“A message to Xbox One or Microsoft or whoever the f***, y'all f*** **server is f***** wack, man. Y’all gonna let me switch to Playstation if you’re not gonna get this shit fixed.”

Snoop

Snoop Dogg was once gaming’s coolest celebrity. He fought in Def Jam, trashed Xbox’s servers, and even tried launching his own GTA game. He wasn’t just another celebrity - he was a real rage-quitting gamer.

“Fuck this shit, fucking bad, fuck this shit man…”

But somehwere along the way, Snoop changed from gaming’s biggest icon to gaming’s biggest sellout. His cameos got weirder. His skins were locked behind pay-to-spins. And his own game studio? As shady as its Fortnite maps.

While it’s easy to call Snoop gaming’s biggest sellout, this video isn’t just about him. It’s about what the industry as a whole has become: Gaming isn’t about good gameplay anymore. It’s about who sells it best. And to understand how we got here, we just need to look at the one who sells it best - Mr. Snoop D-O-Double-G.

Snoop always knew the game. Here is what he said:

"For years, we watched the gaming industry take our likeness, take our culture, give us a few dollars, and make $100 million. That ain’t cool no more.”

But instead of fighting it, he became the blueprint for it. From adult films, food, sports, weed, wine and Bollywood, Snoop was everywhere. But nothing made him more money than gaming.

Which started all the way back in 2004, when EA milked him for Def Jam, Activision for True Crime, and Bandai Namco for Tekken, each slapping his name on their game. Did Snoop have any real connection to these games? No. But putting Snoop in a game was a cheat code for making it look cool. Snoop even tried launching his own GTA-style game. Big names, big budget, even a movie deal lined up. But it flopped before it even began. While Snoop probably didn’t know that making games is hard, he quickly learned there was an easier way to cash in - just act like a gamer. The rest will follow. And follow it did…

Snoop crowned himself the commissioner of the Hip Hop Gaming League, bringing the biggest names, and biggest sponsors, all banking on Snoop to take gaming to the “next level.” But that next level never came. The league flopped as quickly as it came.

So with his game and league dead, Snoop’s gaming career should’ve been over. But luckily for him, gaming was about to change - not for the better, but for exactly what Snoop needed.

Around 2010, browser and mobile were taking over. Games with very little gameplay but very big profits. Suddenly, using celebrities to sell them was more valuable than ever. And who better to push cash grabs than the cash grab king himself? In what would become one of the most over-the-top marketing stunts in gaming history, Snoop’s gaming career was finally about to blow up.

“That money over there” was part of a marketing stunt for Mafia Wars, a Facebook game on life support. The company behind it, Zynga, paid Snoop to blow up a 4-ton armored truck to promote the game.

But all it did was making it the most-watched live stream of the year. And Snoop? Never played the game. Just like the next game.

Rayman Legends, a game for kids, couldn’t have been further from the blunt-smoking, gangsta rapping pimp that Snoop was. But here he was, sitting on a throne, talking about being a legend. Gamers didn’t love it. “Ubisoft needs to get their sh** together because this is a complete demographic mismatch,“ “I feel like I’ve learned more about Snoop than the actual game.”

Well, if we learned one thing is that Ubisoft rarely has a clue who they are marketing to. But Rayman was just the start. Next up was Snoop single-handedly rewriting World War history - one joint at a time.

Call of Duty has been obsessed with weed culture since forever. Long before Snoop showed up, the game was already turning players into something straight out of a dispensary, from Blunt Force, Blunt Fingers and Stoner’s Delight. That stuff just sells. So it came to no surprise when Activision rolled in the most famous stoner on the planet.

First, they added a voice pack in Ghosts.

“Ballistic vest ready, those are some fine ass threads. You got that Spitfire drawn now”

Super cool stuff, because what’s more immersive than getting tactical orders in a California drawl?

Well, maybe Call of Duty Vanguard?

Because that’s when Snoop started shooting atomic breath or super scary red lasers out of his mouth. And the developers were convinced:

“It is truly the most immersive call of duty experience i've ever played.”

Yeah the most immersive one ever. Because war isn’t won with tanks, strategy or bombs - it’s won with Snoop’s smoke-powered supremacy.

From Warzone to Modern Warfare, Activision and Snoop milked each other for all it was worth.

While some gamers loved it, others looked past the smoke…

A clown indeed. But a very rich one. While Activision never revealed his paycheck, looking at their sales numbers, Snoop’s deals were almost certainly in the 7-figure range, because, you know, “the dogfather always wins.”

But cashing in on CoD was just the beginning. While Snoop was selling skins, he was also streaming - or least pretending to.

In 2018, he streamed the survival game SOS…or so it seemed.

“Gimme these shrooms, I’m f***ing high, man.”

What was remarkable was he played the game without hands. Turns out someone else was playing for him. But it didn’t matter. The stream wasn’t about gaming - it was a paid promo stunt for a game that nobody remembers.

Then came the Gangsta Gaming League - another “esports org” that was really just a cannabis ad. Sponsored by Merry Jane, it was just Snoop and friends getting high while playing Madden. No tournaments. No pro players. Just another branding play, that “will most definitely allow the use of cannabis." Of course, it faded as fast as they roll their joints.

And then, there was Twitch - where Snoop set a record for not streaming. He rage-quit Madden, left his stream running for seven hours, and never looked back. Fans spammed his chat but he didn’t care.

Years later, he even joked: “I had a bad track record on Twitch for-- what you call it, rage quitting? Yeah. So to all of the young creators and gamers out there, don't be a sore loser. Don't rage quit. HAHAHAH…”

He surely stopped the rage quit, but he sure as hell didn’t stop cashing in.

“We keep blowin’ trees, all these emergencies, a hundred-million-dollar deals with this cryptocurrency.”

Yeah, his next hundred-million dollar move was Web3. In 2022, he dove into metaverse, with The Sandbox, a so-called "game" that was really just overpriced digital land and NFTs wrapped in hype. And Snoop? He wasn’t just in it - he was the product.

First, he got his own space—the Snoopverse, where fans could buy land and exclusive Snoop NFTs. One buyer even dropped $450,000 just to be his virtual neighbor. And for an extra $20K? You’d get some premium Snoop NFTs.

Of course, you did Snoop. People spent hundreds of thousands just to be your virtual neighbor. But when the NFT bubble popped, Snoopverse became a ghost town. And Snoop? He did what he always does: He took his cut and dipped. Because as he once admitted himself:

"Cordell and his team always give me information on what I should and shouldn’t be doing… I’m just the one that looks good in front of y’all.”

Translation? It was never about the metaverse. It was about cashing in on a trend. And when the money dried up, so did Snoop. But if you thought his Web3 hustle was bad, just wait until you see what happened when he tried running an esports league. Again!

Yup, Snoop was now part of one of the best esports teams in the world. A billion-dollar esports empire built on hype, trickshots, and influencer culture. They had the biggest gaming creators, the wildest sponsorship deals, and now? They had Snoop Dogg. Not just as a partner, but as FaZe Snoop, an official content creator and board member.

FaZe sold it as a game-changing move. Snoop himself hyped it up: "The youth identifies with their brand and that's something my son Cordell knew, which is why he brought us together.”

Translation: It’s just another branding play. And the timing was perfect - because just months later, FaZe Clan went public. A $1 billion IPO. FaZe stock was soaring, investors were lining up, and Snoop? He got 320,000 shares, valued at nearly $4 million.

But behind the scenes? Faze was bleeding. Investors pulled out, the stock crashed below $1, and the billion-dollar dream was over.

And Snoop? He quietly resigned, “effective immediately.”

His seven months of boardroom service earned him just $50k.

FaZe thought they were getting a gaming legend. But all they got a marketing stunt. And when the money ran out? So did Snoop. But if you thought his esports career was a disaster—his next gaming project was even worse. A gaming company so dead, even Fortnite couldn’t save it.

Death Row Games. Snoop’s new publishing label to “elevate diverse creators” and “give a home to minority developers.” That was the pitch. A noble one I must say. But behind the scenes, they’re not really publishing games. They’re just building branded Fortnite maps, as part of their partnership with Fortnite’s Unreal Editor, a tool that lets anyone make custom Fortnite maps. That’s not giving a home to minority developers. That’s just repackaging an already existing tool.

As Cordell, Snoop’s son said himself:

“We bring the culture, we bring the eyeballs, and the awareness. We don’t know this gaming stuff. We just wanna lean back and learn from the experts.”

But, lo and behold, when actually taking a look at their maps, they are as dead as the name of their game publishing company.

But hey, at least Snoop himself is in Fortnite. To really push the hype, Epic Games gave him his own skin and his his own Fortnite week. And to announce it all, they arranged a full Times Square takeover, the perfect branding moment, watched by millions of people. And what did Snoop say about it?

“I want to see how good you are in Fortnite!” (Streamer)

“I ain't good at all; like, that's what that ain't my forte. I'm better at, you know, being the characters and letting people play with my characters and showing me how good I could be.”

Sure Snoop. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Because at this point, he didn’t need to play games, he just needed to show up. Who cares about good gameplay when you have celebrities putting their name on it. Which is exactly why, when it came time for gaming’s biggest night, they didn’t honor the industry’s best. They gave the stage to Snoop.

The Game Awards. A stage meant to honor the best developers, the most grounbreaking games, the future of the industry. And yet, in 2024, Snoop was the headliner. Not because he made a game. Not because he innovated anything. But because he and his son Cordell announced their yet again oh so nobly mission of Death Row games, to “create a hip-hop gaming universe that can stand beside some of these nominees tonight.” A bold statement for a company that’s as dead as its Fortnite maps.

And after Snoop announced the winner (Hell Divers 2), he dropped his new song that not even the music industry had heard yet.

No wonder gamers are getting “annoyed of seeing him everywhere”, saying he made “a caricature of himself,” and how “he'd promote diarrhea if he could make a buck out of it.” Meanwhile, while the gaming industry struggles, budgets get slashed and studios shut down…millions are still being funneled into celebrity cameos, Fortnite skins, and gambling tie-ins.

And Snoop? He’s just the symptom of what the industry has become:

Hype over substance.

Money over art.

Spectacle over player satisfaction.

It’s about keeping eyeballs glued, wallets open, and headlines rolling.

And when you see Snoop in one of his music videos shooting Trump in the head, only to watch him perform at a Trump event years later, you realize something: Integrity doesn’t sell. Visibility however, does.

But to leave you with one last thought: Maybe the biggest sellout isn’t Snoop afterall, or even the industry. Maybe it was us gamers, for letting it happen.

Instead of believing in the game and the studio, Disney had other plans.

“Here’s the studio that made Disney a ton of money… and then they decided they’re gonna just close that studio down and get out of games five months later.”

Troy Leavitt

That’s Troy Leavitt — former game director on Disney Infinity and former lead designer on Hogwarts Legacy. The man who saw it all first-hand. I sat down with him to find out how a studio Disney gave up on came back from the ashes and made the one thing Disney never could: real gaming magic.

But before we get to that, we need to ask something else: Why is Disney so bad at making their own games in the first place?

