Latest news with #StanleyPierre-Louis
Engadget
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Video Games Weekly: I still don't miss E3
Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday, broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, a reporter who's covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget. Please enjoy — and I'll see you next week. It's the week of Summer Game Fest, so I'm mentally wrapped up in a complex web of embargoes, meetings, schedules and cryptic invites, and I can already smell the plasticky, sanitized air that accompanies video game conventions of all sizes. Mmm, smells like pixels. This will be my third SGF and I'm looking forward to it, as usual. I appreciate the event's focus on independent projects, diverse creators and smaller-scale publishers, particularly with shows like Day of the Devs, Wholesome Direct, Women-Led Games, and the Latin American and Southeast Asian games showcases. I deeply believe that innovation in the industry stems from these untethered, experimental spaces, and SGF has consistently provided room for these types of experiences to shine. I appreciate SGF even more after spending seven years wandering the cavernous halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center, covering the Electronic Entertainment Expo. E3 was exciting in its own right and I feel privileged to have attended it so many times, but it was also a soulless kind of show. E3 was unwelcoming to independent creators and packed with corporate swag, and by the time Sony decided to stop attending in 2019, it felt like an expensive, out-of-touch misrepresentation of the video game industry as a whole. The best parts of E3 in its final years were the unaffiliated events hosted by Devolver Digital, which took place in a nearby parking lot packed with Airstream trailers, food trucks and fabulous, up-and-coming indie games. It felt a lot like SGF, in fact. I wrote about this phenomenon in 2018, in a story that questioned whether the video game industry needed E3 at all. Perhaps because I'm a witch but mostly due to the pandemic, E3 shut down in 2020 and it never re-emerged as an in-person show. The Entertainment Software Association hosted one virtual session in 2021, but nothing afterward, and E3 was officially declared dead in December 2023. Meanwhile, the video game market has continued to grow, driven by a maturing indie segment, mobile play and harsh crunch-layoff cycles at the AAA level. Now, the ESA is back with a new video game showcase called iicon, the Interactive Innovation Conference, heading to Las Vegas in April 2026. The industry's biggest names are involved, including Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Epic Games, Electronic Arts, Disney, Amazon and Take-Two Interactive, and the show is poised to be 'a space for visionaries across industries to come together,' according to ESA president Stanley Pierre-Louis. E3 2.0 has arrived, and it seems to be as AAA-focused as ever. For what it's worth, Summer Game Fest has its own version of a AAA thought-leader summit this year with The Game Business Live. Meanwhile, the ESA has remained silent — even when directly asked — as some of the industry's most influential companies roll back their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, at a time when women, POC and LGBT+ employees are enduring active existential threats. And during Pride Month , no less. All of this is to say, I'm stoked for Summer Game Fest this year. It all kicks off with a live show on Friday, June 6, and we have a rundown of the full schedule right here. We'll be publishing hands-on previews, developer interviews and news directly from SGF over the weekend and beyond, so stay tuned to Engadget's Gaming hub. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. Playtonic, the studio behind Yooka-Laylee , has laid off an undisclosed number of employees across multiple departments, including production, art, game design, narrative design and UI/UX. In a message shared on X, the studio's leaders said, 'This isn't simply a difficult moment, it's a period of profound change in how games are created and financed. The landscape is shifting, and with it, so must we.' Playtonic's latest game, Yooka-Replaylee , is due to come out this year. Though Playtonic is a small, privately owned company (with a minority investment from Tencent), the timing of the layoffs fits the established playbook of many AAA studios, which operate with periods of crunch and bulk layoffs baked into their business plans. Electronic Arts revealed its plans to make a single-player, third-person Black Panther game back in 2023 as part of a broader Marvel push at the studio, but apparently, things have changed. EA canceled its Black Panther project and closed the studio that was building it, Cliffhanger Games. EA Motive, the team behind the stellar Dead Space remake, is still working on an Iron Man game, as far as we know. Any time I can gas up Rollerdrome or OlliOlli World , I'm going to do it. After being delisted from Steam more than a year ago, Rollerdrome and OlliOlli World have returned to the storefront to fulfill all of your flow-state needs. Both games come from Roll7, a London-based studio that Take-Two purchased in November 2021 and shut down in May 2024, removing Rollerdrome and Olli Olli World from Steam in the process. Have we convinced you to get a Playdate yet? Whatever your answer, Playdate Season 2 is live right now, adding two new games to the crank-powered system each week until July 3. Engadget's resident Playdate expert Cheyenne Macdonald has