Cecilia D'Anastasio

New: How will war impact Saudi Arabia's $38 billion investment in becoming the next global gaming hub? We asked Savvy CEO Brian Ward: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Understanding Roblox’s Grooming Problem Spotify video

I love @404media.co and really enjoyed talking Roblox on their podcast ! open.spotify.com/episode/5p7K...

Roblox Is Minting Teen Millionaires Roblox creators are raking in hundreds of thousands a month from simple games like ‘Fisch,’ even as major studios cut jobs and cancel blockbusters.

New: Meet Roblox's teen millionaires. A couple hit games "set them up for life," according to one 22-year-old dev who calls them "a great source of passive income."

Move over YouTube and Twitch -- Roblox is minting the next class of rich, young gamers www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Unlikely Wins and Comped Spins: Inside Stake’s Empire Crypto casino Stake pays Drake and other stars to bet, spreading clips of big wins to impressionable gamblers. The numbers show unusual luck is at work.

NEW @bloomberg.com feature on Stake: the world's largest crypto casino. Our year-long piece dives into Stake employing superstar influencers such as Drake and Adin Ross to livestream gambling. By @cecianasta.bsky.social @oliviasolon.bsky.social and myself: www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

The Math Behind Drake’s Lucky Spins YouTube video by Bloomberg Television

Stake's advertising operation relies on clips from Kick streamers -- including of big jackpots. People have suspected that those influencers won more than the average person. We actually did the math youtube.com/watch?v=SQMIA_9qe80&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE

Wild: Stake co-founder Ed Craven has sat in Kick streamers' chats and suggested games to play. Here's one time Adin Ross really lucked out :)

Wins that big occurred in just one out of every 170,000 rounds, according to our analysis www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Unlikely Wins and Comped Spins: Inside Stake’s Empire Crypto casino Stake pays Drake and other stars to bet, spreading clips of big wins to impressionable gamblers. The numbers show unusual luck is at work.

Our Stake investigation found that Drake won four times more often than the average gambler playing Stake's own games. And he wasn't the only influencer getting very lucky livestreaming Stake slots on Kick www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Unlikely Wins and Comped Spins: Inside Stake’s Empire Crypto casino Stake pays Drake and other stars to bet, spreading clips of big wins to impressionable gamblers. The numbers show unusual luck is at work.

Stake says influencers like Drake and Adin Ross don’t win more than the average gambler. We ran the numbers, and guess what :)

Here's our year-long data investigation into Stake and Kick's influencer empire, with @oliviasolon.bsky.social and @leonyin.bsky.social: www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

I interviewed Roblox's head of parental advocacy for Vulture about safety on the platform 👀

Xbox’s President on Handheld Devices and Subscription Gaming A relative outsider, Sarah Bond is leading a high-stakes transformation of a company that’s lagging behind Sony and Nintendo.

We profiled Sarah Bond in 2024 and went deep into her goals for Xbox. With @dinabass.bsky.social: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Microsoft Taps AI Executive to Run Xbox, Recommits to Console Microsoft Corp. named AI executive Asha Sharma to lead its Xbox and gaming business, replacing Phil Spencer, and will recommit to console users after years of developing products for mobile and PC pla...

Phil Spencer is retiring from Xbox: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

honored 🫡

Overwatch's new "story-driven era" launch doubles release day concurrent record on Steam | News-in-Brief The resource for people who make and sell games.

Overwatch attracted a record 166,000 Steam players last night... so crazy.... congrats to the Overwatch team.... I had a lot of fun making up new curse words for Jetpack Cat www.gamesindustry.biz/overwatchs-n...

