35 Burst results for "Riot Games"
Demo 1 - NaviLens
"riot games" Discussed on Demo 1 - NaviLens
"League of Legends developer Riot Games has just shared its next big bet. Recently, the company said it had acquired Hypixel Studios. They're the creator of an upcoming role-playing game called Hytale. If you're not familiar with the game, think Minecraft, but with more of a focus on adventuring and combat. Riot didn't disclose the financial terms of the acquisition. However, it doesn't sound like Riot plans to change too much about how the studio functions. The company says Hypixel will retain its current structure with plans to open a new office in Northern Ireland that will host additional back office and quality assurance staff. Riot adds it will share its experience in developing and publishing acclaimed player-focused games with Hypixel. The acquisition is the latest move in what has already been a big year for a studio that for the longest time only had a game to its name. It's not surprising to see Riot try to recreate the success of Minecraft. The now almost 10-year-old title is one of the most popular games in the world at the moment. In 2019, Microsoft said it had 120 million monthly active players, making it almost as popular as League of Legends. It's a smart bet when you consider Microsoft paid $2.5 billion in 2014 to acquire Mahjong, Minecraft's developer. There's no guarantee Hytale will become even a fraction as popular as Minecraft. However, judging by the fact Hytale's announcement trailer has 55 million views on YouTube, there's obviously a lot of excitement for the title. We'll see if Riot's bet will have paid off sometime in 2021 when Hytale comes out.
Demo 1 - NaviLens
Riot Games Acquires Hytale Developer Hypixel Studios
"League of Legends developer Riot Games has just shared its next big bet. Recently, the company said it had acquired Hypixel Studios. They're the creator of an upcoming role -playing game called Hytale. If you're not familiar with the game, think Minecraft, but with more of a focus on adventuring and combat. Riot didn't disclose the financial terms of the acquisition. However, it doesn't sound like Riot plans to change too much about how the studio functions. The company says Hypixel will retain its current structure with plans to open a new office in Northern Ireland that will host additional back office and quality assurance staff. Riot adds it will share its experience in developing and publishing acclaimed player -focused games with Hypixel. The acquisition is the latest move in what has already been a big year for a studio that for the longest time only had a game to its name. It's not surprising to see Riot try to recreate the success of Minecraft. The now almost 10 -year -old title is one of the most popular games in the world at the
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
A highlight from What is VRA and Will It Moon? - Verasity DeepDive
"Is Veracity a dud or altcoin gem that will pop during the bull run? I'm going to take a look at its fundamentals. It's time to discover crypto. Veracity is an open ledger ecosystem bringing trust and transparency to digital advertising and payments. Never heard of it? Perfect. Because crypto winner is the best time to educate yourself and learn as much as you can so you can make sure you're ready for the next bull run. Let's kick things off with a little token overview. Veracity is currently trading a shade over four tenths of a cent and is sitting at a deep value market cap of about $42 million. This puts it deep in the pink sheets way down at number 422 on CoinGecko at the time of shooting. I've always wondered if the GeicoGecko and the CoinGeckoGecko knew each other in gecko business school. Speaking of which, make sure to check out the BitLab Academy and find the courses that are right for you so you can learn from the pros and take your crypto education to the next level. Anyway, as you can tell right off the bat, Veracity has a pretty low market cap even by most degen standards like mine. Now, I know it's a deep bear market and the market cap of all the projects in crypto are down bad right now, but any project with a market cap of less than a billion dollars, I would personally consider to be a small cap. Small cap means that there's a greater potential of returns if the project catches major adoption, but this also usually means increased risk as well. Two of the biggest things that can be a concern are trading volume and liquidity. If you take a look at which exchanges currently list Veracity, you'll see that some of the more popular ones are like Gate .io, KuCoin, OKEx, Crypto .com and Uniswap. By the way, you can sign up for a KuCoin account using our affiliate link in the description. Now, it is important to note that you won't find Veracity listed on the big boys like Coinbase or Binance just yet. It's still very early days for this project, so please do your own research and invest in trade responsibly. If you appreciate me coming at you with some clear -eyed crypto caution, go ahead and drop a like, subscribe to the channel and turn on channel notifications so you'll be around for when I finally cut loose and go full DGen DZ mode on everyone in the next bull run. Taking a look at the price history, we can see that Veracity's native ERC777 token VRA hit its all -time high in November of 2021 and peaked out about 8 .6 cents. Since then, it's been on one of them big bad bear market slides that most projects in the altcoin market have also followed. One final thing to call out about the tokenomics on this one before we dive more into the history and fundamentals, the current circulating supply is around 10 billion 305 million, and the max supply will be around 110 billion. The reason for this is that this project is holding 90 % of their supply in reserve until their platform fully launches, which makes sense, but ordinarily, a difference of max supply versus circulating supply that is that big would be a huge red flag. So keep your eyes out for things like that when you're doing your own awesome altcoin research. Okay, enough about the token price. What's Veracity all about? Veracity was founded in 2017 by entrepreneur and pensive -looking technologist RJ Mark. Veracity offers a unique patented Proof -of -View system through which it plans to solve the problems of video advertising and NFT fraud. Veracity's product lines range across multiple industries but are all built with the Proof -of -View system and the VerView's platform as their backbone. It offers a Veril wallet on its blockchain network on which the VRA token is used as the main currency for participating in the online variety and video game economy. It also offers staking rewards to users. It's a protocol and product layer platform for eSports, video entertainment and digital content management. Its products include an ad stack and the VRA reward system, which has been integrated into SDKs for YouTube, Twitch, Vimeo and all major video platforms. Okay, so what's the problem this project is solving in plain English? Well, if you ever spend any time on social media, I'm sure you've noticed that there are a ton of bot armies out there, and the interwebs are getting into all kinds of shenanigans, spamming, trolling, fishing and just generally mucking it up for all of us human beings. This is a problem for advertisers because they have no way of knowing if their ads are actually reaching real humans or if they're just serving up impressions up to the lifeless bots. It's been estimated that by 2025, advertisers' total losses due to ad fraud could shoot up to $100 billion. So it's clear this is a big problem. Veracity leverages blockchain technology and their unique consensus algorithm Proof of View to ensure every view captured on the ledger is authentic and ultimately provides stakeholders within the video ad space a trusted single source of truth for capturing verified human views in real time. Oh, and just a reminder, they filed a lot of patents to protect their tech as well. Pretty cool, right? Personally, I think things like this are the key to mass adoption. Quality projects using crypto to solve real world problems that can't be tackled without the blockchain. Veracity has two major branches of the project, the VRA token and the Vera wallet which allows users to spend VRA tokens, earn VRA rewards via staking or earn VRA by participating in activities on the network and the Vera Views platform along with everything being built on it. On November 8, 2021, Veracity announced that they would be rebranding an esports platform to Vera Esports in order to establish their vision for how their feedback cycle of watch to earn value creation should work. The cycle has four key elements. First, Vera Esports secures broadcast rights to exclusive tournaments. They offer access to streams from some of the biggest names in gaming with tournaments hosted by the likes of Valorant, Riot Games and Axie Infinity. It's also teased an upcoming NFT marketplace with both in and out of game content for its users. Next, their content is made available on the Brightcove media player with the Vera Views ad stack built in. Third, Vera View protects publishers against fake views who then come to realize it's a superior solution for preventing ad fraud across all of their content and is consequently much more profitable. Fourth and finally, Vera Views adoption is increased and Veracity's revenues are used for operating expenses and their VRA buyback program. Sounds complicated, I know, but the gist of it is by building a system that is better for viewers, advertisers, content creators and really just all the stakeholders in the system, Veracity is able to incentivize all participants and then share the value they are creating with all of the users because that's how we do it in Web3, baby. For more details on the history of what they're currently working on, I recommend checking out their roadmap. They have a very detailed roadmap that lays out every step of development they've taken along the way since launching in 2017. They have well -defined and specific goals to achieve their business cases in each market. Today, Veracity has met all of their quarterly roadmap goals, and some recent achievements include updates to the Vera Wallet, referral integrations, exchange listings, growing ad campaigns, running eSports tournaments and launching a revamped tournament site. These guys really have been busy this bear market. Okay, I think I'm going to leave it there for the time, obviously, there's a lot more to this project than what we've covered here today, and I definitely recommend taking a closer look at some of the patents they filed on things