"Black Myth: Wukong," an incredibly popular video game in China, dominated the country's social media when it was released in August.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
China's internet isn't happy that "Wukong Sun: Black Legend" is due for release on Nintendo's store.
It's a 2D platformer game with art and a title that resembles "Black Myth: Wukong."
Immensely popular in China, the game has an ardent player base that is fiercely defending the title.
"Black Myth: Wukong," the high-profile video game that earned superstar status in China, has a new titular competitor on the market: a side-scrolling platformer in which the Monkey King bashes through monsters of ancient legend.
"Wukong Sun: Black Legend," published by Global Game Studio, is now listed for preorderon Nintendo's store for its Switch console — much to the chagrin of China's social media.
Posts deriding the Nintendo-listed game as a knock-off emerged on Monday morning and, within an hour, topped discussion rankings on Weibo, China's version of X, per data seen by Business Insider.
"Hey everyone, have you heard? The stunning 'Black Myth: Wukong' has actually been copied! This really makes you speechless," one user wrote.
"Since Nintendo has removed pirated games from its shelves, this should also be removed," wrote another.
Promotional art for the Nintendo-listed game, which is due for release on December 26 and retails at $7.99, bears a striking resemblance to that of "Black Myth: Wukong."
Promotional art from "Wukong Sun: Black Legend" alongside a design from "Black Myth: Wukong."
Screenshot/Nintendo Store and CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
But the new title's gameplay looks nothing like that of "Black Myth: Wukong," a 3D action game with spruced-up visuals and a famed boss system that's difficult to overcome.
"Wukong Sun: Black Legend" appears to feature 2D sprites that approach from the right of the screen as the player navigates from the left.
"Black Myth: Wukong," produced by Chinese developer Game Science, is based on characters from the 1592 novel "Journey to the West," one of the most famous literary works in the region and a cornerstone of Chinese popular culture and mythology.
The term "Black Myth" in the game's title refers to it telling a story that is not included in the original novel, which has served as the base for a hit 1986 TV show and a plethora of books, games, and other media.
On its Nintendo store page, "Wukong Sun: Black Legend" also references the novel, saying it would allow players to "embark on an epic Journey to the West" and battle characters from its mythology.
Weibo users aren't having any of it.
"Well-known games have been plagued by imitations for a long time," wrote Pear Video, a popular internet news account. "Malicious developers exploit the names of well-known games, reskin various small games, and put them on the shelves of big game stores with similar titles, deceiving uninformed consumers to buy and download."
Nintendo operates a marketplace that allows developers to publish games for Nintendo consoles. The company did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by BI.
The studio did not respond to a request for comment in an email sent by BI.
"Black Myth: Wukong" is considered China's first homegrown AAA video game success, selling over 20 million copies on the marketplace Steam, per the data tracker Video Game Insights. The game retails at about $59.99 per copy, putting total sales north of $1 billion.
The design of Sun Wukong from the video game "Black Myth: Wukong" is used as the model for a snow sculpture in Harbin.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
Its release dominated China's internet this summer and has garnered an ardent cult following. Earlier this month, the title's failure to clinch the coveted "Game of the Year" award from The Games Awards sparked a wave of dissatisfaction on Chinese social media.
The fragmented social landscape continued to splinter in 2024, as traffic from social media platforms sent to publishers’ sites continued its steady decline this year.
The bright spot? Largely Google. Publishers saw increases in traffic from Google Discover — and Google Search’s generative AI feature hasn’t had a negative impact on the traffic to publishers’ sites.
Other than Facebook, social platforms like Instagram, Reddit and Threads are all driving marginal traffic to publishers’ sites, according to Chartbeat’s data from about 3,750 sites.
Continue reading this article on digiday.com. Sign up for Digiday newsletters to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.
I can tell Jess is trying to be nice about the people in her group chat, to varying degrees of success. It's not that the members are bad people. They met a year ago at a vocal workshop for aspiring musicians and artists and decided to keep in touch after it ended. The chat has become a mix of a confessional and a lovefest — people will leave long audio messages rambling about their days and texts about how much support they get from everyone. It's this "quintessential overcomplimentary, masturbatory, 'everybody loves each other so much'" space, Jess says. Plus, they're not good musicians, which is the opposite of the chat's point. She's attended various performances of other group members, and "all of them are bad, across the board," she says. But again, she's really trying to be nice. "In this group, they have so clearly found theirpeople," she says. "I don't hate these people. I just hate being in their stupid group."
And yet she can't just quit. For each member's birthday, the group goes in on a gift together. Her birthday was first, so she felt like she had to stick around for everyone else's. She finally got through the first round of birthdays, opening the door for an exit — but it can't be an Irish exit. "I feel like I have to make a goodbye," she says. "I can't ghost. I can't ghost. It would be against the whole thing of the group." She spoke on the condition of withholding her last name for this story, for obvious reasons.
Jess isn't alone: Many people report feeling overwhelmed by group chats, saying it's difficult to keep up with messages and even comparing it to a part-time job. Many people, like Jess, also have at least one group chat they really hate. It's not just a nuisance but a place that makes their blood boil. It's like scrolling through posts from the most obnoxious people on Twitter, but you actually know them in real life. As much as you may loathe the chat, it's tough to quit — group chats may be contained in the cold, distant trappings of technology, but the contents are often warm and real.
Jess tells me our conversation has reinvigorated her commitment to leave her despised chat ahead of the new year. She's just got to think up her goodbye message first.
The group chat is a complicated invention of our modern technological existence. It can be a useful tool: a place to coordinate Fourth of July plans with extended family or stay up to speed with neighbors on the landlord's latest shenanigans. It can be a fun place: a spot for sending memes and gossip and life updates. The group chat is also often a safer space for spicy takes than social media — it's less likely to get you fired, or indicted, or canceled (though that's not impossible). Group chats can also be wildly irritating. You look away for a few hours and suddenly you've got 63 unread messages about stuff you really do not care about. And sure, you can mute it, but it's still there, haunting you.
