The Biggest News Stories in 2022: Musk’s Twitter Takeover, Acquisition Mania, DC’s New Leaders, and More – IGN

The Biggest News Stories in 2022: Musk's Twitter Takeover, Acquisition Mania, DC's New Leaders, and More - IGN


News cycles across most industries spun chaotically throughout 2022 — and games, entertainment, and tech were no exception. Headlines here were comparatively tame, though it was nonetheless an eventful year in our little corner of the internet: Elon Musk took over Twitter, Xbox made the industry’s biggest acquisition yet (deal pending), GTA 6 gameplay leaked, Will Smith earned a 10-year ban from the Oscars, and Winnie the Pooh broke into the public domain with bloodlust.

As we look back on the year that was, we’ve compiled a list of the 20 biggest news stories published on IGN in 2022. This list covers games, movies, television, comics, and tech, and is based on a combination of website traffic and significance.

In early October, nearly two years after the release of PS5, a modder was able to jailbreak Sony’s new-gen console, providing access to the console’s debug menu and the ability to install unauthorized software. This quickly led to people installing P.T., Konami’s delisted “playable teaser” for the now-canceled Silent Hills.

P.T., which captivated gaming communities for weeks and remains the subject of a fascinating behind-the-scenes saga, has been delisted from the PlayStation Store since May 2015. At the time this news story was published, modders were able to install P.T. but unable to launch it. That changed just a few weeks later when, through a fairly convoluted process, modder Lance McDonald was able to get it up and running on PS5.

In May, IGN published an in-depth report on the growing frustration within Nintendo of America.

The report, written by IGN’s Kat Bailey, detailed the discrepancies between the treatment of full-time NoA employees and contracted workers and the overall struggles within the company since 2015 when Nintendo was struggling with the Wii U and mourning the loss of its former CEO, Satoru Iwata.

Former Nintendo employees and contractors described a work environment that became increasingly micromanaged. Sources described having to maintain exhaustive timesheets that accounted for virtually every minute of their day, leading to increased paranoia about taking breaks or letting their Microsoft Teams status shift to idle. Social media posts were also closely monitored, which begat paranoia among employees that their online engagement could result in being reprimanded or fired.

“You couldn’t even really go to the bathroom without someone noticing you were away from your desk,” one source recounted.

Contractors especially bore these burdens: These individuals were handed similar responsibilities to full-time employees, yet they were restricted from accessing most of NoA’s main campus and unable to attend the company’s holiday parties or join its diversity groups. The overall result is a culture that enables an air of superiority among full-time employees and a feeling of being “second-class citizens” among contractors.

Following his high-profile defamation suit against Amber Heard, his ex-wife, Johnny Depp said he wouldn’t return to his role as Jack Sparrow in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean.

Depp says he was dropped from Pirates 6 following the publication of Heard’s op-ed in the Washington Post. A report in the Daily Mail claimed Disney was done with Depp, though longtime Pirates producer Jerry Bruckheimer has since refuted that report.

Regardless of Disney’s position, Depp says his time with the role has come to an end: “That is true,” Depp replied when asked if “nothing on this earth would get [him] to go back and work with Disney on a Pirates of the Caribbean film.”

Disney is now moving forward on a Pirates reboot, seemingly without Depp. A female-led spinoff starring Margot Robbie may eventually be filmed as well.