like rewarded video because as the Web3 internet of value grows and gains market adoption, there's going to be a lot of new projects like Veracity rising up to challenge the dominance of the Web2 companies as well as other Web3 rivals like Theta. None of us can predict the future, so it's impossible to say for sure what's going to happen, but Play to Earn, Watch to Earn and you name it to earn are all going to be pretty exciting crypto niches in the next bull run, so you have to subscribe to the channel. Make sure you stick around and watch what happens. Let me know down in the comments what you think of Veracity and whether or not you think that VRA token is destined for a new all -time high in the next bull run. And let me know if you have a favorite Watch to Earn platform you think we should check out as well. That's all you got from Deezy. Thanks for watching Discover Crypto. Hit that like button on your way out. We'll see you at the top. It's a colorful story. It's a one of a kind story. It's a story that spans 8 ,000 majestic acres of Blue Ridge Mountain beauty bathed in shades of orange and crimson. It's a story of four -star evenings, locally sourced cuisine and award -winning wines. Of warm fires, crisp mountain air and old world charm. It's a story of 1 ,000 men and the six years they spent creating America's largest home, with 250 rooms, each with its own stories to tell. But all this can't begin to tell the full story of autumn at Biltmore. Come walk in the footsteps of the Vanderbilt family and experience the fleeting magic of the season before it slips away. Because as wondrous as the story of autumn at Biltmore may be, it can never be complete without you.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"riot games" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"9 30 a.m. Thursday morning in Hong Kong 1130 here in Sydney. I'm Paul Allen. And I'm Doug prisoner at the Bloomberg interactive broker studio in New York, kind of a mixed picture for equity markets in the apac region. We also have breaking news on Australia, June employment, Brian Curtis will be by. Momentarily for a look at that and all the day's market action in a moment after we update a few of the soursop is in stories. In the top business story of all U.S. retail inflation rising in June by 9.1% compared to last year and that is the largest gain since the end of 1981 in response Atlanta fey president Raphael bostic said quote everything is in play and his comments feel bits on the fed possibly hiking its key rate by a hundred basis points later on this month. Earlier on Bloomberg, Cleveland fed president Loretta mester suggested officials should raise rates by at least 75 basis points later in the month. Certainly, the inflation report suggests that there's no reason to say that a smaller rate increase than we did last time, right Because nothing moved in that direction. Mister Sid officials will watch retail sales and inflation expectations and decide whether a larger hike is appropriate at the fed's July meeting. Well, Panasonic has decided on Kansas as the location to build a battery production site, the state's governor Laura Kelly announced this agreement, she said the site is expected to cost about $4 billion and it will generate as many as 4000 jobs, Panasonic joins a slew of automakers and cell producers preparing for a potential boom in EV sales. It was back in September Ford and South Korea's SK innovation announced plans to spend about 11.4 billion for an assembly plant and three battery factories in Kentucky and Tennessee, then a few months later, Toyota said it would open its first battery factory in the U.S. and that being in North Carolina. Riot Games has issued its punishment for a top eSports businessman accused of workplace toxicity and bullying. The company found TSM owner Andy dinh guilty of violating the company's rules around harassment and profanity and hate speech. This was after an 8 month long investigation, then we'll be placed on a two year probation, TSM will be fined $75,000, and that money will be donated to an anti bullying or mental health charity. 33 passed the hours we travel to Hong Kong, Brian Curtis is there looking at markets. You know, with that CPI report that we had here in the U.S., maybe a bit of a hair on fire moment, but right now markets seem to be pretty calm, right? Yeah, we have 5 benchmarks higher right now in 5 lower of the ones that we often track here on the program. However, if you look at the MSCI Asia Pacific index sits down four tenths of 1%. So there's just a little bit of a nervous feel to things. The U.S. inflation of 9.1%. It's an unusually high print, and it's well up from the previous 8.6%. It puts the fed on track to be more aggressive and we saw the bank of Canada move by 100 basis points to the upside and even Singapore's Central Bank unexpectedly tightened monetary policy. I'm not exactly sure why there would be upward pressure on the currency. The monetary authority of Singapore uses FX as the policy tool, and it signals it re centers the midpoint, which would allow because the band allows the appreciation against peers for the currency. I don't know why there would be upward pressure, but anyway, it's the way that they handle it. And yet as it's reflected in markets, as you mentioned, really not too much, I guess these people are getting used to these central banks being on the case. Maybe they're seeing that the economies are not so woefully impacted by it. And as well in Asia, you don't have as much of an inflation problem as you do in the west. Certainly Europe and the United States worse than most places. Even worse than India, which is one of the countries that does have a problem in Asia, but you don't see so much of that in Japan and China, those are the two biggest economies out here. So put it all together and you've got sort of a, I don't know, a day in the life. Australia's June employment rose 88,422 month on month. It's a pretty good number better than the estimate of 30,000 unemployment at 3.5%. And briefly, this one. And this is interesting. The Hong Kong health code that is being planned here may not be mandatory according to local papers. The China style system is likely to apply only to people who test positive on COVID and those incoming travelers rather than the entire population. The China style system would track you everywhere you go and so some people not so comfortable with that. 35 minutes past the hour, Paul, let's get back to you. All right, thanks very much, Brian. It is now, yeah, as you say, 25 minutes, the top of the hour, we will get a check of global news. And as we have been talking about inflation running over 9% year to year, U.S.
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Let me introduce you to a brand new thing hey folks, I'm Kevin Correa and this is your E sport to minute. ESL pro league season 15 kicked off their first matches of the split earlier today, as we saw group a complete their first three matches. Of course, no Russian CS go organizations in the mix meaning no verdis pro, but we'll have to wait on news for gambits as their players are unknown as to what they'll do in the EPL. However, VP players are competing in Group B next week as team outsiders. But today, group a saw G two beating looking for an org and tropic handling mouths and fanatic getting tossed for a loss against ninjas in pajamas ESL announced that specially for this offline event that zawe monitors would be used as they are the official monitor partner for the league. And as such, all players are on their 240 hertz two K monitors during the competition. They join other EPL sponsors like Intel DHL and Monster Energy. There's $823,000 in the prize pool for EPL 15 top spot winning 175,000 and a spot in the blast world final later this year. If you're looking to help out with the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, we'll Riot Games presents just the opportunity to do so. By purchasing anything through the battle passes on League of Legends, Valorant team fight tactics, rune tarot and wild rift for the next three days, all proceeds will go directly towards those efforts in Eastern Europe and rides already raised more than $2 million in this endeavor with an additional $1 million to come from right themselves. The proceeds will be split across reputable charities like the international medical corps, Doctors Without Borders and the Polish Red Cross who are dealing with injuries and illness directly at the Ukrainian border..
Greg Bedard Patriots Podcast with Nick Cattles
"riot games" Discussed on Greg Bedard Patriots Podcast with Nick Cattles
"Greg had a very nice set of picks last week when we did this segment last Thursday. So we'll see if you can keep it keep it going and go into the divisional round. But keep it going baby. Here we go. Yeah, and it's going to get tougher, right? Because the games for sure are really, really good. And you look at the games this weekend, just quickly. You look at the games this week and you're like, wow, it did make sense why it was easy to pick some of those games last weekend because this wild card round is kind of gross. But anyway, we'll get to that. So the gist of your column Greg is kind of what we talked about on Tuesday, we're still trying to wonder and figure out what does Bill Belichick do with his coaching staff. Now, some of this, of course, is out of his control because certain fellas on his staff are going to make decisions for their futures and Bill will go through with that process as we know. But when guys get offered jobs and certain certain guys depart, how is he going to make that adjustment and bring new guys in? So what is your latest developing take on Bill Belichick's surrounding cast? Yeah, and we sort of did talk about it last time, but I mean, I think it has to start with the defensive side of the ball. And like you said, it might be out of his hands. Could draw Mayo get the Houston Texans job or something like that? Yes. And but still, I don't think it changes the fact that Bill needs to look at his defensive staff. Figure out what happened down the stretch and from what I've been told there was a disconnect between the players and the coaches, figure out what exactly that was. Ask a lot of tough questions to help people to be honest with you. And then figure out the best way to move forward from there. I mean, we even heard as the week went on Scott Zola is talking on zolak and Bertrand on 98 5 about how he was hearing that between Belichick, Steve Belichick, Bill belch Steve bell check and Gerard Mayo that these guys were all leading different meetings each day. Now, that in itself to let people know is not all that.
