Architizer's 13th A+Awards features a suite of sustainability-focused categories recognizing designers that are building a greener industry and a better future. Start your entry to receive global recognition for your work!In 1997, Dennis Thresh Fong took the once sneer-inducing subculture of gaming and completely flipped it on its head. His victory in the Quake Red Annihilation tournament won him a cherry-red Ferrari that was previously owned by id Softwares John Carmack. It was a turning point an unbelievable moment that hinted at what the world would eventually recognize as a legitimate competitive discipline. By the time Thresh entered the ESL Hall of Fame in 2016, the message was crystal: esports wasnt some exclusive club reserved for people who knew how to build their own servers and overclock CPUs. It was a global industry that would soon eclipse many forms of traditional entertainment.Today, the esports sector has reached a level few could have predicted. Forecasts suggest revenues could hit 3.4 billion this year, driven by staggering audiences who assemble both virtually and physically to watch tournaments of games like Dota 2, League of Legends and FIFA. Millions of people gather online while thousands more meet in purpose-built arenas to watch professional gamers do their thing. Esports has become a platform for international diplomacy, branding and crucially a jumping-off point for some of the most innovative architecture in the world.The early esports competitions of the 1980s and 90s were played on arcade cabinets or around makeshift LAN setups in internet cafs and college dorms. Gamers built their own setups and hunched over screens in badly lit rooms. Yet, as games like StarCraft, Counter-Strike and Quake became global phenomena and the internet grew, local fan groups evolved into massive, transnational communities. It was South Koreas love of StarCraft in the early 2000s that really ramped things up. With dedicated TV channels being launched and players being recognized as celebrities, gaming became a mass spectator sport. Within a decade, streaming platforms such as Twitch and YouTube Gaming unlocked global reach and esports went viral. Now, as the industry continues to grow, cities all over the world are constructing architecturally ambitious arenas to house these incredible competitions.Allegiant Stadium by Manica Architecture, Las Vegas, Nevada | Photo by Jason ORear PhotographyUnlike traditional stadiums that have been honed over centuries around known parameters like a pitch, a court or a field, where players physically interact in three-dimensional space and spectators are fixed on a single point of action, esports competitions are primarily on screens and often, multiple players mean multiple focus points. The field can morph from a jungle in League of Legends to a sprawling sci-fi battleground in Halo. Camera angles shift instantaneously but players can remain seated for hours, completely inverting the rules of traditional sports.For architects, this means designing for multiple vantage points, ergonomic comfort and countless permutations. Most importantly, esports arenas must support highly complex technological ecosystems powerful servers, ultra-low-latency data backbones and cutting-edge broadcasting facilities that would rival top-tier TV studios. Beyond technology, flexibility is paramount. Stages and setups must be modular to accommodate different games, formats and audience sizes, while seating arrangements may need to shrink or expand, potentially overnight. Sight lines must take into consideration both live-action and digital overlays, as well as the vast audience that experiences these events from the comfort of their own home. In some cases, the architecture must include back-of-house training facilities, VIP lounges, live-streaming studios and even coworking areas for content creators, each with its own spatial and technical requirements.Co-op Live by Populous, Manchester, United Kingdom | Visuals by PopulousIn esports architecture, technology is the central nervous system, and one firm is leading the way. With a design portfolio that includes some of the most advanced esports facilities in the world, including Esports Stadium Arlington, Fortress Melbourne and the NBA 2K League Broadcast Arena, Populous is at the forefront of cutting-edge venue design for the ever-expanding live gaming experience.Populous are well known for their incredible sporting arenas, and their first forays into esports are also setting new standards. The Qiddiya City Esports Arena in Saudi Arabia stands out. Combining the largest combined total video screen area of any esports arena in the world, as well as 4D haptic seats where visitors will sense, feel and even smell the action taking place in front of them, the striking design creates an iconic venue, capable of adapting to multiple experiences and events. With a distinctive architectural identity, the 5,300-seat multifunctional venue will provide a best-in-class experience for players and spectators alike. Extensive sightline studies have been carried out to optimize seating in the main auditorium for the best views, and parametric design tools have been utilized to refine screen locations, resulting in an innovative digital chandelier placed centrally within the seating bowl for enhanced gameplay content delivery.Its not all plain sailing. While esports may spare us the grass maintenance of football pitches or the water demands of Olympic swimming pools, environmental scrutiny is rightly an issue. Data centers, high-end equipment and continuous streaming generate a significant carbon footprint. According to some estimates, information and communications technology accounts for around 3.7% of global emissions nearly on par with the airline industry.Sphere by Populous and ICRAVE, Las Vegas, Nevada | Visuals by ICRAVELatency can make or break an esports competition. Audiences expecting flawless 4K streams require bulletproof internet pipelines, multiple redundancies and data centers integrated into the architecture. Cooling systems become critical design challenges as massive server loads generate substantial heat. Architects and engineers are responding with a new ethos of sustainability. Arenas are adopting energy-efficient cooling systems that use recycled water or passive air strategies. Solar panels, high-performance insulation, responsibly sourced materials and state-of-the-art lighting systems help reduce the environmental impact. Advanced building management systems can modulate energy consumption in real time, while modular construction methods enable future upgrades without massive waste. Esports arenas, as future-oriented entities, are fantastic examples of green design and are set to revolutionize other entertainment venues that follow.The upcoming 2025 Olympic Esports Games will undoubtedly push architects and designers to up their game. Even more daring technological experiments are likely to emerge with holographic player introductions, AI-driven systems and a new era of arena that blur the boundaries between physical and digital architecture.In the centuries to come, historians may look back on this moment as the time when architecture had to rethink fundamental elements of spatial design: circulation, acoustic engineering and even the definition of a seat. Shifting from static structures to fluid, tech-driven environments that engage not only the body but also the imagination, these digital coliseums are the next evolution of cultural space places where human creativity, advanced technology and architectural innovation come together.Architizer's 13th A+Awards features a suite of sustainability-focused categories recognizing designers that are building a greener industry and a better future. Start your entry to receive global recognition for your work!The post Game Changers: Designing the Next Generation of Esports Arenas appeared first on Journal.

