Facebook has bought several virtual reality game studios over the past couple of years, and they added one more to their portfolio Friday with the acquisition of Seattle-based BigBox VR. The studio’s major title, “Population: One,” was one of the big post-launch releases for Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2 headset and …
Read More »Apple announces its 2021 Apple Design Award winners – TechCrunch
Apple incorporated the announcement of this year’s Apple Design Award winners into its virtual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) online event instead of waiting until the event had wrapped, like last year. Ahead of WWDC, Apple previewed the finalists, whose apps and games showcased a combination of technical achievement, design and …
Read More »Decades-old ASCII adventure NetHack may hint at the future of AI – TechCrunch
Machine learning models have already mastered Chess, Go, Atari games and more, but in order for it to ascend to the next level, researchers at Facebook intend for AI to take on a different kind of game: the notoriously difficult and infinitely complex NetHack. “We wanted to construct what we think …
Read More »Tiny handheld Playdate preorders open next month for $179, with 24 charming monochrome games to start – TechCrunch
Playdate, app and game designer Panic’s first shot at hardware, finally has a firm price and ship date, as well as a bunch of surprise features cooked up since its announcement in 2019. The tiny handheld gaming console will cost $179, ship later this year and come with a 24-game …
Read More »Twitch introduces Animated Emotes for their 10th anniversary – TechCrunch
Twitch announced today that it will release major updates to its Emotes this month to celebrate its 10th anniversary. These new features will include Animated Emotes, Follower Emotes and a Library for Emotes. Since the origin of the livestreaming platform for gamers, Emotes — Twitch’s version of emojis — have …
Read More »Facebook buys studio behind Roblox-like Crayta gaming platform – TechCrunch
Facebook has been making plenty of one-off virtual reality studio acquisitions lately, but today the company announced that they’re buying something with wider ambitions — a Roblox-like game creation platform. Facebook shared that they’re buying Unit 2 Games, which builds a platform called Crayta. Like some other platforms out there, …
Read More »Microsoft’s Surface Duo gets dual-screen gaming support – TechCrunch
In December, Microsoft wrote a blog post highlighting “The year ahead for Surface Duo.” The news highlighted the dual-screen device’s upcoming availability outside the U.S. (including Canada, the U.K., France and Germany this year), as well as a smattering of features. It’s been pretty well acknowledged from most everyone who …
Read More »Epic Games buys artist community ArtStation, drops commissions to 12% – TechCrunch
One the same day as Fortnite maker Epic Games goes to trial with one of the biggest legal challenges to the App Store’s business model to date, it has simultaneously announced the acquisition of the artist portfolio community ArtStation — and immediately lowered the commissions on sales. Now standard creators …
Read More »As Zynga impresses, rival mobile-gaming shop Jam City looks to list via SPAC – TechCrunch
While it would be nice to write about something other than yet another tech company looking to list via a SPAC, the deals keep dropping, so our more traditional fare of covering startup trends will remain on hold for at least one day more. This morning, we’re looking at the …
Read More »Snowman, the studio behind Alto’s Adventure and others, launches a kids app company, Pok Pok – TechCrunch
Snowman, the small studio behind award-winning iOS games Alto’s Adventure, Alto’s Odyssey, Skate City and others, is spinning out a new company, Pok Pok, that will focus on educational children’s entertainment. Later this month, Pok Pok will debut its first title, Pok Pok Playroom, aimed at inspiring creative thinking through …
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