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Let me introduce you to a brand new day hey folks I'm Kevin Correa and this is your E sports minute. Nvidia announced some big moves in regards to their GPUs as they revealed a more budget friendly option and an absolutely monstrous expensive performer from the low end of the RTX 30 50 will hit store shelves later this month at a reasonable $250 while on the other end of the spectrum, the Arctic 30 90 TI boasts a 10% increase in performance over the 30 90 at least according to Nvidia, no solid info as to the drop dates and costs, but considering the 30 90 has an MSRP of 1500, it would be a good guess to expect this TI version to be just north of that. The winter break allowed many people like students and business professionals a much needed reprieve to relax and of course game away the holidays and game away they did a steam saw record numbers for one day this past Sunday would almost 28 million concurrent users were accessing steam to play games, a steam record. Interestingly, the games that saw the most play time, older titles, like dota two, GTA 5, team fortress two. All games that are almost a decade old at this point. Lastly, Riot Games is dropping a new agent and a new champion in Valorant and League of Legends respectively. Neon is a speed focused filipina agent likely to be either a dualist or initiator in Valorant and she will probably be one of the fastest agents upon her release. In League of Legends, meanwhile developers are cashing in on the opportunity to explore zon and pill to over more with a new AD Carey known as airy, who is somehow related to echo in some way as they both hail from zan. No release dates specified for either, but we currently have a write up on neon by Rohan samal on eSports network dot com. If I were a betting man, I'd say we'd see zaria at some point in arcane season two. I'm Kevin.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"riot games" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"From Bloomberg radio You're listening to Bloomberg law Bloomberg radio I'm Joe shortly Former president Donald Trump says speakers at political rallies don't have a legally enforceable duty of care to adversaries as he seeks to dismiss a lawsuit filed by 8 capitol police officers who claim they were assaulted that day It comes at the same time Roger Stone is asking a judge to throw out a suit filed against him by officers who allege He's also liable for triggering the riot What's the latest amid ongoing legal battles related to January 6th to break that down I spoke with Bloomberg reporter Eric Larson who covers the U.S. courts Trump says he didn't owe duty of care to rivals on January 6th Tell us about this court filing and what it means Eric So this was a court filing in one of several lawsuits that has been filed against Trump and others related to the January 6th capital riot In this pursuit it was filed by 8 capital police officers back in August and filing with Donald Trump's motion to dismiss the suit So his lawyer put together about 57 page motion to this medicine it included among other things that Trump or the really speakers at any political rallies don't have a legally enforceable duty of care to their adversary or anyone else who might find themselves in the past of impassioned supporters is how they put it So that seemed to be one of the main arguments in the filing and saying he's not vicariously liable for the actions of people who heard him speak at that rally before the attack on the capitol And that's pretty much how we spelled it out in smiling Yeah they often talk about the bully pulpit And I guess the suggestion is the president has a right to take advantage of the bully pulpit Tell us about that defense Yeah that's right He was really just saying there that he had in his view is First Amendment right is right as a president to get up and say what he wanted to say about the election Obviously he continued Trump continues to claim that the election was stolen that there was a big conspiracy by corrupt Democrats that sort of thing So he's continuing to use that pulpit But obviously the plaintiffs in this case and many others would point out that if you're going to tell millions of your supporters that election was literally stolen through a conspiracy is that just using your bully pulpit or is that essentially encouraging people to violently try to protect democracy from it being stolen So it's a matter of interpretation It will be interesting to see how a judge might handle that if this case were to go to trial And what is the legal argument from these 8 capital police officers who claimed they assaulted that day Well these officers and there's another group of officers who filed another suit as well and also a suit filed by members of Congress who of course their lives were in danger that day during the assault on the capital So in all of these suits that Trump and others are named as defendants and their accused of other conspiring with each other or inciting the riot all playing some particular part in what happened Trump's role being that he was inciting the violence by claiming falsely that the election had literally been stolen through a conspiracy and some of these right wing and militia group types that are also named as defendants like the Proud Boys and the oath keepers Their role being to coordinate people on the ground allegedly to instigate the violence actually at the capital to invade the capital break windows that sort of thing And then you have folks like Roger Stone is another defendant in that pursuit He's a longtime GOP political operative He's accused of helping to arrange that rally beforehand And spreading misinformation about the election to prop up this what they call sort of the big lie that continues to be believed by so many people So these suits spell out sort of a broad conspiracy or allegations of different people playing different roles and obviously Trump had a starring role in all that Talking with Bloomberg's Eric Larsen he covers U.S. court cases for Bloomberg Eric you also have another story on the terminal Same topic about the Proud Boys free speech capital riot defense fails in court Tell us about that Yes So that was just earlier today This was in the criminal case that was brought by the Justice Department against four members of the Proud Boys right wing group They were local leaders of Proud Boys groups in Washington state and Florida North Carolina and Pennsylvania And so they had moved to dismiss the charges against them on various grounds including First Amendment ground And the judge today who by the way was a Trump appointed federal judge Timothy Kelly in Washington denied the motion to dismiss So the case is going to move forward And he just flat out rejected their First Amendment argument He said that they had been properly charged with actions that simply aren't protected by the constitution like trespassing destruction of property interference with law enforcement and all with the intention of obstructing Congress He specifically in his ruling rejected their argument that's what they had been accused of was no different than a sit in or a protest or a burning a flag all of which is protected by the First Amendment He said that's simply not the same thing The First Amendment right to free speech doesn't protect four leaders you write four leaders of the right wing Proud Boys group from criminal charges So what do they what do they possibly face here now that this is allowed to go forward Yes That's going to be interesting to see their face several counts each including instructing obstructing Congress trespassing in the U.S. capitol They face many years in prison if they were to be convicted on all of those accounts And of course this isn't a done deal This case is still going to continue to move forward They may have other opportunities to try to summon all of the targets depending on what kind of evidence comes out as the case is progress They could also bleach plea deals or something like that It remains to be seen But they could all go to trials separately or all together In cases like this where there are multiple defendants in a criminal case sometimes one will plead guilty and agree to testify against the other things like that So that hasn't happened yet in this case but it's certainly something that would remain possible after a motion to dismiss like this denied It does sort of give the upper hand to the Justice Department.
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Let me introduce you to a brand new day hey folks I'm Kevin Correa and this is your E sports minute. A global class action gender discrimination lawsuit against a major video game developer has been settled following almost four years of litigation and bureaucracy and proceedings. Riot Games has agreed to pay $100 million to all current and former full-time employees and contractors who identify as women who worked from November of 2014 until president day of that $100 million price tag 20% of it will be used mostly for attorneys and legal fees incurred by the lawsuit. The settlement still has to be approved in court, but as of now all sides seem happy with the conclusion. Riot Games since the lawsuit began had rolled out several newer initiatives aimed at minimizing the bro culture that brought forth the lawsuit in the first place and diversifying the company workplace by including more women. Things are still moving into place as this story develops. We'll keep you updated in the meantime. Yesterday we saw the announcements put up by TSM and content creator myth as the two will be splitting amicably. A big reason myths stated that he was leaving in his departure video was that the original family oriented TSM that attracted him in the first place was no longer present, with beer sin and TSM president Lena leaving the organization, mith is right to feel that way in addition to not being fully utilized by TSM. Three years later it seems myth is moving on looking to be more impactful and be placed in more uncomfortable situations with a new organization, which shouldn't be a problem as his following skills place him at the very top of the list of available content creators to sign. Lastly, if you are missing on any high demand items this Christmas, I'm afraid the bad news may only continue going into 2022. Supply chain issues continue to affect the manufacturing of Nintendo switches as confirmed by Nintendo president shuntaro fuku rara Xbox and PlayStation models have been in scarce supplies since Black Friday, and those supply strains will likely not be fixed by the next calendar year. On top of that various other items have also experienced their own supply and manufacturing constraints like phones, cars, and of course, new graphics cards. I myself was not able to find a new 37 year 30 80 at MSRP and you likely won't be able to either. But best of luck to you for those who are hunting for a bargain at the right price. I'm Kevin.
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"When it came to media coverage of worlds this year. The statement goes on to say that Riot Games told them multiple media outlets that they would not be allowed in person at the event due to COVID restrictions. However, this past week it was noted that multiple outlets out of China were in fact allowed onsite for this year's iteration of worlds. The statement calls outright games for its lack of communication, its controversial decision to not credential media from other regions outside the LPL into Iceland, as well as rise decision to continually deprioritize endemic media. The move is somewhat troubling as possibly the biggest eSports event of the year will have nobody to cover it outside of certain Chinese outlets, bringing forth a problem of fair and equitable access to the events by certain media outlets. Riot Games or its representatives have not issued a response to the joint statement. Some CS go news as Chinese eSports organization, fun plus Phoenix announced their plans to shut down their csgo department. They entered CS go earlier this year with their acquisition of team godsend, but now all members of the team are able to explore other options within the CS go scene. The team was on a recent downturn with their failure to qualify for the PG L Stockholm major as well as the recent firings of their GM and head coach. FBX noted additional issues and limitations during the remote management and felt that something had to change. The lastly a major eSports organization has joined the Valorant scene as croaky sports and entertainment have hopped on board the Valorant train with the move they've rebranded their eSports division to the guard and umbrella that will envelop not just this new Valorant team, but also the LA guerrillas of the CDL and the LA gladiators of the Overwatch league. The guard have already signed three players to their roster although they're a little lacking when it comes to major fragrance on the team possibly expect them to start off as a middling team with some big room to improve. I'm Kevin Correa, that's my time.
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Hey folks, I'm Kevin Correa and this is your E sports minute. The grand final stage is set for the League of Legends 2021 edition of worlds. The semifinals were everything fans could ask for two sets of game 5s that resulted in the number one seeded Korean team and the number one seeded Chinese team winning their series to face off against each other. The new guard in damn one gaming proved their dominance over the Korean Peninsula thanks to their victory or faker in T one, while Edward gaming came back from a two one deficit versus jenji and looked to shine in their first ever world's final. The best teams from the best regions will face off this coming Saturday morning. Who's winning it all. But meanwhile, Riot Games new animated series on Netflix will also be available to stream on Twitch, at least the first episode making it the first to do so out of any Netflix series. The series titled arcane will debut on Twitch before being accessible on Netflix and any content creator or in Florence or even a fan can coast stream the episode as this will be a global premiere event for an animated series unlike any we've seen before. If fans decide to catch the premiere on a stream with drops enabled, they'll receive a ton of rewards from the arcane series directly into their in game loot. All of this to coincide the day of world's grand final that we mentioned earlier. So this Saturday November 6th will be an exceptionally busy one for riot game studios. Lastly, after various delays thanks to COVID and later thanks to power outages, the final North American team to be sent to valent champions in Berlin has been decided. The last chance qualifier saw cloud 9 blue on a revenge spree after they were knocked out by rise in the upper bracket semifinals, C 9 promptly ran it back defeating Gen Z and hundred thieves for a chance at vengeance against rise in the grand final. And for C 9, it was sweep, sweep victory as they defeat rise, three games to none, C 9 taking home $40,000 in prize money, also that coveted spot to champions. Now our focus will shift approximately one month from today into Germany for the beginning stages of valent champions will begin. I'm Kevin Correa. That's my time and that has been your E sports minute follows on Twitter, Addy sports networking debt create 24 and to be sure to visit east Sports Network dot com for more stories written by our great staff, as well as connect with us on our Discord channel. We'll up to you tomorrow on Tuesday. Brand new thing..
