artists die from “exposure”, because it doesn’t pay the bills. I think you are right that the exposure has value, but it definitely doesn’t have $83k worth of value, because musicians simply do not make money from album sales anymore. Most artists barely break even from doing concert tours.

I think this Vulture article sums up the veracity of the Scientology claims. Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s accusation included the allegation that she is a true-blooded Scientologist, and she has yet to deny it. By my estimation, Scientology is an ugly (if not evil) organization using the veil of freedom of religion to deflect any criticism of its predatory and abusive practices. Armstrong really does have an excellent voice for this role, but I refuse to support anyone who participates in that shit.

She posted a note to refute the Danny Masterson connection, yet she pointedly ignored the scientology allegation. I think I land in the same place as @[email protected] on this one. Until she publicly refutes the Scientology connection, I don’t want anything to do with a Linkin Park that includes her.

it’s interesting to think about the logistics here. How much money should Rockstar have allocated for the soundtrack, to offer a better deal to artists? The article mentions that they licensed over 240 songs for GTA5. At $7500 a song (who knows what they actually paid), that’s $1.8 million. The total budget for GTA5 was around $265 million, so that $1.8 million is less than 1% of the total budget. Some songs surely cost more than $7500 to license, so let’s assume it added up to 1% of the budget by the end. Evidently GTA6 is looking like a $2 billion budget game atm (absolutely bonkers), and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to allocate at least the same percentage to the music licenses, given how central the soundtrack is to the GTA experience.

If they allocated 1% of $2 billion to the soundtrack, that would give them $20,000,000 to play with, or average $83k per song if they are going for about the same size of soundtrack. Now, this is all just my quick napkin math based on the assumption that Rockstar paid about $7500 per song for GTA5, but I think this indicates that either A) they are massively underballing Heaven 17 here, or B) Rockstar senior management has not allocated a music licensing budget that matches the size of the game they are making.

What do y’all think? Is $83k per song a reasonable rate for the kind of license Rockstar is asking for? Or is even that too low?

So what to make of the Scientology links, then? And the whole thing where she doesn’t “believe in” mental illness? If her statement is true, then she has dodged the most disgusting allegations, but idek if u can trust that it is true.

Butterbee where are you in the Jokes and Humor sub. These are great!

Good luck with your little one!

From the article:

the role of monarch is not hereditary: The successor is determined by tribal representatives from across the nation.

The ceremonies took place in Tūrangawaewae Marae on the North Island, which is the seat of the Maori King movement.

The political institution developed in the 1850s, when Maori tribes decided to unify under a single sovereign in the face of an influx of British settlers and demand for their land, as well as broader political marginalization.

Today the role of the Maori monarch is largely symbolic. As a former British colony and current member of the British Commonwealth, New Zealand’s official monarch is King Charles.

So I don’t think this is monarchy in the way that you are thinking. The “Maori Monarch” is more of a political leader than anything, so in a US context, it’s kind of like the NAACP selecting a new president.

“One of the most important things we need to do as a country as we begin to rebuild our politics is we need to elect serious people,”

Liz Cheney channeling Logan Roy over here.

it’s sounding more and more like they should have…

100%. It’s made me rethink all of my support for the remaining members of the band. This choice aside: if they truly respected Chester’s legacy, why not rename the band? You can still play a Linkin Park song or two at shows for your new band, no one will care. To me, all of this just smacks of “Mike Shinoda and friends didn’t want to set aside the fame and album and ticket sales that come from having the Linkin Park name.” It feels like they spent seven years honoring Chester’s legacy so fans wouldn’t revolt when they replaced the irreplaceable.

I’m not saying any of that is necessarily true, but the air of deception around this move makes one start to wonder if they have been deceived in other ways.

This was a great read! This was actually a local race near me, and I didn’t pay THAT much attention because it isn’t in my actual district, but I remember hearing about the race with one guy that was an “internet microcelebrity”.

Sounds like Sony finally has their very own Mario game! I hope Sony leans into this side of their portfolio in the future. And more selfishly, I REALLLY hope this one comes to PC

That statement was my attempt to summarize a chunk of the article, and was not my own analysis. From my perspective, I will say that I understand that there are parts of the world that don’t have access to PS5 games or whatever. However, I don’t think that this market is going to massively shift at any time in the next decade, because that would mean a shift of the entire socio-economic balance of the world. As much as I would love to see the Global North take a backseat while other nations rise, I think it’s fair for an analyst to assume that this is not going to happen.

i can’t tell if you are being sarcastic and i’m missing the joke, or if you are actually trying to be sympathize with Taco Bell

The standout line for me was this bit at the end:

Are we going to reach the same levels of player count and engagement again when there are so many other draws on their attention and time compared to 2020 or 2021? Not anytime soon, if we ever do.

As I see it, the video game market went from a growth market to mature practically overnight. Meaning, since Pong, the video game market has continued to grow as more and more people have discovered gaming over time. But in 2020-21, a huge influx of players and time found their way to the video game market and many of them liked it and stuck around. Others have again left gaming, having been pulled away by other things. So now, it’s more about optimization of the player base rather than pursuing more organic growth by finding new players.

This has been a painful transition in thinking for many in the industry, especially those who assumed that player growth would continue forever, especially after the boom seen in 2020-21.

It’s not just that gaming had an unusual growth period during COVID lockdown. It’s that gaming had its final big growth period ever during this period. Everyone left out there that ever thought they might give gaming a shot did so during the lockdown, and they either stuck with it, or they realized it wasn’t a forever hobby for them. From here on out, the gaming industry is more like the food industry or something. They won’t find new pockets of untapped consumers. They have found them all, and now developers and publishers need to be smarter about scale and burn rate.

Ys IX

Guild Wars 2 and Loop Hero

clear out my backlog

I have a feeling you aren’t going to make much progress on your backlog. lol

I’ve been playing Mario Galaxy 2 for the first time. It’s pretty good, but I’m wondering what the hype was about.

Does it feel like anything more than a level pack for Galaxy 1? That was the general impression that I remember. My lil bro beat Galaxy 2 but I never got around to it.

really? huh. I haven’t seen either movie, I always thought the nose bandage Gosling was from Drive.

the RoR devs are looking to apply their talents to…VR headsets?

In the first paragraph of the article, it says that they are leaning towards voting third party instead. Harris should be extremely concerned.