I don't hate these people. I just hate being in their stupid group.
Jeremy Birnholtz, a communication professor at Northwestern University who focuses on human-computer interaction, told me there are two features that make group chats unique (and daunting). "One is that texting is happening all the time, so you can't choose to be out of the room and not be with everybody," he said. "Two is that you're either in it or you're out of it. There's not a graceful way to ease yourself out of it as there are with social relationships."
Ignoring the group chat is less obvious than, for example, spending Thanksgiving watching TV in the living room instead of talking to everyone around the table. But eventually everyone will notice and think you're kind of a jerk for it. And if you do engage, it can be tricky to ensure you get your point across. Group texts, like all written communication, lack many of the cues of in-person communication. There's no body language, no vocal inflections or facial expressions. It's easy to misread intentions and meaning, good or bad.
"People fill in the blanks the way that they want to," Birnholtz said. If you think someone is attractive or a close friend, you fill them in in positive ways. If you think someone doesn't like you, you do the opposite.
Sharon does not have a particularly good relationship with her in-laws, a reality that has infected their group chat. She's noticed her messages in a group she's in with her mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law don't get as much attention as she thinks they should. Her mother-in-law doesn't interact with photos of Sharon's kids as much as she does with pictures of Sharon's sister-in-law's kids. In April, Sharon (which isn't her real name) made eclipse-themed pancakes — she put a dark one over a light one and then put eyes on a Mrs. Butterworth's syrup bottle to make it look as if it was watching the eclipse — and posted photos of them in the group. Her mother-in-law didn't respond, but she did pop back in when Sharon's sister-in-law posted a photo of her cat. The chilly reception led Sharon to scale back her participation, and she finally muted the chat in the fall. "I feel so much better," she says. Still, Sharon won't quit. "I wouldn't have a place if I ever wanted to communicate a message with them where I could get them all at once," she says. "So I just leave it there."
From the outside, it's hard not to wonder whether Sharon is perceiving slights where none are meant — her kids are her mother-in-law's grandchildren, after all. At the same time, Sharon is filling in the blanks this way for a reason.
"If you don't get along with somebody in person, if they're passive-aggressive or where they do weird things in person, then it's not going to work on a group chat either," Sharon says. She emphasizes that in group chats she's careful to make sure everyone gets attention for what they post and is celebrated for their achievements. She's just heart reacting away.
Group chats have gone the way of a lot of communication innovations, such as email or AOL instant messaging or, for a more modern example, Slack. It proves itself useful, and then it becomes so useful that everyone's using it all the time, and then it gets overwhelming.
"The other thing is that technologies are not designed for graceful exits for the most part," Birnholtz said. In a WhatsApp group, there's no easy way to do the Midwestern "I suppose I'll let you go" thing that subtly lets the other person know you are very much done with the conversation. You can't really slow-fade a fraternity chat the way you might your fraternity friends in real life.
Technologies are not designed for graceful exits for the most part.
I reached out to a couple of professional etiquette experts and advice givers to ask if they had thoughts about how to quit a group chat you hate without damaging relationships. Carolyn Hax, an advice columnist at The Washington Post, told me that "good protocol is always that you're in control of your own life and time," and you don't need permission for that. "Anytime you're feeling handcuffed by a group, then it's time to take a deep breath and think about that a little," she said. Group chats are about feeling connected and supported and entertained, and if you're not getting that, it's OK to "dip out," she said. Someone just quit one of Hax's group chats with college friends, explaining that she had a lot going on in her life, and no one batted an eye. "It's like, 'Hey, are you all right?' That's about it," she said. "And if people can't handle that, then that's on them."
If it's a group with essential information — updates from other parents at school, or family members — the mute button is your friend. "You let it accumulate, and then you just check in: Did I miss something important?" Hax said. "Disengage as your health demands, but keep the thread."
Hax didn't say this, but I will: It's probably fine to lie and say you're too busy to keep up with the chat and leave. It's really nobody's business to dig into what you're too busy with. Maybe it's a medical issue, or maybe you just want to peacefully scroll through Instagram reels uninterrupted by a bunch of pings.
Lisa Mirza Grotts, an etiquette consultant, said that while it's important to leave politely, in casual groups it's fine to do a "quiet" exit. "You simply leave without an announcement," she said. She also said there's no one right way to communicate in a group chat; what reads to one person as efficient might read to another as rude. "I just think you have to be mindful that it's not the perfect way to communicate," she said.
It's probably fine to lie and say you're too busy to keep up with the chat and leave.
Not everyone has qualms about quitting their group chats, like Joe Cardillo, who has cleaned house lately. They've worked in venture-backed startups for about a decade and have several group chats with former colleagues and professional contacts. In one such chat, messages started to come through on what Cardillo called some pretty "inflammatory" topics. In particular, someone said that Elon Musk and Donald Trump would be "amazing" for tech, which started an argument with hundreds of messages. Cardillo spoke up, saying they didn't want to be in an "unstructured space" where people didn't show basic respect and take accountability. Ultimately they left.
"I just consider it healthy to think about what a good conversation feels like. And if this isn't it, then you're like, I'm out," Cardillo said.
Group-chat dynamics are, in a word, messy — and in many messy situations, walking away is easier said than done. One friend confessed that they'd been in a weeklyish-brunch chat for two years without any intention of ever attending said brunch. Everybody seems nice, but it just isn't their jam, and they're scared to quit. Another admitted that they kind of hated their friend-group chat, and they were pretty sure everyone else had a chat without them, but they had no idea how to broach the subject. One person told me about a friend who had abruptly left a chat after someone else in the group posted an old picture of her in which she was quite drunk. The person surmised that the friend's husband saw the photo and "went nuts."
Sometimes you just have to set a boundary, and that boundary can be deciding to not sit in a room with 12 people chattering away all day without any ability to shut them off. You can say you have to go for a reason, or you can just walk away. Who knows if they'll even miss you? Years ago, everyone quit a group chat I was in except for me and one other person. My friend renamed it "WE'RE THE BEST," and we've been talking in it, by ourselves, since. It's fun, and we're still friends with the other people.
As for Jess, she insists she's open to being friends with the people in her mediocre-musician chat on an individual, less intense level, but I have my doubts. The last time they were all interested in going to the same show, she bought a ticket — but for a different night.
"They're wonderful people," she says. "They're just not my people."
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.
During his storied coaching career, Nick Saban rarely shied away from an opportunity to share his thoughts on college football-centric hot topics.
Saban and the rest of ESPN's "College GameDay" crew were in Indiana ahead of the 12-team College Football Playoff opener between Notre Dame and the Hoosiers. While the high-stakes game was the main topic during the pregame show, embattled Ohio State coach Ryan Day was also discussed.
Saban came to Day's defense and directed his ire at Buckeyes fans, suggesting they shoulder at least some of the blame for the cloud of negativity circling the program.
"I think every coach has gotta define how he wants to do it, and I have a lot of respect for Ryan Day and how he’s tried to do it," Saban said. "For me, I always wanted to get every player in the organization to reach their full potential. It wasn't so much about the outcome, it was what you had to do to make everybody better.
"But a big part of that was insulating the players from external factors — criticism, internet. I used to tell the players all the time, ‘Why do you care about what some guy puts on the internet who’s a fat guy in his underwear living in his mother’s basement? Why do you care? Why does that mean anything to you? Why does that affect you in any way, shape or form? We should be focused on what we control and what we can do.’
"It’s the same thing for the fans. I would tell the fans the same thing. If Ohio State wants to beat Michigan, they need to be positive about their coach and their players. There’s nobody that wants to beat them worse than the players and the coaches. That's No. 1. No. 2, they have an opportunity to win the national championship. Everybody ought to be supporting the hell out of them so that they have the best opportunity to do it and quit all this negative bulls---."
While Day has compiled a 66-10 record at Ohio State, his Buckeyes have lost four straight to the Michigan Wolverines.
Day's underwhelming results against Michigan have drawn criticism and raised concerns about the coach's job security. Day's focus is on the Buckeyes' upcoming game against Tennessee in the College Football Playoff. The Buckeyes host the Volunteers Saturday.
Movie icon and super spy James Bond seemed to be on another rise to the top of the box office just a few years ago, but things have been almost as quiet as a shot from a Walther PPK with a silencer ever since then. Daniel Craig took on the role in 2006 with Casino Royale and passed the baton with 2021’s No Time to Die in one of the most heart-wrenching endings in Bond’s cinematic history (you cried, just admit it).
The only thing sadder is the reason why we haven’t seen a new Bond movie since then.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon and Barbara Broccoli, the producer who inherited the franchise from her father and film producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli when he died in 1996, are in the middle of an ugly fight that’s halted production on the next Bond film. Apparently, Barbara doesn’t trust Amazon with her family’s famous film franchise.
How bad is it? Well, here’s a quote from Barbara to some of her friends explaining how she feels about the people who run Amazon’s media empire: “These people are f—ing idiots.” Man, that’s awkward with a capital “awk.”
The stalemate started back in 2021 when Amazon bought MGM for $8.5 billion and thus acquired the rights to distribute Bond films, according to Variety. The deal seemed like a big move for Amazon to weave its way into Hollywood using one of its most storied and rock solid film franchises.
Unfortunately for Amazon, the true power over the James Bond films lies with Broccoli. She supplies the ideas for Bond’s big screen adventures and when they go into production, and Broccoli isn’t keen on working with Amazon anytime soon. The WSJ spoke to 20 people familiar with the feud who say Broccoli feels Amazon isn’t the right place for a Bond movie because its core business is retail and ecommerce.
When Amazon purchased MGM, clinching the rights to the Bond franchise was a key part of the deal’s value. Broccoli and co-producer Michael Wilson had some reservations but were assured they would still retain creative control. COVID lockdowns were already making it hard to jump into the next Bond film production as well. However, things seemed to be smoothing over between the two parties when Amazon also insisted that its next Bond movie No Time to Die would get a theatrical release.
But as soon as the deal closed, Amazon executives started thinking of ways to expand the Bond film franchise to other mediums like a Moneypenny spinoff series for Prime Video or a separate spy film or TV show that took place in the Bond universe. Broccoli refused to let any of these projects go forward. She also took umbrage with Amazon entertainment executive Jennifer Salke’s use of the word “content” to describe new James Bond projects and any ideas Amazon had for Bond were labeled “TBD” in memos. To date, the only Bond property Amazon could get Broccoli to sign off on is a reality series 007: Road to a Million that’s entering its second season.
Broccoli and her family have been part of the Bond movie franchise for almost as long as she lived so she’s fiercely protective of the brand and her father’s cinematic legacy. She’s also started training Wilson’s son Gregg to produce recent installments and possibly prepare him to take over the franchise someday. Even that has led to disagreements over who should play Bond in the next film. That’s assuming we get one and it doesn’t look like that will happen anytime soon.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/james-bond-the-movie-franchise-not-the-spy-may-be-in-deep-jeopardy-211608094.html?src=rss
BEIJING, CHINA - NOVEMBER 12: (CHINA OUT) Actor Daniel Craig attends 'Spectre' premiere at The Place on November 12, 2015 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Visual China Group via Getty Images/Visual China Group via Getty Images)
MrBeast in a promotional photo for his competition TV show, "Beast Games."
Prime Video
"Beast Games" is the Amazon Prime Video game show from the YouTuber MrBeast.
The show is family-friendly, but its message about the concept of money makes me uncomfortable.
I'd say to enjoy the show but remind your kids that money doesn't work this way in real life.
"Beast Games," the game show on Amazon Prime Video from MrBeast, debuted Thursday, and I watched along with my elementary-aged son. As an adult, I enjoyed the spectacle and found the show highly watchable. But as a parent, I'm not sure I liked the message about money it was imparting to my young ward.
Elementary-school-aged kids, whether or not they're allowed to watch YouTube, all know who MrBeast is. He's a superstar to Gen Alpha. His candy bars are on grocery-store shelves, and his specter hangs over playgrounds and lunchrooms.
(My colleague reports that his teenage son says MrBeast isn't quite as cool in high schools anymore, perhaps because he's seen as being for little kids.)
Like most parents, I want to teach my kids the value of a dollar: that money comes from hard work and that saving and budgeting are important.
"Beast Games" flies in the face of all that. Money is tossed around as this strange easy-come, easy-go object. It opens with MrBeast standing on a pyramid of cash (allegedly the full $5 million prize in stacks of bills). We are repeatedly told this is the largest cash prize ever in a game show.
The show's premise is that a group of contestants will compete in challenges to win that big prize — a season-long version of some of his popular YouTube videos.
Later in the season there will be physical challenges (we see preview clips of people pulling a monster truck), but in this first episode the games are almost all psychological tests.
This first series of minigames aims to winnow the contestant pool to 500 people from 1,000. The games are variations on the prisoner's dilemma, pitting what's good for an individual against what's good for the group.
In the first game, MrBeast makes this offer: Anyone who quits the game immediately can share a pot of money — but the pot gets smaller as more people choose to take the early out. In another game, each team of about 100 people must have one person sacrifice themselves and leave the game with no prize money at all — or else the whole team is eliminated. People are sobbing, yelling at each other to be the ones to quit.
I worry about the message 'Beast Games' sends
It's a fascinating challenge to watch as an adult. But I'm not sure a kid can really understand what's going on — the wrenching pain of people losing what they thought could be a chance to pay off loans or buy a home.
In the game, money is an object to build into pyramids or toss around in bags — it's funny money; it doesn't feel real.
Representatives for MrBeast declined to comment for this story.
Other game shows have cash prizes, even kid-friendly ones like "Is It Cake?" or even the old "Double Dare" on Nickelodeon. But on other shows, the prize is an exciting treat at the end — it isn't the whole point of the show.
In "Beast Games," money is the point — and even the games themselves are about money. I'm not sure I like what subtle message that's sending to young minds not old enough to earn a real paycheck.
Update: December 20, 2024 — MrBeast representatives declined to comment when contacted by BI; the story has been updated reflecting that.
Business Insider's creative team covered an array of projects this year. We brought our stories to life by incorporating animations, crafting bespoke multimedia experiences for our biggest stories, producing and commissioning hundreds of illustrations, and working with photographers around the globe.
Our visuals captured a wide range of topics, from looking into illegal lockouts in major US cities to Ozempic Scams.
We hired nearly 250 talented freelancers who helped bring our most compelling stories to life, producing over 1,500 pieces of custom art that enhanced our storytelling.
Here are some of our favorite visual creations from 2024.
Illustration by Andrei Cojocaru, Design and Development by Rebecca Zisser, Isabel Fernandez-Pujol, Randy Yeip, and Annie Fu, Photos by Bridget Bennett, Callaghan O'Hare, Alyssa Pointer, Abel Uribe
Design and Development by Kim Nguyen, Rebecca Zisser, Isabel Fernandez-Pujol, Photos by Jovelle Tamayo, Tim Evans, Helynn Ospina, Andre Chung, Brittany Greeson, Libby March
Tim Evans for BI, Brittany Greeson for BI, Helynn Ospina for BI, Andre Chung for BI, Libby March for BI; Rebecca Zisser/BI
Elon Musk’s track record of success is undeniable, with achievements spanning industries like electric vehicles, space exploration, and renewable energy. From his six rules for insane productivity to 120-hour workweeks, what truly sets Musk apart isn’t just the scale of […]
Bluesky has rolled out an update that fixes one important issue that could lead to impersonation on the decentralized social network. Now, when you verify your identity on the platform with your own domain, Bluesky will no longer free up your old .bsky.social username. In the past, going through the authentication process will make your original .bsky.social name available again, which means you'll have to sign up again to secure your old handle if you don't want impersonators to scoop it up.
The social network has been trying to fix its verification issues, which became a significant problem after the service welcomed an influx of new users in recent months. A third-party entity from Cornell Tech who analyzed the app's userbase previously found that 44 percent of Bluesky's 100 most-followed accounts have a doppelganger. As a response, Bluesky adopted a more aggressive impersonation policy and required parody, satire or fan accounts to label themselves as such in both their handles and their bio in late November. It also explicitly prohibited identity churning, in which users would start off as impersonators to gain followers and then switch their identity later to avoid enforcement action.
In addition to reserving your old handle, the updated Bluesky app adds a "Mentions" tab in notifications, making it much easier to find replies to your posts. As The Verge notes, it also has a new button that lets you choose how replies show up, so you can choose to see them in a linear order or in threaded discussions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/blueskys-latest-update-addresses-an-important-verification-problem-140055367.html?src=rss
The Bluesky app logo appears on the screen of a smartphone in Reno, United States, on December 5, 2024. (Photo by Jaque Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Clickbait videos have always been annoying, but there are times when they can be downright harmful. YouTube has vowed to strengthen its enforcement efforts when it comes to dealing with "egregious clickbait" on its website, particularly those that cover — or pretend to cover — breaking news and current events. The website describes egregious clickbait as "videos where the title or thumbnail promises viewers something that the video doesn't deliver."
