Live streaming real tears

The Last of Us Part II tells us everything we need to know about live streaming.

The last few weeks have been absolutely heartbreaking.

As more people have come forward and bravely shared their stories about inappropriate behavior and sexual misconduct in the games industry, it became clear I've been blind. I naively imagined myself part of the “healthy” part of the business where people treated each other with respect. Obviously I was wrong.

Over the years I’ve witnessed lewd comments from industry peers at networking events and dinners. People travel far away from their families, have one drink too many, and occasionally the conversation ventures into inappropriate territory.

It’s disgusting. And so, as a personal policy, I’ve ended multiple business relations because of the way I’d see some managers, investors, and owners treat others. Because fuck your money.

However, it’s clear now that I mistakenly prided myself on establishing a barrier between myself and the type of people that would leverage their position to force others into sex. It tore me up to see familiar names on the growing list. Several of them have come to talk in my class, and some were really outspoken on the issues of diversity and gender in the games business.

The slew of revelations tells me that this is precisely the issue: the invisible nature of unacceptable behavior around sexuality, gender, and race. Obviously I, and we, need to be more active and more vocal. I’m thankful for all who were courageous enough to share their story.

And to those of you that would treat others this way: expect to be called out.

On to this week’s update.

NEWS

Epic Games Store hit 61MM MAUs

It is now officially impossible to find any negative commentary on Epic, its titles, and its recent ventures. And for good reason. Its PR crew is doing an excellent job now that Epic is back out there looking to raise a new $750MM round of funding at a valuation of $17bn. Nevertheless, it is quite an accomplishment for a company that makes a software engine (a B2B offering) to become this popular for its consumer-facing services (B2C). In part this is the result of its purposeful and symbolic take of just 12% of digital sales, compared to 30% everywhere else. The Epic Game Store (EGS) has also been running all kinds of promotions with free blockbuster titles like GTA V. They've cleverly applied the Fortnite fortune to becoming a darling among gamers and creatives alike.

The implication of the announcement that the EGS hit 61MM MAUs is that it puts Epic in the same order of magnitude as mighty Valve: its Steam store had 95MM monthly actives in 2019. But where Epic specializes in providing creatives with supercool tools and software (e.g., Unreal Engine 5. #swoon), Valve has been largely focused on creating a smooth consumer-facing service. On Steam we see most of Valve’s IQ points being assigned to solving discovery problems, for instance. They both operate in the same PC gaming market, Epic and Valve are taking distinctly different approaches. I'm starting to believe, however, that Epic might finally break Valve's hold.

Game critics don’t know squat

Sony’s Last of Us Part II proves a few things at once. For starters, I’m now emotionally scarred twice, so thanks for that. Naughty Dog’s ability to create a gut wrenching (disemboweling?) experience is second to none.

Second, live streamers are sociopaths. Watching them casually play through the game, murdering everyone in sight while giggling tells me everything I need to know about the extent of their desensitization. Conversely, watching a remaining few of them stumble through the ending and break into tears had me on the edge of my seat and illustrates the power of live streaming.

Last but not least, the game sits on the vault line between what gaming used to be and what it is becoming. How else to rhyme a Metacritic score of 94/100 with the 4.9/10 from users. The low user score was the result of 'review bombing' by angered players who did not feel it appropriate for games to be political. "Keep your politics out of my games," you'll hear, "because I'm trying to escape reality and have fun." It's about as stupid as it gets: games have always been political. Naughty Dog's decision to feature a lead that doesn't resemble Duke Nukem is a sign of the times and rightfully so. But to think of the very act of play as non-political is to not understand it at all: from the decisions made by the designer and their sponsors to those made by the player, games are almost exclusively about politics. What the orthodox gamer audience is saying, of course, is that The Last of Us Part II does not emulate their politics. Perhaps the game is really an elaborate metaphor for the way conventional audiences struggle to survive in a changed world, only to lose itself in the frenzy of revenge.

Discord looking to move beyond games

After it established itself as one of the biggest online communities using the now-traditional approach of building a cool social tool for free and figuring out how to charge people later, Discord is at another crossroads. Previously it launched and then closed the Nitro Games catalogue.

Now valued at $3.5bn, Discord is trying to breach the mainstream. It resembles the strategy that Unity has been pursuing: leveraging what they’ve learned from dealing with a demanding game-related base and applying it to a broader audience. The timing for Discord might be opportune: obviously the Covid-19 boost has played a part in this decision. But as universities begin again in the Fall, and I’m expected to keep my students engaged with Ok Zoomer, my guess is that many will indeed prefer to fall back on a platform that sits in the middle between a social network and a chat app. Link

Too many titles coming this holiday season

Don’t let the euphoria from Q1 earnings deceive you: winter is coming. With the delay for Cyberpunk 2077 we are now officially looking at a traffic jam in 2H20. In short order there’s FIFA 21, Halo Infinite, Star Wars: Squadrons, Watch Dogs Legion, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six: Quarantine. Ubisoft is looking to drop three AAA titles. And what’s up with ATVI’s next Call of Duty title? Where it at?

My take: Market momentum belies higher stakes. Only one or two new releases will have a chance to truly succeed and franchises will lead because of a lower risk profile. Publishers are predictably front-loading their content to coincide with the marketing push for the new generation of devices. An unusually fat slate significantly raises the stakes for everyone, especially against a background of millions of people out of work. Link

Big Tech sucks at gaming

CNN ran an article that reviews some of the early initiatives from major tech firms after Microsoft rolled Mixer over to Facebook.

Should the AI play fair?

Since we’re in the midst of a broader conversation about the blurring of lines around who the villain is in The Last of Us Part II, here’s an interesting take on AI-based antagonists. Using a qualitative analysis of player discussion on Alien: Isolation, it identifies how AI and user expectations go hand-in-hand but not as you’d expect.

PASS/PLAY

Pass. Zuckerberg’s sudden turn-around on managing hate speech on his platform now that up ⅓ of his advertisers (including 13 of the biggest ones) have started a boycott. Ask yourself again if platforms are neutral and unaffected by traditional politics and economics. Link

Play. This tribute to a dying player in EVE Online attended by over 2,000 people. ❤️