A viral Twitter thread about someone’s old Xbox 360 Gamertag profile picture being cropped weird with each new Xbox console has prompted one Xbox engineer to go ahead and just… fix the problem.

As reported by The Verge, Twitter user Noukon purchased a Pac-Man ghost avatar years ago and has kept it as their profile picture ever since. According to Noukon, they purchased the Gamerpic for 80 Xbox Points in 2006 and he’ll “be f*cked if it won’t remain the best dollar I’ve ever spent until the seas boil over.”

With each passing generation, Xbox tries to shame my Pac-Man ghost avatar by shrinking it ever smaller and smaller. I will not yield. I bought this gamerpic for 80 Xbox Points in 2006, and I'll be fucked if it won't remain the best dollar I've ever spent until the seas boil over pic.twitter.com/Ji5ttoUVjh

— Gabriel Roland (@noukon) August 19, 2021

Unfortunately, advances in Xbox’s UI means the profile pic from 2006 now looks like a tiny square surrounding by an empty gray circle. Luckily, Xbox engineer Eden Marie saw Nokoun’s Tweet and decided to go ahead and solve the problem, calling it her “personal mission to fix this.”

Marie posted a full Twitter thread of her process, beginning with purchasing the same profile picture pack as Noukon (for a more expensive price of $2.38), before setting out to diagnose and ultimately solve the issue.

Listen, I can't promise anything, but I'm going to make it my personal mission to fix this https://t.co/o1zYjBBHSd

— Eden Marie (@neonepiphany) August 25, 2021

According to Marie, “a long time ago someone decided that no matter how big a Gamerpic we wanted to display, the 360 Gamerpic would never get bigger than 72 x 72 pixels. The rest of the background is filled in with a blown up, faded version of itself,” Marie says.

The solution, ultimately, lay with the Xbox dashboard’s ability to recognize transparent PNG files. This allowed Marie to take the small square 360-era Gamerpic and put it in a transparent circle and adjust the dimensions, resulting in a fixed, totally normal-looking Pac-Man ghost avatar for Noukon.

Marie was able to fix the issue during something called Exploration Time which is where members of the Experiences team can spend half a day each week to tackle random things within the product. "This week I absolutely chose to use it to rescue ghosts," Marie tweeted.

It's a lot of fun, and sometimes, you even learn something new, like... apparently 360 gamerpics supported transparency all along?

SURPRISE

Anyway, what do you think, @noukon? Feel better about that dollar? pic.twitter.com/zxQx7SmHJw

— Eden Marie (@neonepiphany) August 27, 2021

Who knows, maybe the next time you're having a weird issue on Xbox Live, an Xbox engineer with free time can fix your problem for you?

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Ready or not, there's a lot of Cowboy Bebop media emerging from the proverbial jumpgate ahead of the upcoming live-action Netflix adaptation.

Among the most notable of them is Cowboy Bebop: A Syndicate Story: Red Planet Requiem, a prequel novel by staff writer Sean Cummings. Set in Spike's syndicate days before he became a bounty hunter, it will explore his early adventures with Vicious, presumably shedding more light on how he gets to be a lonesome cowboy wandering the stars.

Further expanding the Cowboy Bebop universe is a comic series featuring a "never-before-seen" story set in the world of the show. It will follow the crew of the Bebop as they chase an ex-gang member with a vest said to confer unlimited luck. It will be written by DC veteran Dan Watters, with art by Lamar Mathurin.

Capping it all off is a Cowboy Bebop: Making the Netflix Series, an official companion featuring concept art, behind-the-scenes photography, and a foreward by showrunner André Nemec. The only way it could be better is if it featured its own exclusive soundtrack by Yoko Kanno.

It's all part of a broader push for Cowboy Bebop, which is set to arrive on Netflix on November 19. Earlier this week, Netflix revealed some of the first images from the series, which looks to faithfully recreate the look and feel of the popular anime.

