Patreon is back at it again, ruining their perfectly good business model because investors are annoyed they’re not getting more money for less work
Under the existing setup they’re basically just a transaction processor, allowing creators to receive a little support from a lot of people more effectively than users could on their own
Creators currently get 90% of pledges, with 5% going to transaction fees and the other 5% padding Patreon’s pockets
Considering they just announced they’ve payed out over $1B in payments, that 5% is pretty sizeable
Especially because the business scales indefinitely- adding more users doesn’t really add to their overhead or staffing needs
Compare that to a service like YouTube where a channel could upload hours of video a day, taking up a ton of storage and processing, but if no one watches them then there’s no return on that investment
Unfortunately under the guise of “building a sustainable business”, aka their investors (who they didn’t need) want all of the money forever, they’re moving to creator membership tiers with higher costs and mucking with features that everyone uses
Keep in mind, their business is kind of the definition of sustainable
So, what does this mean for creators? Well the plus side is they say current accounts won’t see any changes (though they’ve sprung changes on us without warning before, so that could change)
New creators will get to choose between Patreon Lite, Patreon Pro, and Patreon Premium
Lite gets you a basic creator page with no membership tiers, and Patreon keeps 5%
Pro gets you basically what they’re offering now, with membership tiers, analytics, and promo tools. This is the one they’re grandfathering existing accounts into at no extra charge, but new accounts will pay Patreon 8%
Premium has all that plus a “dedicated partner manager”, team accounts, merch for membership, and the privilege of giving up 12% of their income with a minimum $300 fee
All in all they’re charging more for the same features, and adding on new features that, from what I’ve seen, current Patreon creators don’t care about
Nintendo’s Nindies Showcase was this week, and here are some of the highlights
Cuphead is coming to the Switch on April 18 with Xbox Live support (so presumably trophies?)
My Friend Pedro, a 2.5D run and gun you’ve probably seen gifs of on Reddit with its ridiculously stylish and acrobatic gunplay, it hitting the Switch this June
The creators of Crypt of the NecroDancer are bringing us a Zelda themed adventure this spring in Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda
Uses an art style reminiscent of portable Zelda games and features 25 remixed songs from the franchise
Those are some of the bigger ones announced, but it’s definitely worth your time to check out the other trailers as well
We also saw some details on Google’s new Stadia game streaming service, and it looks interesting
One of the biggest pieces to it is being able to play a game within seconds of seeing the trailer on YouTube
Official trailers could add a Play Now button, launching the game directly within your browser and letting you play immediately
They say as long as you have a stable internet connection, you can play modern games without hitches even on phones, tablets, or chromebooks
You can play with whatever you have connected to the device you’re streaming on- controller or mouse/keyboard, or you can use their fancy Stadia controller that actually connects directly to the cloud via wifi
Plus it’s got built-in integration with Google Assistant- with the press of a single button it will automatically detect where in the game you are and show you the most relevant YouTube video to help out
They also say that, because the processing is all done in the cloud, developers won’t have to worry about performance when it comes to couch co-op and dealing with rendering a split screen
id Software has even announced that Doom Eternal, the sequel to Doom’s 2016 reboot, will be playable on Stadia in 4K at 60fps
There are still a lot of questions, like latency and costs, not to mention how developers can expect to get paid, but if nothing else this will continue to push the cloud gaming conversation forward
Fingers crossed this doesn’t mark the beginning of the end of offline gaming, especially since I don’t really want me gaming completely controlled by Google
After Disney fired James Gunn from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 over some decade-old tweets dug up by right-wing personalities, they’ve finally decided on a new director- James Gunn!