Bold and bright color photography is a trend that continues to captivate audiences with its ability to transform ordinary scenes into vibrant works of art. Mastering this style requires a mix of thoughtful composition, lighting control, and a keen eye for detail. Heres how you can elevate your photography with bold, striking colors.The power of saturationBold photography often hinges on saturationthe intensity of colors in your image. Striking the right balance is key. Over-saturation can feel overwhelming, while undersaturation can fail to deliver the desired impact. Look for naturally vibrant scenes, such as a bustling market, a neon-lit street, or a dramatic sunset, to start experimenting. Contrasting colorsUsing complementary colors creates dynamic energy in your images. For example, pair a bright orange subject with a deep blue sky, or combine vivid pink flowers with lush green leaves. When working with contrasts, focus on maintaining balancetoo much can overpower the image, but just enough creates a harmonious and engaging photo. Lighting for color impactGood lighting is critical for bold photography. Bright, direct sunlight can enhance vibrant colors but may also create harsh shadows. For more balanced results, shoot during the golden hour or use diffused lighting to soften tones while maintaining vividness. In studio settings, colored gels can create artificial boldness, adding a unique creative touch to your work. Highlighting a focal pointBold colors work best when they emphasize a clear focal point. Whether its a brightly dressed subject, a vibrant fruit stand, or a single dramatic flower in a muted field, ensure your main subject commands attention. Use shallow depth of field to isolate the subject, letting the bold colors pop against a subdued background.Textures and patternsColors are enhanced when paired with interesting textures and patterns. Look for peeling paint on a colorful wall, the woven detail of a bright tapestry, or even the shimmer of a colorful wet pavement. These details add depth and interest, making the colors even more impactful. Advanced tips for bold photographyPlan Your Wardrobe or Props: When shooting portraits, encourage your subject to wear bold, monochromatic outfits or accessories that align with your vision.Experiment with Reflections: Use puddles, windows, or metallic surfaces to capture and enhance bold colors in unexpected ways.Seek Inspiration in Everyday Scenes: Bold colors often hide in plain sightgraffiti, urban murals, or even the produce section of a grocery store can be perfect settings. Embrace the vibrancyBold and bright photography is about making a statement and capturing the essence of a moment in its most vivid form. You can turn ordinary settings into extraordinary scenes by understanding how to work with color, light, and composition. Step outside your comfort zone, embrace the vibrancy, and let your creativity shine.Not on 500px yet? Click here to learn about Licensing with 500px.The post Transforming ordinary scenes with vibrant colors appeared first on 500px.