The E.T. Effect

The answer begins with E.T. — yes, the glowing-finger alien who nearly “killed” the games industry. Atari’s E.T. flopped so hard in the ’80s that the company dumped thousands of unsold cartridges in a landfill. It didn’t just sink the game — it tarnished the E.T. brand itself.

Disney saw what happened and took notes:

“Known IP + technology = kiss of death.”

Why risk a billion-dollar brand on a bad game? Better to not make games at all.

So Disney played it safe. In-house titles were limited to low-risk products like its learning series, while licensed games — risky but often wildly successful — were handed off to other studios.

But then came a shift. If other developers could turn Disney IP into blockbusters, maybe Disney could do it themselves. Out went licensing, and in came a new gaming division, new executives, and new ideas. Unfortunately, the mindset stayed the same: spreadsheet-driven.

The results spoke for themselves: Epic Mickey, Tron, Guilty Party — commercial failures. Pirates of the Caribbean? Canceled after years of hype. As one insider described it, the division was “buttoned-up financially to an extent that was surprising.”

Disney wanted the hits. Just not the risks.

And that mindset is exactly why Disney was about to walk straight into a billion-dollar mistake.

Avalanche Enters

Enter Avalanche Software, a small Utah studio with one rare superpower: they knew how to treat an IP with respect. From Toy Story to Cars to Chicken Little, their games felt true to their worlds.

As Troy Leavitt told me:

“Avalanche got into the habit of figuring out what it is about the intellectual property that makes it so popular with the fans itself. You try and become a fan yourself before you do anything. Avalanche’s whole approach was to understand the property from the inside, just like a fan, before trying to drag it in a new direction or push it into a game.”

That kind of respect was exactly what Disney needed. Avalanche was the perfect fit.

So how could Disney possibly mess this up? Well…buckle up.

Their breakthrough came with Toy Story’s “toy box mode” — a creative, open-ended feature that kids loved. Disney took notice. So when Avalanche pitched a bigger idea — a game where every Disney character could exist in one shared universe — Disney listened.

It was perfect timing. The toys-to-life genre was exploding, with Activision, Lego, and Nintendo all cashing in. Disney stepped in with the biggest IPs, the most dedicated studio, and a brand-new game: Disney Infinity.

Infinity 1.0 was a massive hit. The toys looked great. The concept was fresh. Disney was already planning Infinity 2.0 and 3.0. For a moment, it looked like Disney’s troubled gaming unit had finally found success.

But the writing was on the wall. If a company cares more about numbers than players, eventually, you lose both.

Overshooting Infinity

With Infinity 1.0 booming, Disney did the most Disney thing imaginable: they overcorrected.

Production for Infinity 2.0 ramped up so aggressively that warehouses were overflowing. Retailers couldn’t keep up. Parents couldn’t afford it. And developers were burning out.

As Troy put it:

“Rather than let the fans decide and let the gameplay be good, it was more like: if we hit all these numbers, we’ll get 20% over the overhead. Drop it this quarter and everything will be fine. You guys can do that in development, right? That’s pretty much how they did it.”

The team pulled it off — but success only gave Disney another bad idea: squeeze harder.

It had it all. Star Wars. Hype. Momentum. And, it made Disney over a billion dollars. What more could Disney want…?

Infinity 3.0 had it all. Star Wars. Hype. Momentum. It made Disney over a billion dollars. But higher margins mattered more than players. Production costs outweighed profits. The toys-to-life fad was fading. And to make matters worse, Star Wars Battlefront — licensed out to EA — was outselling Infinity 3.0.

Suddenly, Disney’s beloved spreadsheets started to look grim:

“Growth was due to higher licensing revenue from the success of Star Wars: Battlefront, partially offset by lower Disney Infinity results.”

Translation? A game Disney didn’t make was beating the one they did make. But the bigger picture was even worse.

Between 2008 and 2013, Disney’s gaming division had already lost over $1.4 billion. The spreadsheets were damning.

“If Infinity does well, it bodes very well for the bottom line of this unit. If it doesn’t… the opposite will be the case.” (CBS News, Bob Iger)

And the opposite was the case. The bottom line tanked.

And Disney did - once again - the most Disney thing imaginable…

To Infinity… and Gone

They pulled the plug. Infinity 4 was already in development, but it didn’t matter. Overnight, Disney shut down the game, Avalanche, and the entire gaming division, laying off “300-plus people who poured their souls into it.” People were devastated, confused, blindsided. After a decade of buying studios only to shut them down, this felt like the final blow. “We feel like we’re better off managing the risk by licensing instead of publishing.”

Bob Iger’s infamous line hit like a smack in the face. And I couldn’t help but wonder—how did Avalanche feel in that moment?

“That was a huge surprise, I think both to me and to most of the other folks at the studio because just a few months before that, they had a huge party for us out at the fairgrounds in Salt Lake City because Disney Infinity had been so tremendously successful and had made them a billion dollars. And so, you know, here’s the studio that’s made Disney a ton of money, and then they decided they’re gonna just close that studio down and get out of games about five months later.”

And with that, Avalanche was gone. Or so it seemed. Because while most people thought this was the end, one fan “didn’t think so.” And he was right.

“Their linkedin company page is called "WB Games / Avalanche” - a quiet detail. But a big sign. Because just a few months later, Warner Bros. had quietly stepped in to “welcome the studio into their development stable.”

Same people, same spirit, same studio. Just… new bosses. And ironically, their first game to work on was Cars 3 — a licensed Disney title.

“It was almost like going back to the old studio with the same guys that had just made Disney Infinity, but now we were working on the Cars game. It was funny, because now you were working for Disney as Warner Bros., when before we were working as Disney for Disney. That was weird.”

But Cars 3 was just the beginning. The team Disney had just shut down was about to make gaming history.

The Last Hurdle

When Warner Bros. decided to bring back the Wizarding World, they didn’t want another movie tie-in. They wanted something bigger — a flagship game. But after years of failed Harry Potter adaptations, no studio had earned that trust… except one. Avalanche, of course. The only studio in the world that could have done it.

“Is there another studio in the world that could have done that? I don’t think there is. I don’t think there are any other studios that have that experience with working with intellectual property such that you can satisfy the original owners while still taking it in a new direction, in places it hasn’t been. That is really hard to do.”

And because it was really hard to do, people had doubts. When news broke that Avalanche was making the next big Harry Potter game, the reaction was less “oh yeah, great studio” and more like, “who?”

“What I noticed was that when Hogwarts Legacy was announced and it was coming from Avalanche Software, there was a lot of… ‘who is this goofy studio that just made kids’ games,’ right? Back then, there was a lot of skepticism that a Disney kids’ game studio could make anything like Hogwarts Legacy. But I think internal to the studio, we were like, yeah, we can do this, hahaha.”

We all know now that Avalanche did pull it off, but internally, it wasn’t a walk in the park. Executives pitched wild ideas — like turning the entire castle into a menu system just to save costs. But Avalanche fought back and pushed to keep the world open and explorable. What’s the point of the game if not for the magnificent castle?

And yet, the real battle wasn’t creative. It was cultural. J.K. Rowling had become a lightning rod in the culture wars — accused of transphobia, boycotted online, and condemned by parts of the gaming press. So when Hogwarts Legacy dropped, it didn’t just get reviewed. It got politicized.

And Troy? He got caught in the crossfire — thanks to an old YouTube channel with videos the press claimed were anti-feminist. Articles came out. Tweets went viral. And suddenly, he became the story.

“Well, for me, yeah, I got personally called out. I think for the rest of the studio, they locked us down at Warner Bros. Warner Bros., especially after it happened with me, was much more like, OK, you don’t talk to the press. You don’t go and talk. There was a lot of focus on the game. Stay away from all the controversies. And I know they were telling the people at the studio, stay out of controversy.”

And Avalanche did. Six years of silence. No leaks. Okay, maybe one. But no more scandals. Just one shot at proving what Disney never believed they could.

The Legacy

Hogwarts Legacy launched and was an instant hit. Twelve million copies sold in two weeks. $850 million in revenue out of the gate. And as of 2025, it has sold 34 million units, making over a billion dollars. It broke Twitch records. Steam records. And became the best-selling game of the year.

Avalanche didn’t just make a good game. They made a cultural moment.

And I had to ask Troy: Was this a moment that could have been Disney’s?

“Absolutely, I think Disney really made a big mistake by giving up on Avalanche Software, and to me it’s obvious. Like, hey, they’re the best-selling game in the world, guys, and what’s Disney doing? Nothing over there in the game world. So yeah, I think they really messed up when they let Avalanche go, and it was a bit of validation for a lot of the folks who felt stabbed in the back by Disney when they shut down the studio.”

That validation wasn’t just personal. It was historic. Avalanche had done what Disney never could: build a billion-dollar franchise from scratch — and win the love of fans doing it.

While Disney is still chasing licensing deals, Avalanche is quietly building worlds full of secrets, soul, and story. Rumor has it they’re working on a sequel. Only this time, they’re not just making a game — they’re helping redefine the entire Wizarding World in sync with the upcoming HBO reboot.

And something tells me…it won’t be short on drama.

But drama doesn’t rattle a team like Avalanche. Not after everything they’ve been through. Because success doesn’t die from failure. It dies from fear. And fear? That’s what held Disney back. They had the IP, the talent, the shot. But no belief.

Avalanche, however, did. And belief — in the right hands — is what turns games into magic.

A Message to Gamers

Before we ended, I asked Troy one last thing.

Any last words for us, the gamers?

“I’m trying to think of something clever, you know.”

No, no, I told him. Don’t worry. It doesn’t need to be clever. Just something from the heart.

“You know what I want to tell people from the heart — and I’ve said this many times — is that I think gamers, the people who play games, need to understand that developers love you. The developer-to-gamer relationship should be much better than it’s become in recent years. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, when gaming was still getting its footing, you’d see your players as part of the process. You didn’t have anything unless you had a player. Developers need good players, and players need good developers. To me, it was a cooperative artistic endeavor. We’re working together at creating art. I wish we had more of that in the industry all the way around.”

The way games are made is changing and not in a good way. And for now I think no story proves that better than Candy Crush.

On the left is Candy Crush. It made 20 billion dollars in sales. On the right: GTA V and Online, which combined made 8.5 billion. Candy Crush took five months to make; GTA, five years. One has 200 million monthly players, the other about 20 million. Two very different games. One’s a cultural masterpiece – and the other a billion-dollar slot machine.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with gamified slot machines, until they become the blueprint for how games are made. Because if games like Candy Crush win, games like GTA stop getting made. And that’s when it gets dangerous. That’s when games stop being made with passion and start being engineered for profit.

And the men behind all that candy? A ruthless consultant. A matchmaking tycoon. And the son of Britain’s most notorious capitalist. Toby Rowland (left guy).

Meet Toby Rowland, co-founder of King and for a while, its biggest shareholder.

“My background is interesting… because I come from three generations of entrepreneurs.”

To understand Toby, you need to meet his dad, once described as Britain’s “unpleasant face of capitalism.” His dad was a corporate raider who deceived African dictators, stole their profits, and funneled the cash back to Britain. As he once famously said, “You can never have enough enemies.”

When he died, he left over half a billion pounds. And that’s the shadow Toby grew up in. Not just born into money, but born into a mindset. One where deception was the business model. And when King was born, that deception carried over.