Accordingly, the prequel novel will be releasing just a few days after the show on November 23, and the companion book will be launching on January 11. The first installment in the four-issue comic series will be out December 2021, with a trade paperback to follow in May 2022.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN.

Ready or not, there's a lot of Cowboy Bebop media emerging from the proverbial jumpgate ahead of the upcoming live-action Netflix adaptation.

Among the most notable of them is Cowboy Bebop: A Syndicate Story: Red Planet Requiem, a prequel novel by staff writer Sean Cummings. Set in Spike's syndicate days before he became a bounty hunter, it will explore his early adventures with Vicious, presumably shedding more light on how he gets to be a lonesome cowboy wandering the stars.

Further expanding the Cowboy Bebop universe is a comic series featuring a "never-before-seen" story set in the world of the show. It will follow the crew of the Bebop as they chase an ex-gang member with a vest said to confer unlimited luck. It will be written by DC veteran Dan Watters, with art by Lamar Mathurin.

Capping it all off is a Cowboy Bebop: Making the Netflix Series, an official companion featuring concept art, behind-the-scenes photography, and a foreward by showrunner André Nemec. The only way it could be better is if it featured its own exclusive soundtrack by Yoko Kanno.

It's all part of a broader push for Cowboy Bebop, which is set to arrive on Netflix on November 19. Earlier this week, Netflix revealed some of the first images from the series, which looks to faithfully recreate the look and feel of the popular anime.

Accordingly, the prequel novel will be releasing just a few days after the show on November 23, and the companion book will be launching on January 11. The first installment in the four-issue comic series will be out December 2021, with a trade paperback to follow in May 2022.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN.

Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia brings together the latest in VR technology with an epic story about saving the environment. Revealed during Gamescom, ROTU Entertainment announced that its award-winning VR game, Ionia, is coming to Oculus Quest, PlayStation VR, and SteamVR on September 23, 2021.

Ionia is set in a fantastical world overgrowing with nature. Unfortunately, it’s in danger, and in order to keep the environment safe, you’ll need to embark on a journey to save the mystical Harpa.

ROTU Entertainment specializes in music, and it plays a key part in Ionia. You’ll need to solve music theory-based puzzles and interact with virtual flowers scattered throughout the Ionian forest that emit musical sounds like drums and bells. You’ll also be able to traverse the massive virtual forest by climbing trees or ziplining across ravines.

Ionia won the Cannes XR Development Showcase award in 2020 for its immersive technology, and environmental message. ROTUE Entertainment announced that it will donate five percent of the proceeds to the non-profit Wildlife Warriors Worldwide, an organization founded in 2002 by Terri and the late Steve Irwin.

For more, check out IGN’s full Gamescom coverage including new announcements, trailers, and news.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia brings together the latest in VR technology with an epic story about saving the environment. Revealed during Gamescom, ROTU Entertainment announced that its award-winning VR game, Ionia, is coming to Oculus Quest, PlayStation VR, and SteamVR on September 23, 2021.

Ionia is set in a fantastical world overgrowing with nature. Unfortunately, it’s in danger, and in order to keep the environment safe, you’ll need to embark on a journey to save the mystical Harpa.

ROTU Entertainment specializes in music, and it plays a key part in Ionia. You’ll need to solve music theory-based puzzles and interact with virtual flowers scattered throughout the Ionian forest that emit musical sounds like drums and bells. You’ll also be able to traverse the massive virtual forest by climbing trees or ziplining across ravines.

Ionia won the Cannes XR Development Showcase award in 2020 for its immersive technology, and environmental message. ROTUE Entertainment announced that it will donate five percent of the proceeds to the non-profit Wildlife Warriors Worldwide, an organization founded in 2002 by Terri and the late Steve Irwin.

For more, check out IGN’s full Gamescom coverage including new announcements, trailers, and news.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

After spending a little over a year in Early Access, Vagrus: The Riven Realms officially has a release date, with its full release set for October.