Developer Splash Damage has announced that it is halting development on Transformers: Reactivate. The studio took to social media platform X to make the announcement along with a statement explaining why development on the game has been stopped.Today, we have some very difficult news to share, the decision has been made to end development of Transformers: Reactivate, said the studio in its announcement.The studio goes on to explain that the game is being cancelled because Splash Damage wants to scale down its operations and focus on other projects. While details on these projects have not been given, the studio has also mentioned that this cancellation will potentially lead to some layoffs.This means we will be scaling down to refocus our efforts on other projects, it continued. Unfortunately, despite every effort, a number of roles across the studio are now potentially at risk of redundancy.Hasbro was an incredible and supportive partner throughout, and we hope to work with them again. To the many fans, your excitement and support helped keep us going.Development on Transformers: Reactivate had been going on for quite some time, since the game was originally announced back in 2022. Since then, the studio has been quiet about the game, with no new trailers having been released. Transformers: Reactivate was going to be an action game that would also feature co-op multiplayer for up to four players. Unfortunately, no other details about the game had been revealed, aside from its announcement trailer.Splash Damage is a storied studio, having worked on quite a few titles across various genres. The developer originally got started with shooters, with titles like Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Brink, and Dirty Bomb. The studio would then go on to team up with Microsoft to work on Gears of War Ultimate Edition in collaboration with The Coalition, as well as turn-based tactics game Gears Tactics.An update on Transformers: Reactivate. pic.twitter.com/jGkzZ0begd Splash Damage (@splashdamage) January 8, 2025

The next Special Program livestream for miHoYos Zenless Zone Zero has been announced for January 10th. It airs at 7:30 PM PST (UTC+8) and focuses on Version 1.5, Astra-nomical Moment.The newest content coming to the free-to-play action RPG will be showcased. These include new limited five-star characters, Astra Yao and her bodyguard, Eveline Chevalier. The former is an Agent specializing in Ether damage and acting as a Support.Meanwhile, the latter is an Attack Agent who deals Fire damage. Both are the only two characters revealed from the Stars of Lyra faction. Following the events of Version 1.4, it remains to be seen how their paths will cross with protagonists Belle and Wise.Stay tuned for more details (and codes for free Polychromes) during the Special Program. Zenless Zone Zero is available for PS5, PC, iOS, and Android. Check out our review of the base game, which we praised for its combat, visual style, and music.Announcing Version 1.5 Astra-nomical Moment Special ProgramDear Proxies, Zenless Zone Zero Version 1.5 Astra-nomical Moment Special Program will start on January 10 at 19:30 (UTC+8).The Special Program will be broadcast live on our official channels. In this livestream, pic.twitter.com/zMK53Es6M7 Zenless Zone Zero (@ZZZ_EN) January 8, 2025

