National

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

Gaming

Axios Gaming

A somber montage aired annually during the Game Developers Choice Awards has become one of the key ways the video game industry honors its dead.

Why it matters: The gaming industry, and the culture around it, is no longer young. As the decades stack up, more of gaming’s pioneers and its day-to-day contributors are passing on, creating a need to recognize them.

The opportunities to do so have developed informally, and those who strive to honor pioneers face the challenge of even being aware of lesser-known but vital people from gaming’s past.

Details: The GDC Awards, which will be held Wednesday night in San Francisco (6:30pm PT) and streamed on Twitch, will include an In Memoriam reel for about 40 people.

As in years past, honorees include game developers, executives and even members of the media.

Among the names: longtime Sega producer Rieko Kodama (Skies of Arcadia), Sound Blaster creator Sim Wong Hoo and Andrii Korzinkin, an animator for Metro Exodus who died fighting in the war to defend Ukraine.

This year’s list will also include my friend and former colleague, Kotaku reporter Mike Fahey.

The big picture: The GDC Awards’ In Memoriam reel remains relatively unusual.

The glitzy Game Awards, airing each December with Oscars-chasing pomp, do not include one. Nor does the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) awards held annually in February at the DICE convention.

GDC organizers first produced an In Memoriam reel for the 2013 edition of the awards, honoring a handful of developers.

“There were more important people from video games passing on every year, and we thought they should be commemorated,” former GDC organizer Simon Carless, who worked on the early lists, tells Axios.

What they’re saying: “It's important to honor the industry and who shaped it and where we've been,” GDC manager Stephenie Hawkins tells Axios.

This year’s montage will include double the names usually honored, gathered as a result of outreach to a wide range of GDC advisers and obituaries run in the event’s sister publication Game Developer.

“I don't know that there's more people that have passed away this year,” Hawkins says. “We just got more responses this year than we ever have before.”

Yes, but even with expanded efforts, the list has largely been male, raising questions about the lack of diversity in gaming’s roots or lost awareness of hidden figures.

“I think it's dangerous to just say like, ‘Oh, well, the industry is only recently getting diverse,’” says Game Developer senior editor Bryant Francis, who has been helping assemble the In Memoriam reels since 2016.

Francis says that many people from marginalized backgrounds leave the industry early, often because their path is harder. That makes it more challenging to recognize their impact when they pass, he says, instilling the need for more thorough searches when assembling each year’s list.

Former GDC director Meggan Scavio helped launch the reel a decade ago and now oversees the AIAS show. “We regularly debate adding an In Memoriam section, but I always get stuck wondering if it's more meaningful and impactful to let this tribute remain a focused and special event,” she tells Axios.

“If the GDCAs ever stop doing them, however, the academy would 100% carry the mantle. No question.”

Video game developer Don Daglow, whose career dates back to creating games for PDP-10 mainframes in the early 1970s, has been building an online memorial to game industry figures who have died.

Since 2017, he has maintained a publicly sourced list of more than 600 people, noting the year of their death and their contribution to the scene.

Carless cites Daglow’s list as a key resource for the awards show’s effort years ago.

Daglow tells Axios he takes extra effort to acknowledge obscure industry veterans.

“In 2013, when my longtime friend and art director David Bunnett died of a heart attack, I started thinking about the ‘memory disparity’ in our industry,” he says.

He observed that bigger-name developers at least had their names memorialized in online databases for game credits. More unsung contributors — people in sales, finance, HR and IT — “had nothing.”

“I also noticed how some of my game dev friends who had passed away had no record of their death anywhere online, and that made the disparity in being remembered so clear to me that I became even more determined to grow and maintain the project,” he says.

Continued updates: Daglow adds about one name a week, relying on messages from peers and the public, as he tries to corroborate people’s passing.

“The list, sadly, has now grown quite long,” he says.

“But even with people from all over the world sending me updates on someone I've missed, I know that the list of our lost community members is far from complete.

“It scares me how often I learn of someone's passing via a friend's post on social media — and without that one post there'd be nothing about it online.”

Sign up for the Axios Gaming newsletter here.

