Re: Vision Pro, while they've only shown games on a big screen, in the press release you linked they seemed to differentiate between those and new "spatial" games:
"New spatial games, including Game Room, What the Golf?, and Super Fruit Ninja, take advantage of the powerful capabilities of Apple Vision Pro to transform the space around players, offering unique and engaging gameplay experiences."
Hard to tell without knowing more, but that sounds an awful lot like a more traditional VR experience.
I'm not surprised it exists, since there are a lot of VR games to port over to Vision Pro. And I'm not surprised that Apple has kept quiet about it, since everything about the unveiling of Vision Pro has been to clearly position it as different to VR, even though it's clearly capable of producing VR experiences.
But I am surprised that the first and only mention of it is one sentence in a press release! Hopefully those developers are able to show something soon.
the only “interactive” show ive watched on netflix is battle kitty
and while it isn’t necessarily a key part of the show itself, it uses that interactivity in a cool way, basically making navigating to each episode like a video game map
multiple world maps across different locales, lil shorts that are off the main path
Great first full post, Steven. Lots of terrific reporting and the SoT info is especially interesting, seeing as how it could, potentially, point to a thawing of the very icy relations between Microsoft and Sony right now. Unrelated, and sorry if you've already addressed this, but how do you feel about the creators of Substack being ok with, and profiting from, publishing hate-speech newsletters on their platform? Thanks.
Thanks for asking. I have communicated my displeasure about their position directly to Substack. I've also researched Substack alternatives in case I decide I need to split (thankfully, it looks like I can take my content, subsciber lists and any reader subscriptions with me, with no interference to any subscriber's experience. Believe me, this is not something I had wanted to spend time on in recent weeks, having just got here. I hope it doesn't have to come to that.)
For now, I'm monitoring how they're handling things given continued pressure.
And for those who don't know, the slightly short version is that the Atlantic published an article late last year saying that there are Nazi/white-supremacist substacks on the platform and questioned why this was being allowed. Many writers then implored Substack management to take action. Some other writers said, no, less moderation makes for better speech. Management then weighed in saying they disliked Nazis, wished people didn't hold those views but didn't believe in kicking people off unless they violate an incitement to violence part of this platform's prohibited speech rules. Disturbingly, they didn't even say: We don't want Nazis here; you're not welcome. Since then, some Substack writers have left or threatened to leave, some have reported readers cancelling subs, and management appears to have quietly blocked at least one of the substacks the Atlantic highlighted. Casey Newton, whose excellent substack Platformer has been all over this, has said that he's gone to management and may go to Stripe, Substack's payment processor, about this all possibly violating company policies. I'm following that closely.
For what it's worth, Substack takes a 10% cut of paid subs.
Steven, thank you so much for your quick and well reasoned response. It's greatly appreciated. If I hadn't been let go from my last gig I'd already be a paying member, but this issue would have caused me to seriously re-think that. I was really shocked to see that the founders didn't say, at minimum, they were donating the profits from THOSE Stacks to, oh, maybe the ACLU, or some similar awesome org. Anyway, thanks again, and best of luck with this new endeavor. I've been reading since you were with Kotaku, so I guess you could say I'm a fan 😉
Sorry to nag you on your first full launch post, but why does this keep referring to Sea of Thieves as free-to-play? I game on PC primarily but I don’t have game pass and it’s $50 CAD on Steam.
Not a nag! I corrected the post almost immediately after it ran, but, yes, I made a mistake and called Sea of Thieves free to play. It's a premium game and a live-service game with lots of free updates. It's also available on Game Pass, meaning many of its players did not pay specifically for it. But it is NOT free to play and I was wrong to say that.
So often it's the little things that result in errors. My apologies. And please never hesitate to point out a mistake, though I hope they'll be...rare.
Now that is an excellent pun, well played! And thank you, I had read to what I thought was the bottom of the article but not the headlines afterwards, and see the correction now. My apologies for missing. I got excited for a moment that maybe there was a free version on the Xbox app or something lol and had to double check.
Re: Vision Pro, while they've only shown games on a big screen, in the press release you linked they seemed to differentiate between those and new "spatial" games:
"New spatial games, including Game Room, What the Golf?, and Super Fruit Ninja, take advantage of the powerful capabilities of Apple Vision Pro to transform the space around players, offering unique and engaging gameplay experiences."
