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

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2. Raven's letter to Microsoft

3. Need to know

4. From GIF to game

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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.

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

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

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Axios Gaming

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

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2. The big Activision vote

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3. Digital disappearances

4. Need to know

5. Worthy of your attention

6.  When Assassin’s Creed heroes meet

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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: Roe reaction

2. Expansion Thursday

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3. The week ahead

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5. MAH-ree-o

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Today’s edition: 1,010 words, 4 minutes

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1 big thing: A game for everyone else

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2. Quebec language law concerns

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4. Looking back: Justice Thomas' gaming dissent

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Happy Wednesday to you. Some of the news you'd expect up top today, but then we're going back in time — way back. 

Today's edition: 998 words, a 4-minute read. 

🤷‍♂️ I'm remembering the thrill of nearing my press seat in the Supreme Court and discovering that my view of most of the justices would be blocked by a column. 

Plus: Clarence Thomas' video game dissent

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 Shakespearean dating game published in a peer-reviewed journal takes to heart the Bard’s line that “The course of true love never did run smooth."

What’s happening: We Are Not All Alone Unhappy, the charming side project of Firaxis narrative lead Cat Manning, asks players to test the romantic chemistry between characters from various Shakespeare plays.

The game was released with the new issue of the academic journal Borrowers and Lenders, accompanied by an essay from Manning explaining its construction.

Manning wrote in the essay that “These characters carry their personalities and preoccupations into these meetings, and success or failure in a conversation is determined by (my judgment of) what might fulfill each character’s emotional arc.”

What they’re saying: “Before I was in games, I was an academic who wrote on and taught Shakespeare’s plays, so when an academic colleague told me he was putting together [a journal issue] on Shakespeare and gaming and asked if I’d like to contribute, I jumped at the chance to bridge two of my passions in an interactive medium,” Manning told Axios.

The goal of the game is to find a number of happy endings for all nine characters by matching them up. Ever been curious whether Juliet would hit it off with Ophelia?

“We already have a lot of dark takes on classic literature, so what might a deliberately happy one look like?” Manning says.

While Manning did the writing, she said she brought on Destina Connor and Florencia Minuzzi of Tea-Powered Games to give the project its “teenager’s diary” look.

Manning is no stranger to novel games. She has been a part of creating Blaseball, the very odd, very fascinating browser game that simulates an absurdist baseball league.

“In the way that Blaseball dramatically widens the possibilities of baseball (incinerations, hauntings, fighting an imperious peanut god), I wanted to widen the story space of Shakespeare plays,” Manning says.

For now, she says she’s just happy to have We Are Not All Alone Unhappy, which she started working on in 2018, out into the world.

“There were definitely moments where I wondered if I shouldn’t just have released it on my own,” Manning says. “But having it out as part of a journal, and having my idiosyncratic field-crossing game in conversation with academic peers, has been great.”

Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to remove an incorrect reference that Manning is involved with Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

Shakespearean dating game receives peer-reviewed journal release

Ever been curious whether Juliet would hit it off with Ophelia?

We Are Not All Alone Unhappy. Screenshot: Axios

A Shakespearean dating game published in a peer-reviewed journal takes to heart the Bard’s line that “The course of true love never did run smooth.&quot;What’s happening: <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="We Are Not All Alone Unhappy" data-vars-click-url="https://link.axios.com/click/28056318.27053/aHR0cHM6Ly9ib3Jyb3dlcnMtb2pzLWF6c3UudGRsLm9yZy9ib3Jyb3dlcnMvYXJ0aWNsZS92aWV3LzM0Mi82MDc_dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1uZXdzbGV0dGVyJnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPW5ld3NsZXR0ZXJfYXhpb3NnYW1pbmcmc3RyZWFtPXRvcA/5a52c920a227620e7a8b467dBed6e9942" data-vars-content-id="9dbf1cd1-6baf-48a4-bf5d-ef962f024100" data-vars-headline="Shakespearean dating game receives peer-reviewed journal release" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://link.axios.com/click/28056318.27053/aHR0cHM6Ly9ib3Jyb3dlcnMtb2pzLWF6c3UudGRsLm9yZy9ib3Jyb3dlcnMvYXJ0aWNsZS92aWV3LzM0Mi82MDc_dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1uZXdzbGV0dGVyJnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPW5ld3NsZXR0ZXJfYXhpb3NnYW1pbmcmc3RyZWFtPXRvcA/5a52c920a227620e7a8b467dBed6e9942" target="_blank">We Are Not All Alone Unhappy</a>, the charming side project of Firaxis narrative lead Cat Manning, asks players to test the romantic chemistry between characters from various Shakespeare plays.

