ebike market emerged: Urtopia. The company’s mission seemed pretty clear, to make the most feature-rich, connected bike the world has ever seen. And with a built-in 4G SIM, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, a fingerprint reader and mmWave sensors for collision detection, it was likely accomplished. Except, the model we tested was a prototype leaving us unable to evaluate some of the more interesting features. Until now.

The retail version of the bike is almost identical to the pre-production version we tested at the end of last year bar a few minor cosmetic details. The D-pad on the left handle has been slightly redesigned and the fingerprint reader on the right is also now a button. The only other visible change is the dot-matrix display, which is now flat and easier to read.

Perhaps one of the main features we couldn’t test wasn’t available at all – the app. With so much going on in the bike, it’s more important to have a companion tool on your phone to confirm settings and to extract more use out of some of the sensors (ride tracking, for example).

James Trew / Engadget

All I’ll say is, the bike might be the final hardware, but the software side of things started out a little... less complete. But in the space of a few weeks, the app has been redesigned and there have been a couple of firmware updates for the bike itself and the experience feels much less like a work in progress.

But first a little reminder. The Urtopia bike is a fixed-gear (Gates carbon belt), single hub-motor ebike with three levels of speed assistance (20MPH in the US, 15MPH in Europe). The 30lbs/15Kg city bike offers approximately 60 miles of assistance out of the 360Wh battery. That’s a fairly common spec for an ebike, but one look at the Urtopia will tell you this isn’t really a normal bike.

Last time around I was able to test Urtopia’s cred as a general road bike, and despite a slightly stiff ride (there’s no suspension) it performed well, with smooth pickup from the torque-based motor. The voice control for changing speed, locking the bike and more was also fun but perhaps not the smoothest experience (and even if it were, I’m not sure we’re collectively ready to be speaking to our bikes in public yet).

The first thing I wanted to try here was the 4G connectivity. Utopia isn’t unique in having a cellular connection (newer VanMoofs, for example, also offer connectivity), but the 4G here is behind a few interesting features. For once, you’ll (theoretically) get a log of your ride in the app every single time you go out. I say theoretically as it often didn’t work for me. Then sometimes it did. I couldn’t quite pin down what caused it to work sometimes and not others, but I suspect it’s to do with whether you leave the bike in standby while at home, or if you power it down (thus fully resetting the sensors).

After one of the firmware updates this feature became more reliable. Which is good, because it was frustrating to put in double-digit miles only to come home and find your ride wasn’t logged. Right now, there’s not a lot you can do with the data other than see where you went and how fast in a slick animation. It, of course, logs all your miles and… as I went to check the app for what other data it records there was an app update (duration, calories, average speed and even CO2 saved is the answer). Right now, you can only share the rides with the in-app “community” but the option to share to services like Strava would be a real positive.

James Trew / Engadget

In a similar way, the app can also tell you exactly where your bike is at any time, as long as the battery is connected and has enough power to ping the network. It will stop working once the battery totally dies, of course, but if someone steals your ride, you should have plenty of time to ping it and locate it before they realize it’s the world’s most connected bike and what a fool’s errand stealing it was. 

Another security feature is the fingerprint sensor. This was physically present on the prototype, but without the app, there was no way to set it up. It works surprisingly well and allows you to turn the bike on or to disable the alarm quickly. You can still ride the bike without assistance without unlocking the bike with your finger, but it’s effectively a cumbersome fixie at this point. Unless you turn the alarm on, then it’ll start sounding an alert at the slightest, and I mean slightest movement which can only be disabled with a registered digit.

One of the more intriguing additions to the Urtopia’s spec sheet are the mmWave sensors. These are designed to detect vehicles approaching from behind on either side. If something is detected, you’ll be alerted through a visual signal and vibrating handlebars. In practice, it’s a little hard to test without deliberately endangering yourself, but it does seem to work. Although, I am not sure whether, if faced with a truck coming up behind, you might be more distracted by the alerts than the traffic itself. That’s to say, this is clearly a valuable feature, but the outcome of it is hard to quantify at this time.

