Month: September 2023

How the biggest breakup in video games came about: from FIFA 24 to EA Sports FC 24

EA has cut ties with Fifa and that is why its legendary game is not called FIFA 24 this year, but in a more complicated way: EA Sports FC 24

It is impossible that there is anyone who has not heard about the most mediatic breakup of the videogame. EA has dropped its FIFA license and so its game is no longer called FIFA, but EA Sports FC. What is probably not so well known is all that this entails for EA and what is on the table and what they are leaving behind by making this decision. Because never in the history of video gaming, nor of modern capitalism, has there been a branding disruption like this before. And as such, it is worth studying its reasons and its implications.

The first FIFA, FIFA International Soccer, was released in 1993 for the SEGA Mega Drive. Since then it became one of the two big soccer titles, to the point that, by the beginning of the following decade, the numbers they commanded were dizzying. According to a study by Ampere Anylisis, by 2010 the FIFA franchise had a net worth of $513 million. By 2020, it was already worth $2 billion.

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That is to say, a priori, it does not seem to make much sense to dissociate from a brand that generates so much value lightly. So what has happened to make them decide to change the name? EA has decided to dispense with the organization’s license.

Normally, FIFA offers companies its license to make products under its brand for four-year periods, coinciding with the frequency of the World Cup. At the time of the license renewal, according to New York Times sources, FIFA wanted EA to double the $150 million it already paid them annually for the license. Something the multinational company refused to do.

What are the consequences of this? Essentially, they cannot use the FIFA brand. Neither the name nor the logo nor the World Cup competition. But nothing else. So the blow is hard, but not insurmountable: the 19,000 players, 700 teams and 30 leagues they have registered can continue to be represented in the game, because the image licenses are not managed by FIFA itself. Therefore, EA hopes that with this change, and with a great emphasis on advertising, they will be able to make a change to their own brand in a way that does not significantly impact their income. All this while getting rid of a partner that was no longer proving profitable.

Whether it will work or not remains to be seen. EA has made a laudable effort because EA Sports FC 24 is present in all the places where someone can doubt whether that game is FIFA or not. But habit is strong. And getting it out of people’s heads that they are playing El Fifa might be harder than EA thinks.

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The interdimensional crossover of DC… and Kentucky Fried Chicken

So much is the fanaticism for the historical figure (forgetting that in the last years of his life he fiercely criticized the KFC food, considering that they had forgotten about the quality) that he has starred in a good handful of DC comics.

Five years ago, it’s possible that anyone you asked on the street wouldn’t know how to respond if you asked them about the multiverse. Now, most people have seen ‘The Flash,’ ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home,’ or ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ and know what it refers to. But years ago, this idea was born in the world of DC with ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ in 1961. However, it’s possible that no one has exploited it better than a fast-food brand known for greasy chicken. How is that possible?

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Crisis of Infinite Colonels

Colonel Sanders was the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1952, and his face became the unofficial mascot of the company. No talking hamburgers, no walking pieces of pizza – just a real person who actually existed. The fanaticism for this historical figure (ignoring the fact that he strongly criticized KFC’s food quality in his later years) led to his appearance in a number of DC comics.

After his death in 1980, his heirs had free rein to do as they pleased. Thus, from 2015 to 2017, three comics were published that blended Colonel Sanders with counterparts from other alternate universes, as well as characters like Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkgirl, or Superwoman. The three comics were titled ‘The Colonel of Two Worlds,’ ‘Crisis of Infinite Colonels,’ and ‘Across the Universe.’ Quite something.

Perhaps it will surprise you, but these comics aren’t of the highest quality. They’re not terrible either – they have their moments. It’s amusing to encounter Colonel Bizarro, Cowboy Sanders, or Koln-El, an obvious parody of Superman. There was even a chicken-shaped Colonel that we won’t ask any further questions about. It all started with the presence of a certain Colonel Sunder, the creator of ‘Easy Fried Chicken,’ on Earth-3. He promised, “I sell cheap chicken, maybe it doesn’t taste good… but it’s easy to make! Fill your belly, that’s all that matters, forget Kentucky, Easy makes you happier.” Uh-huh.

In the end, Captain Cold, Flash, and Green Lantern enjoyed “a decent meal” and even offered Colonel Sunder a position in the Justice League. Yes, the Justice League! ‘Crisis on Infinite Colonels,’ which is drawn in different styles, is quite amusing. It’s worth checking out, even if it’s just to see it in the ‘Teen Titans Go!’ world. The outcome is the same: they defeat the villain and ensure they serve good food to their customers. Logical, right?

You’re right; it might not be a grand thing, but it’s definitely a brilliant marketing maneuver. A decent comic sponsored by an absurdly large brand – how can it not be ridiculously enjoyable?

