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The Last Guardian

I am typing this at Disney World. They have invented a kind of magnet that works on money, here, and it works really, really well. They have a kind of watch you wear that doesn't tell time, but does allow you to spend money in an almost frictionless way and I have. I'm glad that I came down right after the C Team but came home before our Warmachine show we do with Privateer Press, because it provided a kind of upper bound on my losses. Also, they have a root beer float you can get by the pool only it's not root beer it's Guinness. A dangerous juxtaposition.

Fritterer

After Gabriel tried Arms during the Global Test Punch and bounced completely off the experience, I did my best to advocate for the game. There's something here, I said. Discrete, particular hands are an illusion, I said - the hand is a mutable concept. There's a way to mash buttons playing the game but that's not where it tops out. It looks goofy as hell, but don't be fooled.

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Atomic Side-Eye

Battleborn just went free-to-play-but-not-really-it's-just-a-perpetual-free-trial-and-alternative-business-model-which-I-can't-meaningfully-distinguish-from-f2p, or something, and maybe that'll work for them. Games go free with varying levels of success; Star Wars: the Old Republic is often hailed as an optimal example, though it's starting to become clear to me that many of my friends are super into ESO. Retail launch for these service-product chimaerae looks more and more like the the disposable first stage of a rocket.

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New Civilization

Kiko asked me if Star Trek: Bridge Crew was VR's "Killer App." I could hear the quotation marks around Killer App; he was trying to create a kind of ironic gully around the term. But he also really wanted to know if it was the Killer App. I'll tell you what I told him.

Au Naturel

One year at PAX Aus, Kristin (whose work you absolutely know from PAX and Child's Play) was splitting a room with Kiko. Whenever she was not ensuring the utmost experience for attendees, she was shotgunning episodes of Supernatural. The more I tugged on this thread, the more I discovered that… Supernaturality was everywhere. And its agents were implanted deep, deep in the office.

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Kane And Abel

Morak was talking to me about a new documentary he had enjoyed on The Hulus called Batman And Bill. It's rare that a documentary gets made that is so applicable to what we specifically do, because what we do is so weird. We have a podcast about this strip, which talks around most of the specific topics, but I couldn't have him not talk about it because the core story was so heartbreaking.

Green Energy

I have used the dock for my Switch… twice, I think. I'm ready to play games there, I'm not opposed to it on moral grounds, but for the time being at least the Nintendo Switch is a machine whose purpose it is to ride through life with me, like a sidecar, while I busy myself making motorcycle metaphors.

Stream Of Annihilation

Wizards of the Coast is doing an event called Stream of Annihilation to kick off the new stuff they've got going, some of which was teased in the Acquisitions Incorporated Live game from PAX East. They're essentially operating a kind of online convention you can attend June 2nd and 3rd, with twelve hours of programming per day. They've pulled out all the stops on the talent side, it's a little ridiculous: The HighRollers, Misscliks, and more.