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Due to what Nvidia called “unprecedented demand” for its new RTX 3080 cards, the first release sold out before most consumers could even get a look in, with store pages slammed by bots buying up stock for resellers. Now, customers who signed up for Amazon’s in-stock alerts for the graphics card are instead being sent to overpriced listings selling the RTX 3080 at prices up to $5000, as reported by The Verge.

Amazon’s stock alerts allow customers to sign up for email notifications, letting them know when stock becomes available for an out-of-stock item. Normally useful for in-demand items, in this case users who’ve signed up for alerts are being sent to listings of up to $5000, many times the card’s recommended retail price of $700.

The new Nvidia release has been so messy that the company has apologized for it, promising to ship new stock to retailers “every day,” and saying that it has been “doing everything humanly possible, including manually reviewing orders, to get these cards in the hands of legitimate customers.”

Some frustrated would-be buyers have taken matters into their own hands, with one Reddit post describing a frustrated Nvidia customer writing a bot that would inflate scalpers’ GTX 3080 listings to unattainable prices, with no intent to purchase.

GameSpot’s review of the 3080 concluded that the new card is currently your best option for 4K gaming, if you can get your hands on one, though a bit of overkill for other situations. “The RTX 3080 is an incredible card but just make sure it’s something that you’ll actually get the most out of.”

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

The price of top-end AAA games is going up for the first time in over a decade, increasing by $10 from the $60 standard that has been in place since the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation. NPD analyst Mat Piscatella says that gamers will pay $70, if not happily, due to the demand for next-gen games.

Piscatella broached the subject on the Virtual Economy podcast last weekend, as reported by Gamesindustry.biz. “Game prices have stayed the same since 2005, when Call of Duty 2 first went to $59.99 on Xbox 360 and we’ve basically stayed there ever since,” he explained. “Now, a lot of people will say a rise in base prices for the higher tier, premium games is needed to offset development costs, inflation or whatever, and all those arguments seem to fall flat. But what doesn’t fall flat is that for some of these premium games, if the $10 increase was implemented, people would happily pay it.”

Various industry figures have spoken about the increased cost of next-gen production throughout the new consoles’ release cycles. Back in June, Sony Interactive Entertainment president Jim Ryan warned that more technologically demanding games would “become slightly more human intensive and capital intensive to produce,” but the new norm in game pricing wasn’t revealed until 2K Sports announced its next-gen edition of NBA 2K21 for $70.

Piscatella doesn’t assume gamers are going to welcome the price increase, of course. “They might grumble about it,” he predicted. “But they would certainly pay it. The price sensitivity, particularly on day-one, suggests that.”

He also suggested that prices would go back down if players balked at the new prices enough to impact sales figures, echoing an earlier statement from Xbox head Phil Spencer on game pricing. “As an industry, we can price things whatever we want to price them, and the customer will decide what the right price is for them,” Spencer said in a July interview.

Pricing and dates for the next-gen consoles have now also been locked in. Check out everything you need to know about preorders for the Xbox Series X and Series S and the two versions of the PS5.

Founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to create the digital effects for Heavenly Creatures, Weta Digital is perhaps best known for its work on Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Now, the New Zealand studio is coming under fire for an allegedly toxic and sexist workplace culture, triggering the launch of an independent investigation.

Allegations about Weta Digital’s workplace culture have emerged due to a months-long investigation by local news team TVNZ. New Zealand’s workplace relations minister Andrew Little has spoken up on the allegations, urging the company to carry out an independent review of the claims.

The stories from current and former staff include a culture of sharing pornographic imagery among the workplace, with staffers describing explicit mailing lists hosted on Weta Digital’s own intranet. “There was a tradition at the time called Porn Friday,” one employee told TVNZ anonymously. “Every Friday staff members would email round porn images to the whole team.”

Though the pornographic mailing lists were eventually shut down by the company, workers say the move resulted in backlash from those who benefited from that culture.

There are also allegations of sexual harassment and bullying, which wasn’t taken seriously by management–or in some cases were perpetuated by members of management.

“It’s a known fact that the film industry treats its workers like s***,” one former employee said. “Weta Digital is no exception. They work people until they burn out or quit. The culture is a mixture of boys club mentality, bullying gone wild, and casual sexism … I wouldn’t recommend anyone work there.”

