The upcoming HBO TV adaptation of the Harry Potter books still has something shaped like a release window, with HBO CEO Casey Bloys affirming that it will arrive in early 2027.

"Well, we’ve been saying 2027," Bloys said in an interview with Deadline when asked if HBO had narrowed the release window. "I would say, to narrow it down to some extent, early 2027. And now you’re going to ask, does that mean January, February, March, April, that we’re not ready to say. I’ll say early 2027."

We first heard about an early 2027 release window for Harry Potter way back in 2024, but given how uncertain it sounded then, this affirmation from Bloys helps firm things up a bit.

That was the only question and comment on the Harry Potter series from the interview. But we do know quite a bit of other information about the upcoming show, including much of its cast. We know that the main trio of heroes; Harry, Ron, and Hermione, will be played by Dominic McLaughlin, Alastair Stout, and Arabella Stanton, respectively. John Lithgow will portray Albus Dumbledore, Paapa Essidu joins as Severus Snape and Katherine Parkinson will be Molly Weasley. Sherlock actress Louise Brealey will be the series' Quidditch teacher Madam Rolanda Hooch, Game of Thrones' Anton Lesser is Garrick Ollivander, Bertie Carvel will play Cornelius Fudge, and Bel Powley and Daniel Rigby will portray the Dursleys, Petunia and Vernon. Nick Frost is Rubeus Hagrid, who we got a first look at in costume last July, Janet McTeer is Minerva McGonagall, Luke Thallon will be Quirinus Qirrell, and Paul Whitehouse is Argus Filch.

We've also seen some early set photos from the London Zoo and caught a glimpse of Lithgow in costume, and we just recently learned that Hans Zimmer will score the series.

Blogroll image credit: Aidan Monaghan/HBO

Just one day after the announcement of Genie, Google's generative AI-powered virtual world creator, a number of major video game companies are seeing their stock prices tumble, seemingly because some investors think you can just generate an entire video game with AI now.

Of course, that's not what Genie is. Genie essentially lets you create a virtual "world" by offering prompts to describe the environment, a main character, and first or third-person view. Once it's created, you can control the described character and wander around the world you've made.

And that's...kind of it? While you can walk around these virtual spaces with your keyboard, critically, there's nothing else you can really do. There are no game mechanics, there's no one to talk to, no goals, no scores or meaningful interactions. Additionally, each generation is limited to just 60 seconds. And while you could maybe argue that this is just the first step on a road to eventually getting AI to generate playable 3D video games, there's no real evidence yet that such a thing is possible, or that the games would be good or even coherent. The Verge, for instance, tried to basically copy Breath of the Wild using Genie, and while they got something that essentially looks identical, that's just it. It's not playable, the "Link" looks kind of frightening actually, and Genie had to copy something that already existed to make this. It didn't come up with this on its own.

But that hasn't really stopped a lot of investors from suddenly jumping off the video game train, a conclusion first posed by Investing.com and shared by others, including Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier. Perhaps the most notable decline is Take-Two Interactive, which reached a six-month low this morning and, while it rallied somewhat by the closing bell, still ended down 8%. Engine maker Unity is in a similar spot, dropping 24% today also to a six-month low. Roblox stock also cratered today by 13% by close today, though notably Roblox has been on a downward trend since November. Still, it's a six-month low for Roblox, too.

Not every gaming company is seeing a massive nosedive. Ubisoft is technically down 7% today, but with its stock down to just $1/share, any small movement in either direction will seem significant. The company has been in pretty dire straits for months, even years now, and its announcement of more layoffs, closures, and cancelations earlier this month already had stock even further in a downward spiral. EA stock hasn't changed much today at all, but that's understandable, given EA announced last fall that it was preparing to sell to an investor group headed up by the Saudi Arabian government and will soon exit the public trading market. Meanwhile, Nintendo stock, down just under 5% today at the time this piece was written, has been all over the place all month, following a steady downward trend since November.