But not without the man who quietly funded most of King: Mel Morris (the middle guy), a flooring salesman turned one of Britain’s richest men. Before King, he built uDate — the world’s second-biggest dating site — where he hired Toby as head of marketing. After selling uDate, Mel bought his hometown football club and started King.

One went bankrupt – Mel’s “fatal mistake.” The other? Make no mistakes. Because while Mel brought the cash, another brought the strategy. A consultant who could sell like a shark: Riccardo Zacconi (guy on the right).

No, Candy Crush was NOT invendted in a bathtub. But let’s not pop Riccardo’s corporate bubble just yet. Because it was he who truly turned King into what it is today.

“We always had the ambition to grow – the ambition of ‘Hey, this is where we want to go!’”

Riccardo wasn’t a game designer, but he was a numbers guy. A reserved consultant, the banker type.

Hungry to conquer the world, he joined Mel and Toby over at uDate.

“My father was a dentist and I had a very obvious choice in front of me. I decided not to become a dentist. I wanted to have my own company and create something new.”

And when King was born, Riccardo became the king himself, turning Candy Crush into the game it is today – at the cost of people’s addiction.

“By the end of the month, the game skyrocketed — I never experienced anything like it. The users went up like a rocket.”

But Riccardo didn’t do it alone. Two developers in particular created the game and the data machine behind it.

“I think Riccardo challenged me to come up with… can you make the best match-three game ever? And I felt… let’s base it on candy, something people are naturally attracted to. They look pretty, and it really made the game stand out in the market.”

Now the crew was complete. And what they built wasn’t just a game – it was an addiction machine wrapped in candy.

Thing is, they’d been training for this. King started out as a gambling site. Skill-based, competitive, and perfect for studying player behavior. With every click, King learned what made people play and pay.

And when Facebook and mobile gaming became a thing, King took all those lessons and built Candy Crush. Sweet, but deceptive.

• The game is simple: Match candies. Clear levels. Feel good. Right off the bat, it hits you with a tutorial. Big arrows, shiny animations, flashy sounds… even the “Next Level” button jiggles to get your attention.

• Every level has clear goals: collect a certain amount of candy. The first levels are so easy, I didn’t have to do anything — the game was playing itself. But the more I progressed, the harder it got.

• If I failed a level, I lost a life. Lose all five and I can either sit and wait, or simply pay. The button is green on purpose — because green means go. Or in this case: go broke.

• But don’t have money? Go and beg your fake Candy Crush friends, that’s also an option.

• If you sit idle for two seconds, don’t worry — Candy suggests a move. But that move might just be a trap.

• Even mathematicians say it’s really hard. Not just hard, but NP-hard — meaning not even a supercomputer could solve the game quickly.

  

And that’s the thing: You’re always so close. Every. Single. Time.

It’s called the near-miss effect, something to keep your brain juiced up on hope.

Basically what they do is train your brain to crave what it can’t have. A delay loop designed to keep you coming back. Classic conditioning.

And if you get bored? Don’t worry, the devs got your back — adding new levels, new candy, magic beans and jelly.

Oh, and of course, new mechanics. But not to be fun — to slow you down. Because slower means more attempts. And more attempts mean… more chances to pay.

It’s a Skinner box wrapped in sugar. Some are wrapped in Monopoly men and others in royal mascots or Pokémon. And it works.

People get hooked. Really hooked. Just google “Candy Crush addiction” and watch what auto-fills. No need to explain how bad it gets.

From spending 500, 1000, or 2000 dollars in a single day, people are addicted and begging for help — confused “how addictive a simple mobile game can be.”

In the media, Candy Crush was mocked, memed, and treated like a joke.

“People taking a dump everywhere can’t get enough of the app that’s as addictive as crack but far less rewarding.”

“Do you think the people making Candy Crush are even playing it? No, they’re just like MUAHAHAHAH.”

“Mario, don’t play that game. It’s not just candy. It’s evil! Evil candy!”

And other media outlets questioned the addiction problem more seriously.

“Some people are playing it for hours and might even be addicted to it.”

“Some people say they can’t put the game down.”

“Is Candy Crush on here? No, no! Keep walking! You’re an addict!”

While critics kept pointing fingers, King just smiled. With 90% of players never having spent a penny, they could hide behind numbers. But whenever they were asked about addiction… deflection.

Journalist: “[…] I have a couple of friends who are Candy Crush addicts, and they characterize themselves that way — they’re like, oh, I’ve got a problem, I’ve got to stop doing this.”

Zacconi: “Sure…well, I think that the - first of all - I think that the…I think that Candy Crush is a…is a…is a great game. It’s a fun game.”

Source (timestamped)

Also Zacconi:

“Fundamentally, games are fun — and fun is good for you.”

That’s King’s official stance. “Fun is good for you.”

Sure — why upset investors by admitting the game is just a Skinner box? Why admit anything if you can distract everyone… with marketing?

Oh boy do they have marketing. My favorite topic. Look at this.

When I say marketing, I mean drones.

To celebrate Candy Crush’s 10th anniversary, King spammed New York’s night sky with 500 drones, turning it into a flying billboard. Locals called it “obnoxious,” the senator called it “profit-seeking,” and one literally tweeted, “Hoping someone shoots them down.”

But even if you shot them down, you’d just need to turn on the TV to see what’s going on there.

An actual Candy Crush game show.

Real players, in a real studio, playing Candy Crush on a giant wall. The prize? 100,000 dollars. The content? Watching people swipe candies for cash.

But if that’s not entertaining enough, how about reeling in a bunch of celebrities who probably don’t even play the game themselves.

And if you’re not into music, don’t worry — they’ve got purple soda flooding New York streets, or board game cafés in London, or billboards that candify all of New York.

Because apparently, the whole world is just one big level.

But billboards are boring. How about some immersive films where playing Candy propels you into the clouds, has you play upside down, or float through pink, sleepy dream worlds that “swipe the stress away.”

And once you’re really good at swiping your stress away, why not partake in Candy Crush’s million-dollar All-Stars tournament?

“Candy Crush has been my companion for more than 10 years.”

“I downloaded the game when I was sick with COVID, and couldn’t put it down.”

“And before you know it I found myself in this contest.”

“Crazy!”

“So crazy!”

The marketing machine didn’t stop there. Commercial after commercial, the wiggling, jiggling, dancing, celebrity-endorsing, sweeter-than-ever marketing nonsense pumped King’s revenue from 60 million to almost 2 billion in only two years.

Only Zynga, the other mobile empire now owned by Take-Two, managed to grow this fast. I talked about Zynga’s crazy story here if you’d like to give it a watch.

Anyways, with 2 billion in revenue, it was time to take King – and its sharks – to its long-awaited throne.

Two years after Candy Crush launched, King went public, valued at 7 billion. Inside the New York Stock Exchange, candy mascots were dancing in a fanfare Wall Street had never seen before.

Riccardo would have probably preferred the mascot – because on that day, things didn’t turn out as sweet as planned.

“And it’s exactly like in the movies. You enter this room full with traders and it’s very narrow.”

“I bought the first share in the company – that was the positive moment. The less positive moment was the stock price went down.”

Shares tanked 15%, making it the worst IPO debut for a newly listed company in the U.S.

“There was a massive question from the markets: will the game still be there in a few years? Is it a one-hit wonder that’s going to disappear?”

But Riccardo had an answer. In his letter to shareholders, he pitched Candy Crush as “bitesize brilliance” – the perfect way to spend three minutes of free time, whenever, wherever.

In the end, it didn’t matter. While King’s stock flopped on day one, our sharks still became multimillionaires practically overnight. Riccardo, Mel, Seb, Thomas… except Toby.

He had sold his stake in King three years earlier to go and build something more ethical – Mangahigh, an educational math game for kids.

Ethical indeed, but not as lucrative. Because good ethics don’t ring the bell on Wall Street. Shady tactics do.

And just as King was cashing in, the lawsuits came knocking — from investors and from players.

Investors accused Riccardo of using “materially inaccurate” player data to inflate stock prices. And players sued King for quietly removing free lives — forcing users to buy more.

“A lawsuit filed in Chicago accused the game maker of taking from players the one thing they need most to play.”

But deleting players’ lives was just the beginning. After targeting players, King came for indie developers.

“The makers of this super popular and addictive game have trademarked the word Candy.”

Yes. Candy — trademarked, just because they could.

CandySwipe came out two years before Candy Crush, with candy, swiping, and even the word “Sweet!” But to protect the bathtub myth, King flipped the script and accused CandySwipe of infringement.

And what can one guy do against a billion-dollar empire? Exactly. Nothing. All he could do was write an open letter:

But King didn’t stop there. Next target? The Banner Saga, for using the word “Saga” — in a Viking game.

Even Riccardo admitted “it didn’t resemble Candy Crush,” but still tried to block the trademark “to protect their brand.”

But enough was enough. Indie devs fought back and launched the Candy Jam — a protest with over 400 parody games to mock King.

From Candy Fart Saga to Saga of Kersnuffle, the backlash got so big, King eventually backed down from trademarking “Candy” — at least in the U.S. In Europe, the word Candy is still trademarked.

Anyways, it’s good to know that a game about farting candy can still beat a billion-dollar bully.

But while indie devs saw a bully, someone else saw a cash cow. And that someone was Bobby Kotick.

CNBC: “Why this deal now? Why the maker of Candy Crush, and what does it do for Activision?”

Bobby: “Well, we couldn’t be more excited because it gives us an opportunity to participate in the fastest-growing game market in the world, which is mobile.”

After all the lawsuits, the mockery, and the market crash, Riccardo still found a buyer.

In 2016, Activision Blizzard dropped almost 6 billion to acquire King. Not for “mobile potential,” but for a billion-dollar tax dodge.

Activision had billions stuck offshore. If they brought it back to the U.S., they’d pay a massive tax bill. But if they spent it on an overseas company? No taxes. Same money. Same candy. So they used it to buy King.

And just like that, Candy Crush became a loophole.

While news anchors scratched their heads over the price tag, Bobby bragged about reaching “more than 500 million users.”

And Riccardo? He said this merger would “bridge all platforms.”

But in reality, it was a match made in spreadsheets. By 2022, Activision made more money from Candy Crush than Call of Duty.

And while one big fish was swallowing candy, another even bigger fish was already circling.

“Microsoft announced today it will be buying video game giant Activision Blizzard. A 68 billion dollar deal. So why this company, and what does it mean for both?”

Well, it means Microsoft didn’t just buy Call of Duty. They bought the thing you play on the toilet that never stops making money.

On paper, it was about cloud gaming, the metaverse, and “future-proofing” Xbox. But in reality it was about owning the most addictive, data-rich mobile empire on Earth.

By 2022, Candy Crush was generating over a billion dollars a year, with margins even Call of Duty couldn’t touch.

And unlike console games, Candy Crush didn’t need hardware, development cycles, or even marketing. Just addiction and time.

And once Microsoft owned it, things got creepy.

Users started seeing Candy Crush ads before even logging in — on corporate laptops, government computers, schools. It was “outrageously intrusive.”

And now, Candy Crush sits inside one of the world’s most powerful tech empires. Feeding data into Azure. Fueling AI experiments. Optimizing every tap. Every swipe. Every dollar.

