Stuff Worth Knowing for the Week of December 12, 2022
Amazon gets into Tomb Raiding, the former FTX CEO gets arrested, and the Pokemon anime makes a big change after 25 years.
Welcome back to Stuff Worth Knowing! Each week, I'll round up news related to tech, video games, film, television, anime, and more. At the end of each newsletter, there will be a section called On The Calendar, which will include some of those notable dates that are near-term. Oh, and I also launched my Patreon, SavePhile, where my more thoughtful musings on any topic will go.
These things just keep getting longer.
Video Games 🎮
Amazon Games Is Publishing The Next Tomb Raider Game
Back in May of this year, everyone was shocked when Embracer Group agreed to acquire most of Square Enix' Western studios, including Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal. The sale came with many of the iconic properties related to those studios, including Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, and Tomb Raider.
Prior to the news of the acquisition, Crystal Dynamics revealed the development of a new Tomb Raider game at the State of Unreal Keynote 2022. When the acquisition was revealed, it was expected that one of Embracer's subsidiaries would be publishing the new game. Instead, Amazon Games announced today that it will be publishing this new title.
Why It's Worth Knowing: Amazon Games has generally been unsuccessful with internal development despite spending a lot of money on talent. Two previous games, Crucible and Breakaway, never achieved full launches before being shuttered. The final game, New World, launched, but had several issues post-launch that prevented it from having a large, consistent player base.
Amazon Games did find a solid path forward when it launched Lost Ark, an existing online dungeon crawler from Korean studios Tripod Studio and Smilegate. Lost Ark remains in the Top 10 of Steam's Most Played games, being a clear win for Amazon. That gave them the right idea: use the vast reservoir of Bezos bucks to fund games from existing, competent teams, rather than trying to build your own studios.
So, Amazon Games has diversified. The publisher is partnering with Bandai Namco Online to bring the upcoming free-to-play MMO Blue Protocol to North America, Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand in 2023. And now it's providing "full support" to Crystal Dynamics' latest game.
It's a win for Embracer, who probably has a ton of debt on the books after its acquisition spree. It's a win for Amazon Games as well, as Crystal Dynamics has a good critical track record, outside of the struggles of Marvel's Avengers. Assuming they deliver a great Tomb Raider game, Amazon Games gets to mark another win in its column. So this is the new direction for this division of Amazon.
Epic Games Shuts Down Online Service For Rock Band and Unreal Titles
Epic Games is moving to a different suite of online resources for its games, the Epic Online Services. This covers all of Epic's current online features, including voice chat, achievements, matchmaking, and shared accounts across all platforms. This means that games powered by older Epic services are going to go offline soon.
According to Epic, the following games will lose online service on January 24:
1000 Tiny Claws
Dance Central 1-3
Green Day: Rock Band
Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess
Rock Band 1-3
The Beatles: Rock Band
Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars
Unreal Gold
Unreal II: The Awakening
Unreal Tournament 2003
Unreal Tournament 2004
Unreal Tournament 3
Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition
Certain titles will remain online, including Dance Central VR and Rock Band 4. Finally, Epic says that online functionality will be restored to Unreal Tournament 3 via Epic Online Services at a later date.
Why It's Worth Knowing: Sadly, in terms of game preservation, there's a category of game that is quickly falling by the wayside. Many of these games rely on online connections for certain features and when those servers are taken down by companies, they're essentially bricking those titles. It's sad that they aren't allowing alternate network options for these titles at the same time.
In this case, however, there does look to be an alternative for at least one title. A game called Unreal Tournament 3 X appeared on Steam just after this announcement. It promises a version of the game with "No microtransactions and no strings attached," for "completely free." UT3X is listed as coming soon on the Steam page. Unfortunately, the listing of UT3X has also come with the complete delisting of all the other Unreal titles on Steam. Shame.
Outbound Ghost Developer Asks Players to Boycott His Game Over The Publisher
Conrad Grindheim is the primary developer of The Outbound Ghost, an indie RPG that faithfully treads on the foundation laid by Paper Mario while telling an original story. The title launched in September on Steam, followed by Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series releases this month, as published by Digerati. Unfortunately, some of the console iterations of the game were released with bugs and performance issues.
In a video posted on his personal YouTube channel, Conradical Games, Grindheim stated that his relationship with the publisher had "dissolved." He said that he wanted fans to not purchase the game, stating that the release wasn't up to his "quality standards." Digerati's owner, Sarah Alfieri, tweeted a video response only a day later, stating the publisher had provided Grindhiem with "substantial funds," only for him to sabotage the game's launch.
This week, Digerati filed a lawsuit against Conradical Games for false statements and breach of contract. The publisher offered a statement to Eurogamer about the lawsuit:
"In the lawsuit, we are asking the Court to order Conradical to perform its obligations under the Licensing Agreement to ensure the success of The Outbound Ghost. We are not seeking money at this time because we want to return to the path where The Outbound Ghost would be successful."
