My partner and I went as Sheriff Truman and Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks.

I also saw a couple going as Judge Trudy and a dancing lobster, which I really appreciated; but I do not have any pictures of them.

Personally, I loved all the deep cut costumes; and I think this was a really good year for them.

I don’t know if people still use live wallpapers, but I like the way mine turned out.

https://i.imgur.com/yXmjLUc.gifv

That stuck out to me as well. Disney probably made 50k USD in the time it took me to write this comment. This feels more like sending a message than trying to avoid a costly payout.

I’m sure they want to discourage lawsuits, but I’m worried they did this just to try to set a precedent on EULAs being the end-all-be-all.

I just hope they get enough bad publicity from this move to cost them more than the payout would have.

The fact that Disney is asserting that whether a EULA has been read is irrelevant and that a EULA signed five years prior for an unrelated use is still enforceable feels more than insidious.

I hope Disney’s claim gets thrown out because I worry about the precedent this could set for EULAs going forward.

I’ve been holding onto my phone well past its prime since I can’t help but see every new phone on the market as a downgrade because of this.

I know people say that you don’t NEED an SD card if you buy the most expensive version and rely heavily on cloud services but it’s definitely an intentionally worse customer experience.

I’m actually really sad Sony pulled out of the US, since I was planning on getting an Xperia this year. Now it feels like I’m limited to Samsung or Google if I want a flagship SoC…

I’m definitely a little late to the party to comment on this thread, but it blows my mind that any organization would pick a flight with SAG-AFTRA at this point (or the WGA, though that’s not relevant to THIS issue).

SAG has already proven they will hold out pretty much indefinitely and the effects of the joint SAG/WGA strike are still being felt in Hollywood now.

Is the siren song of AI so alluring that companies are willing to die on this hill? At its peak hype, I could see executives salivating at the potential savings; but my understanding is there has been pretty substantial pushback to projects made with AI (or tech with AI in it). I can’t imagine that these large studios think their potential savings would outweigh the potential losses in sales; but I guess that’s why I’ll never be a Fortune 500 CEO…

I wish SAG-AFTRA nothing but the best in their endeavor for protections against AI.

Ever since I watched RedLetterMedia’s “F*ck You, It’s January” (YouTube | Piped) I cannot stop noticing how studios will drop movies they don’t have faith in at the very start of the year.

To date, based off my very detailed research of quickly scrolling through Wikipedia, Marvel has only released two MCU movies in February: Black Panther, and Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania.

With the numerous data-set of two points, it seems like Marvel has two potential reasons for not having faith in a movie:

1. It actually is bad (see Quantumania)
2. It is a Black-led movie (see Black Panther)

You could make the case that they dropped Black Panther in February because it is Black History Month, but Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was released in November…

With all this said, now, I am curious in their lack of faith in the new Captain America movie. I’ve already mentioned the two reasons, I would expect them to not have faith in it, but there is a third reason as well:

3. New MCU movies simply don’t have the draw that the old ones did. Even a decent quality MCU movie would really need to stand out for audiences to notice, and this movie may just not stand out…

Whatever their reason for releasing Captain America: New World Order in February is, I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.

It feels like a tale as old as time, that a company gets bought by another and immediately selling off assets; and I would very much like to stop hearing it.

While sometimes spending does need to be cut, cutting assets immediately after an acquisition usually does not maintain the company’s health in the long term.

On another note, while I think Paramount/ Skydance is right that the current streaming environment is not amiable to the customer; I find it amusing this is just creating “Cable 2.” I know each studio wants to keep all the money for themselves, but it feels ridiculous they are pretending “Cable 2” would be better for customers than a music streaming model, where any streamer can provide any content

I can’t say I’m surprised to see Gamepass get a price hike; it always seemed like it was in the loss leader stage to try to grow market share.

I wonder what the reasoning was to institute the hike now, though, since I’m not sure how strong their market share actually is on it.

My theory is that either:

• Microsoft is tired of footing the bill and expects results now
• Microsoft/ Xbox think they have enough market share, so it is time to stop cultivating and time to start harvesting

My understanding is they are still releasing new Series S models, which are basically just Gamepass machines; so I would expect they are not happy with their current market share (though corporations literally never are), which makes me think it’s the former option, not the latter.

All that being said, I wonder how much the price can increase before the value proposition of Gamepass is moot. Right now 20 USD a month doesn’t sound bad as long as you’re playing at least one new game a month, but I wonder how much more room there is in the price before the number of games you would need to play becomes unreasonable.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the Gamepass model since I like owning my games physically (it’s the main reason I prefer console to PC), so I don’t have much of a horse in this race; but I will be interested to see what becomes of Gamepass in the long term.

While I am tired of comedy sequels coming out decades too late, I am cautiously optimistic about Shrek.

Given its animated nature and fantasy setting, there isn’t a lot of pressure to explain why the characters are all decades older. You can just set it right after the last one, which I think avoids a pitfall a lot of late sequels fall into.

Additionally, in my opinion, Shrek actually has a pretty strong track record. I mostly rewatch the first two, but the fourth and Puss in Boots 2 (if you count that as a Shrek movie) are both really good also. (I can’t comment on the first Puss in Boots movie since I never saw it, and we don’t need to discuss Shrek 3…)

I think it COULD also be fun to see Shrek lampoon more of modern Disney, since a lot has changed for them since the early 2000s; but it feels like Shrek has moved further and further from that style of comedy and have moved more into irreverently twisting broader fairy tales instead, so that doesn’t feel very likely to happen, unfortunately.

