Stuff Worth Knowing for the Week of May 29, 2023
Meta threatens California over a journalism law, Nvidia highlights the future of AI-enhanced game development, and the DGA strikes a deal with Hollywood producers.
Welcome back to Stuff Worth Knowing! Each week, I'll round up news related to tech, video games, film, television, anime, and more. Sorry for the delay this week. I played too many games.
Tech ⌨️
YouTube Gives Up On Policing U.S. Election Misinformation
We’ve started on the road to the 2024 presidential election in the United States, and YouTube is already making moves to make the entire process that much worse. In a blog post released on Friday, the streaming service announced that it will no longer remove videos about election misinformation.
“In the current environment, we find that while removing this content does curb some misinformation, it could also have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm. With that in mind, and with 2024 campaigns well underway, we will stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US Presidential elections,” said the YouTube team in the post.
YouTube says it will continue to remove videos that mislead voters about the act of voting, like lying about the time and place of voting, or false claims that “could materially discourage voting”, like questioning how valid voting by mail is.
Why It's Worth Knowing: We’re entering an election season following the contentious 2020 elections, and things have only gotten worse. Twitter is in the control of Elon Musk, who is quite willing to lean into misinformation, and now YouTube is throwing its hands up in regards to election misinformation. It’s only going to make the entire process worse, and that’s before we get to things like TikTok. Prepare yourselves.
Meta Threatening California Over Journalism Law
Earlier in the week, California’s legislators were mulling over Assembly Bill 886, also known as the California Journalism Preservation Act. The focus of the bill was to help prop up local journalism in the state by requiring online platforms to pay usage fees to digital journalism providers. These fees would be a percentage of the monthly advertising revenue generated, multiplied by an allocation share specific to each outlet. Basically, California is saying, “You built these platforms on this content, so pay these sites for it.”
On Wednesday, Meta stated that if the bill went through, it was going to pull news content from Facebook and Instagram in California. This certainly isn’t the first time that Meta has threatened to pull out of a region over regulatory issues. The U.S. Senate and House had bills aimed in a similar direction and Meta threatened to remove news entirely in the U.S. Australia and Canada offered up laws in 2021 and 2022 respectively; while the Canadian law is still being worked out, the Australian law passed and led to A$200 million ($132 million) in payments to regional outlets. So, one could say the law worked.
“This threat from Meta is a scare tactic that they’ve tried to deploy, unsuccessfully, in every country that’s attempted this,” California Assembly member Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) told The Washington Post. In response, the Assembly passed the bill a day after Meta’s threats, sending it on to the State Senate.
Why It's Worth Knowing: Good journalism is worth paying for and many of these social media companies are making ad revenue based on that journalism. Forcing them to pay a percentage of that to outlets is the least they can do. Better than blowing that money on the metaverse.
Meta Reveals the Meta Quest 3
While one bluff has been called, Meta is attempting another one on the product side. On Thursday, during the Meta Quest Games Showcase, the company revealed the Meta Quest 3. The device is supposed to be lighter and more powerful than the previous model, starting at $499 for the 128GB model. It’s utilizing a next-generation Snapdragon chipset and passthrough cameras for augmented reality content. Further details will be given at Meta Connect 2023 on September 27.
The timing here is key, as the 2023 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference starts on Monday and Apple is expected to showcase its Reality Pro headset to the public for the first time. Meta clearly wants to get ahead of that. In fact, it turned to Apple scooper Mark Gurman for the first real hands-on of the device.
“I went hands-on with a prototype version of the headset, trying to get a sense of how it may stack up against Apple’s device,” says Gurman. “The actual clarity and VR displays within the Quest 3 feel similar to those in the Quest 2 — despite the resolution being rumored to be slightly higher. But there are two areas where I saw major improvements: video pass-through for mixed reality and the device’s speedier performance.”
Why It's Worth Knowing: I was very confused by the release of the $1,499 Meta Quest Pro, but the Quest 3 makes that device look even worse. At $499, the Quest 3 is the right price point for an AR/VR device, with the acknowledgement that this is an enthusiast-only product. It’s clear the Quest 3 is a bulwark against Apple. How successful it will be in that context is another matter.