Developer Rebellion has revealed that its upcoming survival game, Atomfall, will not have a quest system like other open-world titles. In an interview with Games Radar, art director Ryan Greene spoke about what sets Atomfall apart from other titles with a similar premise like Fallout.According to Greene, the reason Atomfall doesnt have a quest system is because it is being made as a game that promotes investigations more than following quests. The title will have a few lines of investigation that players can take up right from the outset, with the player having to decide for themselves what path to take.Right from the outset, you can do whatever you want. You can follow whatever lines of investigation that you want. Now, given that youll be poorly equipped, some choices may lead to bad results, said Greene.He goes on to talk about how Atomfall will have more in common with stories like those from classic TV show X-Files rather than other post-apocalyptic stories like Fallout, owing to the games emphasis on players investigating the story of the game.We like to think of it as the X-Files in the Cold War Lake District, Greene explained. It can be difficult to wrap your head around what this game is. There are RPG-ish elements, but its definitely not an RPG. Atomfall is a detective game. Its a survival game. Theres weird stuff happening and you have to adapt to it. You have to talk, you have to research, and you might have to do violence.Rather than having a simpler way to track the story of the game like a quest journal and objective markers, Atomfall will instead allow players to follow different leads to uncover different mysteries. Ultimately, the players efforts will lead to them discovering the reason for the disaster that incites the games events.The freedom offered to the player will also coincide with a sense of paranoia that the game wants to instil. Players will have to deal with various investigative obstacles, such as false leads and misleading journal entries, which could potentially lead to investigative dead-ends. The game has been designed in a way, however, that would allow players to complete its story even if they kill every NPC they encounter.Theoretically, you could play through the game by killing every single character and still find enough leads to uncover a route through the game and understand whats happening, said creative director Ben Fisher.You can kill people at certain times of the game that will potentially sever a line to complete an ending, Fisher continued, but there are also routes to reconfigure some of them by talking to certain characters, making smart choices, or bartering with traders for different information.Atomfall was unveiled last year with a trailer. The post-apocalyptic survival title takes place in 1962, with the player having no memory of themselves or where they are. The studio has previously described Atomfall as being inspired by classic British sci-fi stories like Doctor Who, The Prisoner, and Day of the Triffids.Atomfall will be coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on March 27. For more details on the game, check out a trailer showcasing its setting, and details on the Deluxe Edition that provides early access for players.

Grand Games secures $30m in Series A funding roundStudio plans to expand team from 14 to more than 40 in 2025Image credit: Grand Games News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Jan. 9, 2025 Mobile studio Grand Games has raised $30 million in a Series A funding round led by Balderton Capital.Existing investors Bek Ventures, Laton Ventures, and angel investor Mert Gr also participated in this round.Grand Games will use the investment to continue its expansion into global markets and to launch a new title in 2025.The studio also plans to expand its team from 14 to more than 40 this year."Istanbul is producing some of the world's finest gaming studios and within that ecosystem the founders of Grand Games stood out with their vision to create world-class genre-defining casual games that players love to play," said Balderton Capital general partner Suranga Chandratillake."The speed with which they have built a brilliant team culture and achieved success with their first two games demonstrates their talent and commitment."Grand Games raised $3 million in a pre-seed funding round last July.The studio was founded in January 2024 by Bekir Batuhan, Mustafa Fırtına, and Mehmet alım

The popular open-source VLC video player was demonstrated on the floor of CES 2025 with automatic AI subtitling and translation, generated locally and offline in real time. Parent organization VideoLAN shared a video on Tuesday in which president Jean-Baptiste Kempf shows off the new feature, which uses open-source AI models to generate subtitles for videos in several languages.At the same time we have automatic translation working to translate the subtitles to your own language, Kempf says, with more than 100 languages planned for support. Whats important is that this is running on your machine locally, offline, without any cloud services. It runs directly inside the executable.AI-powered subtitling has been under development for some time in the form of a plug-in using OpenAIs speech recognition system Whisper, but this new demo appears to be built directly into the VLC app and generates translated subtitles in real time. Theres no word on when the feature will roll out.This week, VideoLAN also celebrated hitting 6 billion downloads, with Kempf boasting, The number of active users of VLC is actually growing, even in this age of streaming services.With CES 2025 still in full swing, well track VideoLAN down on the show floor to see the AI subtitling in action for ourselves.