Seeing as how the movie is years away, I think it is too soon to be making claims in either direction for the movie’s quality; all I can decisively say is I really hope it doesn’t disappoint.

That’s a really good point about their business model potentially being unsustainable, but I still question if adding gambling is the answer.

Things that get me to go out (and I know that is anecdotal at best) are things like trivia nights, theme nights, stand up comedy, etc. I don’t think I would be very tempted to go out by the opportunity to be hustled in Angry Birds.

I agree that Dave & Buster’s needs to develop a more novel niche to not get erased by home entertainment, but I would be shocked if this was the best way to do it.

I remember when this news first leaked, people online were joking about getting into fights over a 200 dollar bet on a kid’s game if skeeball.

While I’m not sure how common that type of phenomenon would be, I have to agree with the author of this article that I would certainly think twice before bringing a child to a location where gambling is encouraged (especially in conjunction with drinking).

At this point, I’ve lost count of the number of times Elon should have been let go. I recall him recently saying that dosing himself with cat tranquilizers was cool and a good business decision actually.

That’s not even getting into turning Twitter into a Nazi bar (and throwing out its extremely valuable branding) or pushing for the cybertruck that cuts its passengers, looks like a dumpster, and corrodes if you look at it funny.

The fact any board of directors considers this man employable at all is mind boggling to me.

Honestly, that’s my main hope as well; that all the charging team talent will disperse across the market and help other chargers spread as well. The article mentioned Tesla having 60% of the fast charger market, so hopefully we will see other companies fill the gap.

My concern is that if no companies pick up the ball Tesla just dropped (or more accurately angrily chucked over the fence), that this could set the EV charging network back significantly; which would definitely be a problem for mass adoption of EVs.

When this news dropped a little while ago. I saw a lot of speculation that basically Elon got mad that a woman said he was wrong and laid off possibly Tesla’s biggest asset in a tantrum.

Honestly, at this point, the most surprising part of this situation is how unsurprised I am at that being exactly what happened.

Hopefully, this will not set back a widespread EV charging network (Tesla or otherwise) too much; but it definitely sounds like damage has been done.

I didn’t read the original Spider-Noir run, so I can’t comment in that regard, but I don’t see why live action would be a problem. Noires were really big in the 40s and they were all live-action. As long as the direction leans into that aesthetic, I think it could feel even more noire than the animated version.

While Nic Cage being attached is no guarantee of quality, I do find it interesting this is his first TV series. I’m sure he’s been offered TV roles before, so to me this implies he might really believe in the project.

Lord and Miller being involved is a good sign, too; but I’m not sure how much influence a producer really has, to be honest, so it might not mean anything for the show’s quality.

Either way I’ll definitely be watching it since I love Nic Cage and greatly enjoyed him as Spider-Noir in the Spider-Verse movie; but with Sony’s track record, I’m only cautiously optimistic.

Microsoft has certainly made games based off IP they owned without the original developers. But the only examples of that I can think of is Halo, which I don’t think was highly regarded.

Similarly (though not at Microsoft), when Shu Takumi took a break from the Ace Attorney franchise to do Ghost Trick, the quality of the franchise was widely regarded to have a dip as well (though now he has returned for the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, the quality is considered to have returned). Ghost Trick was considered to be a very high quality game as well.

While IP is valuable; as an outsider to the industry, the skilled game devs seemed infinitely more bankable. I was certain that Microsoft wanted Bethesda for its quality devs, but clearly I was wrong.

You don’t sack the team responsible for your best regarded game in years, if you’re concerned with making good games.

You’re probably right. Microsoft is probably not worried about the quality. People will still buy their favorite IP, even with a notable quality dip

Honestly wild they would close Tango, of all developers, after they delivered maybe Xbox’s only coveted exclusive (though it has since gone multi-platform). Redfall and Starfield were both duds, and I’m not sure if Xbox has had any other exclusives at all (coveted or otherwise).

Having said that, it’s pretty bad that Xbox is closing these studios regardless of if they have put out a hit recently or not. As Arkane Lyon chief Dinga Bakaba points out:

You say we make you proud when we make a good game. Make us proud when times are tough. We know you can, we seen it before.

Microsoft certainly has the money that they don’t need to be making these cuts. This is clearly the result of Line-Go-Up syndrome, and will only hurt them in the long run.

PlayStation is already eating Xbox’s lunch since Xbox has no console selling exclusives. How are they going to make any good exclusives after cutting so much of their staff? (Also as a side note, I find it wild how much Microsoft spent on Bethesda just to cut so many of those studios.)

Overall, a cruel and short-sighted move from Microsoft.

It really does feel like that’s what happened. Is WBD going to can something every time they lose an expensive bet?

To add insult to injury, I don’t think anyone was clamoring for an online-only looter-shooter version of this game. If they had just let Rocksteady do their thing, it probably would’ve been a hit. WBD (probably) meddled hard with what would’ve been a solid game, and now a bunch of smaller developers are paying the price…

That does not feel like a good way to build brand loyalty. Especially because no artist is going to want to give their work to a corporation who will throw it in the trash first chance they get.