Issue : Games : Delectation

Guacamelee! 2 is a game about culture.

The Raiders left Oakland for an actor, came back after it didn't work out, did fuck all for a while, then left Oakland for a stripper. Both times they claimed it was about money, or better opportunities, or whatever excuse they could pull out of their ass.

This time, it's different. Oakland is like a city in shock. No one talks about it. There are two types of pain. The pain where you get angry, and the pain where so many things have been taken away you feel embarrassed for ever pretending they were yours.

Raiders fans could not have been more loyal. It's not their fault.

I helped a lady move out of her childhood home a block up from the gas station in Fruitvale. I was at work, she and another random dude that happened to be there were struggling with getting a refrigerator onto a truck. I said fuck it and took my lunch break.

Lady talked and talked and talked, I'm not a talker, so I listened best I could. The other dude tried his best but he literally spoke another language. She talked about how the town used to be, what she was gonna miss, who she was gonna miss, that kind of thing. Said she was moving in with her grandma in Paradice, or what's left of Paradice.

I felt bad when she said that, cause I made a joke about people doing that exact thing. The shitty thing about jokes is the only way to tell if they are funny is to watch the joke happen to someone and see if you feel like laughing.

The TV played the whole time we were helping out. Talking heads discussing the president's impeachment. She poked me, pointed at the TV and said, "Rich man gets slap on the wrist, keeps his job, probably gonna get promoted. Everybody actin like justice been served. Guess it has." I just stared at her in that weird way I do, like, "Do you want me to grab the TV?"

She had this box of Raiders stuff that sat there on the curb while we loaded the rest of the stuff. When we were done, she took a marker and wrote, "FREE" on the side of the box, gave us both a thank you from the soul, and dipped. Her disappearance took less than an hour. Such is life.

Anyway, Guacamelee! 2 is cool. It does everything it promises. Well worth a discount pick up. Rip Tc Rip Tb Rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things. We believe in you. Also Jerbz.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Volition   

Issue : Games : Mellifluous

Detroit: Become Human - PC is a game about optics.

It's easy to think esports is a success if you are involved in the business of esports. It's hard not to think of esports as a colossal failure if you actually care about esports.

A lot of people think I spend my anytime minutes railing against gaming; esports, in particular, thanks to my very public ignominious defeat at the battle of "The last 20 years." I won't deny that I am proper washed, the copious amount of salt on this omelet, or that I have graduated to the Achilles in His Tent trope.

But this isn't the reason I talk my talk. I do that because I'm tired of watching gaming groundhog day play out over and over for the last thirty years. Mark Fuckin' Cuban of all people hit the nail on the head. The thing that makes esports broken is not treated as a bug, it's respected as a feature. The Meta.

The esports industry has always attempted to market itself in line with Football, Baseball, and Basketball since the lights came on. Hmmm, what could be a few differences between the esports industry and these sports?

• Could it be the gigantic barrier of entry for esports?

• Could it be the Battle of the Five Armies (Platform, Developer, Team, Promoter, Players) that has raged for the one ring (control) since esports began? 

• Could it be the comically toxic community of esports, who are getting more dangerous and unstable every day?

• Could it be the 1,000,000,000,000 games identified as esports but the .01% of games that are supported as esports?

• Could it be that most esports industry "professionals" are literal fuckin' idiots that are not qualified to manage a Finish Line in Hoboken yet receive ten million dollars to fail over five years thanks to a business plan that treats Twitch viewers like actual money and also explicitly states the business will make no actual money?

• Could it be SoftBank? No punchline. 

• Could it be a 20-minute old game franchising with a 20 million dollar buy-in, consuming its own community like an ouroboros?

• Could it be game developers acting like gods? Creating a game and updating it as they see fit, thereby destroying the lively hoods of the people that pitch camp around the game, simply because it's their toy and they can do whatever they want?

• Could it be a tired 17-year-old kid sitting in a room 22 hours a day because to stay pro he has to compete in at least one online tournament a day, two LAN's a month, stream 2/3rds of the day to keep his 500,000 followers happy and also it's in his contract, doesn't have anywhere to go because the team moved him to a "Team House" for six months out of the year to train where he is away from his family, his culture, doesn't know anyone in the city, hates his teammates, and the management, and has begun to literally hate the game they play, feeling trapped by what they once loved? The only way to escape they see is to retire from esports. Burned out at 18 years old.  

Baseball wasn't perfect at the start, but over time they built a system where a kid could play catch at four, move onto little league at twelve, play for a college education, move on to the pros, then, if they were good enough, have their jersey lifted to the rafters as they, in their old age, played catch with their child.

Esports are games designed with no end. That's the difference.

Anyway, playing Detroit: Become Human on the PC is hella weird cause it's like you are playing on one of these android niggas' cousins. I was talking to my PC tower-like, "Bro, what should I do in this scene." Then Alexa politely asked me to stop saying "Nigga," it got uncomfortable. The game's writing has the same uncanny valley you see in the eyes of a robot. But it's also good. It's shitty good, like a Rockstar game. 

Shouts to info. rip tc rip tb rip tall-t. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobz.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Gumption

Issue Games : Retinue

Red Dead Redemption 2 - PC is a game about manifest destiny.

A long time ago I knew this native American kid. In the valley, you would have to go out of your way to not know a native American Kid. We met at school, he was a loner like me, wore big dumb glasses like me, played way too many games, like me.

At the time we were both into Warcraft: Orcs and Humans and Command and Conquer. We would set up the PCs in my room and marathon. During breaks, we would ride our bikes to the store to get chips and candy. On the way, I would ask him dumb questions about his people. Mostly based on stuff I saw on TV.

Here are some examples:

"Why do you have a regular name and not, like, "Running Bear?"

"I do have a name like that, but it sounds stupid when regular people say it."

or:

"Why don't you have casino money?"

"Most of the tribe don't ever see a cent of casino money. A small group of assholes controls it all, just like everywhere else."

and:

"Why don't you live on the reservation?"

"Cause my dad gets drunk and tried to kill my mom, so she moved us here. Also, the rez sucks."

Stuff like that. Anyway, one November some well-meaning teacher decided my homie was the perfect candidate to teach our class about tribe stuff. The teacher wanted him to stand in front of the class and give a presentation on native life. The teacher wanted him to bring some "Sacred items" in to show the class. That kind of thing.

The teacher had no idea the class made fun of my boy, called him "Pocahontas," and whatnot. Him getting up in front of all of them wasn't an ideal situation for anyone involved, damn sure wasn't gonna teach anybody anything, but my homie wasn't about confrontation. He just said, sure, and got to it.

He had to go up to the rez to pick up some "Sacred items" and asked me if I wanted to go since I loved to ask so many stupid questions about the place. In my head, I thought, "No," but I said yeah, cause he was asking and I didn't want to be rude, also had literally nothing better to do.

