Profile of SturmtigerCobra

The Company of Heroes Board Game Is Now LIVE on KickStarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/223137030/company-of-heroes-board-game/description

Core Set Estimated Shipping Costs Include Priority Tracking and Fulfillment:

USA: $18

UK: $22

EU, Australia, Canada New Zealand $27

All Other Regions: $43

AOE2 DE team at E3 confirmed:
https://www.ageofempires.com/news/age-of-empires-ii-de-at-e3/

Recently, we announced three of our Definitive Editions will be coming to Steam, giving our community the choice of where they want to play. With E3 fast approaching, kicking off with Microsoft’s Keynote on Sunday, June 9, we are excited to announce that we will be on the floor with Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition!

Attendees will be able to experience stunning 4K Ultra HD graphics, a new, fully remastered soundtrack, and 4 new civilizations during an on-hands demo of the game.

Not attending E3? Not a problem. Click here to sign up as an Age of Empires Insider and stay up to date on all things Age announced during the conference as well as get access to perks such as:

• Updates about the latest developments to the Age of Empires franchise

• Opportunities to provide input to the development teams via Insider surveys

• The chance to be selected as a participant in special playtesting events for unreleased Age titles and features

Todd: it just works

Epic Games misses roadmap goals for the second month in a row:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/bvh9x8/epic_games_misses_roadmap_goals_for_the_second/

I'm quite surprised that after the roadmap delay last month, Epic did not decide to focus more on providing promised and pretty essential storefront features. The near-term goals (1-3 months) have been delayed once again. As an example, cloud saves, which were supposed to ship in May, are now targeted for a July release. I can't find a previous version of the roadmap, but the vast majority, if not all near term goals have been postponed. You can see the roadmap here. This, along with the whole Anthem situation just shows how much credibility RoAdMaPs that developers like to share with the community deserve.

A shopping cart is still 6 months out:


EPIC: We've updated the #EpicGamesStore roadmap on Trello
https://twitter.com/EpicGames/status/1134567204178092033

Older news:
Epic’s Tim Sweeney believes creators, not consumers, are the key to the next generation of stores
https://www.pcgamesinsider.biz/news/68703/epics-tim-sweeney-believes-creators-not-consumers-are-the-key-to-the-next-generation-of-stores/

“It’s nearly perfect for consumers already,” said Sweeney. “There is no hope of displacing a dominant storefront solely by adding marginally more store features or a marginally better install experience. These battles will be won on the basis of game supply, consumer prices, and developer revenue sharing,”

It’s an odd quote considering the Epic store’s lack of social features in its current state, and only included a search function in its client this week. But it does explain a heavy developer-first strategy that has seen the Epic Store snag some key exclusives.

“We’ve worked to ensure it’s genuinely worthwhile for developers to move to the Epic Games store," said Sweeney.

"We’re giving game developers and publishers the store business model that we’ve always wanted as developers ourselves.”

Epic Esport Controversy & Cheating
https://www.reddit.com/r/LivestreamFail/comments/bw5wbb/epic_games_is_allowing_a_duo_who_have_been/

Epic Games is allowing a duo who have been punished for cheating in this SAME tournament move on to New York with a guaranteed $50,000 and play in the biggest E-sports tournament in history.

solartech0
What did they do, specifically?

GameWizrd
They had friends feed them kills/points during qualifiers and were very blatant with it. The whole community knew about it yet Epic decided to only ban them for two weeks in a tournament that spanned several months and didn't give them any other form of punishment.

As a viewer or Youtube creator, this is a need to know.
At best, the trending section should be renamed to "Sponsored content" as it is currently misleading viewers and Youtube creators.
At worst, more proof Google/Youtube has failed to self-regulate.

What 40,000 Videos Tell Us About The Trending Tab:

Is the trending tab rigged against creators? Is late night dominating the charts? Why does it feel your favorite controversial creator never trends. All of that and more, in the first ever data-driven look at the trending tab.

Conclusion - Trending Analysis:


YouTube’s Trending section puts creators at a huge disadvantage over big brands, May 29, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/29/18642833/youtube-trending-coffee-break-pewdiepie-late-night-sports-highlights

The difference is vast — Paul trended four times over the roughly 18-month period that Stephen scrapped data from, while ESPN trended 85 times. Stephen noticed something similar for channels that YouTube’s internal system categorizes as news: 95 percent of news that appears on Trending is from traditional media. Creators like Philip DeFranco, who was awarded funding by Google as part of an initiative to create better news channels on YouTube, have to hit a far higher view threshold to appear on Trending.

“It paints a very clear picture of what’s going on with Trending,” Stephen told The Verge. “YouTube sees it as a place to land people on advertiser friendly content. And creators see a place for viral works to be spotlighted. The difference is so clear.”
*SNIP*
What was interesting to Kjellberg, however, is how Trending worked internationally. Stephen compared Trending videos in the United States and Canada — two countries with similar cultures, time zones, and languages. Whereas Kjellberg trended 45 times in Canada, he only trended once in the United States.

The finding suggests that moderation operates differently in the US than it does in Canada. “That means someone at YouTube went, ‘PewDiePie? Get him out of here,’” Kjellberg said in his video. “It’s not about edginess. It’s about what YouTube deems safe content.

Tool to track global Youtube analytics:
https://socialblade.com/

-------

My personal take on this:
If this is not biased algorithms I don't know what is.
Google bias is targeting Americans and push MSM content at the detriment of Youtube creators.


At this point, it's obvious big tech (and gaming industry predatory business practices) need new regulation as they have failed to self-regulate.

Alternative, US need to break up Google so Youtube gets more competition. My educated guess this will happen within the next 1-2 years along with new consumer privacy regulation.
Sources/Evidence of monopolized capitalism/Crony capitalism | From Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354-500-revealed-the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world/

1) As an example of decent media regulation, US fairness doctrine (1949-1987):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
2) An example of anti-consumer regulation paid for by corporate media lobbies. This lead to new media consolidation, Telecommunications Act of 1996:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
As Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) described it:
https://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/speak-out-for-media-democracy/

The Telecommunications Act of 1996– essentially bought and paid for by corporate media lobbies– opened the floodgates on mergers. Ironically, consolidation has been most profound in radio, a medium ideally suited to local ownership and diverse content. The damage to radio diversity is staggering: Over 4,000 radio stations have been bought out since the Telecom Act, and minority ownership of TV stations has dropped to its lowest point since the federal government began tracking such data in 1990.

3) US antitrust laws to promote fair competition for the benefit of consumers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_antitrust_law

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-01/trump-antitrust-case-against-google-should-scare-tech-industry
Bloomberg News and other news organizations reported late Friday that the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to open an investigation into Google’s compliance with antitrust laws. If it goes forward, an investigation will no doubt be broad, lengthy, messy, and impossible for Google and its investors to predict.

Google hit with €1.5 billion antitrust fine by EU, Mar 20, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/20/18270891/google-eu-antitrust-fine-adsense-advertising

In a press conference this morning, EU antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that the tech giant had abused its dominant position by forcing customers of its AdSense business to sign contracts stating they would not accept advertising from rival search engines. Said Vestager: “The misconduct lasted over 10 years and denied other companies the possibility to compete on the merits and to innovate.”

Margrethe Vestager is from my country.

Why MSM fear pewdiepie/Generation Z gamers:
For the younger generations MSM is dying and they know it. The new media war is about who get to control social media and Youtube content. Generation Z is pro-free speech and very pro-meme/Youtube culture.


MrBeast is the Santa Claus of Youtube supporting pewdiepie:


Buying PewDiePie a $1M Billboard in Times Square!:


https://news.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-remains-historical-low.aspx