Jasontheween Parlays Goofy Antics Into $3-Million-a-Year Job Twitch star still lives in the mansion that the gamer group FaZe Clan occupied

How did JasonTheWeen break through so quickly on Twitch? “My niche was doing cringy shit on the internet,” he told me. Now, he makes $3m a year. From stream-sniping on Val to a $125,000 car and the FaZe Clan drama, here's the first JasonTheWeen profile: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Jasontheween Parlays Goofy Antics Into $3-Million-a-Year Job Twitch star still lives in the mansion that the gamer group FaZe Clan occupied

New: Had a lot of fun watching JasonTheWeen get a space-alien makeover at the FaZe Clan house in December -- only for FaZe to spectacularly explode weeks later. Read our profile of Jason, Twitch's new breakout star: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

this is by the Post reporter whose house was just searched by the FBI www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/u...

this is fantastic

X updated Grok's image-generation feature so only paid users can make deepfakes. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

X is producing deepfakes at a rate 84x higher than the top 5 dedicated deepfake sites combined, according to an analysis. Victims say there's no recourse. Their images are still up despite reports to X, and those who speak out become targets. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Musk’s Grok AI Generated Thousands of Undressed Images Per Hour on X Elon Musk’s X has become a top site for images of people that have been non-consensually undressed by AI, according to a third-party analysis, with thousands of instances each hour over a day earlier ...

New: 6,700. That's how many sexually suggestive or nudifying images Grok is producing every hour, according to an analysis. X is now a top deepfake site. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

New: FaZe talent left after a major contract dispute. Influencers had the option to go independent or sign with HardScope, formed by DraftKings co-founder Matt Kalish, who invested $10m in FaZe.

Kalish says FaZe's current structure is "unsustainable." www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Hundreds of Big Post-Election Donors Have Benefited From Trump’s Return to Office (Gift Article) Well into his second term, the president and his allies have continued aggressively raising money. Many donors have interests before his administration, The Times found.

Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki donated $2.5 million to Trump's White House ballroom project, per NYT

Riot Has a Secret Plan to Remake Its ‘League of Legends’ Game A refreshed version being called ‘League Next’ is planned for 2027

Scoop: Riot is overhauling League of Legends. The 16-year-old game's biggest update ever is planned for release in 2027. Internally it's called League Next. Story: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Naughty Dog Studio Orders Employee Overtime for ‘Intergalactic’ The Sony-owned gamemakers have been racing to hit a December deadline

NEW: For the last seven weeks, Naughty Dog has enacted mandatory overtime for staff to finish an internal demo of their next game, Intergalactic. The game won't be out until 2027, leaving some staff wondering: If they're crunching now, what will next year be like? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Child sexual exploitation lawsuits against Roblox centralized in San Francisco Nearly 80 lawsuits accusing videogame platform Roblox of knowingly facilitating child sexual exploitation will be centralized before a court in San Francisco, a federal judicial panel said Friday.

Wow. Nearly 80 lawsuits accusing Roblox of facilitating child exploitation are now centralized, Reuters reports: www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

New: AAA gaming's star is falling. The industry of making $300 million games with Hollywood marketing campaigns is undergoing a correction. Today's favored Game Awards winner cost $10 million. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Holy shit.

Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa.

www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

MrBeast Hasn’t Thought Much About How Social Media Impacts Kids YouTube star MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, created a $5.2 billion business empire making stunt videos for children without thinking much about how social media affects kids.

New: MrBeast hasn't "put much too thought into" the impact of social media on kids' brains, he said in an interview with @andrewrsorkin.bsky.social.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Roblox Gaming Service in Russia Is Shut Down, Local Outlets Say Roblox Corp.’s popular gaming platform was blocked in Russia, local news outlets reported, cutting off millions of daily users.

Roblox has been banned in Russia, Turkey, Iraq, Oman and Qatar over some mix of child safety concerns and issues with LGBTQ content. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Roblox is a problem — but it’s a symptom of something worse What is the role of tech journalism in a world where CEOs no longer feel shame?

A strong and true report from the frontlines of tech accountability journalism by @caseynewton.bsky.social: "I'm noticing the degree to which platforms wish to be judged only by their stated intentions, and almost never on the outcomes of anyone who uses them." www.platformer.news/roblox-ceo-i...