On the weekend his mom, him, and I packed into her dusty Datsun and headed out. Our travels took us from urban squalor, into rural squalor, then to straight-up Mad Max shit. The reservation was located right past the Mad Max shit.

His mom parked outside the gate of some visitor center and told him and me to walk up to their old trailer and grab a cardboard box, which should be on the porch. She told him to be careful cause it was 2pm and his dad would mos def be sauced. He was aware, I was like, "Is this safe?" In my head, I said it in my head.

So we walk up to the trailer. No box. He takes a breath and knocks on the door. Dude in a wife-beater opens the door and tosses the box at my homie.

The conversation went like this:

"Hanging out with darkies now?"

"Nah, you are just seeing double."

"You got your mom's mouth, probably suck dick like her too."

"Alright, bye dad."

"Bye white boy!"

When we got back to the car his mom asked if he saw his dad. He said no. I asked him what was in the box, his mom responded: "All they care to see." At the time, I legitimately had no idea what she meant.

At school during the presentation, he told some made-up stories about living off the land, how everyone takes care of each other on the rez, and how the one thing that never left the tribe was its dignity. Then people asked a bunch of stupid questions. He brought some headdress and a pipe.

He and I lost touch over the years. Last I heard he left town for college and never came back. Such is life. I think about him every time I boot up a strategy game, or during Thanksgiving. The only dumb question I didn't ask him is how he feels about Thanksgiving. Figured I already knew. wonder if he still plays.

Anyway, Read Dead Redemption 2 is a shitty game. A bad Netflix story, dated game mechanics, abysmal QA, great art. Exactly what I show up to a Rockstar game for. Well done, 10/10.

Rip Tb Rip TC Rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jerbs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Comestible     

Issue : Games : Incongruous

Playing History 2 - Slave Trade is a game about the wide expanse.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this. I don't know why Serious Games made this. You know how you know Serious Games, makes Serious Games? It's because they named themselves Serious Games.

Serious Games is a Danish company. Were the Danish involved in the Transatlantic Slave trade? We will never know because all of that knowledge is locked away in books. But what we do know is that these Danish people decided they were the right people to tackle the tricky topic of slavery.

I guess that is how you get wacky characters like the plucky slave protagonist Tim, the mean Slave Captain boss with a heart of gold, and the Doctor, who for some reason is like, the nicest character in the game. I'm sure this is how all of the slavery happened. Like a Sitcom.

And the timing. Did the team get together and say 'You know what? I think gamers are ready to talk about slavery, like, right now. And I'll tell you what, there is nothing going on right now in the world that would make me think that this is the worst time ever to introduce slavery into the gaming conversation.'

Fuckin' Idiots. You know what, I'm not ever going to be able to say anything about this game that the game does not say itself so please, please, play this one. I now believe this is how some people actually see slavery, and it makes everything else make sense.

Rip TC rip TB rip Tall-T. Love is love, hate is not love. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Insidious

Issue : Games : Posthaste

Greedfall is a game about colonialism.

A kid asked me if I felt some kind of way about the low number protester turnout at Blizzcon. I told them that the number of people that turned up in real life to protest matches the number of people that protested online almost exactly. The kid didn't get it.

I really do feel bad when people think of the internet as a real place, things said on the internet as action items or people's words on the internet as who they really are. None of that was ever intended functionality.

The internet is a circus, a carnival, a theme park replete with hucksters, charlatans, and cotton candy vendors. Not a Disney park either, mind you. More like Six Flags or Great America. Hanna-Barbera characters you kinda recognize, roving packs of children there specifically to get laid, or fight, or ride something fast, in no particular order. And day drinking adults who wish somebody would.

People do not actually get "dragged" via Twitter. It's a bunch of people writing hurtful comments over and over under some post. People don't "win" flame-wars on the internet. It's just two people posting things they may regret later for the world to see, forever. People don't protest on the internet, they just "Bout' ta fight."

Here's the paradox: If power sees a threat via the internet, it's no longer a threat, because it's written on the internet. A threat via the internet becomes just another opportunity because people change their minds quickly. Double speed for the internet.

It helps if you are holding Diablo 4 in your pocket as well.

Listen: It's hard to protest on a platform a person can literally ignore.

I told that little nugget to the kid and they looked at me like I was from Mars. "HOW THE FUCK CAN SOMEONE IGNORE THE INTERNET?! IT IS LITERALLY THE FABRIC OF SOCIETY!!" Is it, though? Or is it just a bunch of words and images in a box?

Fun Fact: Blizzard used to be called Chaos Studios. Michael, Frank, and Allen must have thought the game industry was kinda crazy back then. Who knew.

Wait, I was talking about Greedfall yeah? Um... It's ok. It's basically the history of Spain with skill trees and less drama. I wouldn't kick it outta bed, but I also can't think of a reason not to wait till the Steam Christmas sale to get it (Don't hate me Spider!).

Rip TC rip TB rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jerbz.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Chilblain

Issue : Games : Lackadaisical

Faith: An 8-Bit Horror is a game about notes.

Zoomers are never gonna believe this, but back in the day information technology was hella scary. People would tell you to never use your real name online, never enter sensitive information like social security or credit card numbers, basically don't share anything online you wouldn't share with a person you didn't trust in real life.

It's hard to believe today because it's no longer taboo to be a fuckin' idiot online. Use your credit card to book a stay in a stranger's house. Live stream yourself beating a person half to death in a nail shop. Start an MLM.  The sky is literally the limit.

The internet didn't get any less dangerous. Marketing just got way better.

Also, hackers got lazier. Well, I wouldn't say lazier, let's say less motivated. Hacking and being a DJ had a lot in common back in the day. Both endeavors required an understanding of the subject matter, tools, and training to make the music happen. Both endeavors were also exclusionary, not a lot of people had patience, so not a lot of people did it.

Nowadays the only requirement to be a DJ is a thumb drive. You can rent the equipment.

Imagine being a jewel thief who spent their whole life learning how to break into hyper-protected vaults. Then a decade later some kid comes along and creates a chain of shops in the mall that asks people to give them jewelry, and people fight over the ability to do it in order to get imaginary currency in return. Such is life.

Not that there are not some real deal savages still lurking out there, but if those folks are on your head you probably know you got way more than furry porn on your hard drive to worry about.

Anyway, Faith is an old game. Airdorf is coming out with another soon, I hear. Something about elevators. I know Faith doesn't look like much, but fidelity doesn't have to be hi-rez. It usually isn't.

Rip TC Rip TB Rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People Fealty 

Issue : Games : Coruscate

Secret Neighbor is a game about intruders.

 Here are a few things you will no longer find in Oakland:

1. Menthol Cigarettes.
2. Black people.
3. Sports teams.
4. The Oakland you heard about.

Everyone wants me to produce a hot take on how it feels to lose the Golden State Warriors. First of all, im from Stockton, so why? Sure, I work in the Town, but live there?! You fucking kidding?

Do I look like I am made of money? Nobody in their right mind "lives" there, cept "Sillicons" and "Dot-Earthers." Everybody from Seminary to the North Pole knows they are just squatting till the rent wave hits and they gotta move in with their auntie in Tracy.

Second, The Golden State Warriors were never the Oakland Warriors. The players, yes. The team, no. The Oakland Raiders at least had the balls to claim the Town and look how that went. My Thesis. If you are from California and aren't used to things turning on you when the wind changes, well, you got lucky.

Everybody talks about city pride and im from here and there. It's such a bunch of horseshit. Bangers going on about, "This my block on Gawd, Four loc duce five generations deep." It's Berkshire Hathaway's block, Silly Billy.

Sportspeople are the fucking worst. I left San Diego the day the Chargers left. It was the first time I saw a whole town go through an awkward breakup. "Man, it's not the Chargers fault, It's these damn politicians that couldn't decide on a stadium. I wish em the best in LA." No, you don't.

I drive past Oracle on the 880 every day, looks like the same San Leandro trash heap it always did. I will probably never see the Chase center. Bet it's nice. Like, 15,000 dollar seats, like, a beer garden and shit. It doesn't smell like a layer of OG Kush, I bet.

I'm happy for the San Fransisco Warriors. Anyone that can afford to leave Oakland should, before the rest of the people that can afford to live in Oakland move in. Not even no good rolled taco or dim sum places there no more. It's all "Artisinal Flatbread" or some such shit.

Anyway, shouts to info, rip tb rip tc rip tall-t. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do the damn thing. We believe in you. Also Jobz.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Aerie

Issue : Games : Spoonerism

Moons of Madness is a game about licence.

YouTube got pretty big, didn't it? 400 hours of content a minute uploaded to 1.8 billion users who spend about a billion hours a day watching. YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, the company that owns YouTube, Google, is the first. That must be nice.

The best part, it's all free. No lie, just log on and go crazy! Upload videos, share or comment on other peoples videos, subscribe to your favorite YouTuber's channels or make money by monetizing your own videos. No cost at all.

How does a company make money while providing a free service? Well, Senator, they run ads.

Mark made it sound simple to that dumb old man, cause to that dumb old man, advertisements are simple. They are the thirty-second interruptions in between his Law and Order Reruns. Ah, the halcyon days where you couldn't harass an end-user during the program.

These days, every self-respecting web hustler has gotta have their SERP up. SERP (Serch engine results pages) is when an advertiser pays YouTube to run an ad, and the advertiser pays youtube based on the number of views the ad gets or how many times it gets clicked on, which is PPC (Pay-Per-Click).

If that didn't net enough fish then you gotta move on to embedded advertisements. Those are the ads that play before a video begins, during the video, or after the video ends.

Like when you click on a video trailer of a movie you wanna watch and an ad with the trailer of the movie plays before the video trailer of the movie plays. But also just to be sure a banner advertisement neds to run in between the pre-video ad, intermission video ad, and link-box ad at the end.

Oh, and be sure to make the way to close the banner ad hella small, that way the end-user is either too frustrated to close it, or missed the checkbox and is sent to the advertisers' page, easy money.

And that is just dermatology digital marketing, surface level. It goes way deeper. But I mean, that's cool because it all makes the service free.

How do content creators make money from YouTube? Well, YouTube shares the revenue it generates from advertisers with its community of content creators hahahahaha nah im just fucking with you, they run ads.

So there you go, that is how when you click on a video you get served a pre-advertisement for a Google Pixel, a banner advertisement for some MLM, content containing an advertisement for Squarespace (It's always Squarespace), an intermission advertisement for a local couch store, and a link at the end for some dealers choice situation.

I don't blame the content creators. It's the scariest thing in the world to put yourself out there like that. To have people engaging with you must feel amazing. To be validated by your community, family, friends, must be edifying.

Then to have some flannel shirt invite you to the YouTube compound for a "lunch"! To have some other flannel shirts send you a super formal looking email saying they want to "partner" with you as the voice of [Insert community here].

All you have to do is...

Look, the product YouTube and Google sell are their users. But you already know that. Content creators are users, too. Just... Just be careful with all that, don't sell the act before you finished refining your act. Ok?

Oh, and nobody told me Moons of Madness is like, really, really, on that Lovecraftian shit, I noped the fuck out real fast. Not me, sir, you looking for that other one with that horseshit. Not that I'm scared, I just don't feel like playing it right now. It's dope tho.

Shout's to info. rip Tb rip Tc rip Tall-T. love is wise, hatred is foolish, get out there and do great things. We believe in you. also jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Noachian

Issue : Games : Knackered

Disco Elysium is a game about pathing.

It's weird to hear people talk about surveillance states like they ain't into it. "Facial recognition and the internet tracking me, I can't take this!"

Alright.

They say a person's home is their castle. Which makes the land around it their kingdom, I suppose. So it's funny that the same people that don't want monolith industries like the guv'ment or an internet company tracking them are perfectly fine installing tracking devices that record anyone coming near their domain.

Home security cameras have finally entered the point where the price has gone down and production has gone up. Everybody has some version of one now. Ring, Nest, SimpliSafe, ADT. You can get them at Cosco. Well, you can get anything at Cosco. Also, shouts to Cosco Polish dogs, I don't care how the rest of the world is going, I fully cosign Cosco Pizza and Polish dogs, they are doing gods work.

Anyway, people can watch their dogs ripping up the blankets on their cell phone while at work. People can sit inside the home while the delivery guy is outside delivering the pack of granola bars they were too lazy to put on pants for. And maybe, just maybe, people can catch a criminal in the act and release that video to a social network where it will go viral.

Here is the thing. I don't have anything against installing a home security camera where you lay your head at, where your kids be, or any of that. This world is bare dangerous, take steps. But the idea that the government or a private company wouldn't be on the same shit is laughable. That imaginary bad guy you are worried about, also known as the neighbor that you think stole your dog, to the government and business, that is you.

Cameras and guns are basically the same things. Weapons of intention. You can grab a camera in hopes to prevent, you can grab a gun with the best of intentions, but as most people who have held a gun will tell you, it only got one use.

The one thing a gun has on a camera at the moment is that a gun can't be hacked as easily. As in, a third party couldn't just bypass the owner and use a gun in that person's hand. A home security camera jacked into the internet tho?

Elanor Everet said, "For safety is not a gadget but a state of mind." She right, for sure, but it also sounds like she ain't live in the hood. Security is currency when safety is threatened. An the bill don't come till late. Such is life.

What was I talking about before? Oh, Disco Elysium!! Best cRPG I have played in a long time, no cap. I am legit having fun with this one, it's different. You should check it out if you are into boring games like me.   

Also shouts to info, rip Tb rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is wise hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Exhaust

Issue : Games : Genial

Rebel Inc: Escalation is a game about priorities.

