What do you mean by outdated? Most captchas are there to help them train their next ML model. Relevant xkcd:

https://xkcd.com/2228/

Not just the U.S.
Avalanche Studios has their headquarters in Sweden and they’re closing their studio in Canada (per this article). Additionally, Phoenix Labs (Dauntless & Fae Farm) is a Canadian game developer and they just let go of a significant number of developers and cancelled all future projects (about 3 weeks ago): https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/dauntless-developer-phoenix-labs-lays-off-employees-and-cancels-in-development-projects-says-its-the-last-resort-to-ensure-phoenix-labs-can-survive/

While Microsoft was the one shutting down multiple Game Developers last month, those studios are also based all over:
Tango Gameworks - Japan
Alpha Dog Games - Canada
Arkane Studios - (Headquarters in France, but shutting down their Studio in the U.S.)
Roundhouse Studios - U.S.

Edit: formatting

How many game studios is that within a 2 month period?!

Well… good thing I’ve been buying what I can through GOG… but this is terrible news, especially with the way Microsoft has been shutting down gaming studios recently.

Edit: meh, this just sounds like clickbait:

• The leak comes from an unknown and unreliable source in the gaming industry.
• Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard faced regulatory challenges, making the merger with Valve unlikely.

Can you provide some context for this? Which petition is this about?

@sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works proposed this theory the other day, and I think it makes a lot of sense. A lot of journalists are feeling threatened by the onslaught of LLMs so I would expect to see a lot more news attempting to shine a negative light on LLMs in any way possible.

https://sh.itjust.works/comment/11586805

There’s a place for AI in NPCs but developers will have to know how to implement it correctly or it will be a disaster.

LLMs can be trained on specific characters and backstories, or even “types” of characters. If they are trained correctly they will stay in character as well as be reactive in more ways than any scripted character could ever do. But if the Devs are lazy and just hook it up to ChatGPT with a simple prompt telling it to “pretend” to be some character, then it’s going to be terrible like you say.

Now, this won’t work very well for games where you’re trying to tell a story like Baldur’s Gate… instead this is better for more open world games where the player is interacting with random characters that don’t need to follow specific scripts.

Even then it won’t be everything. Just because an LLM can say something “in-character” doesn’t mean it will line up with its in-game actions. So additional work will need to be made to help tie actions to the proper kind of responses.

If a studio is able to do it right, this has game changing potential… but I’m sure we’ll see a lot of rushed work done before anyone pulls it off well.

That makes sense, but I haven’t seen any official announcement from Steam saying that they did this. Only speculation from random people. Any documentation I can find just seems to point to this being a decision that’s made by the company releasing the game (or in this case Sony as the publisher).

Besides, only a few hours ago 3 new countries were added to the restricted list: https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/history/?changeid=23492083

I doubt that Steam is still trying to block additional countries given that Sony has already announced that the PSN account requirement is being withdrawn.

Steam doesn’t control the region locks.

The publisher (Sony) is the one that makes changes to their store page which affects where it can be sold.

Most of their Devs quit because they didn’t want to work on it: https://www.pcgamer.com/report-most-of-arkane-austins-prey-veterans-quit-during-redfalls-development-and-the-ones-that-stayed-hoped-microsoft-would-cancel-it/

Looks like someone setup a petition for Spitz to get rehired. https://www.change.org/p/re-hire-the-legendary-community-manager-general-spitz

Better/additional info here: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/third-person-shooter/helldivers-2-community-manager-seemingly-fired-after-encouraging-negative-reviews-over-now-canceled-psn-mandate-i-knew-i-was-taking-a-risk-with-what-i-said/

Spitz:

“Generally it’s not a good idea to tell people to refund and leave negative reviews when you’re a community manager. TIL,” Spitz said. “I appreciate all the support and I appreciate even more that everyone can play the game again without restrictions. I knew I was taking a risk with what I said about refunding and changing reviews. I stand by it. It was my job to represent the community, that’s what I did.”

They added: “I wanted to work for Arrowhead because they’re my all-time favorite studio. I got that chance. I’m thankful for that opportunity. I’d happily continue working for them if I had the choice, but that isn’t up to me or anyone else in here. I can walk away happy and I don’t want anyone causing trouble on my behalf, especially not to people I still have a lot of care and respect for.”

This definitely sounds like Sony wanted them out and Arrowhead wanted them to stay.

Games made by the studios being closed: