Author: Matt Demers
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Rocket League: Unifying esports through shared context
When I found out that Rocket League was going to be allowing cross-play between Xbox One, the Playstation 4 and PC, I initially just chalked it up to the game being relatively good at it already and adding one more platform to its portfolio. However, the more I thought about it, the game has evolved […]
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Who Benefits: Riot Games acquires Radiant Entertainment
Last week, Radiant Entertainment announced that they would be acquired by Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends. Radiant, so far known for the civilization construction game Stonehearth (which I backed on Kickstarter) and their fighting game Rising Thunder, will be joining the company to develop a new game for Riot. Rising Thunder‘s alpha […]
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Visiting Stardew Valley
How often do you play a number of games in the same genre, and wish that there was a way to combine the best features of them into one title? How often do you sit down and think “man, I’d love the way the shotgun sounds from Game X, but I like the reloading animation […]
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#LetsTalk 2016 – My depression, and how it hurts me
So today’s Bell’s annual #LetsTalk day, which is a promotion to get people talking about depression and mental health. Every time people tweet with the hashtag, Bell makes a donation to Canadian mental health programs. Basically it’s a giant PR move that a lot of people just happen to believe in; the company’s shitty practices […]
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SeeBotsChat: So two robots walk into a bar…
So if you’ve been on Twitch Twitter™ today you’ll probably have heard about seebotschat, a channel that has two voice-activated assistants (Google Home models) that are programmed to talk to each other. Both have tweaks made to their code in order to give them a separate personality; the one on the left is named “Vladimir” […]
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Who benefits? ESPN, TSM, and the great eSports gold rush
Disclosure: I worked at theScore eSports from Jan 2015 to Nov 2015. I worked with Rod Breslau and Tyler Erzberger during my time there, and edited their work. Darin Kwilinski edited my work while I worked at Azubu from April to June 2014. All three now work at ESPN. ESPN, the largest sports media company […]
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Twitch and the art of running marathons
While Twitch has made huge strides in terms of user engagements, the past two years have seen the rise of a form of entertainment that deserves special mention: the marathon. Watching something for long periods isn’t exactly something new: before Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out, people decided they needed a refresher on the […]
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Bring back the watermark, save your content
Friends, I think it’s time we had a serious talk. This might be a bit of a controversial topic, but I think we’re at the point where revisiting something might save us a bit of a headache in the long run. I think it’s time we start being obnoxious about watermarking. I know, I know; […]
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Who benefits? Ember and public player salaries
This is going to be the start of a new series called “Who Benefits.” At its core, the series looks at marketing and PR decisions in eSports in a critical way in order to attempt to decipher choices and why they’re made. The origin of the name comes from a panel in DC Comics’ Identity […]
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Fishing for pre-feedback, and how it hurts your product
Today I’d like to start a series of posts where I examine some of my pet peeves when it comes to content creation. These posts will attempt to deconstruct bad habits and common mistakes I see made, as well as provide decent reasoning for thinking them a problem. As a disclaimer: This article is not […]