The Art of Hacking

OCT 7
Hello to everyone except for those who don’t like to hug friends. 120 straight weeks man, what a ride it has been so far. Welcome everyone, weird set of seven days, let’s unveil it.

This week:

Twitch is wide open.
Apple x Gaming is bigger than you think.
Smash Bros. goes emotional.
Coca-Cola with a lil fire drop.

‍

Made by Franco

‍

💽 The Art of Hacking
We can go far back in time and be able to see some sort of hacking. At the beginning, individuals who were in first contact with people in power saw shady shit they didn’t think was right, and decided to leak it to society in search for solutions. It was collective.

So desired, behind the scenes.

Nowadays, the people leaking stuff don't necessarily have to be in contact with power. Technology allows anybody to do it, but modern hackers’ new position also brings a change of motive.

Let’s keep it in the gaming industry so we don’t go political. I have mixed feelings about hacking to be honest, and that comes from two waves:

Hacking a game just for the sake of being better and finessing everyone else is just something that I think is embarrassing and weak. It’s happening a lot and doesn’t help the company or society. It harms both, it's straight selfish dopamine. It’s not collective hacking anymore.
Hacking a company's files and servers is a different story though.

This is just a thought OK, it’s in my mind, so relax: hacking is the ultimate growth tester for companies. When somebody uncovers you wide open, generally transforms you into a more honest, cleaner and efficient version of yourself. It makes you better at what you do; no matter if you deserved that or not.

Twitch just got hacked and 125GB of data has been leaked. Streamers earnings, Twitch’s internal security tools, source codes, unreleased games and more.

The problem with hackers showing everything is that people miss the point of what needs to be seen. The attention goes to the wrong places. An anonymous person just showed us that it’s possible to access everyone’s personal data through one of the most recognized companies in the world; but the only thing people talk about is “a streamer is doing 3 times more in a month than I do in a year”.

It doesn’t fucking matter how much streamers make, they deserve that. I mean, the demand is there and they worked for years to be in the 1% who entertain the 100% of Twitch viewers. They are the best at what they do, period.

But the variety of hacker’s motives could harm people who are just part of society and never done something wrong. Collateral damage.

Turn your head around and think, if my personal data could be compromised because of Twitch’s lack of security, how’s the second hack going to affect me?

💣 New Games & Trailers
TOM CLANCY’S GHOST RECON FRONTLINE — Trailer
GUNGRAVE G.O.R.E — Gameplay + Trailer
HELL LET LOOSE — Spotlight
JETT: THE FAR SHORE — Trailer
WASTELAND 3 — Now Available

🏆 Esports Highlights

MKLeo wins Low Tidy City.
How to watch: Dota 2 The International 10, and VTC NA/EU Qualifiers.
How to watch: $100K OpTic Invitational, and Apex Legends Twitch Rivals.

📽️ Video of the Week
During the first 5 seconds you’ll think “omg here we go again with the corporate cringe”, but I don’t know if the music, the editing or the Twitch reactions got me to “alright, Coca-Cola I see you”. One Coke Away From Each Other - Extended Version.

🎞️ Film x Gaming
You should know by now that I love gaming and film, it’s like I get high just by talking about it.

A mockumentary about gaming and League of Legends is coming to Paramount Plus by the creators of “American Vandal”.
HBO’s The Last of Us' entire cast so far.

📖 Read of the Week
Every public esports company and organization, by Adam Fitch.

🦺 Cosplay of the Week
Resident Evil 2 Mutated William Birkin, via Reddit.

👑 Dropping Crowns
Super Smash Bros. has been my childhood favorite, but I haven’t played it in a while so when important stuff is announced I won’t be crying about it. However, it’s really cool to see others do it. This makes me think that damn… I want to feel attached to a game like that, I want to cry too man.

Ah, didn’t tell you what happened: the legend M.Sakurai, announced that Sora from Kingdom Hearts will be the last Super Smash Bros. Ultimate character. This brings Square Enix (again) and Disney to mix with Nintendo. It’s pretty big to be honest. If you think about it, Nintendo has been playing the metaverse game for a while now, in their own way.

❓ WTF of the Week
Weddings, honeymoons or any romantic events are now prohibited in Roblox. In other words, devs are like “kids, can you please stop trying to kiss or fuck everything?”.

🎯 Explained: Apple makes more from video games than most.
No wonder why they fight for their App Store empire. They don’t make the titles or consoles that you and I think when video games are mentioned in a conversation, but trust me, they should.

After the trial, we learned that in 2019 they raked $8.5B via gaming.
In that period, it was more than Microsoft, Activision, Nintendo and Sony combined.
This is thanks to their juicy 30% App Store cut.
Main gold mines are Honor of Kings, Pokemon Go and Candy Crush.

‍

‍

There are some truly amazing people in the world, Nintendo should pay them.
Backbone Labs with the new update for iPhone 13 Pro & Pro Max.
Squid Game’s script was rejected for 10 years for being unrealistic.
McDonalds is laughing at us at this point.
Game of Thrones’ prequel trailer is out, and oh my sweet jesus fuck.

‍

‍

Rocket League x James Bond x Aston Martin

‍

Rockstar Energy x Halo Infinite

‍

MORE
Marvel x FPX Esports

‍‍

‍

ADIDAS ORIGINALS x XBOX - 20 YEARS OF PLAY

‍

‍

Sky Mavis raises $152M for Axie Infinity.
NICKMERCS signs with Twitch.
The Pokemon Company partners with Universal Studios.
Sony acquires Bluepoint Games.
Kansas City Pioneers partners with Jack Stack Barbecue.
Rogue teams up with Hyperice.
Healthy Games joins forces with Evil Geniuses.
Expedia partners with Esports Awards.
The International names SteelSeries as a new partner.
Niantic acquires Hoss.
ESL partners with Shadow Esports.

‍

‍

BY ADAM FITCH

‍

Who eVENN cares?
VENN launched in Aug 2020 as a means of fulfilling demand for content surrounding gaming, streaming, and esports with an expensive studio in New York and a 24/7 feed of programming. Come Aug 2021 and VENN had furloughed almost half of its staff, cancelled a popular show, and was exploring a potential sale. What happened?

Simply, as some industry veterans had predicted from the start, gamers and esports fans don’t care about generic shows in fancy sets hosted by generic folk. They like watching their favourite personalities live and consuming expert analysis and talk shows from familiar, real nerds sitting in their bedrooms recording on a webcam. VENN realised this and licensed ‘Facecheck’ — a show made up of real experts and pundits, not squeaky-clean hosts having surface-level conversations — which, externally, appeared to be their most popular piece of programming by a longshot.

VENN raised a lot of funding over their short lifespan ($43M!) and could well have saved a lot of people a lot of money had they just not bothered trying to swim against the current. Gaming and esports have YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, and Twitter; fans don’t care for or need linear TV shows made by corporate boomers. There are plenty of lessons here for those willing to get up to speed with how modern entertainment is produced and consumed.

‍