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Hey folks, I'm Kevin Correa and this is your E sports minute. ESL just made some big moves to continue to cement themselves as one of the premier tournaments in Europe as they've announced earlier today that they have officially partnered with three more CS go teams. Heroic big and furia increase the size of the pro league field from 12 to 15 in a huge $20 million partnership deal. Ever since hundred thieves dropped their CS go team last year, ESL has been looking at some way to replace them and today marks one year that they make good on that promise. ESL co CEO Ralph ray card lauded the move stayed into this helps prove that they can create a sustainable economical and competitive csgo environment as well as strengthening the ESL pro league's appeal by increasing exposure to competitive CS go. Yesterday we saw Navi join in on the rlcs fun when they signed a team fade away and today we see that another E sports organization has done the same. Rocket league does, in fact, have room for one more as misfits gaming signed your team monkey formerly under the galaxy racer roster. Literally one day away from the first RCS European event of the season, this roster will already be tested under a new banner, but thanks to this squad's recent performance, they trade in the MSP monkey logo for the classic misfits rabbit. Lastly, Riot Games announced a new tradition for worlds moving forward as they announced a partnership with Mercedes Benz to produce several 18 karat white gold and sapphire custom fitted championship rings for the grand finals winning squad. The rings were elaboration between the two companies, designers and as such, the rings take direct inspiration from Mercedes Benz and League of Legends. The rings will be presented alongside the top prize at the trophy presentation ceremony and will contain each player's summoner name, team trico and of course the year of their championship. I'm Kevin coria, that's my time and that has been your E sports minute follow us on Twitter at E Sports Network and that creates 24 and be sure to visit E Sports Network dot com for more stories written by our great staff, as well as connect with us artist score channel. We'll update you tomorrow on Friday. Brand new thing..
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Hey folks, I'm Kevin Correa and this is your E sports minute. The CT Berlin continuing in more teams being eliminated as it does, we saw crew eliminate keyed stars out of Group B leaving crew and envy as the top two teams to advance their supermassive blaze eliminated paper Rex and group a, they'll face ascend to more to decide who advances. And a juggernaut rematch in group DSF four Q officially eliminated and G two avenges their previous loss to sentinel's handing them their first ever international loss in Valorant. On paper a two O sleep, but that game two was really much closer with a 1311 final score. Gambit and crazy raccoons playing group sees decider match tomorrow F four Q and sentinels will play what amounts to an exhibition match tomorrow as well. Jacob wolf of doddy's for supports that mad lions have accused G to eSports of tampering in the lec this year. Mad lines push forward a vote asking the LAC and Riot Games eSport division to take a closer look at their tampering and poaching rules had a recent owner's meeting. In an ate two majority vote nearly all these teams agree to saved for G two themselves and vitality who noted that the current rules needed to be properly enforced before any changes could be made. A riot spokesperson stated that no official complaint has been filed in their LAC offices, and there is no current investigation into the matter. This is G two's third instance of being accused of tampering with players the first was with origin in 2016 to acquire span and Missy and the second accusation in 2018 alleging several group chat messages were sent by midlander perks to several other players. Both were apparently unfounded with no complaints filed, according to statements released by the lec. Lastly some down news from the battlefield development team as they announced that they've made the difficult decision to delay battlefield 2040 twos release until November. Previously the drop date was slated for October 22nd, but now EA confirms it will be a November 19th date instead. The reasoning given for the delay is due to the development team still working from home and conditions not allow the game to be properly optimized on time. Still, the open beta and further announcements are to come later this month. I'm Kevin corres at my time and that has been your eSports minute. Follow us on Twitter at eSports network and at create 24 and be sure to visit E Sports Network dot com for more stories written by our great staff, as well as connect with on our Discord channel. We'll update again tomorrow on Thursday. Brand new thing..
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Hey folks, I'm Kevin Correia in. This is your Esports minute. The wild tour. Ride Games, first tournament for their mobile game. While the rift has been announced to be an in-person event. Riot games made the announcement earlier today with the wild Tour Tournament to take place in their South Paulo. Stood not starting on October 8th but trouble on the horizon as Brazil is still undergoing. The virus along with various health and safety protocols with various League of Legends, players in the region, testing positive for covid-19 and postponements are games within the Brazilian League of Legends scene. So we'll see if that in person. Part of the event remains in place by the time wild tour is set to begin, speaking of Brazil and Wildlife TSM. Ft x has announced the official signing of their first Brazilian wild wrist Squad ahead of incoming competitions, 13 and new members join the squad ranging from competitive players to contact phone number. Who play Wild Rift, those competitions, by the way, set to begin tomorrow. As the season starts circuit with a $10,000 prize, pool is set to begin with TSM ft x, as part of that package Invitational. Lastly, ninjas in Pyjamas has done it again as they signed yet, another large partnership deal this year with peripheral Hardware provider, razor, the deal is multi-year with no set amount disclosed, but razor will provide gear to nip along with customizing that gear. Using, of course, nip branding, the six Invitational, Champs earlier. This year also signed a deal with Samsung for how fans for the company. So at another big Tech name to nips, resume. I'm Kevin Correia, that's my time, and that has been.
League Rundown: A league of Legends Esports Podcast
Riot Games Announces Host Cities for 2021 LoL World Championships
"We know now that there will be a multi city tour for world's twenty twenty one. It was announced. We've got shanghai qingdao wuhan chengdu and shenzhen will all be hosting shanzen specifically for the finals itself. Maybe the semi finals. But i think it's just the finals shang do for the semi's pretty awesome That we're gonna be getting once again giant venues it's going to be in china Like we already knew there. They've got mostly the handle on the coronavirus. As it exists now fingers crossed. It stays that way. It seems just you know. Vaccine distribution is hitting a peak in a lot of different countries. Not quite game. They're in a lot of other ones. But china and the population centers themselves seem to be a pretty good spot so far
Esports Minute
Massive Update in VALORANT Patch 3.0
"Topic of the day off, or the post Majors hangover is the latest valorem patch. And boy, is it a doozy? Almost every single agent in weapon has been updated in some way, shape, or form with a buff Nerf or reward is being implemented. Riot games is also adding an account leveling allowing players to show experience that having to grind to the ranking system. Eight hours a day, four days a week, not to mention a free battle pass for the season. There's plenty of changes to go through, but our own just in a min helped break it down and eat. Sportsnetwork.com
Esports Minute
TSM Can't Use FTX In Name
"This month. TSM team Solomid signed a naming-rights deal with cryptocurrency exchange ft x worth 210 million dollars over ten years to be known as TSM. Ft x. That branding however is under siege as Esports leagues around the industry are blocking or will be blocking the FTX portion of tsm's, new name siding that it breaks part of their sponsorship and partnership rules for their leagues. Riot games, notably page has blocked the FTX in League of Legends and Valor and titles but now Rainbow Six Siege mid broadcast after a pause there, player tags switched from TSM, FTX to Simply TSM Ubisoft home, the sole discretion for what sponsorships are allowed and currently it's not clear. Whether ft x will be allowed to be used in the TSM name for CDs games for a 210 million dollar deal. It's not really paying off. Dancing games like ft x had hoped for
Talking Tech
Ready for a Summer Games Fest?
"So mike you remember when we used to go to the electronic entertainment expo and see a bunch of new video games. Yeah seems like another lifetime ago. It's been nearly two years since last time i was. I was in los angeles for the annual e. Three industry convention obviously last year. It was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic and to fill in the void. Our pal jeff keely created this summer fest which was a series of online streamed events including a preview of playstation five and a bunch of games. And now if you're into games you've probably heard jeff who began covering the industry as a teenager and then in later years began producing the game awards in two thousand fourteen which many of equated to the academy award for video games. Well this summer. He's going to produce the summer games fest again and kicks off june tenth so far participants include Playstation xbox activision to k amazon games electronic arts epic games riot games tencent games and newbie soft. And there's more but that's that's that's gives you an idea it's going to be really well supported and then there's a new. A new independent games will be highlighted in something called days of the davos. Which is a showcase produced by eight bit and double fine productions which is one of our favourite game developers and they've made some super games including full-throttle second thoughts and grim fandango. I'm not sure if you're a fan or not but rock band. Weezer live on this june tenth broadcast. And you can watch on all the major streaming platforms including twitch twitter youtube. We have all the links in my story on tech usa. Today dot com they'll be more musical performances and special guest announced in the coming weeks jeff said and in the announcement came out. But what's really going to be. Interesting is if when and how the summer games i might conflict and come right up against e. three which is back this year but we'll be all online and streamed.
The Business of Esports
Is Riot Games Spying?
"Week. Right games told users. They were updating their privacy policy. Giving the company permission to record valent voice communications. This comes as part of an effort to moderate moderate toxic behavior in the gaming community. This is a headline that should scare gamers while riot claims they are recording voice. Communications to weed out toxic players. It's far more likely. They are doing this to collect data that they can later use or sell given riots chinese ownership. This is doubly worrisome as policing what can be done with the data. Is that much more difficult. I hope that games do not follow suit tempting as it may be but right is unfortunately setting a bad precedent here
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Literally hey folks, happy Cinco de Mayo and I'm Kevin Correia with your Esports minute as you heard on yesterday the Sports Package hex reportedly planning on. Holy owning optic gaming and divesting from NRG. All the news comes out today that United former rival to optic, have proposed a merger with them in documents obtained. By text are two of them is sold as an attempt to help optigro and a unique investment opportunity. Other drives within the documents includes a plan for United to assemble a squad and take on the Halo Esports scene. According to sources, the plant is down likely to move forward as a state of optic gaming under NRG is still under question. However, United did plan to take over office operations to better support, hex and optic. This pitch from United is the latest news from the orc to buy in and get sold or merged with a bigger organization as they failed to buy OverWatch League, team, Houston Outlaws, and a plan for them to go public was terminated following a failed merger with an investment group home. Of unknowns coming down for optic and hacks but we'll keep you updated as best. We can Riot games. Officially announced its League of Legends wild ripped Global tournament, Esports tournaments for wild. Rich, will take place this summer wage in those. A game itself is still in an open Beta development stage in their announcement. Right reiterates. Its belief that mobile Esports will help transform the future of East works and has committed to a global wild ripped e. Sports events in the fourth quarter of every year, the developers plan to release a regional Competition schedule, this upcoming summer. The news comes on the heels of the SE, a icon series preseason event, which featured wild ripped out from across all of South and Southeast Asia, speaking of mobile gaming and Riot games. A reported League says that developers moving forward with plans to make vallerand mobile with the announcement to come. As soon as III $21 would join a pubg, Cod Apex as the latest PC to mobile ports. In the past few years, the move has been suspected as data miners. Found mobile controls a.m. Our files just last year, no launch date yet, but expect the South and Southeast Asian market of mobile gaming, to be tough competition for the foreseeable future. I'm Kevin Correia. That's my time. And thoughts been your.
