Mole Man leads a supervillain team called ‘The Manosphere’ in Fire and Brimstone #1, out today. Fans have accused Smith of going soft in recent years. This probably won’t help.

Kevin Smith is back writing Marvel comics, and he brought a villain team called the Manosphere.

Spider-Man/Hulk: Fire and Brimstone #1, the first of four issues, hit shops August 19. Smith writes with Andy McElfresh, with art by R.B. Silva.

Mole Man leads the group. Stilt-Man and Sandman are in it. Spider-Man narrates the whole thing.

What else is in the issue

The Manosphere is one thread in a busy comic.

Smith also introduces a new Cardinal for New York, Cardinal Leviticus Thornhill, which is a different Cardinal from the one Dogma fans might expect. Bruce Banner turns up at a church, the Hulk does what the Hulk does in a church, and there is groundwork laid for an exorcism.

The issue ends on a Daredevil pun bad enough that Bleeding Cool called it out.

For anyone keeping track of Smith’s preoccupations, a Marvel comic with priests, exorcisms, and Catholic guilt in it is not exactly a swerve.

Why Mole Man leading it is the joke

The name will get the attention. The lineup is where the writing is.

Mole Man debuted in 1961 as the first villain the Fantastic Four ever fought. His origin is that he was short, unattractive, and mocked by everyone around him, so he went underground, found a kingdom, and came back angry at the surface world for how it treated him. That is the character. It has been the character for 65 years.

Stilt-Man is a guy on very tall legs. He has been a punchline in Marvel comics for decades, killed off and revived mostly for laughs, and creators reach for him when they want a villain nobody takes seriously.

So a group named after a modern movement built on male grievance is fronted by Marvel’s original aggrieved rejected man, with its most mocked character standing next to him.

Whether that lands as clever or as heavy-handed depends entirely on the reader, and it is going to split them.

The reaction is going to be a fight

A satirical villain team named after “the manosphere” is going to read to some people as a writer taking an easy shot at an audience he no longer shares much with, and to others as a decent gag executed well.

Smith has been a lightning rod in comics discourse for years, and the argument over him usually says more about the people having it than about the work itself.

Kevin Smith and Marvel have history

This is not a debut. It is a return, and the last one is remembered for a specific reason.

Smith wrote a well-regarded Daredevil run in the late 90s that helped launch the Marvel Knights imprint. Then he wrote Spider-Man and the Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do, which shipped three issues in 2002 and then stopped.

The fourth issue arrived in 2005. A three-year gap in the middle of a six-issue story, and the tone of the back half drew criticism when it finally landed.

He was also lined up to write Marvel Knights Spider-Man and had to be replaced over scheduling.

So the interesting question about Fire and Brimstone is not the villain name. It is whether four issues arrive on a schedule.

What Smith has coming next

More than this.

A Star Wars crossover is on the way, along with additional Jay and Silent Bob one-shots. Smith is building a run rather than dropping in for a single project.

That makes the reception of this one matter beyond itself. A writer with a Star Wars book coming is a writer whose current comic gets read as a preview.

Three issues left. The Daredevil pun is apparently just the start.

God help us all.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Bleeding Cool (August 19, 2026), Rich Johnston’s coverage of the issue including the Manosphere lineup, Cardinal Thornhill, and Smith’s upcoming projects

BAM Franchising has paid the Mansells and apologized for the LEGO Star Wars collection they handed a store in 2023. The deal also gives BAM something new: the right to sue in the family’s place.

BAM Franchising, the company behind Bricks & Minifigs, has settled with the Mansell family over the LEGO Star Wars collection that turned a franchise fight into a months-long internet event.

A joint statement went up on the company’s site on August 19. Signing it: BAM, chief executive Ammon McNeff and Matt McNeff, Baker Salem, Josh Johnson, Brandon Best, and the Mansells. It came out of mediation both sides entered voluntarily.

The Mansells got paid. BAM apologized. Each side is dropping its case against the other.

What the settlement says

Two things sit side by side in the statement, and both are there on purpose.

BAM calls the agreement a compromise of disputed claims and says nobody covered by it is admitting they did anything wrong or broke any law.

Four paragraphs down, the company issues what it describes as an “unqualified apology” to the Mansell family for what they lost and what they went through.

Those are not in conflict. A company can accept that a family was genuinely hurt, and write them a check, without agreeing that it caused the hurt. That is most of what settlements are.

What the deal does:

• The Mansells confirm they have been paid for what they lost

• They give up any right to sue BAM, its bosses, Baker Salem, Josh Johnson, Brandon Best, or any Bricks & Minifigs franchisee past or present

• BAM and the others drop their lawsuit against Bryan Mansell

• BAM says it should have gotten hold of the facts faster than it did

Nobody has said how much money changed hands. A separate FAQ the company posted the same day confirms a payment without naming a figure.

What Bryan Mansell gave up

The term that decides what happens next is sitting in the middle of the statement, written plainly enough to miss.

Bryan Mansell handed BAM his claims under the original contract. BAM can now sue in his place if it wants to, and the Mansells have agreed to hand over records and testify.

Two months ago Mansell was a defendant in BAM’s lawsuit. He is now a witness for it, and the legal claim he once held against the store belongs to the company.

The statement says this puts things where they belong. It does not say who that means.

It does not have to. The document points at how the store’s former operator sold, tracked, stored, and disposed of the collection, and says BAM, Baker Salem, Johnson, and Best never signed the contract in the first place.

The former operator is Chrystal Law-Gorman, who ran the Salem-area store with Benjamin Gorman. She denies what BAM has said about her. She also has her own lawsuit against the company, and it is still going.

How the LEGO consignment dispute started

The facts underneath all this are simpler than the fight they set off.

In November 2023, Bryan Mansell and his father, then in his eighties, left the family’s LEGO Star Wars collection with the Bricks & Minifigs store serving Salem and Keizer, Oregon. The store’s Facebook page talked it up at the time as worth well over $200,000.

The deal, as Mansell described it, was that the store would sell what it could, split the money, and give back whatever did not move.

The store changed hands in November 2024. Mansell says the new operators had never heard of the agreement and did not have the collection.

BAM says its own review found more than half of it was already gone before the handover.

Timeline of the Bricks & Minifigs dispute

November 2023 — The Mansells leave the collection with the Salem-area store, then run by Law-Gorman and Gorman.

November 2024 — BAM ends the franchise. Law and Gorman say the store was taken from them without warning, the locks changed, their stock confiscated, and no money paid. BAM says it ended the franchise properly. Brandon Best and Joshua Johnson take over.

March 27, 2026 — Law, Gorman, and their company sue BAM. They say the company broke its contract, defamed them, and tricked them into signing in the first place.

May 2026 — YouTuber Benjamin Schneider, better known as Reckless Ben, starts posting about the missing collection. The first video passes 6.5 million views. BAM asks Patreon to take his page down, and Patreon boss Jack Conte posts a video backing Schneider and Mansell instead.

Late May 2026 — Schneider is arrested twice in American Fork, Utah, trying to hand legal papers to Johnson at his house. He is charged with stalking, targeted residential picketing, disorderly conduct, and trespassing, all misdemeanors. None of it has been proven and the cases are still open.

May 27, 2026 — BAM and the current owners sue Schneider, Mansell, and others for defamation, running down the business, conspiracy, stalking, trespass, and deliberately causing emotional harm. They attach a claim under the federal racketeering law, which if it worked would triple whatever damages they won.

May 28, 2026 — A judge orders everyone to stop talking about it publicly.

June 4, 2026 — BAM says it is closing the Salem-area store for good and, in its own words, mutually parting ways with Best and Johnson. McNeff offers to meet Mansell, pay him for anything missing, and talk about dropping him from the lawsuit.

June 25, 2026 — BAM and Schneider agree to mediate. A new order lets Schneider talk again while keeping limits on what he can do, and says outright that criticism and satire are fine.

August 19, 2026 — The Mansell settlement lands.

What Bricks & Minifigs says about consignment now

The FAQ posted alongside the statement is where the company draws its line, and it goes straight at the question that made all of this possible.

BAM says that since it started in 2009 the business has been to buy, sell, and trade LEGO, and that taking someone else’s LEGO to sell for them has never been part of the franchise contract or the manual. No franchisee, it says, has ever been allowed to make that kind of deal in the company’s name.

The company splits consignment into two things. Renting out space, sharing revenue on services, taking a cut for bookings, adding extras to a store-run LEGO party: all fine. Taking a customer’s collection and selling it on their behalf: not.

People have been arguing about that line for months. Franchise Times reported earlier this year that the paperwork franchisees receive before signing says they can offer “consignment services,” and Law and Gorman posted images of their contract backing their reading of it. BAM says franchisees get told in training and in the manual that LEGO itself is off limits.

The company also says it has changed how stores work. Collections now get logged digitally the moment they come through the door, every deal uses a form the company wrote, and staff training on behavior and calming situations down is now required.

What’s still unresolved

One thread is tied off. Several are not.

Law and Gorman’s lawsuit is still alive, stuck for now in an argument over whether it has to go to mediation too. What they say happened to them has not been proven. Neither has what BAM says about them.

Schneider’s criminal charges are pending, with a court date on September 15. He disputes all of it.

And the claims BAM just picked up from Mansell have not been filed against anyone. The company says it might use them. It has not said it will.

For the Mansells, it is over. Two men left a collection at a shop in Oregon, and getting to an apology took nearly three years, four lawsuits, two arrests, a racketeering claim, and a mediator.

The full statement and FAQ are on the Bricks & Minifigs site, and also below.