James Trew / Engadget

Something much easier to evaluate is the onboard navigation. Or rather, the ability to punch a destination into the app, and then have visual and audio turn instructions via the speaker and display on the handlebars. There are, of course, other ways to do this - either with a phone in a mount or maybe just in your pocket with audio instructions via headphones. But having it here right in the handlebars feels a lot more futuristic and means you don’t have to expose your phone to the elements/thieves.

The dot-matrix screen does have a bit of a retro vibe to it, and makes it feel a bit more like KITT (especially when it speaks to you). For the navigation, this works well enough as the arrows/directions are shown clearly enough that you can glance at them without being distracted.

Urtopia calls this screen and speaker combo the “smart bar” and it has other plans for it beyond serving up data and other visual feedback. One example is using the bike’s speaker as a Bluetooth speaker for music. This may have accidentally been my idea. I suggested it to them the first time we tested it, and now it’s part of the app. It’s kinda fun, though I have never felt quite so self conscious as I did riding through a busy park with phonecall-quality Drum & Bass playing from my bike. Podcasts might be a bit more its speed, but happy to see the feature here nonetheless.

James Trew / Engadget

There is… more. Another addition that was conceived after our initial testing is “game” mode. It’s not quite what you’re likely imagining. Or at least, what I was imagining. I assumed it might be some sort of virtual race where you have to “catch” up with a ghost rider like in a Mario Kart time trial. Or maybe some sort of way of making training/intervals fun? But no, it’s actually a game of Snake you can play on the display using the control buttons which, to be fair, are basically a D-pad. Obviously, not to be played while moving.

Perhaps the biggest chance since we last looked at the bike is the price. Now that the crowd-funding campaign is complete and the bikes are made and ready to ship, the $2,000 early-bird price has given way to the regular $2,799 retail price. That puts it in a similar category to something like the Cowboy C4 which has fewer high-tech features, but does have the important theft detection and locating capabilities.

All to say that, the Urtopia definitely has a lot of tech appeal, but it still feels like the software and features are settling into themselves. If they can continue to make that side of the experience as comfortable and as exciting as it is to ride, this will be a solid choice for those that want a capital-E e-bike.

It was a breezy three-kilometer ride on VanMoof’s A5 e-bike around Battersea Park in London. Starting from VanMoof’s flagship London store, the company’s CEO, Ties Carlier, took the lead. He shot off on the more typically framed S5 ($3,498), while I got to grips with the boost and controls on the VanMoof’s new, shorter A5 (also $3,498). A few seconds later, I caught up. I hadn’t broken a sweat. My brief test ride around the neighborhood was almost too easy.

I had briefly ridden VanMoof’s e-bikes before, but its latest generation of e-bikes usher in changes across the board. The company has tried to make most of the parts on its newest e-bikes itself. The most significant change might be the removal of the tube-based display of the S3 and X3 bikes, swapping it for a duo of Halo Rings near the buttons on each side. (One rings the digital cute bell, while the other controls boost.) In addition to indicating battery life, it also shows how much the bike’s motor is working, along with the bike’s lock status.

Anti-theft technology (and a team of bike hunters)

E-bike security is a significant selling point for VanMoof’s bikes. Carlier explains that deterring theft is one of the biggest challenges to making “the perfect city bike," which has been the company’s aim long before it even started designing its first electric bike.

“A good bike – a good ride – requires more money,” he said. “With an e-bike, that’s even more true.” He added that whatever solution companies like VanMoof come up with, thieves will get smarter. The threat of it getting stolen has put me off from investing substantial money into bikes, and has deterred me from e-bikes entirely.

The anti-theft technology in the S5 and A5 (both priced at $3,498) includes an improved kick lock on the rear wheel. In addition, the bikes will automatically unlock if they detect the user’s phone nearby, and riders can otherwise unlock it with a numerical code that you can tap into the left handlebar – another instance where the new Halo Rings come into use.

Mat Smith/Engadget

If someone does manage to steal the S5/A5, tampering (or breaking) – which is integrated into the e-bike’s computer within the tube – the lock will first sound an alarm and, a short while later, immobilize the e-bike functions. For the thieves, then, it’s just a heavier push bike with a mildly distinctive frame and built-in lights that won’t work.