The pattern I'm seeing here between Take-Two, Roblox, and Unity is a sudden distrust not in games as an idea, but rather concerns about "platforms". Unity is a game engine. People use it to make games. If Genie can also make games, who needs Unity? In Roblox's case, Roblox is a pure user-generated content (UGC) factory - something that would likely become obsolete quickly if Genie took over. And for Take-Two, the publisher is about to release Grand Theft Auto VI later this year (we hope), which would very likely be accompanied at launch or not long after with some new version of GTA Online. While the current GTA Online doesn't rely on UGC, there have been recent suspicions this new version might. Again, the thinking here is seemingly that if people can just make their own little games in Genie, why would they bother doing it in Roblox or GTA or Minecraft or Fortnite or Unreal or anywhere else (Microsoft, for its part is too big to see any stock impact from Genie today and Epic Games is not publicly traded).

Is selling shares of major game publishers going to pay off for these investors? I'm not a stock expert, but if nothing else, it doesn't seem to be like a good idea to bet against GTA 6 right now (though Take-Two's earnings are next week, so we'll see I guess). And while Genie doesn't seem up to the task of making a whole video game out of nothing, plenty of other studios are coming out on one side of the fence or the other on using generative AI of any kind in their work. It seems that one way or another, the folks betting big money on generative AI will reap whatever harvest of that investment there is sooner rather than later.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Two weeks ago, I happily attended my first-ever pre-release event for a new Magic: the Gathering set. This was for Lorwyn Eclipsed, which veteran players inform me is a long-awaited return to the fantasy stylings of Magic's Lorwyn plane after nearly 20 years. As you can imagine, there were a lot of long-time Magic fans who were very excited about this release, but in the minutes before my pre-release event began, I kept overhearing a tone of anxiety in the conversations around me.

The cause of the anxiety? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

If you've never been to a pre-release event, what happens is this: you're given a nice little box that contains several booster packs, which you will use to build a deck for the event and play some matches with other attendees. The boxes also tend to contain other goodies, which in the case of Lorwyn Eclipsed involved a deck box, a die, and a single foil card from the set. The foil you get is random, but it's supposed to come from the set you're there to play. And when I opened my box, that's what I encountered. A nice little foil of Shadow Urchin.

But the reason for the anxiety at the event was because word had gotten around that some people were not receiving Lorwyn cards as their foil promo card. Instead, a number of social media posts had been circulating showing players with six Lorwyn Eclipsed booster packs and one foil card from the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set.

Now, this is quite the mix-up! Not only is TMNT, uh, very different from Lorwyn, but the TMNT set isn't even supposed to be out yet. It's coming on March 6, just under two months from the date this was happening. So not only was this causing an issue for Lorwyn fans, but TMNT fans excited for the upcoming set were now getting previously unrevealed cards shown off via random social media posts.

This situation also complicated the event itself: normally, a TMNT card would not be legal in a Lorwyn Eclipsed pre-release deck. Fortunately, Wizards of the Coast issued a statement pretty quickly about the situation, saying that stores should replace the TMNT promo cards where possible with Lorwyn cards. Where not possible, players would be allowed to play with the TMNT cards. That... sort of helps, but the fact is that Lorwyn Eclipsed cards are part of a set that's meant to be played together, with cards and mechanics that coordinate with one another to create a balanced game. A single TMNT card is more likely than not going to struggle to fit into decks like that. What's more, shops would have to break into unsold pre-release boxes to take out the replacement foil cards, which essentially just eats through inventory for no reason.

Of course, you could argue, it's just one card! Who cares! And that's fair. But another sentiment I heard both online and at the event I attended was that the turtle invasion felt like a slap in the face to veteran Magic players. Not only has the wait to return to Lorwyn been long, but some long-time players have grown frustrated at how many collaborations with outside IP (dubbed "Universes Beyond") Magic has been doing lately. Wizards has been doing these crossovers since 2020, though at the time Universes Beyond cards weren't planned to be made legal in the Standard format and many of the ones that followed were just reskins, making them fairly easy to put up with if you didn't want to see Transformers or Doctor Who in your Magic game.