Originally released into Early Access last year, Vagrus: The Riven Realms is a simulation RPG in which you guide a caravan across an apocalyptic wasteland. It features a mixture of turn-based combat and high-level strategy built around a series of granular decisions, such as who will handle the night's watch.

The original Early Access release included around 50 hours of content as well as a free prologue. It has enjoyed very positive reviews on Steam and elsewhere, but as one user notes, it's also very hard.

Vagrus is Lost Pilgrims' first major release. First founded in 2017, it is dedicated to bringing the spirit of tabletop role-playing and dark fantasy to a wider audience.

Vagrus: The Riven reals was funded in part on Fig, with its fundraising campaign being structured around a series of milestones. All Fig backers received immediate access to the Alpha build.

No word yet on a console release for Vagrus: The Riven Realms. It'll be out October 5 on PC via Steam and Good Old Games. For lots more Gamescom 2021 news, make sure to check out our Gamescom 2021 hub.

After spending a little over a year in Early Access, Vagrus: The Riven Realms officially has a release date, with its full release set for October.

Originally released into Early Access last year, Vagrus: The Riven Realms is a simulation RPG in which you guide a caravan across an apocalyptic wasteland. It features a mixture of turn-based combat and high-level strategy built around a series of granular decisions, such as who will handle the night's watch.

The original Early Access release included around 50 hours of content as well as a free prologue. It has enjoyed very positive reviews on Steam and elsewhere, but as one user notes, it's also very hard.

Vagrus is Lost Pilgrims' first major release. First founded in 2017, it is dedicated to bringing the spirit of tabletop role-playing and dark fantasy to a wider audience.

Vagrus: The Riven reals was funded in part on Fig, with its fundraising campaign being structured around a series of milestones. All Fig backers received immediate access to the Alpha build.

No word yet on a console release for Vagrus: The Riven Realms. It'll be out October 5 on PC via Steam and Good Old Games. For lots more Gamescom 2021 news, make sure to check out our Gamescom 2021 hub.

While "indie" can be either a loaded word or a confusing one in the games industry these days, there's one thing that just about every developer under the umbrella of smaller, self-run creative studios has in common: it's hard to be indie.

A small team of developers might have a brilliant idea for a game, and might have all the skills needed to make that game truly incredible. But being indie often means struggling with any number of barriers unrelated to making games. There are complex publishing agreements full of legalese, storefronts bursting with competition, the constant need for funding, a never-ending parade of digital showcases and (eventually) physical events, and figuring out how to release a game on consoles — and that's all on top of the difficulty of making a game to begin with.

Of course, plenty of indie games get released and applauded anyway, but what if all that could be made easier by a support network of indie publishers committed to uplifting one another and the developers they work with? That's the pitch of The Indie Houses, a group of seven publishers behind games like Call of the Sea, Paradise Killer, Lake, Monster Prom, Mutazione, Coffee Talk, and Lamentum, who have banded together to try and make things a little better not just for themselves, but for everyone else in the same boat.

The Indie Houses currently consists of Akupara Games, Fellow Traveller, Neon Doctrine, Raw Fury, Those Awesome Guys, Toge Productions, and Whitethorn Games, a group of publishers whose collective is, among other things, holding its first showcase event on August 31. The Indie Houses Showcase will happen alongside a week-long Steam event with game demos, sales, developer livestreams, Q&A sessions and other festivities — though the showcase is far from the end of their ambitions.

In truth, the bones of what has become The Indie Houses has existed for some time now according to several of its founding members. Iain Garner, co-founder of Neon Doctrine, tells me that he has been chatting with Raw Fury since befriending them "on a 7-11 booze run in Taipei," and has also been assisting with Chinese publishing for Toge Productions for years. And David Logan, CEO of Akupara Games, points out that some of the publishers in the group had already worked on initiatives for the collective good of indie publishing, such as Akupara's Indie Calendar Buddy to help indies submit their games and booths on time for festivals.

According to Raw Fury CEO Vic Bassey, it was the pandemic that ultimately catalyzed what the seven had been working on in small ways for years. He started reaching out to his colleagues for video chats, positing the question he'd been wondering for some time: Why don't publishers work together?