Joint Statement from BAM Franchising and the Mansell Family
August 19, 2026

BAM Franchising, Inc., Ammon and Matt McNeff, Baker Salem, Josh Johnson, Brandon Best and the Mansell family are pleased to announce that they have reached a comprehensive and amicable resolution of a private civil dispute relating to the Mansell family’s LEGO® Star Wars collection. The collection was originally consigned to a former operator of the Bricks & Minifigs® Salem/Keizer Oregon store.

This settlement agreement is a compromise of disputed claims. It is not an admission of liability, wrongdoing or unlawful conduct by BAM, the Mansells or any other released party.

The Mansells confirm that they have been compensated by BAM for the losses associated with their consignment arrangement and thus are releasing all their legal claims against BAM, its leadership, Baker Salem, Josh Johnson, Brandon Best or any current Bricks & Minifigs franchisee. BAM, the McNeffs, Baker Salem, Josh Johnson and Brandon Best likewise will dismiss their lawsuit against Bryan Mansell.

Through the exchange of records and information during the legal and mediation processes, the parties developed a more complete understanding of what occurred. The underlying dispute arose from a consignment contract between the Mansell family and the Salem/Keizer Oregon store. BAM, Baker Salem, Josh Johnson and Brandon Best were not parties to it. The Mansells’ loss arose in part from the sale, accounting, storage and disposition of inventory by the former operator of the store.

As part of the settlement, Bryan Mansell has assigned to BAM his claims under the original consignment contract. BAM may elect to pursue these claims against those responsible. The Mansells have agreed to provide relevant records in support of BAM’s claims. The parties believe this places responsibility for remedying any remaining fault with the appropriate parties.

BAM recognizes that the Mansell family experienced a genuine loss, prolonged uncertainty and considerable frustration after the original contract was not properly administered by the former operator of the store and during the transition from the former operator to the replacement franchisees. BAM regrets that it did not more quickly access information necessary to understand and resolve the matter. BAM has issued an unqualified apology to the Mansell family for the losses and pain suffered from the events surrounding this dispute.

The parties recognize that many Bricks & Minifigs franchises and employees had no involvement with events surrounding this dispute and hope that this resolution brings closure to everyone affected and all may return to their normal business activities and personal lives.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Bricks & Minifigs (August 19, 2026), the joint statement and the FAQ posted with it, both read in full

• Franchise Times (June 23, 2026), Alex Vuocolo’s reporting on the franchise paperwork and the consignment services argument

• KSL (June 25, 2026), Emily Ashcraft’s reporting on the mediation deal and what the revised order allows

• NewsNation (June and July 2026), the terms of the original deal, the arrests, and Schneider’s own account

• That Oregon Life (July 10, 2026), the court dates and the state of the parallel cases

An outlet compared today’s memory pricing against exactly one year ago and found high-capacity DDR5 kits up nearly fivefold. The worst example is up more than ten times its record low.

A 128GB DDR5-6400 memory kit that once bottomed out at $329 now lists at $3,399.

That figure comes from Tom’s Hardware, which pulled average pricing from PCPartPicker for August 2026 and set it against August 2025. Across high-capacity kits, the year-over-year increase runs close to 500%.

The outlet flagged its own limits, calling the data approximate but broadly accurate.

Watch the Clownfish TV podcast on YouTube. Article continues below.

What DDR5 memory costs now

The damage is uneven and it gets worse as capacity climbs.

• 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5-5600, under $200 last summer, now over $1,100

• 96GB DDR5-6000, a $189 low a year ago, now around $1,799

• 128GB DDR5-6400, a $329 low, now $3,399

• A smaller kit that cost $72 last year now runs $392

Do the division on the worst one and the headline number is generous. From $329 to $3,399 is not 500%. It is roughly 933%, or more than ten times.

For scale, that single memory kit costs more than a 1TB Steam Deck OLED at $949, a disc Xbox Series X at $799.99, and a PS5 Pro at $899.99 put together. About $750 more, in fact.

DDR4 is no longer the cheaper option

The standard advice when DDR5 gets expensive is to stay on an older platform.

DDR4 has risen too, roughly 120% to 177% across common configurations by one accounting. A 2x32GB DDR4-3200 kit that ran $222 in August 2025 now averages around $614.

The cause is the same on both sides. Manufacturers are winding DDR4 production down rather than keeping it running as a cheap parallel line.

What’s driving the memory shortage

Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have been redirecting fabrication capacity toward High Bandwidth Memory for AI accelerators, which pays far better per wafer than the chips going into gaming PCs.

TrendForce contract data shows conventional DRAM prices up roughly 93% to 98% quarter over quarter in Q1 2026, another 60% or so in Q2, with 13% to 18% forecast for Q3. Retail lags contract pricing by a quarter or more, so shelf prices are still catching up to deals struck last winter.

Apacer‘s chief executive has said he expects shortage conditions to hold into at least the middle of 2027.

Why the rate of increase is slowing

There is one piece of apparent good news in the data, and it does not survive inspection.

The rate of increase is finally flattening. The reason is that buyers hit an affordability wall and stopped purchasing.

Two caveats belong on all of this. A list price is not a transaction price, and a $3,399 kit that nobody buys says as much about one retailer’s inventory math as it does about the cost of memory.

The last time a component this ordinary got this interesting, it was graphics cards, and that took about three years to unwind.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Tom’s Hardware (August 17, 2026), the PCPartPicker year-over-year comparison and the 128GB kit figure, including the outlet’s own accuracy caveat

• Hardware Busters (August 18, 2026), the TrendForce contract pricing figures, the Apacer forecast, and the demand-destruction reading

• TechTimes (August 18, 2026), the DDR4 year-over-year range and the 2x32GB DDR4-3200 comparison

Twelve crossover toys are rolling out across dozens of countries, mashing Bikini Bottom characters with the Straw Hat crew. The one market not on the list is the one where One Piece sells the most.

McDonald’s is putting SpongeBob SquarePants in Luffy‘s straw hat.

The crossover Happy Meal was announced on August 13 through the official One Piece portal, with 12 collectible toys pairing Nickelodeon’s cast against the Straw Hats. It rolls out in stages across dozens of countries starting this month.

Japan is not one of them.

The full toy lineup

Each figure fuses one character with another. The set:

• SpongeBob as Luffy, plus a second SpongeBob as Gear 5 Luffy

• Patrick as Zoro

• Sandy as Nami

• Squidward as Sanji

• Gary as Chopper

• Larry as Franky

• Pearl as Robin

• Mr. Krabs as Jinbe

• Plankton as Usopp

• Mrs. Puff as Big Mom

• The Flying Dutchman as Blackbeard

  

The casting is the fun part. Gary the snail as Chopper is the obvious crowd-pleaser, and giving Plankton the Usopp slot is a joke about both characters at once.

Happy Meals in participating markets come with one toy or a book. No crossover burgers or menu items have been announced, so this is a toy promotion rather than a menu event.

Where and when it’s available

Australia and New Zealand were reportedly first, around August 18.

The US rollout has been announced for this month without a confirmed date, arriving behind the Hello Kitty Happy Meal currently running there. Canada, Hong Kong, and much of Europe are also on the list.

Country counts vary by source, ranging from 66 to more than 70. McDonald’s has not published a single consolidated list.

Why Japan matters here

One Piece is the best-selling manga in history and Japan is its home market. Toei animates it there, Shueisha publishes it there, and Japanese McDonald’s runs some of the most elaborate Happy Meal promotions in the world.

It is not getting this one.

McDonald’s has not explained the omission and there is no reason to assume anything sinister in it. Regional licensing for a two-property crossover involves separate rights holders in separate territories, and Japanese McDonald’s runs its own promotional calendar independently.

Still, a global One Piece campaign that skips Japan is a strange sentence to type.

The leak came first

Food leaker @snackolator posted the collaboration on Instagram on July 28, more than two weeks before the official announcement, with a partial lineup of seven figures. The full twelve came later.

That gap has become routine. Fast-food toy campaigns now surface through leak accounts well ahead of the press release, and the announcements land into an audience that already knows.

Popeyes is running its own One Piece tie-in, a Luffy-branded bento bundle, which turns this into a competitive beat rather than a one-off.

Somewhere in this arrangement, Mrs. Puff is Big Mom.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• ONE PIECE.com (August 13, 2026), the official announcement, the full 12-toy roster, and the market list

• @snackolator on Instagram (July 28, 2026), the original leak weeks ahead of the announcement

• Anime.com (August 2026), the Australia and New Zealand launch timing and the US window

Vintage-style jack-o’-lanterns and glow-in-the-dark ghouls are outselling modern spooky season decor, and major retailers have noticed. So have a few independent designers.

Halloween 2026 looks a lot like Halloween 1978.

Smiling jack-o’-lanterns. Black cats with arched backs. Friendly ghosts rather than frightening ones.

ABC News ran a feature on the shift this week, and said that shoppers want the Halloween they remember instead of the one currently on shelves.

Retailers have stopped fighting it. The vintage-inspired look is now stocked at scale, which means nobody has to dig through an antique store to get it.

Why vintage Halloween decor is trending

Bob Richter, a vintage lifestyle expert and author of A Very Vintage Holiday, attributes the surge to three things working together: nostalgia, social media discovery, and the appeal of finding something distinctive without paying much for it.

That last part matters more than it sounds. A lot of this trend is not new merchandise at all. It is people buying decades-old decorations from thrift stores, garage sales, eBay, Etsy, and Facebook Marketplace, often for less than a new equivalent costs.

Halloween decorating also grew into something adults do for themselves. The holiday stopped being only for kids somewhere along the way, and the decor budget followed.

Blow molds and Beistle die-cuts

Two categories are driving most of it.

Blow molds are the hollow plastic light-up figures that sat on lawns and porches through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Pumpkins, witches, ghosts, the occasional Dracula. They were considered kitsch for decades and are now genuinely collectible, with the rarer pieces commanding real money.