Paying tribute to video game pioneers

More of gaming’s pioneers are passing on, creating a need to recognize them.

Illustration of an animated pixelated candle.

Video games

Netflix plans to launch 40 more video games before the end of 2023, as it pushes forward with its plans to be a global force in gaming, company reps tell Axios.

Why it matters: With a massive subscriber base of more than 200 million people and a drive to find new areas of growth, Netflix is signaling that its investment in games is just getting started.

Driving the news: The company has 70 games in the works from external partners and 16 games in various stages of development from Netflix’s growing roster of internal game studios. (Some of those teams were acquired, some built.)

Upcoming games include an April exclusive from Ubisoft called Mighty Quest: Rogue Palace, an unspecified tie-in to a Netflix show from Super Evil Megacorp and a 2024 re-release of the iconic mobile puzzle series Monument Valley – which first appeared on Netflix in a very different way back in 2015.

Be smart: Netflix has been offering games through its mobile app at no extra cost to subscribers since late 2021.

The company has launched 55 games so far, from indies and one big publisher: Ubisoft.

The roster includes acclaimed multi-platform games such as Immortality and Into The Breach as well as spin-offs of Netflix shows (the platform’s most popular game is a tie-in to Netflix reality show “Too Hot To Handle”).

What they’re saying: "Our north star is to become a world-class publisher who delivers must-play games to our millions of members around the world,” Netflix’s VP of external games, Leanne Loombe, tells Axios.

Loombe says members have been especially receptive to new and exclusive games, “so you’ll be seeing more of those going forward.”

The company intends to keep working with indies and large-scale publishers beyond just Ubisoft, Loombe says.

To increase awareness, Netflix has experimented with promoting some games via QR codes that prompt TV viewers to get games. “We are still early in our journey but we are constantly evolving and testing out new ways for our members to discover the games they love,” Loombe says.

Between the lines: Among the most intriguing aspects of the Netflix operation is how its gaming business model works.

Games on the service are offered for free to paying subscribers and have no in-app purchases.

“As with film and TV our game deals are based on flat fees,” Loombe says. "Additionally for games, we pay for development costs depending on the deal terms.”

She described Netflix’s gaming deals as flexible. “We do not have a standard contract or deal term sheet — everything is tailored to the game and the developer we are working with.”

Yes, but for all of Netflix’s bravado, other tech and entertainment giants that have committed to the industry have retreated after learning how rare success in the field is.

Just a few years ago, Google was building game studios, signing games and launching a game-streaming platform, only to shut it all down by January after failing to gain traction.

Netflix plans 40 more game releases in 2023

The streaming giant wants to offer more exclusive games for subscribers.

Illustration of an 8-bit video game screen with a Netflix logo.

Pro Rata

Axios Pro Rata

Closer

Axios Closer

Amazon on Monday announced plans to lay off another 9,000 employees, on top of the 18,000 layoffs announced in January.

Why it matters: These layoffs come shortly after Facebook announced a second round of cuts, suggesting that other tech giants may still believe they're overstaffed. 

Previously targeted roles were within low-margin Amazon devices and retail units.

New cuts will come primarily from Amazon's advertising, Twitch, Amazon Web Services and PXT (people, experience and tech) units. 

Between the lines: The company is worried about a slowdown in its strongest businesses. 

AWS sales grew 29% in 2022 over 2021, while advertising sales grew 21%.

Comparatively, physical stores saw 11% sales growth, online stores declined 1%, and the company’s overall top line ticked up 9%.

The big picture: Cloud customers are belt-tightening, and ad spend is expected to further slow this year.

What they're saying: "Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a note to employees today.

"The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible."

What to watch: Jassy said that he expects “impacted teams” to make their final decisions on “precisely which roles” will be cut by mid-to-late April.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional context throughout.

Amazon to lay off 9,000 more employees

These cuts come on top of the 18,000 layoffs that Amazon previously announced.

Illustration of a giant Amazon logo surrounded by orange cones.

Amazon

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Every 15 years or so, it seems, the U.S. economy rolls into a ditch — and the tech industry pulls something remarkable out of its labs. Here we are again!

