Sunday, October 11
Games world argues over sponsor accusations, review time and a November release clash
“Due to the distance, we see what happens before we hear anything. When the ball hits, a black blot suddenly appears on the wall, as if someone hurled an inkpot. Then a bang, like a kernel of burst popcorn. We erupt in cheers, and run downrange to inspect the carnage.” — Sam Kean, in Dinner With King Tut
Gaming Editorial
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Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Oct 11
Aftermath's Luke Plunkett reports on a row at Parallels, a main event of Melbourne International Games Week, held last Thursday. Wren Briar, creative director of Unpacking, says organiser Freeplay removed her as a sponsor on the day of the show after a speaker called her a "zionist". She says the claim traced to Unpacking appearing on a listicle in The Jewish Independent, which she did not know about. Briar says she is Jewish, was born in Israel, moved to Australia at 18, did not serve in the military and has never expressed anti-Palestinian views.
She told Aftermath that her involvement amounted to a donation to Freeplay's crowdfunding campaign, which put her in a sponsor reward tier, and sending a logo on request. She was abroad and had no knowledge of the speaker lineup. Developers including Rami Ismael and Mike Futter objected publicly, and Briar says at least one Freeplay board member resigned over the decision. Freeplay told Aftermath it is seeking advice and cannot comment. The piece's framing, taken from Briar's own words, is that nobody checked the accusation before acting.
Counterpoint: Freeplay has not given its side beyond the "untenable environment" wording Briar quotes, and the speaker who raised the concern has not been heard from. Organisers and speakers who argue that sponsor associations can legitimately worry an event's participants would dispute that the decision was discriminatory, though Briar's account of how thin her involvement was is not contested in the piece.
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Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Oct 10
Rock Paper Shotgun's Oisin Kuhnke responds to comments from Lybee Park, European CEO of Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss, to The Game Business. Park said critics had limited time and played a build that was not identical to the launch version. She added that the game's charm is spread across its world rather than the main quest line, so critics lacked "a fair chance to explore" it. Kuhnke, who says he has not played the game, notes that reviews broadly reached a verdict of "it's fine".
He grants that Park may be partly right: critics often get codes days before launch, and that can skew impressions of a very large game. But he raises two objections. The compressed schedule is the developer's and publisher's doing, and he does not expect that to change without a workers' revolt in the industry. More fundamentally, he says a critic's job is to identify friction and interest, not to play as the average player would, and a lukewarm review is not an attack on people who enjoy the game.
Counterpoint: Park and Pearl Abyss would say the gap between critic and user scores is real and that the review-window problem is genuine, a point Kuhnke partly concedes. Players who rate games on longer play would also argue that review scores based on a few days with a huge open-world game tell them less than user impressions do.
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Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Oct 10
In Polygon's Switchboard newsletter, Oli Welsh looks at Nintendo's decision to release The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Switch 2 in the same month as Grand Theft Auto 6. He notes Nintendo has shipped roughly monthly exclusives all year, with Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave three weeks ago and Switch Sports Resort two weeks away, followed two weeks later by Ocarina. He calls the remake so consequential that it works as a new mainline Zelda, and relays an unverified rumour that Nintendo built it in-house rather than hand it to Grezzo.
The hook is a Saturday Night Live sketch last weekend that pitted Link against GTA 6's Jason, guns versus fairies. Welsh calls it silly but even-handed, and says it turns a perceived GTA monopoly into a duopoly. He concedes that a Barbenheimer label overstates things: the release dates are two weeks apart and Ocarina is far smaller in scale and cannot match GTA's sales. Still, he argues Nintendo stands to gain from exposure that pulls Ocarina into GTA's slipstream, and that its gamble could pay off.
Counterpoint: Sales-minded analysts would likely argue that one sketch does not make a duopoly and that GTA 6's scale will dominate November attention regardless. Welsh himself says the two games appeal to different markets, which undercuts the idea of a head-to-head contest.