The other is Beistle. Beistle produced some of the first mass-produced Halloween decorations in the 1920s. The company is still around, and its cardboard die-cuts are still being reissued from the old designs.

Which means a chunk of the retro Halloween trend involves buying new copies of century-old artwork from the same company that printed the originals. Collectors argue about the reissues, mostly that the modern stock is thinner and the colors are brighter than the embossed originals. They buy them anyway.

The 90s wave is arriving too. Blow-mold string lights, the shrieking motion-activated ghosts, and the McDonald’s plastic pumpkin pails from the 80s all have active collector followings.

Geeky Sparkles’ glow-in-the-dark pins are back

Independent designers have been working this vein for a while, and one campaign running right now is a decent snapshot of the demand.

Geeky Sparkles RETRO HALLOWEEN REVENGE Glowing Enamel Pins! is on Kickstarter through August 28, run by Nydaria Entertainment, which is a sister company to WebReef Media, the publisher of this site. It brings back the 2025 glow-in-the-dark pin designs by request and adds new ones.

The campaign has cleared its $3,500 goal with about a week and a half left. Crowdfunding totals move daily, so the current figure is on the campaign page.

What last year’s campaign did, and what it says about the trend

The 2025 version is the more interesting data point, because it is finished and the numbers are fixed.

Glowin’ Ghouls ran from August 25 to September 10, 2025 and raised $24,740 against a $2,500 goal. That is 990%, from 387 backers at an average pledge of roughly $64.

Retro Halloween specifically is where the demand concentrates, and it concentrates hard.

Glow-in-the-dark helps. It was the defining novelty of 70s and 80s Halloween merchandise, stamped on everything from mask packaging to trick-or-treat bags, and it is the one detail a photograph cannot reproduce.

Spooky season starts in earnest in about six weeks. The thrift stores already know.

Disclosure: Nydaria Entertainment is a sister company to WebReef Media, which publishes D/REZZED and Clownfish TV.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• ABC News (August 17, 2026), the vintage Halloween decor trend and the shift in retailer stocking

• Times Union (2025), Bob Richter’s analysis of what is driving the nostalgia surge

• Mental Floss (2025), the Beistle history and the secondhand sourcing routes

• Daily Dot (2026), the 90s and 80s collector categories including the McDonald’s pumpkin pails

Zak, Zelda, and Cody Williams reopened an account that had sat untouched since 2014, saying they want a trusted place for real photos and clips of their father as AI recreations spread.

The three children of Robin Williams have reopened his Instagram account, twelve years after it went quiet.

Zak, Zelda, and Cody Williams posted a joint statement on the page Monday. Their stated reason is the volume of AI-generated video and audio using their father’s likeness and voice.

“As technology evolves, we want this to be a safe, trusted place where the stories, photos, videos, and memories shared reflect his legacy with authenticity, warmth, and care,” they wrote.

What Robin Williams’ children said

The full statement frames it around his work rather than the AI problem.

“As we recognize what would be our Dad’s 75th year, we’re grateful to see new generations discovering his work while longtime fans continue to celebrate the joy he brought into their lives,” the siblings wrote. They described the account as a way to share his talent and humor, including the moments that made people laugh.

Zelda expanded on her own account, acknowledging that seeing the page active again might land badly for some people.

“Making that space into one where people can find authentic clips and photos of him is one of the best ways we’ve now found to fight back against rampant AI abuse of his voice and likeness on here,” she wrote. She closed with, “Might be a drop in the bucket, but we’re trying.”

Zelda Williams has been saying this since 2023

Monday was not the start of it, and that is the part most of today’s coverage is missing.

During the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, she called AI recreations of her father’s voice personally disturbing, describing them as a poor facsimile at best.

In October 2025, she posted a direct plea asking people to stop sending her AI videos of him. “Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t,” she wrote at the time, adding that it was a waste of time and energy and not what he would have wanted.

Three years, three escalations, ending with the family taking over the platform themselves.

The last post on the account was from 2014

Before Monday, the most recent thing on the page was a birthday tribute Williams wrote for Zelda in July 2014.

He died the following month, at 63.

Reopening an account that had been frozen on that particular post is not a small thing, which is presumably why Zelda addressed the strangeness of it directly.

What this does and doesn’t do

Reclaiming one account does not remove anything from anywhere else.

AI video of deceased performers has become its own content category, cheap to produce and rewarded by every algorithm it touches. A verified page full of real clips competes with that on search results and nothing more.

Williams is in Aladdin, Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society, Jumanji, and Mrs. Doubtfire, and there is more genuine footage of him than almost any comic of his generation. His family is betting that it holds up better than the imitations.

His daughter already said what the odds look like. A drop in the bucket, and they are trying anyway.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Variety (August 18, 2026), the full joint statement, Zelda’s Instagram story, and her 2023 SAG strike comments

• TheWrap (August 18, 2026), the “drop in the bucket” line and the October 2025 context

• Associated Press, via syndication (August 18, 2026), the account’s dormancy since 2014 and the timing relative to his 75th birthday

Ternox Games, a solo Ukrainian studio, says Sony ended its PlayStation publishing agreement without explanation. All 13 of its PlayStation titles come down August 23, including three made by other developers. Sony has not commented.

A one-person studio in Ukraine is losing its entire PlayStation catalog in five days, and says nobody at Sony will tell it why.

Ternox Games announced on August 16 that Sony had “unilaterally terminated my PlayStation developer and publisher agreement without giving me any reason.” All 13 of its PlayStation Store titles are scheduled for removal after August 23.

The studio’s next game, the well-received STONKS-9800, will now skip PS5 entirely.

What the developer says happened

The account is one-sided by necessity, because Sony has not responded publicly or privately.

“PlayStation Support refuses to listen to my arguments or even respond to my emails in any way,” Ternox wrote in a follow-up post, adding that self-publishing on PlayStation is now closed to them.

Speaking to TheGamer, the developer described the only explanation received: PlayStation cited a clause in the agreement permitting termination without a stated reason. That was the extent of it.

Sony has not commented on the termination or the delisting.

Three of the games aren’t theirs

The part with the widest consequences involves developers who had nothing to do with the agreement.

Of the 13 titles, Ternox released 10 itself over five years on the platform. The other three were transferred to its account by studios that partnered with Ternox for publishing.

Those three come down along with everything else.

“I’m really sorry that this happened and that I failed the developers whose games I published,” Ternox wrote. “But there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

What STONKS-9800 actually is

The game losing its PlayStation release is not an afterthought.

STONKS-9800: Stock Market Simulator launched in Steam Early Access in 2023, combining ‘80s anime visuals with a trading sim set during Japan’s bubble economy. It passed 100,000 sales in March and holds an Overwhelmingly Positive rating, with 97% of user reviews positive.

The PS5 version was targeted for 2027. Ternox says it wanted to ship a physical disc edition while doing so was still possible, given Sony ends disc production in January 2028.

STONKS-9800 is still coming to Switch and Xbox, and physical editions for those platforms remain planned.

The shovelware context, and why it doesn’t fit

Sony has spent two years clearing out the PlayStation Store, removing more than 1,000 titles in March 2026 alone.

That campaign has been broadly welcomed. Storefronts clogged with asset-flip filler are a real problem, and Sony has been more aggressive about it than its competitors.

A studio with a 97%-rated hit and a five-year publishing history does not obviously belong in that category. Whatever prompted the termination, the anti-shovelware explanation does not sit neatly over these facts, and Sony has offered nothing else.

What players and developers can do

Ternox has published a list of the affected titles so players can buy them before the deadline, and has asked the community to draw attention to the case in hopes the decision gets reversed.

Anything already purchased stays in a buyer’s library. Anything not purchased by August 23 becomes unavailable on the platform.

The wider point sits underneath the specifics. A contract clause allowing termination without cause is standard in platform agreements, and it means a storefront can remove a developer’s entire body of work on a week’s notice with no reason given and no appeal that anyone answers. Ternox is finding out what that looks like in practice. Sony’s silence is doing more to make the case than anything the developer has posted.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Automaton West (August 2026), verified for the August 17 announcement, the entire portfolio being set for removal on August 23, the 2027 PS5 target and the hoped-for physical disc edition, the 10-plus-three breakdown of the 13 titles, and the developer’s apology to the studios they published

• Video Games Chronicle (August 2026), verified for the full quoted X post, the 100,000 sales in March, the Overwhelmingly Positive Steam rating at 97%, the Ukrainian studio detail, and the continued Switch and Xbox plans

• Kotaku (August 2026), verified for the “PlayStation Support refuses to listen” follow-up quote, the inability to self-publish on PlayStation going forward, and Sony removing more than 1,000 titles from the store in March 2026 as part of its anti-shovelware effort

• eXputer (August 2026), verified for the developer’s account to TheGamer that PlayStation cited a contract clause permitting termination without a stated reason

• GAMES.GG and GameSpot (August 2026), verified for the August 16 posting date, the ‘80s anime and bubble-economy premise, the list of affected titles published for players, and the request for community attention

Sony left comments open during a 20-minute Phantom Blade Zero showcase, and the chat filled with “no disc no buy.” The same week, former PlayStation president Shuhei Yoshida said he doesn’t understand why losing discs is such a big issue.

Sony ran a Phantom Blade Zero State of Play with the comments switched on. The chat did not discuss Phantom Blade Zero.

For twenty minutes, YouTube and Twitch filled with “no disc no buy” and disc emojis. It continued into the on-demand comments afterward, alongside jokes about “Phantom Disc Zero” and messages reading “Will buy when it’s available PHYSICALLY.”

One viewer asked whether Donnie Yen comes on disc.

The game caught in the middle

Phantom Blade Zero is developed by S-Game, not Sony.

It had spent years building anticipation, and this was its largest presentation to date. It got drowned out by an argument about a Sony policy the studio had nothing to do with.

