Image :https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/298481-borderlands-3-is-a-rocky-mess-gearbox-promises-final-dx12-update

As many PC players know, the Valve operated storefront Steam is widely regarded as the definitive place for acquiring PC games. It could be argued that Valve has essentially created a monopoly on the purchasing and owning of computer games. However, recently Some Developers have tried to combat this by creating their own Virtual Storefronts. Of these contenders Epic Game’s Epic Games Store is one that may offer the most challenge. To bolster traffic to their site, Epic Games has decided to make several of their upcoming titles exclusive to the Epic Games Store, negating Steams access to them. This has sparked outrage among many consumers many of whom hold a fondness for Steam as their preferred storefront of choice and have a dislike for Epic Games due to several mistakes the company has made in the past.

Many people believed that this would result in a disaster for Epic Games, hurting both their Storefront and the sales of their games. However, despite what someone listening to what the consumers would believe, it appears the anger toward the Epic Store has not been backed up with action. Both Metro: Exodus and the newly released Borderlands 3 have made more than their Steam hosted predecessors by a wide margin. This could be a worrying development for Valve, showing signs that their era of PC industry domination may be in its twilight years.

Though this success may cause Epic Games to feel more confident in their mission, it is important that they remain cautious. They already have a poor reputation among many consumers, and though it appears they are one the rise, all it will take is one misstep and Valve will reassert its place atop the PC industry pile.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2019/09/16/borderlands-3-pc-sales-reveal-an-important-truth-about-the-epic-games-store/#cdecec2797b9

Image source: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/2/6/18212482/moviepass-mitch-lowe-khalid-itum-interview-2019

MoviePass is going out of business and it looks like for good. If you’re not familiar, MoviePass is a company that provides a service that allows users to pay a monthly fee and purchase up to 3 movie tickets per month, saving movie goers a whole lot of money. The company has been around for years, but didn’t get much attention until the summer of 2017, where MoviePass announced their too good to be true monthly fee of $9.95.

Imagine that. Less than $10 for three showings a month, where nowadays just one show costs over $12 per ticket, especially if you’re purchasing online (which seems to be the norm as reserved seating makes a greater presence).

Image source: https://www.slashfilm.com/moviepass-locations/

Unfortunately, the competitive market ate this company alive. Instead of theaters such as AMC and Regal partnering with MoviePass–as their mission intended–the theaters created their own subscription services, leaving MoviePass scrambling for financial support.

Come summer of 2018, only a year after gaining public attention, the company runs out of money. In efforts to save their demise, MoviePass mustered up as many new pricing schemes as possible, which only landed them with morally suspicious business practices.

Image source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/04/28/wheres-my-refund-moviepass-competitor-sinemia-abruptly-shuts-down/3609969002/

MoviePass’ termination was effective last Saturday, September 14^th, coming just months after their rival company, Sinemia, went under.

Image source: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article235173612.html

Though, hope is not lost. Reports today are saying that former MoviePass chairman, Ted Farnsworth, is trying to purchase the company. He stepped down from his role to avoid any conflict of interest and had this to say to justify his decision:

“‘I believe there is great unrealized value in MoviePass, and we want to rebuild and make sure it reaches its full potential,’ Farnsworth said in a statement. ‘I have always believed in the business model and the brand [former MoviePass CEO] Mitch Lowe and I built at MoviePass. There’s tremendous appetite for movie theater ticket subscription.’”

Source: https://variety.com/2019/film/news/former-moviepass-chairman-ted-farnsworth-trying-to-buy-failing-subscription-company-1203338752/

Which I agree with.  Yes, he was part of the team that executed the company’s underwhelming arrival, which led to their predictable end, but I respect how much it changed the game.

Image source: https://uproxx.com/movies/sinemia-moviepass-closed-effective-immediately/

We know streaming services are the mainstream now, people are cutting out cable and sticking to online monthly subscriptions. Naturally, this affects cable television networks/companies/investors, but the ease of watching thousands of content options from your couch concurrently affects the box office. There’s less of a reason for people to go out to the movies. With endless options that services like Netflix and Hulu provide, why drive a half hour to see a movie that will eventually end up online anyway?

I love going to the movies with my friends, it’s about the whole experience: Traveling there, sharing predictions, concessions, the act of enjoying an experience with dozens of others, and then, of course, discussing our verdict. MoviePass, and companies alike, aim to keep this culture alive. Who knows what will happen now, but I think this service’s history served as a stepping stone to a greater evolution. Movie theaters need to consider how they will progress if they are ever going to save the box office.

