1 big thing: Weird sex

Illustration of a pixelated bird and bee flying across the image.

2. Game cheater types

Art from the game Valorant, showing a masked figure with a big hat.

3. Need to know

4. The cloud push

5. Like Nintendo Power, but different

An image showing a magazine styled pamphlet that reads "Collective Power."

Happy Wednesday! Peter here again, collecting great stories from Megan and Stephen as we settle into the rhythm of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

It's definitely spring here on the West Coast, and the less I check what NYC's weather will be when I get back, the better. 🌱

Today's newsletter is 1,256 words, a 4.5-minute read.

 🎁 Like the newsletter? Refer Axios Gaming to your friends to spread the word, and get free stuff in the process. Follow the link here to begin.

🐦 Find us on Twitter: @megan_nicolett / @stephentotilo.

GDC Day 3: Shout-out to the guy who is sitting just outside the presentation halls watching videos beamed from his iPad onto an inverted, translucent pyramid. He seems to be having a great time, two days and counting. 

National

deepBlue

Keep up with the multi-billion dollar video gaming universe, from the hottest games to the most interesting studios and players, by Stephen Totilo. Daily - Weekdays

Axios Gaming

1 big thing: The CEO of Saudi Arabia’s new gaming company

Photo illustration of Savvy Gaming Group head Brian Ward next to the company logo

2. Raven's letter to Microsoft

4. From GIF to game

A screenshot of a text showing a little 3D fox character.

Thursday's Gaming is here, and it's Peter again fielding stories from Stephen and Megan as we hit the home stretch at the Game Developers Conference.

Fun fact: I'm from Kentucky and can't use the phrase "home stretch" without thinking of horse racing. 🏇

Today's newsletter is 1,202 words, a 4.5-minute read.

🎁 Like the newsletter? Refer Axios Gaming to your friends to spread the word, and get free stuff in the process. Follow the link here to begin.

GDC day 4: Megan says, “Today’s newsletter is brought to you by coffee. Coffee! Dehydrate yourself today.” 

1 big thing: The woman who changed games


A red carpet photo of Anita Sarkeesian smiling at the camera.

2. Wordle secrets

4. The week ahead

5. Yarnham racers

It's Friday, the last day of the Game Developers Conference and it's Peter back once more with great gaming stories from Megan and Stephen.

We'll have more to bring you from this jam-packed week in the days to come, but let us know if you have any lingering questions from the first in-person GDC in two years!

Today's newsletter is 1,239 words — a 5-minute read. 

 GDC Day 5: Look out for my memoir, “Why living off of convention center food is a terrible idea.” 

1 big thing: Nintendo, delayed

A gold block with white question marks on it

2. The big Activision vote

Photo of logos for Microsoft, Activision and Blizzard

3. Digital disappearances

4. Need to know

5. Worthy of your attention

6.  When Assassin’s Creed heroes meet

Illustration of two warrior women facing off with an Assassin's Creed logo between them

Game developers are drawing attention this week to the problems with game credits by tweeting about the first time their name was listed.

Please don't judge me for any copies of the Sims in my posession.

Plus: This week's Activision vote, explained

1 big thing: Rethinking romance

Game screenshot that shows dialogue choices, with "It's cute that you're determined." highlighted.

2. “You can’t trust us”


4. New Netflix games

Screenshot of a game showing a woman jumping over a pit.

Happy Tuesday! Peter Allen Clark here putting together the newsletter with Megan and Stephen as GDC gets fully underway.

📅 Countdown: 13 days until Axios’ inaugural What’s Next Summit on April 5! Register here to attend virtual livestream sessions featuring the CEOs of GM, Accenture, TIAA and more. 

Today's newsletter is 1,188 words, a 4.5-minute read.

 GDC day 2: Before 1pm PT, I have already seen no fewer than two top hats. 

Elder millennial nostalgia and modern multiplayer trends collide in MythForce, a new game announced today from Edmonton-based studio Beamdog, Axios’ Peter Allen Clark reports.

What’s happening: MythForce, Beamdog’s first original title, is a first-person, high fantasy, co-operative, rouge-like dungeon crawler. And it’s all wrapped in an art style that’s straight out of 1980s cartoons. 

Details: Like Left 4 Dead, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 or Deep Rock Galactic, MythForce is a c0-op game for one to four players. You pick a character with unique abilities, and set off on a self-contained mission.

