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Members of six U.S. armed forces are competing in a Halo Infinite tournament in San Antonio this weekend in a novel and federally sanctioned esports event.

Why it matters: It’s the brainchild of an Air Force captain, Oliver Parsons, who believes gaming can help morale and assist members of the military who might be struggling mentally or socially. 

The event is being produced by Rally Cry, an organization that coordinates esports efforts that are intended to have a social good aspect.

Between the lines: Parsons says he personally felt the benefits of gaming in 2016, while stationed in a frigid part of North Dakota.

“I began struggling with mental health, depression, anxiety and seasonal affective disorder,” he said. “Me and my wife kind of turned to video games as an escape.”

But he recognized that escapism could exacerbate his depression. He noticed he felt better when he was connecting with other gamers through multiplayer matches. He wanted to build on that.

Parsons soon got a two-star general’s permission to start an Air Force Gaming group and organized a 200-team Call of Duty tournament with airmen in 2020. He says his organization, which also involves the newly formed Space Force, now has 25,000 members, and is part of the Air Force’s Morale, Wellness and Recreation program.  

Some members of the Air Force Gaming group may be wrestling with the stresses of warfare, Parsons says, but for many, the help they need is just to deal with the ordinary grind of work.

“Even if you love your job, if you work 90 hours a week, that grind is going to get to you. This community provides a way to disconnect but still stay connected.”

Popular games for Air Force Gaming include Halo, Call of Duty and regular old Dungeons & Dragons.

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Members of 6 U.S. armed forces to compete in esports event

It's a novel and federally sanctioned esports event.

Members of the Air Force Gaming team. Photo Air Force Gaming

Video games

Gaming

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

Nintendo game designers struggled for years to make a Nintendo Switch sequel to the company’s best-selling game of all time, 2006’s Wii Sports, before finally releasing one in April.

Why it matters: Game design is a tough process, even on a project that seems like the ultimate no-brainer.

That's on display in a new Q&A published by Nintendo about the making of Nintendo Switch Sports.

Details: The game began development some time after the Switch’s 2017 launch. But design dead ends required an eventual “fresh start” to the project.

Nintendo’s designers were stumped about how to distinguish their new game from Wii Sports (and its 2009 sequel Wii Sports Resort), which was iconic for letting players swing a Wii controller to play simplified versions of tennis, bowling and more.

They experimented with controls that didn’t involve motion. 

They brainstormed about making the player-characters robots. 

What they’re saying: “By the time we acknowledged we’d pursued the wrong direction, years had already passed,” Yoshikazu Yamashita, a director on the new game and the old Wii Sports titles said in the Q&A.

Their solution was to pursue simplicity, to design a motion-controlled game playable by anyone age 5 to 95. They’d make another Wii Sports, basically, circling back to the original intent.

Yes, but that wasn’t the end of their problems: Creating motion controls that worked as players expected was tough despite the Switch’s technological superiority over the Wii.

Wii controllers were big wands that most people held the same way. The small size of the Switch’s detachable controllers made it harder for Nintendo’s designers to predict how players held them and how, in turn, the system should interpret their gestures.

The developers used machine learning and other techniques to optimize the accuracy of the controls.

The eventual result is a game that plays quite well on Switch. 

Between the lines: Nintendo is in many ways the most secretive company in gaming, but it occasionally offers impressively deep analysis of the development of its games.

That tradition began in 2006 with the launch of Iwata Asks, a series of detailed, mirthful interviews with groups of Nintendo game designers conducted by company president Satoru Iwata until his death in 2015.

In them, Nintendo creators speak of the challenges of making new Mario and Zelda games and the like — and of trying to produce the near-magical quality Nintendo’s games are known for.

Last July, Nintendo began a similar series with a new, anonymous interviewer. 

The bottom line: Interviews about game design humanize the process and help explain why so many games take years to make, get delayed or just don’t pan out despite the effort poured into them. 

Nintendo describes its struggle to develop Nintendo Switch Sports

That's on display in a new Q&A published by Nintendo.

