It’s Game Awards season, y’all. That special time of the year when we gather together to celebrate video games and the people who make them… by watching expensive commercials briefly punctuated by the odd awards speech or musical performance. For better or worse, The Game Awards is the biggest night on the video game event calendar. But with the way things have been going, lately it’s been more “worse” than it has been “better.”
Technology
The Game Awards are losing their luster
Between host and industry hypeman Geoff Keighley’s two video game vanity projects, The Game Awards is older and ostensibly more mature than Summer Game Fest. Conceived in 2014 as a way to celebrate both the people who make and play games, the show has always been part awards ceremony, part commercial product. That idea has been executed with varying degrees of success. (Remember the Schick Hydrobot?) But for the last few years, it’s felt like the awards part was increasingly getting in the way of the commercial part.
That was felt most acutely during the 2023 Game Awards. Developers accepting statues were often drowned out by music or cut off by teleprompters asking them to “please wrap it up” after their roughly 30 seconds of allotted time. Muppets and Death Stranding director Hideo Kojima, though, had no such time limits enforced on them, with Aftermath calculating that 13 acceptance speeches could have fit inside the five minutes Kojima took to explain his game / not-game OD.
2023 was also the first full year into the now endemic video game labor crisis that saw developers laid off by the tens of thousands while studios of popular games got shut down. That crisis went by that year’s game awards with no acknowledgement, angering developers further. “I’m incredibly disappointed in Geoff Keighley for his silence on the state of the industry this year,” Monomi Park senior environment artist Dillon Sommerville told The Verge in 2023.
How to watch The Game Awards
On Thursday, December 11th at 5PM PT / 8PM ET the TGAs will be streamed on Twitch and YouTube. This year, Keighley has also signed a deal to beam the show live via Prime Video where it’ll be free to watch for Prime subscribers.
Keighley, perhaps responding to the bad optics, acknowledged the continuing labor issue in 2024. The Game Awards also introduced a new category, Game Changer, with its inaugural award going to Amir Satvat, a business development director at Tencent who created a resource to help laid-off developers find jobs.
But in the months since the 2024 awards, Keighley has once again been accused of poor treatment of the people he’s supposed to be celebrating. In 2020, The Game Awards announced a new initiative called The Future Class, designed to celebrate game makers, “who represent the bright, bold and inclusive future of video games.” Inductees are honored during the broadcast and provided with networking opportunities, mentorship programs, and other resources throughout the following year. However, there have been reports alleging that Keighley has ignored Future Class concerns and that resources from the program have been materially lacking.
In 2023, the Future Class wrote an open letter to The Game Awards and Keighley demanding recognition of the war in Gaza. This wasn’t without precedent. In 2022, the awards show acknowledged the war in Ukraine. But Keighley didn’t respond to the letter, nor has he mentioned the Future Class that much either. The Game Awards hasn’t named a Future Class in the last two years and won’t be naming anymore according to Future Class organizer Emily Weir. “At this time, we are not planning a new Future Class for this year and do not have any active programming plans for Future Class,” she said in a statement to Game Developer.
Like a lot of diversity and inclusion-minded programs, Future Class got started in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020. But as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have become publicly verboten in the rise of the Trump Administration and the online right, many companies, including game publishers, have diminished or jettisoned their DEI programs. While there has been no explicitly stated reason for the seeming shut down of the Future Class, it seems like The Game Awards is just doing what it always does — whatever’s popular at the time.
For as much as The Game Awards has lost the veneer of respectability among some of the people whose work it’s meant to celebrate, rest assured, it ain’t going anywhere. The Game Awards broadcast nets millions of viewers with a record-breaking 154 million livestreams in 2024. That’s a lot of eyeballs that developers pay a lot of money to get in front of. And even for those who don’t buy airtime, having your game featured at all during the presentation can net a big boost in sales. After Balatro was nominated for and won multiple awards last year including best debut indie, its publisher PlayStack shouted out the awards specifically for contributing to a huge increase in players.
More generally, the awards also provide a nice focal point for the disparate online gaming communities to gather around… and bitch about. E3 is long gone, and the other big events (not also run by Keighley) are the publisher-specific direct livestreams. With everything so fractured now, yelling with your friends or colleagues about how Hades was robbed for game of the year (an event I will never get over) is fun and something TGAs are singularly suited to provide. It is not the Oscars of gaming — DICE, the BAFTAs, and the International Game Development Awards (IGDA) pretty well take care of that. But if you want popularity, production values, and Flute Guy, there’s nothing like The Game Awards — even though some of the shine is starting to wear off.
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Valve has some good news and bad news about Steam Controllers. The good news: if you make a reservation for a Steam Controller, the company will now show you one of three estimates of when you’ll be able to actually order your gamepad: by September 2026, by December 2026, or sometime in 2027. The bad news: any reservations made today “indicate a 2027 date for shipping,” Valve says.