All this fuss is over Morey? Daryl Morey? The guy that runs Clutch Gaming? Who cares if some nerd posts some shit about support for the... OMG DARYL MOREY OWNS PART OF THE HUSTON ROCKETS?!? Oh, that's cool.

Anyway, leave it to a nerd to sink the NBA in China. But I also gotta say Hong Kong is going way too hard on LeBron. Lemme just read what he said because it can't be that... Oh, LeBron... Baby, what is you doin?

Ok, so Maybe Morey's tweet resulted in the Chinese Basketball Association dropping the Rockets. Maybe it resulted in China Central Television dropping preseason games, and NBA related events being dropped left and right from Beijing to Shanghai. Lotta heat for a Tweet.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere-our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Wise words, LeBron. But maybe this time you should have just shut the fuck up. Or backed the homie up. Either or.

Not that Hong Kong isn't fucking up either. Last time I checked Kapernick still don't have a job and the cops have moved on from shooting us in the street to shooting us in our own homes. Any help from the international community for us? Nah? But hard times hit and Hong Kong is legit marching down the street with American flags screaming "Save our souls" and singing Le Mis tunes to impress our oppressors.

Black man says a dumb opinion and they out there burning effigies of black men like we started the bar fight. No, "Wow, that was a shitty thing to say but we stand with African Americans in their struggle and we hope they stand with us in ours." It's just easier to burn us and suck our oppressor's dicks instead of making it a teachable moment for a guy out there trying his best, I guess. I'm not mad tho.

Anyway, good luck with that, and slime me if you want to, but here is the hard truth Hong Kong, you ain't the only ones who got it bad out here. The black community loves Lebron, he is us, we are him.  To you, he is just some sports star.

When you put a picture of a crying black man over your faces during your demonstration, it's a disrespectful, bad look, and we are looking. Not that you care.

Double Anyway, shouts to info. rip TB rip Tc rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish, get out there and do great things. We believe in you. Also jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Genialis

Issue : Games : Belfry

Facebook is the Walmart of the internet. 

I love everything that it is, everything that has happened to it, everything that will happen. IRC morphed into Geocities, which morphed into Six Degrees, which morphed into MySpace, which morphed into Facebook, which morphed into a multiverse of voyeuristic bliss. 

A landscape of VSCO girls, single mothers teaching their babies how to smoke pot, mass murders, your relatives' opinions, or MIT lectures. All a scroll away.    

I'm worried about Facebook though. Mark Zuckerburg has been having conservatives over to his house to talk about how to not break up the monopoly that is Facebook. Not Facebook the site, mind you, Facebook the company, that owns Instagram, Whatsapp, and a bunch of other companies that all do pretty much the same thing.

People are reacting to the news that the CEO of a social media company hangs out with conservatives like it is some kind of surprise. Most internet CEO's are either libertarian-leaning (I'm talking Mike Jacksons smooth criminal leaning) or dildo in the butt-conservative. Did we not all know this? Oh, people must have thought because of all that "the internet is the new frontier of freedom" stuff that it must be a total democrat hug-fest. No.

It's literally the same people from Berkshire-Hathaway cept they might have a full sleeve, play Civilization, and listen to Portishead. But Portishead is dope, so I get it. 

Also, apparently poor people didn't get the memo that rich and powerful people network with rich and powerful people. This mixer, that radio show, the green room of that late-night talk show host, the club. It's just another job.   

I won't go as far as to say they like each other, even though they say it. I think what broke niggas get tripped up on is that rich and influential people will often support causes and then cavort with people who create the problems. This is called networking. 

Please stop hoping your heroes are gonna go off-script. Looking at you, HK. 

Shouts to info. rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Bats 

Issue : Games : Exoteric

I get it now.

Fortnite is an easy game to dismiss, but a hard game to define. For my money, I wouldn't define it as a game. It is a service through and through. If you think games should be, you know, games, and not a service, like rides at a theme park that changes according to the season or how many people decide to ride, then, well, that's cool.

Most games shouldn't. Movies don't get modified after release, they make another movie. Cars don't get updated, they get recalled. Why should games be any different?

Watching the fallout from the latest Fortnite Event has me disarmed. Games are different. People don't go into the movie theatre every day to watch the same film. People don't enter the market for a new car every four weeks. Those industries created a pipeline for their product in line with customer engagement habits.

In the future, government regulation of gaming will mandate that a company release a product that they can't touch for X number of years. The reason? Class action lawsuits. I know, "Tin foil hat time," but think about it. Currently, a company can release an admittedly unfinished game to the marketplace for a fee. They call it "Early Access."

You pay $20 to play a game that is not officially released. The developers can take as long as they want to tweak, or even completely rework the game while also getting free quality assurance feedback from actual customers that are literally paying money to do the work. The only reason early access exists is that no one told the platform or developers they are not allowed to do so.

We all know by now that the gaming community is a massive shitshow replete with toxic sociopaths committed to burning down the village to feel any kind of warmth. I hope that is a not a surprise to anyone.

Now, have you ever been home in the middle of the day and seen those skeevy lawyers who have practices committed to class action lawsuits against medicine that give people the clap, or an automotive company that made a product with defective seatbelts?

When these two forces realize how much money is in class action lawsuits against gaming companies releasing unfinished products... Listen... It's bad enough for indie developers as it is, but being sued for this business practice will be fatal to the whole scene. Most big companies will be ok, they have their own lawyers for that stuff.

So where does the government come in? Well, like most things the government gets involved in, they come in a decade too late to properly solve the problem. Also, instead of going at the predatory law industry facilitating the slow strangle of the gaming industry, the highest court to field the case will attack the victim and say, "Well, the problem is that you are indeed releasing products that ain't done, so... Don't do that no more. It's illegal now."

So there, problem solved. No "Early Access," no "DLC," No world events. Too expensive. And the band plays on.

Anyway, I say all this because it will be sad to see it go now that I see what Fortnite is doing in the big picture. They are making a kid's TV show that is also a game. Storylines, events, all the good stuff. They are giving it a good amount of pepper. I feel bad because I dismiss Fortnite as a bad game because I don't like it. I didn't realize I am the one that chose to recognize it as a game instead of acknowledging what it has always been, trying its best.

Shouts to info, rip Tb rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Quixotic 

Issue : Games : Triskaidekaphobia

Neo Cab is a game about the Gig Economy.

WeWork is a commercial real estate company that... Just a sec let me look it up real quick here because what I think they do can't be accurate... Oh shit yeah I was in the ballpark, they buy parts of a building, split the parts they purchased into sections, then rent those parts out to people who make artisanal pottery to sell on Etsy.

How is this business going under? It seems legit as long as they ain't trying to make money from it oooohhhhhh, ok. Then no.

