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It’s nearly the end of the road for Warcraft Rumble. Blizzard has announced that it will no longer be developing new content for the free-to-play mobile strategy game, and instead focus on “regular, systemic in-game events and bug fixes.” The change comes as the rest of Microsoft’s business is in upheaval: The company is laying off as many as 9,000 employees across its global workforce. 

Blizzard’s statement doesn’t get into the details of what motivated the decision, but is clear that Warcraft Rumble hasn’t been living up to expectations. The game “struggled to find its footing” relative to Blizzard’s ambitions, prompting the studio to explore different options to improve it over the last few years. “Some of that work showed signs of progress, but ultimately wasn’t enough to put the game on a path to sustainability,” Blizzard writes.

Warcraft Rumble was announced in 2019 as Warcraft Arclight Rumble. Much like Hearthstone, the game was a high-profile attempt to translate a popular Blizzard franchise into something that works on smartphones and tablets. Warcraft Rumble plays like a more flexible version of Clash Royale, where miniaturized armies face off in PVP or singe-player challenges, and the biggest strategic choices are when and where characters are placed. 

Aftermath reports that winding down Warcraft Rumble is a direct result of the wider Microsoft layoffs effecting Blizzard. While some of the team who created new content for Rumble will be given new roles at the studio, others will be let go, according to a staff email sent by Blizzard president Johanna Fairies that Aftermath viewed. Blizzard’s public statement doesn’t acknowledge these layoffs beyond a mention that the studio is “focused on supporting [its] teammates,” which is telling in context.

While Warcraft Rumble will live on for now in a diminished state, some future Xbox games have been outright cancelled as a result of Microsoft’s restructuring, including Everwild and Perfect Dark. The bigger damage is the loss of talent. Greg Mayles, the lead designer on Donkey Kong Country and creative director of Sea of Thieves, is leaving Rare, according to Video Game Chronicle. ZeniMax Online Studios shared on X that director Matt Firor is also making an exit following the cancellation of the studio’s next MMO.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blizzard-is-giving-up-on-its-warcraft-mobile-game-amid-layoffs-215021940.html?src=rss 

President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” has squeaked through the Senate in time for this weekend’s pyrotechnic celebrations. The bill festively shoots down a long list of environmental protection measures of all shapes and sizes, with the red glare of those rockets looking set to burn all current federal EV rebates in particular.

While the exact timing is still in flux, as things stand the $7,500 federal rebate for electric vehicles would expire not in 2032 as originally specified, but as soon as the end of September. It’s an abrupt, ignominious end to a series of incentives that, in some form or another, dates back to the George W. Bush administration.

This change doesn’t just cover new consumer vehicles, like the Kia EV9 or Volkswagen ID.Buzz. It also eliminates the $4,000 federal credit on used EVs, and even stands to kill rebates for commercial vehicles of the sort that inspired a whole new and weird generation of electric vans like those from Rivian and Arrival (RIP).

All those initiatives were meant to drive down the environmental impact of a transport industry that, combined, makes up 29 percent of total US greenhouse gas emissions. While that unfortunate environmental impact might not be immediately felt, for anyone considering buying an EV, some pain in the wallet is coming much sooner.

But it could have been worse.

A proposed annual EV tax

Earlier versions of the bill imposed a $250 annual fee for EV owners, and a still-spiteful $100 for hybrid owners. That fee would go into effect regardless of when you bought your wheels, so even if you were doing the electric thing before it was cool, you’d have been stuck with a substantial annual premium.

That fee was to be directed to the Highway Trust Fund, ostensibly ensuring that EV owners are paying their fair share for federal transportation infrastructure maintenance. The bulk of that funding comes from an 18.4 cents per-gallon tax on gasoline, which imprecisely ensures that drivers are paying roughly their fair share for highway use.

This supposed attempt at EV equivalence, however, was structured in a wildly disproportionate way. The average American drives 11,318 miles per year, according to the Department of Energy, which works out to just under $100 annually in taxes on gasoline. That’s less than half the proposed annual fee for EVs. Yes, electric cars and their heavy batteries do indeed wear out roads more quickly, but not to that degree.

That felt more than a little unfair, but lawmakers faced an even bigger roadblock: They literally couldn’t make such a fee structure work. “There is no mechanism today for the federal government to collect an annual fee,” Ohio Republican Senator Bernie Moreno told Politico.

Regardless of the reasoning, for now at least, this fee is no longer part of the bill.

The industry impact

American EV sales haven’t exactly been following the hockey stick growth that most industry experts had formerly been projecting. Still, it has been steadily trending upward. American EV sales in the first quarter of this year were up 10 percent, according to Cox Automotive, and that’s despite Tesla’s precipitous slide of late.

