Just like the biggest iPad, but normal iPad-sized Today, Apple unveiled a new, smaller version of the high-end iPad the company released last year. The new iPad Pro option comes with a 9.7-inch display — the larger iPad Pro boasts a 12.9-inch display — and a handful of new features.
The 9.7-inch iPad Pro will support the Apple Pencil stylus, and the company will release a smaller Smart Keyboard to accommodate the smaller tablet’s size. The smaller iPad Pro weighs less than a pound, but also packs in plenty of storage. A 32 GB model starts at $599, while a new 256 GB model runs $899.
The new iPad Pro also features a technology that Apple calls True Tone Display. According to Apple’s Phil Schiller, True Tone Display measures the color temperature of ambient lighting and adjusts the tablet’s display to match.

Apple says it has sold more than 200 million iPads featuring a 9.7-inch display, and called the new iPad Pro “the ultimate upgrade" for existing iPad owners — and for Windows users, who Apple says are "the majority of people buying an iPad Pro."
The 9.7-inch iPad Pro will come in four metallic finishes: gold, silver, space gray and rose gold.
Apple will release the smaller iPad Pro on March 31. Pre-orders open March 24.

It’s a setback for EA, and for anybody hoping for this legal issue to be settled The U.S. Supreme Court won’t consider a lawsuit regarding Electronic Arts’ use of the likenesses of retired NFL players in its Madden NFL series, the court announced today.
EA had asked the Supreme Court to hear the case, Electronic Arts v. Davis, after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the publisher’s request to dismiss the lawsuit on First Amendment grounds in January 2015. The Supreme Court’s denial leaves that 9th Circuit ruling in place, meaning that the retired players’ case will continue in the federal appeals court.
Thousands of retired NFL athletes originally filed suit against EA in 2010, alleging that the publisher violated their state-law right to publicity by using their likenesses on historic teams in Madden titles from 2001-2009. Like the collegiate athletes who received $60 million in the settlement of a similar case, the NFL players in question did not appear in the Madden games under their real names. However, all other identifying traits — height, weight, ethnicity and the like — were true to life, and the virtual athletes were rated to perform like their real-world counterparts.

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Retired NFL players’ lawsuit against EA’s Madden series can go forward, court says (update)

EA did not compensate these players for the use of their likenesses. Since 1994, the publisher has paid licensing fees to the NFL Players Association for the rights to use active NFL athletes’ names and likenesses. Retired players currently appear in Madden’s Ultimate Team mode, and are paid for it.
In the Davis lawsuit, EA argued that the use of the retired athletes’ likenesses was covered under the First Amendment as “incidental" to the creation of the Madden games in question. The 9th Circuit disagreed, ruling last January that "EA’s use of the former players’ likenesses is not incidental because it is central to EA’s main commercial purpose — to create a realistic virtual simulation of football games involving current and former NFL teams."
By deciding not to hear EA v. Davis, the Supreme Court is leaving unanswered an important legal question about how to weigh the First Amendment against claims like trademark infringement and the right to publicity, said J. Michael Keyes, an intellectual property partner at the law firm Dorsey & Whitney.
"The lower courts still have little guidance as to what the proper standard is on how the First Amendment interacts with state law claims," said Keyes. He added that the Davis case "would have been a perfect vehicle for the Court to provide much needed guidance" in this area, because right now "there are multiple different tests used by lower federal courts."
A representative for EA declined comment to Polygon on the Supreme Court’s decision. We’ve asked the attorneys for Davis for comment, and will update this article with any information we receive.

The first time I ever played Thumper, upstairs in a restaurant a few blocks from last year’s Game Developers Conference, I was struck by a few things about it: primarily, the powerful sense of isolation, adrenaline and existential dread the game was able to instill in me, even while playing it in a sandwich shop on a stranger’s laptop with a huge pair of headphones on. After finishing my first session with the game and taking off my headphones, one of the first questions I asked Thumper’s creators was: “Have you considered virtual reality for this?"
It’s Thumper, but played at 90 FPS on a bright OLED screen inches from your face
At the time, the answer was no, but in the year since that meeting, Thumper was announced as PlayStation VR-compatible. The announcement had me thrilled — ever since I first played it, I’ve never been been able to shake the idea of how great Thumper in virtual reality could be, and hearing that it was coming true was genuinely super exciting.
Now, having played the PlayStation VR version of Thumper at this year’s GDC, I’m super relieved to report that it’s exactly what I hoped it would be: Thumper, but played at 90 frames per second on a bright OLED screen a few inches from your face.
At first blush, Thumper could seem like an odd fit for VR — after all, it’s not the type of game that requires you to crane your neck and look around at all while playing, and indeed, the 2D version of Thumper has no camera controls to speak of. But while most VR games we’ve seen so far use the technology to let you look around and explore a world from every angle, Thumper uses it for something much simpler: immersion.
Thumper uses VR as headphones for your eyes
Before now, the most important thing about playing Thumper was having a big pair of loud headphones to immerse you in its bassy, kaleidoscopic world. Thumper works as a VR game because it removes one more layer between you and its world, allowing you to easily immerse yourself in the intense, brutal audiovisual experience that is playing Thumper. No, you won’t spend much of your time in Thumper’s VR mode looking above, below, or behind you (although you’re free to), because that’s not why the feature exists — instead, Thumper uses the PlayStation VR as headphones for your eyes, and that’s exactly what a game like Thumper needs.

