Tag: Fortnite

Fortnite Brings Back ‘Share The Wealth’ Emote On Same Day As Mass Layoffs

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The video game industry is still reeling from Epic Games’ September 28 announcement that it will lay off nearly 900 employees. If developers at the Fortnite money-printing factory aren’t safe, nobody is. In perhaps the worst-timed microtransaction ever, Fortnite’s “Share The Wealth” emote went back up for sale on the battle royale’s in-game shop later that day.

Dead By Daylight Devs’ New Game Is Fortnite Meets Doom

It didn’t take Fortnite news accounts like Guille_GAG long to discover the emote had returned to cap off the a day full of grim news. “Epic has brought back the Share the Wealth Emote just after firing 900 of their employees…,” they tweeted. “Epic Games is under fire for selling the ‘Share the Wealth’ Emote in today’s Item Shop rotation – just hours after 830 employees were laid off,” the FortniteBR Instagram account posted.

It appears the emote, which was added to the game earlier this year in Chapter 4: Season 3, was only on sale for a brief period before being removed. According to FortniteBR and others, the emote was removed when Epic took down the entire Daily Rotation tab from the store shortly after the emote went live.

A company spokesperson told Kotaku in an email that the “Share The Wealth” emote was pre-scheduled. “The emote was taken down when we realized the mistake roughly one hour after going live,” they wrote. Epic Games acknowledged the missing feature on Twitter and said it would return during the next item shop refresh.

“We’ve been spending way more money than we earn,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote in an email to staff announcing the layoffs. It was a peculiar invocation of of the royal “we,” considering the executive then proceeded to list acquisitions, expansions, and other business initiatives, like growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators, that most of the people laid off probably had no say in.

It’s unclear what sort of salary Sweeney and other executives at the company draw. Epic remains a privately owned company, so it doesn’t have to disclose any of that information. Sweeney has pushed back again the concept of a wealth tax in the past, claiming that it would penalize people like him by forcing them to sell equity in their companies anytime they become more valuable. While the larger company remains a black box, we do know that Fortnite made $9 billion in its first two years, and Epic continues to rake in “billions of dollars a year in revenue from player purchases.”

The news around Epic’s layoffs renewed questions about how companies handle cost-cutting, and who feels the pain first when economic gambles don’t pay off. People often recall the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata’s symbolic pay cuts when his companies’ products would underperform, like the 3DS and Wii U. Some other gaming CEOs have undergone similar compensation cuts in recent years, including Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Activision. Relative to the millions earned in company stock, however, the salary haircuts often seem like a pittance in comparison.

“The reality of being laid off by Epic while being treated for skin cancer has hit me and woken me from a not sound sleep and I don’t think there are words for how furious I am at the company, the leadership, their greed…all of it.” one former Epic employee tweeted overnight. In the meantime, Epic is still burning money on things like Epic Games Store, its Steam competitor, showering players with free games. The latest freebie is the action RPG Soulstice, which is normally listed at $40.

“Saying goodbye to people who have helped build Epic is a terrible experience for all,” Sweeney wrote in his email to staff. “The consolation is that we’re adequately funded to support laid off employees: we’re offering a severance package that includes six months base pay and in the US/Canada/Brazil six months of Epic-paid healthcare.”

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Ethan Gach

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September 29, 2023
Fortnite Has A Museum Dedicated To Teaching About The Holocaust

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Fortnite, Epic Games’ crossover meme of a video game, is once again becoming the stage for some historical education, as a group of developers has used Epic’s Unreal Editor For Fortnite program to create an in-game museum dedicated to the Holocaust.

Dead By Daylight Devs’ New Game Is Fortnite Meets Doom

As absurd as that might sound in premise, Fortnite did this in an official capacity for Martin Luther King Jr., and it was a well-intentioned if incredibly jarring tribute to a civil rights figure’s legacy. However, unlike that display, which was done as part of an official Epic Games partnership with the DuSable Museum of African American History and the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., this is from Luc Bernard, who directed The Light and the Darkness, a free historical game meant to educate players on the events of the Holocaust.

Bernard posted about the in-game display on Twitter, saying bringing something like this to Fortnite’s millions of players can bring museums and all their information to people, as a vast majority of people never visit these places in-person. According to a study, around 80 percent of people have never visited a Holocaust museum, so a digital alternative may at least reach some new people. In an interview with Euronews, Bernard said this was especially to reach Fortnite’s younger audience.

If you want to see the museum for yourself, it’s not live yet. But when it is, the code for the map is 4491-8501-3730.

