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Meta's new policy chief is a former senior adviser to George W. Bush.
Joel Kaplan on the left, Aug. 8, 2007, at the U.S. Department of Treasury

From The New York Times:

Meta on Thursday appointed Joel Kaplan, a longtime executive who was a former senior adviser to George W. Bush and is known for his Republican ties, to be its new head of global policy, as the social media giant seeks to strengthen its links to the incoming Trump administration.
Mr. Kaplan, 55, replaces Nick Clegg, a former deputy prime minister of Britain who had handled policy and regulatory issues globally for Meta since 2018. In a post to his personal Facebook page, Mr. Clegg, 57, said Mr. Kaplan was “quite clearly the right person for the right job at the right time, ideally placed to shape the company’s strategy as societal and political expectations around technology continue to evolve.”

From Deadline:

In 2020, The Washington Post reported that Kaplan argued against some content moderation measures, arguing that they would disproportionately harm conservative voices.

Australia was behind a lot of 2024 games - SIFTER has the full list.

It’s so awesome to see Australia’s video game industry coming back to life, especially over the past few years.

SIFTER has put together a great list of Australian-made games, plus has a few lists from years past of Australian-made gems:

2024 The definitive list of Australian made video games | SIFTER
SIFTER’s sixth annual list collecting every single game released in 2024 that has been made in Australia, from PC, Xbox, PlayStation Switch and more.
SIFTERGianni Di Giovanni

Wordpress ordered to revert WP Engine attack, including update and plugin directory block.

Via TechCrunch:

A California district court judge has granted a preliminary injunction to WP Engine. The order asks WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg and WordPress.com owner Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org, a WordPress theme and plug-in repository site owned by Mullenweg.
This ban also resulted in WP Engine not being able to access and update its popular Advanced custom field (ACF) plug-in. Automattic took control of the plug-in, forked it, and named it Secure Custom Fields (SCF). The court has also ordered Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access and control of ACF on WordPress.org.
Court orders Mullenweg and Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org | TechCrunch
A California district court judge has granted a preliminary injunction to WP Engine. The order asks WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg and WordPress.com
TechCrunchIvan Mehta

itch.io is back after Funko domain pop.

itch.io is back after being "taken down" by Brand Shield, which was being used by Funko for "AI" brand protection.

Brand Shield's website says the software "delivers cutting-edge online brand protection using AI-powered technology to proactively monitor digital landscapes for trademark infringements, phishing attempts, brand abuse, and counterfeit activity. Our dedicated team responds swiftly to mitigate these threats, safeguarding your brand’s reputation, revenue, and customer trust."

I kid you not, @itch.io has been taken down by Funko of "Funko Pop" because they use some trash "AI Powered" Brand Protection Software called Brand Shield that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain

— itch.io (@itch.io) December 9, 2024 at 6:13 PM

Funko pops... never again 🥴We're back if you haven't noticed!

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— itch.io (@itch.io) December 10, 2024 at 7:06 AM

Put Vib-Ribbon on PlayStation 5 you cowards.

Billy Basso, creator of the sublime and inspiring one-person indie game Animal Well, was on the My Perfect Console podcast this week.

I won't totally spoil his 5 classic game picks for a desert-island console, but he did put obscure PlayStation 1 classic Vib-Ribbon on his list. The episode will be released to non-Patreon subscribers later today:

A rhythm-game pioneer, Vib-Ribbon could run entirely from the PlayStation 1's 2MB of RAM. You could remove the games disc from your console and replace it with any audio CD. The game would then dynamically create custom levels that would sync up with any audio CD, meaning you could pop in a Limp Bizkit CD and play along.

Or just play along with the included soundtrack, which I still play on Spotify from time to time.

Back when Sony genuinely cared about legacy, the company re-released Vib-Ribbon on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in 2014. At the time it promised to look into releasing the game for PlayStation 4, though that never eventuated, likely due to the lack of CD support on modern PlayStation consoles. This didn't stop the game coming to the PlayStation Vita though, or my Steam Deck.

(I promise I own multiple copies of Vib-Ribbon, physically and digitally.)

Anti-skill-based Ubisoft shooter XDefiant to shut down.

Ubisoft's Call Of Duty-competitor XDefiant, which hoped to throwback the online FPS genre to its Xbox 360 days, is shutting down. The game has been pulled from online stores today and new players won't be able to join the game. Multiplayer servers will be available until June 3, 2025.

Ubisoft also says it will coincide with "the closing of our San Francisco and Osaka production studios and to the ramp down of our Sydney production site, with 143 people departing in San Francisco and 134 people likely to depart in Osaka and Sydney."

XDefiant's key difference was a rejection of skill-based matchmaking, where players would be paired with other players of comparable skill. Ubisoft instead opted to put all players together, leading to more match variety but possibly less player engagement.

The game also lacked its own identity, introducing skins from other Ubisoft franchises and having a general free-to-play bright, vibrant but simple visual style.

Around its launch, Activision published a research paper basically rejecting the perceived downsides of skill-based matchmaking. "When skill is utilized in matchmaking, 80-90% of players experience better end-of-match placement, stick with the game longer and quit matches less frequently," the paper claimed. It's hard to argue with that.

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