Tag: unsurprisingly
Hideo Kojima, man whose body is “made of movies,” unsurprisingly wants to try making some
If you’re familiar with Hideo Kojima’s work, it probably won’t surprise you to hear that he’s pretty interested in actually making a movie one of these days.
As reported by VGC, Kojima recently spoke at the Anan Awards in Japan (via Famitsu), as he one the top honours in the culture category for Death Stranding. At the event, he noted that even though his career has been entirely games focused, “all fields are connected in digital works, so I would like to expand from games to fields such as film and music.”
Music isn’t a hugely surprising thing either, as it’s been a majorly important aspect of all of his titles, including the most recent one Death Stranding. But Kojima being a film love in particular is probably the easiest piece of trivia you could offer about the game developer. His English Twitter quite literally jokingly states “70% of my body is made of movies,” which you could easily say about his games too, with the length of cutscenes they all have.
Google is (unsurprisingly) shutting down Stadia in January
Despite claims to the contrary as recently as July, Google is shutting down its Stadia games streaming service after just three years. The company says players will still have access to their games and be able to play them until January 18, 2023. After that, Stadia will join the long, long list of products that have been killed by Google.
Those who have invested money into Stadia will be fully reimbursed. “We will be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store,” Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison wrote in a blog post. “We expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023. We have more details for players on this process on our Help Center.”
The Stadia store is now closed, so you can’t make any new purchases. In-game transactions have been disabled too. Google says it will handle most refunds automatically, and you won’t have to return most Stadia hardware (so hey, at least some people will get a free Chromecast Ultra out of this mess). Meanwhile, Google won’t reimburse Stadia Pro subscriptions. If you have an active membership as of today, the company won’t charge for access to your library of games or other Pro features until Stadia shuts down.
The reasoning behind the “difficult decision” isn’t surprising. Google said the service “hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected.” It’s a shame, though, since the streaming tech at the core of Stadia works very well and the service had a passionate, if ultimately small, community. The decision leaves Xbox Game Pass, NVIDIA GeForce Now and Amazon Luna as the vanguards of cloud gaming for now.
It seemed like the writing was on the wall for Stadia when Google closed its internal game development studios early last year. There have been other indications in recent months that Google was shifting resources away from Stadia to focus on licensing the underlying tech to other companies. We’ve seen that in practice over the last year or so, with AT&T offering its subscribers the chance to play Batman: Arkham Knight and Control at no extra cost. Capcom used Stadia tech for a streaming demo of Resident Evil Village as well.
Back in March, Google formally announced Immersive Stream for Games, a version of Stadia that third parties can license. It seems the Stadia tech will live on there and in other Google products. “We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts — as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed,” Harrison wrote. “We remain deeply committed to gaming, and we will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators.”
Harrison noted that many members of the Stadia team will continue their work in other parts of the company. It’s not clear if there will be any layoffs as a result of the Stadia closure. When asked to comment on the possibility of layoffs, Google directed Engadget to Harrison’s blog post.
DC Fandome, Unsurprisingly, Isn’t Happening This Year
Back in 2020, as everyone was optimistic that the COVID-19 pandemic would last a handful of months, Warner Bros. decided to host a streaming event called DC Fandome. For all intents and purposes, it was the DC equivalent to a Nintendo Direct, with first looks at then-upcoming films like The Suicide Squad and The…
TikTok’s Book Club is now (unsurprisingly) Amazon-sponsored
In April, we wrote about #BookTok, describing it as “the “last wholesome place” on the internet. We then asked: can it stay that way?
Depending on how you see the platform — and how you view Amazon — the answer may be here. Amazon has now decided to sponsor the TikTok Book Club, in an effort towards “connecting more readers with books and sharing the experience and joy of reading”.
According to a statement by the pair of companies, the collaboration is an offshoot of Amazon’s campaign called “That Reading Feeling Awaits”. The global campaign aims to inspire a deeper love of reading, much like TikTok’s book community already has.
The partnership, then, may be natural but it’s coming at an interesting time. Amazon is currently being boycotted by a slew of prominent TikTokkers. In a campaign entitled #PeopleOverPrime, 70 creators have vowed to “prevent Amazon from monetizing one of the largest social media platforms in the world”.
Amazon, meanwhile, appears intent on cementing a presence on TikTok, with this collab being yet another example of their (ahem) perseverance.
There’s not much information about how tangible this sponsorship will be. So far, it appears that Amazon’s involvement comes in the form of free, reading-themed emojis on TikTok, by searching for @amazonbooks in Stickers. These stickers can be placed on #BookTok-themed videos. The TikTok Book Club logo and in-app hubs are now also stamped with “Presented by Amazon Books” written underneath.
The TikTok Book Club read for the month, Bolu Babalola’s Honey and Spice, was also selected for Amazon’s Editors’ Pick earlier this summer, as a part of their Feel-good fiction round-up. Babalola also shared her own summer reading picks on the Amazon Editor’s Choice blog yesterday, another facet of the crossover between Amazon and TikTok.
Lisa De Meyer, UK country manager at Amazon Books, said, “At Amazon, our team’s mission is to inspire reading, celebrate books of all genres and all ways of reading. We’re excited to support the #BookTok community’s love of reading and offer new visual ways of expressing that reading feeling.”
The company’s focus on TikTok Book Club is a strong move, especially in light of their current standing with some TikTokkers. The book club came to fruition this summer, and has already gained significant traction across the platform and the wider publishing community.