All UEFN projects go through Epic, which has veto power over anything that comes through the system. So between the people making it and the big corporation approving it, I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt that this will be informative and respectful, even though Fortnite feels like a strange platform for this kind of thing. The game’s scale and reach makes it ideal for creators and historians to use it, but all the best intentions won’t make it any less ridiculous when you see Rick from Rick and Morty and Master Chief reading about one of the most heinous acts of human cruelty known to man. All that being said, kudos to the team, and I hope this reaches people and proves Fortnite can be more than just a meme.

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Kenneth Shepard

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August 4, 2023
The Ladies Of The Witcher Are Storming Fortnite

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Epic Games’ battle royale shooter Fortnite has some new characters joining in on the quest for the W: The Witcher 3’s Ciri, Geralt of Rivia’s adopted daughter, and his love interest Yennefer of Vengerberg are now available in the game’s item shop.

The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage

The popular ladies of The Witcher franchise storm Fortnite with two islands of their own: Ciri’s Escape and Yennefer’s Battleground, both of which can be accessed through the game’s Discover tab. Or, if you’d rather land on the islands immediately, you can enter code 2776-4034-8400 for Ciri’s and 2862-9616-5689 for Yennefer’s. Completing either Ciri’s or Yennefer’s islands will net you emoticons of each, while finishing both of them will reward you with a fancy banner to show off. The two islands will be live until July 4.

The real draw here are the equippable skins, though you’ll have to shell out some V-Bucks for them. Currently Yennefer can be bought either on her own for 1,500 V-Bucks (approximately $12 USD) or in a bundle with her Megascope pickaxe, bird skull back bling, and Black Wings emote in which she summons her magical raven for 1,800. Ciri, meanwhile, is only available in a pack for 2,000 V-Bucks, and comes with both back bling and a pickaxe of her silver sword Zireael, as well as a basilisk glider. There are some cool touches to these skins, as well. Ciri’s hands, for example, will glow green when holding her Zireael Sword Pickaxe. And Yennefer’s just a badass. Who wouldn’t want to embody her essence?

Unfortunately, Geralt isn’t joining Ciri and Yennefer to duke it out for the win this time around, as the White Wolf was previously an unlockable skin Battle Pass owners were able to acquire back in Chapter 4 Season 1. As a result, he probably won’t be for sale at any point, though those who unlocked him can, of course, use him any time. Ah well, if we can’t have him back, then replacing him with two of the most powerful women in The Witcher seems like a fair trade.

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Levi Winslow

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June 23, 2023
The Red Cross Challenged Gamers To Not Commit War Crimes
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Image: Epic Games
The International Committee of the Red Cross has partnered up with a bunch of Twitch streamers to encourage gamers to not commit war crimes in popular shooters like Call of Duty. The ICRC hopes that its event, “Play by the Rules,” will educate players on the statutes of actual war. The organization has even created its own Fortnite mode to help communicate what those rules are.

The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage

Read More: War Crimes in Video Games Draw Red Cross Scrutiny

“Every day, people play games set in conflict zones right from their couch. But right now, armed conflicts are more prevalent than ever,” the ICRC website said. “And to the people suffering from their effects, this conflict is not a game. It destroys lives and leaves communities devastated. Therefore, we’re challenging you to play FPS by the real Rules of War, to show everyone that even wars have rules—rules which protect humanity on battlefields IRL.”

As part of the event, on the ICRC’s official Twitch channel streamers have played a number of games while adhering (or attempting to adhere) to the Laws of Conflict, including PUBG Battlegrounds, Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, Rainbow 6 Siege, and Escape From Tarkov. In addition to the Play by the Rules event, the ICRC created its own Fortnite mode that’s designed to convey the rules of war in the context of competitive play.

For those curious, the official rules of war for the ICRC’s Play by the Rules event (which have been streamlined to account for video game mechanics) are:

No thirsting (don’t shoot downed/unresponsive enemies)

No targeting non-violent NPCs

No targeting civilian buildings

Use med kits on everyone

ICRC

This isn’t the first time the ICRC has urged players to critically think about the rules of war. Back in 2017, the ICRC hosted a similar event in an Arma III DLC called Law of War. In Law of War, gamers put down their weapons and took on the role of humanitarian workers as they respond to people in crisis, deactivate mines, and speak with an investigative journalist. According to a blog post from Arma III developer Bohemia Interactive, the DLC raised a total of $176,667, which it donated to the ICRC.
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Isaiah Colbert

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April 19, 2023
RIP: All The Battle Royales That Failed, Flopped, Or Died After Fortnite And PUBG Blew Up

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Image: Epic / Square Enix / Boss Key / Kotaku / LadadikArt (Shutterstock)

It’s almost poetic that, in a genre built on many people fighting to stay alive until just a few remain, so many battle royale games have launched, flopped, and died over the last few years. Not every new battle royale can find the same success as Warzone or PUBG. In fact, most will be lucky to survive at all. And many haven’t, as this list shows.