Considering the average cost of a new car in the US is $48,799, and the average cost of a new EV is $57,734, that $7,500 federal EV tax credit clearly makes a substantial difference in bridging that gap. Assuming the Big Bill passes, that bridge will be demolished in just a few months time.

While it’s impossible to say how much the American EV market’s growth has been driven by those incentives, we can look at the impact such cuts have had in other markets. Germany’s Climate and Transformation Fund paid out €10 billion between 2016 and 2023, chipping in towards the purchase of 2.1 million EVs.

EV sales declined in Germany by 16.4 percent through the first half of 2024 after that program ended. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, EV sales continued to grow by nearly 10 percent. It’s looking like it was only a temporary setback, though. In the first five months of this year, German EV registrations are up more than 40 percent. That, again, is despite Tesla’s particularly steep decline there.

Brands and chargers

As to which manufacturers will be most impacted, it stands to reason that buyers looking for with lower-priced EV offerings — cars from brands like Hyundai, Kia and Nissan — will take this change the hardest; buyers of premium brands — like Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Porsche — will be a little less dissuaded. Regardless, it should come as no surprise that not a single vehicle manufacturer is found in the list of endorsements for the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

You will, however, find a who’s who of players in the petrochemical world, like the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Coterra.

The bill won’t just kill incentives for EV buyers or leasers. America’s charging infrastructure is also set to take a hit thanks to the repeal of the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit. This covered up to 30 percent of the cost of EV charger installation, encouraging more businesses to put more chargers in more places.

Deleting that credit certainly won’t help the stubbornly slow buildout of America’s charging infrastructure.

Silver lining

Critics of the American federal credit program have long said that it was too frequently used by wealthy buyers to chip a little off the cost of their next luxury EV. That, at least, is being addressed in one of the bill’s other transportation-related changes, something that could actually be a positive for many Americans.

The bill includes a new tax deduction that could help modern shoppers saddled with debt after a car purchase. If passed, the bill would allow buyers with car or motorcycle loans to claim up to $10,000 in interest per year on their taxes.

This applies to vehicles regardless of propulsion type, meaning EVs and hybrids qualify, but there are plenty of other criteria, including that the vehicle must be for personal use, cannot have a salvage title, and must have undergone final assembly in the United States. Beyond that, to claim the full deduction, individuals must have an adjusted gross income (AGI) of less than $150,000 if filing as an individual, or $250,000 for a married couple filing jointly.

What now?

If you’re a shopper who’s been on the fence about buying an EV, it’s safe to say that now would be a very good time to pull the trigger. And I do mean now. The federal rebate may carry through September, but extra dealer incentives will be drying up quicker than crocodile tears.

If, on the other hand, you’re a manufacturer of EVs, chances are there’s not a lot you can do right now. The auto industry was not designed to react to the whims of our current presidential administration and the gasoline-loving special interests that fuel it. Hopefully, the success of your business wasn’t tied to the continued existence of federal incentives — or, indeed, a lack of import tariffs.

Going forward, American EV offerings will need to be one of two things: Priced on par with the internal combustion competition, or so fundamentally compelling that they’re worth the extra cost. If your vehicles don’t meet that criteria, come October you might have a problem.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/trumps-big-beautiful-bill-is-bad-for-american-evs-but-it-could-have-been-worse-210155196.html?src=rss 

French video game giant Ubisoft has been embroiled in a multiyear saga regarding a toxic company culture, multiple sexual harassment investigations and harassment suits filed by former employees. In 2023, five former Ubisoft executives were arrested on various charges related to these investigations. On Wednesday, a French court sentenced three of them to suspended sentences for enabling a culture rife with sexual and psychological harassment.

Former editorial vice president Thomas Francois was convicted on additional charges of attempted sexual assault and received a suspended three-year term. Francois was alleged to have perpetrated a bevy of sexual assaults at the workplace and held a pattern of egregious sexual harassment.

Various other executives, including former chief creative officer Serge Hascoet and former games director Guillaume Patrux, were sentenced to shorter suspended sentences. They also faced fines of up to $35,000. These convictions come years after anonymous reports of a toxic work culture at Ubisoft began spreading online, and the company launched an internal investigation.

Maude Beckers, an attorney for the plaintiffs, celebrated the convictions as a victory against workplace harassment, saying, “This is a very good decision today and for the future.” She added, “For all companies, it means that when there is toxic management, managers must be held accountable and employers can no longer let it slide.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/former-ubisoft-executives-convicted-in-france-184919411.html?src=rss 

You can add Perplexity to the growing list of AI companies offering $200+ per month subscription plans to users who want unlimited access to their most advanced products and tools. As of today, Perplexity Max is available on iOS and the web. 

The subscription comes with unlimited monthly usage of Labs, the agentic creation tool Perplexity released this past May. People can use Labs to generate spreadsheets, presentations, web applications and more. Perplexity is also promising early access to new features, including Comet, a new web browser the company claims will be a “powerful thought partner for everything you do on the web.” The company adds Max subscribers will receive priority customer support, as well as access to top frontier models from partners like Anthropic and OpenAI.     