Another thing Thumper’s PlayStation VR mode exposes is how little the general public knows about predicting what will and won’t be nauseating in virtual reality. Thumper’s PlayStation VR announcement was met online with comments — some joking, some not — suggesting that the game would be nauseating or even seizure-inducing in virtual reality. While it’s easy to understand why folks who haven’t played Thumper could make that assumption, the experience of actually playing Thumper in VR is entirely non-sickening — perhaps because most VR-induced nausea is created by acceleration and deceleration, and Thumper’s movement speed, while breakneck, is also highly consistent. Whatever the reason, after my first VR session with Thumper was over, not only did I feel totally fine, I was ready to hop back in and play it again — which is exactly what I did.
Thumper in VR is fascinating because it’s one of the first examples of a non-VR game retrofitted into virtual reality in a way that actually makes perfect sense. It’s funny: while the benefits of playing Thumper in VR are relatively subtle compared to most VR games, they’re also completely undeniable. From the ultra-smooth framerate to the subtle head tracking, it’s hands-down the most immersive way to play Thumper, and the experience almost single-handedly converted me from a PlayStation VR skeptic to a possible day-one adopter.
For more from the 2016 Game Developers Conference, check out Polygon’s StoryStream of all the big news from this year’s show.

How to lose friends and humiliate people Drawful, a sadistic, friend-shaming twist on Pictionary, was arguably the best game in the original Jackbox Party Pack, so its absence from the second pack was pretty puzzling. That omission is a bit clearer now that Jackbox has announced it’ll bring a stand-alone sequel, Drawful 2, to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Mac and Amazon Fire TV this spring. Above you’ll find the first trailer for the game, which touts the expansion from one color per player to two as well as online play and expanded streaming options.
Jackbox also announced the release of Jackbox Party Pack 3, coming to the same platforms as Drawful 2 this fall. Though it’s not announcing any of the games included in the third bundle, Jackbox did reveal that Drawful 2 won’t be one of them.

Four renowned developers create touching games meant for a lifetime of play To mark the 30th anniversary of the Game Developers Conference last week, organizers brought back the game design challenge panel, hosted by NYU professor and GameLab co-founder Eric Zimmerman. Four well-known game designers were given the difficult task of creating a game that takes 30 years to play. The result was an hour-long presentation that was equal parts thought provoking, heart warming and laugh-out-loud funny.
Here’s a summary of the game pitches that came out of the panel, and a few links where you can experience them for yourself.
Nina Freeman’s virtual soap opera
Nina Freeman, level designer at Fullbright and independent developer of the game Cibele, looked to television for inspiration in creating her game. There are few genres in TV that have lifespans as long as soap operas, Freeman reasoned, so her solution blended soaps with interactive fiction.
“What’s so special about soaps is that they’re driven by real, human characters," Freeman said. "They’re about the conflicts these characters face and that any one of us might face in our daily lives. Soap viewers dive into the daily dramas of these people’s lives for decades, every day of the week, exploring their vulnerabilities, their love, their strengths and their challenges.

