Tag Archives: Media

Meta will “substantially reduce” describing Instagram teen accounts as PG-13

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Meta has agreed to "substantially reduce” its use of the PG-13 ratings system in relation to its Teen Accounts on Instagram starting April 15.

Last year, the Motion Picture Association objected to Meta directly referencing its movie content rating, which cautions parents against letting their pre-teens engage with certain media. In a cease-and-desist letter seen by The Wall Street Journal at the time, the MPA said that Meta claiming its teen accounts were comparable to PG-13 ratings was "literally false and highly misleading."

The MPA argued that its guidelines for the established movie-ratings system and Meta’s own explanation of the revamped accounts for minors did not align, and that drawing a link could have a detrimental effect on the MPA’s public image by association. It also said that Meta’s system seemingly relies heavily on AI to determine what younger users see on the social media platform.

When introducing the changes in 2025, Meta said that the risk of seeing "suggestive content" or hearing certain language in a movie rated 13+ was a good way of framing something similar happening on an Instagram teen account. It added that it was doing all it could to keep such instances to a minimum. 

Meta has now updated that initial blog post about the changes after coming to an agreement with the MPA, adding a lengthy disclaimer that reads, in part, "there are lots of differences between social media and movies. We didn’t work with the MPA when updating our content settings, they’re not rating any content on Instagram, and they’re not endorsing or approving our content settings in any way."

Meta goes on to explain that it drew "inspiration" from the MPA guidance given its familiarity with parents, as well as feedback it had received from parents, and will continue to do so. The difference is that it won’t make the connection so explicitly in its communications going forward.

"Today’s agreement clearly distinguishes the MPA’s film ratings from Instagram’s Teen Account content moderation tools," said Charles Rivkin, Chairman and CEO of the MPA. "While we welcome efforts to protect kids from content that may not be appropriate for them, this agreement helps ensure that parents do not conflate the two systems – which operate in very different contexts. The MPA is proud of the trust we have built with parents for nearly sixty years with our film rating system, and we will continue to do everything we can to protect that trust."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-substantially-reduce-describing-instagram-teen-accounts-as-pg-13-175912683.html?src=rss

The Super Mario Bros. cartoon is back, but looks really weird and AI might be to blame

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Adults of a certain age will no doubt remember The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, a cartoon from 1989 that starred our favorite sibling plumbers decades before they would take over multiplexes with an animated film franchise. The broadcast channel MeTV Toons has begun airing old episodes of the show, likely to trade on the buzz emanating from the pending theatrical release of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. There's just one problem. The episodes seem to have been sloppified by an AI upscaling algorithm, according to a report by Kotaku.

The original series wasn't exactly a visual delight. It was a cash grab cartoon from the 1980s. However, it looks even worse now. MeTV seems to have run the footage through a bargain bin AI upscaler and the results are, in a word, weird.

Everything looks smoothed over in an off-putting way, with some characters looking markedly different from the original footage. Many of the episodes are available on YouTube, so it's easy to do your own comparisons.

The upscaler also seems to have changed the title card to "The Suele Mario Bros. Super Show." These AI tools have never been great with visual representations of written text, but you'd think someone at the station would have given things a look over. Engadget has reached out to MeTV to ask what happened and we'll update this post when we find out.

For the uninitiated, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show ran for just a single season. But this was 1989, so a full 65 episodes aired throughout the year. Seasons didn't mess around back then. It was famous for its live-action segments that starred professional wrestler "Captain" Lou Albano as Mario. It also turned into a Legend of Zelda cartoon every Friday. There's where the famous "well, excuse me princess" meme comes from.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-super-mario-bros-cartoon-is-back-but-looks-really-weird-thanks-to-ai-171536332.html?src=rss

Rec Room, a Roblox-style VR game, is shutting down

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The Roblox-like VR title Rec Room is shutting down after operating for a decade. The free-to-play social game is closing its doors because the developers "never quite figured out" how to make it profitable, despite attracting 150 million players.

"We spent a long time trying to find a way to make the numbers work," the team wrote in a blog post. "But with the recent shift in the VR market, along with broader headwinds in gaming, the path to profitability has gotten tough enough that we’ve made the difficult decision to shut things down."

