All posts tagged: industry

Game industry predictions for 2025 | The DeanBeat

Game industry predictions for 2025 | The DeanBeat

Published by skeptic

This year’s best prediction for the game industry in 2025 already came from Swen Vincke, CEO of Larian Studios, maker of Baldur’s Gate 3, the Game of the year in 2023. At The Game Awards this year, Vincke got to announce the new Game of the Year (Astro Bot), and he made a prediction. “The oracle told me that the Game of the Year 2025 is going to be made by a studio who found the formula to make it up here on stage,” Vincke said. “It’s stupidly simple, but somehow it keeps on getting lost. A studio makes a game because they want to make a game they want to play themselves. They created it because it hadn’t been created before. They didn’t make it to increase market share. They didn’t make it to serve the brand. They didn’t have to meet arbitrary sales targets, or fear being laid off if they didn’t meet those targets.” The audience erupted into applause at his words, and he was not drummed off the stage for taking …

2024 Was the Year the Bottom Fell Out of the Games Industry

2024 Was the Year the Bottom Fell Out of the Games Industry

Published by skeptic

Games with Black leads and characters were derided as forced. Female characters deemed unattractive or masculine were suffering from “DEI chin.” Dragon Age: The Veilguard, was criticized by far-right trolls for its customization options, which allow players to create characters with top surgery scars or play with a nonbinary companion. After reviews were released, conspiracists latched onto clichéd phrases or other language as proof that studio BioWare was instructing reviewers how to talk about their game. Even not-yet-released titles faced bombardment. Compulsion Games’ South of Midnight, about a young Black woman in the Deep South, drew ire from the anti-DEI crowds on platforms like X, where they’ve photoshopped the heroine to make her looks less “repulsive” and put forth conspiracy theories about Sweet Baby’s influence on the game’s development. But pressure to remain apolitical—a curious agenda for an entertainment form that marries the artistic preferences of narrative and imaginary worlds with agency granted to players who inhabit them—did not come just from a vocal minority. Following the release of Black Myth: Wukong, some streamers were …

How big pharma keeps affordable drugs out of reach – video | Pharmaceuticals industry

How big pharma keeps affordable drugs out of reach – video | Pharmaceuticals industry

Published by Sam

Pharmaceutical corporations claim high prices are the cost of innovation, but the reality is far more complicated — and troubling. In 2030, the patents of some of the world’s best-selling drugs will expire, an event called the ‘patent cliff’, and companies are doubling down on tactics such as ‘evergreening’ patents and pay-for-delay deals to keep prices high and competition out. In this video, Neelam Tailor uncovers the shocking strategies big pharma use to game the system, explaining how these moves protect profits but hurt patients Source link

Audi’s Rebrand in China Points to Bigger Changes in the Auto Industry

Audi’s Rebrand in China Points to Bigger Changes in the Auto Industry

Published by skeptic

It’s also a rejiggering for the German automaker, which entered China in the late 1980s and became, thanks to a partnership with domestic manufacturer FAW, the first global premium brand to adapt its autos to the Chinese market. For many years, Audi was synonymous with foreign luxury and later became the standard ride of the party elite. But the precipitous rise of Chinese automakers, buoyed by generous state support and a new middle class, have left global automakers playing catch-up. Mitsubishi stopped production in China last year; Hyundai and Ford have closed or reduced operations at factories. This month, General Motors reported that its Chinese business, operated jointly with several Chinese automakers, has seen sales fall by almost 20 percent this year. GM said it would restructure its business in the country, taking a $5 billion write-down in the process. The Volkswagen Group, which sells Audis and also Porsches, Bentleys, Škodas, and Lamborghinis in China, has seen a 10 percent dip in vehicles sold in the country this year. The drop was responsible, in part, …

Research and innovation at Niagara College: Solutions for industry

Research and innovation at Niagara College: Solutions for industry

Published by skeptic

The team at Niagara College provides real-world solutions for businesses, key industry sectors, and the community through applied research and knowledge transfer activities. For more than two decades, the award-winning Research and Innovation team at Niagara College (NC) has conducted diverse projects in collaboration with hundreds of small – and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), thanks to the researcher teams, including students and recent graduates, across our several research disciplines, including advanced manufacturing, business, commercialisation and media services, food and beverage, health, and horticultural and environmental sciences. With funding support from various government agencies, students and graduates are hired to work alongside faculty researchers to assist industry partners leap forward in the marketplace. The importance of applied research and innovation Staying competitive in the ever-changing marketplace can be difficult, but when a business taps into the expertise of NC’s Research and Innovation, it becomes much easier. As the No. 1 Research College in Canada, we provide access to state-of-the-art facilities and cutting-edge technologies and share expert insights to help SMEs succeed. We de-risk the innovation process, through …

