Tuesday, October 20

AI-built clones, warrantless plate searches and the fight over who owns games

“Transport systems tell a similar story. Many metro networks use distinctive door-closing chimes. Passengers remember them not just as functional warnings, but as part of the identity of the city.” — Asbjoern Andersen, in When More Is More in Sound Design

Gaming Editorial

EFF: Police should need a warrant to search license plate reader data

EFF Deeplinks (Adam Schwartz) · Oct 20

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a post co-written with legal intern Andi Cao, argues that automated license plate readers are mass surveillance and that cities should not buy them. Where they already operate, EFF says courts and legislatures should at minimum require police to get a warrant before searching stored data. A warrant would make an officer show a judge probable cause and describe what is being searched, rather than letting the officer decide alone.

The post leans on San Jose, where EFF and the ACLU of Northern California represent two groups in a lawsuit over the practice. SJPD officers searched stored data 261,711 times between June 2024 and June 2025, about 692 a day, and the department fired an officer who tracked a woman and passed her location to his cousin, the man she had accused of domestic violence. EFF also lists searches aimed at Romani people, protesters and an abortion, plus thousands of searches run on behalf of federal immigration enforcement, and says a judge should have refused to sign off on each one. It notes that a federal judge in Oklahoma recently agreed that a warrant is required. EFF concludes that a warrant requirement would not make the systems acceptable, but would stop much casual and abusive searching.

Counterpoint: EFF is an advocacy group that wants the systems abolished. Police agencies and vendors such as Flock have argued that plate readers help solve vehicle thefts and violent crimes, and that plates on public roads carry little expectation of privacy. Law enforcement groups would add that a warrant requirement slows time-sensitive investigations.

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Needle-in-a-haystack clones multiply on Steam, and one accuses another of copying its code

Rock Paper Shotgun (Mark Warren) · Oct 19

Rock Paper Shotgun reports that the viral appeal of the unreleased Needle In A Haystack Simulator has produced a pile of imitators on Steam, and the pile has now produced a code theft dispute. NoGlyph, maker of Needle In A Haystack (released September 29), says Little Field Studios' A Game About Needle In A Haystack (October 16) contains its code. Dev Jahvin says 13 classes share exact names, more than half of the functions in that section match, and some error messages appear word for word, including one pointing to a shader that doesn't exist in the newer game. He says the copied code matches NoGlyph's free demo builds from September 20 and 21, and that NoGlyph has filed a copyright notice with Valve.

The accused game's Steam page discloses generative AI use, but only for its logo. The article says AI-assisted decompilation is a possibility, with no confirmation. It ties the case to growing developer worry about AI cloning games, citing the makers of Drunken Goddess Reflux, who dropped a public demo for limited playtests for that reason.

Counterpoint: The claims come from NoGlyph alone and haven't been tested. The report doesn't include a response from Little Field Studios, and the AI link is speculation. Boosters of AI development tools, such as Epic's Tim Sweeney, would say that lowering the barrier to making games is the point, and that code theft is a separate problem from AI use.

Previously: Tim Sweeney said AI coding would usher in a golden age of gaming as Epic retooled staff, and PC Gamer noted vibe-coded games spreading on Steam. — Monday October 19 edition.

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Xbox strategy manager deletes X account after saying AI holdouts shouldn't be in business

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Oct 19

Xbox senior business strategy manager Brandon Stirrup posted a thread on October 18 saying he had vibe-coded a game over two days, with about three hours of active work. He said studios not building AI into their plans are "planning for a fake future", that Xbox uses AI like every company in 2026, and that hundreds at Xbox should stop pretending otherwise. He deleted his X account within a day. An Xbox source told PC Gamer he deactivated it because of the volume of replies.

PC Gamer places the thread in a wider push to treat AI as settled fact: Epic's Sweeney on retooling developers for AI acceleration, the Epic Games Store's "vibe coded" launcher backlash, Xbox's new Xbox Labs program under a former AI executive, and Linux dropping its AI disclosure rule. It adds that Stirrup last month told laid-off employees to use Copilot to catalog their skills.

Counterpoint: Many developers and players, whose pushback seems to have driven the reaction, argue that a three-hour prototype says little about shipping a commercial game and that framing AI refusal as a business failure ignores quality and labor concerns. Stirrup is a business strategist, not a game maker, and the post is not an official Xbox position.

Previously: Sweeney said AI coding would usher in a golden age of gaming as Epic retooled staff, and PC Gamer noted vibe-coded games spreading on Steam. — Monday October 19 edition.

Continuing · Sony ending physical discs for new PS5 games

PlayStation's Ken Kutaragi calls disc nostalgia a 'mentality issue'

Eurogamer (Robert Purchese) · Oct 19

Ken Kutaragi, who founded PlayStation and designed its first three consoles, told Eurogamer's source interview that discs became a "metaphor for 'owning' games" and that upset over Sony ending them is probably a "mentality issue". He said he understands the feeling, but that it doesn't make continued disc printing "economically reasonable" for Sony. This puts a founding figure on the side of the phase-out, framing it as economics against sentiment about ownership.

Counterpoint: Players and preservation advocates argue that discs are the only form of ownership that survives a shuttered store or revoked license, so the attachment is practical, not psychological. Nintendo has taken a different line, saying it has no plans to drop physical games.

Previously: Nintendo's Latin America VP said the company has no plans to drop physical games. — Tuesday October 13 edition.

Lucasfilm Games says it is 'more flexible' on pitches, and indie studios are delivering Star Wars hits

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Oct 19

Eurogamer notes that this year's two best-liked Star Wars games, the XCOM-like Zero Company and the Burnout-like Galactic Racer, both came from independent studios. In recent years the franchise has mostly gone to much larger companies, such as Ubisoft with Star Wars Outlaws and EA with Star Wars Battlefront. The piece ties the shift to Lucasfilm Games saying it is now more flexible about whom it takes pitches from. The argument is that opening the licence to smaller teams with genre-specific ideas has produced better results than relying on big publishers.

