Tag Archives: marketing

DraftKings’ esports exit should surprise nobody.

Esports cool person Jacob Wolf is reporting that DraftKings have withdrawn their sponsorship campaigns from all esports teams, as the company seems to have hit a pretty hard wall losing revenue as various US state governments launch investigation after investigation into their gambling practices.

I don’t see how a situation like this really is a change from the trend of major fantasy sports companies–especially those that purely operated in the esports and virtual item space–is a surprise to anybody.

Fantasy sports companies that operate in real world currency should be acting as if keeping their businesses in the United States is more of a temporary measure, since the only relief they’ll find would be a legislative win in Congress that will overturn various laws that prohibit online gambling. Why these companies haven’t decided to move their headquarters and corporate offices outside across one of the two oceans is a mystery to me.

Of course, if you’ve listened to my first podcast, you’d know that I’m probably not a fan of these financial fantasies that schemes like these perpetuate. My simple reaction: this is a pure win-win for esports.

Here’s what I learned from CheckPoint S3E28 and S3E29.

Yeah, double post. Because holidays.

  • TV integration is half of the point of the Xbox One, isn’t it? This joke is trying to be funny. Eh.
  • Goth Kathleen on this episode? I don’t even.
  • Another DragonBall Z game that’s better than most of the television series? Standard.
  • Nintendo’s naming schemes for their first-party games reeks of some sort of Engrish that was corrected by native-English speakers for the sake of trying to save what’s left of Nintendo’s honor as a great gaming company. The only two titles holding that honor as close as possible are the latest Fire Emblem and Zelda titles for their 3DS handheld as far as I can tell.
  • I fully support CheckPoint being included in MSFT’s Xbox Live content plan for the upcoming year. They used to have Major Nelson and those two Brits do stuff on nearly a weekly basis. Why not bring those guys back? Oh wait–because Larry Hyrb is nothing more than a corporate mouthpiece and the two gamer tag show people weren’t funny at all.
  • More Nintendo news? STOP IT.
  • EA is just stealthily trying to rip off new IP to blow them up into the annual sequel plan, as most of their studios seem to be actually trying to make great new games for the latest generation, with this hackathon business.
  • Baww. But they’re Canadian, right? DEM JOKES, FOLKS.
  • Zach Galifinakis as Sonic? Comedy and game-to-film adaptations must be the two worst genre of movies that exist. Combining them surely creates a black hole of cinema, right?

  • A console commentary! Yaaay~!
  • Shin Megami Tensai 4 and Saints’ Row 4 as their games of the year? Boo.
  • ShiftyLook has some pretty funny stuff. The latest Scott & Kris creation is published there. And now a dating sim based on classic Namco properties’ characters? And the ship from Galaga is a romantic option? Is this the new CandyBox? It could be the new CandyBox.
  • A Tomb Raider card game for iOS? PASS.
  • A tie at retail but a clear win for the PS4 when you consider the second-hand market. Although the same number of systems have been sold overall… so maybe it’s still more of a tie, with the stipulation that PS4 owners are more likely to throw obscene amounts of money away in marked up prices.
  • Zoo… what?
  • A best-of-season sequence masqueraded as a finale review. Pretty good stuff.
  • DANCIN’

And the ultimate sad news: I’m not going to cover this anymore if it means having to watch Twitch videos-on-demand. Having to watch unskippable pre-roll commercials longer than 10 seconds is not acceptable. I hope they continue posting these episodes to YouTube.

Here’s what I learned from CheckPoint S3E19.

  • Oh MadKatz. How no one gives a shit about your day-late-and-dollar-short Android box with an HDMI port in it.
  • Pokemon finally discovering the third D has been a pretty hot topic in gaming lately. Not that I would know because as much as I’ve wanted to really get up to speed with the Fire Emblem series, I just can’t bring myself to buy a Nintendo platform after they released such an underpowered console with the Wii U. I hear that it’s good… but I’ll stick with replaying Pokemon Red on my Game Boy Advance SP for nostalgia’s sake, thanks.
  • $35 USD to instantly reach the endgame of Everquest 2? Sony still runs the servers for this game?
  • Angry Birds ripping off Mario Kart? Pretty lame.
  • Development parties are all cutting edge and everything, but why do you need to gimmick the hell out of one to make it cool enough to entice folks to come along? It is taking folks from Chicago to San Francisco, which is fine, I suppose, but how many folks will be flying into Chicago and flying out of San Francisco for this event? Why even bother with the train ride? Make it a cruise for crying out loud.
  • There’s nothing to add to Graham’s bit here about the Mojo. Just watch it for yourself.
  • The ticker for this segment is probably the most insightful bit of analysis wrapped in humor that’s actually true that could be said about Square Enix and their relationship with the legendarily popular Final Fantasy VII: “Does Squeenix just hate FFVII?” From all indications, the answer is yes.
  • Noooooo.
  • Kickstarter in AUS/NZ is welcome, but Kathleen’s right. What’re the odds that any offerings from those two countries won’t be completely overpriced to outside markets out of spite? I’m guessing pretty slim.