Sundays are for leaving your controller on a hard surface while you pop out to do something quickly, but then it vibrates and makes a horrible, terrifying noise. Before you rush back, let’s read this week’s best writing about games (and game related things).
Over on Waxy, Andy Baio wrote about how one unwilling illustrator found her work turned into an AI model. The incredible potential of AI contrasted with invasive issues of consent and the possibility of some really disturbing inevitabilities.
“For me, personally, it feels like someone’s taking work that I’ve done, you know, things that I’ve learned — I’ve been a working artist since I graduated art school in 2011 — and is using it to create art that that I didn’t consent to and didn’t give permission for,” she said. “I think the biggest thing for me is just that my name is attached to it. Because it’s one thing to be like, this is a stylized image creator. Then if people make something weird with it, something that doesn’t look like me, then I have some distance from it. But to have my name on it is ultimately very uncomfortable and invasive for me.”
For VG247, Connor Makar wrote about how Modern Warfare 2 players are making cash from the Burger King skin market. An interesting insight into the Burger Town skin market and its surprising demand, but also some of the issues with region-locked promotions.
“I’ve gone [to Burger King] three times for codes” says Gabriel over Twitter DMs. A native of France, he’s one of the many out there who have taken to social media to promote their side hustle of selling codes to a desperate British and American MW2 player base. “I did stop for two days, but I’m headed back today for the last time.” With only three trips to his local Burger King, he has made upwards of $200, which he’s giddy to inform me will be going towards a new PC for Warzone 2.
On Kotaku, Sisi Jiang wrote about the Genshin Impact fans who spent $1000 to $90,000 on its characters. A long-ish read that offers many different perspectives from folks who’ve spent lots of money on the game’s gacha characters, touching on everything from regulation to regrets.
Solian_13 works as a developer in the video game industry, and he used to make free-to-play games. His “soul-sucking” experiences working in the mobile industry informed his own perspective on Genshin. “I think gacha games have less monetization… or like, top-down stuff. Because it’s separated from the gameplay. You’re making a good game, and then gacha is the monetization. Whereas for a [free-to-play strategy] game like Clash of Clans, monetization is the core thing, and you pay for time.” However, he acknowledged that the game still involved gambling. “I think it deserves to be criticized. Or at least looked at critically.”
I’m not a fan of dunking on devs’ hard work, but I found Crowbcat’s latest video a great take on the difficulties of triple A game development and what it’s meant for Halo.
Music this week is Vitamins by Shai Brides. Here’s the YouTube link and Spotify link. Punchy, catchy, and perfect to kick you into gear.
That’s it for now, catch you next week folks!
Ed Thorn
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