YouTube says these videos leave viewers "feeling tricked, frustrated, or even misled" if they come to the website looking for truthful and timely information on important issues. If you've ever watched a clickbait video, you'd know that's definitely true. You may have trained yourself on being able to spot and skip them over the years, but some people might still not know the difference between clickbait and legitimate content.
One example of egregious clickbait, according to YouTube, is if a video says "the president resigned!" without actually addressing the president's resignation. Misleading thumbails are considered egregious clickbait, as well. If a thumbnail reads "top political news" and the video doesn't contain any political news, then it will also be subjected to YouTube's enforcement action.
The website will start cracking down on clickbait videos in India — it didn't say how it will expand from there, but we've asked it for more information. For now, it will delete any video that violates this policy without issuing strikes. After it goes through old videos, it will then prioritize new uploads, presumably so that they don't reach more people that they should.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/youtube/youtube-will-crack-down-on-egregious-clickbait-starting-in-india-130010064.html?src=rss
College football is supersizing its playoffs this year, which should bring more attention to teams like the top-ranked University of Oregon.
Ross Harried/NurPhoto via Getty Images
College football used to have a regular season and some bowl games you may or may not have watched.
Now college football has its own playoffs — and this year, it is supersizing them.
Can Americans invest even more time watching football? It's a good bet.
Are you ready for some college football? A lot of college football?
Doesn't matter. If you live in America and you're going to be around a TV over the next few weeks, it's going to be hard not to see college football.
That's because this is the first year college football is running a supersize version of its playoffs, featuring 12 teams, up from four. That means there are going to be 11 games — from Friday to January 20 — that are going to get a lot of attention from a lot of people.
The commercial calculation here is straightforward: National playoffs draw national interest for what is often a regional sport. So more national playoff games equals more interest.
That's why Disney's ESPN is paying $1.3 billion a year for the (mostly) exclusive rights to the playoffs. (Disney, somewhat weirdly, has sublicensed a few of the playoff games to its frenemy Warner Bros. Discovery's TNT network.)
ESPN's customers think the playoffs will be popular, too. The network says it has added dozens of new advertisers to its playoff lineup and is boasting about big increases in revenue.
But even before the first snap of the first game, the bulked-up tournament seems like it has already been a hit by boosting the pre-playoff games. Nielsen says regular-season ratings for college football were up 6% this fall compared with 2023 — and up 11% for adults ages 18 to 34.
In a world where traditional TV shrinks every year — and even more so with young viewers — that's quite a bump. And it's exactly what the media industry was hoping for.
"There were more games, throughout more of the regular season, that were meaningful and impactful for the playoff race," says Amanda Gifford, who heads up college football production for ESPN. "Almost every weekend, there were games that had impact."
That boost wasn't just confined to games on ESPN. Mike Mulvihill, who heads up analytics and strategic planning for Fox Sports and Fox broadcast, says his team thought about playoff implications as it was planning which regular-season games it would broadcast this year.
Early in the season, when it wouldn't be clear which schools were likely to compete for a playoff slot, Fox leaned on brand-name matchups, like Alabama vs. Wisconsin. But later in the season, when Indiana became a surprising playoff contender, Fox was delighted to broadcast its game against Ohio State.
I've seen the effects of expanded playoffs play out in real life: A couple of weekends ago, I spent the night with a bunch of middle-age dudes who were toggling between multiple college games, none of which featured Notre Dame, where they had all graduated. But they cared deeply about what happened in games like Texas vs. Georgia because the results could affect where the Irish would end up in the playoff. (Notre Dame ended up matched up against Indiana for the playoff's opening game).
So, if college football is winning, who's losing?
In theory, these games could end up competing with pro football, whose end-of-season games and early-round playoff season overlap with the college tournament. But you'd have to be a very brave person to bet against the NFL — the one thing Americans will watch on TV no matter what.
A much safer wager: College football's playoffs will destroy any remaining interest in all of the also-ran bowl games, which have already been steadily downgraded by fans and networks — some of which don't bother to send announcing crews to the games.
So sorry, Myrtle Beach Bowl. You, too, GameAbove Sports Bowl. And I'm from Minnesota, but I'm still not going to watch the Golden Gophers play Virginia Tech in the Duke's Mayo Bowl. Who cares who wins any of those?
But on Saturday, in the first round of the playoffs, Penn State is playing Southern Methodist — a school I vaguely remember being kicked out of college football for paying players. Now it's essentially legal — and encouraged — and whoever wins gets into an even higher-stakes game 10 days later. Truth be told, I'm not a college football guy. But I'm in, anyway.
Correction: December 20, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated the matchup for the Duke's Mayo Bowl. Minnesota is set to play Virginia Tech, not West Virginia.
Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle brand Goop has undergone two rounds of layoffs in recent months.
The company has said it's pivoting to focus on beauty, fashion, and food.
The changes highlight Goop's challenges to build a sustainable business beyond its famous founder.
Gwyneth Paltrow took a measured tone earlier this year when she discussed Goop, her newsletter turned e-commerce company, onstage at a Forbes event. She didn't brag about the nine figures the brand had raised or its latest product release. Instead, she said she was proud Goop was still in business.
"Some years we're down, then we're back up," she said. "I'm proud that we're still alive and kicking."
That might seem surprising for a company that was valued at $433 million in 2020 and was a trailblazer for what a celebrity brand could be. But it's reflective of a company that — despite its name recognition and pop-culture footprint — has undergone several painful pivots in recent years.