And Riccardo? His “bitesize brilliance” is now feeding a trillion-dollar machine.

After nearly a decade of milking dopamine for profit, he stepped away in 2020 — along with Seb and Thomas — and started Sweet Capital, a VC fund now bankrolling the next generation of attention-grabbing apps.

In the end, King wasn’t built to make great games — it was built to be sold. Candy Crush was just the delivery system. The real product was a business model.

And now, that model is quietly replacing the art of making games. Not with games that move us, but with games that manage us. Predictable. Profitable. Repeatable.

I do wish I could say creativity will win. But right now, the one that wins is the one that monetizes faster.

And that’s the future we’re drifting into. One where Candy Crush founders get richer than GTA creators.

“In news that may surprise you, despite turning out a string of successful GTA games for over a decade, the Hausers’ combined wealth is significantly below that of Candy Crush developer King.”

Riccardo Zacconi hit the 271st position, thanks to his overall wealth of 354 million pounds, while his fellow founder Sebastian Knutsson was 458th, with 200 million pounds. Top of the list in the gaming department is Derbyshire businessman Mel Morris, who holds a 12% stake in King. His 430 million pound fortune places him at the 238th position.

“It’s a reminder that in today’s environment, the people behind mega hits like GTA, Red Dead, and Max Payne can be financially surpassed by a time-waster that gamers are pretty dismissive of.”

Source: IGN

We (gamers) don’t get to choose Game of the Year. Game journalists do. And to be precise: it’s 90% journalists and only 10% audience - for almost all awards. Sure, there’s the 100% fan-voted award, but the trophy that matters most is decided almost entirely by the press. A rather disproportionate weight for deciding the “best” game of the year, especially when it goes to a game that wasn’t even a fan favourite (Like Astro Bot in 2024).

So, Astro Bot, Black Myth, Elden Ring... regardless of game, the question I’m asking:

- Is this a fair system?

- Why do journalists vote, and not industry professionals?

- And why is it 90%?

Well, stay with me - because by the end you might realize those 90% aren’t the problem - but the very reason you can trust this award show at all.

I wanted to know what people think makes The Game Awards trustworthy - so I asked, and turns out... no one’s really sure.

Have you ever watched The Game Awards?

Group 1:

“I watch them every year, man, every year.”

“Watched it, yup!”

“And what makes you trust the voting at The Game Awards is actually fair and not rigged?”

“From what I know, the game awards, it’s like half community votes and like three people that judge...”

“Yeah, like people in the community.”

“I think, I think it’s fair, honestly.”

“Yeah.”

Group 2:

“I think the people that vote won’t be biased, so I think they will give their honest opinion, and that’s why I trust it.”

Group 4:

“I don’t really know. I just trust it.”

“I hear the people’s opinions.”

Group 3:

“I think they’re a professional company, and I think they’re really trustworthy counting the votes for The Game Awards.”

Yup, that’s what most people think: big company equals trustworthy. They don’t really know why they trust it, they just do. But trust has to be earned - and The Game Awards - or the Oscars of Gaming - still haven’t technically earned it, because they’re missing that one thing that actually delivers trust. Something every real award show has.

And that something starts here - with the first Oscars. Which, by the way, didn’t have it either a hundred years ago. Which is why it was such a mess. A 15-minute dinner party where Academy members lobbied, rigged, and hosted tea parties to sway votes. Winners were known weeks in advance and the whole thing reeked of backroom deals.

Until 1934 - the year that changed everything. Bette Davis delivered one of cinema’s best performances...

...and got snubbed. Bette didn’t even get a nomination, despite everyone thinking she’d win. Word was, studio execs had rigged the vote. The press lost it. Fans rioted. And the Academy... panicked.

And so, for the first time ever, the Academy brought in that one thing that could stop the rigging: accountants.

In 1935, the Oscars brought in Price Waterhouse, an independent accounting firm, to ensure fair oversight. Two auditors would count every vote independently, cross-check results, memorize the winners and lock duplicate envelopes in briefcases. Only they knew the winners.

It’s nothing fancy - but it’s how trust gets built. And before we get back to The Game Awards, just know, even the best systems make mistakes. Remember La La Land winning Best Picture?

Except La La Land was not the winner. Because this was not the right envelope.

For some reason, the accountant had handed over the wrong one. But it was also he who caught the mistake and fixed it - live on stage.

Just saying, mistakes can happen but this is what fair oversight looks like. And if you’re wondering what any of this has to do with The Game Awards, it’s because gaming had this system too. A long time ago...

Cybermania ‘94. Broadcast live. Very quirky... and Leslie Nielsen as host.

And right there on stage, with him, two accountants from Price Waterhouse, making sure everything stayed accountable and fair.

And guess who was working backstage that night, writing scripts for the hosts? A 14-year-old kid who got the gig through his parents’ connections. His name? Geoff Keighley. A teenage scriptwriter who would - years later - go on to create The Game Awards.

But here’s where it gets interesting: while Geoff - inspired by Cybermania - kept everything as is - the only thing he didn’t keep... were the accountants.

But why would someone cut the one thing that makes awards - and your vote - legit?

Geoff - a former game journalist - clearly didn’t expect that rant - but he didn’t stop it either. Because Geoff doesn’t want it to be gaming’s Oscars and doesn’t need “the Oscars for legitimacy.”

Before The Game Awards, Geoff helped produce Spike TV’s VGA. But when that got too corporate, he built his own show, from scratch and from his own savings. Today, he is the show. Producer. Host. And private owner. Which means no shareholders, no academy, and certainly no accountants.

But it also means: there’s no external oversight on what happens behind the curtain. And that’s something Geoff isn’t exactly transparent about. Even Polygon - a jury member - pressed him on this issue “multiple times,” however, to this day, “without any response.”

But why the secrecy? And how do we know it’s fair? Well, let’s first look at who votes - and how.

Do you know who picks the winners?

Group 2:

“The visitors, or the judges.”

“I think both, maybe both.”

Group 3:

“I have honestly no idea who chooses the winners, no idea.”

Group 4:

“Journalists maybe?” - “Yeah journalists.”

Group 1:

“I think it’s only 25% fan votes and rest is jury.”

“I’ve never asked myself the question.”

Let me tell you, it’s actually 10% fan vote...

Group 1:

“Ah it’s even lower than this...”

...and 90% journalists.

“Journalists... no way... IGN bro...”

Group 3:

“10% fan vote, oh my god. I never thought that - I thought it was like 40-60%... it’s 90% judges, omg alright.”

Group 4:

“Ah.. makes sense.” - “Not really. I think the opinion of the players is more important than the journalists.”

So are you still trusting The Game Awards?

Group 4:

“No. Not really.” - “Nah, not really.”

Group 2:

“No. Not really. It’s the journalists who vote, it makes no sense.”

Well, seems lik e no one liked the answer. And yet, that’s exactly how it works.

Let’s look at it closer up. At The Game Awards, it’s the press that votes - a jury of 100+ media outlets handpicked by Geoff and his team. There’s no clear selection criteria other than their “history of critical game evaluation.”

At the Oscars, it’s not the press at all. It’s over 10,000 industry professionals. Actors may only vote for actors, editors for editors, and directors for directors - every vote is therefore peer-reviewed. Except for Best Picture, that’s the only one where everyone gets to vote.

The only rule? Every single member must watch the films they vote on. It’s tracked, so they can’t escape watching them.

At The Game Awards, no such rule exists. You don’t have to finish a game - or be a game dev. Geoff believes “peer-based voting is tough, as most devs don’t have time to play all the games... they’re too busy making them. We prefer our approach.”

And that approach? Let’s just say it raises more questions than it answers.

• Each press outlet submits an unranked list of five games per category.

• All ballots are combined and counted. Who counts? Geoff won’t say, but it’s certainly not accountants with briefcases.

• Then, for each category, let’s say “BEST RPG” - the five most-mentioned games become the official nominees.

• Now let’s imagine these are tonight’s Game of the Year nominees. Each outlet now casts a single vote. Let’s say Expedition gets 43, and the rest less. Meanwhile, millions of fans vote online - and Blue Prince wins by a landslide.

• But since jury votes count for 90%, and fan vote only 10%, Expedition takes the win, even though Blue Prince crushed the fan vote.

That’s the math. Looks democratic, if you trust the jury speaks for everyone. But how can it, if they don’t even have to finish the game? Some nominees drop just 10 days before the show. Barely enough time to boot it up, let alone judge it. On top, some outlets have deals with the nominees, who have deals with publishers, who have deals with the media...

It seems less like a vote and more like one big biased, sponsor-friendly cuddle puddle, which is why to many “none of the awards really matter - except Players’ Voice, because that’s the one we pick.”

So here’s the question: If the fan vote barely counts... why include it all? What’s Geoff thinking?

Well, Geoff isn’t thinking - he’s doing business. And in business, offering a 10% vote isn’t democracy - it’s marketing.

Your vote isn’t there to give you a voice, but to make you feel like you have one. So you watch the show. And vote. And share. And come back next year. As Geoff himself put it, “There’s a sense of ownership gamers are having over the show.”

Keyword: sense. Because when you vote, it suggests sense of ownership, which makes you more likely to watch the show. It’s not a bug. It’s viewer retention 101.

And it works. Every year, viewership climbs, rivaling the Super Bowl. And it’s also the reason this show exists to begin with: Not because Geoff had a big dream - but because someone had a bigger agenda. Geoff only pulled off the “show after game executives begged him to do it,” saying “game makers are hungry to have their craft [...] recognized [...]”

In other words, publishers were hungry to have their products recognized. Not just by you, but by investors. During Q4. Before Christmas. And in front of millions of potential buyers.

But that still doesn’t explain why fan votes stay locked at 10%.

Well, according to Geoff, more weight would lead to “social engineering” and a “popularity contest.”

A fair concern, as we all know what happened when Mountain Dew asked fans to name a new flavor and the winner was “Hitler Did Nothing Wrong.”

But still - who should we trust? A hyped up crowd or a small circle of critics?

Some fans say “The Game Awards should be 100% fan voted” - but should it?

Let’s ask some people and then look at some science.

So who should pick the winners, especially the Game of the Year award?

Group 2:

“I think it should be 90% audience, and 10% journalists. The reverse. Reverse the roles.”

Group 4:

“I think it would be 50/50.” - “50/50, or 60/40.”

Group 3:

“I think honestly it should be more fair if it’s 70/30 or 60/40, so that the fans have more power over who’s winning The Game Awards this year.”

Group 1:

“I think that more than half should be fans.”

“I don’t agree, fans is gonna be biased, it’s gonna be hyped. The most hyped game is not always the best game though.”

“Well there’s a reason there is hype, right?”

Well, it turns out, that exact question has already been studied - and the results are surprising.

There’s this idea that if you ask enough people a question, the average answer gets you close to the truth. It’s called The Wisdom of Crowds. And oftentimes, it works. Like when guessing jellybeans in a jar or rating how fun a game is.

But here’s the twist: that only works when people are making rational estimates about objective facts. The moment you introduce emotions, hype or groupthink, the wisdom collapses, and you see a bunch of gacha games nominated just to make a point.