As Vlad Calu, communications director for Those Awesome Guys tells me, his studio had been trying to put together some kind of indie "Super Group" for years, so when Indie Houses came around with the values they already espoused, it all made perfect sense.

"I think that the last year and a half also provided us with the necessary time to sit down together in a more informal and relaxed format (quiet beverages of choice over the internet seem to lead to more fruitful and meaningful discussions than loud parties at live events) and think about how we can all improve ourselves in order to better serve the developers and partners that we work with," he says.

Per Akupara's Alyssa Kollgaard, The Indie Houses' collective goal is "to elevate each of the companies involved, our respective developers, as well as indie games and games as a whole." The intention is to help indie developers be successful, regardless of whether or not they're published by an Indie Houses member or even whether or not they have a publisher at all. She says they want to help indies "recognize and avoid predatory practices, navigate industry challenges, gain access to resources and to advocate for their own needs."

At the core of The Indie Houses' beliefs are three pillars: Bigger Together, More Helpful Together, and Better Together. Common to all three is the idea that the traditionally smaller, often struggling indie space can gain visibility, negotiate more funding, create better opportunities for developers in underrepresented markets or from marginalized groups, and generally better be able to compete in a challenging marketplace dominated by AAA..if they work as a team.

"I’ve been working in indie games for ten years, having spent around the same time in AAA publishing before that," says Chris Wright, founder and managing director of Fellow Traveler. "One of the things I love about it is that there is a pervasive spirit of cooperation. Even though, technically, everyone is competing with each other, almost everyone I’ve come across is quick to share info, contacts and help each other out. So something like The Indie Houses is a great way to do more of that with the other members but also amplify and enhance the ways each of us are helping the broader indie community."

While some initiatives like The Indie Houses' showcase next week are just for its members, the group is committed to sharing resources and information more widely. It's already beginning the process of building its website as a resource hub — for instance, Akupara's Indie Calendar Buddy lives there now — and its members are committed to other similar projects such as Raw Fury and Whitethorn Digital's open sharing of their respective publishing contracts earlier this year.

"At every single level of our industry, everything from legal, contracts, production resources, task management resources, backends, surfacing and visibility tools, discounting, milestones… all of this was made to support the AAA enterprise with indie games benefitting tangentially, if at all," says Matthew White, CEO of Whitethorn Games. "By banding together, we can leverage our mutual resources to build inroads that would otherwise be impossible."

Aside from resource sharing and showcases, Indie Houses is looking to add other initiatives, including funds like the existing African Game Dev Prototype Fund and Toge’s Southeast Asian Dev Fund. Funds like these are especially important to members like Garner and Sarah Johana, head of community at Toge Productions, who work extensively with marginalized developers and developers from underrepresented regions.

"As a publisher from a third-world country, we understand deeply how hard it is for small indie developers and even publishers to get access to stuff like reaching out to big media and attending game events," Johana says. "Basically, having the chance to get out there and be heard is very minimal. Being part of The Indie Houses helps us tackle that problem. We can now provide more chances for the developers to get more visibility and we now have better access to resources that help them by allowing us to market and publish their games more effectively."

The group also wants to be a visible part of ongoing discussions on social issues that connect to the games industry, such as harassment directed at creators or fighting back against bigotry. They feel that with strength in numbers, they can better push for positive change.

Put together, this would ideally mean more stellar indie games making it past the numerous hurdles standing in their way so they can reach the people who want to play them most. The Indie Houses Showcase is just the first step.

While they're seven publishers for now, they're open to future structural changes too, such as welcoming in additional publishers whose values align with their own, or as Garner puts it, stepping out of the group if one of them ever "got bought by EA tomorrow (lol)". The principles of Indie Houses, he says, are more important than the individual numbers.

Bassey and Garner tell me that his ultimate future hope for The Indie Houses is to remove the negative connotation from the word "publisher," and provide an example for the entire games industry on how publishers can work together and respect their partners.