But starting last year with Final Fantasy, that changed. The wildly popular Final Fantasy set was dubbed Standard-legal, and this year, Magic is getting more Universes Beyond sets than ever before: TMNT in March, Marvel in June, The Hobbit in August, and Star Trek in November. That's four standard sets - more than Wizards is releasing of non-Universes Beyond sets, of which we are only getting three: Lorwyn Eclipsed, Secrets of Strixhaven, and Reality Fracture. This is a lot to keep up with both mentally and financially, and while you could argue there's no pressure to "keep up," there is if you play the game's Standard format, which always revolves around the most recently-released sets.

It's also worth noting that groups of fans aren't the only ones who are annoyed here. Recently, shareholders of Wizards' parent company, Hasbro, filed a lawsuit against it, alleging that it was overprinting sets of cards, thereby devaluing ones that already existed. In the suit, shareholders also claimed Hasbro had previously done some fairly manipulative things with Magic card sales to cover up shortfalls elsewhere in the company. Regardless of whether or not anything comes of the lawsuit, there are some pretty hefty accusations in the complaint that would understandably sow further distrust among those who already felt Magic was overplaying its hand.

So, back to the pre-release event, you can imagine perhaps being a long-time Magic fan, excited for the return of Lorwyn, ready to play some games involving elves and fairies and merfolk, maybe rubbed the wrong way a bit by the sheer volume of Universes Beyond but trying not to let it bother them, only to open their pre-release pack and find "Michelangelo, Weirdness to 11" in shiny foil. Doesn't feel great. Heck, I've only been playing a year, and I breathed a sigh of relief when my pre-release pack (and, in fact, my entire card shop) was decidedly turtle-free.

To their credit, Wizards has acknowledged fan frustrations and is trying to make good. In a lengthy blog post written by communications director Blake Rasmussen, he apologized for the "shell shock" of seeing a turtle in a Lorwyn box. "We wouldn't blame you if you found it cool, but maybe a bit rude, that Lorwyn Eclipsed had to share the spotlight with an upcoming set," the post reads.

In response, Wizards went ahead and updated its image gallery to include official art of all rares and mythic rares from the main set. "They're already out there if you know where to look, and we'd rather you have them all in one official place," the post reads. "It's ready for you now if you want to take a look."

Rasmussen also announced plans for some sort of make-good event for the stores that had to deal with turtles at the event, though they weren't clear as to what that would look like just yet. Here's what he said:

"Then, to keep the Lorwyn Eclipsed party going, we're going to do—something. We're playing catch up a bit and we wanted to get this article out sooner rather than later, but we're assessing how widespread the issue was and working on some kind of cool, back-end, Lorwyn Eclipsed-related thing we can do for affected stores because we're really proud of this set and we want to make sure it gets its time in the sun. We're going to figure said thing out and get back to you all."

The response to this from the community has been mixed. A lot of people weren't mad about the turtles to begin with. Universes Beyond, some argue, is a great way to get new players into the hobby who might not have otherwise noticed Magic before. Some others who were annoyed with the turtles appear to have been pacified by Wizards' statement and response. Others still aren't happy, believing this is a symptom of a larger problem at Wizards (too much emphasis on Universes Beyond) and an overall lack of care.

We won't really know where the community writ large's heart lies on the broader issues until later this year, when the Magic card deluge has fully arrived and we have a better idea of whether or not people are actually buying all these dang sets. As for Lorwyn Eclipsed, hopefully whatever Wizards is plotting to help assuage the affected stores is appropriately celebratory of Lorwyn, which frankly is a pretty cool setting. I ended up having a grand time at my pre-release event, and will probably attend future ones as a result, provided there are no horror stories of Borg showing up in Strixhaven.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.