In September, Goop laid off nearly 20% of its staff, including its chief technology officer and VP of content. A few weeks later, it laid off about 6% of the remaining employees.
Goop's recent cuts come as the company shifts focus to its beauty, fashion, and food businesses. It's the latest in a series of strategy changes over the last several years.
Changes in focus are normal for a startup. Still, after 16 years of existence, the company isn't profitable and continues to struggle to build a firm foundation apart from Paltrow.
The company's once-buzzy supplement regimens generated $100,000 in sales on the day they launched in 2017. Now, only one of the four initial regimens is still offered online, and for a discount. A Goop spokesperson told Business Insider that any new supplements it launched would be part of its beauty business.
Goop, whose founder Gwyneth Paltrow is pictured, has expanded into a number of different verticals over the past decade-plus.
Layne Murdoch Jr./Getty Images
Julia Hunter, a Goop board member and the former CEO of Jenni Kayne, addressed some of the company's struggles in an interview with Puck, published after BI sent Goop a series of questions for this story.
"The company is doing very well from a revenue perspective, but operating expenses have continued to grow," Hunter said. "I know that it's unpopular to let people go, but they hired a lot of people that they probably shouldn't have."
On the content side, Goop has recently cut many editorial positions, including the VP of content, head beauty editor, and several other editors. A review of Goop's website shows few new articles, and its book imprint hasn't published a new release in over a year. The magazine ran two issues before folding, and while there were reports that Goop's Netflix series, "The Goop Lab," was renewed, it hasn't materialized.
Paltrow's importance to the brand is evident in product launches, two former Goop employees told BI. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation; their identities are known to BI.
When she's part of a launch — what is called in Goop parlance an "A launch" — the performance of the advertising on social media "quadruples," one of the former employees said. Performance often drops off once she's no longer involved, this person added.
Last month, a video featuring Paltrow that promoted Goop's newest release, a retinol serum, drew 1,100 likes on Instagram. The next day, a second post about the serum — which didn't include Paltrow — got fewer than 275 likes.
"Brands need to find viable business models, rather than simply a celebrity face," Simeon Siegel, an analyst at BMO Capital, said of A-list entrepreneurs.
The celebrity brands that have grown to be the largest — like Kim Kardashian's Skims, Rihanna's Fenty, and Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty — have moved beyond their founder's image. Skims, which is valued at $4 billion, has made using models from popular culture a core part of its marketing strategy, for instance.
From newsletter to e-commerce shop: over a decade of pivoting
Goop's founding story has become lore to a certain type of aspirant. In 2008, Paltrow was sitting in the kitchen of the London house she shared with her then-husband, Chris Martin, when she decided to pen a newsletter for "family, friends, and friends of friends." The issue featured a recipe for banana muffins and photos shot on Paltrow's Blackberry.
"It was one of the first of its kind to leverage a curated lifestyle of a celebrity," Stacy Jones, the CEO of branding agency Hollywood Branded, told BI. "It is aligned to her own personal brand in a very unique way that hadn't been done to that extent before."
Before long, Paltrow was earning small checks from advertisers and began dreaming of a media empire.
Paltrow hired media veterans from Meredith and Condé Nast to run the publication. There was a lifestyle website with travel guides and interviews on alternative medicine. In 2015, Paltrow launched a publishing imprint, Goop Press, and in 2017, a magazine in partnership with Condé Nast. Conferences promised to be the next big thing for the brand when the In Goop Health Summit series kicked off in 2017, offering (mainly) women the promise of looking and feeling like Paltrow for the four-figure ticket price. In 2020, as streaming entered its golden age, she scored a deal with Netflix.
Gwyneth Paltrow's Netflix series "The Goop Lab" never came back for a second season.
Rachel Murray/Getty Images
But Goop suffered in recent years amid a broader digital media downturn.
"Advertising business as a big part of revenue started to decline, and that was probably the biggest shift to revenue of the last several years," Hunter told Puck, adding that going forward, editorial would be "integrated with social media."
Paltrow still posts regular episodes of the Goop podcast, and after a few years off due to the pandemic, the In Goop Health Summit returned last year.
That said, Goop's media projects appear to have been largely shut down, as many of the staffers behind them were affected by the recent cuts.
As Goop's media initiatives fell short, its e-commerce ambitions — or what the company dubbed "contextual commerce" — took center stage.
The core of its e-commerce business has ebbed and flowed over the years. First, it pushed skincare, then fashion, then wellness.
Now, it's back to beauty and fashion.
"It's a lot of testing" of different verticals, the second former employee said.
In the latest restructuring, the hope of a revitalization
In May, Goop brought in outside consultants, led by Hunter, to help streamline the organization and reduce payroll.
Then, in September, Goop announced its latest pivot, saying it would double down on fashion, beauty, and food. These aren't new initiatives for Goop, but the company has touted their recent growth.
G. Label, the company's in-house clothing line, launched in 2016. The company told BI that the brand's sales are up 45% this year compared to the same period last year, but declined to share its revenue numbers.
The two former employees said they felt G. Label had historically underperformed partly because it was initially designed to fit Paltrow, who, at a slender 5-foot-nine-inches tall, has a much different figure than the average American woman.
"We were just putting together whatever Gwyneth felt like wearing," the first former employee said. They added that the company revised the line in the last year using a new, standard-fit model, which they said had helped its sales.
The Goop spokesperson said a new designer had been hired for G. Label in the last year, who revamped the line.
Goop's first foray into beauty was also in 2016.
A few of the products have repeat customers — the neck peptide serum is a top seller — but there isn't a breakthrough hero product.