This business has created the one thing every startup needs, more overhead. Fuck a business plan, fuck 4x funding, fuck working from home till you get on your feet. The one thing every person that strikes out on their own needs right away is a shared office so everyone can fail publicly and cry in the car on the way home. Trust me, I know.

Bonus points if the communal office company you are renting from is failing while you fail in the communal office that won't be there no more.

I'm not mad at the Neumann's for creating "The We Company." (That is legit what the org is called, that ain't a snap) They are hippies that couldn't imagine a world where people would not want to work in a communal environment.

How do I explain it? Imagine calling a restaurant to place a reservation and the call instantly begins a Facetime session. These are the type of people that you could never get to understand why anyone would be uncomfortable video-conferencing at any time, for any reason. I know, I know.

I'm mad at investors throwing money hand over fist at every donkey dick idea since 2010 with no idea as to how it was ever going to make a profit. People just kept saying "Office leasing. Duh!" and everyone was like, "Ok, but to who? And how does this scale?" People that want to open a Falafel place have a harder time justifying a small business loan to a bank than these valley people have to get a $47 billion dollar valuation for smoke and mirrors.

Anyway, WeWork was finna file for IPO but withdrew their S-1 cause they lost like $2 billion dollars under one of those uncomfortable couches they bought. I think Neumann got kicked out and they took back his Yacht. The struggle.

If only WeWork wasn't, you know, bad. It might have been good. It can still be good in the future. Maybe WeWork can buy a bunch of cars and partner with Lyft, so people can work in cars. Or buy a bunch of houses and partner with Airbnb so people can work in homes. Just thinkin' out loud.

Oh also shouts to info, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Caustic          

Issue : Games : Wheedle

We Were Here Together is a game about tundras.

A long time ago a friend said the most disrespectful thing to me. We were talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up because we were dumb kids who truly believed what you want has any bearing at all on who you become.

I told the kid I wanted to make video games. The kid looked me dead in my corneas and said, "Nah man, I can tell you are going to find a stable job, get a house, settle down and have some kids, and just be that old guy watering the lawn at 9pm. "

I was ready to punch that dude dead in the jaw. How dare he say some shit like that to me! Find a stable job? Homeownership!? Have a peaceful and fulfilling life?! This fool had me all kinds of fucked up and he needed to know, so I told him he was tripping and set out to do none of that.

And guess what, mission accomplished.

After twenty years of contract gigs and no stable living arrangements, children, or foundation by which to figure out the rest of my life; midway through my life, I can now admit that maybe that kid was onto something and perhaps, perhaps, I was, at that moment, Boo-Boo-Da' Foo'.

I often wonder if I had just listened to what the kid was saying and moved toward that life, who would I be? Anyway, I stuck with that video game dream, out of spite I suppose, and here I am. Is what it is.

Last I heard of that kid he got addicted to meth and was stabbed to death in a Bakersfield bathroom. I always wanted to thank him for thinking so highly of me as to wish me a calm life, but then he died. He wanted to be a mechanical engineer, btw.

Now that I try and think about it no one I know at my age range is a homeowner. No one I know has worked the same job over seven years, no one I know that has kids is with the person they had the kid with, and none of us ever plan to retire. If it's this bad with us, what's the next generation got in store?

On my drive to work, there is this old guy out there on his lawn watering a shrub. Green hose, thumb over the nozzle so it sprays wide, a big old grin on his face.

Some days I want to punch him in his smug mouth. Some days I want to stop and politely ask him to die. Some days I want to ask him how he did it. I already know the answer to the last part, that is what he was shooting for the whole time.

Anyway, We Were Here Together is a chill game. And like most things, better experienced with a friend. Shouts to info, rip Tb rip TC rip Tall-t. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : RoboCalls    

Issue : Games : Blandish

Negative Latency sounds like a made-up thing, but I guess it's not.

It's the latest tool in the box Google is using to try and convince people to invest in Stadia.

Oh, let me back up. Google Stadia is some kind of gaming console, that is not a console, but it also sort of is in every way a console. I don't know anymore. What it is supposed to do is to let you play video games over the internet. I'll give you a second to put your socks back on, cause I know they just got blown off.

"Play video games over the internet, you say? Tell me more." Well, let me tell you that with Google Stadia you can play all kinds of "Big" games on the internet, and all you need to do is pay money. Oh wait, and you need a hella fast internet connection. Actually, you need a lot of shit to make it work right. But the crux of the situation is that all you need is love.

Anyway, negative latency is a real thing because Google harnessed the power of machine learning to create a way to predict the inputs a user makes in a video game so that the computer doesn't have to wait for your slow ass to make up your mind. How brilliant is that?

That is legit what negative latency is, a computer doing stuff for you so you are not slowing the gameplay down with thinking. This is how Google is marketing its new product. Using the word "Negative" to lead into how game players, people that define themselves by deft hand-eye coordination and input manipulation, don't have to do that anymore because now there is a better way.

This is where we are now.

The president is streaming on Twitch, hot off the latest mass shooting, streamed on Twitch. Veteran game industry professionals are on a mass exodus the hell out of Dodge. Game companies are finally getting to the "Fuck you, pay me" part of their relationships with Chinese equity firms. Esports has still not made a dollar over the open market in twenty years. And Google is working on video games that play themselves.

If you do not see a catastrophic market crash happening by Q3 of 2023 at the latest you are a fucking moron. And if you are an investor who put chips in because you listened to these bullshitting, carpetbagging, so-called "Gaming experts" against your better judgments on how all markets work, you are even dumber. I don't know how else to say it. Maybe I should just call it negative latency.

But to end on a positive, Red Dead Redemption is coming to PC. I am legitimately excited. I know, gigantic hypocrite, but it looks like a fun game.

Anyway, rip Tb rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hate is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Cajole     

Issue : Games : Redound

Noita is a game about the procedure.

The Q Score is a measurement of familiarity and appeal of a brand, celebrity, company, or entertainment product. The higher the Q Score, the more popular a person, place, or thing, is. This is how advertising, marketing, media, and public relations make decisions.

Panelists are chosen as representative samples of the population. The way they respond to an athlete, brand, celebrity, or entertainment offering (ex. a TV show), or licensed property create a metric that decides if that thing will continue to exist.

Panelist populations are segmented by demographic groups such as age, education level, gender, income, or marital status. Respondents are given choices for each item being surveyed.

A. One of my favorites
B. Very Good
C. Good
D. Fair
E. Poor
F. Never hear of

Q Scores are calculated by counting how many respondents answered positively (A-C) relative to the number of respondents that answered negatively (D or E).

Q = liked/known x 100
Q = disliked/known x 100

Jack Landis created the Q score in 1963. Who was Jack Landis? Was Jack Landis a good guy? Nobody knows, he doesn't have a Q score.

Everything else does, tho. George Clooney, The Smurfs, Shaquille O'Neil, Game of Thrones characters, The revolution in Hong Kong. There is a popularity score attached to them provided by your racist uncle because he had time to pick up the phone or to take a Facebook quiz.

