Amazon has cut paid perks for Alexa developers. An Amazon spokesperson told Engadget that the "older programs have simply run their course, so we decided to sunset them." Launched in 2017, when Alexa was all the rage, the program paid developers bonuses for skills that resonated with users. It was part of Amazon's quest to turn Alexa Skills into a booming app store. With AI powers, Alexa appeared versatile enough to address all sorts of queries and requests without creating apps and skills manually.

Laptop hardware has come a long way in recent years, with the most expensive models featuring CPU and GPU specs similar to what you'd expect from a beefy gaming desktop PC. If a laptop isn't aimed squarely at gamers, odds are it lacks a discrete GPU for gaming. With an integrated GPU (iGPU), you'll never get to explore futuristic ray traced cityscapes or the ultra-detailed surface of an alien world, but that doesn't mean your computer time has to be totally about productivity. If you temper your expectations, you can still get some gaming done with integrated graphics. Looking to pick up a gaming laptop?

After years spent pursuing a career in game development, Italian coder Luca Galante had given up. Uprooting himself from a comfortable life in Rome, he flew to England in the hope of finally making his childhood dream a reality. Yet after countless rejected job applications, Galante found himself flipping Big Macs in Thornton Heath McDonald's. Dejected, he gave up on his digital dream, leaving what he says might be "the worst McDonald's in the UK" to code slot machines for a gambling company. Now, 10 years and one bedroom-made game later, Galante is the proud owner of two Baftas.

While 2022 may not have enjoyed as many AAA releases as in past years, the ones that weren't delayed into 2023 were stellar and the indie development scene more than made up for the lack of big-budget titles. Some of our favorite releases this year came from small, ambitious teams that delivered fresh ideas. As is tradition, the Engadget team came together to extol the virtues of our favorite releases from the past 12 months. Bayonetta 3 is a delicious amplification of the series' most ridiculous themes. It indulges in absurdity without disrupting the rapid-fire combat or Bayonetta's unrivaled sense of fashion and wit. Bayonetta 3 is joyful, mechanically rich and full of action, plus it allows players to transform into a literal hell train in order to take down massive beasts bent on destroying the multiverse. The Bayonetta series just keeps getting weirder, but that doesn't mean it's losing its sense of satisfying gameplay along the way. In the franchise's third installment, Bayonetta is powerful, confident and funny; she's a drag queen in a universe loosely held together by witchcraft, and the chaos of this combination is truly magical. Sure, you've played Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Hades and The Binding of Isaac – but what if you could play all of them at once, in a single adorable demonic package? Cult of the Lamb is part social and farming simulator, part dungeon-crawling roguelike and all-around fantastic. After being sacrificed and resurrected, you're instructed by a grand, dark deity to start your own cult, managing worship services, agriculture, cooking, marriages, deaths and much more.