Some recent efforts to expand the beauty offerings haven't taken off. Last year, the company launched Good Clean Goop, a moderately priced line, in Target and Amazon. Since then, the company has discounted a number of the brand's products, including the Daily Juice Cleanser and Aging Serum. Puck reported in June that Good Clean Goop was in the bottom 15% of beauty brands at Target. The brand has not posted on social media in more than a month. The two former employees said Goop's contract with Target ends at the beginning of next year.
Good Clean Goop, the company's lower-priced line, is sold in Target and on Amazon.
Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for good.clean.goop
Then there's Goop Kitchen, the "food" piece, which is not part of the core company. The Goop spokesperson said Goop Kitchen is set up as a joint venture and called it a "separate commercial entity." They declined to share what ownership stake Goop has, if any.
Goop has publicly touted growth statistics — like a 25% sales increase for Goop Beauty and a 45% increase for G. Label. The former employees said these figures were driven in part by an influx of paid ad spend.
The Goop spokesperson declined to comment on whether the company is profitable. Hunter told Puck it wasn't.
Whether Goop's latest efforts to boost revenue and cut back on staff are enough to turn the company around remains to be seen. Paltrow, for her part, has hinted that she wants Goop to thrive without her.
"I don't think I can have this job forever," she told The New York Times last year. "I think it would be nice to return my investors' money, and I really want to do that. That's important to me."
TikTok’s hope of survival rose on Thursday as the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear its bid to block the looming ban. The U.S. Supreme Court announced Wednesday it will review TikTok’s appeal against a law set to force the app’s […]
Earlier this year, Meta previewed Movie Gen, an AI video editing tool that looked impressively realistic (at least in the sample clips it released). At the time, though, Meta said it was still a research project with no immediate plans to make the features available to users.
But it now seems that Movie Gen could arrive on Instagram sooner than later. Instagram’s top exec Adam Mosseri posted a short video previewing the kind of seamless AI edits that will eventually be possible, saying that the company is “hoping to bring this to Instagram next year.”
In the clip, Mosseri says that Meta is “working on some really exciting AI tools” for video creators. “You should be able to do anything you want with your videos,” he says. "You should be able to change your outfit, or change the context in which you're sitting, or add a chain — whatever you can think of.”
During the short clip, Mosseri’s backdrop and outfit changes several times, including a brief shot where he looks like a Muppet-inspired character. Throughout the clip, the transitions look pretty seamless without obvious AI artifacts. Of course, that won’t necessarily be the case once Movie Gen is actually available and videos of its abilities aren’t entirely controlled by Meta. But if it works anything like Mosseri’s teaser video, it could open up some interesting possibilities for Instagram creators.
It’s probably not a coincidence that Meta is teasing the feature just days after OpenAI released its video generation model to subscribers. Meta has repeatedly said it wants its AI assistant to be the “most used” in the world and in an update that was also published today, the company said Meta AI has “nearly” 600 million monthly users.
Unfortunately, Mosseri didn’t indicate exactly when Movie Gen features may actually arrive on Instagram, other than some time in 2024. But he did say that there would be “more to come” from the company.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/metas-ai-video-editing-features-are-coming-to-instagram-next-year-191501418.html?src=rss
Paramount Pictures is hoping to spin-dash to success for a fourth time. The studio has confirmed that it is working on Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and is targeting a theatrical release of spring 2027 for the movie. No details have leaked about the plot, but it's likely that the project will see actors Ben Schwartz and Jim Carrey reprising their roles as Sonic and Dr. Robotnik.
The recent film adaptations of Sega's famous game franchise have become a consistent hit for Paramount. The first film secured the biggest opening weekend in history for a video game movie, only to be dethroned in 2022 by its own sequel. Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which adds Keanu Reeves to the already star-studded cast of the series, releases tomorrow. Variety is currently projecting the third entry to fall short of the financial bar set by Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but anything could happen. The movies have also received a television spin-off on Paramount+ due to air next spring. The show will delve into the backstory of Sonic's echidna ally Knuckles, voiced by Idris Elba.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/sonic-the-hedgehog-4-movie-confirmed-by-paramount-190234137.html?src=rss
A new app called Tapestry promising to unify social media, news, and RSS in one place, is nearing completion. Designed by Iconfactory, the same team that created the third-party Twitter client Twitterific back in the day, Tapestry was unveiled at the beginning of the year as a tool that could better organize today’s fragmented online […]
When Starfleet said it had dispatched the Enterprise to help the Cerritos close the rift, I was worried. Lower Decks has spent the last four years stepping out the shadow of its more famous predecessor. Its grand finale didn’t need a focus-pulling cameo from any of the Next Generation cast (or even a subtle one from Steven Culp). Mercifully, none came, and we got one last chance to spend half an hour with the Cerritos crew on their last ride. For now, at least.
The length of the Previously On… sequence was clue enough this was going to be an overstuffed episode. In fact, it felt as if creator Mike McMahan set himself the task of resolving every plotline in one episode. You can imagine some of these would have been addressed in some future episode had the show not been canceled. But even with a slightly longer runtime, the episode moves far too fast for you to really savor it.
As usual, the Cerritos is the only vessel close enough to deal with the fallout from last week’s episode. On the way to close the rift, the crew meet Ma’ah and Malor, who are fleeing a fleet of Klingon warships led by Relga, Dorg and Bargh’s sister. The fleet chases the Cerritos to the rift which is pumping out waves of dimension-hopping uncertainty. That sets up a wonderful scene where the Cerritos is remade in different ship classes as it pushes toward the center of the rift.
All of this unfolds while Rutherford fights both with his implant and his general distaste for the Cerritos. Tendi and T’Lyn are battling for supremacy as the senior science officer on the ship, and Boimler’s still using his alternate self’s diary to advance his career. A normal half hour show can accommodate an A and B story; here we’re down to G or H, at least. Given a lot of the fun of this show is just in spending time with these characters, it’s a shame their farewells are rattled through as boxes ticked off on a list.