"This draws viewers in and helps them feel connected to these stories, like they’re checking in with a friend about what they’re up to every day. Soap operas make long-time viewers feel like it’s real and they make viewers feel like part of the family."
Players would receive daily updates to Freeman’s game, each with a collection of scenes revolving around the show’s main characters in the form of text and still images. Players would have the opportunity to interact with these images, in a manner similar to otome-style games. They could click on a given character’s cell phone to read their conversations, or hunt around on their computers or read their diaries. Then, at the end of the day’s scenes, players would be able to provide input as to their understanding of how the main characters were feeling in the form of emoji.
This player feedback would go directly to the game’s writers, and help them steer the narrative arc in a way to surprise and delight committed fans.
"It’s also inspired by reality TV," Freeman said, "In this game the writers are relationship DMs, or drama managers. Players would also be able to see an aggregated version of this relationship interpretation data as well. This is important because the players are reacting to the scenarios, not writing them. They’re not making decisions for the characters, or making decisions about plot points. But they can see how their personal interpretation factored into how the story is moving forward."
Zach Gage’s Generation Lamp
For game designer Zach Gage (Ridiculous Fishing, Tharsis) the problem of the 30-year game was particularly difficult. To illustrate his point, he used poker as an analogy.
"If I play poker with my friends sometimes," Gage said, "that’s a great game. But if I play poker with my friends one night a year, with a $100 buy-in, and we continue that ritual for 30 years, it’s going to turn it into a brilliant game and probably be one of the most meaningful play experiences of our lives.
"To a player, these two games are vastly different, and the 30 year rule is an incredibly substantial change. And yet, paradoxically, as the designer, despite having added the key rule of 30 years, I feel like I haven’t really made a meaningful contribution. It’s still just poker."
What Gage did was rapidly prototype as many games as he could in the weeks leading up to the presentation, several of which he shared with the audience.

First came Duel, a one-on-one game where players race to be the first one to type "bang" into a text box in 30 years’ time. But, Gage said, it "didn’t feel quite weighty enough." So he supplemented his presentation with The Password Game, which he describes in the video below.

With these two tongue-in-cheek games out of the way, Gage finally shared his true solution to the game design challenge, an idle game called Generation Lamp.
"You get three 30-year blocks in life, at best," Gage said. "Being able to look back over 30 years as a human is fairly astonishing. 30 years ago I was less than a year old. There was no internet. There were barely computers. I was basically not even a person yet. In 30 more years who knows where we’ll be, who even knows how many of us will still be around when we get there.
"To be totally honest, I’m not sure there’s anything more meaningful to the actual person playing my game than just betting that they’ll still be here, and winning that bet."
To play Generation Lamp you take an old smartphone or tablet, log in to Gage’s website, turn the brightness to high, turn off the auto-lock, and plug it in. After that, your smart device will become an constant companion, slowly changing through more than 16 million possible colors at the rate of one per minute for the next 32 years.

"It’s about celebrating and marking your time," Gage said. "When you start, you’ll see a lot of whites and blues, then eventually more yellows, then greens and onward. And because it’s living on a server, you don’t have to worry about losing it. As you live, as you move, as your devices presenting it die out, you can plug in new devices and point them to the same link and continue living with your lamp until you — or it — dies."
Anna Kipnis’ Drawing Conclusions
Double Fine senior gameplay programmer Anna Kipnis’ game took a decidedly philosophical bent. For inspiration, she initially looked to a quote from the French philosopher Albert Camus.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures — be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

She wanted her response to the 30-year game challenge to be a vehicle for self-reflection, but she also wanted it to be engaging. For that she invoked a few other inspirations, including party games like Telestrations, a version of the folk-game Would You Rather and the work of renowned neurologist and author Oliver Sacks.
The result was Drawing Conclusions, a game about sharing and interpreting abstract thoughts through Crayola drawings.
"The curator draws a picture in the form of a question," Kipnis explained. "Basically, just a drawing that needs a response. To make the question clear you put a question mark somewhere in the drawing. Then you hand this question to the player.
"They answer your question by modifying the drawing you made, preferably in a different color so you can still tell what the original question was. And then step three the player hands back the drawing to the curator. The curator looks at the answer and tries to come up with some analysis based on the player’s answer."
Those interpretations can be as long or as short as the curator wants, but the idea is to think hard about how the player answered and return to them some insight on themselves.
"The important thing is that you save the drawings, either the physical copies or some electronic version so that you can look back at them later in time and reflect on yourself."

It was Kipnis’ game which would go on to win the challenge, based solely on audience applause.
Chris Crawford’s design process
Designer and author Chris Crawford, the co-founder of the Game Developers Conference, finished off the panel with not so much a game as a series of amusing and poignant thought experiments.
Crawford posited that just about any interactive experience that players engaged with for 30 years was, more likely than not, going to be incredibly boring. To keep players engaged, designers had to constantly feed them information over 30 years — a nearly impossible task.
So he searched for experiences that already existed in the real world, that took place over a long period of time and sought to determine what made them special. Then, he cleverly made a go at comparing them to games.
What followed was more of a heart-warming series of jokes than a real game pitch, and perhaps the best goof came at the expense of organized religion.
"If we think in the terms of the divine," Crawford said, "there’s a game that’s been running around for thousands of years. It’s called religion, and the game designers are called priests.

