Issue: People: Teetotaler

YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is a game about goonies.

Watching the relationship between esports and traditional business continue to grow is a lot like going to lunch with a friend and listening to them talk about their new relationship when you are well aware that the person they are so happy about is a total douche in one way and your friend is a total douche in another way. Which doesn't make either bad people, but makes then mutually incompatible because of their default stats.

You know your friend is using the relationship to validate themselves, and you know the new person isn't at all interested in your friend. Does not respect your friend, has their shit together in a way your friend does not, does not care to associate itself with the toxic circles your friend hangs out in, does not bring your friend around its circles, because your friend still has a lot of growing up to do.

And you know the new person is doing your friend the best favor ever not bringing them into those rooms with those people because the new person is ok taking a chance on someone at risk of loss, but the new person friends do not take chances, ever.

But you listen and smile and wish them the best knowing that there is a high chance that shit just ain't gonna work out. You know it ain't gonna work out because you have known your friend for a long time and their fatal flaw is that they over promise and under deliver.

Every decade or so they gamble into a lot of money. So they go out and they buy a bunch of expensive shit to make themselves look nice, then they go out and take out a lot of money in loans so they can gamble some more, cause they are on a hot streak, and bat way out their league in partnership because their want to be respected by others clouds their need to be ok with themselves, which makes them easy prey.

Professional gamblers take note of how flashy and confident your friend is acting so they ask your friend out because your buddy is making a lot of money on a long run at a table they don't understand the ruleset too and they can't reserve a seat in because all the kool kids play there and don't trust the old sharks.

You have seen your buddy crap out repeatedly, you have seen your buddy in the fetal position on your couch drunk crying. You have tried to tell your friend to take it easy at the table, money comes easy, wealth takes time, only to be told step back cause you got negative energy. You raise your hands and say, "Do your thing, I'll be at the arcade."

Your buddy always takes the interest from the suitor as genuine, and the new folks always interpret the success as stable. They go all in with the pertners chips in a really short time. Buy a house together, get married, have a kid. That kind of thing. You continue to wish them the best, what else can you do?

A few years later the mortgage can't be paid on the house cause your friend's horses didn't place. The new partner loses faith and wants to sell the house. The kid is always cursing and is basically feral, the marriage is falling apart, they sleep in different beds and barely talk. You show up to your friend's divorce party with two controllers and a bottle of vodka. Gonna be a long night.

A few years later they at it again. Such is life.

Replace the scenario with VR, video game movies, or any other kind of growth bullshit and you get the picture. Also wow YIIK is pretty dope. Elements of all the most fun stuff, and got's its own vibe going on. Keep this same energy going into your next gig folks. Well done. Also, shouts to information, rip TC rip TB rip Tall-T. Love is Paid in Full, hate is Crunk Rock. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jerbz.

The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue: Games: Broke Edge

Issue: Games: Perfunctory

while True: learn() is a game about cat-to-human translation.

With all this hubub about the so-called digital delivery wars that are raging right now it's easy to forget that none of it is true. What is really going on is a race between narrow sighted gaming companies to establish themselves as the most popular digital delivery platform in the market before game streaming hits its stride and decimates the vertical.

But there is one company that gets that there are more important things than fighting over who gets to be king of shit mountain. That company is Good Old Games, a company I respect and admire greatly. CD Project RED does the hard thing, which is to not think about yourself but to consider the good of the industry as a whole in terms of what happens when a great games infrastructure dies around it.

I have had the pleasure of working with them when Gwent was dropping and they behave like a company that did not make one of the best video games in the world in The Witcher, but more like video game fans that had somehow stumbled into an industry leadership position and are somehow embarrassed by that.

Everyone that games are a friend, doesn't matter the title of the person, doesn't matter what they have to offer, large or small. It is a humbling experience to be on an email chain with someone who is cool with handling the shipping charges for their stuff, cool with going to po-dunk nowhere to do a demo or explain the game to money people, and does not ask for all of the product you have for nothing just because "They are doing you a favor" by displaying it at market.

Whoever wins the digital delivery war already lost, because of the streaming thing, and because GOG is creating the Library of Alexandria for games, an idea that has legs long after the flavor of the moment has become ash in the mouths of consumers and the sun falls and the hubris of digital delivery services has them huddled outside of the gates of the big tech three begging for alms while developers are inside eating turkey dinners.

Business people call what GoG are doing an "Evergreen Market."