While fan-made mods have added battle royale-like modes to games like Arma, the genre truly exploded with the release of Player Unknown’s Battleground and, shortly after, Fortnite’s take on the genre. These games exploded in popularity, with Fortnite alone jumping from 20 million users in 2017 to 125 million in 2018. Publishers took notice, and more studios began spitting out battle royales to cash in on the trend. And it makes sense. These games aren’t too tricky to make if you already have a shooter engine or existing IP that works within the genre and a talented team of devs. However, they need constant upkeep, fresh content, and a large player base to live. And that’s not easy to achieve.

So, as we wrap up our fantastic week focused on battle royale games, it seems like the perfect time to stop and acknowledge all the games that tried to survive and thrive, but in the end, for various reasons, didn’t make it. They all got sniped from afar and were left in a ditch, surrounded by digital corpses of other failed attempts to be the next Apex Legends or Fortnite.

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Zack Zwiezen

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April 1, 2023
10 Must-See Battle Royale Moments, From Fortnite To Warzone

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Image: Respawn / Kotaku

No two battle royale matches are alike. Clever, spontaneous tactics springing from the generative collision of varying skill levels, map layout, and randomized items, weapons, and vehicles can lead to theatrical levels of epicness and hilarity—often both at the same time. So it’s only fitting during Kotaku’s week of Battle Royale that we celebrate some standout moments across the many games that have challenged our wits, accuracy, and luck, surprising us with moments no one saw coming.

It would be impossible to catalog every possible epic-tier moment, be it in Warzone, Fortnite, PUBG, or Apex Legends, so these are barely even the tip of the iceberg. But they are nonetheless some excellent examples of literal pro-gamer moves, crushing failures, and thrilling moments of victory. One of them is from one of Kotaku’s very own (but it ain’t me. I suck at these damn games).

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Claire Jackson

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March 31, 2023
Huge Dong Makes Appearance During Streaming Awards Show

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Screenshot: Twitch

Spanish streamer TheGrefg is one of the biggest stars on Twitch, so much so that he recently held his own awards show that drew almost two million viewers. And everyone watching was, for a moment, treated to a big ol’ ASCII penis.

First, some background. TheGrefg has almost 20 million YouTube subscribers. Over 11 million Twitch followers. Even if you don’t know who he is because he doesn’t’ speak your language, the dude is one of the most popular streamers on the planet; we wrote about him in 2021 when he “obliterated the all-time Twitch viewership record” in a clip…revealing his own Fortnite skin:

For years now, Twitch’s record for most concurrent viewers on a single streamer’s channel has been hotly contested, with streamers topping each other in slow-building increments. Today, however, Spanish streamer TheGrefg made everybody else look like they’d been wrestling for discarded peanut shells. As of writing, he topped out at nearly 2.5 million—a new all-time record that beats not just individual channels, but entire games.

The event we’re talking about today—called Premios ESLAND—is actually the second year running that he’s been able to host his own awards show specifically for Spanish-speaking streamers, streaming and related events/stunts. And it’s quickly become a huge event; this year’s show drew 1.75 million viewers, and that’s not counting the folks in attendance watching it live.

Look at this crowd! That’s Mexico City’s famous Auditorio Nacional, and TheGrefg packed it out for the show:

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Anyway, being the second time he’s run one of these shows—and that he lives on the internet—you might think he or his producers would know not to cut to the live chat on the big screen up on stage. Yet this year he did just that, and as you can see in the video below, he regretted it about as quickly as a human can register the sensation:

In the interests of accuracy and truth in reporting, here is the NSFW image:

Screenshot: Twitch

“ha”

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Luke Plunkett

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January 30, 2023
Fortnite Fans Say New Skin Is A JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Rip-Off

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I’m seeing double. Must be the work of an enemy Stand.
Image: Epic Games / David Production / Shueisha / Netflix / Kotaku

Recently, Fortnite has become a wacky and eclectic ensemble of the best anime characters of all time with its Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, and My Hero Academia crossovers. However, some fans are calling out the battle royale’s latest original skin for not being so original at all, but rather what they see as an egregious JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure knockoff.