Esports Minute
eUnited Pitches Merger with OpTic
"Reportedly planning on. Holy owning optic gaming and divesting from NRG. All the news comes out today that United former rival to optic, have proposed a merger with them in documents obtained. By text are two of them is sold as an attempt to help optigro and a unique investment opportunity. Other drives within the documents includes a plan for United to assemble a squad and take on the Halo Esports scene. According to sources, the plant is down likely to move forward as a state of optic gaming under NRG is still under question. However, United did plan to take over office operations to better support, hex and optic. This pitch from United is the latest news from the orc to buy in and get sold or merged with a bigger organization as they failed to buy OverWatch League, team, Houston Outlaws, and a plan for them to go public was terminated following a failed merger with an investment group home. Of unknowns coming down for optic and hacks but we'll keep you updated as best. We can
The Center Ring esports podcast
Riot Games Will Monitor Voice Chat in Valorant for Toxicity
"Riot has announced that they will now be recording and monitoring voice comes in order to combat toxic behavior. So this has been rumored. I think for a little bit now Going on in certain games maybe not exactly with riot but just in general with games and everything. It's i've always had the saying. Look if you're gonna talk shit. Satan voice check. They can't report you for it. That's kind of my mild saying well. Now i can't go with that rule of thumb anymore. I guess because they now can report you for it. I'm surprised it's taken this long for this technology to get implemented somewhere. Can you imagine if this was in pub- g before you eject out of the plane you would have over fifty people band before you even like left the plane in that type of game right with all the ship that was talked in the pre lobby chad for those games are awesome for riot to to do this. I think it's great like i'm not a toxic individual so for me. This is not like a worrisome thing. Right and then there's a difference between like getting mad kind of toxic and then caught sexual harassment. Type stuff being racist. Like that's the stuff that i i'd hate like i have to sit there in people. Report them knowing. Nothing's probably going to happen because it happened of voice shot. They didn't say any of it. type any of Nothing's going to happen. Most likely but i think this is great and i would love it even more if you had to attach a personal. Id to your account you know so. This stuff was tied to us individual. I think they do that. In china which is not going to be popular for me to say For american listeners. But like i. I would be very much. Okay like you know. You have to have a photo. Id or something attached to your account
Esports Minute
Why Did Cloud9 Just Pull Out of CS:GO?
"Heartbreaking news out of the Counter-Strike seen a cloud 9 announced that they would be pausing their involvement with csgo as well as disbanding their current team noting the difficulties in remote training for the team as well as the inability to physically assemble as a group for Thursday at training all the reports indicate that after the team's failure to qualify for the EPL season, 13 playoffs. The organization was more inclined to quote unquote stopped their csgo project Counter-Strike new site Rush of minutes to get an exclusive interview with Cloud 9 founder and CEO Jack Etienne where he stated that Global events of drag on longer than the US based organisation expected and was causing undue stress is a difficult is in providing boot camps housing and mental health for the players. Although the writing was on the wall. The news still comes as a shock for an organization. That was really a few years removed from winning half a million dollars at the Boston game. Etsy and emphasize that this would only be a temporary pause or the organization but that the iteration of the next scene would unfortunately had to look very different from the current glasses in their official announcement Cloud me confirms. They remain passionate about competing in csgo, but that they can't return to compete until conditions allow us to work and train the ways we know help teams be successful. Of course what happens to the players correct on the roster will be unknown. Although rumors abound they tweets from the players may head towards a jump to another team or a jump to a competing seen in Valor n't Riot games announcing a new champagne today while also continuing to disable another through Pro play the champion and known as Gwen was T's on a trailer on their website earlier today, but one of their Champions remains literally unplayable for five patches now and will soon be unplayable for a sixth-straight patch the head of the EU LCS Maximilian peterschmidt confirmed at VA go a champion released three months ago will continue to be disabled through the League of Legends midseason Invitational wage. Too persistent bug issues. MSI is set to begin on May 6th. Lumbago was released mid-January.
Esports Minute
Riot Games Loses Alienware as LoL Partner, Denies Allegations Towards CEO
"So we need to talk about Ride game CEO and the allegations against him on the dreams and the sports minute from E Sports Network have to say my last two weeks in the show. Certainly haven't been overly wage doesn't and today is no different. Here's the background on January 7th. Former Ride Games employees Sharon O'donnell filed a lawsuit against her former boss right game CEO Nicola rent in that lawsuit O'Donnell alleged that Lorenz had created a hostile work environment and had fired her after she denied his sexual advances among other issues that lawsuit is still ongoing but this week sought a big piece of news around it. The first was Alienware a major partner of the Legends Esports cutting its deal with Riot games short. According to Jacob Wolfe now at. E sports that deal was set to continue through January 8th 2022, but Alienware wanted to terminated ten months early wolf also has reported that ride games image impacted by allegations like the ones with the rent as well as the ongoing discrimination lawsuit home. And the neon controversy of the last summer played an important part in Alien, we're leaving the deal early right games is still in that lawsuit with many former female employees around sex discrimination in the workplace is an issue that came to light with the Kotaku article from 2018 Ride Games is currently focusing legal efforts in that case on pushing the lawsuit to arbitration the neon controversy centered around right about accepting a sponsorship from a new city in Saudi Arabia at faced immediate backlash from fans casters and parts of the community do to Saudi Arabia's poor record on human rights in a variety of different areas. But the most topical impact on Ride Games image is those allegations towards threat yesterday right games announced that the right games board found no wrongdoing by the rent and recommended no sanctions following a third-party investigation the recommendation of no sanctions came from three people doing the investigating of a law firm to review of the allegations that law firm was hired by Riot but it was not the same Law Firm that is representing them in the case against O'Donnell the three people reviewing the law firms report were young May Moon a Harvard Business School professor and part of riots board as well as two unnamed male c-level Executives at 10 sent the Chinese company that owns Riot for his part. Loretta has denied the allegations in a company-wide email while O'Donnell's lawyers have pledged to follow this up in court.
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Valerine is actually doing a lan for the first time and I personally am stoked that that's the thing again. Imma dreams and this is the Esports minute from E Sports Network launching in Eastport during a pandemic is difficult thing to do Valor has done a pretty good job getting up and running without business as usual to rely on but today where I walk ins and outs of these Sports first land over a year since the game came out in beta in late May for VCT stage two masters. The top teams will be traveling directly vik Iceland to compete with that's still a long ways away, but it's really cool that we can actually have lands booked into the schedule again, even if fans still won't be able to attend this event the only major land to go down during the pandemic was Riot games pulling off League of Legends World in a bubble like environment at the height of the outbreak as cases shoot back down to earth and more people are vaccinated events are slowly going to pick back up cautiously optimistic is how I said, At this rate, it seems like fans will be in stands by early summer at least At A reduced capacity for I'd games they put all their chips in on Iceland this year. In addition to the stage two masters Iceland be the host of MSI running from early May up until a few days before VCT. I mean if you're going to hold multiple events in one country during a pandemic Iceland probably makes a pretty good choice. The back-to-back of MSI and then the stage two masters is kind of reminiscent of the old Festival like feeling of ESL and dreamhack events and honestly should be a ton of fun. It's a Fortune, of course, the fans won't be able to attend and receive that long but for the players will have a great time for people who aren't totally up-to-date on Valor and Esports. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here considering the first stage one Masters event still hasn't even happened that event is taking up in mid-march and it's also really noteworthy as it's going to show the first time since first strike that the overall appetite for top Valerie T sports events. I'm really curious what the viewership is going to be like on that one because it'll really highlight the fan favorite teams and how much will foothold Valerie has been able to take on and its first year certainly isn't make or break. It's the very first year of the Eastport but comparing that viewership to see us go off OverWatch and Call of Duty viewership benchmarks should make for an interesting thought experiment once it happens. That's always episode of the Esports minute over on the east Sports Network podcast. I talk about beer and video games with New Belgium Brewing Community manager Patrick Morgan. I'd give a bigger pitch than that, but it's beer and gaming what's not to like as always I'll be back tomorrow the top Esports during the day and just a few minutes..
Esports Minute
Riot Games VALORANT / MSI Plans Show an Esports World Leaving LAN-Hibernation
"In Eastport during a pandemic is difficult thing to do Valor has done a pretty good job getting up and running without business as usual to rely on but today where I walk ins and outs of these Sports first land over a year since the game came out in beta in late May for VCT stage two masters. The top teams will be traveling directly vik Iceland to compete with that's still a long ways away, but it's really cool that we can actually have lands booked into the schedule again, even if fans still won't be able to attend this event the only major land to go down during the pandemic was Riot games pulling off League of Legends World in a bubble like environment at the height of the outbreak as cases shoot back down to earth and more people are vaccinated events are slowly going to pick back up cautiously optimistic is how I said, At this rate, it seems like fans will be in stands by early summer at least At A reduced capacity for I'd games they put all their chips in on Iceland this year. In addition to the stage two masters Iceland be the host of MSI running from early May up until a few days before VCT. I mean if you're going to hold multiple events in one country during a pandemic Iceland probably makes a pretty good choice. The back-to-back of MSI and then the stage two masters is kind of reminiscent of the old Festival like feeling of ESL and dreamhack events and honestly should be a ton of fun. It's a Fortune, of course, the fans won't be able to attend and receive that long but for the players will have a great time for people who aren't totally up-to-date on Valor and Esports. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here considering the first stage one Masters event still hasn't even happened that event is taking up in mid-march and it's also really noteworthy as it's going to show the first time since first strike that the overall appetite for top Valerie T sports events. I'm really curious what the viewership is going to be like on that one because it'll really highlight the fan favorite teams and how much will foothold Valerie has been able to take on and its first year certainly isn't make or break. It's the very first year of the Eastport but comparing that viewership to see us go off OverWatch and Call of Duty viewership benchmarks should make for an interesting thought experiment once it happens.