The shut down officially happens on June 1, but the platform is already making serious changes. Starting today, users will no longer be able to make friends, create new accounts or subscribe to the premium service. However, many features locked behind that subscription paywall will be free from now until June.

The devs are also allowing users to download some of the assets connected to rooms they created. This could, in theory, let them port their creations to other platforms in the future. Snapchat owner Snap has already bought up a bunch of Rec Room's assets and some employees will join the social media company, according to a report by GeekWire.

Rec Room first appeared all the way back in 2016, years before the standalone Meta Quest entered the VR scene. It was a massive hit on the PSVR platform before being ported to other hardware. There's even a traditional version of the game available for non-VR platforms. Just like Roblox, it lets folks design their own spaces to hang out in.

VR is in a tough spot right now. Meta was an industry leader, but the company has been laying off hundreds of people from its Reality Labs division. This is the team that makes VR/AR hardware and software. It's been reported that, instead, the company has been funneling more money into ongoing AI efforts. Sony's PSVR2 was also not a gigantic hit.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/rec-room-a-roblox-style-vr-game-is-shutting-down-154350384.html?src=rss

BOXROOM lets you build a cozy game room for your Steam library

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Your game collection says a lot about you. With a cute new game, you can also give your collection a space that's just as personalized. BOXROOM is a building sim where the whole purpose is creating a space to show off your game library. You can select furniture, paint and lighting, then you choose games from your Steam library to display on your virtual shelves. Titles appear in game boxes, giving it a throwback feel to the days where a game collection had to be physical. Once complete, the room serves as a launcher, allowing you to boot up a title from the game box. The demo is available now, and the team said that BOXROOM will launch in early access soon. 

This is a fun idea, although it's unlikely that you'd fit your entire collection into even this virtual space if your Steam library starts to number in the hundreds, or even thousands, of games. As with an IRL space, you'd need a warehouse rather than a cute, cozy room. But if you wanted to have a curated selection of your go-to titles in a customized virtual space, this might be a fun addition to your already sizable collection. Or, if you want a virtual reality take on a similar idea, EmuVR might be worth a look.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/boxroom-lets-you-build-a-cozy-game-room-for-your-steam-library-215349560.html?src=rss

Project Hail Mary is already Amazon MGM’s highest-grossing film ever

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It's safe to say that Project Hail Mary is a success. The movie has taken in over $300 million globally, making it the best showing for Amazon MGM yet, Variety reports. Amazon bought MGM for $8.5 billion in 2022. 

Creed III previously held the record for Amazon MGM, having grossed $276 million. Notably, the achievement for Amazon MGM is just versus its own markers, rather than against other production companies. But it's certainly notable given streamers aren't known for focusing on theatrical releases. 

With that said, Amazon MGM has pivoted recently, announcing last April that it planned to release 14 films in theaters this year. These titles include Is God Is (May 15), Masters of the Universe (June 5), and Verity (October 2).

Project Hail Mary is based on a 2021 novel by Andy Weir, author of The Martian. It follows Ryan Gosling as high school teacher Ryland Grace, who wakes up on a spacecraft with no idea who he is or why he's there. It has garnered mostly positive reviews and a 95 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/project-hail-mary-is-already-amazon-mgms-highest-grossing-film-ever-112955144.html?src=rss

The Avatar fighting game will release on July 2 for PC and consoles

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The fighting game community is going to have their hands full this summer between the release of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls and Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game. The studio behind the 2D fighting game based in the Avatar universe announced that a July 2 release date with a trailer that shows off new gameplay and a base price of $29.99.

The game will launch with 12 characters, encompassing both the heroes and villains from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. The game's developer, Gameplay Group International, said that there are more than 900 hand-drawn frames for each character, which makes the game look like it came directly out of the beloved TV series. Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game will feature both casual and ranked matches, using a rollback netcode to ensure smooth frame-by-frame action between players, along with crossplay across PS5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC.