There’s loot to find that can upgrade your character mid-mission and occasional hordes of monsters that make things tricky.

And there's an overarching progression that lets players unlock perks and gear that can be carried over from mission to mission. 

But it’s the art style of MythForce that really makes it stand out from the competition. 

From the technical aspects of the 3D models to the enemy design, it’s easy to see a deep affection for cartoons like “Thundercats” or “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe”

“[Game director Luke Rideout] had the genius idea to try and theme it around ‘80s cartoons,” Beamdog COO Kael Nicholson said in an interview last month. 

“He’s a big ‘He-Man’ fan, and he's got a couple of [animation] cels in his office. And we've always nerded out over stuff like Don Bluth, ‘Sword in the Stone,’ Dragon's Lair, of course. So we really wanted to try and take that on.”

Along with the style, some of MythForce’s game design might also be attractive to older players: there’s a real focus on shorter, bite-sized missions that don’t ask a lot of time.

“We wanted something that was kind of session playable. It's the thing you play between rounds of Elden Ring, right?” Nicholson said. “It’s something that you can just kind of jam into with your friends and not have to worry about you do next, because as parents some of us don’t have that time anymore.”

Still, the Beamdog team said they thought MythForce could appeal to all ages, including those who didn’t have to wait for Saturday mornings to watch cartoons.

I played MythForce while attending GDC last month. I chose the archer character, and did the best I could to fend off sword-swinging skeletons and poisonous bi-pedal mushrooms.

Teamwork plays a big role, in helping out teammates who are overwhelmed, or reviving them if they fall.

I, an elder millennial, was predictably entranced by the presentation. The developers said they put a lot of work into honoring the art style, and what I played made that seem like an understatement.

“We're always trying to like capture that feeling of like sitting around with your friends and just jamming on something,” Nicholson said. 

“And you know, if anyone has that feeling like they're sitting down in front of their TV on Saturday morning with a bowl of sugary cereal and their parents are in bed reading a newspaper, then I'm a happy camper.”

What’s next: MythForce’s first episode, “Bastion of the Beastlord,” will come to the Epic Games Store exclusively, in early access, on April 20.

Sign up for the new Axios Gaming newsletter here.

Dungeon crawler MythForce taps into 1980s cartoon nostalgia

It's a first-person, high fantasy, co-operative, rouge-like dungeon crawler.

Game screenshot showing four fantasy characters on a hill with three other faces in the sky behind.

Video games

Gaming

Elder millennial nostalgia and modern multiplayer trends collide in MythForce, a new game announced today from Edmonton-based studio Beamdog, Axios’ Peter Allen Clark reports.What’s happening: MythForce, Beamdog’s first original title, is a first-person, high fantasy, co-operative, rouge-like dungeon crawler. And it’s all wrapped in an art style that’s straight out of 1980s cartoons.

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

A digital pet store might help sell the metaverse to the masses.

Why it matters: Hype and funding have flooded into development of a 3D internet, but consumers will need help finding a way in.

Driving the news: Pokemon Go creator Niantic revealed its next game yesterday, an augmented reality pet simulator named Peridot.

In the new mobile game, players raise, feed, train and even breed colorful, procedurally generated little creatures.

Similar to Pokémon Go, the game uses a phone’s camera to make the creatures visible in an overlay to the real world, using augmented reality techniques.

Senior product manager and producer Ziah Fogel said that Niantic’s location-based tech allows the pets in Peridot to recognize real world obstacles and topography, like the difference between grass and concrete.

Niantic, which formed within Google years ago and spun out as its own private company, has long viewed itself as more than a game developer, but rather a creator of real-world experiences enhanced with location-based data.

Last August in a blog post, Niantic CEO and Founder John Hanke described what the company strived to create as a “real world metaverse.”

He explained it as “one infused with data, information, services, and interactive creations. This has guided our work to date, both in terms of our first attempts to incorporate these concepts into products like Field Trip, Ingress, and Pokémon Go, and in terms of inventing critical technology to enable them.”

Niantic wants to overlap the reams of data gathered from satellites and on-the-ground players to build out living, persistent maps of information that can be shared with anyone in real time.

The big picture: Virtual pets have long been a way to create curiosity and bring new users to platforms big and small.

