Bill Young on LinkedIn: There are few brands as foundational in my world as Atari. I’m rooting… | 15 comments (2024)

If you're wondering why there are so many TV shows and movies based on video games these days - this Chartr provides at least part of the story. Also - Congrats to & the Fallout team for their 16 Emmy nominations...including:Best DramaBest Actor (Walton Goggins)Outstanding Writing (for "The End," which was the series pilot)So...what's ahead in this category? What are the big adaptations we have to look forward to?...hold on to your butts:Video Game Movies:Borderlands (August 9, 2024)Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (December 20, 2024)Minecraft: The Movie (April 4, 2025)Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (Fall 2025)The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2 (April 3, 2026)The Legend of Zelda (TBA)Ghost of Tsushima (TBA)Until Dawn (TBA)Gears of War (TBA)Mortal Kombat 2 (TBA)Return to Silent Hill (TBA)Death Stranding (TBA)Street Fighter (TBA)Days Gone (TBA)Pokemon: Detective Pikachu 2 (TBA)Stray (TBA)BioShock (TBA)Space Channel 5 (TBA)Comix Zone (TBA)Mega Man (TBA)Just Cause (TBA)Duke Nukem (TBA)Gravity Rush (TBA)Dead by Daylight (TBA)It Takes Two (TBA)Sifu (TBA)Slime Rancher (TBA)Ark: Survival Evolved (TBA)Pac-Man (TBA)Streets of Rage (TBA)Sniper Elite (TBA)Toe-Jam and Earl (TBA)Jak and Daxter (Status Unknown)Call of Duty (Status Unknown)Half-Life (Status Unknown)Saints Row (Status Unknown)Portal (Status Unknown)Yakuza (Status Unknown)Beyond Good & Evil (Status Unknown)Firewatch (Status Unknown)Metal Gear Solid (Status Unknown)The Division (Status Unknown)Just Dance (Status Unknown)Dragon's Lair (Status Unknown)Splinter Cell (Presumed Cancelled)Video Game TV Shows:Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (October 10, 2024)Like a Dragon: Yakuza (October 25 and November 1, 2024)Arcane: Season 2 (November 2024)The Last of Us: Season 2 (2025)Fallout Season 2 (TBA)The Witcher: Season 4 (TBA)God of War (TBA)Horizon (TBA)Gears of War (TBA)Devil May Cry Anime (TBA)Twisted Metal: Season 2 (TBA)Assassin's Creed (TBA)Splinter Cell (TBA)Castlevania: Nocturne: Season 2 (TBA)Mass Effect (TBA)A Plague Tale (TBA)Nier: Automata: Season 2 (TBA)Disco Elysium (TBA)Hunt: Showdown (TBA)Alan Wake (TBA)System Shock (TBA)Grounded (TBA)Life Is Strange (TBA)My Friend Pedro (Status Unknown)Skull & Bones (Status Unknown)Child of Light (Status Unknown)Brothers in Arms (Status Unknown)

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Is there nothing that Whataburger can't do?Alternate Headline: Is there anything that the Texas power companies can do?I'll take this moment to reminisce about the hundreds of Jalapeño & Cheese Whataburgers ordered during my college years. Nothing did the trick at 2am quite like it. Also...stay in school, kids. They have Whataburgers there. Here's to my friends and family in the South Texas/Houston area...who will not be seeing this post unless they are charging their phones in their cars, because THEIR POWER IS OUT...and have been told they won't have power again until MONDAY.https://lnkd.in/gaywS6zV

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🤷♂️

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...and you think YOUR backlog is embarrassing. The total value of Steam games that have been purchased...but have gone unplayed: $19,000,000,000. ***It's Worth noting this math is not confirmed, nor is it very good math. https://lnkd.in/gRnyJZTw

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Ok...I'm working on a premise. A kernel of a thought I had a while back...and would like to express it here to get your take. I posit: Video Games; their fundamental purpose...is misunderstood. ...Shall we?OMY@CVideo games are fun...right? That's why we play them...right? What is fun though? Blowing things up is fun. Killing zombies and nazis...objectively fun. Making tea and moving a plate of fish over and over again from point A to B is fun....wait. Is it? Half of "Dave The Diver" is serving sushi to irritable customers. How is that fun? sh*t...what does "fun" even mean? Are we thinking about this the right way? Let me be clear, "Dave the Diver" is definitely fun. I enjoyed the hell out of that game. But WHY did I enjoy it? I did not race a car through space...I did not overcome any necromorphs or orcs...hell, I didn't even throw a game winning touchdown. I poured drinks...I added ingredients to a menu. What the hell?Here's the thing:One of the main reasons we play games is to feel the pleasant satisfaction of challenging ourselves when nothing truly mortal is on the line. Historically...when there is no saber-toothed tiger about to eat us, or farmland that needs tilling...humans have played games. We play games to provide a momentary escape from the toil of our daily lives. Ironically, many of these games have psychologically replaced the danger we no longer experience from saber-toothed tigers...or the repetitive toil that very few of us still experience through farming.The danger part is what everyone thinks about. The toil? Not so much.But...we need toil. We need repetition. We need meaningless micro-successes. "Fun?" ...yeah, maybe fun is not strictly about gleeful enjoyment...and more about recognizable satisfaction...and with video games, that includes the toil. I typically have at least two hypercasual mobile games going at any given time. For the last couple years, one of those games has been Voodoo's "Bubble Buster 2024." I'm on level 1,997. It's a prototypical, short-form dopamine distributor. Each level is different though, so it always feels fresh. The other one I'm playing right now is "Hexa Sort," by Lion Studios...it's one of a million "hexa" stacking games, but this one has super clean design, and is genuinely challenging. Is it weird that a "shape" has become a gaming sub-genre? yes...but that's not my point. There is undeniable enjoyment in both games...and I often choose them over GTA V (where I have the opportunity to steal cars, fly a helicopter under a bridge...shoot evil space clowns). It's clearly the more "fun" proposition, right? Toil. It's a different itch that also needs a'scratchin'. Final Thought: The Eagles are next up at The Sphere LV. I know Don Henley and Glenn Frey were notorious jerkfaces, and Jeff Lebowski hates them, but he's wrong. I'd see that show. I think Radiohead would be the ultimate Sphere show though. Make it so.