So what if, instead of chaos, you bring in experts?

Turns out, that’s been tested. In one study, 5,000 people were asked a simple question - like “How tall is the Eiffel Tower?”

• First, they all guessed alone.

• Then, they were put into groups of five to debate and agree on an answer.

• Then those group answers were averaged.

The result? Just four group answers beat thousands of solo guesses. Why? Because structure beats scale. Crowd wisdom works for guessing jellybeans - not for judging greatness. That’s where experts win.

So now we know that:

• A 100% fan vote isn’t ideal (too much groupthink)

• Even a 50/50 split still favors the loudest

• The 90/10 split feels fair, but gives players just the illusion of influence.

• The 100% expert vote works best - but only if they’re actually experts.

And that’s what The Game Awards skip: actual expertise. It’s following the small expert group model, but without the experts. After all, it’s journalists voting, not game devs. Which means the winners often reflect media trends, not excellence. But that’s the real debate, isn’t it? When we ask “who should vote,” what we’re really asking is, “who decides what excellence looks like?” And that’s not a democracy problem. It’s an identity problem.

So when people say The Game Awards are “rigged” - they’re probably wrong. But if they say it’s opaque, editorial, and built for engagement? They might have a point.

And that point is a loud one. “The Game Awards isn’t credible,” “the media shouldn’t be voting,” and “Game of the Year should be abolished.” The backlash is loud and clear. Even Black Myth’s director chimed in, questioning “what the criteria were for picking Game of the Year.”

Well, I’m not sure ‘criteria’ is even the right question here. If you want to have something less questionable, you go to the GDC, BAFTA or Golden Joystick awards - all fairly prestigious and legitimate award shows.

But The Game Awards were never really about the awards - despite the name.

It was always a media show first. Built for publishers, press, and sponsors. It’s a show that was born into an era of Twitch and YouTube, where trailers matter more than trophies. And that’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

Because publishers want “predictability.” Sponsors want “brand-safe winners.” The press wants headlines that delight.

Like Astro Bot. Its “win was safe, predictable, and deserved.” It crushed reviews and received critical acclaim.

Or, as another award show host put it:

“I have to say Astro Bot is the most fun and heartwarming piece of marketing for a multinational corporation I have ever played.”

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s time we stop pretending this is about the “best” and start seeing it for what it is: a beautifully produced marketing machine. And that’s fine. Just don’t confuse it with an award show. It’s an illusion. Which is why we don’t choose Game of the Year. A machine does. One where 90% vote, so that the 10% can argue about it.

Happy Voting!

🔍 What Got Cut

The Facts That Didn’t Make It

1. The Complete BAFTA Games Awards System

I mentioned GDC, BAFTA, and Golden Joystick as “legitimate award shows” but didn’t dive into how they actually work. BAFTA Games Awards is particularly interesting - they have a two-stage voting process: first a longlist from the Academy, then public nominations, then Academy voting again. Plus, you have to be a BAFTA member to vote, which requires industry experience and peer approval.

Why it didn’t make it: The video was already long, and the comparison to Oscars was enough. Adding BAFTA’s full system would’ve been another tangent.

The deeper story: BAFTA actually requires members to have “substantial professional experience” in games. It’s peer-reviewed expertise, not just “history of critical game evaluation.” The Game Awards doesn’t require any gaming industry experience to vote - just journalism credentials.

Read more

Then Nexon’s CEO said something that made the whole thing click: “People should just assume every game company is now using AI.”

Arc Raiders? Had to add an AI disclosure to their Steam page because players are now asking before they buy. The devs clarified they use text-to-speech for world-building, not generative AI for content but the fact that they had to explain themselves at all says everything about where player trust is right now.

That’s the quiet part out loud. And the reaction was immediate.

Indie studios started responding publicly. The team behind Demonschool said: “We would rather cut off our own arms than use AI. Demonschool is 100% human made.”

Rogue Eclipse’s devs said they’ve added anti-AI clauses to their contracts. Studios like Necrosoft, Aerial Knight, and Strange Scaffold all came out swinging against the idea that AI is just “the new normal.”

And then this: The games people are actually getting excited about? The ones proudly stamping “AI FREE“ on their pages. One dev launched their game with “Proudly no AI” in the headline. Another created a free “No Gen AI“ seal any indie can use. These aren’t fringe cases; the AI-free thread on r/gaming hit nearly 8,000 upvotes.

So you’ve got two completely opposite bets being placed at the same time.

One commenter I saw put it perfectly: “Give me a transformative experience that redefines the medium through AI and I will embrace it. Use the same tool to blatantly increase your profit margins at my expense and I will find it offensive.”

That’s the whole tension in one sentence.

Because here’s the thing: AI as a tool isn’t the problem. Using machine learning for drone locomotion or placeholder art during pre-production? Most players don’t care. But when AI becomes the excuse to fire 1,500 people while telling investors it’s “ubiquitous”? That’s not innovation. That’s cost-cutting dressed up as progress.

And players can tell the difference.

So who is all this AI integration actually for? The quarterly reports? The “efficiency” metrics that look great on paper but hollow out everything that makes games worth playing?

The irony is brutal: the industry is betting its future on a technology its audience is somewhat rejecting.

And it all reminds me of what infamous hacker George Hotz said on how this all might “end.”

---

Today I released my investigation into how Mark Pincus built FarmVille and turned Zynga into a $12 billion gaming empire…by doing “every horrible thing in the book.”

The video covered the public story: the scam ads, the copycat games, the ruthless tactics, the $12.7 billion Take-Two acquisition.

But there’s always more to the story.

This is the cutting room floor—the stories, details, and insights that didn’t fit the final video. Plus something extra: an exclusive insider account from someone who worked at Zynga right during these tumultous times.

They were there when OMGPOP got bought and shut down. They saw Pincus’s management style firsthand. They lived through the Mattrick era, the “Zynga old blood,” and the transition to Take-Two.

Here’s what I learned, both from what didn’t make it into the video, and from someone who lived it.

---

(FROM INSIDE)

What Happened to OMGPOP

Zynga bought Draw Something maker OMGPOP for $180 million in 2012—right when the game was white-hot. The momentum died almost immediately after the acquisition. And then Zynga shut down the entire company just a few years later.

I touched on this in the video, but didn’t dive deep. The insider who worked on Draw Something 2 with the NY studio fills in the blanks:

They remember hearing about the acquisition in water cooler chats—around $40 million, or so people thought. Actually, it was $180 million, but that’s how opaque these decisions were.

The night before Draw Something 2 launched, the head of the OMGPop/NY studio was let go. “I think it was because upper management didn’t like the guy for whatever reason,” the insider said.

Launch day, and they fire the studio head the night before. That’s how Zynga treated acquired studios.

The NY studio didn’t hide their feelings about Zynga San Francisco HQ. During work trips, they’d take the Toronto team to recruiting mixers for free drinks—”since at the time, the NY crew kind of already knew their studio was on the chopping block.”

When the studio finally shut down? “They allegedly celebrated by ripping up and burning all the Zynga related stuff like posters and promotional material.”

That’s how much they hated working there.

This acquisition was Zynga trying to buy their way out of the mobile pivot problem. They saw Draw Something’s viral success and thought throwing $180M at it would solve everything. Classic Pincus move—fast, expensive, short-sighted.

Inside Pincus’s Management Style

The insider’s account reveals what Pincus was actually like as a manager and it’s not pretty.

Read more

Snoop Dogg: “What about all that money over there?” (Yes, there was real money inside the truck.)

Well…all that money over there was part of a marketing stunt by none other but Zynga - the company behind the wildly popular Facebook sensation, FarmVille.

FarmVille wasn’t just another farming game - it was the biggest obsession of its time. But behind its friendly graphics was a strategy so ruthless, it turned a small start-up into a billion-dollar empire. And the man in charge? Mark Pincus - a CEO people loved to hate. Driven to dominate, Mark stopped at nothing: from cloning games to scamming users, this man did “every horrible thing in the book.”

But was he really a villain, or just a genius who understood the cold reality of business? After all, Mark turned Zynga into a powerhouse. It seemed unstoppable! But when things got out of control, it all came crashing down.

But just when it looked like the end, the unimaginable happened…

”Take Two Interactive is one of the biggest video game publishers out there, responsible for GTA, Red Dead - it's buying mobile game maker Zynga for around 12.7B in a mix of cash and stock.”

Now under control of Take-Two, the question is: how did a man, who did every horrible thing in the book, not just survive—but walk away as the ultimate winner?

Zynga’s Bad Boy

Look at this stock graph. You see Zynga didn’t just rise - it went from zero to hero to zero and somehow back to hero again.

But what exactly happened on the path towards a $12 Billion deal by Take-Two, the second biggest deal in gaming?

Well, today, you’ll learn about the three moves that built - and nearly broke - Zynga. But before I break those down, let’s break down the man behind it: A Silicon Valley bad boy with a bulldog and a vision.

Mark Pincus wasn’t exactly…liked. People called him a “control freak,” “not coachable,” “a piece of sh**” and so “mean,” he even has his own chapter in Mean Men, a book about the world’s most controversial leaders. But was he really “mean” - or just a genius who understood that in the world of business, you’re either prey or predator. Because from a young age, being prey to authority wasn’t his style. In Mark’s own words, he would say things like “That’s a dumb question,” when asked something he found stupid in interviews. Mark just “didn’t have a lot of respect for authority.”

It’s no surprise then that he also didn’t last long in traditional jobs. By 28, after being fired from a VC firm, he admitted feeling “washed up.” But instead of backing down, he doubled down. Mark wasn’t interested in playing by the rules…

…he wanted to write his own.

“I knew I wanted to control my destiny, so I knew I needed revenues, like right. fucking. now. Like I needed the revenues now! So I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues right away…”

Marc Pincus talk at Startup@Berkely

"Every horrible thing in the book” - A harsh but honest answer to students asking how to get profitable fast. The press called him “unethical” for saying that, but they didn’t understand that for Mark, an experienced entrepreneur, it wasn’t about being unethical: it was about taking control of your own destiny in the cold world of business.

And control he took. Named after his bulldog Zynga, Mark started the company with one goal: Connect the world through games. Mark had no gaming experience whatsoever, but what he did have was the ability to see what others missed: the untapped potential of social media games.

“I saw that people were hanging out on Friendster and Tribe and these social networks and eventually MySpace and Facebook - but you got them all together to this cocktail party but then there wasn't something to do with your friends, and people would say there’s nothing to do on a social network…”

Zynga's Mark Pincus Discusses Social-Gaming Business

So Mark thought Facebook games were the answer. While other companies were chasing hardcore gamers, Mark was chasing another crowd: the non-gamers. Moms, students, office workers. And to catch them, he truly did every horrible thing in the book.

Zynga’s Strategy

Zynga’s first big hit made Facebook gaming explode. It was the world’s first free-to-play social poker game with 40M monthly players. But the real reason it took off wasn’t the game itself - it was because of something no one else had tried before: microtransactions.

Yes, Zynga Poker became the first game in the West to sell poker chips for real money. People loved it, but not everyone was happy. Many claimed the cards weren’t random but dealt by an algorithm designed to make players lose, calling it the “most corrupt game of online poker.” True or not, the backlash only fueled Zynga’s reputation to keep players hooked - and spending.

