Gaming, in brief

Godzilla Minus Zero, a Japanese monster film, took $14.5 million in North America on Friday, counting Thursday's early shows. [1]

That puts it on course for about $32 million this weekend. [1] Godzilla Minus One opened to $11.4 million in 2023. [2]

It is only the fourth non-English film ever to top the US box office. [2] The others are The Passion of the Christ, Hero and the anime Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle. [2]

Japan's government wants overseas sales of Japanese films, shows and other content to reach $127 billion by 2033. [9]

Godzilla Minus One was the most-watched film on streaming last week, says JustWatch, a streaming guide. [2] TheWrap reads that as new viewers catching up. [2]

Media economists call it the cultural discount: a film earns less abroad when its language and setting are foreign. [4]

Only 4 non-English films have ever topped the US box office, so the discount is usually steep. [2]

Yamazaki says making Minus One for Japan's own viewers "became our greatest strength". [10]

A song in a language you do not speak needs a great tune before you play it twice.

The $32 million and $31 million are estimates built on Friday's takings, not final counts. [1][2]

The weekend of 13 to 15 November will show whether Minus One's fans simply rushed in first. [2]

Yamazaki puts a third Godzilla film at "fifty-fifty". [10] His next film is Grandgear, an English-language robot film. [10]

Toho made Godzilla Minus Zero for a reported budget in the mid-teens of millions of dollars, and it is estimated at $31 million to $32 million in its first North American weekend. [1][2]

It has owned GKIDS, the film's North American distributor, since October 2024, so the release runs through its own company. [5]

Whether its crowds hold up in the second weekend.

TheWrap says fans of Minus One may simply have rushed in first, which only the next weekend's count can show. [2]

Godzilla Minus Zero, made in Japanese for a reported budget in the mid-teens of millions of dollars, became only the fourth non-English film to top the US box office.

Blizzard says World of Warcraft: Forever had "the biggest launch in WoW history by peak concurrent players". [14]

That means the most people playing at the same moment. [14] It also claims the most returning players in the game's history. [14]

Forever, which opened on 4 November, starts again from the 2004 game, with modern visuals. [14]

Its executive producer, Holly Longdale, said it drew the most new players to a WoW launch in 15 years. [20]

Blizzard first tried the idea in Season of Discovery, a 2023 mode that remixed the old game. [21]

Players' response to that mode is what got Forever made, designer Josh Greenfield told Bloomberg. [21]

Forever comes with the usual WoW subscription, so each returning player pays Blizzard again. [14]

Product managers call this a market test: try an idea small before paying to build it in full. [21]

Season of Discovery's success helped convince Blizzard's leaders to approve Forever. [21]

A cafe sells a new cake as a weekend special before it goes on the menu.

Blizzard no longer publishes subscriber numbers, so its records cannot be checked against a count. [14]

Its first raids, big group missions, open on 9 December. [22]

Several other big claims today come with no number behind them: Blizzard's record WoW launch, Bit Reactor's layoffs and Sony's delayed speakers. [14][18][19]

A word like record or biggest sounds like a measurement, so a claim with no figure in it gets repeated as if it had one.

WoW: Forever comes with the standard WoW subscription, so every returning player pays it again. [14]

How many people WoW: Forever really drew.

Blizzard no longer publishes subscriber numbers, so its records have no count behind them. [14]

Blizzard says WoW: Forever drew more new players than any WoW launch in 15 years.

Bit Reactor, the studio behind the tactics game Star Wars Zero Company, has laid off staff. [18]

Developers posted the news on LinkedIn on 6 November. [18] The studio has not said how many lost their jobs. [18]

Ryan Lopez, an environment artist on the game for three and a half years, was one. [18]

"While it stings, I'm really proud of what we built together," Lopez wrote. [18]

Before the game came out on 27 August, about 80% of staff were furloughed, one source says. [18]

The studio appeared to have run out of money just before release. [18]

The game then sold 1 million copies within a month. [23]

On 7 October its boss, Greg Foertsch, said staff were returning. [18] More than half are thought to have come back. [18]

Selling 1 million copies was not enough to bring everyone back, PC Gamer notes. [23]

Employers use a furlough to pause a worker's job without ending it. [24]

Foertsch said the furlough was needed "to help us eventually bring as many people back as possible". [18]

A shop sends staff home in a quiet week, hoping the busy season pays for their return.

It is not clear whether staff who came back in October are among those now laid off. [18]

Some spent years on Zero Company and lost their jobs after months of furlough, though the game sold well. [18][23]

On 6 November Sony delayed its Pulse Elevate speakers, due on sale on 12 November. [19]

Sony said its quality tests had found "a production issue", and gave no new date. [25]

Pulse Elevate is Sony's first pair of wireless speakers for gaming at a desk. [25]

They cost $219.99 in the US and work with the PS5, PCs, Macs and the PlayStation Portal handheld. [19]

Pre-orders opened in September, and some online hardware reviewers appear to have received theirs. [26]

People who pre-ordered do not know what happens to their orders, as Sony has named no refund policy. [26]

Quality engineers teach that a fault costs more to fix the later it is found. [25]

Sony's fault was found after pre-orders opened in September, so the fix now holds up every order. [26]

Finding a typo before printing costs a pen stroke; finding it after costs a reprint.

