Good Moves, Bad Moves

SEP 2
Hello to everyone except those who think anime is childish.

This week:

China’s beef with culture.
NA esports teams showing up in success.
Streamer Wars are back.
Brand new sneaker collabs.

But first...
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🇨🇳 China’s Patience Shortage
Alright, so in a few words: the NPPA, the Chinese government regulator for video games, passed a new policy where people under 18 y/o can only play video games on Fridays, Saturday and Sundays, one hour each day. Emm… hello?

China fought against gaming addiction for 15 years and just got tired. It’s always difficult to implement rules to achieve balance, but getting extreme is only going to turn kids into creative rebels with new ways to play games. You just can’t take a part of culture away from the people and expect everyone to hold hands.

Esports: structure will be damaged, talent will remain and develop in the shadows.
Tencent: acquired 77 game-related businesses in 2021, 21 outside China.

💣 New Games & Trailers
NO MAN’S SKY: FRONTIERS — Updates
ELDER RING — Spotlight
NBA 2K22 — Gameplay Reveal
COMING SOON TO XBOX GAME PASS — Releases
SAINTS ROW — Trailer

🪟 Open the Windows
Microsoft will release Windows 11 on Oct 5. Self-proclaimed “The best Windows ever for gaming”. I don’t like using another emoji when the title already has one, so imagine that I just spammed the shit out of the suspicious-eyes emoji. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

🏆 Esports Highlights

Riot confirms Worlds 2022 in NA + LCS Finals venues.
TSM Tweek wins Ultimate Summit 3.
Jesse Lingard acquires a UK Rainbow Six team.
100 Thieves wins the LCS. Hype vid here.
MAD Lions wins the LEC.
CDL Championship viewership results.

🧃 Teams’ Juice
Just like a fresh and tasty glass of orange juice in the morning, let’s highlight the things ya love to see from esports teams this week:

100 Thieves
I mean the truth is that they have been doing everything right. Their branding, merch, collabs, content. The only thing that got into their heads were the jealous teams calling them a hoodie org. Now that they have the brand and competitive success, how are the other teams going to achieve original branding?

NRG
Two of the most beloved streamers Daequan and Hamlinz disappeared for a year. NRG signed them, gave them a mansion, a content team and sponsors. This is a huge W for the scene, and a bigger one for the team.

FaZe Clan x OpTic Gaming
The first proper view at the collab. We don’t get to see a lot of projects between teams in other industries. It’s dope, but honestly this is possible mainly because rivalry is not as deep as it is in sports yet. If United and City come up with a split jersey, that shit would be burning in the streets on release day.

🏢 San Mateo, California
Roblox is getting bigger in the metaverse, as well as IRL.

📖 Read of the Week
Behind the Scenes at the OWL: Reactions to the lawsuit and the future of the league, by Richard Lewis.

📺 The Wars are Back
Nope, not the ethereum gas wars, that never went away. Talking about the streamer wars. Last year, the negotiations between Twitch and YouTube for top tier streamers went crazy. We had a new signing every month, but it all stopped for a while thanks to the vid-19.

This week, we’ve been reminded that YouTube’s wallet is still thick and it’s being used in the right places. TimTheTatman and Dr Lupo will stream exclusively for YouTube.

🎵 Help a Brother Out
Guys, @3lau and his new company will help people like me and you to own music. Ultimately, gaming and streaming will benefit from this. If you subscribe to their Beta with my referral link, I would gladly give you a kiss in your ass chick. Jokin’... but am I tho?

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The Montreal Game Dev Studios scene is poppin’.
McDonald’s literally FaZed up.
The Pokemon TV App is now available on Switch.
I needed this website in my life.
If you struggle to find good stuff on Netflix or other platforms, I got you.

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Puma x Animal Crossing

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Vans x Roblox

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MORE
Fortnite x Bad Boys
Hot Wheels x Street Fighter x Batman x Barbie x Others
Ninja x Adidas 2

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CITY OF LITHONIA / FAN-MADE IN MINECRAFT (5000x5000, +3000 BUILDINGS)

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BY ADAM FITCH

Halo, it’s me again

Esports is a young industry so naturally nostalgia is hard to come by, but if there’s one title that fans and players reminisce on in the west it’s Halo. While it never reached the heights of the major titles we seen today, Bungie’s franchise has historically breeded fierce competition and iconic brands like Final Boss and Str8 Rippin. It’s arguably gone downhill in all aspects since the series moved beyond Halo 3, but a comeback is almost upon us.

With Halo 5 edging towards public consumption, so too is the upcoming iteration of the Halo Championship Series — operated by Esports Engine, made up of former MLG staffers that helped Halo esports reach its peak many moons ago. Nine partnered teams have been announced, many of which have cult followings in their respective domains, but it’ll take more than recognisable brands for HCS to be a success. Not only does the upcoming title have to be killer itself, EE and Microsoft will have to put a lot of resources into discovery for the circuit or it’ll remain forever in the lower tiers of the industry with consistent, unimpressive viewership and fanfare.

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