Making Europe’s wind energy industry easy and efficient

Making Europe’s wind energy industry easy and efficient

Published by skeptic

Christoph Zipf, Spokesperson at WindEurope, stresses that EU governments must revitalise implementation in order to accelerate Europe’s wind industry. As it stands, Europe is not building enough new wind turbines to reach its 2030 energy and climate targets. After several challenging years, the European wind energy supply chain has started to ramp up. The European Commission has tabled an excellent Wind Power Package in late 2023 – 15 immediate actions to strengthen Europe’s wind industry. Now, it’s up to European governments to implement these European Union (EU) rules on the national level. ‘Implementation’ might sound boring and dusty, but, for Europe’s wind industry, the timely and efficient implementation of the Wind Power Package might well be matter of survival. The challenges Europe faces today – declining competitiveness, geopolitical uncertainties, and climate change – are significant. Wind energy is uniquely positioned to help tackle all three. It reduces fossil fuel imports, creates jobs, strengthens the industrial base, and plays a pivotal role in reducing carbon emissions. By fully embracing wind energy, Europe can bolster its energy …

After exiting the Christian music industry, these artists engage religion on their terms

After exiting the Christian music industry, these artists engage religion on their terms

Published by skeptic

(RNS) — When former Christian artist Michael Gungor first hosted a new spiritual community in Los Angeles this year, worship began not with an organ blast or sermon series video promo, but with blowing bubbles. Appropriately dubbed “Play,” Gungor envisioned the event — which featured painting, dancing, corporate singing and meditation, but no religious creed — as a celebration that “redefines worship.” “I want to be in a room and see each other’s eyes and smell each other and hear each other singing out of key. This is something we’ve always done as a species,” Gungor said. “I think there’s something important, really grounding and human about it.” Gungor’s idea of worship wasn’t always so experimental. In packed churches and concert venues, thousands once sang along to the band Gungor’s 2010 hit “Beautiful Things,” a song that became a permanent fixture on the setlists of youth group bands. But in 2014, Gungor’s critiques of the Christian music industry — as well as his public musings on Genesis as a poem rather than historic fact — …

German Industry Calls for Programing Investment by Public Broadcasters

German Industry Calls for Programing Investment by Public Broadcasters

Published by skeptic

German public broadcasters need to invest more in making better shows or risk losing their democratic legitimacy. That’s the message the German film and TV industry is sending to Germany‘s public channels which face increasing attacks from the country’s surging far right. The guilds and associations representing Germany’s film and TV creative communities, including the German screenwriters guild, the alliance of film and TV producers, the federal acting association, the producers association, and the German directors guild, have called for a commitment by public broadcasters to invest at least 50 percent of their budgets in making shows, and spend less on management and administration. In an open letter to state and government authorities, the groups said their “50+ for Programming” plan would increase public acceptance and the democratic legitimacy of the public broadcasting service. “Every euro invested in programming simultaneously strengthens the stability of Germany’s media democracy,” the letter reads. Germany’s public broadcasting system, which operates national television networks ARD and ZDF as well as numerous regional TV and radio stations across the country, is …

HBO Almost Cut the ‘Industry’ Season Finale’s Most Shocking Scene

HBO Almost Cut the ‘Industry’ Season Finale’s Most Shocking Scene

Published by skeptic

In the volatile universe of Industry, all debts must be paid. No one understands that better than Rishi (Sagar Radia), whose gambling addiction finally caught up with him in Sunday night’s season three finale, “Infinite Largesse,” (Spoiler alert: The following includes spoilers for Industry’s third season finale.) Rishi, for the uninitiated, spent much of the last season falling deeper into debt. As the finale concluded, Industry gave him one of the revelation-packed episode’s biggest twists when his bookie, Vinay, showed up and killed Rishi’s wife over £600,000 in unpaid gambling debts. It was the kind of gut-wrenching moment that has made HBO Sunday-night appointment TV—and, according to cocreators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, HBO almost nixed it. “There was a conversation about Rishi’s wife’s death, which HBO balked at,” Kay says. Early on, as Down and Kay outlined season 3, they knew they wanted to do a Rishi episode, which fans were treated to in episode 4, “White Mischief.” Shot as a kind of homage to Uncut Gems, it was there viewers got a taste …

HBO’s ‘Industry’ Will Return for a Fourth Season

HBO’s ‘Industry’ Will Return for a Fourth Season

Published by skeptic

In its much-loved third season, HBO’s Industry has led several of its characters down paths that have had fans wondering: Could this be the end? Or is this the beginning of something entirely new? Well, we’ve got great news for people who love to watch morally-compromised investment bankers react to bad news: HBO announced today that the series, which has made a The Wire-style leap from under-the-radar if-you-know-you-know favorite to Sunday-night appointment viewing this year, will be back for a fourth season. “For three seasons, ‘Industry’ has been unflinching in its examination of ambition and class, solidifying itself as a marquee HBO drama,” Francesca Orsi, executive vice president of HBO Programming and head of HBO drama series and films, said in today’s statement. “Under Mickey and Konrad’s singular vision, this twisted, thrilling look at London finance has redefined the contemporary workplace show. We’re so excited that viewers and critics have recognized season three as bigger and better than ever, buoyed by sublime performances from our unparalleled cast. We have no doubt that Mickey and Konrad, …