Jennifer Maas: Last News

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Max subscribers may not have noticed yet, but Warner Bros. Discovery quietly began rolling out a new homepage personalization system last December, when it began A/B testing the redesign. Now, as of the end of July, the changes have been implemented across all U.S.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for HBO’s “House of the Dragon” Season 2 finale, titled “The Queen Who Ever Was,” now streaming on Max. For “House of the Dragon” fans who watch the show, but haven’t read George R.R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood,” there were certainly many questions left unanswered by the end of the Season 2 finale.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Riot Games‘ popular free-to-play tactical shooter “Valorant” is no longer a PC-only game. As of Friday, the title has officially launched across Xbox Series X and S consoles and PlayStation 5 in the United States and Canada, Europe, Japan and Brazil, following limited beta testing.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Nintendo saw its profit more than halve in its first fiscal quarter of the year as sales of the Switch console continued to fall while consumers await news on a successor console. In its fiscal Q1 2025 earnings report, released Friday, the Japan-based video game giant reported selling 2.1 million Switches — a console that is now more than seven years old — from April 1 to June 30, down 46% year over year.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer PlayStation‘s Bungie, the developer behind “Destiny 2” and the originator of the “Halo” franchise, is laying off 17% of its workforce. Bungie CEO Pete Parsons announced the news in a letter to employees Wednesday, revealing that 220 staff members would be let go as a result of continuing restructuring and cost-cutting at the developer.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer There’s a meta moment in Season 8 of “Jet Lag: The Game” when the stars of the unscripted travel competition series are seated on a plane behind a fan watching an episode of the show on the streaming platform Nebula. Catching a “Jet Lag” viewer in the wild would have been unthinkable when the series bowed in 2022. But not anymore.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Video game giant Electronic Arts (EA) is “not anticipating any significant short-term impact” to the company’s titles as a result of the current SAG-AFTRA strike against major gaming publishers. “We deeply value our talented actors who are an important part of the work we do to deliver the incredible entertainment experiences that our players enjoy around the world,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said during the company’s quarterly earnings call Tuesday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “EA Sports College Football 25″ drew a record-breaking 5 million unique players during its first week of availability, up from the 2.2 million that had joined the live-services game for early access by its July 19 release date. Electronic Arts (EA) announced the impressive stats for the new title in its fiscal first-quarter 2025 earnings report Tuesday, where the video game giant also noted that 500,000 users played the game via EA Play’s trial option.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Annapurna Interactive set flight with its latest game, “Flock,” on July 16, giving gamers a chance to take the skies and not worry about the ride. That’s because the multiplayer co-op game will not let you, try as you might, hit anything while in flight on your big bird. This was a choice made to both keep the cozy game “really chill,” and because “birds don’t constantly crash into things,” according to Richard Hogg — who along with Ricky Haggett and their studio Hollow Ponds (makers of “I Am Dead” and “Wilmot’s Warehouse”).

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Fantastic Fest is teaming up with gaming nonprofit Day of the Devs to add a horror video game showcase to this year’s edition of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s genre film festival. Dubbed Fantastic Games, the inaugural showcase will run Sept. 20-22 during Fantastic Fest 2024 in Austin and feature “12 incredible horror games that all festival attendees can play – some of which will be playable for the first time ever,” per the event organizers.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for HBO’s “House of the Dragon” Season 2, Episode 7, titled “The Red Sowing,” now streaming on Max. In the closing moments of Sunday’s episode of “House of the Dragon,” Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) finally got the upper hand on the Greens with the stunning reveal that she has found three new dragonriders to join the Blacks’ cause: Hugh (Kieran Bew), Ulf (Tom Bennett) and Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty) — one of the illegitimate sons of her Hand, Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint). The news was revealed (loudly) to Rhaenyra’s brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), the prince regent, while their brother King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) is in recovery, when Aemond sees a dragon flying over King’s Landing — and then heads over to Dragonstone on his massive dragon, Vhagar.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer In the story trailer for Funko‘s first-ever console video game “Funko Fusion,” the brand’s titular Freddy Funko is introduced to the title’s supervillain: his evil copycat, Eddy Funko. The “deeply twisted and immensely powerful shapeshifting counterpart” to Freddy is voiced by “Invincible” star Clancy Brown, who promises Freddy and characters from “Shaun of the Dead,” “Five Night’s at Freddy’s,” “The Umbrella Academy” and more NBCUniversal franchises scattered across the game: “Your worlds will fall.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance” will launch as a game within Epic Games’ “Fornite” in connection with the Oct. 17 release of Netflix’s anime series of the same name.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Paramount Global has a gaming problem — and Skydance Media could be the solution. Earlier this month Paramount and its controlling shareholder Shari Redstone agreed to sell the company to David Ellison’s Skydance, which has not one but two internal game studios.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SAG-AFTRA went on strike against major video game publishers Thursday, following more than a year and half of stalled negotiations. Per the union, the video game companies included in the strike are: Activision Productions Inc., Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Llama Productions LLC, Take 2 Productions Inc., VoiceWorks Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “The Boys” Season 4 has now garnered more than 55 million viewers globally since the season premiere June 13, Amazon‘s Prime Video revealed Thursday. That figure counts 39 days of viewership after the premiere, ending on July 21, just after the July 18 season finale drop.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Kit Harington has returned home to Westeros for the the launch of new RPG mobile game “Game of Thrones: Legends.” Harington shows up in the “Game of Thrones: Legends” trailer, which dropped in connection with the game’s launch Thursday, playin himself as he becomes deeply immersed in the mobile game and starts seeing White Walker-esque blue eyes appear in the people around him while he plays. The ad, which will stream on Max ahead of new episodes of “House of the Dragon,” end with Harington having a visceral reaction to a fan playing the game nearby, who outplays him and drops the iconic line, “You know nothing Jon Snow.” Other features in the game include: In “Game of Thrones: Legends,” players build and lead their own Westeros house, honing their tactics and skill as they strategically assemble a team of champions, equip weapons, and gear, and face formidable foes from the “Game of Thrones” universe, per Zynga‘s description for the new mobile title.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER WARNING: This story contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of “Gordon Ramsay‘s Food Stars” on Fox. It may be called “Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars,” but it was Lisa Vanderpump who owned the Fox competition when a contestant from her team of mentees won the second season on Thursday’s finale. In a two-hour episode that ended with finalists Jess Druey (Team Vanderpump), Roman Desmond (Team Vanderpump) and Ali Schlichter (Team Ramsay) giving dueling presentations in a bid to win the $250,000 grand prize for their respective businesses in the food and beverage space. And then it was up to Ramsay and the “Vanderpump Rules” star, who joined Ramsay as his co-host/rival mentor, for Season 2, to come to an agreement and decide which competitor won — and which of them won by association.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Following a majority vote to unionize under the Communications Workers of America (CWA), “World of Warcraft” gaming staff at Microsoft have received a show of support from the tech company. “We continue to support our employees’ right to choose how they are represented in the workplace, and we will engage in good faith negotiations with the CWA as we work towards a collective bargaining agreement,” a spokesperson for Microsoft said Wednesday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III” will be available on Xbox Game Pass beginning Wednesday, just before the Season 5 launch for the first-person shooter. The game’s arrival on Game Pass comes on the heels of Xbox increasing the price of its Game Pass subscriptions and limiting availability of content across tiers.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Epic Games‘ Alain Tascan is taking on the top job at Netflix‘s growing games division. Most recently, Tascan served as executive vice president of game development at Epic Games where he oversaw all first party game development for “Fortnite,” “Lego Fortnite,” “Rocket League” and “Fall Guys.” In his new role, Tascan will report directly to Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters.