An analysis of Twitch streams from October 2020 to August 2022 shows Twitch’s moderation tools often failed to stop children streaming and adults grooming them (Cecilia D’Anastasio/Bloomberg)

Cecilia D’Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Amazon’s Twitch makes changes to address child predation concerns, including mandatory phone verification and improving account termination for users under 13  —  Twitch, the video game livestreaming site popular with teens and kids, announced changes it’s making on the platform to increase safety …

Cecilia D’Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Twitch CEO Emmett Shear says the US could use legislation to create “a third option” between contractors and employees to classify creators and gig workers  —  Twitch Chief Executive Officer Emmett Shear thinks US employment laws could be improved to better support content creators …

Cecilia D’Anastasio / Bloomberg:
YouTube names Leo Olebe, who held executive roles in Google Play’s games partnership division and at Facebook, as head of its gaming unit  —  YouTube named a new head of its gaming unit after an eight-month vacancy for the position.  —  Leo Olebe has held executive roles …

Cecilia D’Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Microsoft’s Xbox publishes its first transparency report on content moderation and reveals it took action against more than 4.3M inauthentic accounts in H1 2022  —  Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox released its first transparency report on Monday, detailing how the gaming giant moderates its 3 billion global players.

Cecilia D’Anastasio / Bloomberg:
The hype around esports is fading, as teams and organizations shrink due to a weak sponsorship and ad market, falling VC investment, and the crypto meltdown  —  The once-thriving esports industry has fallen on hard times as funding sources dwindle and signs abound that athletic competition via video games …

Tom Warren / The Verge:
A review of Intel’s $329 Arc A770 and $289 Arc A750: ideal for 1080p gaming, slick design, and good performance, but weird driver bugs and few software controls  —  Intel’s GPU effort is impressive but early … Intel’s Arc graphics cards are finally here, and they’re priced to take on Nvidia’s popular RTX 3060 for budget PC gamers.