"The basic idea of this game is that you get points by doing good, and you lose points by doing bad. In the Hindu religion those points are called karma, in the Christian religion they’re called grace. In the Hindu religion your goal, the victory condition is to attain nirvana. In the Christian religion it is to get to heaven. … As we all know it’s a good idea to give players multiple lives, and in fact the Hindu religion is very generous about this. You get an infinite number of lives. You just keep playing until you win. That’s a very positive, constructive attitude towards it. The designers of the Christian religion on the other hand are not so generous. You get just one life to win or lose the game."
In the end, Crawford said, he decided to narrow his design goals somewhat. Instead of tackling all of being and morality, he elected for something a bit more finite. He called it The Marriage Game.
"The idea of this game is to get married and to be happy for at least 30 years," Crawford said, showing a slideshow of pictures from his own life and marriage throughout.
"It’s all very enjoyable," he said. "You work together. You play together. You share in each other’s triumphs, as well as your tribulations. And I can assure you, if you play this game with determination and serious effort that you are going to win this goddamn game no matter what. This is the best game in the world."

Series debut introduces the primate scientist Blizzard debuted a new animated short film based on the world of Overwatch, its upcoming character-based shooter, exclusively through the Xbox YouTube channel. “Recall" is the first in a new series of CGI videos produced by the company that will air ahead of the game’s launch.
Overwatch will hit stores May 24 on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. Blizzard first announced the game with an animated teaser featuring a similar, Pixar-esque style to the video above. While that short gave players a glimpse at Overwatch’s cast of character, this new series of films will go in-depth with heroes like Winston, the genetically engineered gorilla who stars in "Recall."
Overwatch is currently in closed beta, with an open test period running May 5-9. Xbox One players can access the multiplayer game early; the open beta will be available May 3.

Fast travel! Loot drops! Ubisoft has detailed the upcoming 1.02 patch for Tom Clancy’s The Division, which will become available to players across PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One starting tomorrow. Among the most notable updates are improved loot drops, various issue fixes and, most notably, changes to the Dark Zone.
These additions include the ability to heal neutral players in that area, as well as fast travel between checkpoints when entering into the Dark Zone from the outside. Downed players in the Dark Zone will now drop ammo, grenades and more loot while losing less experience and funds.
Check out Ubisoft’s forum for the rest of what’s addressed in the patch, such as changes to non-playable characters in The Division’s open world area. If you’ve yet to try out The Division — the biggest new franchise launch of all-time, according to Ubisoft — for yourself, read our review before jumping into the game.

A world in which Batman was the first superhero I grew up reading every comic with Batman in it — regardless of quality — out of a naive belief that taking on the Sisyphean task of Knowing Everything About Batman would buy me credit from the other judgmental nerds I desperately want to impress.
Which is to say: I’ve seen it all, including the typical patterns and ruts that writers fall into.
There’s the story where Batman is especially sad or angry for no reason other than that his parents died. There’s the story that coincidentally takes place in the alley his parents died because Symbolism. There’s the story where Batman fights somebody in the Batcave until they smash the glass case that has Jason Todd’s costume hanging in it, again, because Symbolism.
It’s not that I’m tired of Batman stories, of course, I am DTB (Down To Batman) at all times. But if a story looks like it’s retreading old ground — and you’re not doing your due diligence as a creator to say something new and interesting while you do it — I’m gonna check out.
Which brings us to that one movie
Hoooo boy, have I checked out of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I think I fell asleep just typing out the entire name of the movie.
Elaborating on that would be a whole post in itself. But leaving aside the previous work of the creative team behind the film, my personal thoughts on the comics it’s making its clearest homages to, and the idiocy of making an entire movie about two dudes fighting when we already know that they’re going to be friends at the end like come on who are you even fooling it’s right there in the title … there is one thing that Dayman v Nightman: Dawn of Justice looks to be setting up that I do find interesting.
And that’s the idea that Batman has been around for years, maybe a decade or more, before any other superheroes have gone public about their abilities and intentions. A mundane superhero veteran in a world of superpowered newbies.