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The new AI from Meta has been trained with your Instagram and Facebook posts

Meta AI, Meta’s new AI-powered virtual assistant, used public posts from Facebook and Instagram users to train.

Artificial intelligences are advancing at an overwhelming pace. They have more functions, can do more things, and to a certain extent, one could say they are more ‘intelligent.’ However, as many people know, this is due to the immense amounts of data that companies use to train their AI. Data that often comes from rather… controversial sources.

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“A few months ago, we discussed how many AI systems generating art used works from various artists to train without their consent. This week, it’s been revealed that Meta has done something similar to train its new AI-powered virtual assistant, Meta AI.

As acknowledged by Meta’s Vice President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, during the annual Meta Connect conference, the company used posts from Facebook and Instagram users to train its new artificial intelligence. However, the company asserts that private posts and users’ chat messages were not utilized.”

“We have tried to exclude datasets where personal information predominates,” stated Clegg, in statements reported by Reuters, who wanted to make it clear that the “vast majority” of the data used by Meta for training were public.

Moreover, the executive asserts that Meta took measures during this training process to ensure filtering out private details of users from the public datasets used. However, it is unknown what exactly the company considers as ‘public’ or ‘private,’ and whether the AI has been trained on sensitive data.”

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“Meta’s statements come at a time when many major tech companies, such as OpenAI or Google, have been criticized by both users and regulatory bodies for using information extracted from the internet without permission to train their AI systems.”

Reddit will no longer allow its users to avoid personalized ads

Reddit is a platform widely used by many people to closely follow specific communities, whether they are focused on content creators, gaming industry rumors, movies, series, or any other topic; and other aspects with a strong presence on this social network. Now, the platform has announced a series of changes in ad privacy settings that haven’t been well-received by many of its users.

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“In order to simplify ad privacy options, Reddit has announced, through its privacy director, that it will remove the ability for users to decide whether they want to receive personalized ads based on their activity on the platform. In other words, no one will be exempt from receiving these personalized ads based on what they search for and consume on the platform.”

Reddit won’t let anyone escape personalized ads

Settings updates—Changes to ad personalization, privacy preferences, and location settings
byu/snoo-tuh inreddit

As mentioned earlier, the news was shared by Jutta Williams, the aforementioned privacy director of the platform, through the subreddit of the network, stating that changes were being made to the privacy settings. However, they wanted to reassure users by indicating that they do not share user activity information with external advertisers. They also emphasized that this change does not mean there will be more ads or shared information. Reddit’s aim with this move is to improve ad targeting and increase click-through rates.

On the other hand, we previously stated that no one can escape personalized ads, but that’s not entirely true. Reddit confirmed with all the above that there will be some ‘selected countries’ that will still have the option to choose whether they want personalized ads or not. However, details about these specific locations were not provided. Although the company has not disclosed anything on this matter, it is highly likely that the countries exempt from this change in the platform belong to the European Union, as this would violate the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

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Of course, this has been the most prominent change in this news, but it hasn’t been the only one. Reddit has also updated descriptions of privacy options and how search results are displayed. Additionally, the platform has announced that users will now be able to select if they don’t want certain categories of ads, such as alcohol, dating, gambling, pregnancy and parenting, and weight loss. This last measure, in fact, is expected to improve over time.

The Casio console created “only for women” and that was a complete failure

Are there colognes for girls? Is there school supplies for girls? Well then, surely, there has to be a console for girls.

Fortunately, at this point in life, the vast majority of gamers have accepted the basic fact that girls also play video games. Some have even learned that they deserve respect while playing online. Slowly but surely. The truth is that in 1995, Casio considered this question and decided to address it in the most 90s way possible: Are there perfumes for girls? Are there school supplies for girls? Well then, there must be a console for girls, surely.

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Looking loopy

On October 19, 1995, a console known as the Casio Loopy (and later as the My Seal Computer) was released in Japanese stores, designed exclusively for teenage girls. Among other things, it allowed for color printing and the creation of stickers from game screenshots – let’s face it, a great idea – or, with an additional accessory, capturing images from videos and DVDs. By November 1996, Casio had already abandoned the venture. With good reason.

During its thirteen-month lifespan, the Casio Loopy received eleven titles like ‘Chakra-kun’s Charm Paradise,’ based on a manga by Megumi Tachibana, featuring a cat in a magical world; ‘Little Romance,’ a teenage love story primarily made for printing stickers; or ‘Bow-wow Puppy Love Story,’ in which a dog encounters a talking watch and a living doll with whom it must battle evil vegetables. You couldn’t print stickers until you completed the game.