Tech ⌨️
This Week In Twitter: Blue Returns, Journalists Banned, Elon Sells Tesla Stock
Sigh. It can sometimes get tiring with Twitter being one of the primary tech stories each week. Sadly, new owner Elon Musk can't get out of his own way, making huge swings in his management of Twitter. This week was no different. (As an aside to the Twitter moves, Elon also got booed going onstage at a Dave Chappelle show.)
The week started with the relaunch of the Twitter Blue. As announced over the weekend, subscription service is now $8 per month for all web subscribers and $11 per month on those going through the Apple App Store. Musk previously stated he was "going to war" with Apple over its "secret tax," but it seems like that war is going underground.
Alongside the Twitter Blue relaunch, the social media platform also rebranded its Verified users. The "Official" label was replaced with new Gold checkmarks for businesses and organizations. There will eventually also be Gray checkmarks for the government. Musk did say that legacy Verified checkmarks would be going away in the future.
Twitter disbanded its Trust and Safety Council at the beginning of the week, further consolidating moderation under Musk himself. In his ongoing war against bots, Musk had Twitter blocking legitimate traffic from several Asia-Pacific regions, including India and Russia.
The Twitter management fiasco has affected the stock price of Musk's other major company, Tesla. Tesla is down to around $150 per share and it continues to fall. According to Forbes, this means Musk is no longer the richest person in the world, surpassed by Bernard Arnault and his family. This gap only widened when Musk sold another $3.6 billion in Tesla stock to shore up Twitter debt. All told, Musk has sold $23 billion of Tesla stock in 2022, despite saying he was going to stop doing so in April. Investors in Tesla continue to worry about his focus on the social media company over Tesla's woes.
Overall, Twitter seems to be struggling to pay its debts and stay afloat. According to the New York Times, the company has not paid rent for many global offices for weeks, refused to pay for charter flights, and discussed the idea of not paying expensive severance payments to the many, many employees that Musk fired when he took control.
The capper to the week were the bannings of several accounts, including those related to journalists. This started on Wednesday, when Twitter banned the Elonjet account, which posted the publicly-available information about the movements of Musk's private jet. At the same time, Twitter updated its rules to prevent the sharing of "live location information," with Musk trying to frame it as doxxing.
This extended to those reporting on the banning of the Elonjet account, including many journalists who have been critical of Musk's actions. These bans included The New York Times' Ryan Mac, The Washington Post's Drew Harwell, CNN's Donie O’Sullivan, Mashable's Matt Binder, The Intercept's Micah Lee, and independent journalists like Keith Olbermann and Aaron Rupar. Once again, Musk attempted to use his "doxxing" defense.
Some of the banned journalists returned to Twitter via Twitter Spaces to discuss Musk's actions. Musk himself joined the Space, leaving once pressed by Harwell to explain himself. Twitter later suspended Spaces, returning the feature to service on Friday.
The week closed out with brand-new news site Semafor reporting that Musk is looking for investors in Twitter. He's apparently offering shares at $54.20, the same price he paid to take the company private. Twitter has annual interest payments of $1 billion and Musk needs money. Maybe some of the C-level executives are willing to throw him some cash in the short-term.
John Carmack Is Leaving Meta
I remember seeing a prototype version of the Oculus Rift years ago, a kludged-together headset with duct tape around the outside. At the time, it was only running Doom 3 and the headset was being showcased by John Carmack, the legendary Doom programmer. Now Carmack is leaving Meta behind.
The news broke early in the New York Times, but Carmack released his own statement on Twitter and Facebook later.
"This is the end of my decade in VR. We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort. There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy. It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I’m evidently not persuasive enough."
Carmack has been visibly unhappy with things at Meta for a few years now. He was high up enough in the executive levels that he could openly express his frustration with little blowback. Combined with Meta's losses in VR, the boondoggle that is the Meta Quest Pro, and a clear lack of vision about the metaverse, and it's clear why Carmack is on his way out.
Former FTX CEO Declines To Testify to Congress, Gets Arrested For It
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was supposed to testify before the U.S. House and Senate this week. There was a Wednesday hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and Bankman-Fried declined to attend. According to Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown and member Pat Toomey, he also decided not to accept the service of a subpoena for his testimony.
Unfortunately for the FTX founder, you don't get to just decide to opt out. Bankman-Fried was arrested the next day in the Bahamas. In a statement, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, said that she was "surprised" to hear about Bankman-Fried's arrest and that "the American public deserves to hear directly from Mr. Bankman-Fried about the actions that’ve harmed over one million people."
Twelve hours later, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed the full charges against Bankman-Fried. The charges include wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering. The Verge has a lengthy report on the full set of charges against him.
