After months of creating and increasingly exhausting fake accounts, Elon Musk's Twitter finally removed the little blue check from many accounts. This check used to indicate that the account was "authenticated" as belonging to that person and not an imposter.

Starting today, the blue check primarily means that the person has paid the $8/month Twitter Blue subscription fee.

Some Twitter accounts representing organizations, such as the PC Gamer account (opens in new tab), have a gold check indicating that they belong to a paid "Twitter Verified Organizations" business account. Individuals on Twitter can also receive a blue check mark for belonging to a paid Verified Organization. For example, the account of Phil Spencer, head of Xbox (opens in new tab), has a blue check mark because it is "affiliated with @Xbox on Twitter."

Otherwise, the blue check indicates that the user has paid for Twitter Blue, authenticated the phone number, and that the account is over 30 days old and in good standing. The full text of the "Authentication" guidelines can be found here (opens in new tab).

As a result of today's removal of the "legacy" blue checkmark, many previously authenticated accounts familiar to the gaming world no longer have a checkmark. A few examples:

The blue check, which was a burden that Pope (open in new tab) and I have in common, has been shrugged off. However, if you also use Twitter to follow game news and announcements, you may find it difficult to discern when you are looking at legitimate sources. Critics of the change argue that it will lead to more instances of spoofing. This idea was dutifully demonstrated by pranksters when paid blue checks were first introduced.

I usually look at who is following the account and how long the account has been active to determine if it is legitimate, but those are not entirely reliable indicators. Of course, neither are verified badges, but they did help.

Remedy's Sam Lake (open in new tab) is another gaming insider who was unchecked today, and in Sam Lake style, he posted an "unverified" rumor about "Alan Wake 2".

It would be nice if it were true that there are "scary parts" in Alan Wake 2, but for now we'll have to take that unsubstantiated claim with a grain of salt, along with Lake's claim that "beyond the shadows you resolve, there is an illuminated miracle." (Frankly, I don't know if that last statement is good or bad)