State of play: Silicon Valley's favorite bank has failed, while its top firms continue to lay off hordes of workers — but at the same time, industry leaders foresee vast new growth spurred by AI.

Be smart: If that split-screen snapshot looks confusing, remember that tech's story is one long boom-bust cycle. Each new era gets built upon the ruins of the past.

Look closely at that story and you'll see that all of tech's great transitions have unfolded in times of financial turmoil.

Experts and economists agree that a key factor behind today's industry woes has been the Federal Reserve's inflation-countering interest-rate hikes.

But if you think today's 4.5% rates are high, turn your clock back to when the IBM PC was introduced in the summer of 1981: In that grim season, the Fed was charging borrowers around 17%.

The first great platform leap of modern times — from mainframes and minicomputers to the personal computers we  still use now — occurred as Fed chair Paul Volcker induced the sickeningly painful recession of 1981-82.

The rates Volcker set back then, duplicated today, would flatten 2023's overextended banks and businesses.

Tech's next leap, onto the global internet in the early '90s, happened as the U.S. struggled to restart its business engines after another recession — and Bill Clinton captured the White House under the banner, "It's the economy, stupid." 

The industry's third great shift in the late 2000s — as the iPhone's arrival heralded the smartphone era — took place in a landscape of business failure that we now call the Great Recession.

What's happening: Today, tech's optimists are casting ChatGPT and the new generation of AI it symbolizes as the industry's latest platform shift. 

They predict that, as in previous eras of business downturn and tech transition, innovation will slip the U.S. economic machine back into gear.

Yes, but: Tech's previous leaps have involved breakthroughs that promised to empower individuals, streamline businesses and summon entire new waves of startups into being.

For now, today's generative AI projects like ChatGPT, the new Bing, and image-creation tools like Midjourney and DALL-E require vast computing resources and cost a fortune to run. 

That means they're being developed directly by tech's dominant giant firms, or with their partnership and support.

Between the lines: Those big firms are the same ones that right now are laying off droves of employees.

Some of those cuts involve specialists in ethics, diversity and privacy who would otherwise have a chance to guide the early development of the technology in socially beneficial ways.

The big picture: Although tech has become an increasingly central economic player over the decades, the economy remains a much bigger machine, with retail, real estate, energy, health care and other sectors following their own dynamics.

Tech's innovations have changed how we work and play, but their impact on productivity remains a contested question among economists. 

The jury's still out on whether the generative AI boom will change the world as dramatically as proponents believe.

Tech industry builds in the ruins again

Silicon Valley's platform leaps always seem to happen in times of economic turmoil.

Illustration of hand cursor holding a hammer

Silicon Valley

Whats Next

Axios What's Next

After driving 2,500 miles in an electric Kia EV6, I recently took to Reddit to answer readers' questions about my journey — and 1 million people tuned in.

In case you missed it, I wanted to share some of the highlights with you, lightly edited for length and clarity.

Question: "How much planning and how many detours did you need to hit charge points on your journey?"

Answer: "I was really anxious before the trip — I won't lie! I had all these route-planning apps to consult, and I was wishing that it was all integrated into the car (Tesla does that, along with Mercedes-Benz and some others).

"I was especially nervous because my husband was doing the first leg alone and meeting me in Washington, D.C. But the apps are remarkably helpful once you figure out how to use them. I liked A Better Route Planner (ABRP) and PlugShare the most.

"Each day we would figure out where we were going and where to stop along the way. We did not have to take any big detours — unless you say driving 3–5 miles off the highway is a detour. That was not exactly convenient.

"Under the bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the federal government is spending $5 billion to put chargers all along the major highway corridors. They must be no more than 50 miles apart and no more than one mile from the highway. That's starting to happen now, and within a year or two, I think there will be no sweat for these types of road trips."

Joann’s great American EV road trip

The southbound leg of Joann's EV road trip. Data: Joann Muller; Map: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals

Question: "According to your article, you spent an extra four hours waiting at charging stations to save just $22 over what you would've paid in gas. Is there anything on the horizon ... to make the trade-off more palatable to the average driver?"