That is now routine. PlayStation’s social accounts and YouTube uploads have been fielding the same protest since the announcement, regardless of whether Sony published the game in question.

What the former PlayStation boss said

Shuhei Yoshida, who ran Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios before leaving the company early last year, was asked about the decision in an interview with GamerBraves.

He had not known it was coming. “I didn’t know they were planning that,” he said.

Then he came down on Sony’s side, starting with himself as the example. He described himself as a completely digital consumer who does not want to manage or swap discs, preferring everything on the dashboard.

His argument against the disc is practical. Physical games still require downloads. “Even with physical disc games, in most cases, developers are constantly updating and adding game data anyway,” he said, and buyers of a physical copy still need patches, DLC, and updates regardless. Given that, he said he does not understand if it is such a big issue.

Where he agreed with the critics

Yoshida did not dismiss the whole objection, which is the part getting lost in the headlines.

He conceded the resale point directly, saying the lack of discs may become an issue for people who buy or sell games. That is the used market, and it disappears entirely without physical copies.

He also acknowledged collectors, saying it would be a shame if physical games were no longer available to collect. He expects collector’s editions to survive, though with download codes rather than discs.

On pricing he offered a line that cuts against Sony’s interests: the digital price point can be anything.

What the patch argument misses

Yoshida’s reasoning is accurate about updates and incomplete about ownership.

A disc that requires a day-one patch is still a disc. You can lend it, sell it, trade it, buy it secondhand at a lower price, or keep it after a storefront shuts down. Retail competition on physical copies also puts downward pressure on price in a way digital storefronts do not.

The patch point addresses convenience. The objection is mostly about what happens after the transaction.

Sony is not moving

The company’s public position has not shifted.

Disc production for new games ends in January 2028. CFO Lin Tao has said Sony does not see any negative impact on its business, while acknowledging that people hold strong views.

The numbers give that confidence some support. Reportedly only seven PlayStation games have sold more than 100,000 physical copies in the US so far this year. GTA 6 shipped without a disc in any edition. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has said there are pluses and minuses but does not consider it a major problem.

Leaving the comments open during a 20-minute showcase suggests Sony is aware of the reaction and unbothered by it. The protest is loud, well-organized, and aimed at a decision the company has already priced in.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• GameSpot (August 2026), verified for Yoshida’s GamerBraves interview, his statement that he did not know the plan was coming, the “I don’t understand if it’s such a big issue” quote, his concession about the used market, and Yves Guillemot’s comments

• PC Guide (August 2026), verified for Yoshida’s description of himself as a totally digital consumer, his not wanting to manage or swap discs, the January 2028 effective date, his comments on collectors and collector’s editions with download codes, and the digital pricing remark

• GamesRadar+ (August 2026), verified for the Phantom Blade Zero State of Play running with comments enabled, the “no disc no buy” flood across YouTube and Twitch, the continuation into on-demand comments, the “Phantom Disc Zero” jokes, and the report that only seven PlayStation games have passed 100,000 physical US sales this year

• GAMES.GG (August 2026), verified for the 20-minute runtime, the specific viewer comments including the physical-format and Donnie Yen remarks, S-Game as developer, and Sony CFO Lin Tao’s statement about no expected negative business impact

• WCCFTech (August 2026), verified for Yoshida’s full reasoning on patches and updates, and his acknowledgment that the used market will be affected

The 45-page complaint filed Tuesday in Washington asks a federal court to halt the FCC’s early review of eight ABC station licenses. The FCC says it is enforcing public interest obligations and investigating DEI practices. The dispute now goes to a judge.

Disney and ABC sued the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, asking a federal court to stop the agency’s accelerated review of eight broadcast licenses.

The 45-page complaint, filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges First Amendment violations.

“Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts,” it reads, adding that the campaign began in the administration’s earliest days and has intensified since.

What ABC is asking for

The company wants the proceedings stopped while the case is heard.

ABC filed for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction that would bar the FCC from taking further action on the early renewal order, along with what the filing describes as associated threats of revocation.

Its motion frames the question narrowly: whether the administration can use federal regulatory power to punish a media organization over editorial decisions it dislikes.

The complaint cites a unanimous Supreme Court decision involving the National Rifle Association, which held that government may not use state power to punish or suppress disfavored expression.

What the FCC is doing

The eight stations are in six of the country’s largest markets and broadcast over public airwaves, which places them under FCC jurisdiction.

Their licenses were scheduled for renewal between 2028 and 2031. In April, Chairman Brendan Carr ordered an accelerated review, requiring the stations to demonstrate they have been operating in the public interest.

The FCC has tied that review to an investigation into Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices, which the agency says has been running for over a year.

Carr told CNBC that the agency’s focus was on those DEI practices, and that the early renewal was not tied to First Amendment matters.

The FCC’s response to the suit

The agency did not signal any retreat.

“All broadcasters have a legal obligation to operate in the public interest, even Disney,” its statement said, noting the length of the DEI examination.

It went further, characterizing Disney’s public posture as a campaign of disinformation and describing the court filing as evidence of the company’s concern about the proceeding. The FCC said it would continue to follow the facts and law wherever they lead.

The timing both sides are arguing about

One sequence sits at the center of the disagreement, and the facts of it are not disputed.

The accelerated review order came shortly after President Trump publicly called for ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired over a joke about the First Lady. Disney briefly pulled Kimmel off the air in September 2025 following pressure from Carr.

ABC’s complaint cites Trump’s social media posts, including one saying late-night hosts are almost entirely negative toward him and asking whether broadcast licenses should be terminated.

The FCC’s position is that the DEI investigation predates all of that and proceeds on its own basis. Media law experts quoted by CBS News described the timing of the order as highly suspect.

ABC also says the pressure has already changed its output, telling the court it has chosen not to air certain clips because they could be counted as candidate appearances and cited against it.

The dissent inside the agency

The commission is not unanimous.

Commissioner Anna Gomez, the FCC’s only Democrat, issued a statement supporting the lawsuit, describing the agency’s actions as a campaign of censorship and control that uses the threat of license revocation to punish speech the administration dislikes. She said she was glad Disney had stepped up.

Why other companies are watching

ABC is taking a path most of its peers avoided.

Paramount, Meta, X, and Google all reached settlements to resolve lawsuits Trump filed against them. Trump has separately sued the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the BBC over their reporting.

ABC was the first to settle, paying $16 million in December 2024 over a defamation claim involving remarks by anchor George Stephanopoulos.

Litigating rather than settling is a different calculation, and the outcome will shape what leverage a regulator has over a broadcaster’s editorial choices. That question now belongs to a judge.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• CBS News (August 18, 2026), verified for the Tuesday filing by Disney, ABC and their stations, the 45-page complaint, the 2028 to 2031 original renewal schedule, the April accelerated review tied to the DEI investigation, and experts describing the timing as highly suspect

• CNN (August 18, 2026), verified for the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction requests, the eight station licenses and public airwaves jurisdiction, the View investigation, and ABC’s statement that it has declined to air certain clips over candidate appearance concerns

• CNBC (August 18, 2026), verified for the FCC’s full response including the public interest obligation and disinformation characterization, Carr’s statement to CNBC that the focus was DEI rather than First Amendment matters, and the April launch of the license review

• NPR (August 18, 2026), verified for the National Rifle Association Supreme Court citation, the eight stations covering six of the largest markets, the settlements reached by Paramount, Meta, X and Google, Trump’s separate suits against the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and BBC, and ABC’s $16 million December 2024 settlement

• NBC News and TV Technology (August 18, 2026), verified for the complaint citing Trump’s social media posts about late-night hosts and license termination, the September 2025 Kimmel suspension following pressure from Carr, and Commissioner Anna Gomez’s supporting statement

The producer behind System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex, and Epic Mickey announced his retirement on LinkedIn. He shipped 17 games across four decades and helped invent the immersive sim. His stated reason: the business changed, and it stopped being fun.

Warren Spector has spent 44 years making video games. He is stopping.

“I’m retiring from game development. At least I think so,” he wrote in a post on LinkedIn, adding that he has been here before and changed his mind, but believes he means it this time.

His profile now lists his current role as retired.

The career in numbers

Spector’s own accounting is the clearest summary of what he built.

17 full games. Around nine add-on packs. Teams ranging from a dozen people to 800. Work spanning tabletop roleplaying games, board games, and more digital titles than he can remember.

He noted with some satisfaction that people are still playing some of them 15, 20, and 30 years later.

The credit list explains why that matters. Ultima VI. Wing Commander. Ultima Underworld. System Shock. Thief: The Dark Project. Deus Ex. Thief: Deadly Shadows. Epic Mickey.

How he built a genre

The through-line across those titles has a name now, and Spector is one of the people who invented it.

He joined Origin Systems in 1989, working with Richard Garriott on the Ultima series and co-producing Ultima VI and Wing Commander. Through Ultima Underworld and the founding of Looking Glass, he moved toward something the industry had not defined yet.

System Shock and Thief: The Dark Project established it. Games that hand players a space, a set of tools, and a problem, then let them solve it however they can think to. The immersive sim.

Deus Ex, released in 2000 at Ion Storm Austin after John Romero invited him to run a studio there, is the genre’s defining work. Its influence runs through Dishonored, Prey, BioShock, and much of what modern games mean when they promise player choice.

He later founded Junction Point, which made Disney Epic Mickey and its sequel.

Why he’s stopping

The reasons he gave are practical and a little sad.

He is 70, a month from his 44th year in the industry, and cited “age and health catching up with me.” He also said he has done what he set out to do.

Then the other reason: “it’s just not as much fun for me anymore.” He noted that a new generation of developers is coming up and deserves its turn.

Spector was open about not feeling settled on it. He has three games he still wants to make, one very big, one very small, and one he does not know how to make, which he said scares him.