In an official statement, Weta Digital has said that the allegations “do not reflect the Weta Digital of today.” A statement sent to The Guardian added that “the owners have commissioned a QC (Queen’s Counsel) to carry out an independent review.”

A separate investigation is already underway at Weta Workshop, the branch of the Weta Group responsible for physical props, costumes, and practical effects. The investigation at Weta Workshop is being carried out by Hive Consulting.

Sunday’s all-virtual Emmy awards were not a hit for the TV audience, the final viewer count has confirmed. The 2020 awards attracted a total of 6.1 million viewers on ABC, down from 6.9 million when it aired on Fox last year, as reported by The Wrap.

This year’s numbers are part of a continuing downward trend, however–this year saw a decline of 29% on last year’s numbers, while last year also saw a 32% drop from the previous year. The show still attracted relatively big numbers for ABC, representing the channel’s largest audience on a Sunday since an episode of American Idol on April 5.

While the TV numbers were less than encouraging, this year’s Emmys were a hit on social media, seeing a total of 11.9 million social interactions for an increase of 108% from last year. The show’s isolation-based gags may have helped with that, including a team of tuxedo hazmat-suited people who were charged with hand delivering trophies to the winners–and apparently gloating at the losers.

For a full list of the 2020 awards winners, check out our list here. Or for the short version–the big winners of the night were Watchmen, Schitt’s Creek and Succession, with each taking home plenty of awards in their respective categories. The night also saw Zendaya become the youngest person to win best actress in a drama series for her role in Euphoria.

With Microsoft’s recent acquisition of ZeniMax Media–parent company for eight studios, including Bethesda–it feels like another step towards reclaiming an old identity for Xbox. Back in the days of the original Xbox and Xbox 360, the Xbox brand was known as the home for console ports of western RPGs. It’s an association that was lost with Xbox One, but thanks to the many acquisitions that Microsoft has made since 2018, it may be one that returns with Xbox Series X/S. And that association will only help Microsoft in this coming console generation, both in moving Xbox Series X/S units as well as selling Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions.

In June 2018, Microsoft acquired Forza Horizon developer Playground Games, which is now working on a brand-new Fable. Later, in November 2018, Microsoft announced it had acquired Wasteland developer inXile Entertainment, following up that it also acquired Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment. Both studios are also working on upcoming RPG projects for Xbox; inXile is still a ways from announcing its game while Obsidian has revealed its developing an “epic, first-person RPG” called Avowed.

Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media adds Bethesda Games Studios to its rapidly growing list of first-party Xbox Game Studios. And though it’s still up in the air as to whether or not Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI will release as Xbox Series X/S console exclusives, both are at least coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one. In fact, all of the aforementioned RPGs are scheduled to come to Xbox Game Pass on day one, given that they’re first-party titles.

The total reach that Microsoft has over prominent western RPG developers can technically be extended to include BioWare as well. BioWare’s publisher is Electronic Arts, and EA’s games appear on EA Play at a discount (and sometimes early) for subscribers. And though it currently exists as a separate subscription, EA Play will be bundled into Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at no additional cost. At this point, the only major western RPG developer that Microsoft doesn’t have an official partnership with is CD Projekt Red. But if we’re willing to put on our tinfoil hats and theorize for a moment, there does seem to be some sort of connection between the two that maybe could become an official partnership. CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher series first came to consoles through Xbox (The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings on Xbox 360), and the developer has participated in Microsoft’s press conference for both E3 2018 and E3 2019 in order to advertise Cyberpunk 2077. Really makes you think.

But even ignoring that intriguing possibility, Microsoft’s recent acquisitions equate to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers being able to access some of the most prominent upcoming RPGs for less than their total retail cost. And with game prices seemingly set to rise–Sony is already selling a few of the titles in its PS5 launch line-up at a higher retail cost than what most PS4 games are priced–the savings on a per game basis could be significant.

I don’t think this is going to have any bearing on the first year of the Xbox Series X/S lifecycle–hell, I’m not even convinced we’ll see the impact within two years. But provided these games are well-received, I could see Xbox being regarded as the console to choose if you’re a fan of RPGs, especially those made in the west. Sure, RPGs are still going to appear on PS5 and Nintendo Switch, but I assume both consoles are going to continue dominating the Japanese space.

This gives Xbox something that it has long since lacked in terms of its first-party exclusives: an identity. Everyone knows you go to PlayStation for those single-player, blockbuster movie-like experiences, while Nintendo prioritizes making enjoyable complexity out of simple mechanics. Through Playground, inXile, Obsidian, Bethesda, and, in some part, EA and BioWare, I think Xbox can establish itself as a platform for different types of role-playing games. If your favorite thing to do in a video game is create a character and then live their life, it’s looking like Xbox is where a lot of the biggest names in the business are going to be.

And creating a space where RPGs thrive is only going to attract more of them. It’s a position that has worked for Xbox in the past–you had to own an Xbox or Xbox 360 in order to play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (for a year–it eventually made its way to PS3), both Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 (for a period of time), Deus Ex: Invisible War, The Witcher 2, and the Fable trilogy on consoles. The Xbox and Xbox 360 made it possible to play a type of game that was previously exclusively made for PC, and Microsoft can do the same now with Xbox Series X/S and the studios it’s acquired.

The fact that all of these RPG studios are making games that will be available via Xbox Game Pass is a huge boon for Microsoft. Xbox Game Pass already has a fairly impressive line-up of games for its price–there’s a reason we’ve repeatedly called it the best deal in gaming–but it doesn’t change that a lot of the best first-party studio games on the service (Sea of Thieves, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, State of Decay 2, Gears 5) are game-as-a-service titles or multiplayer-focused games with relatively short single-player campaigns. Getting a few over-40-hour RPGs increases the overall value of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, both in terms of just giving you more actual game to play for the same relatively cheap monthly subscription fee, and in fulfilling a market that is currently a bit lacking on the service.

Reminding players that Microsoft is investing in RPGs again is a smart move to make ahead of Xbox Series X/S preorders going live. Of course, acquiring ZeniMax Media does include studios and genres beyond Bethesda Game Studios and RPGs, but I think it’s Bethesda’s prominence in the genre that will help move Xbox Series X/S units during the platform’s lifecycle, especially when Microsoft’s other RPG-focused studios are taken into account. We’ll have to wait and see how all of these upcoming games turn out, but I for one would welcome the return of the association between “Xbox” and “role-playing games.”

Unexpected news means an unexpected bonus episode of Generation Next. Microsoft has purchased ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda. This landmark acquisition is going to have a significant impact on the future of video games so, just moments after the announcement, Lucy, Tamoor, and Jordan sat down to talk about the implications.

For context, this is one of Microsoft’s most expensive recent acquisitions, with the company spending more on Bethesda than it did on Minecraft. The $7.5 billion is even more than Disney spent on Marvel and Lucasfilm, which really drives home the value it sees in ZeniMax Media’s subsidiary studios.

For those unaware, the acquisition means Bethesda Softworks, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog join the Xbox family, bringing with them franchises like The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Dishonored, and Wolfenstein, among many others.

So, what does it all mean? Watch this episode of Generation Next and find out. The gang covers everything from the particulars of the acquisition to the impact it’ll have on Game Pass, and what it means for existing exclusivity deals with PlayStation, as well as how these studio purchases align with Xbox boss Phil Spencer’s ethos of making gaming available to anyone and everyone.

One of the biggest gaming news stories of 2020 broke this week when Microsoft announced it would buy ZeniMax for $7.5 billion. People understandably have a lot of questions about the deal, and in particular, what it might mean for the future of ZeniMax and its subsidiary, Fallout and Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently appeared on CNBC to discuss the deal. Asked directly if Microsoft would make any cuts to the company, Spencer replied, “Our plan is to leave it alone.”

“ZeniMax has an amazing track record of building great games. Our goal is to make ZeniMax the best ZeniMax they can be,” Spencer added. “Working individually with their studios on the great platform technology that we have and getting their creators’ feedback into the things we need to go build, that’s just a critical flywheel for us.”

Also in the interview, Spencer was asked what might happen to Bethesda’s Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo, both of which have deals in place for PlayStation 5. He suggested that those deals will remain intact as they stand.

“The commitments we’ve already made with the gamers out there, for games people know about, we will continue with those commitments,” Spencer said.

Microsoft’s blockbuster acquisition of ZeniMax came out of nowhere. With the deal, Microsoft gets all of ZeniMax’s properties, including Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and Doom, as well as every studio. You can check out GameSpot’s roundup of all the games and studios that Microsoft now owns.