And if you’re willing to pay an extra $398 for three years of coverage (and that’s a fraction of the cost of replacing these $3,000-plus bikes), your VanMoof ride will come with support from a retinue of bike hunters – which still sounds cool. The e-bike transmits its location over 3G and the hunters are equipped with more fine-grain Bluetooth signal detectors to sniff out stolen bikes. If your bike goes missing, you can mark it as stolen on the VanMoof app, and if the hunters can’t find it within two weeks, the company will replace the bike for you.

It’s peace of mind, for sure, but it’s also yet another subscription. The S5 and A5 are even more expensive than their predecessors, which cost just less than $2,500. VanMoof’s latest rides each cost $3,498 – a $500 increase since they were first revealed. The company has also added support for Apple’s Find My network, but that’s more likely to help you locate your bike in a parking lot, not track down a thief.

Mat Smith/Engadget

VanMoof’s new stepover A5

The A5 model has a lowered step-in, meaning the bike is smaller and VanMoof believes it gives riders a feeling of being closer to the road. VanMoof’s premium-priced e-bikes don’t look like typical electric bikes – there’s no visible battery to begin with – but I like the unusually low-profile A5. When I use a bike, it’s multiple short trips, with several stops. This step-through model felt easier to ride. It was more of my thing.

The S5 and A5 come with 487 Wh and 463 Wh batteries, respectively. With the included charger, both take roughly six and a half hours to charge. VanMoof teased a fast charger too, but pricing is still TBC. On a full charge, the A5 can hit around 34 miles on full power, or 87 miles on economy power mode. Meanwhile, the S5 has a 37 mile-range on full power, which can be stretched to 93 miles on economy power mode. If VanMoof’s claims are accurate, both bikes should be able to handle plenty of short trips before needing to be plugged in overnight. The company also plans to offer a battery expansion pack that should double the bikes’ range.

A smoother ride

Mat Smith/Engadget

Both of the new bikes have upgraded gear shift tech as well. I tried a friend’s VanMoof S3 bike and could tell the newer rides had smoother gear transitioning. The motor has plenty of pep, but the A5 swaps around three gears incredibly gently. It’s hard to forget this was a premium e-bike.

While you can’t adjust gears yourself, it keeps the bike “interface” (can I call it that?) simple. That’s part of the plan. VanMoof’s Carlier says the company is targeting people who might not consider themselves bike people. The challenge is convincing them to invest in an e-bike. (At these prices, I’d call it an investment.) And if you’re waiting on the company’s even pricier high-speed e-bike, the VanMoof V, expect to wait a little longer. Due to supply issues, production has been delayed from fall 2022 to late 2023.

We plan to test out VanMoof’s latest bikes more extensively soon. Both the A5 and S5 are available to order directly from the company, with delivery dates currently estimated to be around January and February 2023.

Amazon doesn't want to limit itself to streaming football games on Thursday nights. The internet giant has struck a deal with the NFL for Prime Video to livestream a yearly match on Black Friday, the day after American Thanksgiving. The first game airs November 24th, 2023 at about 3PM Eastern, with the teams to be announced once the league shares its schedule for that season.

Deadlinenotes the Black Friday deal is separate from Thursday Night Football. While it's not certain how much Amazon paid, the existing weekly arrangement has Amazon spending roughly $1 billion per year through 2033.

Amazon and the NFL aren't shy about the reasoning. On top of creating a yearly tradition, this will give you a reason to visit Amazon (and subscribe to Prime) right as the holiday shopping frenzy kicks off. You may come for the football, but stay to buy toys or an Echo speaker.

Whatever Amazon paid for the deal, it's likely to have a large audience. Thursday Night Football's debut on Prime Video is currently averaging 10.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings. That's up 25 percent in the 18-49 age group versus the first five games from 2021. A Black Friday stream might not accelerate growth, but it could keep viewers hooked.

When you think of esports, Tetris likely doesn’t come to mind. Let alone NES Tetris played on original hardware. Yet, this weekend at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo a new Classic Tetris World Champion (CTWC) will be crowned, and it’ll likely be the most hotly contested, highest-viewed tournament in the game’s almost 35-year history.

Classic Tetris has seen an explosion of interest in the last few years but it’s fast approaching a crossroads. It needs to either professionalize or accept its destiny as a curious, if cozy, corner of the gaming world.

The trouble is, even the top players aren’t sure a professional league is realistic. “Do I think this could become a viable esport? Absolutely not.” Fractal161, a competitor with a very real chance of winning this weekend’s World Championships, told Engadget.