Nintendo Switch Sports. Screenshot: Nintendo

Nintendo

Users of a video game that functions as an FDA-approved treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder will soon be able to get rewards in Roblox for playing.

Why it matters: The partnership is a sign of growing enthusiasm around video game technology that is harnessed for health.

Details: The therapeutic side of the Roblox deal involves Akili Interactive, a decade-old company that makes a racing game called EndeavorRx that can be prescribed to children ages 8 to 12 to help improve attention.

The game will digitally connect to the popular Roblox platform, unlocking badges, pets and avatar customization options that pull from the styles in EndeavorRx.

Rewards will be offered to the game’s young players for using the medicine and hitting key milestones.

What they’re saying: Akili CEO Eddie Martucci tells Axios he hopes that patients and their families will find it empowering to show off their winnings in Roblox. 

“These are populations that have been stigmatized previously,” he says.

“We’re saying, ‘Not only can you use your medicine to help customize your game, you can do it in really cool and exclusive ways.'” 

Between the lines: Akili has faced years of skepticism that a video game can serve as an effective medicine, but clinical trials and the FDA’s approval in 2020 have won it more support.

Akili says EndeavorRx has about 1,000 unique prescribers, though it hasn’t released its number of patients. It says the medicine shouldn’t be considered to be in full release until the fall when it’s slated for a big marketing push. 

EndeavorRx currently costs $150 without insurance, with about 5% of prescriptions covered by insurance (Some big insurers have questioned the game’s utility, but Martucci predicts that insurers “will get there. It’ll just take time.”)

Investors are already firm believers. In January, Akili announced plans to merge with a special purpose acquisition company at a $1 billion valuation. They hope to go public this year.

The big picture: Akili’s push for games as medicine has been less lonely of late.

Beyond perennial dabbling from the likes of Nintendo, some game and health execs announced a bona fide games-as-health care game publisher called DeepWell in March.

Many efforts broadly focus on mental health. Akili takes an expansive view there, identifying the potential to treat some common and pressing problems. 

The company has reported positive clinical trials involving autism in children as well as depression and multiple sclerosis in adults. It’s also in trials to use this kind of game to treat the brain fog that comes from long COVID-19 and chemotherapy.

What’s next: The EndeavorRx connection to Roblox will be tested this summer, as Akili monitors how the reward system works, Martucci says.

He’s open to connecting the digital medicine to more games.

Roblox, which sometimes takes knocks for the amount of time kids spend on it, also wants more. 

“We have envisioned metaverse experiences for fashion, entertainment, sports and education on Roblox,” the company’s chief business officer Craig Donato tells Axios. “We are hopeful for experiences that promote mental health and wellness.”

Roblox to partner with medically prescribed video game

EndeavorRx users will unlock Roblox items as they "play their medicine"

Video game screenshot of a small humanoid character in a red outfit riding a futuristic skateboard

EndeavorRx. Screenshot: Akili Interactive

Spoiler alert, this story offers hints to the answer of the Wordle game for May 25. 

Driving the news: If you struggled to answer Wednesday’s Wordle, you’re not alone, and this puzzle is ending some players' winning streaks, according to social media posts. 

The word game for May 25 is stumping some users who are taking to social media to vent, while others are searching for hints, according to Google Trends data.

Flashback: Earlier this month, the New York Times swapped out the May 9 Wordle word after discovering that the five-letter answer, fetus, relates to Roe v. Wade.

The swap was part of a long-running debate about how politically charged games should be.

What they’re saying: “Stinker of a word today, good luck wordlers,” one user wrote on Twitter.

“Wordle 340 is going to annoy many with that 1st letter...I can attest to that,” one Twitter user wrote. 

“It’s another one of *those* words, folks. Tread carefully!” another user tweeted Wednesday.

Spoiler: The Cambridge Dictionary defines the winning word as “to be able from your knowledge or experience to say that something is true.”

It's a word that rhymes with a couple more popular words, one of which is a popular piece of furniture.