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.

A decade after Early Access shook up how video games get released, many developers say that it has been a boon to the industry, despite potentially limiting creativity.

Why it matters: Along with digital distribution, Early Access (EA) has been instrumental in democratizing the modern games industry.

How it works: EA, on platforms like Steam and the Epic Game Store, allows for developers to release games before they are fully finished, to earn crucial revenue, build a community and receive feedback.

Minecraft was an early success story after developer Markus Persson released an “alpha” version of the game in 2009.

Now EA has become a robust part of the whole industry, and a big consideration for devs plotting out a game’s release, not to mention its design.

Of the 11,749 games released on Steam in 2021, 1,858 of them were EA, according to SteamDB.

Valve incorporated EA into Steam in 2013, and one early hit was 2015’s roguelike adventure game Darkest Dungeon, developed by Red Hook Studios. It quickly found an audience and was among the top 20 best-selling games on Steam that year.

“The traditional model of making a gold master and being done forever has a lot of flaws. This gave us an instant audience to help give feedback on the game, and also gave a much needed financial boost,” Tyler Sigman, co-founder of Red Hook Studios, told Axios.

Few games born out of EA marketplaces have matched the critical and commercial reception that Supergiant Games found in Hades.

It was released along with the Epic Games Store as a timed exclusive in 2018. Hades went on to receive a host of Game of the Year awards in 2020.

“We figured, we're going to get feedback on all these aspects of the game sooner or later — why not get more of that feedback earlier in the process when we still can do something about it?" Greg Kasavin, creative director at Supergiant Games, told Axios.

Yes, but: Not every game succeeds by releasing early. Many fail by not being able to gain an audience or by just not being a particularly good game.

Exacerbating all of that is the fact that since more people have an opportunity to release games, there’s more of a chance those games will be swallowed up in the tidal wave of releases.

“Making games, it's like I propose a theory that this experience will be fun,” Beamdog’s CEO Trent Oster told Axios. Beamdog released dungeon crawler MythForce to Epic Games Store’s EA in April. “And then once you expose it to the people, your theory is either validated or nuked.”

Between the lines: Many of the most successful EA games have been run-based, rogue-like games. That’s not only to keep players engaged but also to help a game’s chances of being discovered in crowded marketplaces.

“If you're making a puzzle platformer, that realistically, 90% of players are just going to play through once, Early Access is not going to be a good fit for you,” Dylan Gedig told Axios. He founded Red Nexus Games, which brought its pachinko rogue-like Peglin to Steam’s EA in April.

To him, if a game doesn’t have a “genre match” that coincides with an established community or fan base, “you're kind of fighting against an uphill current.”

For small studios looking at EA, those parameters might steer them away from designing other types of games.

The bottom line: Since EA allows for more game releases, platform holders like Valve and Epic who receive a cut from sales have every incentive to keep it as part of the industry. And players have learned what to expect from these releases.

“Players are a lot more discerning now, some totally ignore Early Access, others massively embrace it, and others use it to check out games that are already interested in an earlier stage than they might once have done, and they all play an important part of that ecosystem,” James Parker, director of puzzle brawler Fights in Tight Spaces, told Axios.

Game developers say Early Access has been good for the industry

It's also potentially limited what devs choose to create.

A decade after Early Access shook up how video games get released, many developers say that it has been a boon to the industry, despite potentially limiting creativity.Why it matters: Along with digital distribution, Early Access (EA) has been instrumental in democratizing the modern games industry.

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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Shakespearean dating game receives peer-reviewed journal release

Game developers say Early Access has been good for the industry

Experts warn about rising extremism in gaming

Metaverse builders see virtual pets as their killer app

Dungeon crawler MythForce taps into 1980s cartoon nostalgia

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