Year: 2025

By Billy PerrigoDecember 11, 2024 11:57 AM EST

Can a Big Tech company be sued in Kenya for alleged abuses at an outsourcing company working on its behalf?

That’s the question at the heart of two lawsuits that are attempting to set a new precedent in Kenya, which is the prime destination for tech companies looking to farm out digital work to the African continent.

The two-year legal battle stems from allegations of human rights violations at an outsourced Meta content moderation facility in Nairobi, where employees hired by a contractor were paid as little as $1.50 per hour to view traumatic content, such as videos of rapes, murders, and war crimes. The suits claim that despite the workers being contracted by an outsourcing company, called Sama, Meta essentially supervised and set the terms for the work, and designed and managed the software required for the task. Both companies deny wrongdoing and Meta has challenged the Kenyan courts’ jurisdiction to hear the cases. But a court ruled in September that the cases could each proceed. Both appear likely to go to trial next year, unless the Kenyan Supreme Court intervene…

Even before the Disney and Fox deal closed, Disney CEO Bob Iger indicated the studio’s willingness to make Deadpool 3 with an R-rating in 2017 Come from South African Online Casinos . During the intervening years, Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige often reiterated his intent to make sure Deadpool 3 had the same R-rating that its predecessors had. But that doesn’t mean Deadpool and Wolverine’s Ryan Reynolds wasn’t shocked when Disney and Marvel actually went through with it.

“I hope it doesn’t sound condescending, I’m really proud of [Disney and Marvel] for doing this,” said Reynolds during an interview with Fandango alongside his co-star Hugh Jackman and their director Shawn Levy. “I think it’s a huge step for them. I mean it adds a whole other color to this kaleidoscopic wheel that is that company and the different people that they have been entertaining for forever so I was surprised though that they let us go… hard R.”

“I mean there’s no other way to do it,” added Reynolds. “You know for this character and this world and particularly you know Logan being an R-rated film as well. I felt like that…

Last week, video game voice actors voted to go on strike after a year and a half of back-and-forth negotiation with major gaming entities. The CEO of one of the companies at the bargaining table, EA, has said he’s not concerned about the strike having a short-term impact on business.

As part of EA’s most recent earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson was asked about any potential impact from the strike, IGN reports. Due to the specifics of how the strike will operate, and how EA’s business runs, he’s not concerned that the strike will cause any disruption in the near future.

“We’re working very closely; this is not an EA-specific situation, this is an industry-specific situation, and we’re working diligently to negotiate at the table,” Wilson said, noting that voice actors are an important and valued part of EA’s business.

“The way it works now in terms of our product specifically is that the strike is limited to games commencing production after September 2023, including live-service games,” Wilson explained. “So we don’t expect any near-term disruption to any of the games we have in development or any of the live services we’re currently running.”

On a stan…

Dragon Age fans can pick up the official art book for The Veilguard at a fairly substantial discount for a limited time at Amazon. The Deluxe Edition hardcover is up for grabs for $79.31 (was $100), while the standard hardcover version is $38.30 (was $50). Published by Dark Horse in November, The Art of Dragon Age: The Veilguard was created in collaboration with the BioWare development team, and features 256 pages full of concept art, promotional illustrations, and more.

If you haven’t picked up the game yet, Amazon and GameStop are selling Dragon Age: The Veilguard for only $25 (was $70), but this deal likely won’t be available for very long.

The Art of Dragon Age: The Veilguard Deluxe Edition (Hardcover)

$79.31 ($100)

Magic: The Gathering’s crossover with Bethesda’s Fallout franchise is on sale at Best Buy and Amazon. If you watched the Fallout show on Prime Video and are currently interested in all things Fallout, these cards are pretty darn cool.