Apparently while the film was on hold they never started searching for a new director, and instead became convinced he should be given a second chance
He’s still making The Suicide Squad, so Guardians 3 won’t be coming out for a couple more years yet
As fellow APN member I Have Some Notes said on Twitter, “People who say terrible things should be admonished, people who say terrible things but apologize and learn should be encouraged”
Netflix is getting back in the interactive adventure game with You vs Wild
The show will star Bear Grylls across 8 episodes as he attempts to survive extreme conditions and climates, and ask viewers to decide what he does and whether he succeeds or fails
All 8 episodes are hitting Netflix on April 10
For more proof that we’re in the darkest timeline, NASA has issued a warning about space herpes after the virus was found reactivating in crew aboard the shuttle and ISS
Apparently spaceflight increases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which can suppress the immune system
The worst parts are, the longer the mission the more it seemed the viruses were reactivating, and it can have lasting effects up to 60 days after landing
Tidbits
Apple’s released new second-gen AirPods with their usual speed improvements, plus they’ve added Hey Siri functionality and a fancy new optional wireless charging case
AirPower is still nowhere to be found, but apparently Apple just recently got their hands on that trademark so it could be here next year for gen3
Either way, the new ones have launched at exactly the same price as the old ones with some extra features so I’d call that a win
We also saw some low-key updated to the iMac and iPad lines, with the new iPad mini finally getting a retina display and Apple Pencil support
A fancy new Oculus headset, the Rift S, is coming this spring with higher-resolution screens and a PSVR-like headband
It also comes with Oculus Touch controllers and not require any external tracking sensors, all for $399 USD
Hello Games continues to revamp No Man’s Sky with this summer’s Beyond update, bringing “radical new” multiplayer components
The new No Man’s Sky Online will specifically avoid subscription fees and microtransactions, and will be free for all existing players
Recommend The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut series) by Mary Robinette Kowal
Really interesting, entertaining, and human alternate history set in a world that a large scale disaster in 1952 has humanity accelerate space programs to create colonies on other planets
This is a series where I find myself really reading the acknowledgements, because it’s so cool how many scientists, astronauts, and pilots contributed to the accuracy
You don’t often see fiction novels with a bibliography
Literally Misleading
From our lovely Family member Scott.
Check out his twitter @scottybomb and his podcast The Read-Along, its a weekly book club for where you can follow along with Scott and Anita!
(Movie) “A father’s present to his son goes awry when the instructions aren’t correctly followed.”
For more content, Patreon supports get access to upcoming ideas and more!
A huge thanks to Dalton, for believing in us for so long. And thanks to all our ‘fanily’ that support us. And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!
Also, make sure to check out RIPT Apparel for sweet 24 tee shirt designs. And don’t forget to use the coupon code PS2JSHOW for 10% off!
A bad app, or bad actors, may be using your phone for nefarious purposes! Dunkey has a new Best of the Year video. Alan has a movie recommendation we missed earlier. Josh answers last weeks Bad Description of a video game, and gives a new one.
Dunkey has his Best of 2018 Video out
God of War – Dunkey says its a rare example of a triple A studio actually making a triple A game. We did a whole history leading up to it and don’t wanna spoil anything! https://www.ps2jshow.com/ps2j-196-history-5-30-2018/
Celeste – Help Madeline survive her inner demons on her journey to the top of Celeste Mountain, in this super-tight platformer from the creators of TowerFall. Brave hundreds of hand-crafted challenges, uncover devious secrets, and piece together the mystery of the mountain.
Into The Breach – Control powerful mechs from the future to defeat an alien threat. Each attempt to save the world presents a new randomly generated challenge in this turn-based strategy game. From the creators of FTL.
Zeroranger – Bullet hell shoot em up with beautiful pixel graphics down with minimal colour palette, and an amazing soundtrack.
Enter the Gungeon – A bullet hell dungeon crawler following a band of misfits seeking to shoot, loot, dodge roll and table-flip their way to personal absolution by reaching the legendary Gungeon’s ultimate treasure: the gun that can kill the past.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze – Help Donkey Kong and his friends get back their home from Vikings.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – Set 3 years after the events of Uncharted 3, Nathan Drake has apparently left the world of fortune hunting behind. However, it doesn’t take long for adventure to come calling when Drake’s brother, Sam, re-emerges asking for his help to save his own life and offering an adventure Drake cannot resist.
Lumines – The critically-acclaimed puzzle game produced by legendary creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi comes to PC.
