Entertainment

Michael Smith, who pleaded guilty earlier this year, was also ordered to pay over $8 million. According to the DOJ, that’s the amount he earned in royalties from using bots to stream hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs from 2017 to 2024.

You’ll need to bring your own PS4 game files, according to the GitHub page, but it looks like a great way to play Hideo Kojima’s infamous, delisted horror demo.

The change means that Paramount Games Studio, which was established this year, will be combined with WBD teams like Rocksteady Studios and Hogwarts Legacy developer Avalanche Software, Variety reports.

Yuanyuan Sun, aka Abeeeer, was photographed on the bike during the race and wrote a statement later admitting that she “did indeed violate race rules,” The Athletic reports. Sun wore Brooks China gear during the event, and the sponsor has terminated its relationship with her.

Following public exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, a collection of “props, annotated scripts, production materials, awards, filmmaking equipment and personal possessions” from the Stanley Kubrick Film Archives will be going up for auction thgrough Bonhams London starting on February 3rd, 2027.

It took only about a week for someone to take the source code from the adorable but discontinued sampler and turn it into a free virtual instrument called NIBBI. You can download it and play it as a standalone app, open it in your DAW, or just tinker with it in your browser.

The streamer has been pivoting to TV-based games of late, but some new app store listings — as spotted by RPG Site — show that a mobile version of Monster Hunter Rise is on its way to the service. The timing is particularly interesting as the mobile-focused MonHun spinoff Outlanders is also launching at the end of October.

Premium subscribers already get 12 hours of (primarily English) audiobook streaming every month, and that perk is now expanding from 22 to over 180 countries be the end of 2026. The offering includes 350,000 titles, “including new catalogs in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, and more, spanning over 120 languages.”

Apple TV subscribers in the US can experience Formula 1 in the enhanced audio format for the first time starting October 23rd with the US Grand Prix in Austin.

Following today’s completion of the $110 billion Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery megamerger to form Skydance, the company announced three new board members: Powell Jobs, former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, and newly-appointed Skydance co-CEO Ynon Kreiz. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is also joining as a “board advisor.”

Though AI studio Fable has not yet announced which distributor will put its animated Gods Don’t Give Gifts feature into theaters, Variety reports that the project is now slated to premiere on December 4th — which would make it eligible for submission for the upcoming Oscars.

At Fate’s End, a new game from the developers of Spiritfarer, blew me away when I tried it earlier this year, but its release date just got pushed from 2026 to 2027. Bummer. Ahead of the official launch, though, you can now check out a demo on Steam and a new gameplay trailer.

The acclaimed director, who worked on the first two Transformers films, will focus on “all creative aspects” of the next live-action movie that’s in the works at Paramount, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Michael Bay, who directed the first five movies, is “in talks” to direct this planned eighth film. Shia LaBeouf isn’t expected to return.

Crossy Road Rush puts the cute blocky animals into a runner mobile game. It looks pretty charming. It’s releasing exclusively on Apple Arcade on November 5th.

The feature is rolling out to Spotify Premium subscribers, presenting you with questions about music trivia, album cover art, and audio track previews. You can find a music quiz by scrolling down on the “Now Playing” view of a participating artist’s song.

Two excellent titles are launching today, and they appeal to very different audiences. You can read our reviews of both right here: Gears of War: E-Day and Star Wars: Galactic Racer.

The game has an excellent single-player campaign, though if you hit any hitches due to Luna’s cloud streaming, they could be frustrating because Galactic Racer basically requires split-second reflexes. Check out my review of the game, which I played on PS5, if you want to learn more about it.

Write Love Pens, a small pen and stationery shop, had initially used AI-generated images (including one of a pen with two clips on the cap) to advertise surprise boxes that the shop puts together. After getting yelled at on fountain pen Reddit, the shop’s owner apologized, and replaced the AI images with extremely cute amateur drawings.

As reported by IGN, starting January 1st, 2027, the game’s online modes — which include the MyCAREER mode — won’t work anymore because the servers are being sunset. NBA 2K25 is also being pulled from stores on October 30th, 2K says.

Smash Bros. boss Masahiro Sakurai recently posted a photo of a dinner featuring a who’s who of Japanese game design luminaries, including himself. (If you don’t recognize all of the faces, here’s a run-down.) The possibilities for new Smash characters is now nearly endless.

The revamped Marvel Comics app will include archived and current comic books, with new issues arriving as soon as 30 days after their print release. It’s replacing Marvel Unlimited, which will shut down on December 28th, but Marvel says you’ll be able to transfer your library to the new app after it launches.

Director Matt Reeves is temporarily stepping away to focus on a “family matter,” according to a statement given to Deadline. The film is scheduled to release on February 18th, 2028, following some delays, though Deadline reports that “Sources say it is too early to say whether the stoppage will have an effect on the release date.”

Variety and GamesBeat reported on the news, though it’s unclear when the films or TV shows may actually be coming out. The two games have been big hits for Embark Studios.

According to the Financial Times, that’s nearly double the 135,000 takedown requests Sony Music had previously sent for AI tracks imitating its artists, like Harry Styles, Adele, and Britney Spears. Over the past year, Sony has also filed lawsuits against AI music platforms like Suno and Udio over copyright infringement.

Remarkably kind and perpetually youthful, the internet’s favorite dancer has stopped bringing his smartphone to work:

Are you streaming only? Have you dug out your old iPod? Have a massive vinyl collection? I want to know which music formats you listen to most and why. I’ve been buying more on Bandcamp, ripped all my CDs, and started carrying around an iPod again. But I haven’t been able to ditch streaming completely.