The last project

His final game arrived three months ago, and it did not go well.

Thick As Thieves, produced at OtherSide Entertainment alongside longtime collaborator Paul Neurath, released May 30 after a severe reduction in scope. It began as an ambitious competitive multiplayer immersive sim and shipped as a smaller $5 single-player and co-op game.

Reviews were mixed. Two months later OtherSide announced there would be no further content updates, saying continued development was no longer viable, and the studio laid off most of its staff.

A career that helped define what games could be ended with a project the industry could not sustain. Spector has also said recently he felt “a little bitter” that a new Disney series revived Oswald without crediting the Epic Mickey team.

What comes next

He has plans, and none of them involve shipping games.

Spector says he intends to “write some books, do a lot of reading, do some lecturing,” and possibly consult. For someone who has spent four decades explaining design philosophy to anyone who would listen, teaching is a reasonable landing place.

Buried in his post was the line that reads most like a summary of the whole thing. Among everything he listed, the accomplishment he marked as most important was helping talented people along in their careers.

The genre he helped build will outlast the studios that made it. That was true before this week. It is just easier to see now.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Game Developer (August 18, 2026), verified for the LinkedIn announcement and profile change, the “at least I think so” framing, the 17 full games and roughly nine add-on packs, the team sizes from a dozen to 800, and the three unmade games he described

• Video Games Chronicle (August 2026), verified for his 1989 arrival at Origin Systems, co-producing Ultima 6 and Wing Commander, the “not as much fun for me anymore” quote, and the OtherSide layoffs following Thick As Thieves

• GamesRadar+ (August 2026), verified for the “month away from my 44th year” quote, his tabletop and board game work, and his note that some titles are still played decades later

• Kotaku (August 2026), verified for his age, the “age and health catching up with me” quote, the Looking Glass Austin dissolution and his reasoning, and John Romero inviting him to lead Ion Storm Austin

• Aftermath (August 2026), verified for his stated plans to write, read, lecture and consult

• Time Extension (August 2026), verified for the Junction Point founding and Epic Mickey titles, the Thick As Thieves May release and mixed reception, the no-further-content-updates announcement, and his remark about helping talented people in their careers

Fortnite sent Nintendo a code reading “BORN2PLAY,” and Nintendo posted about it publicly. August 20 is when Chapter 7 Season 4 launches. Nintendo first-party characters have never appeared in Fortnite, which is why the speculation went straight to Mario.

Nintendo posted a Fortnite teaser, which is not a sentence that has needed writing before.

The company shared an image tied to Fortnite’s Chapter 7 Season 4 alongside the message: “Looks like @Fortnite sent us something for Aug 20? Wonder what it does...”

What Fortnite sent was a code reading BORN2PLAY.

What’s confirmed

The facts here are narrow, and the gap between them and the speculation is wide.

Nintendo posted the teaser. Fortnite sent the code. August 20 is the launch date for Chapter 7 Season 4, titled Override.

The teaser carries the season’s branding, including the slogan “Break the rules. Change the game,” and the phrase “BORN2PLAY INPUT HACK,” which fits Override’s hacking and corrupted-systems theme.

Nothing beyond that has been announced. No character, no skin, no crossover has been confirmed by either company.

Why the reaction was immediate

Fortnite has absorbed almost every major franchise in gaming. Nintendo has never been one of them.

The game has hosted Sony’s Kratos and Microsoft’s Master Chief. It has run crossovers with Star Wars, Marvel, DC, and dozens of publishers. Override alone brings Sonic, Mega Man, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Persona 5’s Joker, Tetris, and Kingdom Hearts.

Nintendo first-party characters have stayed out of all of it, despite Fortnite running on Switch since 2018 and Switch 2 since last year. Mario, Link, and Samus appear in Nintendo’s own crossover games and almost nowhere else.

So an official Nintendo account acknowledging a Fortnite delivery is the closest thing to a signal fans have had.

What people are guessing, and what that’s worth

The speculation ran to Mario and Zelda within minutes, which is understandable and unsupported.

Skeptics have pointed out that Nintendo’s past interactions with Fortnite have been limited to platform-level cooperation rather than character licensing, and that Override’s confirmed lineup is heavy on third-party publishers rather than first-party holdouts.

A Nintendo tease could mean a first-party skin. It could also mean a Switch-specific promotion, a bundle, or something considerably smaller than the timeline currently expects.

Two days to find out

Override launches August 20 across PS5, Xbox Series X and S, Switch 2, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, iOS, and Android.

Sonic and Tetris arrive in the Battle Pass at launch, with most other crossovers reaching the Item Shop across the season. Whether Nintendo’s delivery is part of that rollout or something separate is unknown.

For a company that has spent eight years keeping its characters out of the biggest crossover game on earth, posting about a package from Epic is a notable thing to do on purpose.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Nintendo official account post (August 2026), verified as the primary artifact for the Chapter 7 Season 4 teaser image and the quoted message about Fortnite sending something for August 20

• HYPEX (August 2026), verified for the BORN2PLAY code Fortnite sent to Nintendo and the sequence of the two posts

• Aggregated social reporting (August 2026), verified for the teaser’s “Break the rules. Change the game.” slogan and the “BORN2PLAY INPUT HACK” phrasing, and for the split between fans expecting first-party characters and skeptics citing Nintendo’s limited past involvement

• Game Informer and GosuGamers (August 2026), verified for Override’s August 20 launch date, the confirmed crossover lineup including Sonic, Mega Man, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Persona 5 and Tetris, the Battle Pass and Item Shop split, and the full platform list

Deal volume rose 23% in the first half of 2026 and the sector is projected at $235 billion. The capital is going toward AI tooling and companies that own IP outright, not toward the people making things. One AI video startup just hit a $5.4 billion valuation.

The creator economy is attracting record investment. Very little of it is reaching creators.

Deal activity hit 70 transactions in the first half of 2026, up 23% year over year, with the sector projected at roughly $235 billion. Investors are favoring diversified businesses and IP ownership over individual channels.

Two deals from the past two months show where the money actually lands.

The AI video company at $5.4 billion

Higgsfield raised $400 million at a $5.4 billion valuation.

Its trajectory is the part investors are responding to. Revenue reportedly climbed from about $20 million to $700 million annualized inside a year, with roughly 30 million users on the platform.

The detail that matters more than the growth rate: the majority of that revenue has shifted from individual creators to businesses. A tool that launched serving people making videos now makes most of its money serving companies replacing the people who made videos.

The franchise that got bought out from under its creator

Invisible Narratives raised $25 million in June, tied explicitly to its majority acquisition of Skibidi Toilet. BC Partners Credit has said it envisions deploying more than $300 million into creator IP through the platform.

The franchise’s numbers explain the interest: 47 million subscribers, over 20 billion views, more than $150 million in consumer spending, and 8.7 billion visits across Roblox.

Two months after that raise, Episode 80 arrived without creator Alexey Gerasimov, who has said he feels trapped and remains contractually unable to speak freely.

What investors are actually buying

The pattern across both deals is consistent, and it isn’t about individual talent.

Capital is going toward repeatable formats, defensible IP, and tooling that scales without headcount. Invisible Narratives has described its criteria in almost exactly those terms: passionate audiences, repeatable formats, defensible characters or worlds.

None of those requirements include the person who made the thing. A franchise with 47 million subscribers holds most of its commercial value regardless of who animates it. An AI video tool serving enterprise clients scales better than one serving hobbyists.

The squeeze on the other end

While that capital flows in, the terms for working creators keep tightening.

YouTube will require 10 million qualified Shorts views every 90 days from February 2027 to keep earning Shorts ad revenue. Animation channels have been demonetized under policies aimed at AI-generated content. Twitch switched on Amazon AI training by default, with a product chief acknowledging that nobody would opt in if asked.

A Harry Potter actor recently said a year of non-explicit subscription content out-earned eighteen years of acting.

Where that leaves things

Record investment and worsening creator terms are not a contradiction. They describe the same shift.

The money is moving toward whoever owns the asset and whoever builds the tools, and away from whoever supplies the labor. That is a normal pattern in a maturing industry, and it is also the pattern that made the creator economy attractive in the first place, back when the pitch was that individuals could build businesses without a studio between them and an audience.

The studios came back. They just show up as private credit now.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Creator economy market reporting (2026), verified for the 70 transactions in the first half of 2026, the 23% year-over-year increase, the roughly $235 billion sector projection, and capital favoring diversified businesses over individual channels

• Tech sector reporting (August 17, 2026), verified for Higgsfield’s $400 million raise at a $5.4 billion valuation, the revenue growth from roughly $20 million to $700 million annualized, the approximately 30 million users, and the majority of revenue shifting from creators to businesses

• Variety and C21Media (June 17, 2026), verified for Invisible Narratives raising $25 million from BC Partners Credit and Verance Capital tied to its majority acquisition of Skibidi Toilet, the more than $300 million longer-term ambition, and the stated investment criteria around passionate audiences, repeatable formats and defensible characters

• The Drop (June 2026), verified for Skibidi Toilet’s 47 million subscribers, 20 billion views, over $150 million in consumer spending, and 8.7 billion Roblox visits

• YouTube official blog, Kotaku and TechCrunch (2026), verified for the 10 million qualified Shorts views requirement from February 2027, the animation demonetizations under inauthentic content policy, and Twitch’s default-on Amazon AI training setting

Geoff Keighley’s showcase opens the week a day before the Cologne show floor, streaming free on YouTube, Twitch, and Steam. Xbox is running two broadcasts around its 25th anniversary, and Konami is bringing a new Silent Hill: Townfall trailer.

Gamescom 2026 runs August 26 through 30 in Cologne, with the announcements starting a day earlier.