The scariest thing to happen to a creative in the entertainment industry is for a product to get popular. That means it becomes measurable. That means there is a meeting on the horizon. In that meeting, there will be you, the producer(s), and a room full of suits.

In that room, they will talk among themselves. When they get tired of congratulating themselves they will move on to you. They will say, "X is doing so well. Can we get more for X to do on the project?" You worked a long time creating a product that told a story. You did that work because you are a fan of the thing and want to do right by it. The project's hypothesis proved itself through success. Now, these people are saying, "Fuck all that, the people know what they want. Don't take a risk on what they haven't seen yet."

You know you can't change anything and keep the project on track. Lotta assets need to be changed, a lot of hurt feelings, a lot of betrayed fans. The thing they want more of isn't even that interesting in the long run. It was interesting in juxtaposition to that few moments in the story. They are asking you to scuttle the ship because some random person professed to "liking" boats with holes in them at some point in the past.

So you, as that creative. Do know what you say? You say, "Yeah, we can."

You say that because you don't want to sit in that car outside your house waiting to tell your S/O that you lost another job "Fighting the good fight." You don't want to go back to set to tell a team of 200 people depending on you that their kids can't eat because "Art." But most of all you say yes because you know you lost the minute you took the job. This was always the job.

They say numbers don't lie, people do. I'm sure that idiom has a high Q Score because it does a perfect job of saying something that sounds smart but gets exponentially dumber the longer you think about it.

When I see fans losing their shit on the project leads over how the project played out over time, I don't feel a type of way for anyone anymore. I just wonder if there will ever again be a time art isn't a metric.

Anyway, shouts to info. Rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobz.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Accrue

Issue : Games : Sawbones

Mario Kart Tour is a game about Macroeconomics.

Mario Kart is a great game, but a terrible product. So in other words, it's a video game made for apple and android devices. Its the same exercise in fun futility as always, except this time you move your thumb around your smartphone like a high school kid searching for the clitoris.

Launch a pipe here to get drivers. Attach a glider cause you gonna need it. Upgrade said glider through a leveling system. Grab red rubies to mix with do-dads to grab grand stars for the... What the fuck is all this, then? I would not have been mad if you just gave me Mario Kart.

The first few tours are fun. Then a wild spike hits where all of the other racers have become Initial-D drift experts and nothing in your life works anymore. Anyway, I'm having fun.

Also anyway what's all this talk about a Civil War in the states? Did I miss a tweet? The early definition of civil refers to quiet and peaceable behavior. We are none of that, so a civil war is not what we would get.

It would be more like a civil collapse. The duct tape holding America together has been a strong central government overseeing finance, commerce, national defense, foreign affairs, and laws. That tape has shorn loose and now just about all those things are done by the private sector. Talk about an easy bucket.

The last Civil War was about the government telling rednecks to chill. This one would be about the government being rednecks that need to chill.

I know it's off-brand and all, but I am starting to believe that leaving a cyberpunk-dystopian world where my nieces and nephews are fighting over cans of peaches in a burned-out Walgreens isn't as good an idea as it seemed when the shenanigans began.

Also, where the fuck is Luigi? Dude is on the cover of the game, but ain't in the game. At this point, I gotta feel like they are going out of their way to disrespect my dude. Free Luigi.

Shouts to info. Rip TC Rip TB Rip Tall T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobz.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Quack

Issue : Games : Continual

Borderlands 3 is a game about insanity

Borderlands 3 is the same game as the Borderlands that released in October 2009. How you feel about that statement is the shibboleth guiding us into the new age. Some people like what was going on ten years ago, some people don't. Such is life.

The point is, it doesn't matter how you feel. Like a parent on a fixed income with no time to cook, the family is getting whatever is on the way home and if you do not like it, then do not eat.

Speaking of American politics, the first democratic presidential debate was a goddamn shitshow. That assertion could be softened, but why? I just watched what looked like "Glass Joe," "Gabby Jay," and "Bald Bull" politely discuss who's gonna get punched out by Mike Tyson next year.

The debate was a reality TV show called "How to lose to the devil," featuring a wacky cast of characters like,

"Old incoherent blue republican who shouldn't be running for so many reasons."
"Other old incoherent guy who looks like he yells at trash bags on the street."
"White Obama clone without the skill."
"Black Obama clone without the gravitas."
"Asian Obama clone born in a silicon valley lab."
"White woman who showed up to a honky-tonk for a fair fight."
"A Bay area DA known for casting shade in the light."

There are, like, others. Here they are, I don't have time to disrespect them all cause I got deflated naming off a fraction of these goons. Some of these assholes would have been passable against McCain or Romney because they are all politicians. They would debate, it would be civil. They would lose. Life goes on.

It's not 2008 anymore. The church is married to state but its mistress is marketing. You gotta be with the shit. None of this "let's take it easy on each other so we can be fresh for the big fight." Listen, that is 4 flavors of stupid. Like an MMA guy saying, "Don't wrestle me while we spar, bro. I'm not strong in that skill and the big fight's comin soon." And all that talkin' bout the guy who wasn't there, campaign donations.

All of this is going according to the playbook, cept this time it's democratic hell in a cell instead of republican. When I was a kid I believed a decade to be an unimaginably long time. So much can change, I thought.

Have I ever told you what the definition of insanity is?

Shout's to info. Rip TB Rip TC Rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Cyclical

Issue : Games : Evince

"Absolutely: A True Crime Story" is a game about platitudes.

Newsman asked me how I feel about this video game causing gun violence issue. He asked how mad I was that the video game industry was once again being used as a scapegoat for political gain. I replied he was asking two different questions; the first being easy to answer, the second, not so easy.

He said, "No worries, answer both."

I said ok.

Do video games cause gun violence? No, don't be silly.

Does the video game industry have blood on its hands? Yes, absolutely. 

The video game community has been in a state of terror since the birth of communal gaming. The rules of the gaming community are simple. If you log onto a game you must be ok with being subjected to bare racism, misogyny, and bigotry. It's woven into the cultural fabric as a rite of passage. If you choose to resist this narrative you will be targeted, harassed, or worse.

It's been that way since the arcades but online play injected the situation with steroids. The game industry knew it had a monster in its house but that monster was called the user base. So they kicked the can to the community to figure it out. Report when you hear it, mute when it keeps happening, ban here and there. Pissing in the ocean.

The internet gave hate a way to communicate. Xbox Live gave it a voice. Trump gave it a corporeal form.

But you can't say things like that, because you will get hoisted by the very petard you are trying to hoist. It's a Moot point.

Let's say a 19-year-old kid shoots up a place. The kid was born around 2000, the kid logged on around 2007, the kid began to find ways to express his anger on the internet, with gaming the gateway. The kid finds targets for his anger in real life and is able to express that hate, not in the game, but in the chat. The kid finds kindred spirits in that hate online, then finds kindred spirits in a real-life political party.