In the late 1990s, Tamagotchis put portable electronic gadgets in the hands of millions of people.

In the early 2000s, Neopets taught a young generation how to navigate a website. 

The Sega Dreamcast had Seaman, the Nintendo DS had Nintendogs, and there are plenty of other examples — including The Sims on PC, Farmville on Facebook and even Pokémon Go itself for mobile phones.

These digital pets invite emotional attachment and can also serve as an attractive hook for younger players.

Niantic isn’t the only firm trying to lure people to the future of the internet with virtual pets.

ZED is a horse-racing NFT platform, where users buy, sell, breed, train and race unique virtual horses.

Popular NFT game Axie Infinity lets players collect, train, breed and battle with little Pokémon-like creatures as well.

In this landscape, however, Niantic is very much ahead of the curve. Its breakout AR success Pokémon Go has brought in more than $5 billion in lifetime revenue so far.

Yes, but: Actual consumer knowledge and enthusiasm for whatever the metaverse will become remains low, according to various surveys.

A Gartner poll released in February reported that only 6% of respondents feel comfortable enough in their understanding of the metaverse to explain it to others.

A Tidio survey from last month reported that 77% of respondents thought that the metaverse could cause “serious harm” to society.

An Ipsos poll published in January showed that only 35% of those familiar with the metaverse are “excited” about it, and an Axios-Momentive survey for the Axios What's Next Summit found that "excited" contingent to be only 7%.

Our thought bubble: While Meta seems to be chasing a metaverse contained within a VR headset, the latest versions of that equipment haven't yet found wide mainstream appeal.

AR experiences could serve as a bridge to bring together these emerging technologies. 

Arguably, no company has found more success with AR than Niantic — and the mountains of information its players are gathering could make it a metaverse force to reckon with. 

What’s next: Peridot will release in beta in limited markets this month, with others soon to follow.

Metaverse builders see virtual pets as their killer app

Virtual pets, like Niantic's new product, have long been used to introduce audiences to new platforms.

Animated gif of a digital cat saying meow 

Metaverse

Illustration of a digital cat saying meow

A digital pet store might help sell the metaverse to the masses.Why it matters: Hype and <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="funding" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/metaverse-wall-streets-favorite-buzzword-eeb58edb-2c30-490a-bd91-47116195a48f.html" data-vars-content-id="c6cebc1c-77c8-4838-9c70-89b068ecf6e2" data-vars-headline="Metaverse builders see virtual pets as their killer app" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/metaverse-wall-streets-favorite-buzzword-eeb58edb-2c30-490a-bd91-47116195a48f.html" target="_self">funding</a> have flooded into development of a 3D internet, but consumers will need help finding a way in.

Netflix announced on Tuesday that it is launching two new video games for iOS and Android that users can play through the service's app.

Why it matters: The new releases continue the streaming giant's push into games as a way to diversify its offerings while user growth slows.

What's happening: In a blog post, Netflix said two games will be available Tuesday, and another one is coming soon.

This Is A True Story puts players in the shoes of a sub-Saharan African woman on a journey to collect water for her family. 

Netflix says studio Frosty Pop created the game in collaboration with the nonprofit Charity: water.

"Charity: water’s team throughout the last several years traveled to Sub-Saharan Africa countries to interview several women whose stories make up the experiences laid out in the game," Netflix said in its blog post.

The other game released Tuesday is an updated version of a well-received game from the late 2000s: Shatter Remastered.

Shatter, originally for the PlayStation 3, was a frenetic and challenging block-breaking game. The remaster, developed by Pik Pok, will add unique levels and global leaderboards.

Between the lines: Games have become a notable focus for Netflix as its growth begins to slow and competition from other streamers intensifies.

In the last six months, Netflix has joined the games industry feeding frenzy and acquired two studios. It bought Night School — a popular indie studio that developed Oxenfree — in September 2021, and Next Games earlier this month. 

What's next: Netflix also said in its blog post that a "runner/shooter hybrid" game, Into the Dead 2: Unleashed, will be coming soon.

Netflix launches two new mobile games

The new releases continue the streaming giant's push into games as user growth slows.

A screenshot of the game This Is A True Story, which shoes a woman jumping over a pit.

