What day is it? Friday? Time for some Wordle fun, then. Maybe even… a cheeky shortcut to a win? Let's go for it. The answer to today's Wordle is only a click away, so if you like the sound of winning right now we have some amazing news for you—you can. Or you can ignore it entirely, knowing we've got some great (and brand new) hints for the August 15...

Former Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shawn Layden thinks subscription services like Xbox Game Pass are a "danger" to the industry, and that the model risks turning developers into "wage slaves".In a wide ranging Games Industry interview on the state of the industry, Layden compared gaming subscription services unfavourably with music subscriptions services. While products like Spotify and Apple Music have dramatically undermined physical music sales, musicians—so Layden contends—at least have...

There was an era when my bedtime rituals were dominated by screentime—usually doomscrolling online or fighting for my life with my Steam Deck just inches from my face. It was hell on my eyes (and my sleep schedule), so I've slowly replaced those hours with books to wind down at night. I'm better for the change, though sometimes a game comes along and I just can’t help myself.Tiny Bookshop is...

As reported by Automaton, Famitsu has released a preview of its annual Famitsu Game Hakusho, a survey of the games industry by Kadokawa ASCII Research Laboratories. One confounding takeaway from the data is that the games market in Japan is bigger than ever, with the PC space nearly matching consoles for economic impact, while there are slightly fewer gamers⁠ in the country overall, and many millions fewer PC gamers than...

Does Steam look different to you today—girthier, perhaps? If so, and you're a Steam client beta participant, you'll be happy to know that you're not imagining it, nor do your eyeglasses need adjustment. Steam has embiggened its store pages, taking them from 940 pixels wide to 1200, a change it said is part of an ongoing effort "to modernize the design and provide a better experience for players with larger...

Someone at Blizzard this week probably learned a lesson on what to never ever name your files. A few outlets, including Wowhead, spotted a Diablo 4 server update that went out under the name of what sure sounds like the new class coming in the second expansion next year.Blizzard regularly updates internal versions of its games that are inaccessible publicly, but show up through APIs that people monitor for hints...

As weekend two of the Battlefield 6 beta gets into swing, folks are increasingly skeptical of all these small to medium maps.The lack of a truly "big" Battlefield map was the loudest criticism coming out of last weekend's playtest, and the only new map added this week isn't squashing worries that Battlefield 6 is prioritizing the Call of Duty crowd: Empire State, an infantry-only map with zero vehicles, is the...

Following an uproar over its ban of a popular YouTuber who purportedly pursues and exposes child predators on the platform, Roblox has posted an update saying it became necessary to remove "vigilantes" from its platform after their behavior "evolved" and began conflicting with Roblox's own systems.Roblox banned YouTuber Schlep earlier this week, saying in a cease-and-desist that while his "stated intentions may be to protect children," his methods, including failing...

In our current technological moment, when we're being urged by the world's largest companies to trust our lives to the whims of machines that might generously be considered "truth agnostic," it's important to check your work if you're letting a computer do it for you. It's a lesson that was starkly demonstrated this week for the developers of The Crazy Hyper-Dungeon Chronicles—or, as it was briefly known by Japanese Steam...

A Meta policy document obtained by Reuters stated that it was acceptable for the Facebook company's AI chatbots to have "romantic or sensual" conversations with children.Meta confirmed the document's authenticity to Reuters and told the outlet that it has now removed the guidelines in question, which said it was OK for bots "to engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual" and to describe children "in terms that...