Reddit API Changes Shut Out Smaller Developers
Back in April, Reddit announced a series of API changes, charging developers for large-scale API access. At the time, the reason behind the changes was large language models, which scrape services like Reddit for training data. That it came after Twitter moved to a paid API system is not surprising; both companies are looking for stronger revenue. Reddit, for example, wants to have a public offering this year.
This week, we saw the response from smaller developers over Reddit’s new paid API. Christian Selig, developer of iOS Reddit reader app Apollo, explained to users how much the new API system would charge him.
“I'll cut to the chase: 50 million requests costs $12,000, a figure far more than I ever could have imagined,” he wrote. “Apollo made 7 billion requests last month, which would put it at about $1.7 million per month, or $20 million per year. Even if I only kept subscription users, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would cost $2.50 per month, which is over double what the subscription currently costs, so I'd be in the red every month.”
Selig said he asked Reddit if they’d be flexible on the pricing and the service told him “no”. He said the conversations with Reddit have been civil, but says “I don't see how this pricing is anything based in reality or remotely reasonable.” So, pretty much like Twitter. It’s likely there are several other apps that will run into the same problem.
Why It's Worth Knowing: In the past, I’ve said that part of the problem with certain corporate moves isn’t the singular move at a single company, it’s the knock-on effects. The first mover gives the rest a reason to pursue similar policies. You can see that with Musk’s layoffs at Twitter and the paid API shift, but you can also see something similar with Warner Bros. Discovery dropping shows and films from its streaming service for a tax write-off.
AI 🤖
Nvidia Ace Demo Leans On Gaming’s Least Interesting Content
On Sunday at Computex 2023, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took to the stage to talk about upcoming tech from his company. One key feature of the presentation was Nvidia’s Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE), a framework for interactive avatar creation. Nvidia Ace is meant to work in tandem with Nvidia’s existing AI services, with the company hoping to cement itself as the leader in third-party AI hardware and technology.
The demo itself showed the player interacting with a fully-generated character. The character, named Jin, was supposedly created dynamically via several AI frameworks, with the idea being that a game could populate a world with unique, dynamic characters for the player to interact with.
Unfortunately, the results are about as lifeless as you’d expect. Players already lament the “Ubisoft game” full of generated quests and characters, and this demo was just that taken to the next level. Nothing interesting was said, the delivery was flat, and ultimately the quest itself was nothing special. As a proof-of-concept, it was probably great for Nvidia to say “We can do this,” as its focus for this was game companies, not game players. Still, it’s not a particularly exciting future.
Why It's Worth Knowing: The latter part is key here. Nvidia only has to convince developers and publishers that this is the future and it could potentially become so. The idea of infinite quests tailored to specific players sounds intriguing, but the results tend to be anything but that. In fact, here’s former BioWare writer David Gaider on that company’s efforts in that direction.
Several AI Company CEOs Warn of the Risks of the AI They Are Selling
This week the Center for AI Safety published a brief 22-word statement on the risks of AI:
Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.
Signatories on this statement included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, and more. What this statement did not include was any actionable steps to stem the problem, or any of these companies perhaps moving on the technology in a more cautious manner. It is, in all cases, an example of absolutely nothing.
Lawyer Apologizes For Submitting Fake ChatGPT Case Brief To Court
A veteran lawyer doing actual legal work has had to apologize to the court for submitting a case brief full of fake courses. The case in question is Mata vs Avianca, with one plaintiff suing an airline for injuries sustained when one of their metal carts struck him in the knee. According to the New York Times, the airline asked for the case to be thrown out and Mata’s representation responded with a brief full of relevant case law.
The problem is none of the cases listed were real. Lawyer Steven A. Schwartz asked ChatGPT for relevant cases rather than doing any research himself. The chatbot replied confidently with several fake cases, which Schwartz submitted to the court. Schwartz said he “was unaware of the possibility that its content could be false.”
Why It's Worth Knowing: ChatGPT might be able to pass the bar, but it does not understand what it is passing. It does not understand the law, or real facts. It merely creates confident-sounding, fact-style statements. And this is why relying on AI for anything that requires factual information at the moment is a problem. Exhibit A, your honor.
Video Games 🎮
Variety Publishes A Wild Puff Piece About Activision’s CEO
As Microsoft continues to fight to close its acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, CEO Bobby Kotick has finally had enough of being silent. This week, Variety published an interview with Kotick, a wild puff piece where he insists that the company’s culture has been subject to “mischaracterizations reported in the media”.