Sony has not said what the fault is, or how many speakers were made before it was found. [19]

Their speakers will not arrive on the planned day, and Sony has named no new date or refund policy. [26]

What went wrong with Sony's Pulse Elevate speakers, and what happens to pre-orders.

Sony named only a production issue, with no new date and no refund policy. [25][26]

OLM, the Japanese studio that makes the Pokemon cartoons, has built an AI tool that colours anime frames. [11]

An artist paints 3 frames by hand, and the tool learns that show's colours in about 90 seconds. [11]

It then colours each remaining frame in about 15 seconds. [11]

Yotsukura Tatsuo, a board director at OLM Digital, estimates it cut painting work by about 30% at the trial stage. [11]

OLM has about 600 staff in Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and the US. [11]

The tool came from a 15-month project under GENIAC, a Japanese government AI programme. [11]

Blue Spirit, the French studio behind Netflix's Blue Eye Samurai, says it may not use AI on Netflix projects. [11]

OLM is hired after a show's budget is set. [11] It sees AI as a way to gain creative freedom within that budget, not to shrink it. [11]

Labour economists call that a complement: when a machine speeds one job, the job beside it grows. [11]

The tool paints faster, so more finished frames reach OLM's checkers, who now have somewhat more to do. [11]

A faster dishwasher makes more work for whoever dries the plates.

The 30% is Yotsukura's own estimate from a trial, not a count from a finished series. [11]

Why a studio saves up changes and makes them all at once

Some costs are paid every time a job starts

They are the same for a small job or a big one

So more work per start makes each piece cheaper

So makers save work up and do it in fewer, bigger runs

The price is waiting: each piece sits until its run begins

Ten changes sent together cost Studio Meta-K one extra render. The same ten changes sent one a day cost it ten renders.

Studio Meta-K's own example: the same 10 changes to one film, sent two ways.

The tool spends about 90 seconds learning a show from 3 painted frames, then 15 seconds a frame, so a long run pays the learning back.

Crave is filming seasons 2 and 3 in one run and the film straight after, so one production run covers what could have been three shoots.

Every season ends in a full wipe and a new update, and Bulkhead now runs 3-month seasons, which it says gives the team more time to prepare each one.

Saving work up only pays when waiting is cheap.

A client who sends one note a day sees a small request each time.

Faster AI colouring sends them more frames to review, so they have somewhat more to do. [11]

Kim Kwang-jib, head of Korea's Studio Meta-K, warned in Taipei that AI films could cost more than 35mm film. [12]

He said the AI bill for a 100-minute film can top 500 million won, about $366,000, with the costliest tools. [12]

AI firms are losing money and keep prices low for now, he said. [12] At ten times the price, that bill could be about $3.66 million. [12]

Korean and Taiwanese features usually cost $2.2 million to $3.66 million, he said. [12]

Each change means paying to render, or redraw, the scene again. [12]

Kim said 10 changes sent at once cost 1 extra render. [12] Sent one a day for 10 days, they need 10 renders. [12]

So a film's final budget depends on how few rounds of changes it has, he said. [12]

Operations managers call this a setup cost: a cost paid each time work starts, however small the job. [12]

Each render is one setup, so 10 changes in a single render share one cost between them. [12]

Running a washing machine for one sock uses as much water as a full load.

Kim's numbers are for the costliest paid tools; his studio uses free open-source tools for easy shots. [12]

Raphael, a 139-minute Korean feature made with AI by MBC C&I, opens in Korean cinemas on 25 November. [12]

What AI tools will cost film studios in a year or two.

Studio Meta-K's boss says AI firms are losing money and keeping prices low, and nobody has said when or how far prices will rise. [12]

Heated Rivalry, a hit ice-hockey romance series, is filming seasons 2 and 3 back to back, Deadline reports. [17]

A film is due to shoot in December, straight after, for cinemas the following December. [17]

The series is made for Crave, a Canadian streaming service, and streams on HBO Max in the US. [17]

Season 1 premiered on 28 November last year and made its 2 leads, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, famous. [17]

The film is said to follow the show's other couple, Scott and Kip, without the 2 leads. [17]

This weekend, 880 cinemas are showing season 1 in pairs of episodes. [17] They took $420,000 on Friday. [17]

Regal's own distribution arm is putting the streaming show in cinemas, so it earns a second time. [17]

Crave says there are "no projects to confirm", and the report rests on unnamed sources. [17]

Season 2 is due in spring 2027, probably in April. [17]

Crave is filming seasons 2 and 3 in one run and the film straight after, so one production run covers what could have been three shoots.

Its distribution arm sells cinema tickets for a series people can already stream at home. [17]

Whether Heated Rivalry has really been given a third season and a film.

