Connect with us

Technology

The Game Awards are losing their luster

Published

on

The Game Awards are losing their luster

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.”

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.

Alas, poor Hydrobot, we knew him well.
Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for Schick

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.

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement
Gif of a curly haired man named Pedro Eustache playing an alto flute

Pedro Eustache, affectionately known as Flute Guy, has confirmed he will be performing at The Game Awards.
Gif: The Game Awards

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.

Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.

Technology

Intel and LG Display may have beaten Apple and Qualcomm with the best laptop battery life ever

Published

on

Intel and LG Display may have beaten Apple and Qualcomm with the best laptop battery life ever

Just how little power might it consume? Notebookcheck has tested a version of the laptop with that LG Display screen and a new Intel Panther Lake chip — and it appears to be the most efficient laptop that’s ever gone through its Wi-Fi web browsing test. At idle, the Core Ultra 325 laptop drew as little as 1.5 watts, and lasted nearly 27 hours of web browsing despite only housing a 70 watt-hour pack. That’s well shy of the 99.5Wh Dell has sometimes crammed into its 16-inch models.

That’s more battery life than Notebookcheck has gotten out of any MacBook or MacBook Pro, and apparently more than all but two other laptops since it started running this test in 2014. And of those two laptops, one relied on a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chip, a larger 84Wh battery, and a mere 60Hz screen — while the other had two batteries for a total of 149Wh and a 60Hz screen as well.

I should caution you that we typically see much less battery life in an actual workday than we do in fixed battery life tests. But compared to other laptops, this Dell + Intel + LG Display combo seems like the new battery life champ. Note that Dell also sells it with a higher-res tandem OLED screen, though. To get the best battery life, you’ll need to settle for 1920 x 1200, no OLED, and no touchscreen.

While Dell may deserve a lot of credit as the system integrator, this tech may not be exclusive to Dell for long. LG Display announced that it’s become the first in the world to mass-produce a 1–120Hz laptop LCD panel (which it’s branding as Oxide 1Hz), and plans to mass-produce an OLED version in 2027. Intel, too, isn’t just working with one display vendor: last October, it announced it was working with Chinese panel maker BOE on 1Hz refresh rate computers too.

Continue Reading

Technology

Spring clean your digital footprint: Why retirees are scam targets

Published

on

Spring clean your digital footprint: Why retirees are scam targets

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Every spring, many of us follow the same routine. We replace the batteries in our smoke detectors, clean out the garage and organize paperwork while reviewing finances. These habits exist for a reason. Regular maintenance helps prevent small risks from turning into bigger problems.

However, there is one area most people rarely check: their digital exposure. Just like a home, your online presence collects clutter over time. If you do not clean it up regularly, it becomes much easier for strangers to find and use your personal information.

Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report
Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you’ll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide – free when you join my CYBERGUY.COM newsletter.

DO YOU KNOW THE TRUE COST OF IDENTITY THEFT?

Advertisement

Your personal information can quietly spread across dozens of people-search and data broker websites without you realizing it. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Where your personal information appears online

Think about how many places your personal information exists today:

  • Public property records
  • Utility and service databases
  • Marketing lists
  • People-search websites
  • Data broker profiles.

Each time you move, sign up for a service or update a subscription, that information may get copied and resold across multiple databases.

Over time, dozens, sometimes hundreds, of websites may end up listing details such as:

  • Your home address
  • Phone numbers
  • Past addresses
  • Names of relatives
  • Property ownership records.

For retirees and homeowners, these details can make you particularly visible online. And unfortunately, scammers know exactly where to look.

Why does tax season increase personal data exposure

Spring is a major data collection season. During tax season, financial institutions, service providers and government agencies process enormous amounts of information.

That includes:

Advertisement
  • Address confirmations
  • Income reporting
  • Property and mortgage updates
  • Retirement account activity.

Much of this data eventually becomes part of public records or commercial databases. Data brokers actively monitor these updates. When new information appears, they refresh and rebuild personal profiles. That means your digital footprint can quietly grow — even if you haven’t shared anything new online.

How data brokers update your personal profile

The first quarter of the year is one of the busiest periods for data brokers. Why? Because many major databases update around the same time:

  • Property records are updated after year-end filings
  • Utility and service provider records refresh
  • Marketing databases ingest new consumer lists
  • Public records from courts and local governments get indexed
  • Data brokers purchase or scrape this information and add it to existing profiles. In other words, your profile isn’t static. It’s constantly evolving.

THE EMAIL TRICK THAT REVEALS YOUR HIDDEN ONLINE ACCOUNTS

Each move, subscription or public record update can add new details to your growing digital footprint. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Why data broker opt-outs often don’t last

Many people start the year with good intentions. They search their name online, find a few people-search websites and submit opt-out requests. That is a great first step. However, many people later discover a frustrating reality. Manual opt-outs often do not last.

There are three main reasons.

Data brokers continuously collect new records: Even if a broker removes your information today, new public records may appear next month when their system refreshes, and your profile can be rebuilt automatically.