Counterpoint: Two successes are a small sample, and large studios still carry the budgets and live-service ambitions that smaller teams can't match. Fans of the bigger-studio games could argue that scale, not studio size, is what the franchise needs.

AI & Industry

Continuing · Union drives at game studios

Wizards of the Coast declines voluntary recognition of D&D and Studio X union drive

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Oct 19

Wizards of the Coast won't voluntarily recognize the union drive by its Dungeons & Dragons and Studio X teams, so staff will vote in a secret-ballot election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Previously: Wizards of the Coast again said it would not voluntarily recognize union efforts. — Sunday October 18 edition.

PEGI re-rates digital-only games with loot boxes to 16

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Oct 19

PEGI is moving existing digital-only games with paid random items, such as loot boxes, up to a 16 rating if they currently carry a 3, 7 or 12.

Continuing · Six Flags Georgia coaster fatality

Records detail mechanical failures and broken bones at Six Flags

Blooloop (Bea Mitchell) · Oct 19

Blooloop reports that records show mechanical failures, faulty restraint bars and broken bones at Six Flags parks, adding documentary detail to the safety scrutiny that followed the Georgia coaster death.

Previously: Blooloop reported the death added pressure on Six Flags to sell, with Travis Kelce joining an investor group, and prompted shutdowns across the US and Canada. — Saturday October 17 edition.

Ceiling fan falls in Stardust Racers queue at Epic Universe

WDW News Today (Shannen Ace) · Oct 19

A ceiling fan in the queue for Stardust Racers at Universal's Epic Universe fell on Sunday, October 18, reportedly hitting a guest, according to WDW News Today. TikTok creator Shane Mercier posted video of the fan on the ground, stuck between a wall and a railing.

Simon Willison shares an 'obituary for programming'

Simon Willison · Oct 20

Simon Willison points to Jeremy Scheff's essay mourning what coding agents take from career programmers who loved the puzzle-solving side of the job. Scheff describes a profession that paid well because ordinary people couldn't do it.

AI Weekly: AI finds software flaws faster than teams can fix them

AI Weekly · Oct 19

The Applied AI edition of AI Weekly, drawing on its use-case library and SEC filings, says AI now finds security flaws at record volume, agents do a large share of work at some companies, and test agents keep doing things nobody asked for.

Themed-entertainment sound firm Sound Sculpture Inc. turns 30

Blooloop (Rebecca Hardy) · Oct 19

Sound Sculpture Inc., founded by Ben Herrington in 1996, marks 30 years of work in themed entertainment, arguing that sound should be a foundational design element rather than a finishing layer. Blooloop says the company began as a way to preserve the techniques and physical props of classic sound artists as studios discarded them.

Japan Actors Union proposes strict rules on AI voice use

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Oct 19

The Japan Actors Union has issued guidelines restricting AI-generated voices, including an outright ban on replicating the voices of dead actors unless they authorised it while alive, Eurogamer reports.

GamesIndustry.biz surveys the AI legal landscape for studios

GamesIndustry.biz (Anna Poulter-Jones) · Oct 19

A GamesIndustry.biz explainer says generative AI is increasingly embedded in game development while laws, regulations and guidelines on it multiply, with each landmark case adding nuance to how it can be adopted.

Science & Archaeology

Medieval Russian 'pizza peel' doubled as a game board

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 19

Archaeologists in Russia found an 11th-century flat wooden paddle with a board game carved into it, Live Science reports.

Romans may have burned a Celtic town to humiliate its people

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 19

Archaeologists found a first-century-BC military camp built during Emperor Augustus' Cantabrian Wars, and they suggest the Romans set fire to a nearby Celtic town to humiliate the enemy, per Live Science.

'Birdman' copper plate may show a woman dressed as a warrior

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 19

The roughly 700-year-old plate, found in an Indigenous grave in Georgia nearly 150 years ago, may depict a woman ceremonially dressed as a warrior holding a weapon and a severed head, Live Science reports.

Roads and terraces found near Machu Picchu

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 19

Archaeology Magazine, citing a Science in Poland report, says researchers found about a mile and a half of roads and terraces near Machu Picchu.

Astronomers find the first star that would look truly green

ScienceDaily · Oct 19

A study of white dwarfs found stars glowing pink, purple, yellow and cyan from unusual chemistry in their dense atmospheres, including the first known star that would appear genuinely green to human eyes, ScienceDaily reports.

Sound & Music Tech

Zynthian 'Vangelis' OS adds clip launcher and new instruments

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 19

The open-hardware synth platform's new major OS update adds a clip launcher view, new instruments and plugins, according to Synth Anatomy.

Darkglass shows Anagram touchscreen multi-effects platform at Brooklyn EXPO

Sonic State · Oct 19

Sonic State's video from Brooklyn EXPO 2026 has Darkglass showing Anagram, the company's touchscreen multi-effects platform.

YouTuber argues the Sega 32X was an audio powerhouse

Sonic State · Oct 20

Sonic State highlights a video from YouTuber Jenovi on the sound capabilities of Sega's 1994 32X add-on, a commercial flop that he says was strong on audio.

Rift is a glitch and effects performance tool for Ableton Live

Sonic State · Oct 19

DWP's Rift 1.0.0 is a Max for Live device for macOS and Windows that controls glitches and effect snapshots across several Live tracks.

Bob Moog Foundation holds online fundraising auction

Sonic State · Oct 20

The Bob Moog Foundation's online auction, running October 19-26, offers original Moog artwork, collectibles and memorabilia.