Here’s an interesting fact: it cost exactly the same as the Super Nintendo, and it’s not known exactly how many units it sold. It’s public knowledge that in the first year, they expected to release 200,000 units for sale, but it’s unclear how many were actually released… or how many ended up in the hands of potential buyers. In the end, the major problem with the Casio Loopy was that it was sold as a gaming console when it was actually a color printer, but the idea wasn’t necessarily bad.

Adding to its mistakes was another one: the console only allowed one player, eliminating the social factor that would have at least allowed girls to make stickers together. In the end, although the Game Boy Printer, paired with the Game Boy Camera, produced photos and stickers at a lower resolution, it sold much better. And there’s a reason for that: no one was trying to create gaming ghettos at Nintendo.

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Relax, Discord hasn’t banned you

Discord has blocked access to many users around the world during the morning of September 29 due to a bug.

This Friday morning, the 29th, has been quite challenging for many Internet users. When trying to access Discord servers, numerous people found that the popular messaging platform, used by millions of users worldwide, had suddenly ‘locked’ them out.

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Faced with the fear that they might have been banned from Discord for some unknown reason, and in a clear case of widespread panic, many turned to Twitter (as often happens when any service is down) to share the message shown to them by the application.

The message that appeared to many users was as follows: “The website uses a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered a security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block, including submitting certain words or phrases, a SQL command, or malformed data.”

“But, as you might suspect, something strange must have been happening. Many users reported this issue, and some of us who could still access Discord experienced certain slowness when entering the channels of the servers we belong to.

Where was the problem? Well, it was in Cloudflare, a company that provides a security and performance network to popular services like Discord, Canva, or video games such as League of Legends, and which experienced some incidents this morning that are still being investigated.”

At the time this article is being published, almost everyone has regained access to Discord without any issues, so the problem seems to have been resolved. For now, neither Discord nor Cloudflare have provided public explanations about what happened.

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So you can rest assured that your Discord account is not blocked, and you can continue chatting in your servers without any problem. However, considering the situation, be careful not to say or do anything that could anger Cloudflare. You wouldn’t want to get blocked for real someday.

Netflix's last big movie… has been a failure: critics are killing it

Reptile doesn’t look like it’s going to make our list of best Netflix movies. As always, it’s up to you to decide if it’s as bad as the press says.

There are many good series on Netflix. And also some very good movies. The problem arises when the Big Red N company starts producing exclusive films; that’s when the scale tips too quickly in the opposite direction.

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“Reptile,” Netflix’s latest suspense and mystery film, has arrived on the streaming giant. If you were eagerly anticipating it, it won’t be us who dampen your excitement… it will be the professional critics who have already seen it.

Plot and synopsis of Reptile, Netflix’s new release

The film noir detective movie stars Benicio Del Toro as Tom Nichols, a hardened detective sent to investigate the gruesome murder of a young real estate agent.

As Nichols attempts to solve a case where nothing is as it seems, he is forced to confront aspects of his own life, including events from his past he’d prefer to forget. Alicia Silverstone and Justin Timberlake are part of the star-studded cast of Reptile.

At first, it seemed like it would be one of those new Netflix movies that would also do well. However, it appears that Reptile is not all that it seems, if we take into account what critics are saying about this police thriller.

The critics are panning it: a 45% on Rotten Tomatoes

Currently, Reptile has a critical rating of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s not a good start for a movie that the world’s best streaming service likely had high hopes for.

So, what’s wrong with Reptile that critics are feeling rather, um, unkind? For starters, its plot. According to Andrew Parker from The Gate, Reptile is “easily the worst big-budget police thriller” and adds that it will make viewers wonder “how it could have gone so wrong given the talent involved.”

Parker wasn’t the only one struggling with Reptile’s convoluted plot. Charles Bramesco from Little White Lies feels it leaves you with a “who cares?” feeling, while Natalia Winkelman from The New York Times wrote: “By the time the movie gets around to revealing the culprit, we’ve lost interest.” Michael Balderston from What to Watch echoed those sentiments, adding that Reptile was “all humor and not much else.”

“In the end, Reptile doesn’t seem like it’s going to make it onto our list of best Netflix movies. As always, it’s up to you to decide if it’s as bad as the critics make it out to be.

In fact, Reptile’s audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (at the time of writing) stands at a surprising 90%, which means it might be much better than it appears. The critics might just be on a different wavelength.”

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Looking forward to more Souls? After finishing Lies of P, this is the next Souls-like on the horizon

Lords of the Fallen arrives with a new game during this month of October 2023. What can we expect from this new souls-like?

2023 is shaping up to be one of the best years in the history of video games due to the sheer number of diverse titles released. We’re getting productions of all possible kinds, and one of the genres that’s doing particularly well is the souls-like genre.

