Roblox controversy, Switch sales, Mass Effect show, Matrix traffic jams, and more in today’s top gaming stories.
While December usually isn’t the busiest time of the year for video games, there’s still some decent gaming news to dig through today. Our biggest stories of the day include a new expose revealing even more child abuse allegedly happening in the only game Roblox, an update on Nintendo Switch sales data, a sound bite from Henry Cavill about his interest in Amazon’s Mass Effect show, a traffic jam in Matrix Awakens, and a surprising Halo Infinite speedrun record. Without further ado, here are the biggest news stories from Monday, December 13, 2021.
In August, journalist Quintin Smith of People Make Games posted a video that exposed a culture of exploiting underage players in Roblox for what could essentially be considered unpaid child labor on game modes and mods. That expose prompted even more users to speak up about exploitation, gambling, and sexual predation of minors on the Roblox platform. Smith turned these accounts into a second expose, published today on Youtube. The 35-minute video is embedded above, however, it begins with a content warning for explicit messages sent to a minor.
A new report from NPD Group, published by Business Wire, revealed that the combined sales of the Switch, Switch Lite, and OLED Switch reached 1.3 million in November, making the Switch the best-selling console for 35 of the last 36 months. More than half of those sales came during Black Friday alone, surpassing both Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, which were widely unavailable during the holiday. Those sales still lag behind last year’s numbers, however, due to supply shortages and perhaps even slightly less pandemic-fueled purchases.
Speaking to GamesRadar today, Witcher star Henry Cavill said that he loved the Mass Effect trilogy and believes that the games will make a “magnificent series of movies or TV shows.” Cavill went on to say that he’d be interested in working on a Mass Effect project, but it is “all depending on how they’re executing it.” The proposed Mass Effect series is reportedly in development at Amazon, though details about that project have not been confirmed. Interestingly, Cavill himself posted a picture of himself on Instagram this past February holding what looked like a passage from the Mass Effect Wiki.
The Matrix Awakens is an Unreal Engine 5 tech demo that was released on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S during last Thursday’s game awards. In the demo, players can freely explore an open-world city that leverages a vast range of technologies only possible in Unreal Engine 5. One creative player saw fit to create a traffic jam on one of the city’s freeways, causing cars to back up for over a kilometer. An impressive feat and a small example of the kind of realistic experiences UE5 may be able to provide.
Finally, a Halo Infinite speedrunner has managed to complete the game in under three hours. YouTuber jordan’s speedrun through Infinite is just a practice run where he frequently pauses the adjust settings, but at this early stage just a week after launch, it’s likely this is the current world record. Speedrun records change a lot, particularly this close to launch, but if you want to see an early example of how quickly Infinite can be beaten, check out the video linked above.
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About The Author
Eric Switzer (1309 Articles Published)
Eric Switzer is the Livestream News Editor for TheGamer as well as the lead for VR and Tech. He has written about comics and film for Bloody Disgusting and VFXwire. He is a graduate of University of Missouri – Columbia and Vancouver Film School. Eric loves board games, fan conventions, new technology, and his sweet sweet kitties Bruce and Babs. Favorite games include Destiny 2, Kingdom Hearts, Super Metroid, and Prey…but mostly Prey. His favorite Pokémon is Umbreon.