Esports Network Podcast
Anzu's Plan to Evolve In-Game Advertising with CEO Itamar Benedy
"Any of these Sports networks other properties on this episode of the E Sports Network podcast for bringing back a gasp from about a year ago wage a little more bonetti. He's the co-founder and CEO of on zoo in a more. Welcome back to the Shelf. Hey meets great to be here tomorrow is on the show back in February of 2020 where we discussed the growth of in-game advertising age people who miss that show or too many of our new listeners since then on to his a platform that makes it easier for braids to get into video game worlds and for developers to open up more potential White spaces in their games for Grants Pass. I'll do is work with Publishers like Ubisoft at lide Castle to deliver Brayden moments for major. It's like Samsung Pepsi American Eagle and many more Esports. We've seen it gave ads take Auto larger role especially patiently League of Legends open up space in summoner's Rift and it was filled by MasterCard an Alienware among other partners and just this morning as a record this on Wednesday, February 10th, 2021 rocket League announced that Ford is going to take over there it gave Billboards for the upcoming which are major on zoo also had a big adults with this what the platform recently raised nine million dollars in additional capital in around Kool-Aid buyback Fetchers and hbse Ventures. There is participation by plenty more investors, of course, including Mark Merrill, one of the two founders of Riot games, this follows two other funny raises of three and five million. So in Mark Gratz of the race, first of all, what are the plans for this capital? Yeah, thank you Mitch. So as you said we raised 9 million dollars beatcraft is one of our previous investors are still leading gaming Esports v c. B c is a new VC which comes from the sport world and a lot of touchpoints around gaming and then other investors are wpp the biggest advertising group in the world, which is also like in the existing investor and Sony Innovation fund, you know, Sony is one of the biggest gaming groups in the world and the owner of PlayStation. So that's a privilege to have them on board Mark Romero the founder and chairman of road games on League of Legends. As you mentioned didn't call ins the founder and CEO of super awesome that recently got acquired by epic games and the Chicago Cubs. Yeah, the baseball team go Ventures and gainesville's and illumine Adventures. So a very crowded and exciting structure of invest investors to have on board. I'm a Cardinals fan so we'll let the dog So invested things slide, I guess but grats on all the different people who came together you mentioned before we started recording you were in the position that every founder kind of hopes. They find themselves in which is we have a few people. We have a different options for Capital so we can pick the people that make the most strategic sense for us going forward. What did you find from the mobile the different investors? What were you looking for? Especially as guiding parts of the company to push it Forward? Sure. So I mean, you know what this round was not about it was not about as fast as we could have fine as it like very very fast as what it was about bringing the best structure. Number one number two, it was about, you know to maximize shareholder value. We could raise almost double the amount but we didn't want to make sense. This is the amount of cash we need for next stage Rose and then in the future if it's a year from now or two years from now we can do another round off. For that makes sense. So we were not looking at at you know, these things it was more about we have a lot of confidence in him. Advertising is going to become a major business model for game divorce across all platforms, through PC Mobile and an important ads category four Brands media agencies and the ESPYs and and the question is how fast can that happen or more sneaking about big Brands big Publishers not easy companies to convince them to do something new. So when we meet partners that can help us to make this happen faster than wages. Are we get excited one form to partner is again investment one is a strategic partnership and they can elaborate more of some of the Partnerships we have in place and some of them is people who join our team. So that was what was guiding us and looking at the different, you know buckets of we are investors came from there is some you know, some like VCS and financial institutions. There is advertising and groups. There is game. Groups and there is a sports organizations that have a lot of touch point in going to become an important overlap in my opinion the next two years. And of course there is like with the values that we want to group represents and communicate us companies gauges as the leading investor for equal opportunity and Which choice for us an important to him and announcement to basically said if the world that was how we were looking at it that's a great place to be at
Esports Minute
Riot Games CEO Faces Lawsuit Alleging Sexual Harassment, Misconduct
"Games CEO has been accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by a former employee and they're investigating internally. I'm at dreams and this is the Esports minute from you Sports Network racking said money issues with gender discrimination in the workplace starting with a 2018 article published by Kotaku that detailed the culture of sexism it right games developer has basically been in court the entire time multiple lawsuits have been filed against the company and one lawsuit was settled out of court for ten million dollars and I think most people thought that was the end of it but after being examined by California state agencies found that the woman might be entitled to as much as four hundred million dollars. So the women pulled out of the ten million dollar settlement then they got new legal counsel. And now they're back in court. The ten million was not paid out and the case has not been settled that case is still ongoing with Ride Games trying to push more women into arbitration and prevent a jury trial but last month another case was opened up against the wage. Sharon O'donnell vs riot games, Nicolas Le rent or rent is the CEO of Riot Sharon O'donnell was a former executive assistant for the company who worked closely with the rent during her time O'Donnell accuses the rent of creating a hostile work environment with allegations of unwanted sexual advancements demeaning comments about O'Donnell's femininity and termination for not reciprocating his advancement Riot games naturally disputed that characterization of her termination. There are specific grievances in the filing. I cannot go over them all in this format, but they include the page as you know, Donald whether she could quote handle him when they were alone at his house and quote and there were also according to O'Donnell questions about her underwear according to the lawsuit when O'Donnell refused became angry started removing work responsibilities and eventually terminated her contract right game says that O'Donnell was terminated after over a dozen complaints from employees and external p.m. There's no ride games claim to be changing their culture for the better after that Kotaku article the rent even published a blog post titled the buck stopped with the CEO where he pledged to do better off clearly Riot games has not worked through all of their issues with this case and the other one that is still ongoing. We will update you more on this show as these cases progress.
Biz Talk Radio
"riot games" Discussed on Biz Talk Radio
"Decisions that you make in that span that if you can find a way to appeal to a very tightly knit group there, that's very compelling product When you think about the MBA or the NFL. In most cases, those guys those leagues are looking at 20% of their audiences in the 18 to 24 range. Ours is 80%. So when you think about a compelling value proposition to us to all of these companies that want to speak to This new generation of financial decision makers. They're all watching our game. They're all watching our product, and they're watching for hours at a time. They're incredibly engaged in the ecosystem. So you know whether it's the you know the core of the audience or how much time they're investing. There's just a ton of value to be found in the ecosystem. And you know you have such a loyalty, right. Like all these people playing these games are so loyal toe. League of Legends and riot. And so it makes sense. Yeah, you know, it kind of in a lot of ways to me makes sense to see why, like a football fan doesn't just become a baseball fan overnight. You spend so much time investing in learning a sport. And that that learning that you do pays off in the greater understanding and appreciation of what's happening. So you know, just because four night is the new thing are over, which is the new thing or street fighters. The new thing doesn't mean that all of these people who've spent years watching league of Legends are just gonna make the jump. So they go well, that mystery fighter fan because the new game came out. They might play that game for a little bit right. And that's actually okay with us right philosophy on Game design has always been We want lied to me the game that you come back to you, And so we survived these, You know Triple a launches over time. That's why the game has been as big as it has for 10 years before Minnie's more perspective, we feel like we have Ah, stronger kind of hold on a stronger engagement with that core audience and employees are actually paid to play. Other games were talking about before we Turn on the cameras. Tell me a little bit about that. And riots. Company culture. Yeah, you know. Everything The right does is trying to be player focused. You know, our company motto is literally we aspire to be the most player focus game company in the world. And so a lot of that has to do with creating gamer, empathy and understanding. You know, the decisions that gamers have to make. The experience is that they're having not only within league over them, the e sports but also outside and another game, so right actually does provide a stipend every year. For every full time employees to go out and spend on other games. And so you know whether it's subscriptions or, you know to your mm of choice, or, you know, buying the new game that comes on the market. There's just a nin vestment made and writers understanding what gaming looks like you over here because the industry changes so fast that you really have to kind of consciously invest to stay abreast of it, and so, especially for our game design team. Of our publishing teams understanding. You know the challenges players might be facing with different game releases or new products out there really helps him position, Legal legend's better market and for us on the East port side. It just helps us understand. What is the new game out there? What kind of the new trends in showcasing gaming competitions? Kind of what? What games out, there might be that that could kind of challenge for our same core viewership. So you know, it's just It's about education and really putting ourselves in the player shoes. Okay, well, don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. This is business rock stars. This is my amazing guest. Chris Harper, Head of E Sports North America for riot games. E went straight into the first bubble in Silicon Valley in 1995. When I graduated college triggered my interest in venture was this idea that I can work with a bunch of different entrepreneurs at a time and then have capital behind those ideas? And with a portfolio of fact, see a bunch of them rise and fail. Obviously, along the way on by the trials and tribulations of being an entrepreneur makes it really fun kind of balance of my interests. I'm spending a lot of time on Instagram right now. Not a not a publisher just to consumer Funniest, funniest meeting was way back in the day was actually the Italian porn in a box vendor. That was all you can all you could consume porn for? You know, 1999 with one black box that you plugged in here, I think.