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After receiving Lies of P earlier this month, a work set in a twisted Pinocchio universe that is being well-received by both specialized press and players, now it’s time for Lords of the Fallen. But didn’t this game already come out? The answer is “yes,” but there’s a catch.

Lords of the Fallen was originally released in 2014 by Deck13, the creators of The Surge and Atlas Fallen. However, on October 13th, we are getting a new Lords of the Fallen, this time developed by the team at CI Games. Is it a reboot of the series? It functions as a reboot, indeed, which is why there isn’t a number attached to the title. However, the game’s storyline actually takes place a thousand years after the events of the original Lords of the Fallen from 2014.

I, the author of this piece, had the privilege of playing a demo during the past Gamescom 2023 in August. And yes, it’s aiming high: the game looks much better than the one from 2014. It’s not just about the passage of time and the obvious technical leap – although that’s logical – but there’s more expertise now in creating a notable Souls-like game to surprise the audience. The parries, the weapons, the feel of the fight, the movement, etc., everything was more integrated or closer to what one expects from a Souls-like game.

Additionally, there’s its original approach: if we die, the game doesn’t end; instead, we continue to play in a kind of underworld. It’s here that if we die again, the game does end, but in return, it offers a new opportunity for redemption. On October 13th, we’ll find out more on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X | S, and PC.

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Elon Musk’s idea to eliminate bots is so crazy that even Twitter’s CEO didn’t know about it

When asked to confirm Elon Musk’s plans to turn Twitter into a paid website, Yaccarino was unable to…

Elon Musk stepped down as the CEO of the company a few months ago after consulting with his followers on Twitter. The vast majority of users voted for Elon to leave the position for the greater good. Linda Yaccarino was appointed in his place.

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Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, appeared at the 2023 Code Conference on September 27th and spoke with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin about the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Unfortunately, her responses about the company’s direction were not reassuring and indicated a possible rift with its owner, Elon Musk.

The fact that the owner of the company doesn’t inform the CEO doesn’t look good

At a crucial moment midway through the interview, the executive mentioned that the leadership of the social media platform might not be aware of Musk’s plans to impose a mandatory monthly fee for Twitter/X users.

Elon Musk announced his intention to make this change earlier this month, stating it was “the only way” he could think of to combat bots.

However, when asked to confirm Elon Musk’s plans to turn Twitter into a paid website, Yaccarino was unable to respond to any questions regarding it.

“Did he say we were specifically moving to that, or that he’s thinking about it?” Yaccarino inquired, after first asking Boorstin to repeat the question.

“He said that was the plan,” Boorstin responded. “Did he consult with you before announcing it?” “We talk about everything,” Yaccarino said, refusing to give a direct answer, sounding much like when someone doesn’t want to provide a concise response.

Yaccarino then proceeded to evade the question for several minutes, even though it was asked for the third time, choosing instead to shift the focus towards her role at Twitter/X and praise Musk.

If there’s any glimmer of hope, it’s that Yaccarino’s apparent ignorance about Musk’s monetization plans might indicate that it hasn’t been seriously discussed.

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If you listen to podcasts on Spotify, this new tool is going to make your day brighter

Spotify doesn't slow down when it comes to adding new features, and the latest update announced by the streaming service is the ability to write…

A few days ago, we brought you the news of the year, or one of many. Spotify was going to use AI to dub podcasts in several languages on its platform. This way, they improved accessibility, and any listener could enjoy the thousands of programs offered in the green app.

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Spotify doesn’t slow down when it comes to adding new features, and the latest update announced by the streaming service is automatic podcast transcription, allowing you to read while you listen.

“In the coming weeks, we will launch the transcription of millions of episodes and will continue to innovate on this feature in the future,” says Spotify. One of these future innovations will be the ability to add media such as images to the transcriptions.

A function similar to the karaoke tool, but for podcasts

To find the transcription of a podcast, all you need to do is scroll down on the Now Playing screen in the mobile app and tap the “Read” card to view the full text. The transcription automatically syncs with the audio as you move forward and backward.

It’s useful for those who can’t listen to audio on their phone in the usual way or for those moments when you don’t have headphones but can’t turn up the phone’s speaker volume either.

Spotify has timed this announcement with International Podcast Day, which we just found out exists and apparently falls on September 30th. Additionally, Spotify is revamping the pages of the shows that provide information about the podcasts.

According to Spotify, their podcasts are proving to be a success: they now have 100 million regular listeners, a tenfold increase since 2019, and statistics show that 500 million people have listened to at least one podcast on the platform during that time.

Spotify’s podcast catalog now extends to 5 million shows in 170 different countries, and the company is participating in various podcast festivals and events worldwide in the coming months to further boost their numbers.

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