Opening Night Live airs Tuesday, August 25, hosted by Geoff Keighley and Eefje Depoortere, with a 30-minute pre-show that usually carries announcements of its own. It streams free on YouTube, Twitch, and Steam.

Start times: 11am PDT / 2pm EDT / 8pm CEST.

The full week of showcases

Several broadcasts run across the week beyond the opener.

Xbox has two, on August 26 and 27, framed around celebrating 25 years of the platform. Fable is confirmed in the lineup, alongside trailers, gameplay, developer interviews, and guests. Both stream on YouTube and Twitch.

The Future Games Show returns with over 90 minutes on August 26, hosted by Resident Evil Requiem actors Nick Apostolides and Angela Sant’Albano. FGS also runs a show-floor broadcast during the week and a Best of Gamescom wrap on August 30.

Gamescom Awesome Indies covers independent games in a 60 to 75 minute showcase.

The industry side runs alongside it: gamescom dev from August 23 to 25, gamescom congress on the 27th, and the gamescom awards ceremony on the 28th.

What’s actually confirmed

Publishers have locked in some of this already.

Konami is bringing Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse and has confirmed a new Silent Hill: Townfall trailer for the event.

Nintendo skips the broadcasts but takes the show floor with hands-on demos, including Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, Modern Warfare 4, Orbitals, 007 First Light, and Metaphor: ReFantazio on Switch 2.

Confirmed exhibitors include Nintendo, Xbox, Ubisoft, CD Projekt Red, Capcom, Krafton, and Bandai Namco.

What’s expected but not confirmed

The gap between these two categories tends to get lost in Gamescom coverage.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Songs of the Past is widely expected to debut at Opening Night Live, though CD Projekt Red has not confirmed the timing.

Titles frequently named as likely ONL appearances include Onimusha: Way of the Sword, The Blood of Dawnwalker, Dune: Awakening, and Control Resonant. None of those are confirmed for the show.

Keighley showcases also have a track record of unannounced reveals, which is the actual reason people watch live.

The scheduling collision

One wrinkle worth planning around if you follow releases.

August 27 lands in the middle of the show and is one of the busiest release days of the summer, with several major titles arriving at once. Anyone watching the Xbox broadcast that day may be downloading 2026’s biggest releases while watching reveals for 2027.

Xbox’s framing is also worth noting given recent weeks. The company is celebrating 25 years at Gamescom roughly three weeks after raising console prices worldwide, with a translucent anniversary Series X due in November. Whether pre-orders for that hardware open during the show is one of the unconfirmed items people are watching for.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• GamesRadar+ (August 2026), verified for the August 26 to 30 show dates, the August 25 Opening Night Live opener, the two Xbox broadcasts on the 26th and 27th with Fable confirmed, the Future Games Show timing and its Resident Evil Requiem hosts, the FGS show-floor and Best of Gamescom broadcasts, and the Awesome Indies runtime

• Nintendo Life (August 2026), verified for the Opening Night Live start times by region, the 30-minute pre-show, the YouTube and Twitch broadcast channels, and Nintendo’s show-floor hands-on lineup including Switch Sports Resort, Modern Warfare 4, Orbitals, 007 First Light and Metaphor: ReFantazio

• Sortiraparis (August 2026), verified for the gamescom dev dates of August 23 to 25, the gamescom congress on August 27, and the gamescom awards ceremony on August 28

• NordiskBil (August 2026), verified for the Koelnmesse venue, the Geoff Keighley and Eefje Depoortere hosting, and Xbox framing both broadcasts around 25 years of the platform

• GamerSpecs (July 2026), verified for the Steam broadcast availability, the confirmed exhibitor list, and the August 27 release-day collision

The 1983 “Totally Accurate Controller” is back in production, priced at half what a working original fetches secondhand. Commodore replaced the one part that always failed: an automobile tire valve the original design was built around.

Commodore is putting the TAC-2 back into production, more than forty years after Suncom Technologies first sold it.

Pre-orders opened August 11 at $49.99, with shipping expected October 20. A working original on the secondhand market regularly clears $100.

The joystick most people remember as indestructible had one component holding it together, and it came from a car.

The tire valve

Suncom’s 1983 design used a TR-418 automobile tire valve as the self-centering mechanism.

That is the standard snap-in rubber valve stem found in wheels, an off-the-shelf industrial part engineered to survive road vibration, temperature swings, and constant stress. Suncom built a joystick around it, and the result was marketed as tested to three million moves without failure.

The reputation held up. The valve was also the known failure point for owners who pushed it hard enough.

Commodore’s fix is the one meaningful change to the design. Modern tire valves use thinner, weaker copper than they did in the eighties, so the company fabricated a single-piece chrome-plated steel shaft instead. Everything else stays: the ball-and-contact directional mechanism, the microswitch-free construction, the arcade-style ball top, the clicky dual fire buttons.

What you can buy

Five colorways, and the split between them is deliberate.

BASIC Beige, Starlight, and the gold-accented Founders Edition match the Commodore 64 Ultimate’s styling and add LEDs inside the fire buttons. C= White and Knight Black reproduce the original two colors, with no LEDs, aimed at purists.

The base models run $49.99. The Founders Edition with gold PVD accents is $64.

It connects through the same 9-pin DE-9 port as the original, meaning it works with the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari computers, various Sega systems, and the C64 Ultimate. No Bluetooth, no USB-C, no app. USB adapters exist if you want it on a modern PC.

The unit measures about 10cm square, weighs roughly 300 grams, and ships with a two-meter cable. Commodore’s Chicken Lips logo is molded into the plug.

The shipping problem

The launch did not go entirely smoothly, and Commodore has addressed it.

International customers began reporting shipping charges approaching the price of the joystick itself, with UK buyers among the loudest. Time Extension covered the complaints under the headline “Are You Having A Laugh?”

A Commodore spokesperson told the outlet that a hiccup affected the first 83 purchases, which were overcharged. Those buyers were refunded $11 once the problem was caught, and the correct shipping charge is $19 USD regardless of destination.

Why Commodore is doing this at all

The revived company has had mixed results with the name it bought.

Last year’s Commodore 64 Ultimate reviewed well and sold strongly, which is what made this possible. Other efforts have landed worse, including a Commodore-branded flip phone that drew more confusion than enthusiasm.

The TAC-2 sits closer to the first category. It is a straightforward reissue of a product people already want, at half the price of the used market, with the single known weak point engineered out. Commodore holds exclusive trademark rights to the design, so this is not a clone.

At $19.95 in 1983, the original cost roughly $64 in today’s money. The reissue undercuts that. For a company still untangling which pieces of the Commodore estate it actually owns, selling a forty-year-old joystick for less than it cost in 1983 is not a bad place to be.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Commodore International press release (August 11, 2026), verified for the pre-order opening, the Suncom 1983 origin, the microswitch-free ball-and-contact design, the five colorways and their C64 Ultimate styling, the steel shaft replacing the copper tire valve shaft, the Chicken Lips logo in the plug, and the October 20 ship date

• Tom’s Hardware (August 2026), verified for the $49.99 base and $64 Founders Edition pricing, the LED distinction between the Commodore-styled and purist colorways, the TR-418 tire valve assembly and the thinner modern copper explanation, the 9-pin compatibility including the C64 Ultimate, and the dimensions and cable length

• TechTimes (August 12, 2026), verified for the original $19.95 list price and its roughly $64 equivalent in 2026 dollars, the three-million-moves marketing claim, the single-piece chrome-plated steel shaft, the DE-9 compatibility across Commodore, Amiga, Atari and Sega hardware, and Commodore holding exclusive trademark rights

• Time Extension (August 2026), verified for the international shipping complaints and the Commodore spokesperson’s response about 83 overcharged purchases, the $11 refunds, and the $19 global shipping rate

• Boing Boing (August 12, 2026), verified for the secondhand pricing above $100, the mixed reception to other Commodore-branded products including the flip phone, and the recent agreement with Amiga Corporation resolving intellectual property overlap

A hybrid decompilation project called OpenPete has the 1998 PS1 classic running on Windows at 60fps in widescreen, with the polygon wobble gone. Part of the toolchain was built in three weeks by someone with no prior experience, using an AI coding assistant.

Spyro the Dragon is running on Windows. Not emulated, not remastered. Recompiled into a native executable.

The project is called OpenPete, and a working build surfaced in June when Spyro speedrunner lumilaura posted footage. Their caption: you’re not dreaming, this is Spyro 1 running natively on Windows 11.

It sits at version 0.1.3 now, and how it was built is the part people are arguing about.

What OpenPete improves

The changes target the specific limitations of 1998 hardware.

OpenPete delivers 60fps, true widescreen field of view, longer draw distance, perspective-correct textures, and an optional fix for the polygon wobble that defined the PS1’s look. Anyone who grew up with that shimmer notices its absence immediately.

Under the hood it combines three separate efforts: altro50’s unfinished decompilation project, Matthew Stanley’s PSXRecomp tool, and SoapyMan’s Psycross, assembled by developers credited as Amec and tyscorp.

What “native” actually means here

The terminology gets stretched in coverage of these projects.

PSXRecomp translates PS1 MIPS binaries into C, then compiles that C into a native executable linked against a PS1 hardware runtime. That differs from emulation, which decodes and executes instructions at runtime.

The framework still uses a hybrid execution model. Known game code compiles ahead of time. Disc-streamed code gets captured and compiled later. An interpreter stays available as a compatibility fallback.

OpenPete is a Windows-native application with a recompilation pipeline, not a claim that every instruction of the 1998 game has been cleanly reauthored.

Three weeks and an AI assistant

PSXRecomp’s creator has written openly about how it came together.

He built the tool in roughly three weeks with no prior expertise in reverse engineering, using an AI coding assistant to accelerate the work. His first target was Tomba!, chosen because early PlayStation titles use simpler implementations than later ones.