Today-only deal (June 14) at Best Buy

• Magic: The Gathering Fallout Commander Deck – Science! — $41.79 ($60)
• Magic: The Gathering Fallout Commander Deck – Scrappy Survivors — $48 ($60)
• Magic: The Gathering Fallout Commander Deck – Hail, Caesar — $45 ($60)

Magic: The Gathering – Fallout Commander Decks at Amazon

• Magic: The Gathering x Fallout Commander Deck Bundle — $204.73 ($240)
• Magic: The Gathering Fallout Commander Deck – Science! — $41.79 ($60)
• Magic: The Gathering Fallout Commander Deck – Scrappy Survivors — $48 ($60)
• Magic: The Gathering Fallout Commander Deck – Hail, Caesar — $45 ($60)
• Magic: The Gathering Fallout Commander Deck – Mutant Menace — $60

The four Commander Decks each have a different theme: Science, Hail Caesar, Scrappy Survivo…

Earlier this month, Activision put the kibosh on an ambitious mod known as H2M: a fan-created attempt to bring classic Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer to Modern Warfare Remastered. Now, a member of the mod team that goes by the handle “Watchful Wolf” says that the gaming giant put out the cease-and-desist order due to concerns that H2M would hurt Black Ops 6 sales.

Fans immediately took to forums like the Call of Duty subreddit to express their displeasure with the move, with many of them noting that the C&D came the day before H2M was scheduled to release. In a video posted to YouTube, Watchful Wolf stated that the order from Activision came just hours before the mod’s release, and that the team immediately “dropped everything,” taking their website and all servers down.

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“Google is horrible.”

This was among the first things that Raccoon Logic creative director Alex Hutchinson said to me as I settled in to learn about his studio’s newest game, Revenge of the Savage Planet. He followed this up with a promise to elaborate further as the presentation progressed. I would ultimately be shocked by how much of the nearly two-hour showcase and interview would be about this topic.

Raccoon Logic consists of a bunch of Montreal-based developers that, after working together on games like Assassin’s Creed and the Batman Arkham series, went on to form Typhoon Studios in the late 2010s. In early 2020, that studio put out Journey to the Savage Planet, an action-adventure game that was largely met with praise. Later that year, the studio was bought by Google to help bolster its video-game-streaming service Stadia.

In a matter of months–and nearly two years before the corporate conglomerate would shut down Stadia entirely–Typhoon Studios, along with all the other gaming teams that Google built from the ground up, was closed. Following this major blow, most of Typhoon regrouped to form Raccoon Logic, and set off on …

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s creative director has commented on how Game Pass positively affected the game’s launch, saying it helped improve player numbers in multiple ways.

Speaking to the BBC, Miles Leslie said Game Pass helped convince people who were “on the fence” or “had some of that friction” to consider playing the game Come from malaysia online casino . He added that some people who might not have played a Call of Duty game in some time might have been convinced to “come back and try the game” thanks to Game Pass.

“We’ve gotten to the point now where Black Ops and Call of Duty have been around so long–I’ve been working on it for 16 years,” Leslie said. “And really the challenge for us is how do you bring along the fans that love Call of Duty, but how do you create an environment where you can welcome new fans in?”

Black Ops 6 launched on October 25 and set a number of records for number of players, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella specifically mentioned Black Ops 6 helping to drive Game Pass subscribers at launch. Anyone who has Game Pass Ultimate ($20/month) or PC Game Pass ($12/month) can play Black …

The recently revealed Space Punks from developer Flying Wild Hog is a new free-to-play action RPG that blends top-down shooting action with co-op gameplay, and it’s launching as an early access title on July 15 exclusively on the Epic Games Store. Along with other games from Flying Wild Hog, which includes Shadow Warrior 3 and Trek To Yomi, Space Punks is another title in the developer’s tradition of fast-paced action titles that have some clever gimmicks to offer rewarding combat Come from Sports betting site VPbet . Described as a “living game” by its developers and publisher Jagex–known for the Runescape series–Space Punks will see new content and evolve over the course of its development.