Today’s Wordle is ending winning streaks

Spoiler alert: This story offers hints to the answer of the May 25 Wordle.

Wordle was acquired by the New York Times earlier this year. Photo: Getty Images

Games

Players in the booming mobile gaming market are warming to in-game video ads but are much more into interactive ads, according to a new report on the sector compiled by Data.ai.

Why it matters: Mobile gaming is setting the standard for how games operate, so what’s accepted or successful in it may shape gaming overall.

Spending on mobile games will reach $136 billion worldwide this year, Data.ai estimates. That’s compared to about $40 billion each on consoles and computer gaming.

The U.S. made up about a third of that mobile market in the first quarter of 2022.

State of play: The common model for mobile games is that you can download them for free and then buy in-game items to have a better time.

That model is spreading in console and PC games, though in-game ads on those platforms are rare.

In-game ads on mobile, however, are common. And they don't just happen between levels of a game, as if they were a TV commercial. Popular free-to-play games like Farmville 3 often include ads that pop up midgame or that players are invited to watch or interact with to unlock rewards in the game.

Details: Of nearly 4,000 global players surveyed by Data.ai, a majority are fine with in-game ads in some form.

A fifth say they’re fine with accepting ads in exchange for game content and services.

About a third were a little more reserved, saying it depends on the app.

Just 6% said they would broadly rather just pay for the game and not see ads.

Video ads are contentious, but attitudes are moving.

They’re still more loathed than liked (The survey option “I can’t stand them” beat “I like them” three to one). But Data.ai reports the divide narrowed between late 2020 and late 2021.

More popular are playable in-game ads, which serve as short demos of other games in the Russian nesting doll that is mobile game advertising. Those get an “I can’t stand them” from about a quarter of mobile gamers, but more than half of players think they’re “OK” or even like them.

The bottom line: Mobile gaming is gaming’s laboratory for economic experiments.

Report: Mobile game players don't mind playable ads

Mobile gaming is setting the standard for how games operate.

A prompt to watch an in-game video ad to receive a reward in FarmVille 3. Screenshot: Zynga

The creators of the action game Aztech built their unusual virtual world with a simple premise: What would have happened if the Aztecs hadn’t been conquered?

Why it matters: Aztech is an ambitious game from a small team in Mexico, a part of the world that has little representation in the industry and its culture. 

Released in March for PC and console, Aztech: Forgotten Gods puts the players in control of Achtli, a young woman with a magical arm that enables her to fly over a futuristic Mesoamerican megacity and battle the gods.

In a medium filled with adventures inspired by Anglo-Saxon and east Asian cultures, it stands out.

What they’re saying: “We aspire to be the voice of our people,” Edgar Serrano, cofounder of Chihuahua-based studio Lienzo, told Axios earlier this spring, shortly after the game’s release.

The studio started a decade ago, mixing contract work with original projects.

Its 2018 release Mulaka was an action game set amid the mythology of the Tarahumara, an Indigenous culture in Mexico. The game was narrated in the Tarahumara language, and hewed close to historical traditions.

Aztech began as an attempt to make something more fantastical while indulging the fantasy of an Aztec empire that spread across the Americas.

Lienzo’s games can reach three key audiences, Serrano believes:

Local players, like the young Indigenous people he met while making Mulaka, who he said knew little about their own legends.

The Latin American diaspora in the U.S. and elsewhere, who he believes are yearning for work that helps them reconnect to their roots.

The wider — and often whiter — world of people he believes seek some level of “social currency” in understanding other cultures. “If you play our games throughout, you're going to end up knowing a lot more than you knew before about our culture. And the things that stay with you are going to be true and authentic and researched.” 

Between the lines: Serrano is quick to point out that Aztech isn’t perfect. He calls it “over-scoped,” perhaps biting off too much. 

He’s still proud of the game and hopeful what Lienzo’s team of about seven developers can build in the future.

What’s next: He’s dreaming of a movie. Serrano has partnered with a production company to shop Aztech to Hollywood.