Yesterday, the official Fortnite Twitter account made a post about its newest character skin, Hana. Hana sports a fashionably short chartreuse hairstyle while wearing a blue suit with an exposed midriff and matching chartreuse patterns. Hana’s also got a ghoul-like “inner demon” outfit named Keleritas. If you’ve watched the Netflix anime JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, you wouldn’t be remiss in thinking I just wrote a word-for-word description of its titular character Jolyne Cujoh and her ghost-like Stand, Stone Free.

Read More: Netflix’s Binge-Model Release of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean Ruined The Anime’s Hype

For those without JJBA brain rot, Jolyne Cujoh is the main character of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’s sixth part, Stone Ocean. Jolyne utilizes a magical ghost-like being called a stand to assist her in battles. Stone Ocean recently finished streaming on Netflix last month, though the show was poorly promoted online by the streaming service.

While some fans were more charitable than others when calling out Fortnite’s new character on Twitter for her uncanny resemblance to Jolyne, editing the character into the “Is That A MF JoJo’s Reference” meme and making requests for a future Fortnite x JJBA crossover, others saw it as a blatant rip-off.

“You gotta love that legally distinct energy,” Reddit user Vera_Verse wrote on the r/TwoBestFriends subreddit.

“Great Value Jolyne,” wrote one Twitter user.

“Johnson’s Peculiar Journey,” wrote another.

Kotaku reached out to Epic Games but did not receive a comment by the time of publication.

Read More: Netflix Removed A Fan-Favorite JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Scene To Avoid Disney’s Lawyers

JJBA is no stranger to battle royale games or wacky crossovers. Prior to the release of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R, Bandai Namco released a third-person battle royale action game called JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Last Survivor in Japan back in December 2019. More recently, JJBA announced a collaboration with the fashion company Bradelis New York for a Jolyne Cujoh-themed lingerie line.

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Isaiah Colbert

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January 13, 2023
Fortnite’s Plague Doc Skin Is Back After Three Years, Fans Blame COVID

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Image: Epic Games / Kotaku

Yesterday, after 1,410 days (or 3 years and 10 months) the Grim Medicine cosmetic set—complete with the popular Plague Doctor skin—returned to Fortnite’s in-game store, letting players buy it for the first time since the start of the covid-19 pandemic. And many believe it was the pandemic itself that kept the plague-themed items and skins out of the game for such a long period of time.

I doubt I need to explain Fortnite to you, but just so everyone’s on the same page: Epic’s Fortnite is a free-to-play battle royale PVP shooter available on nearly every modern platform out there. It supports crossplay across all of them and for the last few years has been one of the most popular games in the world as it continues to expand and include more characters from other franchises, like Star Wars, Dragonball Z, and Street Fighter.

But Fortnite also has plenty of its own original skins and cosmetic items too, like Peely and the previously mentioned Plague Doctor. But until yesterday, these plague-related items hadn’t appeared in the game since March 1, 2019, making them extremely rare, as the only people who could use them were folks who bought them back when they were last available. Meanwhile, most other skins appear again and again in the store every few weeks or months.

Fans had theorized that the Grim Medicine cosmetic set had been blacklisted and retired by Epic due to the covid-19 pandemic. This makes sense, as including those skins during the height of the deadly pandemic that has killed over 6 million people worldwide as of January 2023 would have been a bad look.

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The working theory is that the skin popped up in the store on March 1, 2019. Then before it could appear again in the store, covid-19 was detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and eventually spread around the world, officially becoming a pandemic according to the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. It’s not unreasonable that Epic saw this happening and decided to pull the plague-themed items from the store’s rotation in order to avoid any controversy.

The thing is, Epic has never officially confirmed this theory at any point. Kotaku has reached out about the skin and the long gap in time between it showing up, but didn’t hear back from the company. Still, even if Epic hasn’t officially confirmed the reason for the Grim Medicine items going missing for nearly four years, the covid-19 theory doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. And regardless of why, many players were excited to see it return, even if only to make a joke about its long absence. Or to point out that covid-19 is still a thing in 2023, which it is, and it’s still deadly and dangerous, too.

“One of my friends IMMEDIATELY dropped money into the game upon getting this notification. He’s been waiting since it was last in the shop,” tweeted one person. “LETS GOOOO! I finally got PLAGUE!!! I wanted him for 2 years,” tweeted another player upon seeing the news of the Plague Doctor’s return to Fortnite. Of course, there were other players who found it funny everybody was excited over the skin, and others who owned it already and were now sad to see their once rare skin become common once more.