Monster Hunter World – Enjoy the ultimate hunting experience, using everything at your disposal to hunt monsters in a new world teeming with surprises and excitement.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon – Battle with swords and whips in this retro-style action game brought to you by game creator Koji Igarashi and Inti Creates! Play as Zangetsu, a demon slayer bearing a deep grudge, who must travel through perilous lands to defeat a powerful demon lurking in a dark castle.
Downwell – A game about a young man going down an endless well with gun-boots.
Jack Box Party Packs – The team behind YOU DON’T KNOW JACK presents FIVE guffaw-inducing party games in one pack! You’re gonna need more than one party for this. Your phones or tablets are your controllers! For 1-100 players!
Monolith – A top down action shooter with procedurally generated elements. Explore a large, abandoned facility in search of incredible power, fighting dangerous foes and gaining new weapons and upgrades as you progress.
PS2J 202 (June 2018) News Update
Bethesda’s lawsuit against Warner Bros accusing the Westworld mobile game of copying Fallout Shelter has been quietly resolved
Terms weren’t disclosed, but both sides are covering their own legal fees and Bethesda called the resolution “amicable”
My guess? WB found that the company they hired to develop the game copied code and paid to make the problem go away
There’s a sneaky package tracking app that’s crowd-sourcing its data in the worst way possible
The app is called “Parcels – Track Your Packages” (not to be confused with the popular “Parcel” app)
As soon as you download and open it, it starts sending requests to its server looking for packages to track
The weird part here is that you may not have registered any packages yet
What it’s actually doing is downloading the details for shipments that other users have registered, including tracking number and courier details
Then the app uses your device’s resources and connection to get the status of those packages and send the info back, presumably to be forwarded on to the person that’s actually asked for it
This is likely a way to get around any limiting that the tracking websites may have, since the requests are coming from a large number of devices instead of a single group of servers
The problem is that, even if it was done with good intentions, the developers have created a botnet
They could easily leverage this framework to have all the devices perform DDoS attacks or falsify ad-clicks
Besides that, it’s also an issue because there’s no security involved
There’s no encryption on the data that’s being sent or received, or even on the instructions your phone gets from the server
9to5mac had the app running on a test device for an hour and managed to capture tracking info for 52 different shipments because they knew how to look
AT&T has found an easy way to upgrade all their mobile users from 4G to 5G- change the logo!
Background: actual 5G is using a completely new chunk of the wireless spectrum which requires new modem and antenna tech as well as more cell towers due to shorter range (because fun fact, some of the new spectrum is blocked by oxygen)
A much easier strategy, as AT&T has shown, is to just call 4G LTE “5G E”, and roll out software updates to reflect that
As a bonus, some of the phones that got this super-important update are still months behind in security patches
Their justification is that the new name will be applied to areas that have advanced LTE features, and actual 5G will be called 5G+. Because this just isn’t confusing enough
Psyconauts 2 coming out 2019 Looks like Raz in actively in the Psyconaut Organization.
Agent Nein is doing experiments on the mind of the villain from the first game.
It looks like Raz’s family may have accepted their powers and be more a part of the story.
An overhead shot of the common enemies you face show a couple new types: a worm thing with yellow eyes, a evil bunny with flame on their back, and a giant Judge with a gavel as a warhammer.
Some teaser shots of game play shows the wonderful ascetic of the game remains intact.
Tidbits
Shout out to fellow APN member I Have Some Notes for the tip
It looks like the fourth film in the Star Trek reboot has been quietly shelved
But hey, at least we got some odd-numbered Star Trek movies that were good!
Vive is introducing new hardware later this year called Vive Pro Eye, that includes eye-tracking from inside the headset
The idea is that you can make menu selections by looking at them instead of having to move your head, and computers can focus resources on rendering the best graphics exactly where you’re looking
Hobbyists have resurrected Kojima’s PT as a free download in Unreal PT
Nearly identical to the PS4 original, just missing the intro and closing cutscene
Also includes a helpful guide.txt for the game’s more obtuse moments
A huge thanks to Dalton, our favourite fan. And thanks to all our Official Fans that support us. And if you want to support us too, its as easy as clicking this link!
Also, make sure to check out RIPT Apparel for sweet 24 tee shirt designs. And don’t forget to use the coupon code PS2JSHOW for 10% off!
