New report suggests that there are 3 million fewer PC gamers in Japan than 10 years ago, despite the market having at least tripled in size

As reported by Automaton, Famitsu has released a preview of its annual Famitsu Game Hakusho, a survey of the games industry by Kadokawa ASCII Research Laboratories. One confounding takeaway from the data is that the games market in Japan is bigger than ever, with the PC space nearly matching consoles for economic impact, while there…

Read More

Roblox explains crackdown on ‘vigilantes’ after ban of a popular YouTuber sparks furor: ‘They are acting in ways that could be harmful to others, both on and off our platform’

Following an uproar over its ban of a popular YouTuber who purportedly pursues and exposes child predators on the platform, Roblox has posted an update saying it became necessary to remove “vigilantes” from its platform after their behavior “evolved” and began conflicting with Roblox’s own systems. Roblox banned YouTuber Schlep earlier this week, saying in…

Read More

A game was unintentionally listed as ‘Sh***y Dungeon’ on Steam in Japan thanks to goofed-up machine translation

In our current technological moment, when we’re being urged by the world’s largest companies to trust our lives to the whims of machines that might generously be considered “truth agnostic,” it’s important to check your work if you’re letting a computer do it for you. It’s a lesson that was starkly demonstrated this week for…

Read More

Meta’s AI rules permitted ‘sensual’ chats with kids until a journalist got ahold of the document and asked what was up with that

A Meta policy document obtained by Reuters stated that it was acceptable for the Facebook company’s AI chatbots to have “romantic or sensual” conversations with children. Meta confirmed the document’s authenticity to Reuters and told the outlet that it has now removed the guidelines in question, which said it was OK for bots “to engage…

Read More