Bill Young’s Post

This is no laughing matter. So...stop laughing. Also - maybe move your coffee table.

Yesterday it was announced that Warner Bros. Games will acquire Multiversus developer, Player First Games. Terms were not disclosed, but Marty was quoted as saying "aww geeez." Congrats to everyone at Player First, WBG, and...hopefully this means interdimensional cable will finally be a real thing soon. Here's what a professional journalist had to say about it: https://lnkd.in/gJH3Xg5t

💰 $220MM - That's how much this game made in their 3-day early access period. 2.2MM units...at $100 a pop. Just to give you an idea of how big of a success that is: When Electronic Arts (EA) stopped making "NCAA Football" in 2013, it was a 2nd tier sports title. That's not an insult, btw. Competing with Madden and FIFA ain't easy. If FIFA was the world's football game...and Madden was America's football game...well, the circle on the PPT slide that represented NCAA FB's target demo - it had plenty of room to move about inside the Madden one. Who was buying it?...not college kids, believe it or not. The most responsive buyers for NCAA FB were nostalgic alumni (makes sense if you think about it). FWIW - "Mascot" mode was, and still is, my favorite thing about sports games...ever. Pistol Pete vs whatever that Christmas tree thing is from Palo Alto. Glorious. But here's the thing...NCAA FB typically sold between 1-3 million units...and its Metacritic score was usually a respectable mid-60s to high 70's. Yes...that was respectable. It may not seem so today, now that every game has to have 200 hours of gameplay and a +90 score...but NCAA FB was a steady, profitable game for the company. But there was always that one thing with this game: no real player names on the jerseys. Student athletes were not allowed to make money in any way, if linked to their status as college athletes. This meant that EA was not allowed to compensate them - or ultimately...even feature them in the game. What about the cover athletes, you say? They were typically recent graduates who would go on to (sometimes) respectable careers in the NFL (looking at you, Mark Sanchez, PSP NCAA FB 10)...unencumbered by the constrictive, and frankly, questionable...laws around what is known as NIL, or "Name Image & Likeness." But, were there "likenesses" in the game? Not touching that one...I'll let the courts decide. Regardless, in 2013...it all came to a head. Legal issues mounted, and the NCAA and EA decided NCAA FB 2014 would be the final installment. Frankly, they didn't have much of a choice. Public companies can't (intentionally) make games that don't make money...and this one wasn't going to...at least not until the NIL dust settled and someone came up with a new plan. 11 years later...new laws on the books...and a pent up demand for a once much beloved game. Are those new laws perfect? Obviously not...but they are an improvement over what we had in 2014. Is the compensation for the athletes fair? That's a tough one...probably deserving of its own post; it's a nuanced question. Players can opt-in to be included in the game...and get $600 and a free copy of the game. It may seem like peanuts on the surface, but there are around 30,000 D1 football players. That's $18MM right off the top. Not peanuts. Perhaps compensation is reviewed for future iterations of the game...which, given the success with this release...seems like a lock.

This article is behind a paywall, so I didn't get past the 2nd sentence. For my similarly frugal friends out there, let me render the mystery inobfiscate: ....it's Twitch.

If you're wondering why there are so many TV shows and movies based on video games these days - this Chartr provides at least part of the story. Also - Congrats to Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios & the Fallout team for their 16 Emmy nominations...including: Best Drama Best Actor (Walton Goggins) Outstanding Writing (for "The End," which was the series pilot) So...what's ahead in this category? What are the big adaptations we have to look forward to? ...hold on to your butts: Video Game Movies: Borderlands (August 9, 2024) Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (December 20, 2024) Minecraft: The Movie (April 4, 2025) Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (Fall 2025) The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2 (April 3, 2026) The Legend of Zelda (TBA) Ghost of Tsushima (TBA) Until Dawn (TBA) Gears of War (TBA) Mortal Kombat 2 (TBA) Return to Silent Hill (TBA) Death Stranding (TBA) Street Fighter (TBA) Days Gone (TBA) Pokemon: Detective Pikachu 2 (TBA) Stray (TBA) BioShock (TBA) Space Channel 5 (TBA) Comix Zone (TBA) Mega Man (TBA) Just Cause (TBA) Duke Nukem (TBA) Gravity Rush (TBA) Dead by Daylight (TBA) It Takes Two (TBA) Sifu (TBA) Slime Rancher (TBA) Ark: Survival Evolved (TBA) Pac-Man (TBA) Streets of Rage (TBA) Sniper Elite (TBA) Toe-Jam and Earl (TBA) Jak and Daxter (Status Unknown) Call of Duty (Status Unknown) Half-Life (Status Unknown) Saints Row (Status Unknown) Portal (Status Unknown) Yakuza (Status Unknown) Beyond Good & Evil (Status Unknown) Firewatch (Status Unknown) Metal Gear Solid (Status Unknown) The Division (Status Unknown) Just Dance (Status Unknown) Dragon's Lair (Status Unknown) Splinter Cell (Presumed Cancelled) Video Game TV Shows: Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (October 10, 2024) Like a Dragon: Yakuza (October 25 and November 1, 2024) Arcane: Season 2 (November 2024) The Last of Us: Season 2 (2025) Fallout Season 2 (TBA) The Witcher: Season 4 (TBA) God of War (TBA) Horizon (TBA) Gears of War (TBA) Devil May Cry Anime (TBA) Twisted Metal: Season 2 (TBA) Assassin's Creed (TBA) Splinter Cell (TBA) Castlevania: Nocturne: Season 2 (TBA) Mass Effect (TBA) A Plague Tale (TBA) Nier: Automata: Season 2 (TBA) Disco Elysium (TBA) Hunt: Showdown (TBA) Alan Wake (TBA) System Shock (TBA) Grounded (TBA) Life Is Strange (TBA) My Friend Pedro (Status Unknown) Skull & Bones (Status Unknown) Child of Light (Status Unknown) Brothers in Arms (Status Unknown)