“We have no plans to stop making Steam Controller,” according to Valve. “But as we look at the current demand compared to how many we know we can make by the end of the year, we want to manage expectations as much as we can with regards to when folks can expect to receive their order.”
Valve’s very good new Steam Controller went on sale in early May, and the initial rush led some people to run into frustrating problems with trying to check out ahead of the controllers eventually going out of stock. A few days later, the company announced that it would be implementing a reservations queue for interested buyers so they could get on a waitlist. If you’re on the waitlist, when you get notified that a Steam Controller is ready for you to buy, you have 72 hours to actually make the order.
“When we launched Steam Controller last month, we quickly saw that initial demand exceeded our expectations,” Valve says. “Switching to a reservation queue has (hopefully) cut down on the headaches on the customer side, and for us it’s also been helpful as we plan ahead and try to get as many out as quickly as we are able.”
All three of Valve’s big hardware products were delayed from a planned early 2026 launch because of the component crisis, Valve still hasn’t announced when the Steam Machine PC or Steam Frame VR headset might go on sale. However, just yesterday, Valve officially launched its big SteamOS 3.8 update with support for the Steam Machine. It’s also been importing a lot of hardware into the US as of late.
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The next time you pull up to a McDonald’s drive-thru, the voice taking your order may not be human. McDonald’s is testing a new AI-powered system called ArchIQ at five U.S. locations. The company has not said where those restaurants are located. The voice assistant, nicknamed Archy, can take drive-thru orders and has shown it can handle both English and Spanish.
For anyone who has repeated “no pickles” into a speaker box more than once, this could sound helpful. However, if you remember McDonald’s last AI drive-thru experiment, you may also wonder whether your burger order could somehow turn into a bag full of surprise McNuggets.
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WOULD YOU EAT AT A RESTAURANT RUN BY AI?
McDonald’s is testing an AI drive-thru system called ArchIQ at five U.S. restaurants. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
What is McDonald’s AI drive-thru?
ArchIQ is McDonald’s new AI system for restaurants. It can take drive-thru orders and also help with operations behind the scenes.
In a post on X, McFranchisee, an anonymous McDonald’s franchisee account, said the system is currently in five test stores and has processed more than one million transactions. The account also said about 90% of orders were completed without a human stepping in. That number sounds promising. Still, McDonald’s has not confirmed a nationwide launch date. For now, this remains a limited test.
The system also appears to connect with a bigger McDonald’s plan called “McDonald’s > NEXT.” CEO Chris Kempczinski described the strategy as a way to bring in more customers and improve restaurant productivity. The plan also includes menu changes, restaurant redesigns, technology upgrades and more focus on hospitality.
Why McDonald’s is testing AI ordering
Drive-thrus can get chaotic fast. Someone changes an order after the total appears. A child calls out from the back seat. Road noise makes the speaker hard to hear. Then the driver remembers the extra sauce after everything has already gone through. That is the type of pressure McDonald’s wants AI to handle.
If ArchIQ works well, it could help restaurants move cars through the line faster. It may also reduce mistakes during busy hours. Workers could then focus more on preparing food, handling payments and helping customers who need a real person.
ArchIQ also appears to have a management role. In the same X post, McFranchisee described Archy as a tool that could alert managers to bottlenecks or other issues before they slow down operations.
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The AI assistant, nicknamed Archy, can take drive-thru orders and may also help managers spot restaurant slowdowns. (McFranchisee)
McDonald’s tried AI drive-thru ordering before
This new test follows McDonald’s earlier AI drive-thru experiment with IBM. That program involved more than 100 restaurants. McDonald’s ended the test in 2024 after customers complained about order accuracy. Some mistakes also went viral, creating an embarrassing moment for McDonald’s and raising questions about whether the technology was ready for the drive-thru. Customers reported wrong items, strange quantities and other order mix-ups. That history is why this new test will get extra attention.
This time, McDonald’s is working with Google technology. McFranchisee also claimed every McDonald’s in the U.S. is getting Google Edge Cloud hardware in anticipation of the rollout. McDonald’s seems to believe the newer system can perform better than the last one. The real test will come when regular customers use it during real drive-thru rushes.
How McDonald’s AI drive-thru could help customers
If McDonald’s gets this right, the most obvious benefit is speed. An AI ordering system does not get tired during a long shift. It may also help more customers order in the language they prefer. That could make a busy drive-thru feel less frustrating, especially during breakfast or late-night hours.
The system may also ask clearer follow-up questions and catch missing details before the order reaches the kitchen. That would be a win for customers who want to get in, get their food and get on with the day.
The biggest problem with AI drive-thru orders
The biggest concern is accuracy. AI can still misunderstand people. That gets frustrating fast when you are trying to grab lunch between errands or get your kids fed from the back seat. A wrong order wastes time. It also puts workers in the position of fixing a mistake the machine made.
