There are now 6 games so far that have delayed due to Silksong's date 😂

The week before and after GTA 6 will be a complete graveyard.

Time for another informal review raffle.  This time it's for Wildgate.  If you don't know the rules, here's a refresher:

-One comment (per user) gets you into the raffle.

-Comments that violate TOS will be disqualified (obviously).

-Winner selects which version (PC, Xbox, PlayStation) of Wildgate they want.  In PlayStation's case, if I'm not able to acquire a code from a reputable site, I'll award the cost equivalent: $30 (or the equivalent to that in other currencies). 

Here's the link: https://www.vgchartz.com/article/465573/wildgate-xs/

Good luck!  I'll end the raffle sometime during the weekend.  Saturday at midnight (EST) seems like a good cut-off.

TF?

Nah you'll end it now

I went to download Gears of War Reloaded and the Xbox app has stopped downloading / updating games. I've tried different methods to fix it and so far nothing has worked.

Edit: I went to try downloading the game (Gears of War Reloaded) on my Xbox Series and there is an update for the console that is giving me an error. All Xbox stuff apparently doesn't want to work for me today.

Reloaded seems a little easier than Ultimate Edition and the original game. Looks and runs nice tho. They did not fix partner AI so Kim sometimes forgets to open doors. Dom still gets killed by Berserker. I hope they made Raam easier. I still detest that fight.

Just finished Gears campaign, love gears but not in the mood for the mp again. Never was a big fan of the first one's MP.

Also got Helldivers 2 and the ODSt warbound but paid 20 for it damn it...Also needed a new headset and got one aswell....Expensive week again...

BMW is really a ton of fun, and I am downgrading the difficulty from 8/10 to a 6/10. The game has a ton of secrets and if you explore the game becomes easier + if you die you lose nothing and I love it...

Inside King: Layoff Lawsuits, Toxic Leaders, Toothless Ethics Teams, Low Morale and Mandatory AI Use

For the last six weeks, we’ve been speaking to multiple King staff affected by the layoffs announced in July.

They claim:

• Some staff are taking legal action over their severance packages
• The cuts were apparently made with no consideration for staff performance
• The layoffs were haphazard – some staff have been rehired within weeks of being laid off
• Toxic managers investigated by workplace ethics teams – some multiple times – saw no repercussions
• The cuts to the ‘bloated’ workforce don’t go far enough, said one manager, who expects more
• Microsoft says all staff must use AI daily, but adoption is low and even King leadership is sceptical

To make those 200 job cuts, one source claimed that it was as if King had “listed every employee, sorted by salary and then fired them top down, only skipping over people they trust.”

“It didn’t matter that it was people who worked there for ten or more years or who contributed to the success and earned promotions,” they continued. “Performance didn’t matter.”

We’re told King’s performance reviews rank staff on a five point scale: ‘off track’, ‘more to do’, ‘good work’, ‘ahead of the game’ and ‘game changer’. But those ratings did not seem to factor into who was eliminated, said another senior manager.

Employee feedback changes enacted as King became part of Microsoft have also contributed to low and declining morale at the Candy Crush maker, we’re told. “Especially in the last two years people became more and more unhappy because leadership would make decisions nobody could understand,” said one source. “People couldn’t raise criticism anonymously any more.”

They also claimed that some burnt-out staff have been put on medical leave. “Candy Crush and King in general is a very very toxic environment,” they added. “Individual contributors are talented and nice – the toxicity comes from the leadership team. So, yes, Microsoft and AI is one cause [of the low morale] but the toxicity is endemic of the leadership team at King.”

“AI was being introduced by Microsoft as mandatory a while ago,” says one source. “The goal for last year, if I recall correctly, was having a 70 or 80% daily usage of AI on general tasks. And the goal for this year was to get up to 100%, so that every artist, designer, developer, even managers have to use it on a daily basis.”

But another source suggested that the mandate isn’t working: “AI adoption is very low apart from ChatGPT,” they said. “King leadership is in general quite AI sceptic.”

Mobilegamer.biz

Microsoft's AI adoption is so low they're forcing their employees to use it to desperately boost their metrics, but even their employees know it's dogshit and don't want to use it, but they have to or they'll be fired, Lol. I predict on the current course that MS Gaming has about 2-3 years before their game quality notably declines and we start seeing the consequences of AI slop injected into everything, releases for 26/27 will likely be safe. At least when this AI bubble bursts, Satya Nadella will be booted out of Microsoft.