News anchor: “It’s true, people are spending not just a little bit of money that don’t exist, but a lot of it; exactly how much?

WSJ Tech Reporter: “Well the revenue last year were over $600M and growing very quickly.”

Source

For most game studios, that kind of money would have been enough. But not for Mark. To stay ahead, he turned Zynga into something no other game studio saw coming: a data powerhouse.

“…that volume of data they get off those 250 million users ends up being their secret weapon. They’re able to to know what people like faster than any of their competitors which allows them to keep turning out the hits.”

Source

While other companies built games based on user feedback, Mark built games based on user data. Every click, every feature, no, every pixel exploited players’ habits to keep them hooked. Zynga, as one employee put it, was in fact “an analytics company masquerading as a games company.” With Mark’s obsession over data, the stage was set for their biggest game yet - one that would bring massive growth, but also massive trouble…

Meet Farmville. A game about...farming.

FarmVille became Facebook’s fastest growing game. And that thanks to a simple loop of plant, grow, harvest, repeat. But it was that exact loop that harvested something else: your fear of loss. Crops took days, sometimes weeks to grow. And if you logged in too late, your crops died. But log in on time, and you were rewarded. FarmVille basically ran on real-world time, and players took it very seriously.

Some even set alarms to not miss a harvest and then there where those who neglected their kids when interrupted mid-game. FarmVille wasn’t just a game—it was an addiction machine that sold you time. And Zynga loved it.

But FarmVille’s real genius wasn’t the game itself - it was Facebook’s notification system. FarmVille allowed players to send invites to their friends for help. Found some eggs? Notification. Found some fuel? Notification. Harvested Olives? You guessed it – notification. The spam was relentless. It annoyed everyone who wasn’t playing.

But for Zynga, it was genius, because every invite was free advertising. The only question was: how long before players - and Facebook - had enough.

Well, for now, Zynga couldn’t get enough. The hits kept coming. Everything Zynga touched turned to gold, and that, for a very simple reason: “I don’t f***ing want innovation. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers.”

Those were Mark’s marching orders, and boy, did Zynga deliver. Armed with tons of user data, Zynga didn’t just clone games - they perfected them. From FarmVille to Mafia Wars to CafeWorld, every clone outperformed the original.

Data and cloning became Zynga’s DNA.

Employees even joked that their motto was “Do evil.” And with all that “evil,” it was no surprise that lawsuits rolled in, with even EA sueing Zynga over their game The Ville - which - truth be told - was a blatant clone of The Sims Social.

But Mark didn’t care - for him, it wasn’t about stealing anyways, but about doing it better.

And better they did. Zynga’s games became the fastest-growing in history and Zynga itself the fastest-growing company in Silicon Valley. The bad boy with his bulldog was finally in control of his destiny.

But to keep that control, Zynga needed more than data and clones - they needed the spotlight. And they knew exactly how to grab it.

Zynga’s Marketing

Meet GagaVille - Zynga’s marketing campaign with Lady Gaga. FarmVille players could unlock songs from her unreleased album inside the game. It was an entirely new way to experience music - by both FarmVille players and Lady Gaga’s little monsters.

So why not try the same with rappers? For their game Mafia Wars, players got exclusive access to Dr. Dre’s music video.

And for Mafia Wars Las Vegas, Zynga livestreamed Snoop blowing up a 4-ton armored truck in the Nevada desert. It was the most viewed live stream in 2010.

But not all stunts paid off. To promote Mafia Wars again, Zynga glued fake $25,000 bills to San Francisco’s sidewalks. The city wasn’t impressed, calling it “sidewalk vandalism” and “illegal marketing [tactics].” No surprise, knowing it took the cleaning crews three hours to scrape off the fake bills.

But Zynga didn’t care - they kept the marketing machine running: Playable emails, mega billboards, or taking over entire 7-Eleven stores from food to drinks to candy; Zynga stopped at nothing.

Not even at zombies - yes, for their launch of Zombie Swipeout, Zynga flooded New York with over 100 zombies handing out blood pops. The stunt resulted in over 12M impressions on Twitter.

And when zombies weren’t enough, no problem, they went even bigger with … sheep.

“I was like, Dad, why is there sheep in NYC - because it’s NYC man; you see whatever you see, it’s all here.”

Yes, Zynga brought herds of sheep and English farmers to New York to promote FarmVille’s latest version. It was marketing a la carte; super extravagant and super expensive.

But when you’ve got Emma Stone confessing her FarmVille addiction, you know Zynga’s marketing was also super effective.

“Are you on Facebook? - No I had to delete my Facebook. Because I got addicted to FarmVille. It's like, have you seen people that are like da da needs help building their Barn, donate a nail or board. It’s a fake farm, but it doesn’t feel fake, Jimmy. - You’re getting crazy, you’re getting crazy.”

Emma Stone on The Tonight Show

Zynga’s Tactics

These marketing stunts were bold, but not as “horrible” as what is about to come:

If you were too broke to keep up your FarmVille addiction, no problem - just hand over your data. That’s what FarmVille’s “offers” did - they let players trade personal information for in-game currency. From signing up for a Netflix trial, completing a fake IQ test or grabbing a “free” learning CD - the list of offers was long and loaded. A typical offer asked you to enter your phone number to unlock rewards, not realizing telling you you’ve just subscribed to a monthly service.

These shady offers made millions, especially for Facebook. But at the heart of it wasn’t Facebook or Zynga per se - it was actually a company called Offerpal, a firm that specialized in trading personal data for in-game rewards.

At first, it seemed like business as usual. But as complains grew louder, one journalist started asking questions. When confronting Offerpal’s CEO about how these scams became the backbone of social gaming, she had nothing nice to say:

“I can categorically say that his insights are shit, doubleshit, and bullshit, ok?”

Turns out his insights weren’t so bullsh*t. Lawsuits accused Zynga and Facebook of a “fraudulent scheme” with ads being “highly misleading” and “users subscribing to services they do not want.” Apparently, “Facebook was fully aware” but did not “offer to reimburse any users.”

And to top it off, Mark’s now-infamous quote only supported these claims:

“I did every horrible thing in the book just to make revenues right away, i mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this zwinky toolbar which was like, i dont' know, i downloaded it once and i couldn't get rid of it.”

The toolbar was surely Marks means to an end, a quick way to generate revenues, but his honest words about it didn’t help and left Facebook with no choice but to act fast:

Facebook suspended Zynga’s game FishVille. Offerpal’s CEO, “Queen of Scams,” got fired, anti-scam rules were enforced, and Mark removed “all mobile ads until we see any that offer clear user.”

It was a quick fix to a much bigger problem. While all this was happening, another storm was brewing: Zynga’s relentless game notifications kept spamming feeds so much, even Facebook had enough. Without any warning, Facebook decided to shut them down altogether. According to Zuckerberg, it was part of “some rebalancing so that if you aren’t a gamer, you’re getting less updates.”

And just like that, Zynga lost millions of users overnight. It became clear who was truly in control here, with the press declaring that “Facebook Basically Owns Zynga.”

But it was like a bad marriage. Both Facebook and Zynga knew they needed each other. Without Zynga, Facebook would lose traffic. And without Facebook, Zynga would lose players. The solution was a new deal. A secret one. Facebook would keep promoting their games and Zynga agreed to make them exclusive. For Mark, it was a win, but not exactly his idea of “taking control.” To take things further, he bought Words with Friends and turned a hit game into an even bigger success. Despite the scandals, Zynga became bigger than ever—almost too big to stay private. So by the end of 2011, Mark took Zynga to an entirely new level.

Yes, Zynga went public with a $7 Billion valuation, with mark of course tightly in control.

But just five months later, his best buddy Mark, the other Mark, took his baby to even greater heights.

Facebook was now public, and worth over $100B - and one of the largest tech IPOs in history.

For Zynga, this meant trouble. Facebook was now bigger, bolder, and more in control. And it threatened Zynga’s dominance in the social gaming world.

Zynga’s Downfall

The problem: Zynga bet big on social gaming just when the world started to shift to something else: mobile games. Now, everybody had a smartphone and people wanted to take their browser games with them. Apps became the next big thing. To catch up, Zynga did a desparate move: Buying the studio behind the hit game Draw Something for $200M. That was surely Zynga’s entry into mobile, with the game being top of the app charts. But when it didn’t meet Zynga’s expecations, Mark shut down - not only the game—but the entire studio with it.

The smartphone era wasn’t just happening - it was happening fast. And maybe just too fast for Zynga to catch up.

“Zynga shares, they're actually down I believe forty percent - yes, in the pre-market, yeah down to close three [bucks]”

From this point onward, things just got messier. Mark stepped down as CEO - twice. And executives too left the company alongside employees, with layoff after layoff. By 2016, Zynga was worth less than its own office building.

And then, in 2020, after having left Zynga’s leadership, Mark announced a bittersweet farewell:

“Tomorrow, Zynga shuts down FarmVille on Facebook after 11 years.”

In his thread, Mark reflected on how FarmVille didn’t just define a generation—it reshaped gaming itself. It turned data into power, inspired entrepreneurs, and showed the world what games could do. But Facebook was no longer Zynga’s home. The game that built an empire was gone, and so was Mark.

But just when everyone thought Zynga’s story was over, things started to shake up again. Under new leadership, Zynga eventually turned its focus to mobile games, with hits that - to this day - rake in millions every month.

It was a long needed pivot, but surely not their last. Because Zynga’s biggest move was yet to come, in 2021: A $250M acquisition of Chartboost, one of the top mobile ad networks.

The goal? To take control of course - because with Chartboost, Zynga could now find players, show them ads, and keep more of the profits - without relying on giants like Facebook.

But Chartboost had its own problems. It got accused of tracking people - even kids - who had clearly opted out with “Ask App Not to Track.” But in the cutthroat world of business, this barely raised an eyebrow—it was just business as usual.

And it worked. In 2022, the business as usual finally paid off - big time.

“…Coming up. Red Dead meets Farmville. Take-Two Interactive buying mobile game developer Zynga.”

“This will position Take-Two as one of the largest publicly traded interactive entertainment companies in the world…”

Yes, Zynga—a gaming company that bought an ad company—was now bought by one of the biggest gaming companies ever, to create - of course - the next mobile gaming empire. And Mark - who still owned millions of shares, walked away….as the ultimate winner.

It’s funny how the world works. This man who built Zynga by taking control of his destiny had to eventually give it up to save Zynga. It’s a crazy story but one we can all learn from - especially from a man, who did “every horrible thing in the book.” While he was very open about his moves, his story goes beyond all that. It’s about understanding that in the world of business, everybody plays by their own rules. And if you don’t, someone else will create the rules for you. But the real takeaway? Let’s hear it from the man himself:

“You live and grow by the sword and you live and die by that same sword. Zynga was a victim of that. We were a victim of our own data and analytic. And the one muscle that I wasn't able to really replicate and teach across the company was intuition.”

Intuition. I guess that was the only thing missing from his book. But while Mark admits he didn’t always have it, there’s one instinct he clearly mastered: the drive to take control of his own destiny.

Happy Farming.