Microsoft is holding another Xbox Developer Direct event on January 23rd. Its the third Developer Direct in a row, making it an annual look at whats ahead for Xbox for the year. Like last years event, Microsoft will provide some updates on Xbox games that are planned for release in 2025, including feature South of Midnight, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and DOOM: The Dark Ages.Microsofts teaser image for the event also includes a teaser for an unannounced brand new game Xbox game. Last years Developer Direct featured a first look at Bethesdas Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.The Xbox Developer Direct will likely follow a similar format to the last two events, with no hosts and around 45 minutes of gameplay and announcements. The Xbox Developer Direct will take place at 1PM ET / 10PM PT / 6PM UK on January 23rd and will be streamed live on onTwitchandYouTube.

The AI search engine Perplexity is launching an integration with Tripadvisor that will add more information about hotels. Now, when you search for places to stay, Perplexity will present you with a neatly organized list of hotels, alongside summaries of why it chose them using information sourced from Tripadvisor.In an example shared by Perplexity, a search for hotels in Madrid for a business trip yields a result for Hotel Regina, which the search engine says you should choose if you want a centrally located hotel in Madrid with exceptional service and a rich breakfast offering. It also displays its ratings and images from Tripadvisor as well as a list of perks, like location, service, and cleanliness.Previously, Perplexity only displayed a numbered list of hotels with their address, user rating, and features, while showing images gathered from each hotels website in its sidebar.Perplexitys Tripadvisor integration versus its old hotel format. Image: TripAdvisorRelatedFrom the Tripadvisor side, they provide an up-to-date trustworthy source of information that we sync regularly, Perplexity cofounder Johnny Ho said during an interview with The Verge. On the fly, well index and retrieve the right results depending on the user intent of the query. Perplexity, which bills itself as an answer engine rather than a search engine, plans to expand the Tripadvisor integration to include information about restaurants and experiences in the future. The AI search engine also added data from Yelp last year as part of its goal to include accurate information you can use.The change comes just weeks after ChatGPT widely rolled out its AI search engine, which now displays results from the web for certain queries. Perplexitys Tripadvisor integration is rolling out now to Perplexity on the web, but it will be available on its mobile app soon.

Marvel Rivals fans now have their first look at upcoming playable character Blade and even an idea of when hell be playable, via a fresh leak.First revealed by X/Twitter user Miller Ross, the Blade image is lifted from an in-game gallery card set to launch alongside Season 1. The image also features Ratatoskr, a giant Asgardian squirrel beast. Developer NetEase Games has yet to announce Blade as an upcoming playable character.According to the in-game lore, new villain Dracula subdues Blade and Ratatoskr, but the Fantastic Four, set to arrive with the launch of Season 1 this week, are ready to save the day.Based on this image and lore, fans are speculating that by the end of Season 1, the Fantastic Four will have defeated Dracula and saved Blade, making him available as a playable character for the launch of Season 2.Blade was leaked as an upcoming playable character ahead of this official first-look. The vampire hunter is part of a list of leaked characters that popped up even before Marvel Rivals launched in December. That list included Mister Fantastic and Sue Storm, both of which are due out with Season 1s launch on January 10.Season 2 is expected to launch in April 2025. In the shorter term, we have Marvel Rivals Season 1 global release times info, Season 1 patch notes, and official stats that reveal Marvel Rivals' pick and win rates in Quickplay and Competitive modes for Season 0.Check out IGNs Marvel Rivals Review to find out what we think. And keep an eye on the latest Marvel Rivals codes for free skins, and vote on the strongest Marvel Rivals characters in our community tier list.Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.