A video game from Mexico imagines a different kind of future

Says the developer: "We aspire to be the voice of our people.”

Video game screenshot of a woman flying toward the camera, with a futuristic Aztec pyramid in the background

New Jersey's Acting Attorney General Matthew Platkin said Monday that the state has launched an investigation into the social media platforms Discord and Twitch in connection to the Buffalo mass shooting.

Why it matters: The alleged shooter killed 10 people, all of whom were Black, and posted footage from the attack in real-time to Twitch, a platform owned by Amazon that often features live videos of gaming. The probe will determine whether lax content moderation and policy enforcement allowed the platforms to serve as a hub for violent extremism.

Details: The suspect in the Buffalo mass shootings allegedly used both Discord and Twitch to plan and publicize the shooting, according to Platkin's office.

The investigation will examine whether the platforms are "violating state consumer protection laws by failing to moderate harmful content and enforce policies prohibiting violent extremism and hateful conduct."

It will also focus on how moderation policies are applied to minors and children who use the sites.

What they're saying: "These social media platforms have enormous reach, especially with young people, and have shown themselves to be staging grounds for hateful and extremist content that may radicalize children and others," Platkin said in a statement. 

"Under New Jersey law companies must deliver on their promises, and the persistence of violent extremism and hateful conduct on these platforms casts doubt on their purported content moderation and enforcement policies and practices."

The big picture: New York has launched a similar probe into social media companies and other online resources that the alleged shooter might have used to discuss and amplify his intentions.

Go deeper: Live streaming motivated the Buffalo shooter

New Jersey launches probe into Twitch, Discord after Buffalo shooting

The suspect allegedly used both Discord and Twitch to plan and publicize the attack, which killed 10 people.

Photo showing a black gaming console set in front of a large screen with the purple Twitch logo

Photo: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images

New Jersey

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.

Politics & Policy

Quality assurance workers at Activision-owned development studio Raven Software voted to unionize today, setting up what would be the first union at a big American game publisher.

Driving the news: The vote, administered by the National Labor Relations Board in Minnesota passed 19-3.

Why this matters: A labor movement has been brewing in the games industry, as workers raise concerns about long hours and alleged misconduct at numerous publishers and studios, big and small.

Unionization isn’t a panacea, but some have seen it as a step to getting better treatment.

Between the lines: This latest step for the self-described Game Workers Alliance, came after the QA workers went on strike last fall to protest the dismissal of contractors and then announced in January a plan to form a union. 

Activision contested whether the small group of QA workers constituted a viable bargaining unit. 

The NLRB had ruled in the workers’ favor, setting up today’s vote.

What they’re saying: “Our biggest hope is that our union serves as inspiration for the growing movement of workers organizing at video game studios to create better games and build workplaces that reflect our values and empower all of us,” the GWA said in a statement.

“We look forward to working with management to positively shape our working conditions and the future of Activision Blizzard through a strong union contract.” 

Activision has avoided saying whether it will challenge the election or proceed to bargaining with the unit.

“We respect and believe in the right of all employees to decide whether or not to support or vote for a union,” a company rep said. “We believe that an important decision that will impact the entire Raven Software studio of roughly 350 people should not be made by 19 Raven employees.”

Regarding what they’d do next, the rep said: “We’re committed to doing what's best for the studio and our employees.”

Activision recently converted more than 1,000 temporary workers to full-time roles. It also gave raises to its QA workers, excluding the Raven group because it said altering the pay of workers pursuing a union would violate labor laws.

What’s next: Activision has until May 31 to file an objection to the NLRB vote.

Activision workers vote to form industry's first big union in U.S.

Illustration of a gaming controller with different fist icons on the buttons. 

Sony Lawsuit

Gender discrimination lawsuit against PlayStation returns

The new lawsuit comes a month after a judge dismissed the first filing.

PlayStation logo and the silhouette of a woman holding a phone

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Some top American game studios are taking stands on abortion, trans rights and the industry’s own responsibility regarding racism and extremism.