Hard to tell without knowing more, but that sounds an awful lot like a more traditional VR experience.
Yeah, that was interesting, right? I need to find out more, as it's something they've barely talked about.
I'm not surprised it exists, since there are a lot of VR games to port over to Vision Pro. And I'm not surprised that Apple has kept quiet about it, since everything about the unveiling of Vision Pro has been to clearly position it as different to VR, even though it's clearly capable of producing VR experiences.
But I am surprised that the first and only mention of it is one sentence in a press release! Hopefully those developers are able to show something soon.
the only “interactive” show ive watched on netflix is battle kitty
and while it isn’t necessarily a key part of the show itself, it uses that interactivity in a cool way, basically making navigating to each episode like a video game map
multiple world maps across different locales, lil shorts that are off the main path
its really cute and cool
and battle kitty rules, check it out
I would love a decent pirate game, where you pillage and plunder, upgrade your ship, crew and base that’s offline.
The best one I’ve played. Assassins creed Black Flag.
Great first full post, Steven. Lots of terrific reporting and the SoT info is especially interesting, seeing as how it could, potentially, point to a thawing of the very icy relations between Microsoft and Sony right now. Unrelated, and sorry if you've already addressed this, but how do you feel about the creators of Substack being ok with, and profiting from, publishing hate-speech newsletters on their platform? Thanks.
Thanks for asking. I have communicated my displeasure about their position directly to Substack. I've also researched Substack alternatives in case I decide I need to split (thankfully, it looks like I can take my content, subsciber lists and any reader subscriptions with me, with no interference to any subscriber's experience. Believe me, this is not something I had wanted to spend time on in recent weeks, having just got here. I hope it doesn't have to come to that.)
For now, I'm monitoring how they're handling things given continued pressure.
And for those who don't know, the slightly short version is that the Atlantic published an article late last year saying that there are Nazi/white-supremacist substacks on the platform and questioned why this was being allowed. Many writers then implored Substack management to take action. Some other writers said, no, less moderation makes for better speech. Management then weighed in saying they disliked Nazis, wished people didn't hold those views but didn't believe in kicking people off unless they violate an incitement to violence part of this platform's prohibited speech rules. Disturbingly, they didn't even say: We don't want Nazis here; you're not welcome. Since then, some Substack writers have left or threatened to leave, some have reported readers cancelling subs, and management appears to have quietly blocked at least one of the substacks the Atlantic highlighted. Casey Newton, whose excellent substack Platformer has been all over this, has said that he's gone to management and may go to Stripe, Substack's payment processor, about this all possibly violating company policies. I'm following that closely.
For what it's worth, Substack takes a 10% cut of paid subs.
Steven, thank you so much for your quick and well reasoned response. It's greatly appreciated. If I hadn't been let go from my last gig I'd already be a paying member, but this issue would have caused me to seriously re-think that. I was really shocked to see that the founders didn't say, at minimum, they were donating the profits from THOSE Stacks to, oh, maybe the ACLU, or some similar awesome org. Anyway, thanks again, and best of luck with this new endeavor. I've been reading since you were with Kotaku, so I guess you could say I'm a fan 😉
Maybe Xbox could trade Sony Sea of Thieves for Last of Us. As an Xbox player that would be great.
Excellent post, Stephen! I loved listening to this (love this listening feature of Substack, too) and can't wait to consume regular content 🙌🏽
Sorry to nag you on your first full launch post, but why does this keep referring to Sea of Thieves as free-to-play? I game on PC primarily but I don’t have game pass and it’s $50 CAD on Steam.
Not a nag! I corrected the post almost immediately after it ran, but, yes, I made a mistake and called Sea of Thieves free to play. It's a premium game and a live-service game with lots of free updates. It's also available on Game Pass, meaning many of its players did not pay specifically for it. But it is NOT free to play and I was wrong to say that.
So often it's the little things that result in errors. My apologies. And please never hesitate to point out a mistake, though I hope they'll be...rare.
Now that is an excellent pun, well played! And thank you, I had read to what I thought was the bottom of the article but not the headlines afterwards, and see the correction now. My apologies for missing. I got excited for a moment that maybe there was a free version on the Xbox app or something lol and had to double check.
Congrats on your first full post!