Answer: "It's an excellent point — I was surprised at how expensive it was to charge on the road. In fact, Electrify America jacked up its prices during our trip, so I opted for their monthly $4 membership fee, which knocked the price to 36 cents per kilowatt (from the new rate of 48 cents).

"Membership pricing is worth it if you're a frequent fast-charger. But don't forget that most of the time, hopefully, you'll be able to charge at home, and in that regard, you’ll save a lot of money that you're not spending at the gas station."

Answer: "The Kia EV6 is a great car. In fact, it won top honors in this year’s North American Car, Truck and Utility of the Year Awards. (Full disclosure: I'm a juror).

"Adaptive cruise control works great and is recommended on a road trip, because you want to drive as efficiently as possible. You can control the regenerative braking, and we did not have it set aggressively, so deceleration truly felt like any other car. It’s not the fastest EV on the market, but it had plenty of get-up-and-go for merging or passing.

Yes, but: "It has this one feature that drives me nuts ... this goofy system on the dash that toggles between radio/nav controls and climate controls. So if you want to change the temperature, you might accidentally increase the volume or zoom out on the map, because you were in the wrong mode."

Question: "What was your biggest surprise on your EV road trip?"

Answer: "The thing that many people don’t understand is the different levels of "fast-charging" and how even the fastest charger doesn't always deliver electricity as fast as advertised.

"The upshot: You don't really know when you arrive at a charging station how fast the energy will be delivered, and therefore how long you’re going to have to wait.

"Overall, I was fairly satisfied with a 20–25 minute recharge to 80%, but sometimes, if you’re unlucky, you could be there an hour!"

Your biggest electric car road trip questions, answered

Among the lessons we learned: Sometimes "fast-chargers" aren't really that fast.

Electric vehicles

Ominous forecasts about the impact of climate change serve as the backdrop for the world — led by U.S. lawmakers and companies — to debate big action on the problem, which could upend energy systems and our way of life.

Energy & Environment

A slew of school districts across the country are suing social media companies, alleging that the tech giants are contributing to a youth mental health crisis.

Catch up quick: The first of the lawsuits was filed in January by Seattle Public Schools, alleging that social media companies had intentionally designed and marketed their platforms to attract youth and had violated Washington state's public nuisance law.

Similar lawsuits were filed last month in Florida and New Jersey.

State of play: California's San Mateo County Board of Education and Superintendent Nancy Magee filed a lawsuit last Monday alleging that YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat as well as their parent companies are "knowingly creating this unprecedented mental health crisis."

The suit alleged that the companies used artificial intelligence and machine learning to intentionally design "their platforms to be addictive and to deliver harmful content to youth."

Pennsylvania's Bucks County filed a lawsuit last Wednesday in California federal court alleging that the companies running TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube have fueled the youth mental health crisis by designing and marketing their platforms in ways that "encourage youth addiction."

“For too long these companies have exploited developing minds without consequence, exchanging our children’s mental wellbeing for billions of dollars in ad revenue,” Bucks County Commissioner Chair Bob Harvie said in a press release.

The big picture: Experts have repeatedly warned of the connection between heavy social media use and mental health issues in children.

The San Mateo lawsuit points to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that showed youth were experiencing rising rates of poor mental health and suicide risk.

Social media companies have pointed to their parental control features and kids' safety efforts, arguing that younger users won't abandon these apps but it's important for parents to play a role in ensuring kids are using them in a healthy manner, Axios' Ashley Gold writes.

A Google spokesperson referred Axios back to a previous comment, saying, "we have invested heavily in creating safe experiences for children across our platforms and have introduced strong protections and dedicated features to prioritize their well being."

"Nothing is more important to us than the wellbeing of our community," a spokesperson for Snapchat told Axios in a statement, adding, "we are constantly evaluating how we continue to make our platform safer, including through new education, features and protections."

A spokesperson for TikTok declined to comment on pending litigation.

Editor's note: This article has been updated with a response from a TikTok spokesperson.

School districts sue tech giants over youth mental health crisis

The San Mateo County Board of Education alleged that social media platforms are intentionally designed to be addictive.

Logos of some social media applications seen on a smartphone screen. Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images

Social media

Big Tech

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.