The kid dives down, down, down, the many escape holes you can find in the series of tubes and is spit out, locked and loaded in the parking lot of a Google map location near you. His life timeline reflects the growth of the internet and a certain movement. Where do we go from here?

Gamers call toxic behavior cancer. The game industry and community, let's be fair, allowed cancer to incubate till it metastasized. So it goes.

The reporter said my answer was too tangential and long-winded but he might keep the Trump quote cause of the clicks. I said, "It's your party." He asked what I was up to these days, I replied, "Great question."

Anyway, rest in peace TB, rest in peace TC, rest in peace Tall - T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things. We believe in you. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue: People: Luftmensch 

Issue : Games : Boilerplate

Duck Season PC is a game about resonance.

The first time I was in Hong Kong I had two objectives. I was gonna get away from the people I thought were controlling me, then I was gonna discover the real Hong Kong. I'll be honest, I didn't know what "The Real Hong Kong" meant then, and I don't know now. Kids are just so fuckin' stupid on so many levels and you don't even realize how dumb you sound till so much... but I digress.

The second time I was in Hong Kong I had one objective, survive. I was working for a tech company that made widgets that drove gamers crazy. My job was to convince everyone that the widgets were cool.

My boss was obsessed with this nebulous, idealized, absurd vision of American "gamer" cool. From his head and daddy's wallet he gave corporeal form a Frankenstein's brand monster pastiche of The Matrix films energy, 4chans "/b/" message board's attitude, and a top coat of "You Got Served" style hip hop aesthetic, but with all the African American parts surgically removed.

He is Chinese but felt the Chinese version of cool wasn't cutting it, so he put all of the American cool ambassadors on a plane to help Hong Kong be more in line with the cool singularity. I didn't get the vision, but that was ok because I am a black man with zero confusion about what I was supposed to be doing. I pound the drum, I do the "Africa" face, the company gets to be inclusive, I get to be paid.

The job looked good on paper but paid peanuts and I lived in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I was dead broke, a month from being evicted, and parking my car miles away to avoid it being repossessed.

I had not a dollar to spare for this trip, at the end of my rope, staring into the abyss. But the job was the thin green branch I was holding onto for dear life and in marketing rule number one is never ever show weakness or the jungle eats you. So if being on that plane meant selling a liter of blood to pay for gas or selling my version of a child, my desktop PC, just to be miserable on another continent, it is what it is.

While we were there he would have the US and HK cool ambassadors sit around a table in this business park. When a person walked past he would call on a random employee to describe the passer-by's life based on what they wore and what kind of product they were like to buy. For instance, a person in an expensive suit might be going to work and might buy this type widget to trade stocks, a person in a tracksuit might be a homemaker who buys this type widget to play games. That type of thing.

Some guy walked by with a suit and tie on. Boss called on me but I didn't hear because I was busy being mad that this meeting was called so early in the morning and I was counting on the hotel's continental breakfast to be my one guaranteed meal of the day. My homie from the HK office had to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention.

The convo went like:

Boss: "Who is that?"

Me: "Some Suit."

Boss: "That's obvious, but what else?"

Me: "He's just a kid. His suit don't fit, his shoes are scuffed. He took the bus but got off blocks before the office so people don't find out. He can't buy shit from us because our stuff is oppressively expensive, but he is sure as hell in the office and on message boards talking about what he has or is gonna get."

Boss: "What a loser."

Me: "He's your market."


The boss didn't like me much, and I didn't blame him. I didn't understand him, and he didn't understand me. Or maybe we understood each other just fine, and that was the problem.

Either way, I was worried about nothing, the trip went fine. Turns out street food in Hong Kong is super cheap and the people are hella nice. The cool ambassadors from HK had me over to their houses and we ate good. Even had time to check in on some old friends. They aight. Turns out "The Real Hong Kong" is a thing after all.

Anyway, Duck Season PC is to Pony Island what Mariah Carey is to Pony Island. Also, rip TC rip TB rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobz.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Puckish 

Issue : Games : Nuance

Kids is a game about the process.

After binging "When They See Us" I don't know how I am supposed to feel, and I hate every part of that statement.

I don't remember when I became an "Art as a service" person, but here I am. Nowadays whenever I hear a person tell a story my immediate thoughts lead to what is this information doing for me? When those have passed I need to know what the information is doing to help the characters in the story receive the "good ending."

My guess is that over time I slipped into a very particular version of learned helplessness. The acceptance that reality is the shitshow it is has trained me to expect a lot form my escapism. I somehow decided that art is synonymous with escapism and stories can be controlled. Therefore any story I choose to ingest that dedicates itself to being a 1:1 reflection of reality, warts and all, is a betrayal to me, personally. That's fucked up.

The bad guys should lose, the good guys should win, and while there should be drama in between to ramp up the stakes and keep me entertained, there should never, ever, be any moment in any story that reaffirms my pessimistic worldview, or validate the worldview of the ops.

In "When They See Us" the kids got bullied by a societal infrastructure, convicted of rape and lived most of their life in prison for crimes they did not commit. The bullies went on to such great heights, a few even made it all the way to the top, good for them.

So yeah, to quote the great philosopher Jay-Z, "I'm from the hood, stupid. What type of facts are those?" I think the real reason I am stuck feeling some type of way about this film is that, ok, like it exists or whatever and that is cool because future generations can find it and better understand just how fucked up everything is here now. I love that, that works.

The problem I keep running into is putting myself into the shoes of a person that sides with law enforcement, the prosecution, and the public that then and now believe all of it was still the right way to go.

I can't imagine a scenario where they wouldn't say, "Well they were a group of wild monkeys running in packs in the night, maybe they didn't do this, but they still did something, or they were gonna do something. Look, they are something, and you know what I mean." So for those people, this type of art is just ineffectual sputterings of an argument they believe monolithic. And that is the nut of my problem. Why am I sweating the perspective of the people on the other side? Then again, why wouldn't I if I expect them to?

What happens when two sides of a problem reach the point when they can no longer communicate? 

I am starting to believe that spicy tweets and bludgeon art isn't gonna cure the problems of the world. That is a dangerous place to be because if art and snark can't change the world, what can?

Anyway, Kids is great, about 15-30 mins, totally worth your time. Also rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T love is wise, hatred is foolish, get out there and do great things, we believe in you, also Jobz.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Codify 

Issue : Games : Commemorate

Mordhau is a game about chivalry

Is an esports company an agent? As in, say Bobby shoots a lot joins uh let's say Faze Clan. Little Bobby signs into a contract with this made up esports team. This esports team tells bobby we are going to get you exposure, we are going to get you into competitions, we are going to make you money. Little Bobby is gassed, he is like, "And my mom said I would never get anywhere playing these games!" And signs on the dotted line.