The annual event in Portland remains the game’s most prestigious tournament, but for the rest of the year, Classic Tetris fans can be found at CTM – Classic Tetris Monthly – a more informal, but arguably more important competition for the game.

“CTM was created by a streamer called Friday Witch in December 2017, and it was more just a casual kind of community thing.” Keith “vandweller” Didion, CTM’s current organizer and perennial host told Engadget. He took over the tournament organization in October 2018.

Since then, CTM has gone from barely scraping together enough players for a bracket, to hundreds of players competing in multiple skill levels every single month. The original concept was one 16-player tournament, but that meant anyone that wasn’t good enough would never get to play. “When I took it over my kind of pledge to the community was everybody who submitted a qualifier will get to play” Didion said.

Both CTWC and CTM offer prize pools but they are modest in comparison to the seven-figure worlds of something like Fortnite. If you win CTWC outright, you’ll take home $3,000 with the rest of the $10,000 purse being divided between the next 15 placements. CTM, on the other hand, typically rewards the top eight placements, but the purse is entirely user contributed, so it varies month to month. Typically the pool reaches around $3,500 with half that going to the overall winner.

“I think for a lot of top players, since we're all kids, we see this as a lot of money. Regardless of whatever it ends up being.” Fractal added. This may be so, but once these players are old enough to start having to pay their own rent or insurance premiums, that perspective is likely to change.

The fact that CTM’s purse relies on donations might present a problem longer term: “We have someone called ShallBeSatisfied that contributes $1,000 - $2,000 in the month. So you have this other person dogwatchingtetris, the same thing there. This individual ScottGray76, he contributes a good amount on a monthly basis.” Didion said. In short, the financial incentive of playing in CTM lies broadly in the hands of a few individuals.

Right now, CTM effectively runs at a loss. Didion certainly doesn’t pay himself. There is some income from Twitch and YouTube but that’s used to pay community members for restreaming games and other contributions they make. “We are starting to explore sponsorships and things like that. But I'm not very good at it. So I'm trying to bring in people that know more than I do, or are just better at that kind of stuff than me,” he added.

Classic Monthly Tetris

As Didion explains, so far there’s only been one from an enthusiastic fan who reached out asking if they could sponsor last month’s tournament for $100. “Sure. Let's do it. I'm excited by that just because that's how I want the sponsorships to be, like something I care about, or people in our community.”

Didion obviously cares deeply about the community he’s built and competitive NES Tetris generally. Even his players think he should be more open to making it profitable. “He says that he runs this at a loss and that's just ridiculous to me.” Fractal said. “I think that he is entitled to a share of the prize pool, if he desired, this is standard for lots of tournaments.”

This is where the next, slightly more delicate issue comes in. CTWC aims for absolute authenticity: All games are played in person (bar the pandemic years) on original NES consoles plugged into CRT televisions. The game is played exactly how it was the day it launched.

With CTM, Didion’s unwavering commitment to making the game accessible means he doesn’t have the luxury of making sure everyone has their own NES and CRT and copy of the game. The tournament happens exclusively online, so he has to allow competitors to play with what they have. Standardizing would be a massive expense.

What’s more, In 1989, when NES Tetris was released, level 29 was most likely designed to be the end of the game. The speed increases so much it’s unplayable earning it the name “killscreen.” Today’s players have mastered techniques to carry on well past level 29 and that requires light modifications to the game for the score to display correctly as the original never expected anyone to accumulate more than 999,999 and thus it cannot display a number higher than that.

Likewise, CTM is where many world records are broken. With players now able to go on almost indefinitely, and new records harder to achieve, not all spectators are enjoying the marathon matches according to Fractal. “I've heard a lot of testimonials about how they don't really watch the killscreen anymore because it's just not fun. I think it's different when you catch it live personally.” Didion agrees. “I think for this esport to grow I don't think that we can continue to have endless chase downs, post killscreen.”

With the game effectively playable forever, matches have gone from a place where records are broken to sometimes, feeling like a broken record. To address this, and make matches more exciting, CTM has modified the game for its highest bracket so that at level 49 it doubles in speed – something known as “double killscreen.”