The approach has since spread. There are now recompilation projects for Game Boy Advance titles including The Minish Cap and several Pokémon games, plus a SNES effort with Mega Man X fully playable and A Link to the Past in development.

The associated community Discord is named R.A.I.D., for Retro AI Development. Nobody is hiding the AI use.

The scene is split

Preservation work has become an unexpected front in the AI argument.

Some projects now advertise AI-free status as a feature. A recent PS1 translation patch carried an explicit note that artificial intelligence tools were not used in its creation, positioned as a mark of quality.

Others find that framing dishonest. One commenter on Time Extension’s coverage argued that a large share of decompilation projects, ports, and emulators are already using AI, and asked whether people genuinely believe everyone became a genius in the last two years.

Both positions have something behind them. Reverse engineering is the kind of pattern-matching grind these tools handle well, and preservation is the kind of work where accuracy matters more than speed.

Where it stands legally

The projects have thought about this, whatever else you make of them.

PSXRecomp distributes a from-scratch, MIT-licensed OpenBIOS. Retail BIOS images and game discs are not distributed, and users supply their own from their own collection. N64: Recompiled uses the same model.

Whether that holds up if a rights holder objects is untested. For now, a twenty-eight-year-old dragon is running at 60fps on a machine that did not exist when he was made, and the tool that got him there was built by someone who did not know how to do it three weeks earlier.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Time Extension (August 2026), verified for OpenPete combining altro50’s decompilation project, Matthew Stanley’s PSXRecomp and SoapyMan’s Psycross, the Amec and tyscorp credits, lumilaura’s June 23 footage and quote, the 60fps and widescreen features, and the community reaction about AI use across decompilation projects

• WindowsForum (August 2026), verified for the OpenPete 0.1.3 release, the hybrid execution model with ahead-of-time compilation and interpreter fallback, the distinction between a native application with a recompilation pipeline and a full reauthoring, and the specific PS1 limitations the project targets

• PSXRecomp project documentation (August 2026), verified for the MIPS-to-C translation approach, the MIT-licensed OpenBIOS distribution, retail BIOS and disc images not being distributed, the user-supplied assets model, the N64: Recompiled comparison, and the R.A.I.D. community naming

• Matthew Stanley, published account (2026), verified for building the prototype in roughly three weeks without prior expertise using AI tooling, selecting Tomba! as the first target, and the subsequent expansion into Game Boy Advance and SNES recompilation projects

The translucent Series X25 Limited Edition lands in November, with the matching controller reportedly opening pre-orders at Gamescom next week. It celebrates 25 years of Xbox three months after Microsoft raised console prices worldwide.

Microsoft is marking 25 years of Xbox with a see-through console.

The Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition and matching Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition are built around a translucent OG Green design pulled straight from the original 2001 Xbox. It’s the first time Microsoft has put a translucent shell on a Series X.

The console arrives in November. The timing around it is where things get awkward.

What the hardware actually is

The design work is genuinely thoughtful, which is worth saying before anything else.

Underneath the translucent shell it’s a standard Series X with 1TB of storage. The differences are cosmetic and nostalgic: the iconic X lights up green at startup, echoing the original Xbox boot sequence, with the 25th anniversary logo on the front.

Microsoft has said there are hidden surprises throughout the design, framed as a thank-you to the community. The controller carries the same translucent treatment.

Both were revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase in June, alongside confirmation that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution would be full console exclusives rather than timed ones.

When you can actually buy it

Some of this is confirmed and some is not, so here’s the split.

Confirmed by Microsoft: the console launches in November 2026.

Reported, not confirmed: leaker eXtas1s claims the controller goes on sale October 20 at €79.99 and £74.99, which would translate to roughly $79.99, with pre-orders opening at Gamescom this month. Gamescom runs August 26 through 30, with Opening Night Live on the 25th.

Microsoft has not confirmed pre-order timing or controller pricing. The controller is being sold both separately and bundled with the console, and it isn’t clear the two share a release date.

The price problem sitting next to it

Here’s the context that makes an anniversary console land strangely.

On August 1, Microsoft raised Xbox prices worldwide for the third time in roughly 15 months. Series X models went up $150, putting the disc version at $799.99. The 2TB model was discontinued entirely.

The company blamed memory and storage costs rising more than 2.5 times, and said it expects them to double again by fall 2027.

So the celebration of 25 years arrives in the same season as the steepest console pricing in Xbox history, and Microsoft has signaled more increases ahead. A limited edition console is a nostalgia purchase by definition, and nostalgia is a harder sell when the standard model just got $150 more expensive.

What it’s competing with

November is also crowded in a way that matters.

GTA 6 launches November 19 at $79.99, historically the kind of release that drives console purchases. A limited edition Series X would want to land before that rather than after.

Microsoft has not announced pricing for the X25 console. Given where standard Series X pricing sits now, and that limited editions typically carry a premium, that number is the one worth watching. Gamescom next week is the most likely place to find out.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Xbox Wire (June 7, 2026), verified as the primary source for the Series X25 Limited Edition and Controller X25 Special Edition, the translucent OG Green design inspired by the original Xbox, the 1TB storage, the green illuminated X at startup, the anniversary logo and hidden design details, and the November release window

• Xbox Wire showcase recap (June 2026), verified for Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution being confirmed as full console exclusives rather than timed

• Vice (July 2026), verified for the eXtas1s leak claiming an October 20 controller release at €79.99 and £74.99, the reported Gamescom pre-order timing, the controller being sold separately and bundled, and the absence of a confirmed console release date

• Xbox Wire (June 25, 2026), verified for the August 1 worldwide price increase, the $150 rise on 1TB models placing the Series X at $799.99, the 2TB discontinuation, the 2.5x memory cost figure, and the expectation of another doubling by fall 2027

The Domino is a Detroit-style pizza made for one, shaped like the company’s logo and cut into two slices. It arrives as Domino’s tries to restart US growth after a quarter of flat same-store sales, with rivals closing hundreds of locations.

Domino’s is launching a pizza named after itself.

The Domino arrives nationwide on August 31, a Detroit-style pizza built for one person, shaped like the company’s red-and-blue logo and cut into two slices.

After more than 65 years, it’s the first product the chain has named after the brand.

What’s actually on it

The build is more specific than most menu additions.

It uses buttery-flavored pan dough encrusted with real Parmesan, baked in a rectangular pan for a crisp Parmesan Detroit-style crust. On top go two layers of cheese, a choice of sauce, up to three toppings, and a drizzle of the chain’s garlic seasoning.

A one-topping version runs about $7.99. A two-topping version is $6.99 each through the Mix and Match Deal, which requires ordering at least two eligible items. Prices vary by location.

Why a pizza for one person

The reasoning Domino’s gave is about how people actually eat now.

Incoming CEO Joe Jordan, currently chief operating officer and president of Domino’s US, said the product fills a gap in the portfolio. His argument is that traditional pizza fails when everyone at the table wants something different, forcing compromise on toppings.

The company points to research from Circana finding that roughly 43% of US food-service meals were eaten alone in the twelve months ending in June.

Jordan was also specific about what the Domino is not. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, he said it isn’t a sandwich experience or a calzone experience. It’s a pizza experience.

The business problem behind it

The launch has a clear commercial motive, and Domino’s has not hidden it.

The chain reported flat same-store sales in its most recent quarter, and executives told investors they were not satisfied and expected a new menu item to lift results.

The wider category is worse off. Pizza Hut and Papa John’s have both been closing hundreds of US locations, and Domino’s has held up better than either while still stalling.

For scale, the company operates more than 22,500 stores across over 90 markets, with independent franchisees running 99% of them, and posted more than $20.6 billion in global retail sales across the four quarters ending in June.

Whether it works

The single-serving bet is a reasonable read of the market.

Smaller portions suit customers eating alone, eating less, or unwilling to buy a whole pizza, and the personal-size category has been growing for exactly those reasons. Detroit-style is also having a genuine moment, with Pizza Hut having added its own version years ago.

The complication is arithmetic. At $7.99 for a one-topping personal pizza, a group of three ordering individually spends more than they would on one large. That is presumably the point from Domino’s side, and it may also be the thing customers notice.

The Domino hits stores, the website, and the app on August 31.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Domino’s Pizza investor relations release (August 11, 2026), verified as the primary source for the August 31 nationwide launch, the Parmesan-encrusted buttery pan dough and rectangular bake, the two layers of cheese and up to three toppings, the logo-shaped two-slice format, and Joe Jordan’s portfolio and customization comments

• Wall Street Journal via Cox Media Group (August 12, 2026), verified for the flat quarterly same-store sales, executives telling investors they were not satisfied, Jordan’s October CEO transition, his not-a-sandwich-or-calzone remark, and his account of customers describing compromise when sharing

• Daily Voice (August 2026), verified for the approximately $7.99 one-topping price, the $6.99 Mix and Match pricing, the Circana finding that about 43% of US food-service meals were eaten alone, and Pizza Hut and Papa John’s closing hundreds of US locations

• Fox Business (August 2026), verified for the more than 22,500 stores across over 90 markets, the 99% franchisee operation, and the more than $20.6 billion in global retail sales through the four quarters ending June 14

Chapter 7 Season 4 launches August 20 with a season built entirely around video game crossovers. Sonic and Tetris arrive in the Battle Pass at launch. Most of the rest, including Kingdom Hearts and Persona 5, come to the Item Shop over the following weeks.

Fortnite is running a season themed around other people’s video games, and the guest list is long.

Chapter 7 Season 4: Override launches August 20, following the end of Season 3 the day before. Epic dropped the full trailer on August 16, and the theme is Gaming Legends, wrapped in a hacking and corrupted-systems aesthetic with glitch effects across the island.

The headline guest is Sonic the Hedgehog.