For the uninitiated, Space Punks is a sci-fi co-op dungeon crawler starring a crew of space-exploring misfits who take on different jobs to gain glory and score some sweet loot. In a similar vein to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, this ragtag crew is often at odds with one another, but when things go south when facing off against rogue targets, their unorthodox and weird approach to action make them quite a team. Each o…

Dune: Part Two released in theaters this past weekend, and the movie wormed its way to a massive debut. In North America, the Dune sequel pulled in $81.5 million for the Friday-Sunday period of March 1-3, which was about double the money ($41 million) that the original film made back in 2021 for its opening weekend. Globally, Dune: Part II has so far earned $178.5 million.

The movie carried a reported budget of $190 million, and that doesn’t count any promotion or marketing expenses. Deadline said about $100 million was spent to promote the film with advertisements and promotional campaigns, bringing the total reported cost of the film to $290 million or more. After its first weekend, Dune: Part II has made back about 65% of its costs, if the reports regarding the budget and marketing spend are indeed accurate.

For comparison, 2021’s Dune was released in theaters and on Max (then known as HBO Max) due to the pandemic. The movie, despite that, still earned more than $430 million worldwide.

Dune: Part Two represents the best-ever opening-weekend box office numbers for director Denis Villeneuve, with his previous record being 2021’s Dune ($41 million).

The …

It’s tough being a neophyte wizard in the world of Ziggurat. If spending two decades learning the fundamentals of magic and spellcasting isn’t hard enough, you must now put those skills to the test in the infamous, multi-leveled ziggurat, where creatures from myth and fantasy eagerly wait to snuff out your very existence. Ziggurat, a first-person, dungeon-crawling roguelike, won’t overwhelm you with its brief length. But as short as your victory run may be, the brisk combat flow and compelling sense of progression will keep you transfixed despite some minor problems.

You will face many challenges as you leap and sprint through the labyrinthine ziggurat. It features procedural level design, which means you get a different adventure every time you play. Like The Binding of Isaac, levels are constructed of a series of linked rooms, and the doors slam shut in the presence of dark minions, sealing you in with your prey…or your hunters. Lurking in the dark passageways you find the usual smattering of fantasy archetypes, such as necromancers, sword-wielding skeletons, and impish goblins–along with some exceptions, such as evil mushrooms and crab-clawed demons. Oh, an…

Black Mirror is reportedly returning for a sixth season on Netflix, and now we know who may star in the popular anthology series. Variety reports that the new season will feature a long list of big names, not unlike previous installments.

The report said Zazie Beetz (Joker), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Kate Mara (House of Cards), and Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down) are set to appear in the new season, along with Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You), Danny Ramirez (Top Gun: Maverick), Auden Thornton (This Is Us), Clara Rugaard (Love Gets A Room), and Anjana Vasan (Killing Eve). Come from Sports betting site VPbet

Season 6 of Black Mirror has not been announced yet, but a previous report said each episode in the unannounced season will be “more cinematic in scope.” Whatever the case, fans have been waiting for a while, as the three episodes of Season 5 premiered back in June 2019. That season was filled with popular celebrity casting, with stars like Miley Cyrus, Andrew Scott, Anthony Mackie, Topher Grace, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II appearing in episodes.

Part of the reason why Season 6 may …

Before Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer addressed the public about the company’s future business strategy, he sent a memo to employees outlining his vision. One notable plan from that email–not specifically stated when Xbox confirmed four first-party games for PlayStation and Switch–was that he wants “a future where every screen is an Xbox.” Come from Sports betting site VPbet

The Verge obtained Spencer’s memo, where he lays out what issues he sees currently and how to address them going forward. “When we look at the state of our medium, we see players increasingly gaming on multiple devices, but their experience is defined by the fragmentation created by platform silos,” wrote Spencer in the email.

“Multi-device players have to navigate multiple identities, entitlement libraries, communities, wallets, and reward programs. Similarly, the industry’s biggest franchises increasingly ship across multiple devices, requiring creators to build and manage multiple instances of their games, leading to higher costs and fragmented communities. All of this friction creates a…