There is also the customer service side. Some people like hearing a real person at the speaker. Others may find an AI voice cold or annoying, especially if the system gets confused.
Then there is the privacy question. If an AI system takes your order, customers may wonder what gets collected, how long it is kept and who can access it. McDonald’s has not publicly explained those specifics for this current ArchIQ test.
ALEXA+ LETS YOU ORDER FOOD LIKE A REAL CONVERSATION
A drive-thru menu board stands outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Hercules, Calif., on Oct. 23, 2024, amid an E. coli outbreak linked to onions in Quarter Pounder sandwiches that has sickened dozens and killed one person across the U.S. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
How to avoid AI drive-thru mistakes
Before you leave the drive-thru, take a moment to check the order screen. Make sure the items match what you said. Listen when the system repeats your order. Keep your receipt until you confirm the food is right.
Also, avoid sharing extra personal details at the speaker box. Your order should only require your food choices and payment.
If the AI gets confused, ask for a crew member. You do not need to keep going back and forth with a machine over fries.
What this means for you
For now, you probably will not notice a change at your local McDonald’s. The ArchIQ test appears limited to five U.S. restaurants, and the company has not said when it could expand.
Still, this gives customers a preview of where fast food may be heading. AI could soon play a bigger role in how restaurants take orders and manage the kitchen. That may speed up the line, though it could also make the experience feel less personal.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
McDonald’s clearly wants AI to play a bigger role in its restaurants. From a business point of view, the idea makes sense. Shorter drive-thru lines could help franchisees and customers. Better restaurant data could also help managers fix problems faster. But I still want the human backup. Food orders can be messy because people are messy. We change our minds. We talk over each other. We forget the extra ketchup until the last second. AI may handle much of that one day. For now, I would treat it like any busy drive-thru interaction. Speak clearly. Check the order. Do not pull away until you know your food is right.
Would you trust an AI voice to take your McDonald’s order, or do you still want a real person on the other end of the speaker? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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Midjourney CEO David Holz just showed off the company’s first hardware product and plans to build a San Francisco spa, which he admitted is a bit different from the “cat pictures” produced by its AI image generator. Dubbed The Midjourney Scanner, it’s an ultrasound-based full-body scanner that uses a ring of sensors to capture vertical slices of the inside of your body, looking at the composition of your muscle, fat, bone, and organs to start. Holz said ideally, you could do this once a year or every single day, as it “aims for image quality comparable to MRI in many ways.”
He mentioned that one way he’d like to use it would be to see how his body changes in response to diet and workout changes, saying, “I’m not the most measured man on Earth yet, you know, but maybe I want to have that daily [measurable information].” A set of job listings advertises the company’s goal as trying to “build and launch the world’s first full-body ultrasound CT scanner, ultimately bringing safe, fast, and high fidelity preventative scanning to billions via a magical spa experience.”
The Midjourney Scanner was developed in a partnership with ultrasound tech company Butterfly Network, which said it uses “40 Butterfly Ultrasound-on-Chip imaging modules per system.”
The scanning process starts with stepping onto a platform that drops down into the water on rails through a ring of thousands of transducers that create ultrasonic waves. It then records the ripples passing through your body to analyze them and create detailed 3D images. The scan takes about 60 seconds. Holz said about a dozen people have been scanned so far.
It starts by stepping into a shallow pool of golden light. You then begin to descend into the water. Your body passes through a ring of underwater sensors, each acting like a dolphin, using its echolocation. The sensors send ultrasonic sound waves through your body from every angle. With enough waves, and enough angles, we form an image of what’s happening inside your body.
It combines those sensors with two petaflops of processing power. But after watching the livestreamed reveal, I’m still unclear on what Midjourney’s AI image generation tech exactly has to do with the Midjourney Medical effort, beyond an alternative business for otherwise-unused AI compute.
Holz hopes to put 10 of the scanners into a Midjourney Spa location in San Francisco’s Union Square that will open before the end of 2027 and offered to scan the hands of attendees at its launch event. The Midjourney Spa will have a gym, saunas, and cold plunges to go along with the hot tub–equipped scanning rooms where visitors will get into the water to be scanned.
He did mention that various medical applications would require FDA clearances, but for now, Midjourney Medical says it’s working on “body composition maps” that don’t require the same level of clearance as diagnostic imaging. It also says the “library of scans” users create can be shared with doctors, AI health tools, or others, and that, “We take data privacy seriously — more details on our data policies will come as we get closer to launch.”
Holz suggested that eventually these scans could become better than an MRI, without radiation, powerful magnets, or other complicating factors, to get a look at what’s going on inside people’s bodies “real fast.” In response to a question, he imagined a future where the FDA had a class of devices to look at “weird” things and allowed people to “just try to get as much data as we can.”
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