Personally, I’m not excited about the Grim Medicine skins as I don’t really like how they look. And besides, I only like to buy the most cursed and bizarre skins in Fortnite, like Mr. Meeseeks from Rick and Morty.

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Zack Zwiezen

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January 11, 2023
Fortnite players are getting $245 million in refunds — here’s who qualifies
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Epic Games, creator of the massively popular video game Fortnite, was hit with the Federal Trade Commission’s biggest penalty ever for a rule break this week.

The developer was ordered to pay $520 million for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act as well as for tricking millions of players into making unintended in-game purchases using a technique called “Dark patterns.”

Fortnite is free to play and makes billions of dollars from in-game purchases such as digital skins for players’ characters and seasonal “Battle Passes” that provide useful items as a user spends more time playing.

In a release breaking down Epic’s violations, the FTC said that the game’s “counterintuitive, inconsistent and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button,” including while players thought the game was in sleep mode or in a loading screen.

“These tactics led to hundreds of millions of dollars in unauthorized charges for consumers,” the FTC said.

Fortnite allowed children to purchase its in-game currency “without requiring any parents or card holder action or consent.” Parents complained that their kids “racked up hundreds of dollars in charges before they realized Epic had charged their credit card without their consent.”

“The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough,” Epic said in a statement in response to the penalty. “We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players.”

Of the $520 million fine, $245 million will be set aside for customer refunds.

Are you eligible for a Fortnite refund?

Three groups can expect to receive money back:

Parents whose kids made unauthorized purchases in the Epic Games Store between January 2017 and November 2018

Players who were charged Fortnite’s in-game currency for items they didn’t intend to buy between January 2017 and September 2022

Players who disputed unauthorized charges with their credit card companies and, as a result, had their accounts locked

When will the FTC’s Fortnite refunds be paid out?
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December 23, 2022
‘Fortnite’ Maker Fined $520 Million For Invading Kids’ Privacy And Tricking Players

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Fortnite creator Epic Games will pay a record $520 million to settle allegations that it illegally collected children’s personal information and used “dark patterns” to encourage accidental in-game purchases. What do you think?

“I hope they have a creepy way of making that money back.”

Cliff Zarley • Unemployed

“I blame parents for letting their kids have personal information.”

Mandy Lee • Chief Enunciator

“We let these companies babysit our kids for free, and they betray us like this?”

Skyler McManus • Excuse Investigator

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December 21, 2022
Congress Wants To Know What The Biggest Game Companies Are Doing To ‘Combat Extremism’

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Photo: Mark Wilson (Getty Images)

A group of seven lawmakers are sending a letter to the world’s biggest video game companies tomorrow, asking each of them what steps they’re taking to combat “harassment and extremism” in online video games.

As Axios reports, the seven Democratic representatives—including Lori Trahan (Massachusetts), Katie Porter (California) and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon—have all co-signed a letter, which is looking to “better understand the processes you have in place to handle player reports of harassment and extremism encounters in your online games, and ask for consideration of safety measures pertaining to anti-harassment and anti-extremism”.

Unsurprisingly, the list includes companies like Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty, Overwatch), Microsoft (Xbox), Sony (PlayStation), Roblox, Take-Two Interactive (Grand Theft Auto, NBA 2K), Riot Games (League of Legends, Valorant), Epic (Fortnite) and Electronic Arts (Battlefield, FIFA & Madden).

Those are all massive international companies, most of them with thousands of employees spread out all over the world, and responsible for some of the planet’s most popular and enduring online games. To want to grill them, when so many of them are based in the US—or at least most popular in the US—is a pretty obvious move!

Hilariously, though, whoever put the list together of which companies to target has clearly just gone down a list of “most popular games”, not “biggest companies”, because among those titans of industry are Innersloth, the developers of Among Us.

Among Us may be a huge hit, but Innersloth are also a tiny team. How tiny? This tiny:

Among Us Wins Best Mobile Game at The Game Awards 2020

Innsersloth’s webiste says the studio currently has 20 employees. I don’t know how much they’re going to be able to explain when their game has you playing as a cute little astronaut, doesn’t have voice chat and only lets players communicate via a menu of pre-written lines.

But then nobody has to legally reply to the letter at all, it’s just a letter, so maybe they can just reply “sorry, think this is meant for Xbox!” and get on with their day.