The gaming market is saturated. hundreds of new games are being launched every day with Steam and Epic fighting to be the marketplace for these titles. Meanwhile, CD Project sits back and picks the ripest fruit from yesteryear knowing that a good old game is always going to be more valuable than a popular new game over time.

Can't wait to see Fortnite and Half-Life on GoG in twenty years.

Also, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is a revolving sushi lunch with friends, hate is a cold Arby's burger you eat in your car while you drive back from your fifteen-minute crunch break. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jerbz.

The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue: People: Desultory

Issue: People: Farouche

What Never Was is a game about tidying up.

Never in my life did I imagine I would feel bad for John Riccitiello, but here I am. Yesterday I said he got booted out EA thanks to not making his sales nut, but that is only half true. Sales were just the tip over the edge. What really got him was the public. Thanks to fiasco after shenanigan after fiasco, the public outcry against the company during his time at the helm required a human sacrifice with bad sales being the cover story.

John did the honorable thing and walked to the gallows with his head held high. He is a product guy to the core, which I now believe is all product guys problems and solutions.

I'm sure during his fall from grace he, being the product guy he was pushing back against the sales team in favor of a better product. He fought city hall and lost, so it goes. But he bounced back at Unity and was doing exactly what I imagine he set out to do, which is take an amazing product that actually helps gamers and make it the best at what it does. And he was doing that, till the same old problems showed up.

And they showed up in the form of a company that Unity feels skipped the line, used Unity assets unlawfully, and that Unity reacted to in all reasonable business standards as the proper response for the thing done. What the company in question did was run to the public screaming that they had been hit, and what the competitors did was side with the victim company and scream end of the world over there, come over here, and what the media did was pump up a very nuanced conflict for clicks, fully understanding that the conflict is not a big deal but the brands are and the subject matter is relevant, and the fans ate that shit up.

Sounds like a very EA scenario.

I don't feel bad for John for the situation Unity is in. I feel bad for John because this situation makes it clear that he still does not understand that making a product as best you can and being as fair as you can to everyone will not stop the mob. Scandal is the product. John is never the asshole because the product is bad, John becomes the asshole only when he gets in a person's way of using it how they want to use it. He probably thinks he is protecting the product, but he does the opposite, and now he does not have EA or poor sales to blame. Mirrors suck.

Unity branded itself a free service, which it is certainly not, especially for B2B. Unity is going to have a hard time explaining that the other company stole something and pretended to be partners when they weren't because Unity is a free service and everyone is a partner. Arent they?

Anyway, they will be fine, everyone will be fine. Like I said, no one makes games with SpacialOS yet anyway so who fuckin' cares. Also What Never Was didn't make me cry, stop lyin' on my name I got allergies learn the difference. Also, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is love and hate is hate get it straight, do great things we are all counting on you, also Jerbz.

The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue: Games: Graces

Issue : Games : Liason

My Time at Portia is a game about neglect.

EA canceled it's Star Wars open world game. Probably a good move, considering how the latest Star Wars film franchise is doing and how they shat on Amy's vision for the game. Sucks for the relationship between EA and the house of the mouse though. EA bought the rights to Star Wars in 2013 for a ten-year stretch. It's been six years and all to show for it is two wack games.

How did the once great house, Electronic Arts, get to this humble place? Let's head back to the start and find out.

Electronic Arts is a video game company, the second largest gaming company in America and Europe. The number one company is Activision Blizzard, the third and fourth largest are Take-Two Interactive and Ubisoft.

Trip Hawkins left Apple to start Electronic Arts in 1982. Trip's vision was to have the company be the Hollywood of computer games and to make Developers rock stars. Trip pitched his vision to Don Valentine at Sequoia Capital, who he had met from his time at Apple because Sequoia Capital had been early investors in Apple but backed out in 1979 like fuckin' idiots.

I guess Don didn't want to make the same mistake twice so he set Trip up in an empty space in some Sequoia Capital office space, gave him some money, and told him to do the thing. So Trip got right to it, built a business plan for a developer/publisher gaming model that literally did not exist before he made it, poached a bunch of good people to help him do the things he was not good at and made up a kickass name for the company. Amazin' Software.

Literally, every single person ever hated the name "Amazin' Software," so it was changed to Electronic Arts, because everyone in the company believed what the developers were making was art, a controversal stance, at the time.

Once the company got off the ground Trip started making good on his idea to turn game developers into rockstars. Back in the day, EA games cover packaging used to look like album covers. Each game had an art style that reflected the energy the game was putting out. The credits showed pictures of the developers sitting on those akward looking ass wooden stools smiling into the camera like they was in the mall getting their yearbook photo taken. The whole production really conveyed the care and respect the company had for the creators.