Advertisement

Multiple brokers share and resell data: If one company deletes your listing, another broker may still have it—and may resell it back into the ecosystem. Your information spreads like copies of a document.

Some opt-outs expire: Certain websites only remove data temporarily. Months later, listings quietly reappear. Unless you check regularly, you may never notice.

Why retirees are especially visible online

Retirees often have several characteristics that make their information easier to locate:

  • Long address histories
  • Property ownership records
  • Public professional biographies
  • Retirement community listings
  • Estate and probate filings.

None of this is inherently unsafe. But when it’s aggregated across dozens of data broker platforms, it becomes a detailed personal profile.

Scammers use these profiles to identify potential targets for:

  • Investment scams
  • Fake government calls
  • Medicare or benefits fraud
  • Home repair schemes
  • Identity theft attempts.

The more complete the profile, the easier it is to craft a convincing story.

Why protecting your online privacy requires ongoing cleanup

Just like home safety, privacy protection works best as an ongoing habit.

Advertisement

Think of it this way: You wouldn’t replace smoke detector batteries once and assume they’ll work forever. The same logic applies to your online data.

Information gets copied, refreshed, and redistributed constantly. That means protecting your digital footprint requires regular monitoring and cleanup.

How to reduce your online exposure

A few simple habits can help reduce your risk:

  • Periodically search for your name online
  • Limit sharing of personal details on social media
  • Be cautious with unsolicited calls or investment offers
  • Remove your information from people-search sites when possible.

Regularly cleaning up exposed data helps reduce the personal information scammers can use against you. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

How data removal services help clean up your online data

The challenge is that there are hundreds of data brokers, and each has its own removal process. Doing it manually can take hours, and the process often has to be repeated. That is why many people turn to automated data removal services.

These services help by submitting opt-out and deletion requests to hundreds of data brokers and people-search websites on your behalf. Instead of contacting each company individually, the service handles the process and continues monitoring databases for new listings that may appear over time.

Advertisement

While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.

Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.

Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.

Kurt’s key takeaways

Spring-cleaning usually focuses on physical spaces. We organize garages, review paperwork and replace smoke detector batteries. But your digital footprint deserves the same attention. Personal information spreads quietly across public records, marketing databases and data broker websites. Over time, these pieces of information can form detailed profiles that strangers can easily find online. For retirees and homeowners, those records often go back decades. Property filings, address histories and public records can make it easier for scammers to identify potential targets. The good news is that protecting your digital footprint does not require advanced technical skills. Simple habits like checking what appears about you online, limiting what you share publicly and regularly removing your information from data broker sites can significantly reduce your exposure. Just like maintaining your home, digital privacy works best as an ongoing habit. A little attention today can prevent much bigger problems tomorrow.

Have you ever searched your name online and been surprised by how much personal information appeared? What steps have you taken to protect your digital footprint?  Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.

Advertisement

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report
Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you’ll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide – free when you join my CYBERGUY.COM newsletter.

Copyright 2026 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.

Continue Reading

Technology

Woot is offering over 20 percent off Switch 2 controllers and games today

Published

on

Woot is offering over 20 percent off Switch 2 controllers and games today

Woot is running a day-long sale coinciding with the start of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale. Many products across multiple tech categories are discounted, including dozens of video games and accessories. What’s more, you can get an extra 20 percent off through 12:59AM ET on March 26th when you use code SAVETWENTY. Also, if you’re a Prime member who links their Amazon account, you’ll get free shipping.

Of the grab bag of products, the Nintendo Switch 2-related discounts stood out the most. For instance, you can get the physical version of Mario Kart World at Woot for $52 ($28 off). If your Switch 2 didn’t already include a digital copy of the exclusive, World is a must-have racing title that’s fun to play alone or with others (my colleague Andrew Webster called it “the perfect launch game” in his review). It includes an open world chock-full of challenges — a series first — or you can race through different course-filled cups, just like in the old days.

Additionally, 8BitDo’s fantastic Ultimate 2 and Pro 3 controllers — both compatible with the Switch 2 and other platforms — currently cost $36 and $37.60, respectively. Considering that both gamepads typically cost over $50 each, the savings are steep enough to consider getting more than one gamepad. The Ultimate 2 and Pro 3 have a similar set of features — rumble, motion controls, TMR joysticks, customizable back paddles, an extra shoulder button, and adjustable triggers — but their button and stick layouts cater to different gamers.

While the Ultimate 2 is arranged like a Switch 2 Pro (which itself is an Xbox-style layout), the Pro 3 is more akin to a PlayStation controller, with sticks close together in the middle. One neat feature of the Pro 3 not found in the Ultimate 2 is the ability to pull off its magnetic buttons and swap their positions, which is handy if you’re switching platforms. Both models also feature a 90-day Woot warranty. Read our Pro 3 review.

If you already own Mario Kart World — or don’t own a Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 — there are also plenty of other great deals to choose from, including titles for both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S.

Advertisement

Here’s a smattering of favorites:

Continue Reading

Trending