Ghazi

Frostpunk 2, 11 Bit Studios' magnum opus, is proof that video games are at their most interesting when they engage with politics and ideology head on.

Godot got a spite fork by the name "Redot" after their community managers quote-retweeted a chud calling the use of licensed game engines woke. Some people jumped onto the bandwagon, but it seems the engine is still too woke for some YouTube commentators.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20760179

CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski has issued a strongly worded response to accusations that the studio "is in a lot of trouble right now" because of "diversity hires," saying the people peddling such nonsense need to "stop looking for conspiracy theories."

"Seems we live in times where anyone can record complete nonsense and make a story out of it," Nowakowski said in response to a post on X by YouTuber Endymion, who has a long history of stridently complaining about diversity and "wokeness" in videogames.

"CDPR talent leaving? We have the lowest rotation of people in recent years. DEI-driven recruitment? We hire based on merit and talent alone, just as we make games driven by artistic vision alone. Why did we choose [Unreal Engine]? Because it enables us to work on our games more efficiently and we remain cutting edge tech-wise. The Witcher 3’s director left? Well, yeah, more than 2 years ago… Now, can we stop looking for conspiracy theories and go back to making cool stuff?"

This November, Florida residents will decide whether to amend their state constitution to protect reproductive rights, overturning the state's near-total abortion ban after six weeks of pregnancy.

Some just want to promote conflict, cause chaos, or even just get attention.

The deep dive into the history, gatekeeping and exclusion, racism and colorism, uplifting of pallor, flirting with fascism, fetishisation and appropriation, conflicting ideologies and reality, and all-round white supremacist tendencies of the alternative/goth subculture that absolutely no-one asked for.

Tezuka Osamu's gekiga show some artistic experimentation, but also dig further into his conservative ideas about gender and sexuality, which were more ignorable in titles aimed at wider audiences. Two stories in particular, Apollo’s Song and MW, hammer in how much of his work was steeped in heteronormativity and homophobia.

Several bands have dropped out of an upcoming metal festival in Orlando after Kyle Rittenhouse was announced as a special guest.

The chief of the Shawnee Tribe grew up playing video games, including hundreds of hours colonizing a distant planet in the 1999 title Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.

It’s going to be a lot harder to pull off massive protests.

Earlier this month, the entire staff of Annapurna Interactive walked out the door in a group resignation. But while some of the circumstances around their departure emerged in the reporting, one pressing question was left unanswered: why? IGN has pieced together a somewhat complex answer.

A union has called for staff at Ubisoft’s French operation to strike over a return to office order and pay dispute.

We sat down with Tatum to talk about radical recent changes in the dubbing industry, what it’s like being a highly visible gay voice actor, and Ouran’s enduring appeal.

Content warning: Death, grief

Inside Out 2 is the highest-grossed animated film ever. But behind the scenes, Pixar workers grappled with crunch, layoffs, and an avoidance of LGBTQ+ themes. Our report of the tumultuous making of the sequel to one of the most beloved Pixar films ever.

IGN interviews ex-employees of pixar who worked on "Inside Out 2". The article discusses crunch, layoffs, the company culture of pixar, and how the failure of "Lightyear" led to executive notes that "Inside Out 2" be "less gay"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19624343

Ex-Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president Chris Deering does not believe recent layoffs across the games industry have been a result of corporate greed. Instead, workers who have lost their jobs should "drive an Uber" or "go to the beach for a year" until employment settles.

Deering was a guest on games writer Simon Parkin's podcast My Perfect Console, where the pair discussed games industry layoffs.

"I don't think it's fair to say that the resulting layoffs have been greed," said Deering. "I always tried to minimise the speed with which we added staff because I always knew there would be a cycle and I didn't want to end up having the same problems that Sony did in Electronics."

Here, at the connection between technology and queerness–in the liminality between desire and technology–there is room for new imaginings. It is no surprise then that technology, which had always been promised as the horizon of the future, had placed into it the dreams of those who hoped for a new future beyond the limitations we had today. As the queer and trans community found new connections and language to express our imaginations on this new digital frontier, we expanded beyond the boundaries of others' expectations for our bodies. Our lives began to push and break the limits of what others said we could become. Is it surprising, then, that the internet has become a space for our collective queer imagination of a future horizon?