"There's no reason developers need to compete," Logan says. "There are plenty of gamers who constantly have a desire to play more games. We should work together, learn from each other, and ultimately get as many developers to succeed as possible."

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

While "indie" can be either a loaded word or a confusing one in the games industry these days, there's one thing that just about every developer under the umbrella of smaller, self-run creative studios has in common: it's hard to be indie.

A small team of developers might have a brilliant idea for a game, and might have all the skills needed to make that game truly incredible. But being indie often means struggling with any number of barriers unrelated to making games. There are complex publishing agreements full of legalese, storefronts bursting with competition, the constant need for funding, a never-ending parade of digital showcases and (eventually) physical events, and figuring out how to release a game on consoles — and that's all on top of the difficulty of making a game to begin with.

Of course, plenty of indie games get released and applauded anyway, but what if all that could be made easier by a support network of indie publishers committed to uplifting one another and the developers they work with? That's the pitch of The Indie Houses, a group of seven publishers behind games like Call of the Sea, Paradise Killer, Lake, Monster Prom, Mutazione, Coffee Talk, and Lamentum, who have banded together to try and make things a little better not just for themselves, but for everyone else in the same boat.

The Indie Houses currently consists of Akupara Games, Fellow Traveller, Neon Doctrine, Raw Fury, Those Awesome Guys, Toge Productions, and Whitethorn Games, a group of publishers whose collective is, among other things, holding its first showcase event on August 31. The Indie Houses Showcase will happen alongside a week-long Steam event with game demos, sales, developer livestreams, Q&A sessions and other festivities — though the showcase is far from the end of their ambitions.

In truth, the bones of what has become The Indie Houses has existed for some time now according to several of its founding members. Iain Garner, co-founder of Neon Doctrine, tells me that he has been chatting with Raw Fury since befriending them "on a 7-11 booze run in Taipei," and has also been assisting with Chinese publishing for Toge Productions for years. And David Logan, CEO of Akupara Games, points out that some of the publishers in the group had already worked on initiatives for the collective good of indie publishing, such as Akupara's Indie Calendar Buddy to help indies submit their games and booths on time for festivals.

According to Raw Fury CEO Vic Bassey, it was the pandemic that ultimately catalyzed what the seven had been working on in small ways for years. He started reaching out to his colleagues for video chats, positing the question he'd been wondering for some time: Why don't publishers work together?

As Vlad Calu, communications director for Those Awesome Guys tells me, his studio had been trying to put together some kind of indie "Super Group" for years, so when Indie Houses came around with the values they already espoused, it all made perfect sense.

"I think that the last year and a half also provided us with the necessary time to sit down together in a more informal and relaxed format (quiet beverages of choice over the internet seem to lead to more fruitful and meaningful discussions than loud parties at live events) and think about how we can all improve ourselves in order to better serve the developers and partners that we work with," he says.

Per Akupara's Alyssa Kollgaard, The Indie Houses' collective goal is "to elevate each of the companies involved, our respective developers, as well as indie games and games as a whole." The intention is to help indie developers be successful, regardless of whether or not they're published by an Indie Houses member or even whether or not they have a publisher at all. She says they want to help indies "recognize and avoid predatory practices, navigate industry challenges, gain access to resources and to advocate for their own needs."

At the core of The Indie Houses' beliefs are three pillars: Bigger Together, More Helpful Together, and Better Together. Common to all three is the idea that the traditionally smaller, often struggling indie space can gain visibility, negotiate more funding, create better opportunities for developers in underrepresented markets or from marginalized groups, and generally better be able to compete in a challenging marketplace dominated by AAA..if they work as a team.

"I’ve been working in indie games for ten years, having spent around the same time in AAA publishing before that," says Chris Wright, founder and managing director of Fellow Traveler. "One of the things I love about it is that there is a pervasive spirit of cooperation. Even though, technically, everyone is competing with each other, almost everyone I’ve come across is quick to share info, contacts and help each other out. So something like The Indie Houses is a great way to do more of that with the other members but also amplify and enhance the ways each of us are helping the broader indie community."