Why It's Worth Knowing: You can screw over normal folks, but you can't do the same to those with money. Sam Bankman-Fried messed with their money, and they will wring the blood from that stone. Or at least send it to jail.
Senator Marco Rubio Introduces Legislation To Block TikTok
As promised, Senator Marco Rubio has introduced the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act). Yes, this is really what it is called. The aim of the legislation is to block TikTok and any other social media controlled by "foreign adversaries" to "surveil Americans."
In a press release, Rubio stated his issues in more plain language:
“The federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok. This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day. We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company. It is time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.”
A Senate version of the bill was also introduced, but it's unlikely to pass there as the Democrats control that side of Congress. Rubio's ire carries on from 2020, when the Trump administration attempted to block TikTok wholesale. The move didn't last, with TikTok owner Bytedance ultimately sending all its U.S. traffic through Oracle to calm down legislators. Despite this assertion, BuzzFeed News reported earlier this year that Chinese nationals have accessed U.S. user data.
Why It's Worth Knowing: TikTok is one of the biggest social media apps at the moment. The youth of America are all about it and a potential ban feels like poking the hornet's nest for the Republicans. Alas, part of the problem they have — China accessing U.S. user data — is a legitimate issue. I honestly don't know where this one goes.
Books 📖
Yes, the books category is back!
Amazon Cutting Magazine and Newspaper Subscriptions
Amazon Kindle built itself on being the biggest platform for digital readers. Since then, its attention has wandered. The company ruined Comixology earlier this year by merging the service with existing Amazon functionality. Now, Amazon is moving away from distribution of certain periodicals.
According to Publishers Weekly, Amazon is shutting down its print and digital subscriptions for magazines and newspapers. Likewise, single-issue sales through Kindle Newsstand will be going away in 2023.
“Following an assessment of our print textbook rentals and our magazine and newspaper subscriptions and single-issue sales, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue these services,” Amazon spokesperson Lindsay Hamilton told Publishers Weekly in a statement. “We don’t take these decisions lightly, and are winding down these offerings in a phased manner over several months. We will continue to support customers, sellers, and publishers during that time.”
Some of these subscriptions are moving into Kindle Unlimited, but most are not.
Why It's Worth Knowing: This was a driver for Amazon Kindle in the digital space since 2011 and now it's just gone. It's another testament to the amazing impermanence of items and services in the digital space. I was one of the folks that was dismayed by Amazon's handling of Comixology, and I could see someone feeling equally betrayed by losing their magazine subscriptions.
Film, Television, and Streaming 🎞️
Pokemon Leaves Ash Behind For New Protagonists
The Pokemon Company announced on Friday that Pokemon anime series lead Ash Ketchum is heading into retirement at the ripe old age of 10. In the current season of the Pokemon series, Pokemon Ultimate Journeys: The Series, Ash finally won the Masters Eight Tournament, becoming a Pokemon World Champion. That's 25 years of adventures before finally achieving his goal.
When the show returns in 2023, there will be two new heroes stepping into Ash's shoes: Liko and Roy. The pair will share the lead role, making friends with Pokemon from the latest games in the series, Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet.
Why It's Worth Knowing: Pokemon is one of the world's biggest brands and this show has been running for 25 years. As an adult, you may not watch it, but this is a huge change, replacing the fan-favorite lead with two new characters. It'll likely work — the real leads are the Pokemon — but Pikachu is also leaving with Ash. Can Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly replace the familiar yellow electric rat? We'll see.
God of War Series Set For Amazon Prime Video
PlayStation's push into multimedia continues with an adaptation of God of War. This was previously revealed by Sony Pictures, but now it finally has a home: Amazon Prime Video. According to Deadline, Amazon announced that it will be co-producing the God of War series with Sony Pictures Television. The show will be written by Iron Man and Children of Men writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, with Wheel of Time's Rafe Judkins as showrunner.
It's unclear which iteration of the God of War mythos is going to act as the basis for the series. The original storyline saw Kratos killing the Greek pantheon in revenge for the loss of his wife and daughter, while the sequel series follows Kratos and his son Atreus as they journey across the twilight of Norse mythology. Given that sequel creative director Cory Barlog is executive producing the series, it might be the latter setting.
Why It's Worth Knowing: PlayStation Pictures is going big with adaptations of its main properties. The Last of Us is coming to HBO in January 2023, while Twisted Metal is in development for Peacock, Horizon: Zero Dawn is getting a series from Netflix, and Gran Turismo is becoming a feature film. PlayStation games already feel like lengthy movies at times; it'll be interesting if the movies can successfully raise their visibility.
Likewise, Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding — which isn't a PlayStation first-party title but did come to PlayStation 4 first — is also becoming a film. Everything just blends together a little further.