Is there nothing that Whataburger can't do? Alternate Headline: Is there anything that the Texas power companies can do? I'll take this moment to reminisce about the hundreds of Jalapeño & Cheese Whataburgers ordered during my college years. Nothing did the trick at 2am quite like it. Also...stay in school, kids. They have Whataburgers there. Here's to my friends and family in the South Texas/Houston area...who will not be seeing this post unless they are charging their phones in their cars, because THEIR POWER IS OUT...and have been told they won't have power again until MONDAY. https://lnkd.in/gaywS6zV

...and you think YOUR backlog is embarrassing. The total value of Steam games that have been purchased...but have gone unplayed: $19,000,000,000. ***It's Worth noting this math is not confirmed, nor is it very good math. https://lnkd.in/gRnyJZTw

Ok...I'm working on a premise. A kernel of a thought I had a while back...and would like to express it here to get your take. I posit: Video Games; their fundamental purpose...is misunderstood. ...Shall we? OMY@C Video games are fun...right? That's why we play them...right? What is fun though? Blowing things up is fun. Killing zombies and nazis...objectively fun. Making tea and moving a plate of fish over and over again from point A to B is fun. ...wait. Is it? Half of "Dave The Diver" is serving sushi to irritable customers. How is that fun? Shit...what does "fun" even mean? Are we thinking about this the right way? Let me be clear, "Dave the Diver" is definitely fun. I enjoyed the hell out of that game. But WHY did I enjoy it? I did not race a car through space...I did not overcome any necromorphs or orcs...hell, I didn't even throw a game winning touchdown. I poured drinks...I added ingredients to a menu. What the hell? Here's the thing: One of the main reasons we play games is to feel the pleasant satisfaction of challenging ourselves when nothing truly mortal is on the line. Historically...when there is no saber-toothed tiger about to eat us, or farmland that needs tilling...humans have played games. We play games to provide a momentary escape from the toil of our daily lives. Ironically, many of these games have psychologically replaced the danger we no longer experience from saber-toothed tigers...or the repetitive toil that very few of us still experience through farming. The danger part is what everyone thinks about. The toil? Not so much. But...we need toil. We need repetition. We need meaningless micro-successes. "Fun?" ...yeah, maybe fun is not strictly about gleeful enjoyment...and more about recognizable satisfaction...and with video games, that includes the toil. I typically have at least two hypercasual mobile games going at any given time. For the last couple years, one of those games has been Voodoo's "Bubble Buster 2024." I'm on level 1,997. It's a prototypical, short-form dopamine distributor. Each level is different though, so it always feels fresh. The other one I'm playing right now is "Hexa Sort," by Lion Studios...it's one of a million "hexa" stacking games, but this one has super clean design, and is genuinely challenging. Is it weird that a "shape" has become a gaming sub-genre? yes...but that's not my point. There is undeniable enjoyment in both games...and I often choose them over GTA V (where I have the opportunity to steal cars, fly a helicopter under a bridge...shoot evil space clowns). It's clearly the more "fun" proposition, right? Toil. It's a different itch that also needs a'scratchin'. Final Thought: The Eagles are next up at The Sphere LV. I know Don Henley and Glenn Frey were notorious jerkfaces, and Jeff Lebowski hates them, but he's wrong. I'd see that show. I think Radiohead would be the ultimate Sphere show though. Make it so.

This (rumor) shouldn't be a huge surprise...the AVP 1 was always meant to be a showpiece...something high-end for devs - not for everyday consumers (a point lost on critics). First blush - this looks like a great next step. https://lnkd.in/g8XcjTDG