Sounds like Faze Clan is doing the same thing that any self-respecting Hollywood agent is doing for an actor, which entitles them to a percentage of whatever little Bobby makes. Fair enough, I guess. But where I get confused is that this made up esports team called Faze Clan also has skin in the game. Faze Clan has sponsors, faze clan needs exposure, Faze Clan is in the same lane as Bobby. So if that is the case, what happens when Bobby finds his legs and wants to get a sponsor himself, wants to grow his brand independently of Faze Clan. Well, no one has bothered to ask.

And here we are, the first lawsuit that makes it clear that the Twitch era business models are gonna have a hard time in an actual court of law. In those hallowed halls the phrase, "That is just how things work around here" will be met with laughter. The innocent laments of a twenty-year-old human being will be seen as the adult choices that were made by a grown ass person. It's gonna be a shitshow and if the bubble needed any more help being burst it just got it. Spoiler, it didn't.

Speaking of that popping sound looks like Nate is jumping ship. So long, and thanks for all the shoes. The commissioner of the Overwatch league leaves, the team gutted due to layoffs, and a partridge in a pear tree. Looks like Fortnite and Rocket League is going franchise. Rest in peace organic teams who have built a solid following but do not have ten million dollars laying around.

Anyway, shouts to info, thanks for having me on and yes it is the wild west out here, the Will Smith one, for reference. Rip TB Rip TC Rip Tall-T, get out there and do great things, we believe in you, also Jerbz.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Zip

Issue : Games : Regale

Precipice is a game about prudence.

I legitimately do not know what the war part of this US vs. China "Trade War" is all about. Like, ok, I understand toxic protectionism, I get tariffs, I see how these things push the output of a nation in and out of autarky states and in that flux lies the quest for balance yeah yeah all good or whatever. What I don't understand is what the US and China are fighting over? Fake Gucci bags?

Both countries major exports have been disgruntled people and embarrassing leadership decisions for a while now. A part of me feels like they feel if they make a big fuss about copper and soybeans people will somehow forget that both countries digital infrastructures are on fire.

Listen, to be honest, the way things are going they might be onto the right strat. These days, jangle a bunch of keys on Instagram, people are like to forget about children in cages.

Speaking of PUBG, which I sure was doing, or was going to do, anyway. In China, PUBG is now called "Game for Peace." They can do that over there, demonetize a game, pull it off the market, then replace that game with a state-sanctioned bootleg and sell it for a 14mil first week open. That... yeah... that's a thing. 

Oh right, that is what I think I was getting at about the war part of trade war confusion. How can it really be a war when the commodities are finite, the labor is fluid, the market is global, but you can change the rules whenever you want. Oh wait, those are the ingredients to like, every war, my bad.

Anyway, Precipice is dope, check it out. Shouts to information, I do think the worth is inherent, for what its worth. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Love is wise, hatred is foolish, rip TB, rip TC, rip Tall-T. Also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Disport

Issue : Games : Muse

Katana Zero is a game about acrobatics.

The best way to figure out when another election cycle in the United States is gonna happen is to check out when a rando senator punches an industry in the back of the head. Whether the punch is deserved or not, it's an announcement that they need attention, like a four-year-old walking up to you while you are watching television just to ask how you are doing.

It's sweet, but in the back of your mind you are thinking, "The fuck you want because you never speak to me, let alone ask how I am doing, unsolicited."

So I guess it's election season again because Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation to ban loot-boxes and pay to win micro-transactions in video games. Dude is 39, probably gives a fuck about the issue, sees a lane to hop into the public conversation and position himself as the Beto O'Rourke of the right. It couldn't be about video game violence cause of all the like, mass murders, and also cause the NRA wants to keep collecting Division 2 residuals. So child safety is fine, its safe.

Will anything come of it? The past gives us the answer to that question but we all can hope. The mantra in technology is "Move fast and break things." The mantra in politics is "Keep as still as possible for as long as possible."

The rest of the world has mostly weighed in on this issue and the response was a unanimous, "Shit bro, we dunno. Loot-boxes make jobs and money. Let's just play out the clock."

For the record, I think loot boxes are bad business and signal boosting the issue in any way is the right move, regardless of intent. Also for the record, I think America is such a gigantic shitshow right now that loot boxes are not a tier one battleground for the game industry, and certainly not the country. Maybe instead of loot boxes that legislation leans toward making sure game industry employees are treated humanely. Just a thought.

Anyway, shouts to info, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish, get out there and do great things. Don't focus on the no's, get excited for the yes. We believe in you. Also Jerbz.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Ponder 

Issue : Games : Asperity

Rise of Industry is a game about fungibility.

If there is anything a company hates more than employees speaking candidly it's their product becoming a commodity. Seems backward, but when a product becomes a commodity it stops being a companies product and becomes something anyone can make, like farts, or opinions.

The company is no longer special, which means the customer no longer needs exactly what that company is making, they could just go to anybody who is making the same thing and get the same experience, so the issue becomes about the price.

When the issue becomes about the price the whole market turns to shit cause business gotta keep undercutting each other to stay afloat. Gotta get to market faster, gotta tell better lies about what the product can do, gotta put the product on sale, gotta buy more ads and positive reviews, gotta manufacture more products so they can be in more places.

All this costs the company hella money to do, and the last thing any self-respecting multinational conglomerate wants to do is be spending extra money on diminishing returns like boo boo the fuckin' fool.

Only unique things can survive at a high price and low volume. Unique can be a bunch of things also, you can make the same products as everybody else but if a "crack" demo (a consumer group like teens that will literally sell a kidney to have what they see their peers using regardless of quality) is into it then conversation over, other companies, we the cool kids until the kids get bored or you make up a better lie.

People say the most valuable commodity is time, but in our hearts, we know the answer is actually people, but we don't say it aloud because that is rude and high-key slavey.

If unique products are the only products able to survive a high price, and unique people make those products, then time is beholden to the process of making the unique thing for the company. Innovation takes as long as it takes, monkeys in a room writing Shakespeare and all of that.

Who knows when phones are gonna innovate? Who knows when games are gonna innovate? What does innovation even look like? Smartphones as we know them started around twenty years ago and here we are, games as a service started around twenty years ago and here we are.

People love to send that "time, quality, cost, pick two." meme around like skype calls need more memes but I think people miss that the quality part also applies to the quality of experience of employees just as much as the quality of the product being created. Just thinking out loud.

The customer has more product in the market than they could ever need, they got entitled and indifferent. The business got drunk on hubris, thinking the pointy end of the graph can only go up, and the workers have all but given up on chucking water out the boat. Sinking ships ghost riding to port.

What's it all mean? I dunno. Treat people better and they will make cooler stuff, I spose.

Anyway, shouts to info, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is prefabs, hate is also prefabs. Get out there and do great things, everything is impossible till you do it. We believe in you, so there is that, also Jobs.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Acerbity