There are plenty of wonderful moments, like when Mariner and Boimler go to Freeman and are instantly believed. In-universe, the characters have earned enough trust to be taken at their word and it’s touching. It’s also a sign of how far we’ve come compared to, say, the days of “Shut up Wesley.” Or when Rutherford realizes what’s wrong and is able to solve the issue by remembering the California Class is Starfleet’s Swiss Army Knife. Or when Boimler smashes his Padd to protect Mariner, as their friendship is more important than his career.
The episode ends with the rift being stabilized, creating a permanent interdimensional wormhole to the multiverse. Starfleet tows Starbase 80 there, with William Boimler tasked with exploring the various dimensions therein. But such a high-profile assignment needs an experienced head, and so Captain Freeman is assigned to take command of Starbase 80. It means Mariner has to say goodbye to her mom, and Freeman goodbye to her dedicated crew of misfits.
Ransom takes command of the Cerritos, with Mariner and Boimler acting as joint first officers, at least for now. Rutherford has his implant removed, and it’s suddenly obvious to everyone how into Tendi he has been all this time. T’Lyn and Tendi are now happily science besties, sharing the role as the Cerritos heads off to explore new parts of the galaxy. And Ransom’s choice of phrase for his warp command is perfectly in keeping with his love of exercise, and no I won’t be sharing it here.
You can never quite escape Star Trek once it’s on your CV, and I’ve said before this isn’t the last time we’ll see the Cerritos crew. Animation doesn’t need your actors to stay the same age and we could easily see a revival in a few years or so. McMahan was clear the fifth season was also being used to set up potential spin-off ideas, so there’s plenty of scope for more. Which is why I’m not going to write an obituary for Lower Decks, it doesn’t need one.
Still, it’s mad to think how things have changed since Lower Decks debuted as the goofy wildcard alongside its more august siblings. Discovery and Picard were meant to be reputable shows with Lower Decks little more than the class clown for diehard fans. Both of those turned out to be far less than the sum of their parts, while Lower Decks held the spirit of Star Trek far more effectively than its so-called betters. It was the only one of that trio to emerge with anything close to a coherent legacy, and with genuine affection from fans.
Lower Decks knows this, and ends its episode with a celebration of the Cerritos and Star Trek more generally. The show exists as a celebration of the day-to-day work that would never be lionized in those brasher, shoutier, punch-fightier Treks. The USS Cerritos is an island of misfit toys who have gathered together to make themselves and each other that little bit better. Hell, that could be a comment on Star Trek, or its fans more generally, but it’s great being one of those misfit toys.
Cerritos Strong!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/star-trek-lower-decks-ends-on-a-new-beginning-140003832.html?src=rss
L to R Jerry O\'Connell as Jack Ransom, Paul Scheer as Andy Billups, Eugene Cordero as Rutherford, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman, Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs, Tawny Newsome as Beckett Mariner, Gillian Vigman as Doctor T\'Ana, NoÃl Wells as D\'Vana Tendi and Jack Quaid as Brad Boimler in episode 10, season 5 of Lower Decks streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo credit: Paramount+.
Jimmy Donaldson, known online as MrBeast, has a new competition show on Amazon Prime Video.
AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
YouTube star MrBeast has a new competition show that will debut Thursday on Amazon Prime Video.
BI viewed a copy of a contestant release form and other documents for the preliminary "Beast Games" round.
An entertainment attorney said the documents were fairly standard but expansive in their terms.
Documents obtained by Business Insider reveal the terms that contestants of MrBeast's competition show, "Beast Games," were asked to agree to during a preliminary round.
The terms prohibit contestants from disclosing information about the show, which debuts Thursday on Amazon Prime Video. Contestants who break the agreement prior to the last episode airing must pay the producer and network $500,000 for each breach. After the last episode airs, each breach would cost contestants $100,000, the documents said.
The documents also ask contestants to agree that their portrayal in the program may be "disparaging, defamatory, embarrassing, or of an otherwise unfavorable nature," and may expose them to "public ridicule, humiliation, or condemnation."
Daniel J. Ain, an entertainment attorney at RPJ Law, said the terms are largely standard for a competition show, but some — like the threat of a $500,000 charge for each breach — are particularly expansive.
"The producers use every available tool to give them ultimate flexibility to make the show and protect themselves from liability," Ain told BI, calling the documents a "contestant agreement on steroids."
"Beast Games" is a 10-episode physical competition show in which contestants compete for a $5 million prize. YouTube's top star — whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson — is the host.
The show has attracted some controversy ahead of its release. A New York Times report in August cited "over a dozen" participants who said they didn't receive enough food or medical care during the preliminary round of competition in Las Vegas.
The documents obtained by Business Insider relate to the Las Vegas taping, where over 2,000 contestants participated in physical challenges designed to see who would make the show's official production round in Toronto.
The documents include information about the show, a contestant questionnaire form, and an outline of the show's official rules and protocols. By signing the form, contestants gave full consent to the use of hidden cameras and recording devices, gave producers full discretion to edit footage, and agreed to participate for no money. Potential prizes were the only form of compensation.
A person close to the production characterized the Las Vegas production as a "promo shoot" for the show and said Amazon wasn't involved. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment from BI.
Read 24 pages of the documents below:
Note: BI omitted some pages from the document that included the contestant's personal information and a few pages with minimal or repeated information.
The story was first published by Digiday sibling WorkLife
Workforces may be having an issue with AI overkill.
About half of business leaders report declining company-wide enthusiasm for AI integration and adoption, according to a recent EY pulse survey, including responses from 500 senior business executives.
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