Trip left the company in the 90's to start 3DO (wamp-wamp). He was replaced as CEO by Larry Probst. Larry jumped ship from Activision to Electronic Arts in the 80's, coming on as VP of Sales. He got bumped to CEO of in the early nineties and got right to work doing what he did best, making sales.

The first thing he did was drop the artsy fartsy album cover packaging and visual developer credits. That shit didn't make no money. Next EA bought the licenses for most professional sports leagues and outright purchased every popular development studio they could bribe. Bullfrog, Westwood, etc... Larry figured, "Why take a chance on making something, why not just buy something people already like?" Most of the stuff he bought is gone now, he was gone as CEO soon after but stayed on EA's board of directors.

Then came John Riccitiello, he was a product guy from Clorox, PepsiCo, and Sara Lee. He saw all the sales shenanigans going on and how unhappy the public was at said shanans and said, "Guys, we have made a lot of money and own a bunch of stuff, let's just focus on making good products for now." John made a lot of sense, the problem was EA was traded on NASDAQ by now and the board of directors, Larry included, Larry especially, was hearing none of the anti-YoY + nonsense and they got him right the fuck out of there.

The new guy is Andrew Wilson. He seems nice, not much of a history, he was VP of EA Sports and I think he did some stuff with Intel. He inherited quite the shitshow, I will say that. I do not see EA being able to make good on a solid game in the four years they have left on the Disney contract.

Disney will bounce, The sports licenses will get spooked and bounce, the AAA's will somehow sell worse than they already are YoY, EA has to jettison a ton of underperforming projects and studios, company and IP's go up for sale in about ten years. GG, thanks for playing. John tossed Andrew that hot potato in 2013 on his way out the door knowing this, but I think John is just as heartbroken about it as anyone, the product guys usually care way more than they should.

A company is a reflection of the people running it, and that is how EA got here, through the linear decisions of its leaders. The visionary, the salesman, the product guy, and the kid protagonist. I don't see a long life for the publishing model EA brought to life. The floodgates are open and top-heavy companies cannot rest on the yearly iteration of their AAA IP's anymore. It was time to change the 60 dollar micro-model years ago, the ship was sinking then, and EA just kept taking on water thinking it could transform into a Submarine.

Such is life. Anyway, stop thinking My Time at Portia is just Stardew Valley which is just Animal Crossing which is just Harvest Moon which is just Seabeard which is just Farming Simulator which is just Fantasy Life which is just ok I'll stop. It's fuckin' good. Stop being like that. Also, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is cool, hatred is a pretty fucked up way to be. Do great things, you bet your dumb ass I believe in you. Also Jobz.

The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue: People: Binding

Issue : People : Mea Culpa

Bright Memory: Episode One is a game about that novel you are going to finish.

30,000 games have been released on Steam. Think about that. That is thirty thousand peoples dreams, thirty thousand times people have decided to sit at a console and make something. I think that is the coolest shit in the world. Good for them.

Who cares if ninety percent of it is crap. The older I get the more I realize that any crap you see is visual proof that someone dropped some shit. I can't seem to do anything right, I am legit terrible at life, but even the people who set out to make a carbon copy shovelware game and throw it up on Steam for a quick buck decided to do it and just did it.

I don't know how people just do stuff, I spend my whole life talking myself out of things, and there are people out there just making games all of the time. It's like that kid in elementary school who walked up the diving platform and just jumped off while everyone else was daring each other to do it first. The kid did a belly flop and almost died, but the kid didn't die.

I get that market saturation is a problem, I get that the more people with bullhorns out there yelling, the less easy it's gonna be to find the next diamond in the rough. I think that is life, I think that rng applies to everyone, and some people can sit there and craft a masterpiece and still get no spins because that is just how life be sometimes.

It is what it is.

Listen, I know I should be talking mad shit on Steam for allowing Steam Direct to flood the market with whatever, but who cares really? This is all just proof people want to work in this industry and they want to make things, lots of things. Now there just needs to be a better way to let people know that those things are cool.

The guy who made Bright Memory: Episode One just sat the fuck down and made it. No team, no pitch for funding, no blaming anyone when the timeline got fucked up. I am so in awe of this dev, I wish I had half of the dedication. Big ups.

Also, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is yadda hate is yadda yadda. Get out there and do great things, I believe in you. Also Jerbz.

The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue: Games: Culprit