“A $10,000 limited edition, Gucci branded, gaming console.”

“It’s the first time Fortnite has ever done make up.”

“…now I'm going to be honest, I've never played on Fortnite, know nothing about it, but I thought this collection was pretty cute.”

“I am here with bad ass female gamers helping them with their game face.”

“….oh this (Xbox console) looks like a creamsicle.”

The Invasion

Gaming used to be a safe space. Crack open a bag of Doritos, sip some Mountain Dew, and forget the real world for a while.

But that world is under attack.

From Halo nail polish to Final Fantasy in Prada to Fortnite in haute couture—what started as a joke has become a business model à la carte: snake oil, re-skinned for gamers.

And the worst part? Most of us didn’t even notice.

Just ask Valkyrae—the world’s biggest gamer girl.

“Meet RFLCT—it’s the skincare collection that’s for everyone who uses a screen.”

She thought it was the perfect deal. Instead, it was a deal with the devil.

“I've had some terrible thoughts, like actually, like really terrible thoughts…”

The F*cking Soap

Valkyrae was the gamer girl. Streamer of the Year. Co-owner of 100 Thieves. Featured in Forbes. So when she launched a skincare line “for gamers,” people paid attention.

“I'm a full-time content creator. My career depends on being glued to a screen, but all that screen time started to take a toll on my body and my skin, so I did something about it.”

Valkyrae

Yes, she did something about it. But the way she did it made her fans wonder if she’d been playing them all along.

“I don’t believe that the fucking blue light is destroying your skin in the way that the RFLCT product presents itself. It’s just f*cking soap.”

Hassan Abi

But before we get to the f*cking soap, you need to see how deep this rabbit hole goes. Because Valkyrae wasn’t the first to get fooled.

High Fashion, Low Trust

In 2012, Prada gave Final Fantasy a fashion makeover.

Noel in a knit sweater. Hope in a cream shirt. Lightning in a tailored blouse. Square Enix called it “a very exciting opportunity.”

That was just the warm-up. Louis Vuitton went all in. They didn’t just put Lightning in a photoshoot—they gave her an interview.

“I’m proud to be chosen. Perhaps I’m finally learning who I truly am.”

A fake person, with a fake answer. But to Louis Vuitton, it was a “new era of expression.”

And if you thought that was strange, just look at Riot Games.

They partnered with Louis Vuitton for a League of Legends collection: a $2,000 jacket, $1,000 shorts, and platform shoes that cost more than most gaming PCs. But to Riot, it was about “breaking stereotypes of what a gamer is.”

Yeeeeaaah, no.

The only thing that broke was gamers’ trust—sold off to the highest bidder.

The Blue Light Lie

It sounds like a joke—but these weren’t random collabs. They were marketing experiments to see how far brands could go before anyone noticed. And most of us didn’t. Until Valkyrae.

So what exactly was she selling? Right. A solution to a problem nobody knew they had: A cream that protects gamers… from the blue light of their screens.

“So I did something about it. Because we all know screens aren't going anywhere. Meet RFLCT—it's the skincare collection that's for everyone who uses a screen.”

On paper, it made sense. Two years of work. Meetings with chemists. Picking colors. The site described it as “like SPF, but for screens,” and claimed it was based on “groundbreaking research.” Valkyrae said she saw the research with her “own eyeballs.”

But the problem?

Nobody else could. No studies. No citations. No links.

Just… trust.

And that missing research? It wasn’t an oversight. It was almost like someone knew no one would ask. Because when gamers want something, they don’t scroll through academic PDFs—they buy. Fast. And beauty giants already knew that… over in China.

Lessons from the East

Meet Honor of Kings—the world’s biggest mobile game. Millions of fans. Billions in revenue. Stadiums packed with screaming crowds. And the kicker? More than half the players are women.

And beauty brands took notes. MAC Cosmetics released a limited-edition makeup line inspired by in-game characters—endorsed by celebrities, plastered on billboards, hyped on reality TV. It sold out in 24 hours. That wasn’t luck. Over half of esports fans say ads work on them. So it’s no wonder beauty giants are crawling all over gaming.

The message was clear: Gamers buy. And they buy fast.

So to Valkyrae, a skincare line for gamers didn’t sound so crazy. The market had already spoken…

The Backlash

But what works in China doesn’t always fly in the West. Especially when you’re selling to gamers. Hours after launch, RFLCT wasn’t trending the way Valkyrae hoped. Doctors called the science nonsense.

“I really like Rae. I think it's great to see women of color in business. But you don't need to protect your skin against blue light from screens. Even with a big-ass monitor, you’d need days or months to equal 15 minutes of sunlight.”

Gamers didn’t hold back either, laughing at the idea of gamer skincare and calling it a “Scam.” “Cash grab.” “A solution to a problem that doesn’t exist."

Some of her streamer friends defended her:

“People aren't actually mad about the pseudoscience of blue lights—gamers are just mad about hygiene. Typical gamers. I’ve seen it in the Smash scene for years.”

Others didn’t bother holding back:

“It’s soap. What do you want me to say? Is it edible? It’s just moisturizer and soap.”

While many joined the dogpile, Asmongold wasn’t so sure:

“The RFLCT thing was dumb. But she obviously got played.”

But played by who? Her business partners stayed silent. The only official statement?

“If a male gamer had come up with RFLCT, he’d have been applauded.”

Right. More like deflection than accountability. Almost like someone had done this before.

Same Game, New Target

In fact, selling snake oil to gamers has been done before. Our beloved MAC Cosmetics once tried to sell The Sims-inspired make up. Fans expected fun, neon shades to match the game. Instead, they got an old neutral pallette in new packaging - recycled from years ago. Of course, Simmers weren’t beating around the bush:

“…the MAC collab with the Sims 4 is a hot flaming pile of trash.”

Anyways, while all this RFLCT mess was going on, Valkyrae could only sit and watch. She wasn’t allowed to speak. Instead she was “told to wait until tomorrow…”

The Fallout

And then… tomorrow came.

“I just wanted to talk about everything.”

No script. No managers. Just Valkyrae—live. But the more she spoke, the worse it got.

“I'm not... it's not... this is not what I expected. This is not what I signed up for. I don't want to have to convince people. Like, ‘Oh just trust me.’ I understand entirely the position I put myself in.”

Did she really? She said she saw the research. But there was none. She said it wasn’t about money. But it didn’t matter. The stream fell apart.

“I’ve always tried to be a good person… but what happened was such a f----- up thing, and I was part of it.”

And here’s the part no one warned her about: Valkyrae didn’t come up with the idea.

She was approached.

“I got so lucky because I was approached by Claudia, who is the CEO of Ideavation. She was like, ‘Do you want to create some kind of product—hair, makeup...’”

Meet Claudia Poccia—former president of Avon.

Yes, that Avon. The pyramid-scheme beauty empire. Door-to-door beauty sales since 1886. A company built on selling solutions to problems you didn’t know you had. From Avon to Estée Lauder to you name it—Claudia was a master at turning snake oil into money. She didn’t need Valkyrae to understand the science. She just needed her audience to trust it. And legally, she was covered.

“RFLCT did not commission the studies and does not endorse the conclusions reached by the third parties.”

The fine print got worse:

“We do not guarantee that all information provided on the site is accurate.”
“We do not guarantee the quality of any products will meet your expectations.”

Valkyrae thought she was building something revolutionary. She was just fronting for a beauty executive with a playbook older than she was. And Rae wasn’t the only one. She was just the most visible victim of a much bigger game.

The Real Game

Here’s the truth: The beauty industry is in panic mode. The four biggest beauty conglomerates just reported disappointing sales. Consumers are burnt out. Tired. Over it. So now, they’re coming for us—the only industry left with obsessive loyalty and endless screen time. From Dior in Gran Turismo, to Prada Candy Crush minigames, to Halo-inspired nail polish, to Fortnite skins that cost more than rent…

The invasion has only begun.

Games are becoming beauty showrooms. Fashion weeks are becoming Diablo-inspired and Blizzard-sponsored.

But here’s the thing: beauty brands aren’t chasing sales anymore. They’re chasing relevance. They’re fighting for attention in a world where TikTok trends die before the next product even ships.

And gaming?

Gaming is their last big stage. The only place left where people still care. So what does that mean for us? It means the worlds we built are being sold back to us. Our trust? A product on the shelf. Our avatars? Walking billboards. Our favorite creators? Just another chess piece. If only Valkyrae had known the one rule of marketing:

Trust built in one world can’t be cashed out in another. You can’t drag your audience into a world you don’t belong in. So next time you see a creator pushing a $400 Fortnite hoodie or nail polish titled You Had Me at Halo…

Ask yourself: Is this still about gaming? Or are we just NPCs in someone else’s store?

RFLCT spent two years on "groundbreaking research”…

Here’s what that research actually said:

Results: Blue light can be both harmful and beneficial to the skin, depending on intensity and wavelength. Short-term safety information is more readily available from clinical studies; however, the biological effects of repeated and/or longer-term exposure are not fully understood yet.

Why is Putin, Boobs and Trump off-limits , but Fuck Putin, Stalin and Hitler gets the green light?

Why is Blood Trail, the “most violent game in VR,” okay, but Tormentor isn’t?

And why is this, this and this, a game about rape, allowed, but a game about pickup lines gets rejected?

Well, my fellow Informed Gamers, welcome to Steam’s bizarre world of moderation where logic goes to die. Valve’s vague policies on what is and isn’t allowed has baffled everyone for years. From wrongly banned mods to asset-flips and shovelware, Steam’s inconsistent moderation is a well-known issue. But what’s less known is why it’s so utterly broken.

To understand why, you need some context. Steam isn’t just a platform—it’s the Amazon of PC gaming, and for small developers, it’s the only way to survive. But publishing on Steam feels more like Russian roulette. Valve, the company behind it, is infamous for its vague, ever-changing rules. One minute they ban “pornography,” the next they allow “everything,” only to then ban those again that feature “real-life explicit images.” The rules don’t just shift—they contradict.

It’s so bad, even politicians a re calling out Steam’s “hands-off approach to content moderation” that allows users to glorify Nazism, white supremacy, and school shooters. Valve technically banns hate speech, they just don’t enforce it, which is why a lot of Nazi content stays up unless governments like Germany step in.

For a billion-dollar company this powerful, you’d expect a system that works. So why doesn’t it? To find out, we need to look back at where it all started—when Valve first struggled to police its own platform. Spoiler: it didn’t go well.

You Must be 18 or Older to Enter

Steam’s moderation mess blew up in 2017. Suddenly, a game about a boy’s first look at adult themes vanished from Steam—not for gore or violence, but for harmless ASCII art that kinda looked like porn. For Steam, it definetely was porn. “If the game had monsters, or violence, or death, it probably wouldn’t have been banned,” said the developer, who was forced to put his game up on lesser known platform (Sorry Gamejolt)

Then came House Party—a game you win by having sex with women at a party. Blackmailing with drunk photos, whipping your dick out, or getting chicks drunk was all part of the gameplay. No surprise, it got pulled after it was publicly slammed for how “easily available” it was “to an estimated 35 million children.” But when the outrage cooled, the game sneaked back on Steam—toned down but still sketchy, with an off-Steam patch to restore the original.