Who’s confirmed

The trailer put a substantial roster on screen.

Sonic arrives as a playable skin, stretched to Fortnite’s proportions, with Green Hill Zone elements appearing on the map. The trailer shows Jonesy running fast enough to go upside-down on one of the series’ gravity loops. Tails, Dr. Eggman, and Shadow come with him.

Also confirmed on screen: Mega Man, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Joker from Persona 5, and giant Tetris blocks falling from the sky. Official Override artwork shows Sora with Keyblade in hand, confirming a Kingdom Hearts crossover that had been rumored for months.

Additional teasers have pointed toward Cyberpunk 2077 and Mortal Kombat content. Separate leaks naming other franchises remain unconfirmed, and Epic has not addressed them.

What you get at launch versus what you buy later

This distinction matters more than most season coverage acknowledges.

Sonic and Tetris are in the Battle Pass from day one. Most of the other crossovers revealed in the trailer are heading to the Item Shop across the season instead, at prices and dates Epic has not announced.

So the trailer lineup is a season-long release calendar rather than a launch-day roster. Some of those cosmetics will be returning items from previous seasons.

The new mechanics

Override introduces a Match Hack system alongside new Sprites, fresh points of interest, map changes, and additional Mythic weapons.

The season runs on the usual schedule, roughly ten to twelve weeks, and is playable across PS5, Xbox Series X and S, Switch 2, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, iOS, and Android.

Battle Pass rewards and Ranked progress from Season 3 reset when downtime begins, so anything unfinished needs finishing before the 20th.

What Override actually represents

Fortnite has spent years absorbing other franchises. This season stops pretending that’s a side feature.

A Battle Pass built around Sonic, Mega Man, Crash, Spyro, and Tetris is a season with no original theme at all, and Epic is not treating that as a problem. The pitch is that Fortnite is where every franchise eventually shows up, and the company has enough licensing weight to make it true.

Whether that reads as a celebration of gaming history or as a licensing exercise probably depends on how many of those characters you grew up with. Either way, Sonic is running a loop-de-loop on Fortnite’s island on Thursday, and enough people will show up to make it worth Epic’s while.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Game Informer (August 17, 2026), verified for the August 20 launch, the trailer confirming the crossover-centered map and Battle Pass, Sonic as a playable skin stretched to Fortnite proportions, Green Hill Zone on the map, the Jonesy gravity-loop shot, and the Mega Man, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Persona 5 Joker and Tetris appearances

• GosuGamers (August 2026), verified for Sora appearing in official Override artwork with a Keyblade, Sonic and Tetris being available through the Battle Pass at launch, most other crossovers arriving via the Item Shop later without announced dates or prices, and some cosmetics returning from previous seasons

• Dot Esports (August 2026), verified for the Gaming Legends theme, Season 3 ending August 19, the expected ten to twelve week season length, and the retro and glitch aesthetic direction

Invisible Narratives raised $25 million from BC Partners Credit and Verance Capital in June, explicitly tied to its majority acquisition of Skibidi Toilet. The lenders envision more than $300 million flowing into creator IP through the platform. Two months later, Episode 80 arrived without creator DaFuqBoom.

The money behind Skibidi Toilet was settled two months before the franchise released an episode without the person who made it.

Invisible Narratives announced on June 17 that it had raised $25 million from BC Partners Credit and Verance Capital. The company was explicit about what the capital was attached to: its majority acquisition of Skibidi Toilet.

Longer term, BC Partners Credit has said it envisions deploying more than $300 million into the creator economy through the Invisible Narratives platform.

Why a toilet franchise attracted institutional capital

The numbers explain the interest.

Invisible Narratives reports Skibidi Toilet at 47 million subscribers and more than 20 billion views, alongside over $150 million in consumer spending and 8.7 billion visits across Roblox experiences.

That is not a viral video. That is a licensing business with a games footprint, and it is exactly the profile private credit looks for: an established audience, a repeatable format, and characters a company can defend ownership of.

The firm was founded in 2018 by Adam Goodman, former head of Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Studios, with Michael Bay attached as creative adviser. It also appointed Mark Shedletsky as president alongside the raise, with responsibility for business operations and acquisitions.

Goodman said the company is in active conversations with studios and partners about film and television projects. Bay, for his part, has publicly denied involvement in a Skibidi Toilet movie despite the creative adviser credit.

The timeline is the story

Laid out in sequence, the past two months read differently than any single announcement did.

June 17 — the $25 million raise closes, tied to majority acquisition of the franchise.

Late June — Cartoon Brew covers an escalating dispute over who controls the IP, drawing on an investigation by a legal commentator into creator Alexey Gerasimov‘s situation.

August 7 — Rolling Stone reports that Gerasimov, known online as DaFuqBoom, and Invisible Narratives are not currently collaborating on new content, though their agreement technically remains in place.

August 14 — Episode 80 arrives, the first ever made without him.

Gerasimov has described feeling scammed and trapped, and says he remains contractually unable to speak freely. Those are his characterizations, and Invisible Narratives has not publicly disputed them in detail.

What the money actually bought

This is the part worth understanding clearly.

The investment was not a bet on more episodes. It was tied to acquiring majority control of an IP so it can be pushed into film, television, games, and licensing. Invisible Narratives describes its focus as passionate audiences, repeatable formats, and defensible characters or worlds.

None of those three things require the original creator’s participation. A franchise with 47 million subscribers and a Roblox footprint retains most of its commercial value whether or not the animator who invented it is still involved.

That is not a scandal by itself. It is how IP acquisition works, and Gerasimov sold. But it does explain why fans boycotting Episode 80 under a hashtag are unlikely to change the trajectory. The audience that made the franchise valuable is the asset. Their approval of who makes it is not part of the deal.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Variety (June 17, 2026), verified for the $25 million from BC Partners Credit and Verance Capital, the capital being tied to the majority acquisition, the more than $300 million longer-term creator economy ambition, Mark Shedletsky’s appointment, Adam Goodman’s background and founding of the company in 2018, Michael Bay as creative adviser, and Goodman’s active-conversations quote

• C21Media (June 2026), verified for the investment criteria around passionate audiences, repeatable formats and defensible characters, Shedletsky’s remit over business operations and M&A, and the company’s prior Twitch, HBO Max and STX projects

• The Drop (June 2026), verified for the 47 million subscribers, 20 billion views, over $150 million in consumer spending, and 8.7 billion Roblox visits

• Cartoon Brew (June 30, 2026), verified for coverage of the escalating dispute over franchise control and Alexey Gerasimov’s situation, and for Michael Bay’s public denial of involvement in a Skibidi Toilet film

• Rolling Stone via Dexerto (August 7, 2026), verified for Gerasimov and Invisible Narratives not currently collaborating while their agreement remains in place

All 26 episodes plus The End of Evangelion and Death (True)² arrive September 1. The headline is the ADV dub, out of print since 2009 and never before on any streaming service. Netflix’s 2019 release used a different one, and fans have argued about it ever since.

Neon Genesis Evangelion arrives on The Criterion Channel on September 1, and it brings something that has been effectively unavailable for over fifteen years.

The set includes all 26 episodes of the 1995 series, plus The End of Evangelion and Evangelion: Death (True)², distributed through GKIDS. Japanese audio with subtitles is there as expected.

So is the original ADV Films English dub, streaming officially for the first time anywhere.

Why the dub is the story

The ADV dub was recorded for the series’ VHS release in the 1990s and last pressed on the Platinum Edition DVDs in 2004 and 2005. When ADV shut down in 2009, it went out of print and stayed there.

Every streaming viewer since has heard something else. When Netflix added Evangelion in 2019, it commissioned a new dub with a different cast and a substantially revised translation, and the reaction split the fanbase.

The complaints were specific rather than nostalgic. The Netflix translation was widely criticized as overly literal, and it altered dialogue between Shinji and Kaworu in ways many viewers felt softened the relationship as originally written.

The ADV dub was recorded on a shoestring, sometimes using production staff rather than experienced voice actors. It is objectively a little rougher than the Netflix version, but still the preferred dub by many oldschool fans.

What the ADV track offers is the version American audiences actually encountered in the nineties, with the translation choices that shaped how a generation understood the show.

Criterion is being deliberate here

The Criterion Channel is selective about what it carries and more selective about television.

Its anime catalogue has been deepening for a while, with Ghost in the Shell, Paprika, Makoto Shinkai films, and Hideaki Anno’s other mecha series Gunbuster already on the service. Adding Evangelion places it in a film-history context rather than an anime-genre one.

One limit: this applies to the Criterion Channel only. No physical Criterion Collection edition has been announced.

The timing

The franchise is in the middle of a revival.

A new Evangelion series was announced in February, in development at Studio Khara with CloverWorks. A separate series from NieR creator Yoko Taro is also in production. The four Rebuild films are not part of the Criterion lineup.

Neither Anno nor Khara has commented publicly on the release. For a show whose original ending was so divisive that its creator made a film to answer it, a streaming service quietly restoring the version people first argued over feels like the right kind of full circle.

Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.

D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, subscribe at clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Hat Tips:

• Cartoon Brew (July 2026), verified for the September 1 date, the full title list, the Classic English dub making its streaming debut, the Netflix 2019 recast and revised translation, the Criterion Channel-only scope with no physical edition announced, and the new series at Studio Khara and CloverWorks

• Complex and Collider (July-August 2026), verified for the ADV Films VHS-era recording, the 2004-2005 Platinum Edition DVDs, ADV’s 2009 shutdown taking the dub out of print, the GKIDS distribution, and the Yoko Taro series in production

• Inverse and Comics Beat (July 2026), verified for the ADV dub’s shoestring production and use of non-professional voice talent, the criticism of the Netflix translation as overly literal, and the Shinji and Kaworu dialogue concerns