For those more interested in the lore, there will be a single-player story mode and a gallery mode with "never before seen art." Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game is currently available for pre-order, starting at $29.99, but there's a $59.99 deluxe edition that includes a digital art book, music soundtrack, unique HUDs and a Year 1 Pass, which adds five additional characters that will be released in the future. Those who pre-order will also get a Samurai skin for Appa, exclusive character colors and voting privilege for the Year 1 Pass characters.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-avatar-fighting-game-will-release-on-july-2-for-pc-and-consoles-174614552.html?src=rss

Beat-based dungeon crawlers, card-battling soccer sims and other new indie games worth checking out

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Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. As ever, we've got some new games for you to dive into this weekend, and a glimpse at some upcoming titles. But, first, a look at indie studio Albatross Interactive's take on a multiplayer mode from a much-loved blockbuster. 

Terminal War is a 4v4 third-person shooter and it seems like the small team of developers is trying to keep things grounded. Ammo and supplies are scarce, and there's an emphasis on melee combat with the promise of "brutal executions." The action is set in the late '90s, a few years after a global war, with three factions battling for control and survival in a collapsed version of the United States.

Albatross Interactive isn't shy about the inspiration behind Terminal War. “They canceled The Last of Us Factions 2," the team wrote on X. "So we're building it [sic] our version." 

In September 2019, nine months before the game’s eventual release, Naughty Dog confirmed The Last of Us Part 2 wouldn’t have a multiplayer mode. At the time, it told players "you will eventually experience the fruits of our team's online ambition."

That still hasn’t exactly come to pass. The studio formally announced The Last of Us Online in June 2022 and canceled it 18 months later. As such, the Factions mode in 2014's The Last of Us Remastered for PS4 remains the franchise's only remaining multiplayer mode.

Albatross Interactive, which says it's building Terminal War from scratch, plans to reveal more gameplay soon. The game is slated to hit Steam in early access as soon as this summer. 

The team expects Terminal War to remain in early access for around 12-18 months, though it noted that "we're a small studio and we'd rather take the time to get it right than rush to a finish line. The timeline will ultimately be shaped by community feedback, the scope of content we deliver, and the standard of quality we hold ourselves to." The studio plans to bring the game to consoles as well.

I’m into the current iteration of Acclaim as an indie publisher (albeit one with a plan to revive its own historic franchises). Its latest title, GridBeat from Ridiculous Games, is a rhythm-based dungeon crawler in which you're trying to escape from a corporate network after pinching a trove of valuable data. Malware and security protocols are on your tail. Navigating the mazes, interacting with objects and boss battles are all synced to a beat.

GridBeat is available on Steam and Nintendo Switch. It typically costs $20, but there's a 10 percent discount on Switch until April 2. It's 15 percent off on Steam until April 9.

Given how much time I spent playing Football Manager 26 last year, Nutmeg is right up my alley. Getting veteran commentator Jim Rosenthal to pitch the soccer management sim in the launch trailer certainly doesn't hurt.

This is a card-battler take on soccer management and it’s set in the '80s and '90s. You can start out in the lower divisions and can work your way up to the top of the English soccer system. You'll hire and fire staff, and select your team and formation before taking on an opponent. Completing challenges and doing well in training will earn you more card packs. 

The trailer reminds me of collecting Panini stickers as a kid as well as the smell of my friends’ Subbuteo figures. I would have said my favorite thing about this is that everything takes place at an era-appropriate desk with a TV that shows results and standings in the style of Teletext and an old computer that has some retro mini-games you can play. However, Sumo Sheffield and Publisher Secret Mode are donating a small portion of every sale of Nutmeg to charity, which is a nice gesture.

Nutmeg is out now on Steam. It'll usually cost you $25, but there's a whopping 40 percent discount until April 2.

Devil Jam is a metal-themed spin on the roguelite formula that Vampire Survivors popularized with a dash of Hades-esque characterization mixed in. It's been out on Steam since November and it hit consoles this week. It costs $8 on PS5 and Switch, and $7.59 on Xbox Series X/S.

You'll wield a cursed guitar as you battle demonic enemies and bosses. As ever with this type of game, it's all about finding fun, powerful builds by synergizing abilities. You can put those together in a 12-slot gear system. I dig the art style and animation in this game from Rogueside too. I especially love that one character dashes by powersliding on their knees.

A couple of months after its debut on Steam, Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator landed on Xbox Series X/S for $20 this week. The latest game from prolific studio Strange Scaffold is a stock market simulator in which you speculate on the "simulated lives of babies" and how successful (or not) said alien sprogs will be in the future. It takes aim at real-life prediction markets where people can gamble on everything from the Time Person of the Year to nuclear tests. 

Here's another game you can actually check out this weekend, as a playtest is taking place on Steam until March 31. Salvation Denied is a co-op construction sim/tower defense game from Firevolt and publisher Digital Vortex Entertainment.

You can get together with up to three friends to build experimental structures at the behest of a foreman who looks like he's stepped right out of Team Fortress 2. You'll have tools like a gravity gun, foam gun and jetpacks on hand to help you form these structures, along with heavy machinery that can move or recycle sections of the build. Coordinating with proximity voice chat could be critical as you and your buds deal with natural disasters like acid rain and meteor showers.

I'm almost always going to be on board with a game that's all about chaos, so I'm interested in checking out Salvation Denied. It's set to hit Steam this fall before landing on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2027.

Someone has stolen the sun. Reclaiming it is your goal in Light Dude, which is from solo developer Ramy of Dergham Games. It's an action game in which the lights go out when you move, so you'll need to figure out your approach to each level and how to avoid hazards before moving forward. There's a first-person mode here too.

Light Dude is slated to hit Steam sometime this spring. A demo is available now.

Solo developer Mateo Covic (aka ZoroArts) is looking to follow up on the success of Paddle Paddle Paddle with another friendslop game. Covic said it took just four weeks to create Cool Story Bro. Up to four players each have five minutes to write a short story that includes four words. These are picked at random or taken from a pool of player suggestions.

Special items appear throughout each round, such as a revolver, which can take another player out of the game for 10 seconds, and one that swaps everyone's stories. If you're the first player to type an item's name, you can use it.

After everyone has finished writing their story, players take turns to read theirs out for the rest of the group. The others vote on whether they liked the tale. If you really hate someone else's short story, you can blow them up with a rocket launcher. If only I had that option at some of the poetry readings I’ve been to.

This seems fun and silly, and the kind of thing that could easily blow up on Twitch (there's an integration that allows viewers to suggest words). Cool Story Bro is slated to hit Steam sometime in April.

Fittingly enough, it's been a long time since Third Shift announced its debut project, Forever Ago. Six years, in fact. The game re-emerged this week during the Xbox Partner Preview showcase. Publisher Annapurna Interactive is bringing it to Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox on PC, Steam and Epic Games Store this fall. It'll be available on Xbox Game Pass (and Xbox Cloud) on day one.

This is a road trip adventure in which you take on the role of Alfred. Following a personal tragedy, he ventures north in his minivan to seek redemption. With an instant camera in hand, Alfred will meet new people and explore forests, deserts and mountains. It's another narrative-heavy game from Annapurna, which appears to be leaning heavily into nostalgia this year given that Mixtape is only a few weeks away.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/beat-based-dungeon-crawlers-card-battling-soccer-sims-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-110000472.html?src=rss

It looks like we’re finally getting an Ocarina of Time remake

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After years of rumors and countless fan-made Unreal Engine tech demos of varying quality, it sounds like we might finally be getting a ground-up remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

That’s according to Nintendo insider NatetheHate, who said in the latest edition of his podcast that a remake of the seminal Nintendo 64 game would be coming to Switch 2 in the second half of 2026. The reliable tipster said he doesn’t know whether Nintendo is making a 1:1 remake of the original 3D Zelda entry, or something "that’s a little more free to explore design choices," adding that he was initially reluctant to share the information he’d received in case we ended up getting little more than an HD remaster. But it sounds like this is a more ambitious undertaking than that.

Ocarina of Time has of course been remastered before, with 2011’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D for the 3DS generally considered to be the best version of the game you can play today. The original 1998 game is also easily accessible via emulation through Nintendo Switch Online, but a modern remake for Switch 2 does make some sense.

For one, 2026 marks the series’ 40th anniversary, and if you asked every Zelda fan alive what their favorite entry is, you can bet that OoT would feature pretty high in the final rankings. We’re also getting that live-action Zelda movie next year, and Nintendo will no doubt want to make sure audiences have done their homework on the games that inspired it.