This Is A True Story. Screenshot: Netflix

Netflix

Netflix announced on Tuesday that it is launching two new video games for iOS and Android that users can play through the service&#x27;s app.Why it matters: The new releases continue the streaming giant&#x27;s push into games as a way to diversify its offerings <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="while user growth slows" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/netflix-stock-growth-slump-ec0e9055-596b-467b-83f7-19fb592cbe31.html" data-vars-content-id="c992158b-2400-4665-a82f-727b87edba03" data-vars-headline="Netflix launches two new mobile games" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/netflix-stock-growth-slump-ec0e9055-596b-467b-83f7-19fb592cbe31.html" target="_self">while user growth slows</a>.

Business and thought leaders around the future of work and professional mobility came together at Axios’ inaugural What’s Next Summit on Tuesday for a discussion on how employees now prefer to be treated like customers.

Why it matters: With COVID-19, the great resignation and technological shifts, everyone from business owners to job seekers are asking what jobs will look like in the years to come.

The big picture: Over the past two years, people have fled multiple industries in droves as health concerns, remote work, job/life balance, career expectations and opportunities have shifted. 

Last year, studies showed upward of 40% of workers were considering leaving their jobs.

What's happening: The discussion, moderated by Axios executive editor Aja Whitaker-Moore and Axios Finish Line co-author Erica Pandey, revolved around how evolving culture, values and geographical considerations have radically changed the professional landscape.

“Fair compensation is table stakes,” senior partner at PwC Terri McClements said during the session, highlighting how competitive hiring has become for employers.

As people have left companies and industries, seeking more schedule flexibility or more fulfillment, prospective employees expect companies to offer more robust forms of compensation.

“They want to know whether your culture meets theirs,” Shannon Schuyler, chief inclusion officer at PwC, said. “They want to be treated with dignity. They want to be treated like the customer.”

About this shift in attitudes, Schuyler said, “If we’re not excited about it, then just move aside because it’s going to happen with or without us.”

Access to flexible schedules and remote work has unsurprisingly proved to be a large factor in employee well-being throughout the pandemic. As business leaders eye a return to the office, the What’s Next Summit discussion prompted participants to recognize who exactly is most excited to come back.

“The people who are coming back are white male executives and non-caretakers,” Brian Elliott, executive leader at Future Forum, said.

Discussion participants said that remote work offers more time for those with families, but it allows for an escape from micro-aggressions, code switching expectations and other difficulties faced by people of color.

Elliott said when it comes to looking at returning to the office, considering all the difficulties a team faces is essential. 

“You’ve got to walk your talk,” Elliott said. “It’s got to start at the executive suite.”

According to the discussion’s participants, these workforce evolutions are even more of an expectation in younger generations. 

Kristin Sharp, the CEO of Flex, which serves app-based earning platforms, said that she had heard from younger users that the traditional, single-job career path seemed to them “fundamentally unstable, because you only have one income source.”

A recent college grad said in the discussion that she had felt in “high demand” while job searching but also shared the importance she placed on an organization’s activism, environmental impact, amenities, student loan reimbursement programs and mentorship opportunities.

The bottom line: How companies adapt to evolving expectations around hiring, corporate identity and office space seems increasingly important to prospective job seekers.

Editor’s note: This post has been corrected to identify PwC senior partner Terri McClements as the source of a quote (not PwC partner Terri-Ann Dautzenberg).

As the workforce changes, employees want to be treated like customers

Everyone from business owners to job seekers are asking what jobs will look like in the future.

Jobs

Business and thought leaders around the future of work and professional mobility came together at Axios’ inaugural What’s Next Summit on Tuesday for a discussion on how employees now prefer to be treated like customers.Why it matters: With COVID-19, <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="the great resignation" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/great-resignation-silver-lining-hr-internal-labor-market-b6900b8f-012d-45b1-8d96-3b49d6fe86d8.html" data-vars-content-id="ce08259e-e4b9-4763-83ee-f984a781e0f6" data-vars-headline="As the workforce changes, employees want to be treated like customers" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/great-resignation-silver-lining-hr-internal-labor-market-b6900b8f-012d-45b1-8d96-3b49d6fe86d8.html" target="_self">the great resignation</a> and technological shifts, everyone from business owners to job seekers are asking what jobs will look like in the years to come.

