A Transitional Revolution

OCT 21
Hello beautiful people, we out here again. Sorry I skipped last week’s edition, some personal shit went down but it’s all good now. Gaming is fired up, let’s look at it.

This week:

A take on the next tech revolution.
My favorite gaming company gets acquired.
EA and FIFA not holding hands anymore.
Gucci can’t stop collabing.

Made by Franco

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✊ A Transitional Revolution

Last night, I was having some drinks with friends and talking about how much our high school teachers hated us when one of them went — “I'm making money through games guys”. Her voice sounded like it was an AA meeting confession.

I got instantly fucking hyped. My beloved normies are about to talk about gaming.

My friend told us that she hired somebody to find somebody in the Philippines to play a crypto game for her, and earn money without moving a finger. I’m like “oh you’re into Axie Infinity”, she goes —“Wtf is that?”.

It was Axie, but she didn’t even know the name of the game, or that axies were NFTs, or ever been involved with crypto, gaming or the blockchain.

Revolutions are the end product of a transition that takes years to shape. A clear sign of an advanced transition is when people you never expected go in without hesitation.

But as much as I love what’s happening, let’s drop the filter and be real for a bit.

A Dystopian Fetish
I don’t know what it is, but it’s crazy how much we love the idea of a dystopian future. It’s messed up, because we’re mostly intrigued about the planet being ill.

When we watched Ready Player One for the first time in 2018, the ‘aha moment’ for us was that we were not that far away from the future displayed by movies in terms of technology.

Enter 2021, we are in the metaverse, the beginnings of Ready Player One. Two things to have in mind though:

You can have as much technology as you want, but the main factor to go fully digital depends on how altered real life is. RPO works because the world has no resources anymore. Once the world goes to shit, our priority will be to go to another planet and survive, not being digital and relax.
COVID-19 was, and is, a dystopian test that accelerated years of transition. Don’t take that for granted.

The Real Revolution
It usually goes like this with anti-digital people:

👉 You tell a friend you bought an NFT.
👉 You explain why NFTs, the blockchain and the metaverse are dope.
👉 Your friend relates everything to virtual reality.
👉 Your friend gets scared to lose real life activities, and changes the subject.

Yeah… the revolution is not around a dystopian future. We don’t want the planet to be fucked guys. Once resources go out, the last thing you would want to do is hoping for better VR.

Unless the companies in control make it so the only way to get resources is through digital… just got some shady Facebook vibes after writing that for some reason, but that’s a beer talk for another day.

The true revolution we’re looking at is the exciting place where we can find a balance between a digital life and real life. A successful hybrid life.

I’ve always been in love with real life. Sports, family reunions, concerts, sex, love, drinking with friends, parties, these will always be better IRL. But… I’m in love with digital as well. Video games, decentralization, digital ownership, collectibles, collaborative tech, connection with people from all over the world. More artists, less suits.

How do we get there?

The Divide
People have interests at stake during transitions, so some will turn the page and accept a new wave and others will stick to what has been working for them so far. Comfort.

We do have a route. The next step in the transition is Web3, and companies are starting to pick sides:Valve bans blockchain and NFTs on Steam, while Epic Games goes wide open for blockchain games.

Which is funny because if you ever played games, CSGO skins were most likely your first form of digital goods.

It will be very interesting to see who is going where. When gaming started to get hot, the first traditional company who joined got a huge amount of love (and new clients) just by joining. The second one had to do a bit more to earn love, and the hundredth one had to beg for retweets which forced their intentions and brought cringe to the scene.

Be an early adopter.

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💣 New Games & Trailers
CALL OF DUTY: VANGUARD — Zombies Reveal Trailer
SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE — Story Trailer
ELDER RING — Release Update
CREED VR — Spotlight
XBOX GAME PASS — Games Update

📽️ Video of the Week
There should be a movie or something about Mixer’s disaster, but for now here’s a clip of Ninja venting new info on Microsoft's spoiledproject.

🏆 Esports Highlights

Halo Infinite competitive settings revealed.
Team Spirit wins The International 10, taking home $18.2M.
TSM FTX Japan expansion, explained.
LoL Worlds Group Stage: viewership.

💅 Overwatch Drama
Just another lil clip adding gas to the Overwatch fire. I truly can’t believe this league still exists. This time, xQc talking about forced contracts and players union in the OWL.

🎞️ Film x Gaming

Epic Games hires Star Wars producer for the Fortnite movie.
Stranger Things x Magic: The Gathering.
Uncharted official trailer.

📖 Read of the Week
Battlefield 2042: The good, the bad and the worrying, by 1-UP.

🦸 DC FanDome
A thread on everything released at the DC FanDome event.

🔦 Spotlight of the Week
Remember when we talked about transition early adopters? Well, Patron.

Follow them and read about them cuz they’re here to stay; and while they stay, gaming will thrive. I’m excited about this team.

🎯 Explained: EA and FIFA Sticky Situation
EA has been releasing a new game for 20 consecutive years and paying FIFA a $150M yearly licensing fee. Tasty. The contract finishes around the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and it seems like they can't hold hands anymore:

FIFA is asking for more dough. $1B+ per 4-year World Cup cycle.
EA wants to be able to play with FIFA’s IP in forms of NFTs or tournaments.
EA then started to move towards creating their own game, since they already have official licences with teams and players.
FIFA said 'fuck that, we are open to find new partners and oh… we also might change the World Cup cyles from 4 years to 2, starting in 2026'.

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VR lightsaber tournaments are a thing in China.
Hideo Kojima will always be one step ahead. Like it or not, this will fly.
Hypebeast and Pokemon are doing IRL things.
The perfect outfit doesn’t exi…
Gaming companies are getting better at commercials.

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Hot Wheels x Gucci x Cadillac

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Xbox x Nickelodeon

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MORE

The Pokemon Company x J Balvin x Post Malone x Katy Perry
Fortnite x Dune
Fortnite x KAWS
Logitech G x League of Legends
BlackMilk x Zelda

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HIGROUND x 100 THIEVES

This one got me real emotional not gonna lie. Rustin and Kha, Higround founders, are the guys that I have been telling you since March 2020 for their unique approach in gaming.

Last month they sent me some stuff to try out and it was the last time we talked about them:

They forgot to tell me that three weeks later a Beats by Dre collab was coming and in four weeks they were gonna get acquired by 100 Thieves. So when I saw the news I actually started crying, don’t know wtf happened to me lol, such a happy moment.

I just always thought that these guys deserved everything because nobody was trying to figure things out as hard as them. Great news for the gaming industry as a whole since these two crazy hustlers now have 100 Thieves’ network and resources to take true flight.

Beats and 100T are just small steps compared to what’s coming for them. What an inspiration for every single young entrepreneur out there.

Nothing but love.