NEW: sweet baby, a small video game narrative studio, has found itself at the heart of a massive anti-woke conspiracy theory – a wild one involving blackrock (yes, that blackrock). it's obviously untrue, but on the modern internet, that barely matters

aftermath.site/sweet-baby-det…
this conspiracy caught on in part because of video game industry secrecy, but in perhaps larger part due to its association with the ongoing panic around DEI -- which is, of course, also rooted in nonsense

aftermath.site/sweet-baby-det…

NEW: last weekend, g4, comcast's video game-focused TV and digital network, collapsed following pivots and layoffs. I've spent the past month talking to former g4 staff following both the layoffs and the closure. this is the story of why g4 failed: washingtonpost.com/video-games/20… former staffers described a network with ever-shifting priorities from leadership that never settled on how to develop an audience. metrics for success would change regularly. “there was never a clear viewership goal or platform to prioritize,” said one washingtonpost.com/video-games/20…

went to the booth just now. talked to a person staffing it and got answers to questions I’ve seen floating around:

-not twitch’s. booth is a collaboration between intel and lenovo
-the foam pit is now closed. they shut it down at noon bc people were breaking rules (and bones)

https://twitter.com/jakesucky/status/1579153886861881345

-people had to sign a waiver acknowledging the possibility of physical harm or damage to, say, phones (and also that they were ok with appearing on stream)
-unclear whether intel/lenovo will foot the bill of the people who’ve been injured (seen reports that there’s more than one)

twitchcon opening ceremony time. @MerryKish is shouting out big moments from this year like kai cenat’s meteoric rise and ironmouse’s subathon my story about ironmouse, if you want to learn more: washingtonpost.com/video-games/20…

room is packed for the dream smp panel. fans audibly shrieking at the *idea* of streamers — who haven’t arrived yet — taking the stage RIP my hearing

NEW: twitch got the buffalo shooter's livestream down in less than 2 mins. in the world of content moderation, that's close to good as it gets. my report on how twitch did it following a rocky history of prior shootings, hate raids, and other hard lessons: washingtonpost.com/video-games/20… twitch told me that while it uses automation like other platforms, it focuses on including a human in every moderation decision. in the past two years, it has quadrupled the number of people it has on hand to respond to user reports washingtonpost.com/video-games/20…

NEW: following playstation head jim ryan's email urging employees to respect "differences of opinion" surrounding abortion (and then going on about his cats), insomniac plans to donate $50,000 to a reproductive rights organization, which sony will match washingtonpost.com/video-games/20… however, according to an email viewed by the washington post, neither plan to directly publicize this, and employees have been told not to explicitly mention sony or insomniac if they RT anything the reproductive rights org might say about the donation washingtonpost.com/video-games/20…

while it’s not confirmed, it seems like the shooter posted plans on discord well ahead of today. twitch also did not catch the shooter until after the damage was done. clearly, something needs to change

https://twitter.com/Kotaku/status/1525623647087603712

whether it’s hate raids or, in this case, significantly more severe actions, bad actors make plans on discord and enact them on twitch. it’s a pattern — one both platforms try to prevent, but loopholes and sheer volume mean regular, alarming failure washingtonpost.com/video-games/20…

NEW: @shannon_liao and I reached out to over 20 major video game companies about whether they intend to speak up in favor of reproductive rights or provide monetary aid to employees. just a few said yes. most said nothing at all washingtonpost.com/video-games/20… bungie led the charge on speaking up about roe v. wade in the video game industry, and employees told me they are proud. bungie is also "investigating" ways to directly aid employees in affected areas, according to an internal email washingtonpost.com/video-games/20…

last week, two twitch stars, drlupo and timthetatman, moved to youtube. this is partially because yt offered them life-changing money, but also, twitch is starting to pay big streamers less -- or not cut pricy exclusive deals with them at all. my report: washingtonpost.com/video-games/20… multiple sources told me that twitch "lowballed" drlupo, which made youtube's offer much more tantalizing washingtonpost.com/video-games/20…

twitch has suspended amouranth and indiefoxx, two popular streamers who did hot tub streams and then pivoted to asmr ear licking. btwn this and demonetization, twitch is clearly trying to discourage not just overtly sexual content, but behavior that could be construed as sexual

https://twitter.com/StreamerBans/status/1406061503531393026

these streams were enormously popular. during an asmr stream yesterday, amouranth peaked at over 30,000 concurrent viewers. indiefoxx pulled similar numbers the day before

it's basically impossible for major influencers to be canceled; at most, it represents a brand pivot to a slightly different audience. but also, as @xpatriciah points out, david dobrik and others like him have built their brands on cancelable offenses. it's why people watch

https://twitter.com/Kotaku/status/1405642598526693378

so now we have an instance where it seems like dobrik is dispensing with the theatrics of contrition altogether. he took a break, and now it's business as usual again. I would not be shocked to see other influencers imitate this playbook in the future

I’ve played about 25 hours of cyberpunk at this point, and this piece by @rcmacleod pretty much nails it kotaku.com/30-hours-with-… the game had an opportunity to engage with many of the anxieties and issues born of tech, surveillance, and data in the real world, and for the most part, it just... doesn’t

looks like microsoft has decided that video games need to go full netflix as quickly as possible, right down to the rapid industry consolidation part of the equation consolidation generally leads to... more consolidation, so microsoft’s recent round of acquisitions is probably just the beginning

just got released after being detained by police in a parking garage (and then a series of immobile buses where I almost certainly got exposed to covid) for 14 hours as part of richmond’s crackdown on protests/riots. will have more thoughts later, but for now: acab alright, now that I've rested a little: here's what happened and why it was just a completely unjustified, irresponsible response from police at every turn

re: the ellie story--a lot of people have been yelling at me about it for the past 48 hours, so I want to clarify some things people have decided that other reporters and I didn't do our due diligence initially, and while I can't speak for other reporters, I'm guessing they, like me, followed pretty standard protocol for these things: reach out to involved parties, wait for responses, and then write