“I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you if any of what you read in the inflammatory narrative was truthful,” Kotick said.
Of course, Activision had to pay $35 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that the company lacked procedures to handle employee complaints of workplace misconduct. It also has to pay $18 million to victims of workplace harassment, due to a case by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Axios reported this week that Activision-Blizzard itself has substantiated 29 claims of harassment, discrimination, or retaliation from 2022.
So perhaps Kotick’s statements probably shouldn’t be taken at face value.
CEO Confirms That CD Projekt Red is Not For Sale
Over the weekend, random rumors popped up that Sony was looking to purchase CD Projekt Red, the company behind games like The Witcher III and Cyberpunk 2077. The rumor didn’t come from any proven journalist or scooper, but it gained traction online regardless. To the point that CD Projekt Red CEO Adam Kiciński had to shoot down the rumor during the company’s earnings call for its first-quarter 2023 results.
“Nothing has changed on our end. I can repeat what we’ve been saying throughout the years: CD Projekt is not for sale. We want to remain independent; we have–I believe–an excellent strategy. For sure it’s not easy to execute, but it’s very exciting to follow our own path, so it’s a pure rumor,” said Kiciński.
It’s clear why CD Projekt wants to remain independent. Despite struggles with Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher continues to be a successful brand for the company. During the earnings call, the CEO announced that The Witcher franchise has sold more than 75 million copies, with over 50 million of that being attributed directly to The Witcher III. The company has already said it is working on four new The Witcher games and a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077.
Dragon Quest Producer Jumps To NetEase For New Studio
It seems veteran Dragon Quest producer Ryutaro Ichimura is the latest Japanese developer to come under the umbrella of a major Chinese publisher. Ichimura left Square Enix back in March of this year. This week, he announced that he was founding a new studio, PinCool, under the NetEase Games umbrella.
“We aim to deliver fun experiences to people across the globe through projects that take advantage of the kind of new ideas that come from untethered creative freedom. We also aim to release smaller titles while we continue our work on large-scale titles. I’m looking forward to what lies in store in the adventure of PinCool!” said Ichimura, who is the new studio’s president.
Companies like NetEase and Tencent have been expanding into other regions and picking up veteran talent for new studios, though the former has been far more aggressive. NetEase has Bad Brain Game Studios, founded by Watch Dogs producer Sean Crooks; Anchor Point Studios, founded by Control lead designer Paul Ehreth; Jar of Sparks, founded by former Halo Infinite Head of Design Jerry Hook; and Nagoshi Studio, founded by former Yakuza series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi. That’s in addition to acquiring existing studios like Quantic Dream.
The Shout Out: Bloomberg On The Inside Story of Redfall’s Struggling Development
Arkane Austin’s Redfall launched to terrible reviews in early May. It was a bizarre release from such a successful studio and one that didn’t look great for Microsoft’s overall stewardship of its studios. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has the inside story of want went down, painting the picture of a studio going far outside of its comfort zone with little support and resources. Well worth a read.
Film, Television, and Streaming 🎞️
Netflix Threatens To Remove Films and Shows Over UK Law
The U.K. government is currently drafting a new Media Bill, which would put streaming platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, and more under the purview of media regulator Ofcom. Ofcom’s content code guidelines are meant to protect audiences from content deemed “harmful” by the regulator.
“These new laws will level the playing field with global streaming giants, ensuring they meet the same high standards we expect from public service broadcasters,” said Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer back in March when the bill was first drafted.
Netflix and Disney both offered written statements in response to the bill. Netflix explained it’d be much easier to simply remove potentially-offending content from its service in the U.K.
“The range and variety of Netflix’s content, generally considered a strength of our offering in terms of maximizing choice for British viewers, could equally become a potential source of risk from a compliance perspective if it fell within Ofcom’s remit,” said the streaming giant in its statement. “Without considerably greater clarity around the scope and application of these provisions, it would inevitably be easier to remove content pre-emptively from our UK catalog than risk an onerous compliance burden and potential liability.”
“Therefore, given the differences between linear broadcasting and [Video on Demand], the robust audience protection measures put in place by most VOD services, the varying consumer propositions and brand promises made by different VOD services, it seems inappropriate to apply uniform rules on all VOD services, whether that is strict content rules or mandated ratings,” added Disney.