Biz Talk Radio
"riot games" Discussed on Biz Talk Radio
"This is business rock stars. I'm pretty Lehman and my guest Today is Chris Hopper, Head of east towards North America at riot games, Chris, Thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me actually to be here. So what were you doing before riot games That led you to your career? I was working for Ah strategy consulting firm that worked with retail banks in New York on day. Actually, that's how I kind of met legal legends, in fact, was my manager who introduced me to the game. And I was actually playing with him and met one of his buddies kind of interning at riot and he's the guy that said, You know, eastwards is this team of their building? They don't really know what's going on. They need to problem solvers. You should check it out. It's kind of applying through him. So you know, sort of this weird If I'm manager hadn't introduced me, I probably wouldn't have left the company. But, you know, I guess Karmically later here I am and you know, glad of here. That's amazing. And it's so different from what you were doing very different challenges and you've been a part of the senior team at riot games. And League of Legends have seen tremendous growth. Can you tell us about how e sports has grown and specifically how it's grown? It riot? Sure s O. I came to riot back in 2012 and back then the sports was a very different entity that it was today. Back then it was a lot of independent tournament organizers. You see multi game events, you know, mlg disciples and things like that. On dry. It really took one of the first steps into developer driven sort of single game east boards on do you know, we created the domestic leagues in North America and Europe. Now we've actually spread to 13 regions globally. We're 13 different domestic leagues running. Andrea Lee. We just tried to be responsive to the players and every step. We tried to see what is it the players want and what is the product that we think would be best for those gamers and those viewers who want to participate in the sport. So you know, what we want to do is create a nice mix of domestic competition. They'll be aspirational for players all those regions but also culminating in incredibly competitive mastery. German events like a World championship, So it's been an evolution over time. And we certainly you know, made some mistakes and learn from them along the way, But I'd say At this point, we feel pretty pretty, possibly about the product we put out there. That's amazing. And as you're saying, you hold the championship every year, and the viewership is close to matching the Super Bowl. Um why are fans so excited by the teams and the game? Um, you know, this year was this. There was certainly a special year. I think the last several years have been dominated by teams from our Korean League. This year, There was no cream team even in the semifinal. So is the North American team there to European teams of the Chinese team, So there's more international representation this year, I think determined felt a little more up for grabs this year, so more people are kind of excited, feel as foretold of an outcome. Um, but overall, I think it's just the people have a passion for this game. You know, it's something where The mastery and you know the time you invest in it can be rewarded and watching these pros play and watching the time they've invested in their master Be rewarded is incredibly compelling. And you know for anybody who's who, you know, played football or play basketball as a kid and now watches the MBA and watches the NFL. It doesn't matter that you can't 1st 60 yard touchdown pass the fact that you can appreciate what goes into somebody who can 1st 60 our time. Some passes what makes that support so special and so in a lot of ways. Our game being so related ble and and so inclusive, I think makes the East board not much more compelling. And before we were kind of where you mentioned that there were some challenges along the way. What were some of those challenges faced? And how did you guys have overcome those? You know? What's interesting is that there's a lot of different parties in our ecosystem. Right When you think about basketball, there's only two parties. There's the MBA, which is comprised of the owners, and there's the players in our ecosystem. We have riot who owns legal legends. Where's no one really owned the concept of bashful No, no, Jackie a basketball. The teams are independent entities. The pros are independent cities, and then we also considered the viewers to kind of be 1/4 party that's invested in our ecosystem. And so when we're making decisions around leave format, we're choosing between best of three sources. Best of ones. We have to weigh the Pros desire for a more competitive syriza, which you know they want more games to be able to test our competitors and limit limit randomness with fan desire for something that's simpler and easier to consume. With the team desire where they want maximum exposure for their brands and their sponsors. And so it just becomes this really convoluted system of kind of pros and cons. Same decision we make, so we've we've you know, we went from being the one to be 03. We went back to best of one. We've tried putting more games on the counter, putting more games in a given day kind of playing with, you know, do we want to be on two streams of wants or one shame, And so it's just a lot of No testing kind of understanding what the preferences are of our viewership. But at the end of the day, trying to make sure that we're always making the best decision for the entire ecosystem, absolutely, and have some major company sponsoring league of Legends and E sports in general, Can you talk about that? And how that has grown? Sure. So you know, back in 12 2020 13. You really only saw the endemic brands coming in tow eastward. She saw large attack in alien wire and Plantronics, you know, like the literal computer accessories and computer makers that you need to play the game. What's exciting is that now brands are starting to see that our demographic and our audience is incredibly compelling. And they're incredibly engaged in the product that we make when you're thinking about the key demographic for a lot of big kind of brand decisions, you talk about basically 18 to 30 and electricity, even 18 to 24 for financial services cars provide you products like there's so many Decisions that you make in that span that if you can find a way to appeal to a very tightly knit group there, that's very compelling product When you think about the MBA or the NFL..
Esports Minute
PUMA Sponsors Honor of Kings' KPL to Join Nike as Major Athletic Apparel Brands with Esports League Contracts
"Know. I have a weird fixation on the Athletic Apparel Brands and the work they do in Esports and I absolutely blame growing up in Beaverton, Oregon the home of Nike but while I'm only kind of biased to the swoosh, I'll admit that. I'm a fan of all the brands in Esports and especially Puma because they're led by Matt Shaw who happens to be one of my favorite people in all of these Sports on Sunday Puma announced a new major sponsorship Puma sponsoring ten cents king of league. If you haven't heard of the kpl the kpl is the top level of honor of Kings Esports, and I know you don't live in China on Earth Kings is called Arena of Valor in the West End is basically League of Legends mobile version including being published by 10 said now Riot games is actually in the process of creating wild Rift and official mobile version 4 league, but it likely won't take off in China because on Earth Kings is already huge and domination. Market, and it really really dominates that market as of March 2019 the game and brought in four point five billion dollars according to sensor Tower. I'll do something quick extrapolating math here. I found individual month's Revenue numbers from 20 20, which average I think this actually might be a conservative estimate another two hundred million dollars per month in revenue for honor of Kings. So if we take to walk 1 million as an average and multiply it by the 22-month separating March 2019 and January 2021, we get an additional four point four billion dollars in Revenue that would bring honor of Kings total halt to a point nine billion dollars since launch in 2015. That's a lot of money a lot of money this week the developer TV studios. Also announced another $154,000 would be invested in honor of Kings Esports with about six million of that going to prize pools for Puma. It's a huge win. The only other Esports League represented by Athletic Apparel birth. Like I said at the top is Nike and they have the League of Legends Pro league in China. And while the LPL is almost certainly the most important individual League contract and all of Esports honor of Kings K p.m. Is honestly not that far behind. It's just almost purely popular in China what Nike got with the LPL was also that International exposure that comes with worlds. Primarily Puma also offer deals with Cloud Nine and Gingy. I predicted the race for Esports assets from Nike Puma and Adidas would pick up and twenty Twenty-One and with Adidas already partnering with G2 and now Puma grabbing the kpl only in January. The race is definitely picking up steam already.
Esports Minute
"riot games" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Is opportunities across digital media podcasting and video programs. Please reach out to e-sports our CEO marked in using the email address of the show The sooner we're going to sponsor the sooner. I don't have to lead every episode with that read. I know you all want that for Valor its first six months was a nice sport. The game has been led by E Sports organizations offering individual tournaments besides riots pretty successful First Strike series, the developer has been uncharacteristically hands off when it's come to valorous events. Well that's changing soon kind of off the 2021 Valor and champions tour was announced this morning. And even though it's the longest-running competition that ride games has ever announced for Valerie. Ain't it's going to be run in N A at least by nerd Street Gamers Club. Nerd street is a bit of a do-it-all Brandon Esports. The company has a media alarm. We're full disclosure. I've recently been publishing articles. They also have an abundance team and a network of facilities as well lately. They've been a major leader in N A Valerie the host of the first strike in a tournament in December and this month have also hosted two major tournaments won a partnership with complexity and the other the recently ran a winter championships, the new stage wanted the champions tour is much more expensive which is why we say that this is coming directly from Riot. This event will run from January 27th to mid-march the terminal be a mix of open and closed events culminating in a Master Series in March those open and closed qualifiers will take place over two weekends. The first Open qualifier will happen on January 27th. And then the the first closed qualifier will take place the weekend after that pattern repeats in mid February and again in late February into March the entire goal will be to reach these Masters Tournaments, which will take place on March 13th. March 14th, and then again on March nineteenth twentieth and twenty-first that Masters tournament will be the biggest stage Valerie Esports has seen so far in the games first year as an esport up until this point. It's been invitationals which have all been pretty big but nothing that's had the scope of this multi-month tournament that we're seeing here. That's all for episode of the Esports minute. It's Tuesday. So that means there's a new gamer are coming for y'all tonight. Be sure to check out this feed or the gamer our YouTube channel at 6 p.m. PT to see who Chris Buck is interviewing tonight. I'll give you a hint his NFL team was just recently eliminated from the playoffs wage..