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Luke Plunkett

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December 15, 2022
World Cup Player Gets Gaming Setup Shipped To Qatar So He Can Play Fortnite

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Photo: Mike Hewitt (Getty Images)

England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford has made a few handy saves so far at this World Cup, but between waiting around for large parts of a game and then having days between matches, there’s a lot of spare time to fill. Which he has duly done by getting an enormous gaming setup shipped over from home.

Pickford, who plays his club football for Everton, revealed the power move as part of this promotional interview below, which runs for over 20 minutes but which I’ve set to autoplay at the relevant moment:

Pickford Chats GK Union, Gaming Setups and Golf Dream Teams 🎮⛳️ | Ep.20 | Lions’ Den With M&S Food

Seems the guy really likes playing Fortnite, and had previously taken gaming laptops with him while on national duty so he could play on his off days. But switching between those cramped confines and his regular setup had proved too much for the Euro 2021 Golden Glove winner, so for Qatar he just figured, fuck it, and got something more heavy duty shipped over.

Screenshot: YouTube

The monogrammed container it arrived in is, indeed, a “proper bit of kit”. Inside it’s still a laptop, but with a custom-built, full-size TV/monitor/screen included so that the visual experience on the road matched what he was used to at home.

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As for Fortnite, it’s not just Pickford playing; as he says above it’s something he plays with the lads, and four years ago at the last World Cup the England squad were famously, absolutely hooked on it:

Aside from their inspired celebrations, England players have been very forthcoming about their own Fortnite escapades in the camp. It’s no surprise that team youngsters Marcus Rashford and Alli play religiously, or that young-at-heart Raheem Sterling and Lingard log on to Epic Games’ best-seller, but the true revelation has been star striker Kane.

Kane, or should we say “hkane23”, has racked up an astonishing 110 matches while in Russia, closely followed by Tottenham (and evidently Fortnite) teammate Alli, also known as “Delstroyer14”, who has played 82 times, according to reports. The pair have previously livestreamed their matches, including one against defender and teammate Harry Maguire.

This being 2022, and with the World Cup running (for some countries at least) for almost a month, he’s far from the only person there playing Fortnite in his downtime. But he is, surely, the only one “just tryin to get the best frames, trying to get the upper hand” with a monogrammed, armoured computer case.

It’s also lovely to see that, since switching to a PC laptop, he’s having more luck with his power supply.

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Luke Plunkett

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December 6, 2022
Report: Streamer Deleted From TV Station’s Feed After Abusive, Misogynist Video Resurfaces

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Photo: Zac Goodwin – PA Images (Getty Images)

Streamer, YouTuber and all-round internet celebrity IShowSpeed has recently been helping one of the biggest TV stations in Europe, Sky Sports, with its broadcasts of English Premier League matches. That was, reportedly, until the executives at the channel found out about a video that went viral back in April.

03:51

Halo Infinite Winter Update’s New Multiplayer Maps

Wednesday 4:38PM

IShowSpeed—more commonly known as simply ‘Speed’—had been in the stands earlier this month to watch his team Manchester United play Fulham in the league (and then my beloved Aston Villa for the League Cup). While there, he helped present segments for the channel and appeared on their social media feeds. Here’s one (surviving) example:

And here’s another (uploaded independently by someone who had saved the footage), showing him failing to recognise either Jamie Redknapp or Louis Saha:

Ishowspeed in SKY SPORTS STUDIO reacting to no RONALDO

Speed, who got famous streaming games like Fortnite, NBA 2K and FIFA, was presumably brought in by Sky to leverage his internet following and supposed appeal to younger football fans, which at time of posting stands at 13 million YouTube subscribers and 5.4 million Instagram followers (he is permanently banned from Twitch).

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As of today, though, nearly all of Speed’s promotional material on Sky’s social media has been deleted (with the exception of that single Tweet above), with The Athletic reporting that Sky made the decision after they were made aware of a video that did the rounds in April—one that became so notorious we reported on it—in which Speed made incredibly hostile and misogynistic comments to his teammates:

While Speed later apologised for those comments, they were so bad that Riot Games banned him from not just Valorant, but League of Legends as well. His Twitch ban, meanwhile, was also for misogyny, just a different video. It’s weird—given that it was so widely reported, the tweet above having 180,000 likes and 11.7 million views and it was only 7 months ago—that nobody at Sky thought to even Google his name before putting him in the spotlight like this!

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Luke Plunkett

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November 14, 2022