Other small changes have been added too. Early matches were really just two people playing Tetris at the same time, with the victor being whoever recorded the highest score. More recently, CTM has added the ability for games to use the same random number “seed.” This ensures both players get the exact same pieces in the same order making it a true like-for-like showdown.

It’s these modifications that could pose the real issue for CTM’s growth as an esport. The use of emulators generally has always been something of a legal gray area when using copyrighted games. Modifying and distributing ROMs is a slightly darker shade of gray (no money is changing hands for the ROMs in CTM). Nintendo is famously aggressive against any fan versions of its games being made available online, but ironically, the bigger barrier might be The Tetris Company itself.

Formed by Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris, in 1996, the Tetris Company holds the worldwide rights to both the game and the brand. Didion described the company’s relationship with the community as “mostly benign neglect,” while Fractal is said it had a history of “somewhat aggressive takedowns.” The Tetris Company, for its part, is a major sponsor of CTWC and is actively encouraging new ways to play the game via Tetris Effect Connected on modern consoles.

Ironically, a lot of the challenges competitive NES Tetris faces – clunky old hardware, glitches in the game and a true online multiplayer mode are theoretically solved by Tetris Effect Connected’s Classic Score Attack mode. It’s essentially a modern yet faithful reproduction of NES Tetris playable on Xbox and PC. It supports native two-player battle modes and was even developed with a legendary player from the Classic Tetris scene - Greentea.

I asked Fractal why players don’t migrate over to the “official” version that could still be used for CTM competitions. “mainly we're all comfortable with the status quo, so there's no big incentive to change,” he told me over Discord. “and the negative feedback loop of nobody wanting to play because there's nobody to play against.”

In many ways, this sums up the paradox neatly. Authenticity appears to be crucial to the lure of the game. Despite some practical concessions from CTM to make NES Tetris more accessible and interesting to watch, the original game with all its hidden quirks and secrets is as much a part of it as the scoring and gameplay is.

But this need for authenticity is also what’s preventing Classic NES Tetris from being able to grow into itself as an evolving esport. CTM’s loyal host does see some ways around this. “There could be a team element to it in the future. If we were to continue, and this would allow the teams to market themselves or their franchises as owners of these teams, I don't know.”

He had toyed with building “characters” around the players, similar to other sports. “One of the problems is everybody's so young, so they haven't been around long enough to have stories you're just like, ‘Oh, I was born in Michigan and now I'm 16.’ Okay, all right, great.” But it’s clear that whatever happens next and however it evolves, Didion will likely be the person making it happen.

Right now, the community CTM has created appears to be far more special and interesting to everyone involved than any financial incentive. It’s hard not to get the feeling that it’s less about preserving the integrity of NES Tetris, as it is about keeping this collaborative, genuinely connected community as it is, without letting the pressures of professional play or the looming specter of Mountain Dew-style sponsorships from taking that away.

Or in Fractal’s case, good friends and questionable fried chicken is all you need. “I'm not going to CTWC to win the prize pool. I'm going to hang out with a bunch of people that I only know online. And go to Raising Cane’s with like a bunch of people who really love Raising Cane’s for some reason.”

Blizzard previously admitted that Overwatch 2's launch, which was spoiled by a bunch of bugs, DDoS attacks and other issues, has not met players of the company's expectations. While the company has made a lot of progress to make the game playable — a lot of players couldn't even log in at first — its work is far from done. Now, the developer is trying to make it up to fans by giving out freebies and running events. It will hold several Double Match XP weekends to give players the chance to rack up points and rank up. Blizzard will announce specific dates for the events soon. 

It will also give players who log in from October 25th until the time Season One ends a Cursed Captain Reaper Legendary skin and a Health Pack Weapon Charm. Both items will automatically be added to people's collection when they log in within that window of time. In its announcement, Blizzard said that it will deploy more stability updates, starting with another patch scheduled for release this week. It also said that it's monitoring the game closely for any more issues and bugs that emerge. 

The developer keeps a public list of known issues on its forum, but players are finding more that it has yet to acknowledge. Users are reporting problems regarding specific characters in the game, such as Mei, whose ice wall has been behaving inconsistently, according to Kotaku. Blizzard even had to pull two heroes out of the game completely to address a few bugs in the ability kits.