Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, and self-identified "Childless Cat Lady" Taylor Swift were among the many coastal celebrities who endorsed Kamala Harris in the lead-up to the vice president's monumental defeat. It turns out that the production of inauthentic election-time adoration and ideological conviction was expensive. Federal filings revealed that the campaign, which is reportedly indebted to the tune of over $18 million after blowing roughly $1 billion on Harris' latest failed presidential run, poured boatloads of cash into influencer networks and production companies linked to big names in the entertainment industry. Federal Election Commission filings show, for instance, that the Harris campaign committee paid Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions $1 million on Oct. 15. Winfrey tried her apparent best on more than one occasion to generate excitement for Harris. In September, she hosted a rally in Michigan, suggesting that there was a "grassroots movement" behind the vice president and that Harris inspired "a real feeling of optimism and hope." On the eve of Harris' rejection by the majority of American voters, Winfrey told a crowd in Philadelphia once again to vote, suggesting it might be their last opportunity ever to do so. Katy Perry, Jon Bon Jovi, Christina Aguilera, Ricky Martin, rapper 2 Chainz, and Lady Gaga also made appearances at Harris' final swing-state concerts. The Washington Examiner indicated that the campaign blew over $15 million on "event production"-related costs. 'It didn't matter to have a bunch of celebrities talking to no one.' Elements of the defeated Harris campaign told the New York Post that former Obama campaign adviser Stephanie Cutter pushed the star-studded concert performances as a way to turn out lower-propensity voters — a plan apparently supported by senior Harris adviser David Plouffe, who has since taken steps to erase his social media presence. One campaign source told the Post, "They said they were 'spending to zero.' I guess they overshot zero." Another source said that the costly events constituted "a real misuse of funds that could have been better spent on ads laying out economic polices" to irate and struggling voters. "It didn't matter to have a bunch of celebrities talking to no one, because one, 75 million people already voted, and two, people were concerned about their own financial issues, not Oprah telling them America won't exist." The Harris campaign apparently dodged the Post's request for comment. 'Now they are being squeezed by vendors and others.' "Money can't buy you love or a good candidate," a Trump campaign adviser told the Examiner. When compared to President-elect Donald Trump's various podcast appearances, which were virtually all massively popular — especially his appearance on "The Joe Rogan Experience," which has netted over 48.7 million views on YouTube alone despite its initial suppression — Harris' "Call Her Daddy" interview with Alex Cooper was a failure, netting fewer than 845,000 views on YouTube. This promotional spot was not only ineffective but costly. An unnamed source told the Examiner that the Harris campaign spent six figures building a set for the vice president's "Call Her Daddy" appearance. Federal filings also indicate that the Harris campaign spent tens of millions of dollars on consultants to stimulate and simulate support online. The Examiner noted that Village Marketing Agency received over $3.9 million, ostensibly for its help recruiting social media influencers to boost the vice president online. Trump appeared to troll the Harris campaign on Truth Social over the weekend, writing, "I am very surprised that the Democrats, who fought a hard and valiant fight in the 2020 Presidential Election, raising a record amount of money, didn't have lots of $’s left over. Now they are being squeezed by vendors and others." "Whatever we can do to help them during this difficult period, I would strongly recommend we, as a Party and for the sake of desperately needed UNITY, do," continued the president elect. "We have a lot of money left over in that our biggest asset in the campaign was 'Earned Media,' and that doesn't cost very much. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The citizens of Cities Skylines 2 are either incredibly stupid, and just don’t know how to use parking lots, or they’re all evil geniuses, who’ve jointly conspired to annoy me in the most excruciating way possible. I spend hours building their roads. I make sure they have bus lanes. I check the heat maps to ensure proper traffic flow. But still - still - they insist on parking their cars on the side of the street. In Age of Empires, I can build a castle, cultivate a kingdom, and win a decades-long war. In Civilization 6, I can take over the world. But in Cities Skylines 2, all I want to do is build one efficient parking lot. Inspired by that humble quest, Parking World is a new Steam strategy game puts vehicles at the center. Continue reading The hardest part of Cities Skylines 2 has been turned into its own strategy game MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best city-building games, Best simulation games, Best strategy games

How does the BO6 battle pass work? It’s commonplace for anything remotely games-as-a-service-adjacent to come with a battle pass, and although the names of these systems can vary wildly, it’s usually just the same progression model wearing a different hat. Black Ops 6 has opted to change up how its battle pass works, and while it looks similar to a lot of other games, there are a few differences. Players will likely be focusing on the Black Ops 6 battle pass for the new BO6 weapons on the horizon - any new guns being added to the FPS game will generally be locked behind one of the tiers on the battle pass. These new weapons are behind free tiers, thankfully, and just require some time and effort to unlock, meaning that you’ll be able to add them to your best BO6 loadouts in no time. Here is how the new BO6 battle pass works. Continue reading Black Ops 6 battle pass explained MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Black Ops 6 guns, Black Ops 6 missions, Black Ops 6 loadouts

Intel has publicly held up its hands and admitted that its new Intel Arrow Lake gaming CPU release didn't go according to plan, saying that it found the experience "humbling." However, the company says it's already working on new updates that could help boost performance, in an effort to make its new Intel Core Ultra gaming CPUs more appealing to gamers. Intel has had a truly terrible year, with the previous Intel Raptor Lake lineup suffering from catastrophic voltage faults that caused irreparable CPU damage, and the new Intel Arrow Lake launch hasn't helped on the gaming front, as we found in our recent Core Ultra 7 265K review. Meanwhile, its arch-rival AMD is once again holding the crown for the best gaming CPU, as we found in our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review last week. Continue reading Intel just admitted its Arrow Lake launch “didn’t go as planned,” promises fixes MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Core i5 14600K review, Best gaming CPU, Core i9 14900K review

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Image: Xbox Game Studios The wait for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is almost over — the game launches on December 9th — so developer MachineGames is providing a deeper look at how the archaeological adventure will actually play. The Wolfenstein studio released a nearly 15-minute-long video, which seems to give a very good idea of what to expect in the full release. That includes plenty of cryptic puzzle solving inside of ancient ruins, and lots of using a whip in both combat and traversal. While the exploration is obviously at the heart of the game, the new video makes it look like there will be quite a bit of variety to the combat as well. The hand-to-hand brawling looks a bit like a boxing game, but you can combine it with the whip to pull enemies... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge; Photo by Rebecca Sapp / Getty Images for the Recording Academy Rebooting the member list, taking the show streaming — is it enough in the age of AI? Continue reading…

Amazon’s rumored smart glasses for delivery drivers would have an embedded display, unlike the audio-only consumer version. | Image: David Pierce / The Verge Amazon is developing smart glasses for delivery drivers, Reuters reports. The aim is to give drivers turn-by-turn directions, thereby shaving seconds off of each delivery. Citing anonymous Amazon sources, Reuters says the project is part of Amazon’s efforts to increase efficiency in the last 100 yards of a delivery. Codenamed “Amelia”, the smart glasses are based off the existing Echo Frames platform. Unlike the current audio-only Frames they would have an embedded display that could give a driver more precise directions — for example, turning left or right after getting off an elevator. Amazon is also exploring camera capabilities using that embedded display, enabling drivers to take photos of packages as proof of delivery.... Continue reading…