Activision Blizzard: What Microsoft Got for $...

Money continues to pour into AI companies like Anthropic, who announced a $65 billion fundraising round this week. But companies are starting to scrutinize their AI investments, which may not be paying off as hoped. Plus, we discuss some of our lessons of a lifetime investing and ...  Show more

Jon, Matt, and Travis start the episode by talking about Snowflake’s latest financial results that were catalyzed by one of its newest AI product offerings. The team then talks about the sluggish environment for refinancing mortgages as well as the publicly-traded companies that ...  Show more

The video game industry is bigger than movies and music combined. As part of our ongoing Skin in the Game series, we’re chatting with journalist Jason Schreier about the rise and fall of Blizzard, the company behind such games as World of Warcraft. It’s a story about the push and ...  Show more

This is David Pierce, editor-at-large at The Verge. Nilay is off this week for a much-deserved break. So I’m filling in for him, and the Decoder team thought this would be a good opportunity to switch gears a little bit from the political apocalypse beat and talk about something ...  Show more

As expected, layoffs at Microsoft and Xbox did happen this week, and they were unbelievably brutal. Approximately 9,000 people reportedly got laid off, multiple games were canceled, and entire studios were shut down. We sort through the wreckage on this week's Unlocked. 00:00 - I ...  Show more

Hasbro has been making toys for decades, including many classic favorites like G.I. Joe and My Little Pony. But in recent years, it's also been going big on digital games. An app version of the classic board game Monopoly — called Monopoly GO! — has become one of the top mobile g ...  Show more