Warner Bros. Discovery Continues to Cut Content, Up to $3.5 Billion in Write-Downs
2022 isn't over, so Warner Bros. Discovery still has content to cut. In an SEC filing obtained by Deadline, the company is looking at up to $3.5 billion in development write-offs in its ongoing restructuring. This means WBD is slashing everything that's not nailed down. Westworld, The Nevers, FBoy Island, Legendary, The Time Traveler’s Wife, and Raised by Wolves are all being removed from HBO and HBO Max.
WBD is looking to bundle these shows together so it can license them to other third-party streaming services. The aim is apparently to provide content for free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) services; essentially old linear, ad-supported TV, but streaming. Zaslav already said that Warner Bros. Discovery is "aggressively tackling" the model in 2023 with its own offering.
“We have a unique opportunity to increase our addressable market and drive value, and we intend to move quickly,” he said, according to THR. “Stay tuned.”
Of course, the question is why anyone would support your new service in 2023 when a bunch of your content is on other platforms. Sony lives on licensing for example, but it isn't also trying to feed its own major service. What is HBO Max is if it's not everything Warner Bros. Discovery? I guess we'll find out next year.
Superhero Watch: James Gunn's DC Universe Is Mired In Controversy Already
Last week, I mentioned that Wonder Woman 3 was no longer moving forward at Warner Bros. Discovery. At the time, the Wrap reported that director and co-screenwriter Patty Jenkins had walked away from the film rather than address studio notes over the treatment. This week, Jenkins released her own statement, saying that she "never walked away" from the film. Wonder Woman 3 isn't happening, but that's largely due to her plans not fitting in with the new direction of DC Studios.
Likewise, despite announcing that he was returning to the role of Superman, Henry Cavill is out at DC Studios. Instead, James Gunn is writing his own take on the Man of Steel, focused on a young Clark Kent in Metropolis. (Don't worry though, as Cavill is producing and starring in a Warhammer 40K project for Amazon Studios.) Gunn also stated that he and co-head Peter Safran will reveal more information about their first projects next year. He also tweeted that the team had met with Ben Affleck, but for a directing role, not as Batman.
Altogether, it sounds like DC Studios is preparing to do a full reboot of the DC Universe. No familiar Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman points in the direction. Unfortunately, they still have to release three films under the old regime: Shazam: Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Hard to fully reboot when you have at least a year left of the old thing.
On My Mind 🧠
This section is where I can highlight statements or moments that aren't entirely newsworthy, but still interesting.
Guillermo del Toro Stands Against AI Art: AI-generated content is only growing every week and as it does, it becomes more controversial. There was an artist protest over at ArtStation this week, where many users attached a protest image to their profiles to fight against generated art. The same sentiment was expressed by director Guillermo del Toro in an interview with Decider:
"I think that art is an expression of the soul. At its best, it is encompassing everything you are. Therefore, I consume, and love, art made by humans. I am completely moved by that. I am not interested in an illustration made by machines and the extrapolation of information. I talked to Dave McKean, who is a great artist. And he told me, his greatest hope is that AI cannot draw. It can interpolate information, but it cannot draw. It can never capture a feeling, or a countenance, or the softness of a human face, you know? Certainly, if that conversation was being had about film, it would hurt deeply. I would think it, as [Hayao] Miyazaki says, “an insult to life itself."
Epic Games CEO Talk Apple's Walled Garden and Fortnite in VR: While Elon Musk didn't go to war with Apple, one man and his company did. That man is Tim Sweeney and that company is Epic Games. He lost, but he's still pushing, hoping that bills like the Open App Markets Act pass through Congress. In a lengthy interview with The Verge, Sweeney pushed back against Apple's power:
"I think it’s incredibly dangerous to allow the world’s most powerful corporation to decide who is allowed to say what. And right now, this is seen as a Republican issue because the tech companies are Democrat-leaning, and so Republicans fear that this control over speech that Apple imposes will hurt their political prospects. But if the tech companies were right-leaning — and now we have an example of one that appears to be in Twitter — everybody’s going to be afraid of it for the politically opposite reasons."
"Liberals have every bit as much reason to be concerned about corporate control over speech as conservatives because if suddenly Apple found itself with a deeply conservative CEO who was on a power trip, it could just legislate that social media apps aren’t allowed to host speech by Democrats. Apple in its own claims of its rights under the antitrust law said it has the right to make those sorts of policy decisions. And so every politician should fear the rise of corporate power that Apple is creating."
Near the end of the interview, he also stated why Fortnite probably wouldn't work in VR:
"Epic has no plans to build a VR version of Fortnite. Not out of any grand business strategy, but just because the thing that we do in Fortnite every day as gamers is run through an environment rapidly, and it’s the kind of experience that involves intense motion and doesn’t work as well in VR. And so if we were to ever do anything in VR, it would have to be something that’s really custom tailored for the experience. And it’s not that we have any negative view of that. We just have 101 things to do."