Source material: https://screenrant.com/moviepass-is-officially-shutting-down/

 

As the largest online retailer and one of the wealthiest companies in the world, Amazon seems to have their hand in a bit of everything. They own a variety of successful business, including the popular grocery chain Whole Foods, online companies such as Zappos and Internet Movie Database, IMDb.

To accompany their other business ventures, the rise of streaming is a trend Amazon definitely did not sleep on, either. Amazon Prime Video is one of the top movie and TV streaming services, alongside popular services such as Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now/Go, and PlayStation Vue.

So far, we chart Amazon in the online retail business, health-food grocer business, TV and movie streaming business, and more. They are a multimedia company and an advanced technology company. What else is left for Amazon to take on? Answer: the music industry.

Amazon just launched Amazon Music HD, which competes with popular music streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal. Prior to launching their HD music streaming service, Amazon already had Amazon Prime Music which was available for free to Prime subscribers. Their new, high definition service claims to offer lossless audio at up to 850 kbps (more than double the bit-rate of Spotify and Apple Music). Their main competetor for this kind of advanced audio is Jay-Z’s Hi-Fi Tidal plan, which can be purchased at $19.99 per month. Amazon’s new HD music streaming service charges $14.99 per month, and offers a $2 discount if you are a Prime subscriber.

According to Amazon’s Vice President of Music, Steve Boom, Amazon is not going for a “niche player” type service, but rather aim to disrupt the current top dogs, Apple and Spotify. I find myself wondering if their proclaimed advanced audio will hit the average ear in a way that makes consumers want to switch from their trusted streaming services. In Amazons recent press release, Neil Young spoke to the topic saying that Amazon’s new high quality streaming service “will be the biggest thing to happen in music since the introduction of digital audio 40 years ago”. A bold statement from a true music legend.

Amazon Music HD and Ultra HD launches September 17th, 2019.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20869526/amazon-music-hd-lossless-flac-tier-spotify-apple

A recent trend on Twitter blew up, where users uploaded a picture of themselves to the ImageNet Roulette Website and AI would try to caption or guess the type of person they are. The captions or options are supposed to range from anything “computer-user” to “creep” to “enchantress”, but some people fear the technology had biases ingrained into its hardware.

ImageNet is the database in which the AI technology trained with, which was complied in 2009 of 14 million labeled images. The Roulette AI was trained on 2833 sub-categories of “person” to then be able to label the uploaded photos into these sub-categories.

The issues arises when most people of color are getting negative captions or labels to their uploads photos such as, “bad person”, “wrongdoer”, or “offender”. Stephen Bush, an editor for New Statesmen Political, uploaded a picture of him photoshopped in to Napoleon costume and was given the label “Igbo”, and ethnic group from Nigeria.

With this trend exploding across Twitterverse, the creators decide to use this as a way to highlight what could happen if the fundamental date that AI algorithms use is bad or biased. This is important because as we turn more to AI technology we cannot have biases of race, gender, or class ingrained into the system or the technology won’t work in society.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/viral-ai-selfie-classifier-imagenet-roulette-part-of-bias-project-2019-9-1028531095

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/340795/nbcu-to-launch-streaming-service-peacock-in-april.html

NBC Universal has announced that they will be joining the streaming craze and launching a streaming service in April 2020. The platform will begin with 15,000 hours of content including new original dramas, comedies, movies, and unscripted TV shows. There will also be special coverage of the Olympics via the app, which is likely to draw subscribers in– at least around that time. They will also include all episodes of classic popular shows that aired on NBC like Parks and Rec and The Office. Peacock will be a premium streaming service that will be both ad and subscription supported. This leads me to believe there will be a tiered system for subscriptions, however NBC has not announced details of prices for the platform yet. Some new shows already confirmed are “Straight Talk,” with Rashida Jones and Jada Pinkett Smith and a new revamped version of “Saved by The Bell” featuring original cast members Elizabeth Berkeley and Mario Lopez. This is also likely to draw in some viewers.

Even though there is a huge market for it, I don’t think we need another streaming service. This fall alone, Apple’s AppleTV+, Disney’s Disney+ and Warner Media’s HBOMax will all launch.They all aren’t going to start to be able to survive and I predict that in the end there will only be about 3 in total. This is mainly because Americans are going to stop buying all these separate subscriptions. These companies/streaming services are going to have to consolidate. Some services offer channels and features others don’t have.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/cyberpunk-2077-character-creator-will-offer-non-bi/1100-6469446/

CD Projekt Red has endured pushback for gender representation in Cyberpunk 2077, but the developer is eager to respond to fan feedback and create a more traditional cyberpunk experience. The studio has begun with the character creator, adjusting it to allow for gender options beyond the binary male and female.