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This (rumor) shouldn't be a huge surprise...the AVP 1 was always meant to be a showpiece...something high-end for devs - not for everyday consumers (a point lost on critics). First blush - this looks like a great next step.https://lnkd.in/g8XcjTDG

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I know that you already know, but now you know that I know you know, you know? For those that don't know: Nintendo Direct is tomorrow. 3pm UK / 10am ET / 7am Normal Person Time. https://lnkd.in/gaZKEVZY

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I think Sony has underestimated Astro Bot. It’s the #1 top wish listed game from the summer showcases. https://lnkd.in/gdY3dhpc

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No squatch sightings last weekend...but wow...what a week since. A massively productive one for The Glitch (on all fronts), and apparently some other things happened around the industry as well...huh. Alright...let's-a-go: OMY@C🤘 ⛏ - Metallica will be in Fortnite soon. The event is called "Metallica: Fuel Fire Fury," and it will kick off on June 22nd. The San Francisco band got on the Fortnite Festival stage yesterday - so if you're curious...hop on in there. RIP Cliff. RIP Eddie. 🍎 - Apple's WWDC was this week...and their formal entry into Ai was the big takeaway. "Apple Intelligence," was the name they landed on. Essentially, it's Ai integrated through every aspect of their various OS's...adding personal context to everything. My first reaction was...do I want that though? On one hand, this feels like the first real indication of where consumer Ai is headed...on the other: privacy?A big part of Apple's presentation of their Ai is "setting a brand-new standard for privacy in Ai." So...they're well aware of the line that's being crossed. Apple's 5-minute video overview (on their site) shows you how "Ai for the rest of us" will work...and it's easy to be cynical about it. A squirrel DJ...cool. Custom emoji's...neat. Still...you should watch it. When app devs finally start building for this though...look out.PREDICTION: iPhone 16 will be the best selling iPhone yet. The 6 sold 222M units total...71.5MM units in it's first 3 months...so we'll know by year's end how this crazy statement is trending. 📺 🎮 - Mike Verdu will soon be leaving his role as VP of Netflix Games (and starting a new role with the company). Speculation is rampant about what this means for the games unit. It's possible that it means...nothing at all. I'm still massively bullish on the gaming opportunity for Netflix. My personal opinion is that transmedia is the biggest, most exciting play here...but I've also heard there are internal headwinds on that. 🤷♂️ 🍷 ⛵ - I'm not going to Cannes...again. Maybe some day. I'll drink rosé and look important at home...again. I'm not bitter. 📺 🎮 - Follow Friday: Two nerds with a webcam...that you absolutely should be following if you're in the games business: 1) Chris Melissinos (Principal Evangelist for Amazon Web Services (AWS) - Video interviews with games industry legends, deep retro dives, and discussions on the top news. 2) Alexander Seropian (Founder/CEO of Look North World) - Host of "The Fourth Curtain," is always a headliner event. 📺 - Palm Royale (Apple+). Kristen Wiig as a social climber in 1960's south Florida. So good. Save a grasshopper for me.🎵 - Spotify's "Daylist" - pull the throttle back a bit with your list names though. "90's Indie Twee Friday Afternoon," might be accurate...but it's embarrassing. 🎮 - It's been 2 weeks since I picked up Hogwarts Legacy and Vampire Survivors...haven't started either yet. THAT's how busy it's been.

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I'm just gonna step out of the way...and let this trailer for Riot Games' & Netflix's Season 2 of Arcane do the talking. Just kidding...I have thoughts:"Final Chapter?!" - Why though? This series is deserving of much more (100% on Rotten Tomatoes, 9/10 on IGN Entertainment)...so hopefully the "chapter" they refer to is this specific arc (maybe the rivalry of Vi and Jinx?). Vi: "My sister is gone." Vi: "JINX!!!"Jinx: "...finally got the name right."They're not slow playing this one, are they? The November timing gives us all plenty of time to rewatch Season One. I could be imagining this, but the art style seems a little less "PTOW!" and a bit more mature. Don't get me wrong, I loved everything about S1 - especially the art (unique amalgam of a variety of comic/manga/game aesthetics)...but as the story gets more intense...and intentional...it would make sense for the art to narrow in a bit as well. We'll see...I don't expect to fully grok that from 91 seconds on YouTube...but I really liked what I saw. My expectations are very high now...and I'm not going to lower them. Setting myself up for disappointment? Maybe...but Fortiche Production has proven themselves...many times. You know those super cool videos from Gorillaz? Yup...those are Fortiche. For those of you worried that you need to be a League of Legends gamer (or even a gamer at all) to understand the story...you don't. I promise. Arcane is top-tier television. I put it up there with Last of Us and Fallout, in the game adaptation category. Alright...NOW i'll get out of the way and let the trailer do the talking. Enjoy!

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