This isn’t something I’ve seen done in a DC Universe Origin Story before, and it comes with some implications that I think could be used to reveal interesting aspects of — and say interesting things about — characters that we know very well. It’s not necessarily something that I think is better than the standard story of the beginning of the DCU’s “Modern Superheroic Era" — in which the superheroic movers and shakers of the DCU all generally started working at the same time and were inspired to work together by the example set by Superman. But I think it’s interesting.
It’s perfect idea for a What If?, a parallel universe, or, indeed, an adaptation of the setting to another medium.
Judging by clues in the plot-heavy Batman v Superman: Department of Justice trailers, it seems like Batman has been around for 10, maybe even 20 years — enough to be making jokes about his "old age," at least. It’s one thing to be a guy with no superpowers who puts on a costume and beats up criminals in a world where there are dozens of world-famous, beloved superhero celebrities. It’s quite another for the only superhero in the world to be a nigh-legendary, reclusive, normal man who’s beating up criminals in one specific city.
New York has Wall Street. San Francisco has techies, Los Angeles has Hollywood, New Orleans has Mardi Gras … Gotham has a succession of costumed criminals of dubious sanity policed by a mysterious vigilante, and it has for decades.
Imagine what that kind of life would be for Bruce Wayne: no allies except those he trained himself. No outside validation that anyone in the world but him would embark on such a crusade. Of course anyone else is going to be seen as a threat. He’s been alone for years, and, judging by those trailers, that life has beaten him down rather effectively.
Imagine this conversation
Mostly, though, I enjoy imagining the first meeting of this Justice League.

"So are we ready to start?" the Flash asks.
"We’re just waiting for one more," Superman says.
"Who?"
There’s a pause, as Earth’s alien savior fidgets.
"No." Wonder Woman pins him with her eyes. "Not him?"
The man in blue looks at them; the disarmingly honest look that got them all into this room in the first place.
"We’re all new at this," he says. "I’m new at this. We can’t afford beginner’s mistakes," he says, and he doesn’t pause to remember how it felt when Zod’s body went limp. "He’s got years of experience —"
"In being a nut job," says the man who can run faster than the speed of sound.
"No mortal man could do what we do alone, for that long, and remain sane," says the man who calls himself King of the Oceans.
Flash again: "He’s an asshole!"
"He recruits children," adds the quiet young man at the end of the table whose parents made him into a living weapon. He’s told them to call him Cyborg.
Superman can bend girders with a twist of his hands, but now he lifts them in a placating gesture. "He’s really a good guy!"
Wonder Woman quirks an eyebrow.
He deflates. "Once you get to know him."

The crafty action star returns to TV Lucas Till will play Angus MacGyver in an upcoming revival of the classic action TV series, Variety reports. The actor, best known as the mutant Havok in the recent X-Men movies, will play a 20-something version of the infallible problem-solver in a pilot produced for CBS.
Joining Till will be actors Joshua Boone and George Eads as MacGyver’s trusted companions; actor Henry Winkler serves as a producer on the reboot. Winkler, who was a producer on the original series as well, joined on back in October; the project was first announced back in February 2015, with Till’s casting marking the end of a long search, according to Variety.
MacGyver premiered in 1985 with Richard Dean Anderson in the starring role. The series lasted seven seasons on ABC where it found cult acclaim, spawning merchandise, two TV movies, featured spots on The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live parodies and more.

Third-person camera makes this Vive game a giddy experience Last week, following a GDC demo for The Gallery, I wrote about the weirdness of vertigo in Virtual Reality. A few days later, I experienced an even more intense sensation of height-fright while playing Marble Mountain.
Like most early VR experiences, The Gallery is a first-person game, Marble Mountain makes use of a third-person camera. It’s a Marble Madness-style platform game in which the player rolls a ball across landscapes and through obstacles, taking care not to lose control and plunge over cliff faces.
I played it on Vive with a regular controller. Against the advice of the developers, I played standing up. The giddy sensation I had felt with The Gallery was even more pronounced during Marble Mountain. The camera swings through space in arcs that are predetermined, and which follow the Marble’s moves from a variety of directions. It’s these arcs of movement that really unsettle the player’s sense of balance.
I was swaying like a drunk, especially during sequences when the camera is behind the Marble, careening down a steep slope. It was clear from my conversations with the developers that this is a perfectly normal reaction. You can avoid it by sitting. And yet, I didn’t want to sit. The physical sense of place is a big part of what makes VR so fun.
You can get some small sense of how this works from the trailer (above) which features a few shots which take the player high above the action. If anything, the lack of detail on some of the lower parts of the crevice structures diminish the effect of vertigo. Developer Shannon Pickles said that he had cut out some details for that exact reason, smoothing the lower reaches of the world to a fog.
Marble Mountain is a launch title for Vive on April 5, and will also be available Oculus Rift as well as non-VR platforms Linux, Mac and Windows PC via Steam.