Relationships between tech companies and influencers can be murky. A recent post on Threads showed part of the signup form for influencers and YouTubers to purchase Pixel devices. compulsion that the signatories are showing off Google’s hardware “instead of any competing mobile devices” or that “we’ll have to end the relationship between the brand and the creator.”
First, our Engadget editors didn’t get it when they signed up for review samples for the four (yes, four) new Pixel phones. It turns out it’s for Team Pixel, a program set up by Google to communicate with creators and apparently ship them devices.
Google responded: “#TeamPixel’s goal is to put Pixel devices in the hands of content creators, not the press and tech reviewers. We missed the mark yesterday with this new language appearing on the #TeamPixel jersey and it has been removed.”
It’s not yet clear if these Team Pixel members received a new contract, but will the requirements remain without being included in the Google form or contract? The company is sending devices to developers to test (and talk about) the Pixel 9 series — if they don’t, Google won’t see the point.
– Matt Smith
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Fall Guys is also on smartphones for the first time.
Epic has finally brought the Epic Games Store to mobile devices. The app market is now available on iOS in the European Union (after the bloc required Apple to allow third-party app stores on the iPhone and iPad) and Android worldwide. As a result, Fortnite again available on iOS without laborious workarounds. The store brings Autumn Children For the first time for iOS and Android, almost full parity with the console and PC versions, minus the level builder.
And a huge opening night stream.
Gamescom is Germany’s big annual game trade show. This year, Microsoft announced a large Xbox presence throughout the event. The first is the opening night live stream on August 20th starting at 2pm ET. While this stream isn’t Xbox-centric, we expect some relevant news during the keynote. Available through Gamescom YouTube page. Then there are three streams from Xbox, each focusing on a different schedule of games.