Esports Minute
Riot Games Chooses Nerd Street Gamers to Run Valorant Champions Tour Stage One
"Is opportunities across digital media podcasting and video programs. Please reach out to e-sports our CEO marked in using the email address of the show The sooner we're going to sponsor the sooner. I don't have to lead every episode with that read. I know you all want that for Valor its first six months was a nice sport. The game has been led by E Sports organizations offering individual tournaments besides riots pretty successful First Strike series, the developer has been uncharacteristically hands off when it's come to valorous events. Well that's changing soon kind of off the 2021 Valor and champions tour was announced this morning. And even though it's the longest-running competition that ride games has ever announced for Valerie. Ain't it's going to be run in N A at least by nerd Street Gamers Club. Nerd street is a bit of a do-it-all Brandon Esports. The company has a media alarm. We're full disclosure. I've recently been publishing articles. They also have an abundance team and a network of facilities as well lately. They've been a major leader in N A Valerie the host of the first strike in a tournament in December and this month have also hosted two major tournaments won a partnership with complexity and the other the recently ran a winter championships, the new stage wanted the champions tour is much more expensive which is why we say that this is coming directly from Riot. This event will run from January 27th to mid-march the terminal be a mix of open and closed events culminating in a Master Series in March those open and closed qualifiers will take place over two weekends. The first Open qualifier will happen on January 27th. And then the the first closed qualifier will take place the weekend after that pattern repeats in mid February and again in late February into March the entire goal will be to reach these Masters Tournaments, which will take place on March 13th. March 14th, and then again on March nineteenth twentieth and twenty-first that Masters tournament will be the biggest stage Valerie Esports has seen so far in the games first year as an esport up until this point. It's been invitationals which have all been pretty big but nothing that's had the scope of this multi-month tournament that we're seeing here. That's all for episode of the Esports minute. It's Tuesday. So that means there's a new gamer are coming for y'all tonight. Be sure to check out this feed or the gamer our YouTube channel at 6 p.m. PT to see who Chris Buck is interviewing tonight. I'll give you a hint his NFL team was just recently eliminated from the playoffs wage.
Esports Network Podcast
Manny Anekal Breaks Down Why No One is Watching Venn
"We are going to be talking about vent and for people unfamiliar Fen is a new network started in part by Ariel horn. He's an experienced producer who is a leader in some of Riot games broadcasts including one that one of a sports Emmy for the 2017 League of Legends world's finals before that. He was a producer on Olympics broadcast for major networks like NBC, I believe where he also won some sports happens. So to say he's got who knows what he's doing. He left Riot to start vet and experimental new broadcast channel filled with original programming and it hasn't worked Manny recently published a newsletter titled why no one is watching a vet. And we're going to look at some of the reasons for the channels lack of success. And before we get into that conversation, I think it's important to say that we are traveling in this failure by any means so my friends and really good p.m. The industry are hosting shows over there, but the fact of the matter is your ship is not just bad. It's abysmal recording this on Tuesday December 15th, and you'll be hearing it on Friday riding. Guess not much has changed right now invents YouTube with fifteen thousand subscribers the video posted six hours ago has 42 views for two. That's it videos for the day before have eighty-eight and eighty-nine Views took me one events last 30 published videos from the last week and a half cracked 1,000 views in total. I pulled up twitch and they're alive with a rebroadcast. So it's not new life content. But only eighteen people are watching currently to be honest. My brother's friends get more being bad at Call of Duty. So so I guess that's the best place to start Manny. Can you summarize? Why does you think no one is watching found that you laid out in that newsletter. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean think there's you know many reasons for that. You know, I think I'd also like to start off with you know, how you did in terms of, you know, we're not obviously, you know, reveling in failure and wishing. You know bad things other people in the industry. We all want to see you know gaming and he Sports content, you know, not only survive but actually Thrive, you know, so it is unfortunate when something comes along, you know, great promise and and doesn't deliver and you know, as I had laid out in the article in in newsletter is I think there's a couple of different areas that you can look at into why the production of been hasn't really succeeded you mentioned, you know, some of when you look at you know, they're Wednesday live show which broadcasts on Twitch and different Ott platform. Well, you know, the viewership is absolutely low, you know, I've checked multiple times since I've even posted that article and sometimes I don't see more than you know, a hundred people watching. So how is that really possible in today's day and age and also during a time of covid-19 Americans really consuming more content than there ever done before so I think you can break it down into a few different ways off. First and foremost is competition, you know again going back, you know me a decade ago, you obviously had things like G for TV and things that were kind of new relatives space but you know fast forward to 20 obviously with the explosion of gaming e Sports content starting about five years ago. Everyone in the mother is played the space. So you have you know, dedicated media channels specific to gaming any sports like a jinx TV and watch TV some of those are based in Europe as well and carried on satellite channels. So you have dedicated channels there. Then you have your traditional Sports media coverage. For example, like ESPN or the score bar stools obviously had a great year as well. You know, they have Barstool gaming Hooligans and you know, they're obviously playing the space then you obviously have your dedicated, you know, e Sports coverage like daily XR know and then all the TV networks as we talked about earlier this year such as you know Turner's had a lead for a while ESPN's had many many events on there as well as Disney and then what we saw with Fox Sports with NASCAR earlier this month You know, they had a really great job. So that's just from like a media perspective and then you then you're not talking talking about for example watching League of Legends world. You content operators like ESL all the numerous events that they put out and then finally furthermore even teams like hundred thieves or phase plan which do their own tournaments obvious released tons of content. So starting off that you're entering into a completely crowded market. So I think that was going to be very challenging to start off.
How I Built This
Riot Games: Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill
"Guy roz on the show. Today to avid gamers fended off reluctant. Investors may saying experts and their own self doubt to build riot games an order the most successful video games ever created league of legends in two thousand six. A video game company called bethesda. software works. Tried out an experiment at the time. But as the had a popular video game called oblivion in that year it decided to offer its users an extra feature horse armor not armor virtual armor that you could use in the game and bethesda offered it up for two dollars fifty cents. It was an incredibly controversial decision and most players reacted badly. They didn't like it but enough gamers decided to try it out and bought the armor and it proved a theory that company had that you could create an entire revenue stream through what became known as microtransactions. Still almost no game developers chose to pursue this business bottle that same year. Two friends brandon beck and mark merrill pitched an idea to investors. They wanted to build free video games but offer up things like in game currency and weapons and characters and skill points. I price brandon and mark believed that if the game was good enough players would happily spend a few dollars each week to buy virtual products that might enhance the gaming experience not surprisingly most investors. Turn them down and thought it was a crazy idea. The question mark and brandon getting was. Who's gonna spend money on virtual things things that have no value in the real world and these were fair questions. And it's why it was so hard from arkan brandon to get right games up and running but the game they eventually built league of legends became one of the most popular video games of all time and a game that helped to pioneer the business model now known as the free to play model this year the global video game industry will hit more than a hundred and sixty billion dollars in revenue. That makes it four times bigger than the global film and tv industry and three times bigger than all the music sold around the world and twenty twenty. according to forbes video games will earn more than three hundred billion dollars by twenty twenty five and a growing percentage of that revenue comes from gamers who spend small amounts of money buying skins or costumes for their virtual characters or buying access to locked rooms and imaginary worlds huge gaming tournaments attract millions of viewers with players. Earning millions of dollars a year. It's a massive business and a big part of it has to do with the model that brandon marks company riot games helped. Pioneer and brandon both grew up in southern california. They met as teenagers at a summer leadership camp shortly before college. Here's how marc remembers it. I remember meeting brandon and mike. Oh you're from los angeles awesome it like video games. What's up in so we just kinda instantly hit it off. And then as i got to know him i also just really thought he had a infectious personality at that. It really interesting. Way of looking at the world that was sort of commentary from values perspective to mind in the edge just this incredibly entrepreneurial kind of business oriented mind. That kind of inspired me where i'm like. Wow i've never seen i've never encountered a person that's also younger me that felt so vibrant and dynamic and it's interesting way and so because of the shared love of games so they could hop on the modem play starcraft warcraft two or or duke nukem three d or if i mean we could go on and on about the titles that we all knew and connected about. Yeah so you meet this like leadership program and then you both go back to l. a. And and you you stay in touch or or did you kind of lose touch. Yeah i mean we. We stayed in touch and we call each other every once in a while we. We'd play some games. I remember one of those phone calls. Mark told me a really to see the matrix. What does that. he's like. You'll see ended up blowing my mind. My favorite movie of all time and mark. You headed to usc to start college and brandon did that. I know eventually you would also go to. Usc was was the fact that mark was there to that. Influence your decision to go. There was just just happened to be the place where you decide to go. It was a total coincidence. But it certainly made me more excited about it. I even visited mark when he was at school and hung out within the dorms. Where he he had a bunch of gaming buddies and they would they play games together. And i wasn't a very good student i had. Adhd in a variety of learning differences in wasn't pretty tough competitive school environment. And and i. And i just. I was not the kind of student i was sort of supposed to be. But in the meantime i'm living in this world online. I wanted to spend every minute in my spare time. I would build scripts that would play my character for me wall. I had to be a school. So i would continue to make progress. Well that's pretty impressive. But i mean you did despite your struggles you did end up getting into usc and mark is already there and presumably like you guys. What like start to hang out. And i guess you already have like a friend at college and you get there. Yeah mark would take me under his wing bit and you know introduced me to his friends and show me around. So yeah it was. It was really great showing up and no one mark mark when you guys were in college did. Did you think you know what. I'm gonna start a business with this guy one day or was it just like fun. Conversations would have about. Hey you know maybe one day we should do this or that. Yeah no we we did. But it was sort of accidental. In some ways you know brandon. And i because of our shared passion games and then also our mutual interest in business we would strategize brainstorm or think about opportunities and and this is one of the reasons that i was attracted to brands because he was sort of the most entrepreneurial business minded friend that i had like brandon random music station at sc. You'd be thinking about events or got so we were playing games and we both loved online games and so we loved to like watch replays of really competitive players playing online and try to help inform how we could get better than that started us thinking about well. Maybe we could help. Create or run some gaming tournaments. Maybe we could do some stuff like that surround campus and actually. Maybe there's a opportunity create a league that we were going to call the g. l. ultimate gaming league so brandon. I went down to the basement. Alevi library late one night. We started working on this rough business plan. Neither of us really knew how to build a business plans. We're trying to figure out what that looked. Like what the but on paper and all this and we can never really went anywhere that business but nonetheless I just remember being really energized about the possibilities of the future and and again. That's that's something that an grant and really helped awaken. Was this ability to look at not the way the world is currently but the way that it could be and how we could potentially go help change