LinkedIn, the Microsoft-owned social platform, has made a name for itself primarily as a platform for people looking to network and pick up knowledge for professional purposes, and for recruitment — a business that now has more than 900 million users.
Now, to boost the time people are spending on the platform, the company is breaking into a totally new area: gaming.
App researchers have started to find code that points to the work LinkedIn is doing.
The LinkedIn spokesperson declined to say how and if Microsoft is involved in the gaming project at LinkedIn.
Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years.
Twenty-two slides might seem like too many (the optimal length for a slide deck is around 16 slides these days), but there are some interstitial slides and an appendix in this one, and those don’t really count.
This team slide came as a bit of a surprise:Putting this slide at the end of the deck makes me wonder about the seriousness of this startup.
If it has five business units and 70+ team members, it throws the rest of the deck out of whack.
On slide 12, the company noted it had $7.5 million worth of revenue from just its case study clients.
The full pitch deckIf you want your own pitch deck teardown featured on TechCrunch, here’s more information!
AI models that play games go back decades, but they generally specialize in one game and always play to win.
From this data — and the annotations provided by data labelers — the model learns to associate certain visual representations of actions, objects, and interactions.
AI agents trained on multiple games performed better on games they hadn’t been exposed to.
But of course many games involve specific and unique mechanics or terms that will stymie the best-prepared AI.
And simple improvised actions or interactions are also being simulated and tracked by AI in some really interesting research into agents.
Google announced a bunch of new features for Google Play listings for games including AI-powered FAQs, displaying the latest YouTube videos, new immersive ad formats, and support for native PC game publishing.
These announcements were made at the Google Games Developer Summit held at San Fransisco.
Play Pass and Play PointsTo drive more in-app purchases, Google is now allowing developers to set discounts for users who have the company’s Play Pass subscription.
Support for PC gamesIn the last few years, Google has made its Play Games for PC program available in more than 120 countries.
Now, the company is set to allow publishers to put native PC games on the Play Store.
After terminating Epic Games’ developer account on Wednesday, Apple said it will reinstate the Fortnite maker’s access to publish iOS apps in Europe.
This means that Epic can move forward with its plans for an Epic Games Store, and it can bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe.
Last month, Epic announced it would be able to bring Fortnite and the Epic Games Store back because of Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).
“We are moving forward as planned to launch the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe.
But under the new DMA law, third-party marketplaces like the Epic Games Store can come to iOS, lessening Apple’s control over apps in Europe.
The NYT Games app is debuting a new redesign to help users discover games and track their progress more easily.
The redesign comes nearly a year after the New York Times renamed its games-focused app from “NYT Crosswords” to “NYT Games” to better represent its growing family of games.
NYT Games principal product designer Lian Chang told TechCrunch that the redesign caters to both old and new players.
Chang says the redesigned game cards incentivize players to come back to a game and finish it.
The idea behind the redesigned game cards was to not only be inviting for discovery purposes, but also be functional.
The European Union has confirmed it’s looking into Apple’s decision to close Epic Games’ developer account — citing three separate regulations which may apply.
Yesterday the Fortnite maker revealed Apple had terminated the account, apparently reversing a decision to approve the developer account last month.
Epic had planned to launch its own app store, the Epic Games Stores, on iOS in Europe, as well as relaunching Fortnight on Apple’s platform.
And it accused Apple of breaching the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) by killing its developer account.
The US court ruling Apple is citing to justify terminating Epic’s developer account is unlikely to have standing in the EU.
Notably, the experience is free for Sling TV and Sling Freestream customers, and they can play games while simultaneously watching live TV content — providing entertainment during commercial breaks.
Sling TV also allows users to expand the Arcade row on the home screen to have a more immersive playing experience.
Sling TV says that 10 games will be available at launch, with new titles to be added regularly.
Sling didn’t say if it would partner with other gaming companies to expand its gaming library, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
Dish, which recently merged with EchoStar, reported a loss of 65,000 Sling TV subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2023, bringing the total to 2.06 million.
The Apple-Epic saga has just taken a new turn today as the Fortnite game developer, Epic Games, shared that Apple has terminated its developer account.
It was after agreeing to abide by its rules that Apple’s lawyers sent a letter terminating its Epic Games Sweden AB account.
Epic claims the tech giant is retaliating against it for speaking out, as a letter penned by Apple exec Phil Schiller indicates.
“You also testified that Epic deliberately violated Apple’s rules, to make a point and for financial gain.
It noted, too, that its company has contractual relationships with Apple going back to 2010 for Epic’s Games, Unreal Engine, and other creator tools and Apple itself has been a public supporter of Epic’s Unreal Engine.
Everyone profits together.”In other words, Apple’s App Store was originally seen as a platform that could help the tech giant sell more iPhones, as having easy access to popular apps, like Facebook — an early App Store partner — would be a plus for consumers.
Though it made some concessions for small business developers and others, it sees no model for the App Store that doesn’t involve a commission structure.
Apple's bitter griping simply describes their historic, pre-monopoly relationship with app makers: the device provides great APIs, and apps provide great features to attract users.
In America, the issue is coming before the District Court in Epic v Apple as Epic challenges Apple’s malicious compliance with the court’s anti-steering injunction.
Sweeney also retweeted Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s video message about the fine and his concerns that Apple will find a way to avoid full compliance.