While some initiatives like The Indie Houses' showcase next week are just for its members, the group is committed to sharing resources and information more widely. It's already beginning the process of building its website as a resource hub — for instance, Akupara's Indie Calendar Buddy lives there now — and its members are committed to other similar projects such as Raw Fury and Whitethorn Digital's open sharing of their respective publishing contracts earlier this year.

"At every single level of our industry, everything from legal, contracts, production resources, task management resources, backends, surfacing and visibility tools, discounting, milestones… all of this was made to support the AAA enterprise with indie games benefitting tangentially, if at all," says Matthew White, CEO of Whitethorn Games. "By banding together, we can leverage our mutual resources to build inroads that would otherwise be impossible."

Aside from resource sharing and showcases, Indie Houses is looking to add other initiatives, including funds like the existing African Game Dev Prototype Fund and Toge’s Southeast Asian Dev Fund. Funds like these are especially important to members like Garner and Sarah Johana, head of community at Toge Productions, who work extensively with marginalized developers and developers from underrepresented regions.

"As a publisher from a third-world country, we understand deeply how hard it is for small indie developers and even publishers to get access to stuff like reaching out to big media and attending game events," Johana says. "Basically, having the chance to get out there and be heard is very minimal. Being part of The Indie Houses helps us tackle that problem. We can now provide more chances for the developers to get more visibility and we now have better access to resources that help them by allowing us to market and publish their games more effectively."

The group also wants to be a visible part of ongoing discussions on social issues that connect to the games industry, such as harassment directed at creators or fighting back against bigotry. They feel that with strength in numbers, they can better push for positive change.

Put together, this would ideally mean more stellar indie games making it past the numerous hurdles standing in their way so they can reach the people who want to play them most. The Indie Houses Showcase is just the first step.

While they're seven publishers for now, they're open to future structural changes too, such as welcoming in additional publishers whose values align with their own, or as Garner puts it, stepping out of the group if one of them ever "got bought by EA tomorrow (lol)". The principles of Indie Houses, he says, are more important than the individual numbers.

Bassey and Garner tell me that his ultimate future hope for The Indie Houses is to remove the negative connotation from the word "publisher," and provide an example for the entire games industry on how publishers can work together and respect their partners.

"There's no reason developers need to compete," Logan says. "There are plenty of gamers who constantly have a desire to play more games. We should work together, learn from each other, and ultimately get as many developers to succeed as possible."

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Ghostrunner will add its promised Wave Mode and Assist Mode on August 31, alongside a new pack of neon-themed cosmetics.

Announced earlier this year, Wave Mode adds a roguelike element to the cyberpunk action game, tasking players with beating 20 waves of enemies using randomised upgrades. Assist Mode will make the game easier, allowing players to experience the story without much challenge. Both modes will be added as a free update to the game.

They'll come alongside the new Neon Pack paid DLC, which adds four sets of sword-and-glove combos, each fully animated with neon effects. Alongside the Neon Pack, four new DLC bundles will also be released:

• Art Bundle - SRP: £5.99 / €7.99 / $7.99 - The Art Bundle includes the Original Soundtrack and the Artbook (Available only for Steam, Epic and GOG)
• Summer Bundle - SRP: £9.99 / €12.99 / $12.99 - The Summer Bundle includes Winter, Metal Ox, Neon Packs and Art Bundle (Available only for Steam, Epic and GOG)

• Jack’s Bundle - SRP: £5.99 / €7.99 / $7.99 - Jack’s Bundle includes Winter, Metal Ox, Neon Packs (Available only for PS4, XboxOne & NSW

We awarded Ghostrunner an 8/10 review, saying that its "lightning-fast gameplay makes for a short-lived but memorable action game with some incredible moments."

For more from this week's huge gaming event, be sure to check out our Gamescom 2021 schedule.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.