a review of the initial batch, which includes Fulcrum Defender from Subset Games, Dig! Dig! Dino! from Dom2D and Fáyer, and Blippo+ , a fever dream masquerading as a video game. And while you're in this headspace, check out Igor Bonifacic's enlightening interview with Subset Games co-founder Jay Ma. Three former Ubisoft executives appeared in French court on June 2, accused by multiple employees at the studio of sexual harassment, bullying and, in one defendant's case, attempted sexual assault. The lawsuit alleges Serge Hascoët, Tommy François and Guillaume Patrux regularly engaged in misconduct and fostered a toxic culture at Ubisoft, and it follows a public reckoning at the studio in 2020, plus arrests in 2023. Nintendo's Switch 2 officially comes out this week, on June 5. We'll have a review of the new console as soon as we can, but in the meantime you can find all of the information you need regarding pre-orders in our handy guide.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Entertainment Software Association Introduces the Accessible Games Initiative to Provide Players with Information About Accessibility Features in Video Games
Founding members Electronic Arts, Google, Microsoft, Nintendo of America and Ubisoft join ESA at GDC in announcing new accessibility tags to better support players. WASHINGTON, March 20, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) today announced the Accessible Games Initiative, a cross-industry effort to provide consumers with clear information about the accessibility features available in video games. The Accessible Games Initiative was announced at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) by the ESA and representatives from five founding member companies: Electronic Arts, Google, Microsoft, Nintendo of America and Ubisoft. The primary purpose of the new Accessible Games Initiative is to help provide clear information about whether a specific video game has accessibility features and, if so, what those features are. The initiative is launching with a set of 24 "tags," all with clear criteria about what each tag means. Sample tags include: clear text, large and clear subtitles, narrated menus, stick inversion and save anytime, among others. Over time, participating companies will place the Accessible Games Initiative tags near their game product information – for example on digital storefronts, product pages or digital catalogues. This can help provide players and other consumers, such as parents and teachers, with clear information about which features are in any given game before they make a purchase. "Tens of millions of Americans have a disability and often face barriers to experiencing the joy and connection that comes with playing video games," said Stanley Pierre-Louis, ESA president and CEO. "We are immensely proud to announce the Accessible Games Initiative in partnership with industry leaders. This initiative demonstrates how impactful we can be when we work together in our industry-wide pursuit of helping more people experience the power of play." The idea for the Accessible Games Initiative was first developed by Electronic Arts, Google, Microsoft, Nintendo of America, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Ubisoft. Additional companies have already joined the Initiative, including Amazon Games, Riot Games, Square Enix and Warner Bros. Games. The Accessible Games Initiative will be managed by the ESA, the trade association representing the U.S. video game industry. Other key facts: The full list of tags and their definitions/criteria are available at The tags were developed with guidance and feedback sourced from players with disabilities, accessibility advocacy groups and game development teams, all of whom provided valuable insights about the real-world applications of the tags. The tags are launching in U.S.-English. The timeline for implementation of the tags will be determined on a company-by-company basis and is always voluntary. The tags will be located on participating companies' digital storefronts, product pages and digital catalogues. In addition to player-facing definitions, the Accessible Games Initiative also has criteria available for developers to use the tags and help them develop their games with accessibility in mind. As feedback is gathered from the community, and new technologies and features are developed, we expect the existing tags to evolve and to introduce additional tags in the future. Accessible Games Initiative tags can coexist with other accessibility tags available in the marketplace. The use of Accessible Games Initiative tags is completely voluntary for video game companies and storefronts, but the tags are available for all to use. To view the tags and learn more about the Accessible Games Initiative, visit About the ESAFounded in 1994, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has served as the voice and advocate for the U.S. video game industry for more than 30 years. Its members are the innovators, creators, publishers and business leaders that are reimagining entertainment and transforming how we interact, learn, connect and play. The ESA works to expand and protect the dynamic marketplace for video games through innovative and engaging initiatives that showcase the positive impact of video games on people, culture and the economy to secure a vibrant future for the industry for decades to come. For more information, visit the ESA's website or follow the ESA on X @theESA or Instagram @theesaofficial. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Entertainment Software Association
