Esports: Nintendo Cancels World Tour, TSM Admits To Cheating At Apex.
Esports: Nintendo Cancels World Tour, TSM Admits To Cheating At Apex.
Going Clubbing On A Concrete Slab.
Greetings from San Francisco! I'm back home in the only American City where cops plan to use robots to kill people. Don't worry, they won't have guns. The robots will be armed with explosives.
This Week's Edition of Esports:
Nintendo canceled the Smash World Tour during the unlicensed tournament circuit's second year. The tournament organizers were working with Nintendo and say things were looking good, until licensed competitor Panda Global stepped in.
In a medium post, Smash World Tour organizers carefully don't-quite-allege that Panda pulled out every trick in the book to disrupt their circuit. Eventually getting Nintendo to cancel it.
At press time Nintendo claim that they didn't cancel the event, despite canceling the event, and Panda haven’t responded. Their CEO was last seen pretending to be excited for the Mario movie, which makes me believe he'd be capable of anything.
Some Unusual Esports:
Kansas Cop Caught Stealing Pokemon Cards, loses job. EA files patent for system that detects players wintrading by scanning their social media posts. Jack Dorsey has canceled Web 5 after everyone made fun of him. “Arma 3 isn't war footage” says man who would know(because he made Arma 3). Nvidia’s AI won an award for playing Minecraft after watching letsplays.
The Metaverse Is Already A Thing
The Verge wants to be let out of the metaverse, the same week Danny Gonzalez got lost at Walmartland(in the metaverse), the same month that Linus(Tech Tip) doesn't think the Meta Quest Pro is very good.
Which leads to the question, what is the metaverse? It's easy to dismiss Mark Zuckerburg's Snow Crash inspired dream where we can all float leglessly (legs are not coming soon) around our favorite retail stores as little more than the next Silicon Valley buzzword who's utterance unlocks venture capital.
After all Decentra-land, a crypto-sponsored(worse) version of Second Life has just 19 players. Employees at Facebook Meta don't use the very Metamarkaverse tools they're developing! But dismissing the idea of “3d spaces where people can socialize over the internet” would mean ignoring the entire history of multiplayer games. This stuff already exists!
Everest Pipkin wrote that “the metaverse ought to be a concrete slab” after playing Roblox, and I think they are right.
Pipkin(an astonishingly good writer, read this essay) identifies the same promise in Roblox that Mark makes about Horizon Worlds, and is right(I think) that what people really want is a cement slab.
The metaverse is video games where players aren’t supposed to be. The metaverse is things people aren’t supposed to do. Eat your heart out Mark, people go clubbing in Final Fantasy 13. People host raves in World of Warcraft. Minecraft servers collaborate to backdoor journalism into countries where it would be otherwise banned and unless you can figure out how to let people be goblins, you'll be stuck with your fake new avatar and his fake new legs.
ESPORTS AS USUAL:
Team Liquid to import Korean World Champion(again). TSM players at the center of drama. "I don't see how it's a lack of competitive integrity" says one TSM Apex Legends player after admitting he datamined the game to determine the probability of late game circle placements.
Meanwhile: TSM management under fire for fielding "LCS Academy" roster that's oops all veterans. OWL insider says Overwatch team NYXL plans to build team exclusively of "marginalized gender" players. Reporting indicates this is a cynical team owner abandoning expensive competition and using marginalized players identities as a marketing gimmick. Multiple highly rated women and non-binary players have reportedly and understandably turned down the offer.
Activision's Call of Duty League hasn't found a media partner as opening day opens.
My read: That's bad news for the already struggling league.
London based esports producer Gfinity inks "partnership" with Saudi Arabia. Ubisoft commits to 10 more years of Siege, pledging to support the title past their previous end date of 2025. And finally Google's homepage pays tribute to Jerry Lawson "The father of the game cartridge.”
Metaversally Yours,
Tj