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Axios Events

Far-right extremists are a growing presence in gaming, researchers have found, while the industry’s hidden metrics, lackluster content moderation and head-in-the-sand attitudes get in the way of assessing and combatting the problem. 

Why it matters: Gaming and game-adjacent platforms have grown into some of the largest entertainment industries in the world, leading to massive opportunities for recruitment and organizing by extremist groups.

A December 2021 report from the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) found that innovative efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism in gaming spaces are “nearly undetectable.”

State of play: Extremism in games is "a growing threat," Alex Newhouse, the deputy director at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, said in a Games Developers Conference talk last month.

"Games are becoming increasingly social ... those social hooks provide the structures and the infrastructure for extremists to organize, mobilize and spread their hateful and extreme ideologies," Newhouse said.

What's happening: In games stretching from military shooters like Call of Duty to open creative environments like Roblox, extremist groups spread abusive messages and foster relationships.

Experts like Rachel Kowert, research director at Take This, have found that games can create unique relationships due to the cooperative, stimulating experiences they present. “Friendships are closer, long lasting and form faster than in other spaces on the internet,” she told Axios.

Newhouse said it was relatively easy to find signs of neo-Nazi, and far right fascist groups on Roblox, Discord, games marketplace Steam and other platforms.

Since much of the player data is private, researchers say they lack detailed knowledge of which games or platforms extremists use most for these activities. Nor, according to Kowert, has there been overt cooperation with many studios to share that data.

A 2019 report from the Anti-Defamation League found that 53% of online multiplayer game players who experience harassment believe "they were targeted because of their race/ethnicity, religion, ability, gender or sexual orientation."

The same report found that almost one in four players, 23%, said they have been "exposed to discussions about white supremacist ideology."

"The more time you spend immersed in gaming cultures, the greater the likelihood you are exposed to extreme ideologies, or opportunities you have to internalize those beliefs and endorse more extreme behaviors," Kowert said at the GDC talk.

What they're saying: "While it may be a small number of players, compared to the billions of players, they are a very hardened, very influential, very dangerous group of people who are living their lives in these gaming spaces, with little to no consequences to their actions or behaviors," Kowert told Axios.

The big picture: To Kowert, gaming's extremist problem has grown to its imposing size because of ignorance, discomfort about the topic and an unwillingness to understand the threat.

"I don't think it's been recognized as something important, worth their time, worth their money, worth their effort," she said.

And the lack of current data keeps solutions from emerging, as the EGRN report found most research on games and radicalization was conducted on "now antiquated games." 

Negative perceptions of video games, like violence or addiction, might also keep industry leaders from wanting to look too closely into how hate groups are building networks.

"We're constantly battling all these bad narratives, which takes energy away from actually looking at the actual threats that are truly festering in these spaces and addressing them properly," Kowert said.

The Entertainment Software Association, the leading industry group for games, declined to comment.

The intrigue: This spread of extremism in gaming is similar to what we've seen on social media platforms like Facebook, but with significant differences.

"We know that the big the giant social media companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, have dedicated counterterrorism teams that are working on this day in day out," Newhouse said. "We also know that video games simply just often don't have the resources to stand up counterterrorism teams specifically, or don't have the expertise necessary to do so."

The other side: "We abhor extremist ideologies and have zero tolerance for extremist content of any kind on Roblox," Remy Malan, VP of trust and safety operations at Roblox, said in a statement to Axios.

"Because of the swift, proactive steps we take, extremist content is extremely rare on our platform and therefore, for the vast majority of the Roblox community who do not seek out such content, it is very unlikely they would be exposed to it."

"Discord has a zero-tolerance policy toward hate and violent extremism of any kind," a Discord spokesperson told Axios. "When we come across such activity, we take immediate action, including banning users and shutting down servers, and engaging with authorities when appropriate."

Experts warn about rising extremism in gaming

"Social hooks" in games create opportunities for recruitment and organizing by far-right extremists.

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Stories

Experts warn about rising extremism in gaming

Metaverse builders see virtual pets as their killer app

Dungeon crawler MythForce taps into 1980s cartoon nostalgia

As the workforce changes, employees want to be treated like customers

Netflix launches two new mobile games

Newsletter editions

Nintendo's latest delay

Sarkeesian talks “Tropes”

Saudi Arabia’s billions

Why gamers cheat

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