Slay the Spire 2 Used Paint Instead of AI Art. The Data Says Developers Are Finally Getting the Message.
Mega Crit launched Slay the Spire 2 into Early Access last week with deliberately rough hand-drawn placeholder art instead of AI-generated images. Meanwhile, new survey data shows developer use of generative AI tools dropped from 36% to 29% over the past year. These two things are connected.
UMG and Concord Are Asking a Judge to Declare Anthropic Infringed Their Copyrights - Without a Trial
UMPG, Concord, and ABKCO filed a motion for partial summary judgment against Anthropic on March 23. They say Anthropic's own admissions make the copyright infringement case unambiguous - no trial needed. Here's what the filing actually says.
Create Music Group Raised $450M. They're Calling It a Win for Independent Music. Let's Talk About That.
Create Music Group just closed $450M at a $2.2B valuation and spent $500M on acquisitions in the last year - Monstercat, !K7, Nettwerk, Deadmau5's catalog. They're framing it as good for independent music. The framing deserves some scrutiny.
Behind 'Cold Summer': What a Season Feels Like When It's the Wrong Temperature
Cold Summer was built on a contradiction: all the energy of summer, none of the warmth. Here's how you hold two conflicting emotional temperatures at once in a single track.
Ruiner 2 Is Announced and It Has Co-op. Reikon Games Is Going Back to Rengkok.
Reikon Games has announced Ruiner 2, the sequel to their 2017 cyberpunk twin-stick shooter. The new game adds three-player co-op, a shell-switching system that lets you swap between combat bodies mid-fight, and an endless endgame mode. No release date yet, but the announcement trailer is out now.
Behind 'Spellbound': What It Means to Make Something Hypnotic
Spellbound wasn't designed to be hypnotic. That quality showed up when I stopped trying to control the loop and just let it run. Here's what the track is actually doing, and why the most important production decisions were about what not to include.
Behind 'Heavy Hitter': Making Something That Hits Without Trying to Hit
Heavy Hitter wasn't designed to be massive. It was designed to feel like one specific thing. The irony is that the track that wasn't trying to hit anything ended up being one of the most direct things I've made.
An Activist Investor Just Bid $1.2 Billion for Reservoir Media. The Board Hasn't Said Yes.
Irenic Capital, an activist fund holding 9.2% of Reservoir Media, made an unsolicited $1.1-1.2 billion takeover bid in February. Reservoir's shares jumped 15%. The board hasn't responded. And the CEO's father controls 44% of the company.
Primary Wave Is Trying to Buy Kobalt. If It Works, Independent Music Publishing Is Over.
Primary Wave is in advanced talks to acquire Kobalt Music Group for north of $1.5 billion. Kobalt's CEO is publicly saying the company intends to stay independent. The private equity firm selling it hasn't said anything. Here's why this deal matters more than it looks.
Behind 'HiJinK 2': Why Sequels Are a Bad Idea (And Why I Made One Anyway)
Sequels are a trap. You either make something too similar and disappoint people who wanted something new, or too different and disappoint people who loved the first one. HiJinK 2 was a genuine attempt to escape that trap. I'm not sure it fully worked. But the attempt taught me something.
Behind 'Bad Cousin': The Character Showed Up and I Just Let Her Run
Bad Cousin wasn't planned as a character study. But the moment I locked the groove in, someone walked into the track and refused to leave — confident, unapologetic, a little chaotic. I stopped trying to control the direction and just followed her.
Teardown Is Getting Multiplayer on March 12th. The Voxel Chaos Game Was Always Better With Friends.
Teardown — the voxel destruction sandbox that made blowing up buildings into a heist game — is getting full multiplayer on March 12th. Co-op campaign, sandbox chaos, and new multiplayer modes are all coming in one update. Liquid Swords are also teasing a multiplayer racing experience later this year.
Google Just Bought the AI Music Startup That Wanted to Be Suno. Here's What That Actually Means.
Google has acquired ProducerAI — formerly Riffusion, the viral AI music tool that raised $4M with The Chainsmokers as advisors. The whole team is moving into Google Labs and Google DeepMind. One week after Google launched Lyria 3, this is a deliberate land-grab on the future of music creation.