Of course, none of this is official, so have those grains of salt at the ready, but NatetheHate did also claim that anyone hoping for a new 3D Mario game to arrive in 2026 is going to be disappointed. That’s more likely to arrive in 2027. In better news, we’re apparently also getting a brand new "classic-style" Star Fox game this summer, which would mark the return of the spacefaring Fox McCloud after a decade spent in Nintendo’s unloved mascot closet.

This rumor seems logical after Nintendo’s surprise announcement that the anthropomorphic red fox is going to feature in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which arrives next week. He’s being voiced by Glen Powell, because of course he is.

NatetheHate’s information on all of the above has been corroborated by VGC, which says it lines up with what it's heard from its own sources. And in the case of the Ocarina of Time remake, that recent Lego set suddenly makes a lot of sense.

If indeed we do get the remake of Metacritic’s highest-rated game of all time later this year, physical collectors could have a difficult choice to make, after Nintendo announced that physical versions of first-party Switch 2 games are about to become more expensive than their digital counterparts. This adjusted pricing will come into effect when Yoshi and the Mysterious Book launches on May 21.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/it-looks-like-were-finally-getting-an-ocarina-of-time-remake-175546356.html?src=rss

RGG’s Stranger Than Heaven game will span five time periods

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Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has revealed more details about its upcoming title, Stranger Than Heaven, at the Xbox Partner Preview stream. While previous teasers showed that it was going to be set in the 1910s and 1940s, it turns out its gameplay will span five different time periods: 1915, 1929, 1943, 1951 and 1965. The game’s events will also take place in five different cities. Ryu Ga Gotoku has yet to reveal what the locations will be based on, but the setting for 1965 seems to be Kamurocho. That’s the fictionalized version of Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment district in the studio’s games, the Yakuza and Judgment series.

One time period seems to be set during winter, while another focuses on a hot spring town. It’s clear from teasers and the new trailer RGG released that new title will share Yakuza’s aesthetics and maybe even its fighting mechanics. The studio has yet to say whether it will be connected to the Yakuza series, but fans believe Stranger Than Heaven could focus on the beginnings of the yakuza clans that appeared throughout the franchise.

RGG Studio will reveal more details about the game on another stream with Xbox on May 6 at 7PM Eastern time. For now, you can watch the trailer below for a preview. Take note that while the studio has teamed up with Xbox for these reveals, the game will also be available on Steam and the PS5.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/rggs-stranger-than-heaven-game-will-span-five-time-periods-114554699.html?src=rss

Ugh, Netflix is raising prices

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Netflix is raising prices across all of its subscription tiers, according to an updated "Plans and Pricing" page spotted by Android Authority. The company last raised prices in January 2025, when the cost of all of its tiers were jacked up by $1 or more.

 As of this latest price hike, Netflix's ad-supported Standard plan is going from $8 per month to $9 per month, while the ad-free version is rising from $18 to $20 per month. The company's Premium plan, meanwhile, which supports things like 4K streams, spatial audio and the ability to watch content on four devices at the same time, is jumping from $25 to $27 per month. Netflix is also making the cost of adding an extra member to your plan more expensive. Adding a member to an ad-supported plan now costs an additional $8 per month, while adding someone to an ad-free plan now costs $10 per month.

When asked to comment on the price changes, a Netflix spokesperson shared that the company is updating "prices in the U.S to reflect improvements to our wide range of entertainment and the quality of our service." The new prices will roll out to current subscribers in the coming weeks. "Existing members will be notified by email a month before the new prices are applied to them," the spokesperson said. "The exact timing will depend on the specific member’s billing cycle."

Netflix is not quite at the point where it's raising the cost of its subscription every year, but it's getting close. Prior to last year's price hike, the company last raised prices in 2023. The streaming service's growing subscription fees have helped Netflix to continue its push into streaming live events like sports and reality TV competitions, and to license new kinds of content like video podcasts. If Netflix hadn't dropped out in February, they also would have served as financial backing for the company's acquisition of Warner Bros. Even though Warner Bros. Discovery ultimately decided to take Paramount Skydance's offer, Netflix didn't leave the deal empty handed: Paramount paid the company $2.8 billion to formally end its acquisition of the historic film studio.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/ugh-netflix-is-raising-prices-again-202318277.html?src=rss