There are days where it feels like nothing will ever change and the best thing you can do is just learn to tolerate mediocrity. Today is not one of those days.  announced that the US Copyright Office granted an exemption request from the non-profit public interest group and the DIY repair site iFixit to allow McDonald’s franchise owners to hire a third-party to repair their McFlurry and soft service ice cream machines.

Franchise owners legally couldn’t hire any outside business to work on the machine because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). McDonald’s soft serve ice cream machines have a digital lock and makes it illegal for anyone to bypass the lock on a copyrighted work even if no copyright infringement occurs. Only the original manufacturer of the machine can repair a copyrighted device with a digital lock. The recent exemption overrules the digital lock law.

If you’ve ever pulled up to a McDonald’s drive-thru window and couldn’t get an ice cream treat like a McFlurry, it probably wasn’t an anomaly. Franchises had to wait on the McDonald’s corporation to send an approved repair person to fix the machines. The problem caught the attention of the in 2021 under to draft new regulations to allow consumers to legally repair their own devices and hire third-parties to fix them. The FTC contacted McDonald’s franchise owners to learn more about the ice cream machines and the difficulties in repairing them.

did a teardown of a McDonald’s ice cream dispenser last year and found it had “lots of easily replaceable parts” but they couldn’t be fixed without earning the wrath of federal copyright laws. The teardown prompted the companyto work with Public Knowledge to obtain a copyright exemption to repair them. The repair website also compiled a video explaining the machine’s innerworkings in more detail.

I’m looking forward to GamesBeat Next 2024 on Monday October 28 and Tuesday October 29 in San Francisco.

We’ve got a lot of speakers who can deliver high-level insights into the state of the game business, which has had seemingly contradictory strong financial results, unpredictable game successes and 32,000 layoffs in the past three years.

In spite of the industry uncertainty, we’ve got more than 600 people signed up and are expecting it to be sold out. Among those folks are 150 CEOs and other top leaders of the industry. We have 97 speakers, and 65% of them come from diverse backgrounds. And 41% are women. We have 42 onstage sessions and roundtables.

We expect hundreds of women to come for the event, which includes our ninth Women in Gaming Breakfast. Thank you for supporting us, as we know everyone is feeling pressure and mental stress these days. That’s why we stay together.

You can see our updated final agenda here. Our event is virtually sold out.

Our event theme is all about getting back to growth, not just with growth in revenues and players, but with growth in jobs for game developers as well. We’ll talk about the shifting sands we see, from changes in game engine technology for developers to the rise of creators in game marketing.

I’m glad to have returning speakers who can give us a new milestone in gaming’s progress toward big goals like the metaverse and interoperability. Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, is coming back in a prerecorded virtual conversation that catches us up on our 2021 talk in the midst of the pandemic. We will cover the progress on the path to the open metaverse and the evolution of Unreal and Fortnite.

Speaking of the metaverse, another returnee speaker is Neal Stephenson, the creator of the word “metaverse” and author of Snow Crash, the sci-fi novel from 30 years ago. He will talk in a fireside chat on “The science fiction future that we want.”

Riz Virk, leader of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University is a simulation theory expert. He will be joining me on stage to quiz Stephenson about his views on the metaverse today and his thoughts for the future, especially as technology makes so much of sci-fi more real. Stephenson has a historical sci-fi book, Polostan, out now and he is a cofounder of the startups Whenere, focused on AI and storytelling, and Lamina1, on blockchain solutions for creators.

We also have Shawn Layden, former chairman of Sony Interactive Studios, and Christina Macedo, CEO of Play, talk about how focusing on making good games is crucial — and what they’re doing to support them with Web3 technology. And while our event is about technology, their talk is the only one among the sessions focused on blockchain, which is very different from what we’ve had before.

Our first day also includes a walk down memory lane with Peter Moore, a longtime gaming executive who launched the Dreamcast for Sega in the U.S. 25 years ago. Moore, who recently averted a brush with death thanks to his Apple Watch, will talk about lessons for today from his past that includes leadership roles at Microsoft Xbox, Electronic Arts and Unity.

And Matthew Bromberg, the newly minted CEO of Unity, will speak in a virtual live session at the close of day one, where we’ll talk about making decisions in the wake of Unity’s Runtime Fee controversy, where the company introduced a new price increase and then walked it back.

The kickoff session will happen at 1:20 p.m. (registration opens at noon) on Monday with Entertainment Software Association CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis and Laura Naviaux Sturr, general manager of operations at Amazon Games. They will talk about new vectors for growth and extending intellectual property to new generations of audiences.

We’ll have multiple sessions talking about AI, but our dedicated AI and games panel will focus on ethical use of AI in game development and user-generated content. It will feature Pany Haritatos, CEO of Series Entertainment; Kent Keirsey, CEO of Invoke AI; Andy Mauro, CEO of Storycraft; and moderator Hilary Mason, CEO of Hidden Door.

Day 2 happenings

Our Women in Gaming Breakfast begins at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the second day of the event, and it features a fireside chat between GamesBeat writer Rachel Kaser and Dametra Johnson-Marletti Dametra corporate vice president of digital gaming within the Microsoft consumer sales organization. She has helped grow revenue in her division from $800 million to more than $7 billion.

They will talk about inspiring the next generation of leaders and luminaries in games and how culture and representation can play a role in attracting and nurturing the next generation of gamers and creatives wishing to work in the industry.

Johnson-Marletti plans to give some insight on building a career in gaming, and how major companies can foster and retain the talent that will become the next-generation leaders in the games industry. She’ll also cover diversity and inclusion, representation, and how both new workers and games companies can set the new wave of talent up for long-term success.

We’ll kick off into session with leaders of Xsolla, Electronic Arts and SciPlay talking about the best practices for mastering mobile monetization. Then we’ll drill deeper, breaking into three concurrent stages for talks related to the topics of culture, technology, growth and industry.

At lunch, we’ll gather for a panel on diversity in gaming, sponsored by Xsolla, where Xsolla vice president of marketing Bridget Stacy will lead a session on prioritizing inclusion during tough times with inspiring entrepreneurs including Sheloman Byrd, CEO of Open Ocean Games; Jessica Murrey, CEO of Wicked Saints Studios; and Jenny Xu, CEO of Talofa Games.

I’m sad I can’t mention everything, but we will hit important topics like alternative open source game engines like Godot, mental health and games where games can be considered medical treatments, millennial and GenZ gamers, pioneering VR concepts with leaders like Kerestell Smith of Gorilla Tag and pet game creator Bernard Yee, the future of game publishing, operating in an ethical way in an ambiguous time, gaming M&A and funding, analyzing games, game creators and discovery, direct-to-consumer stores, and creating transmedia IP at places like Netflix, Exploding Kittens and Sharon Tal Yguado’s Astrid Entertainment.

Toward the end, we’ll gather to hear Amy Hennig, co-president of new media at Skydance Interactive talk with other Skydance execs about welcoming people into your team. She’s got a big team making Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra and is a veteran co-creator of the Uncharted series and more.

We also have a number of interesting roundtables. During one, Shelby Moledina, who has created a dark comedy short film about raising money for games when you’re a woman. I highly recommend the roundtables for those who want a more intimate experience at the event.

Game Changers session

To close the conference, Lightspeed and GamesBeat will announce the 2025 Game Changers—an annual list to celebrate and accelerate extraordinary startups in gaming and interactive technology. Lightspeed’s Moritz Baier-Lentz and l will start the session with insights from judges and past winners including Lisha Li, founder and CEO of Rosebud AI (past winner); Kylan Gibbs, CEO of Inworld AI; and Mihir Vaidya, chief sttrategy officer at Electronic Arts.

Then we will unveil the winners from each of the five key categories present live on stage: 3D technology & infrastructure, generative AI, game studios and UGC, interactive media platforms, and extended reality (AR and VR). Last year, Lightspeed showed the names of the winners on the Nasdaq Tower in Times Square.

Our next events

And please remember we have a new event coming on gaming and its intersections with Hollywood, on December 12 in LA, the same day as The Game Awards. It’s called GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games. It features Brian Ward, CEO of Savvy Games Group; game adaptation film maker Ari Arad, industry seer Matthew Ball of Epyllion; Eunice Lee, Scopely COO; Dmitri Johnson of Story Kitchen and the man who has conspired to bring Sonic the Hedgehog and Lara Croft to film and TV; and Erika Ewing, a cross-media leader at Lionsgate.

And be sure to look out for our extended partnership with Xsolla on the GamesBeat Global Tour where we hold dinners in cities around the globe. This past year, we held dinners in Los Angeles, Austin, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, and Seattle. 

We’ve also got GamesBeat Summit 2025 returning to Los Angeles on May 19-20, 2025. 

Lastly, remember to come out of the virtual world long enough to see what’s happening in the real world. Remember to vote in this year’s presidential election. You can even do this at the headquarters of Jam City in LA, which is an actual polling place. 

We’re proud to have returning sponsors including Xsolla, Fastspring, Modulate, the Entertainment Software Association and Lightspeed as well as new sponsors such as Open World, Fastly, Ludeo, Lightspeed, RapidFire and Play. If you’d like to request sponsorship information, you can fill out this form.

Our community partners include Women-Led Games, IGDA Foundation and Black in Gaming Foundation.

A new app called Screenable will help parents introduce their children to technology by turning an iPhone or iPad into a starter phone. The app is designed to grow over time with a child, as it offers different modes for kids of different ages. 

For starters, the app’s “Dumb Phone” mode essentially turns an iPhone into a classic flip phone, as it only lets kids access the Phone, FaceTime, and Messages apps. While Screenable doesn’t let parents limit who their child talks to, they can use Apple’s parental controls to restrict their interactions to only include specific numbers.

With the Dumb Phone setting, parents can also choose to allow their kids to access other apps if they wish, especially as they grow older.

Screenable’s “Screen Trainer” mode is designed for kids who are starting to transition to independent use of an iPhone or iPad, as it uses a collaborative approach to parental controls. Kids can start using other apps, but parents will still be in the know about their child’s activities via notifications on their own devices that will inform them about the apps their child is using. Parents can also turn on an “Overtime” feature to let their kids practice staying within a specific daily screen time limit. 

Soon, the app will offer a “Social Trainer” mode that will allow parents to slowly introduce their kids to social media. The mode lets parents give their children access to social media apps one at a time. While kids will be able to download any social media app that their parents allow them to, Screenable provides a custom install flow for Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Facebook, BeReal, Tumblr, and Threads. The install flow lets parents set a time limit on the apps and also helps them set up the in-app parental controls for the different social networks.

If a parent wants to allow their child to use a social media app that’s not on this list, Screenable will encourage them to research the service before allowing their child to use it.

In addition, Screenable will provide conversation guides for parents to help them discuss online safety with their children when it comes to social networks.

Screenable is a family-founded startup, as it was created by brothers, Tom and Stevie Clifton, and their wives, Scarlet Clifton and Hannah Kwon. The group came up with the idea after they started thinking about how they were going to introduce technology to their children. 

They looked at what was available on the market, and found that there wasn’t anything out there that worked for them. Tom and Stevie, who previously founded a cloud-based video maker startup called Animoto, decided to create a solution themselves alongside their wives.

“We are pro-technology,” Tom told TechCrunch. “A lot of the approaches of other apps out there are parents needing to lock everything down and not letting their kids have access to anything. And there’s probably some ages and stages where that’s appropriate, but ours is much more of a gradual program that helps them address each stage as they move towards device independence. We want to train our kids and make them able to use technology in a healthy way.”

That’s why the app is called “Screenable,” Tom explained, as the app is designed to help kids be able to use phones and be better equipped with technological knowledge.

Unlike some parental control tools and services that allow parents to monitor their children’s messages, Screenable’s approach isn’t about surveillance, Tom said. 

Screenable operates on a freemium model that lets users access the app’s “Dumb Phone” mode for free because the startup believes that all parents should have access to the tool when first introducing their kids to technology. The app’s other modes can be accessed for a monthly fee of $7. 

The group believes that Screenable will allow parents to make use of old smartphones that they may have lying around their homes when introducing their kids to phones, as opposed to going out and buying an entirely new smartphone.

In terms of the future, the startup believes that there is potential for the app to become a tool for families as a whole to disconnect from technology for a bit. 

“We feel like there’s so many more interesting opportunities for bringing unique experiences into homes where families together can decide to turn their phones into ‘Dumb phones’ for the weekend or for a trip,” Tom said.

He noted that parents have been reaching out to ask if they can download Screenable on their own phones to cut back on their own phone usage, so the startup plans to launch this capability in the future. 

While Tom and Stevie raised over $30 million for their first startup, they’re bootstrapping Screenable, as they want to keep the project small and grow it gradually on their own terms as a family.

Video games in the form of computer programs embodied in physical or downloaded formats that have been lawfully acquired as complete games, that do not require access to an external computer server for gameplay, and that are no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace, solely for the purpose of preservation of the game in a playable form by an eligible library, archives, or museum, where such activities are carried out without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage.

Any electronic distribution, display, or performance made outside of the physical premises of an eligible library, archives, or museum of works preserved under this paragraph may be made only for a limited time and after the eligible institution acts to ensure that users seeking off-premises access to works are doing so primarily for the purposes of private study, scholarship, teaching, or research by: 1) specifically determining that the user’s interest is private study, scholarship, teaching, or research, 2) instituting access restrictions appropriate to the nature of the use and the material, and 3) notifying users that they are receiving access to copyrighted material subject to adherence with applicable laws. 

Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games.

Reuters

‘Climate leadership’ ahead of COP29