Neither company has threatened to pull out of the region entirely.
Hollywood Labor Leaders Sign Joint Statements In Support DGA
While the Writers Guild is in the middle of its strike, the Directors Guild of America (DGA) is currently in the middle of contract negotiations. The DGA and Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) both have contracts ending on June 30, but the former union is deep in negotiations at the moment. In solidarity, leaders from several other guilds—SAG-AFTRA, Teamsters, WGA, and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)—have all signed a joint statement.
“We believe in a Hollywood where every worker is valued and their contributions recognized, whether their labor is on or off screen. A fair contract for directors does not benefit just a select few; it uplifts every worker in the film and television industry and acknowledges the interconnected nature of our work. We call on the AMPTP to immediately negotiate a fair agreement that addresses the Directors Guild of America’s unique priorities in good faith,” said the statement.
We’re basically sprinting toward a potential combined strike at this point, as SAG-AFTRA’s board has already approved a member vote for strike authorization. The WGA strike gives both the DGA and SAG-AFTRA leverage in their negotiations, but that doesn’t guarantee a new contract for either union. The WGA also made a strong salvo this week, with Writers Guild of America West president Meredith Stiehm arguing to Netflix shareholders that they shouldn’t increase executive pay. According to Deadline, the shareholders seemingly agreed, voting against the 2023 pay packages.
Solidarity is great and all, but nothing in the face of…
The Directors Guild Reaches a Tentative Deal With Producers
Occasionally, there’s a benefit to being late with the newsletter. On Saturday evening, the Directors Guild of America announced that it has come to a tentative deal for a new three-year labor contract. The new agreement includes wage and benefits increases, a “substantial” increase in residuals for streaming shows and film, and an acknowledgement that AI isn’t a person and cannot replace union members.
“Every member of our union can be proud of the gains we’ve achieved across the board,” said DGA national executive director Russell Hollander. “Significantly, and for the first time ever, global SVOD residuals will be paid based on the number of international subscribers. The result is an 76% increase in foreign residuals for the biggest services. As our industry becomes increasingly global, these gains are imperative to ensuring our members are valued and compensated for their incredible work.”
The agreement will be submitted to the Guild’s National Board on Tuesday, June 6, with full details released after that submission. Now we have to see what SAG-AFTRA does.
Aniplex Acquires Origamix Partners For More Live-Action Adaptations
According to Crunchyroll, Sony Music Entertainment announced today that it is acquiring Origamix Partners. The studio is the production partner behind the live-action adaptations of manga properties Kingdom and Alice in Borderland. Origamix Partners will become a subsidiary of Aniplex, Sony’s anime division, under the new name Myriagon Studio.
Alice in Borderland aired its two seasons on Netflix, with the premier for the second season becoming the streaming service’s most viewed Japanese series in its first week. The director for that series, Shinsuke Sato, has also directed live-action adaptations of Gantz, Library Wars, I Am a Hero, and Bleach. While not all of those have been successful, Aniplex is likely hoping that Sato will land on other hits like Alice in Borderland. Sato will continue to direct projects for the studio.
Layoffs 👷
EA Lays Off Most Firemonkeys Studio
According to Kotaku Australia, Electronic Arts has decided to lay off up to two-thirds of Firemonkeys Studio. The studio focuses on mobile and live service games, like Real Racing 3, Need for Speed: No Limits and The Sims FreePlay. The remaining part of the studio will continue to work on the latter game. Apparently, Real Racing 4 was also canceled.
Electronic Arts’ live service revenue for the fiscal year ended on March 31, 2023 was up to $5.5 billion, up from $4.9 billion the previous year. Net income overall was also up slightly to $802 million.
Firaxis Games Cuts 30 Employees
Firaxis Games laid off around 30 developers this week. According to Axios, studio representation said the cuts were made due a “sharpening of focus, enhancements of efficiencies, and an alignment of our talent against our highest priorities”.
The studio released Marvel’s Midnight Suns last year, a title that reviewed well, but didn’t have amazing sales. Midnight Suns creative director Jake Solomon and Firaxis studio head Steve Martin left the studio in February of this year. At the time, parent company Take-Two touted “a new era” at the studio, with a new Civilization in development.