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Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 approaches release
Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Oct 10
Rock Paper Shotgun's Oisin Kuhnke reports that Cyberleek, the group that has been leaking GTA 6 clips for some time, is now asking supporters to pay in its own cryptocurrency. If enough money comes in, it says, it will leak a playable build of the game.
Previously: Polygon's Josh Broadwell criticised newly leaked footage showing unreacted-to nudity as outdated, noting it may come from a debug build. — Saturday October 10 edition.
AI & Industry
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PC Gamer (Justin Wagner) · Oct 10
PC Gamer reports that the studio behind Star Wars Zero Company is recalling part of its furloughed workforce. The studio called the furlough an incredibly difficult but necessary decision, intended to help it eventually bring back as many people as possible.
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Simon Willison · Oct 11
Simon Willison notes that Tarn Adams, who said in 2013 and again in 2016 that he did not use version control, appears to have adopted it. Willison says he can think of few codebases that would benefit more, given Dwarf Fortress's complexity.
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WDW News Today (Lauren Stracner) · Oct 10
The Universal Islands of Adventure ride closed on January 5, 2026, for a refurbishment of nearly a year. WDW News Today says its reopening, first announced for November 20, has moved to shortly before Christmas.
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WDW News Today (Lauren Stracner) · Oct 10
WDW News Today's Friday recap reports that a reopening date was revealed for Tiana's Bayou Adventure. It also says more construction is planned for Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.
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WDW News Today (Austin Haughton) · Oct 10
Exterior walls are beginning to enclose the Monsters, Inc. door coaster building at Disney's Hollywood Studios. New aerial photos show the suspended track taking shape inside, WDW News Today reports.
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Polygon (Ashely Claudino) · Oct 10
Polygon reports that Disney has raised ticket prices at both Disney World and Disneyland, and that the increases are worrying visitors. The piece also points to ways fans can still find lower prices.
Science & Archaeology
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ScienceDaily · Oct 10
MIT astronomers found a system where a small star is gradually pulling material from a nearby brown dwarf. Unlike stars that swallow companions quickly, this one could keep feeding for billions of years.
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ScienceDaily · Oct 10
Researchers at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory calculate that heating plasma first and increasing its density afterwards could reach self-sustaining fusion with far less energy. They say the approach could also avoid hidden problems that make ignition harder. The work is based on calculations.
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Ars Technica (Jacek Krywko) · Oct 10
Ars Technica's Jacek Krywko covers a study in which participants meditated inside an MRI scanner, both with and without psilocybin. It examines how the drug changes brain activity during meditation.
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Live Science (Ashley Hamer Pritchard) · Oct 10
Live Science's Ashley Hamer Pritchard asks whether written language favours tradition or change. Writing preserves ideas from the past and spreads new ones in the present, so it could push either way.
Sound & Music Tech
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Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware
Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 10
Synth Anatomy reports on SuperFreaker, an unofficial custom firmware for the MicroFreak that adds effects and MIDI extras. It notes that AI-generated custom firmware and mods for hardware are trending, with many alternative firmwares appearing in recent weeks.
Previously: Open-source firmware had added a sampler to Elektron's Model:Cycles, and Sonic State asked whether firmware hacking is ethical or a war on manufacturers. — Thursday October 8 edition.
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Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 11
Siegfried Kullmann's SQ8L, a free plugin emulating the Ensoniq SQ-80, is available again for modern 64-bit systems. The SQ-80 was an eight-voice multi-timbral wavetable synth with analog filters and a multi-track sequencer.
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Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 11
Melbourne Exchange is a free library on the Melbourne Instruments website for sharing Roto-Control setups for synths, pedals and plugins. The Roto-Control is the company's motorised MIDI controller.
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Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 11
Radiant, a morphing stereo multi-effects module from Ukrainian developers Dnipro and Sinevibes, gains a looper in firmware 2.5. The module is made in Ukraine.