Snitch gets snared

Good Morning. There’s a crispness in the air these past few days. We’ve also spotted some red leaves starting to creep up. If you’re like us, you might be wondering, how are we already at the end of summer?

On a related note, looks like Pumpkin Spice is starting to tank after 2 consecutive years of decline. Could this be the beginning of the end for the PSL?

— Derek Neville, Tim Rhyne, Jason Liu

HEADLINES

New laws governing online content. The EU’s Digital Services Act, which holds online platforms legally responsible for the content posted on them, came into effect just before the weekend. The laws touch on content moderation, as well as targeted advertising. While social networks are under the microscope, live gaming services will also be scrutinized given copious amounts of user-generated content.

Legendary writer axed as part of BioWare cuts. While Baldur’s Gate 3 continues to soak up the limelight, the writer that penned the first two titles, as well as the first three Dragon Age titles was let go as part of BioWare’s latest re-org. Lukas Kristjanson had been with BioWare for more than 25 years and had earned the nickname “Writer Zero”.

AMD announced latest budget-friendly graphics cards. The RX 7800 XT & RX 7700 XT graphic cards are coming. AMD claims that both cards can average over 60 fps at 1440p when using the maximum settings, including over 100 fps in Modern Warfare 2. Both cards are priced under $500 and will be released on September 6th, along with a free copy of Starfield.

HUD

• 🚓 The man who leaked the first 45 minutes of Starfield was arrested in Tennessee on a felony charge of theft of property.

• 🏎️ Gran Turismo’s opening weekend brought in $17.3 million, beating out Barbie for the weekend’s top spot.

• 📹 Linus Sebastian, founder of Linus Media Group, posted a new video to the Linus Tech Tips channel, addressing the company’s HR policies as well as new processes and guidelines going forward in regard to business transparency, ethics, and fact-checking content. This follows a 10-day period in which LMG has not posted any new content.

MAJOR W

• 📈 Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon was released on Thursday and peaked at 156,171 players on Sunday.

• ☠️ World of Warcraft Classic officially launched its hardcore servers over the weekend, bringing permanent death to players’ characters that meet their demise. Players can then either move around the world as a ghost or transfer their player to a non-hardcore server.

F IN THE CHAT

• 🤖 Riot Games used AI to create the LATAM 10th anniversary video —the video was taken down within hours.

• 🐤 Elon Musk was in attendance for the final day of the Valorant Champions 2023 tournament and was met by boos from the crowd and chants of “Bring back Twitter”.

• 🎨 Amazon released promotional artwork for their upcoming Fallout TV series, and it's receiving backlash for being AI-generated, with some obvious AI inconsistencies, such as buildings with no windows and a car with headlights on the trunk.

THIS DAY IN GAMING HISTORY

• ⚔️ Creative Assembly was founded on this day in 1987. Known for the Total War series, the company was acquired by SEGA in 2005.

• 💿 Command & Conquer: Red Alert - Retaliation releases for the original PlayStation. (1998) The Allies and Soviet campaigns were on two separate discs — they even suggested lending the extra disc to a friend!

• 🎾 Game. Set. Mushroom? Mario Tennis was released in North America in 2000, introducing Luigi’s nemesis Waluigi.

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