Why it matters: It’s a notable shift in a controversy-averse industry, and one that is shocking some players not used to the makers of the games they play taking a position on volatile political and social topics.

Details: Two studios went public this week, with a third reportedly taking a quieter route.

On Tuesday, Washington-based Destiny 2 maker Bungie Studios and its Black at Bungie worker group posted a reaction to the weekend’s racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. The studio had recently weighed in on the Supreme Court’s draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Bungie acknowledged that people “far too often” are radicalized via online platforms and called for game-makers, themselves included, to do more to “examine their own platforms and invest in practices to combat bigotry in all its manifestations.”

On Wednesday, Texas-headquartered studio Certain Affinity posted a letter to employees from CEO Max Hoberman condemning “intrusions on the rights and dignity of transgender youth” and the “attack” on abortion rights from the potential ruling on Roe v. Wade.

This all followed a Monday report in the Washington Post that California-based Insomniac, makers of hit Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank games, had quietly and successfully pressed its owners at Sony to match a $50,000 donation to a group that helps economically disadvantaged women get abortions.

What they’re saying: “The overall response has been incredibly positive,” Hoberman tells Axios, citing hundreds of supportive replies after he posted his letter publicly.

A half-dozen people told him that businesses should stay out of politics, he says.

“The fact of the matter is that some politicians aren't staying out of our business,” Hoberman says. “They are creating a hostile environment in states that we know and love and live in. This in turn is affecting the mental health and well-being of large swathes of our staff, and is outright hurting our business in tangible ways, such as employees leaving the states and difficulties recruiting to these states.”

Certain Affinity has about 175 employees in Texas. It says it will pay for "reasonable" relocation expenses for employees who want to move out of state due to abortion regulations. But the studio is not joining other companies that now promise financial assistance to workers who need to travel to get an abortion. Hoberman says doing so could run afoul of local law.

Yes, but: Most game companies are still keeping quiet these days.

In 2020 even the biggest ones like Nintendo and PlayStation expressed support for Black Lives Matter.

But taking a stand against racism is less controversial than taking one about abortion.

The Post says Insomniac and Sony won’t make their pledges public. That follows a Bloomberg report from last week that cited PlayStation boss Jim Ryan urging his workers to “respect differences of opinion” on abortion. 

The bottom line: A common thread through all of this is the will of the workers, which in these studios seems to largely be liberal.

Many employees expect companies they work for to express their values and to put policies and money behind them.

Video game studios are speaking out on abortion

Texas studio will cover some costs for workers who want to move out of state due to abortion regulations.

Illustration of Halo hero Master Chief standing in front of a field

Halo Infinite, one of several games worked on by Certain Affinity. Image: Microsoft

One of the week’s most interesting new releases is tomorrow’s “Echoes of the Eye,” an expansion to 2019’s award-winning surprise hit, “Outer Wilds.”

Why it matters: “Outer Wilds” is both part of a broader trend and highly unique.

It’s another time-loop game in which the story progresses through numerous resets of the game’s universe.

But it’s also a game in which you are strictly an outer space explorer, with nothing to shoot, break or kill — and nothing to collect and bring back to the next 22-minute loop other than knowledge about how its fantastic solar system works.

The expansion’s contents have been kept secret (we won’t spoil anything here) other than that it offers some new, strange wonders to explore.

What they’re saying: “We want this to be a game about you exploring because you want to answer questions,” creative director Alex Beachum tells Axios, speaking of the original and its expansion.

“Outer Wilds” is about the “intrinsic motivation” of curiosity, Beachum says.

The original game contained a solar system of curiosities, each operating with its own looping systems for discovery, such as of a pair of planets called the “hourglass twins” that shed sand from one orb to the other, exposing explorable caves.

Between the lines: The dozen developers behind “Outer Wilds” started making “Echoes of the Eye,” just before the main game shipped.

The main game was made in relative obscurity.

The unlikely success of “Outer Wilds”

"Outer Wilds” is part of a broader trend of time-loop games.

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