Deadline's report rests on unnamed sources, and Crave says it has no projects to confirm. [17]

A fan team released Mass Effect 3's online team mode for the game's Legendary Edition on 7 November. [15]

It is free for anyone who owns Mass Effect Legendary Edition, the 2021 remaster of the trilogy. [15]

The 2021 remaster had left the online mode out, though it had loyal players. [15]

The team, ME3Tweaks, began the project on 7 November 2023, Kotaku reports. [27]

It adds new modes, redrawn textures and controller support, and players can run their own servers. [28]

It came out weeks after EA closed BioWare, the studio that made Mass Effect. [15]

Modder Audemus says fans have always tried to "carry the torch for this franchise", and now feel it more. [28]

Economists call a cost of getting into a market a barrier to entry. [29]

Mgamerz, who leads the team, says modding's difficulty used to filter out poor mods, and AI tools are removing it. [29]

When anyone can post a recipe online, finding a good one takes longer.

Mgamerz says "modding is kind of dying", though he also says AI is bringing new people in. [29]

After three years of work, fans brought back a mode the remaster left out, free to its owners. [15]

The fans' free online mode for Mass Effect 3 works only for people who own EA's Legendary Edition. [15]

Mgamerz says they now have to work in secret, because others can copy an idea with AI in a day or two. [29]

A fan team called ME3Tweaks released Mass Effect 3's online mode for the Legendary Edition on 7 November, free to anyone who owns the game, after three years of work.

Bulkhead, the studio behind the shooter Wardogs, is banning 185,000 player accounts. [30]

It says it permanently banned exploiters, real-money traders and gold-farming groups, which sell in-game money for cash. [30]

Its anti-cheat system studied 187 million hours of play, with help from machine learning. [30]

Wardogs is a 100-player shooter, sold unfinished in early access on Steam since 10 September. [30]

Season 3 starts on 12 November with a new city map and a full wipe of player progress. [30]

From now on each season lasts 3 months, giving the team more time to prepare updates. [30]

Its boss, Joe Brammer, said protecting fair players "is essential to everything we're building". [30]

Game designers call this a wipe: everyone's progress resets, so all players start the season level. [30]

Bulkhead says Season 2 moved players along "too aggressively", so Season 3 moves closer to Season 1's pace. [30]

A new school year starts everyone in a new class, whatever they did last year.

A player "trust score" is planned for 2027. [30]

Every season ends in a full wipe and a new update, and Bulkhead now runs 3-month seasons, which it says gives the team more time to prepare each one.

Christopher Nolan, president of the Directors Guild of America, says studios must protect their films from AI copying. [13]

He said the legal notice at the end of his film The Odyssey forbids its use as AI training data. [13]

He said it was the first time the notice had carried that message. [13]

"With very few exceptions in the Guild, we are not the copyright holders," Nolan said. [13]

So it is down to the studios that own the films to go after AI copies, he said. [13]

Directors' residuals, payments when a film earns again, depend on studios making money from those copyrights, he said. [13]

Lawyers call this standing: only the owner of a right can go to court over it. [13]

Directors rarely own their films' copyright, so their guild must push the studios to sue. [13]

Only a bike's owner can report it stolen, even if a friend rides it every day.

Nolan's view that fair use "won't hold up in court" is his own forecast. [13] He says some rulings already went against AI firms. [13]

Ubisoft is reportedly making an Assassin's Creed game set in ancient Rome, codenamed Mars. [31]

A second game, codenamed Pocket, is said to be a phone game set in Jerusalem. [31]

The claims come from a YouTuber, Xj0nathan, who says 2 sources with access to Ubisoft's systems backed them. [31]

Insider Gaming, a games news site, says it heard the codenames but could not confirm them. [31]

The series went to Rome before, in 2010's Brotherhood, but set in the Renaissance. [31]

The Rome game may tie in with the coming Assassin's Creed TV series, Xj0nathan says. [31]

Neither the YouTuber nor Insider Gaming names its sources. [31]

Insider Gaming does not expect news of Mars until 2029 or 2030. [31]

Whether Ubisoft is making Assassin's Creed games set in Rome and Jerusalem.

The claim comes from a YouTuber's sources, and Insider Gaming could not confirm it well enough to report it. [31]

Shawn Layden, a former head of PlayStation, says the next PlayStation does not need more power. [32]

He said the real step forward would be "to make another PS5 for $300". [32]

Sony sold the PS4 for $399 when it was new, he recalled. [32]

The PS5 and Xbox Series consoles now cost more than at their launch 6 years ago. [32]

GamesRadar ties the rises to a shortage of memory chips, as AI data centres buy them up. [32]

Layden says high prices shut out the buyers who usually join late in a console's life, when it is cheaper. [32]

He called it the first console family he has seen go up in price over time. [32]

GOG, an online shop that sells PC games without copy protection, says its Galaxy app is coming to Linux. [33]

Linux is a free computer operating system, an alternative to Windows and macOS. [33]

Galaxy is GOG's desktop app for keeping games from several shops in one library. [33]

GOG announced it at its first GOG Showcase, an online event, on Thursday. [33]