Players bash their heads against a wall in Elden Ring, the CWA supports a proposed antitrust bill, and players review bomb Gran Turismo 7.
With so much going on these days in the world of gaming, you can easily get behind on the latest developments, but if you read all of our roundups, you’ll never miss a beat. Today we found out that content creator David Michael Lynch has been accused of “a pattern of abuse,” Elden Ring players have been bashing their heads against a wall, and Gran Turismo 7 has been getting review bombed after the latest patch. There’s more where this came from, so read on for all the details.
The union representing almost a million workers in the media industry, Communications Workers of America, has now endorsed the antitrust bill proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act. This comes only days before regulators at the Federal Trade Commission are scheduled to review the merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. “Senator Elizabeth Warren’s bill would ensure the merger’s impact on these workers is prioritized by federal regulators and add a necessary check on corporate mergers by directing agencies to review and reject potential deals that would harm workers’ ability to secure better futures, as Activision workers are trying to do,” the Communications Workers of America said in a statement.
David Michael Lynch was recently accused of “a pattern of abuse” by an actor who the content creator worked with in 2013. He’s mostly known for podcasting about Magic: The Gathering, but Lynch also happens to be a well known filmmaker. The accusation came from actor Benita Robledo who said that she was forced into performing while nude. "He told me that if he didn't get his nudity, I wouldn't get my footage. That is not a disagreement. That is blackmail," Robledo said.
Some very determined Elden Ring player noticed that if you hack away at a wall in Volcano Manor, you’ll open a secret passageway to another part of the game world. The news comes from a player by the name of Iron Pineapple who posted a video to YouTube, saying shortly afterwards on Twitter that “apparently some fake walls in Elden Ring take multiple hits to reveal and oh my god, this changes everything!” Players on the other hand have been debating whether or not these are in fact features rather than bugs.
Disney apparently cut some LGBTQ+ content from the recent film Lightyear. Workers were quick to strike back, decrying that every "moment of overtly gay affection" had to be removed from the movie. This comes in the wake of a scandal over what many perceive to be support for the “Don’t Say Gay” bill on the part of Disney. Workers at the company have been striking back against this move as well, calling on corporate executives to consider taking a different tack.
Gran Turismo 7 has been getting review bombed ever since the game went offline for over 24 hours without any kind of explanation from the developer. Players immediately began drawing connections between the outage and the implementation of microtransactions in the game, raising fears that an upcoming patch might just make it impossible to play Gran Turismo 7 without dropping even more dollars. The developer finally pointed to “an issue where the game would not start properly in some cases on product versions for the PS4 and PS5,” but the fears of many fans have not yet been allayed.
The teenager and his two friends were arrested after they expressed their support for an imprisoned Putin critic.
Justin is a news editor at TheGamer. He specializes in labor relations, intellectual property law, and game development. You can find his work in EGM, Vice, Unwinnable, Heterotopias, and more.