“You know, we really want to make a video game that’s really inclusive,” senior concept artist Marthe Jonkers said in an interview with Metro. “Of course, if you tackle certain subjects then you will expect people to have an opinion about it and we respect that. And it’s good that people give us feedback. And our character creation menu, for instance, compared to the last demo we now give you so many more options. For instance, you don’t choose your gender anymore. You don’t choose, ‘I want to be a female or male character,’ you now choose a body type. Because we want you to feel free to create any character you want.”

After selecting your preferred body type, you then have the option to give your character one of two different voices. “One that’s male-sounding, one is female sounding,” Jonkers said. “You can mix and match. You can just connect them anyway you want. And then we have a lot of extra skin tones and tattoos and hairstyles. So we really want to give people the freedom to make their own character and play the way they want to play.”

By providing more agency over your character’s preferred gender and skin tone, CD Projekt Red is hoping more players are able to create the type of protagonist they want in Cyberpunk 2077. Most NPCs you meet will have an established gender and sexual orientation as well in hopes of curating more believable in-game relationships. But the team is open to further changes and welcome feedback from their fans. “Our team is very international and very diverse but we have asked for a lot of feedback,” Jonkers said. “We always ask for feedback and even when we show these demos, we still ask people to tell us what they think. We just want to know what we can improve on because we want to make a really good game and we really want to make a game that everybody is comfortable playing. But at the same time, we’ll tackle difficult issues. It is a cyberpunk world after all.”

This was in response to a transgender person who addresses his concerns on Twitter and CD Project responded by going nonbinary genderless.  That demographic however only count a small percentage of the Cyberpunk Community but most are open to the idea of a nonbinary character.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/business/media/apple-tv-plus-price.html

On September 11th, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently debuted the lineup of the company’s most anticipated service, Apple TV Plus. The announcement comes in the middle of the sudden streaming wave where it seems as if every major studio or media entity is joining in on the most popular way to watch content. 

The headline of the story was when Cook publicized the price of the streaming service. For only $5 a month, Apple TV Plus will offer a variety of shows, movies, and more in order to compete with its competitors. 

So why such a low price? 

The main reason is it will have a lower supply of content. 

Services like Hulu, Netflix, or even the newly announced Disney+ contain massive libraries of original series, new releases, and decades of vintage programming. In effect, Apple TV Plus will offer roughly a dozen original shows at a low price to attract new viewers and subscribers. Cook claims that the service will have “the best movies, comedies, dramas and kids’ shows.” At the same time, Cook hopes that the quality of the content is a way to keep its viewership and compete with already established competitors. 

Over time, it will be interesting to see how Apple TV Plus’ content is critically received. The company has invested over one billion dollars in its newly established entertainment division, where Hollywood veterans such as Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Reese Witherspoon and J. J. Abrams have been involved. However, the names attached are not guarantees to bring Apple long term success. In this case, I find Apple’s decision to set its price point so low to be a strong marketing tactic. This gives viewers a safe bet at trying something new with the hope of finding content they may enjoy. For competing services, perhaps if Apple TV Plus produces, companies with limited original content like Hulu or Amazon Prime may have to reconfigure their own creative division.  It is the level of intrigue that Apple has in its advantage at the moment, and it will certainly be interesting to see just how big the entity can grow. 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/20/tech/instagram-hiding-likes-user-reaction/index.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-instagram-youtube-killing-like-subscribers-2019-9

In the past month many social media platforms have been considering taking likes off of content that we posts. That’s right, the picture that you took several times, to get that great angle will never show all the likes you received (and deserved)  . The more important question is how will this change social media?

The reason that these companies want to rid likes is due to the likes becoming a quantifying sign of self worth. In a discussion with some of the Instagram developers the decision came about because they believed that likes are ‘a kind of digital one-upmanship on social media and making users feel bad’.

Though many of us can understand why the site wants to eliminate the feature, many Instagram-based brands are wondering how this change will effect them and their user engagement. Though the likes will be taken away, this will not take away the algorithm. This means that the kind of posts you like will still be suggested to you, and the related content with the most like will be suggested to you first.

We have no idea as to when the change will take place, but hopefully it has positive effects.