For the fiscal year 2023, Take-Two reported a net revenue increase of 53% to $5.35 billion. There was a net loss for the year however, totaling $1.12 billion.
CD Projekt Red Cuts Its Gwent Team As Its Ends Development
CD Projekt Red announced this week that it is laying off 30 employees, the entire team behind the Witcher spin-off game Gwent. “Throughout the year we’ve been transferring some of the team members to other projects, but we have to part ways with some. Until the end of the year, about 30 remaining Gwent team members are going to part ways with CD Projekt Red,” said the company in its blog post.
Blaseball Ends Development As The Game Band Shrinks
It’s somewhat hard to explain what Blaseball is to those outside of its sphere. Part baseball sim, part experimental storytelling, part RPG. The game runs in seasons and players had been expecting the upcoming third season of the Coronation Era. Sadly, that’s not coming to pass, as developer The Game Band announced that the game is shutting down.
“The short of it is that Blaseball isn’t sustainable to run. Since Blaseball’s inception, we’ve been fighting against the amount of work it takes to keep Blaseball true to itself while financially supporting the team and keeping our staff healthy. We’ve tried countless solutions to make it work, and we’ve come to the conclusion that this fight isn’t one we can win in the long run. The cost, literally and metaphorically, is too high,” they stated.
Given the change in operation, The Game Band is laying off a number of employees. “Our team size has to change to give us enough runway to even begin to make something new. We are losing so many good people, and we will miss them terribly,” the studio said in its statement.
It’s a sad end to something beautiful for a lot of people.
Comics and Manga 💭
Shueisha Launching a Vertical Scrolling Manga Service
Naver’s Webtoon has marked a change in comic distribution, moving to a vertical format made for smartphones and tablets. Now it seems that a classic manga publisher is moving toward the format as well. Shueisha is the company behind major manga magazines like Weekly Shōnen Jump, Weekly Young Jump, and Margaret, meaning it’s also behind some of the major manga brands like One Piece, My Hero Academia, and Demon Slayer.
Now Shueisha is planning to use that expertise to muscle in on the vertical manga format. The new service will be called Jump Toon, with a planned launch in 2024. And these will be new series made for the platform, seemingly. According to Anime News Network, veteran Weekly Shōnen Jump editor Takanori Asada is the head of the Jump Toon editorial department.
Why It's Worth Knowing: Shueisha has the name recognition to pull this move off, but it also has a history of failed and defunct manga magazines. The trick will be finding the right titles for the service in the early days, which is unfortunately down to luck and timing.
On My Mind 🧠
A Number of Major TV Shows Ended This Week: Sometimes, a whole bunch of things line up. This week, a number of television shows ended their runs. The most notable of these online was Succession on HBO, which has been critically-acclaimed for its entire run. HBO had another big ending with Bill Hader’s hit man dark comedy Barry also airing its final episode this week.
Less successful for most of this season was Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. While the comedy series had a lot of success in its first two seasons, viewers felt this season was oddly paced. Finally, The Flash ended after a total of nine seasons, closing out the Arrowverse. The connected universe spread across The CW with a total of six shows, marking a coup for producer Greg Berlanti at the time.
Spider-Verse Spin-Off Manga Puts Doctor Octopus In The Body of a High School Girl: Shueisha has announced a Spider-Man manga launching on Shonen Jump+ this month, as part of the celebration of the theatrical release of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. The manga is Spider-Man: Octopus Girl, written and drawn by the creators of the My Hero Academia: Vigilantes spin-off manga, Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court.
In the series Spider-Man villain Doctor Octopus falls into a coma, only to awaken in the body of a young Japanese girl. Certainly not the first time he’s ended up in someone else’s body. It’s certainly not the first time Furuhashi and Betten Court have worked with a wall-crawling hero, as the protagonist of Vigilantes was the hero The Crawler.
The ChatGPT Revolution Leaves Out Non-English Languages: Wired has published an interesting story this week, grappling with the rise of large language model services like ChatGPT. In the article, computer scientists note that LLMs and chatbots are generally built for English speakers, leaving out other languages.
One of my biggest concerns is that we're going to exacerbate the bias for English and English speakers. People are going to follow the norm and not think about their own identities or culture. It kills diversity. It kills innovation.
Thien Huu Nguyen, a University of Oregon computer scientist