Perplexity will continue to offer its existing Pro plan, which remains $20 per month. Admittedly, the company is courting a small demographic with the new subscription, noting it’s primarily designed for content designers, business strategists and academic research.  

OpenAI was the first to open the floodgates of very expensive AI subscriptions when it began offering its ChatGPT Pro plan at the end of last year. Since then, Anthropic, Google have followed suit. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/perplexity-joins-anthropic-and-openai-in-offering-a-200-per-month-subscription-191715149.html?src=rss 

Neil Druckmann, head of the PlayStation studio Naughty Dog and co-creator of The Last of Us, is stepping away from the HBO show based on the 2013 game and its 2020 sequel to focus his work on Naughty Dog’s next game. On Instagram, the studio published the following statement from Druckmann:

“I’ve made the difficult decision to step away from my involvement in The Last of Us on HBO. With work completed on season 2 and before any meaningful work starts on season 3, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects, including writing and directing our exciting next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, along with my responsibilities as Studio Head and Head of Creative.”

He went on to thanks showrunner Craig Mazin (on the left in the above photo) as well as the cast and crew he worked with on the first two seasons and called working on the show a “career highlight” Druckmann was credited as executive producer and co-creator of the show and he directed one episode in each of the show’s two seasons as well as contributing writing to several others. The bulk of the show itself was written by Mazin.

This comes after a fairly rocky reception for The Last of Us season two. The challenge of adapting the story of the second video game led to some decisions that didn’t sit well with both fans of the games as well as those who were new to the world via the show. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, there was also an inordinate amount of online vitriol directed towards Druckmann and Mazin for some of the changes they made to adapt the game into a TV series.

For my part, I thought season two was well-done, with continued excellent acting but issues with pace due in part to it only being seven episodes long. But I can also agree there are a number of fair criticisms to make about how the show was plotted — it probably stuck too closely to the timeline of the game, and the finale left things up in the air to what must be a frustrating degree for people who don’t know the storyline from playing the games. 

As such, this is probably the right time for the show’s creative team to get shaken up. Mazin still obviously has the rest of The Last of Us Part II to base the next season of the show on, and it’s entirely possible he’ll be working with Halley Gross on season three as well. She co-wrote several episodes of season two after co-writing the second game with Druckmann. 

That said, Druckmann co-wrote and directed one of the best episodes of the entire series (season two’s “The Price”) and did solid behind-the-camera work in season one’s “Infected” as well. Not to mention the fact that he knows these characters better than basically anyone alive — it’s plausible to wonder just how things will change without his influence going forward. On the other hand, this change might re-focus the show’s creative team and help correct parts of season two where things just didn’t land as fans had hoped. It’s far too early to tell, but it’ll be worth seeing if Mazin brings on anyone else to back him up — and if he does, if that person has experience with the game or is focused solely on the TV world. Someone with some distance from how the story was told in the games might be the right choice to help the show stand on its own.

Regardless of what happens, it’ll be a while before we find out how this all shakes out — as Druckmann said, there’s no “meaningful work” done on season 3 yet, so we will probably have to wait until 2027 to see how these changes impact the show.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-last-of-us-co-creator-neil-druckmann-is-stepping-away-from-the-show-to-focus-on-future-games-182136370.html?src=rss 

The Initiative, the Xbox studio developing a modern reimagining of Perfect Dark, is being shut down, and development of the game is ending. As first reported by Windows Central, the studio’s closure is part of major cuts Microsoft is making across its business, affecting around four percent of the company’s global workforce.

Based on a memo from Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty obtained by Windows Central, which Microsoft has confirmed is genuine, the decision to close The Initiative was born out of the cancellation of Perfect Dark, rather than the other way around. “We have made the decision to stop development of Perfect Dark and Everwild as well as wind down several unannounced projects across our portfolio,” Booty wrote. “As part of this, we are closing one of our studios, The Initiative.”

Rare’s Everwild was previously reported to be one of the projects impacted by Microsoft’s layoffs. The game was announced in 2019 but has had a troubled development, even starting from scratch in 2021. Perfect Dark, based on the older Rare game of the same name, was supposed to be The Initiative’s first project. The game was being co-developed in partnership with Crystal Dynamics. The first gameplay footage of the Perfect Dark reboot was shown in 2024.

While cancelled games are the most visible impact of Microsoft’s layoffs, it increasingly sounds like countless studios will end up being affected in one way or another. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier writes that Call of Duty studio Raven is also facing cuts, and Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 could end up losing around 50 percent of its staff.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/microsoft-is-closing-the-studio-developing-the-perfect-dark-reboot-and-cancelling-the-game-182257902.html?src=rss