And Steam seemed to be totally fine with the patch…

Meanwhile, Strangers in a Strange Land, a point-and-click that’s more peep show than puzzle game, got banned for too much skin and an underage-looking main character. But, surprise! It came back with giant “CENSORED” signs slapped over the risky parts. And just l llike House Party, there was a yet another patch to bring it all back. Steam’s response? Crickets.

The list of bans didn’t stop there. In 2018, Valve nearly removed Hunie Pop for pornographic content. The dev called it the "anime titty holocaust,” which saw Valve later admitting the warning was a mistake. But the trouble didn’t stop there. Other devs got hit with the same random threats, leaving everyone confused and frustrated. But Valve apologized for everyone of those and walked it back, leaving developers wondering what the next game was on Steam’s chopping board?

Porno Studio Tycoon, maybe? Surprisingly, no. While other games were banned way less, Porno Studio Tycoon—a game about building a porn empire—sailed through just fine. Sure, it didn’t have explicit nudity, but it was loaded with sexual sounds and barely dressed characters.

And yet, Steam never raised an eyebrow.

So how is it that smaller devs risk getting banned for a bit of pixelated skin, while the likes of The Witcher or GTA get a free pass? Because Steam’s rules were never about fairness…

Third Time’s Not the Charm

Enter Steam Greenlight, curator pages and Steam Direct - Valve’s weird attempts to clean up the chaos. Spoiler: it didn’t work.

It all started with Steam Greenlight in 2012, where players voted on which games deserved a spot on the platform. The idea? Let the community decide. The reality? A flood of low-effort submissions, spam, and a popularity contest that buried smaller devs.

It just didn’t work, and so, Valve replaced Greenlight with Steam Direct, a new system for devs to publish games on Steam for $100 fee. It was supposed to filter out the junk. Instead, it just opened the floodgates to shovelware and asset flips.

And then there were Curator Pages - the worst of them all. Those Curator Pages were meant to give “trusted voices” like YouTubers and gaming journalists a platform to recommend games. In theory, it would guide users to quality titles - in practice, curators just started spamming generic, paid reviews or copy-pasting store descriptions.

Some didn’t even play the games.

Worse, curators racked up thousands of fake followers through giveaways, which turned the system into basically a free-game farm.

All this to say that Valve just heavily relied on user reviews, to separate the good games from bad ones. But instead of fixing the cracks, Valve doubled down and came up with its boldest “fix” yet: an “anything goes” policy for games. Spoiler: it didn’t go well.

Anything goes…

In 2018, Valve finally stopped pretending they had control. After their previous attempts all flopped, Valve rolled out their mega solution to it all: the so called “anything goes” policy. The idea? Let everything in—except what’s “illegal” or “straight-up trolling.” Valve framed it as a commitment to freedom, saying, “We shouldn’t be choosing what content you can or can’t buy.” In reality? They were ditching all responsibility for curation.

The result? More shovelware. More asset flips. And, of course, more adult content. Valve didn’t just allow sex games—they built tools to help you filter them, adding an Adults-Only toggle and essentially telling players, “You deal with it.” Which might be fine... until you remember Steam’s filters are notoriously glitchy.

And what was meant by “trolling” really? One post described it as “crudely made software barely passing as a functioning game.” It’s a definition so vague, it created loopholes big enough to let in everything from Hentai Puzzle to Boobs Battleground.

And the numbers say it all: of nearly 19,000 games launched on Steam last year, over half were “Limited Games,” a label Valve uses to describe low-effort junk without calling it low-effort junk.

But it wasn’t just shovelware clogging the store. Games like Rape Day, which let you sexually assult women during a zombie apocalypse, made it to Steam. Only when advocacy groups accused Gabe of “profiting off of gamified sexual violence,” only then did Valve ban it, citing “unknown costs and risks.” It was just another PR fallout that Valve didn’t want to afford.

Anyways, despite its new “anything goes” policy,” Valve still couldn’t resist playing whack-a-mole and removed 170 “game-shaped objects” like Hentai 2048 - for whatever unknown reason. Once Valve removed the game Hatred, for whatever reason, only for Gabe to later apologize, saying, “It wasn’t a good decision.” For whatever reason.

Now, to understand why this keeps happening, you need to understand two parts. The first part is Steam’s approval process. It’s where the chaos starts. Spoiler: It’s a nightmare.

Steam’s Approval Process

So you wanna publish a game on Steam, yes? First, you have to sign an NDA to keep everything frustratingly opaque confidential. Then have $100 ready to join Steam Direct. Then, you need to set up your storefront page, which has its own seperate review process, to approve tags like “Adult content or “Gore,” and since Steam doesnt’ require ESRB or PEGI ratings, those tags are vague at best. “Adult Content” could mean nudity, excessive gore, or… who even knows.

After that comes the actual game build review. If Steam finds a problem, they’ll reject it with almost no explanation. Devs are left guessing what needs fixing, leading to endless resubmissions and delays. Players don’t know any of this, so when a release date mysteriously shifts, guess who gets the hate? The devs, of course.

On top, Steam relies heavily on its community to flag problematic content. Players can flag everything from store pages, in-game content, forums... The more flags, the faster moderators review it. But that system usually backfires because what one group finds offensive, another might see as perfectly fine.

But that’s just one part of the story. The second part as to why we have this chaos starts within Valve itself. Spoiler: It’s as flat as it can get.

Welcome to Flatland

“Welcome to Flatland. Valve is flat. We don’t have any management, and nobody “reports to” anybody else. We do have a founder, but even he isn’t your manager. The company is yours to steer. You’ll decide what to work on. You have the power to green-light projects. You have the power to ship products. Any time you interview a potential hire, ask yourself if they could literally run this company, because they will be. You were not hired to fill a specific job description. There’s no rule book for choosing a project. At Valve, nobody has an actual title. We take on the role that suits the work in front of us. Everyone has to function as a “strategist,” which really means figuring out how to do what’s right for our customers. We do not have a growth goal. We don’t make growth decisions based on external pressures.

These aren’t startup slogans. They’re direct quotes from Valve’s Employee Handbook—a “leaked” manifesto to promote the company’s infamous flat org structure. It’s from 2012, but still so current, it feels like the actual roadmap to their ongoing chaos.

Being “Boss-free since 1996,” Valve sounds like a utopia for creatives - no managers, no titles, just freedom to work on whatever you like. Sounds great in theory, but in reality, it’s chaos wrapped in good intentions.

Jeri Ellsworth, a former Valve employee, revealed that this structure works great when you’re “20 people.” But it does “break down terribly when you look at a company of 300 people.” Then it all just becomes “pseudeo-flat,” with an actual “hidden layer of powerful management,” that “felt a lot like high school,” where the “popular kids” are calling the shots.

And when a few popular kids are calling the shots at a “boss-free” company, you also have a moderation process where one person can single-handedly decide which games get banned. That’s how “Mary” became infamous in the Visual Novel community—banning Evenicle 2 for its content while Evenicle 1, nearly identical, stayed on Steam, likely reviewed by someone else.

Her copy-pasted rejection message even resurfaced word-for-word in bans like Tenshi Souzou. Which only meant one thing: moderation at Steam is more about who reviews your game than any consistent policy.

But it gets worse: Did you know that employees receive bonuses tied to their projects’ profitability? Meaning, if a project isn’t a safe bet, no one’s gonna work on it. Why risk your bonus on something experimental when you can stick to sure things like Steam’s cash-cow marketplace?

Remember when Valve tried to let players sell mods for Skyrim, sparking outrage over monetizing a tradition? Well, luckily they scrapped the idea within days but Gabe’s response to this fiasco said it all: “Actually, money is how the community steers work.” A comment that perfectly sums up Valve’s mindset.

And now you know why Steam keeps banning the wrong games. With 300-ish employees, Valve is running the world’s largest highway for PC games, but doesn’t want to account for the traffic. They’ve built a highway where anything can speed but without proper regulations. And when crashes happen - whether it’s a banned game, offensive content, or shovelware - it’s never their problem.

Valve calls this “freedom.” But freedom without accountability isn’t freedom - it’s chaos. And for a platform this massive, that chaos comes with real consequences. Developers lose their livelihoods. Gamers lose trust. And the industry? It inches closer to more government oversight, lawsuits, and even more bad press.

The good news is: Valve could fix it, if they really wanted to. It’s not rocket science. The approval process needs rules—actual rules—clear, public, and consistent ones. No more guessing games for devs. They could bring in AI moderation, hire dedicated staff, and stop letting random employees decide a game’s fate.

And that “flat structure?” Well, it sounds cool, but let’s be real - it’s not working.

Valve doesn’t need a CEO in every cubicle, but they do need accountability. Give bonuses to teams that also take risks, not just to the people sticking to safe bets. Valve has the money, talent, and influence to fix this. They could set the standard for how gaming platforms should operate.

But will they?

Well, if Valve’s history has taught us anything, it’s this: they love a good cliffhanger. Spoiler: this might just be one they never resolve.

Happy Steaming!

#1: Life is a dream. And when we die, we wake up.

For the longest time, I thought I was living the dream.

Launching unreal worlds with an epic team.

But at some point, I realized: this dream wasn’t mine.

I was just living someone else’s grand design.

The longer I stayed, the smaller I felt.

I was bored. Dreamless. And quietly shelved.

And so I walked away.

Not from who I was, but who I wasn’t. I wasn’t the type to circle back, touch base, and ping you again.

I was someone who had actual stories to tell. Out loud. Without legal approval.

And so I turned to YouTube. Quietly, privately.

Covering stories about the gaming world you won’t see in a press release.

To my surprise, I even found an audience.

But that’s when the dream already ended. Not with applause, but with an email...the kind you don’t circle back.

#2: Every choice is a tradeoff.

I always wandered — in thought, in work, in wonder.

As a kid, I was restless. Always asking “why?”

As a corporate adult, I was muted. Always told to comply.

So my channel sounded like noise to people who’ve learned to keep things quiet.

And in the name of quiet, I was told to stop.

It wasn’t personal. It was policy.

Creative freedom blocked by a clause in the contract.

So I kept things quiet.

My brain however, didn’t.

One side said: “Play it safe.”

The other: “Play”

But “Play” meant trading off creative freedom for comfort.

Which brings me to Lesson #3: Fear is the fine print of being free.

Because the scariest part is - this. This channel.

It’s exciting, but also terrifying.

There’s no roadmap. No paycheck. Just a little experiment.. with my face on it.

But I have to know: What happens when I follow the thing that scares me the most?

So here it is:

The Informed Gamer.

Back from the dead. After 9 months of silence.

I almost believed it didn’t matter.

But it does.

So from now on, no more “circling back.”

Just stories behind the games we play.

From Snoop Dogg to beauty giants, weapon deals and developer disasters.

You’ll get to see the game behind the game.

So thanks for being here, for watching…

for waiting, for caring.

And for making this all a little less scary.

Because truth be told: Most fear isn’t real.

It’s just your brain hitting the brakes right before the good part kicks in.

So yeah, let’s do this. And if it flops, I’ll circle back, touch base and ping you again.

This is an insane story. A secret deal, ruthless marketing, and one tragic event that exposed everything and changed gaming forever. And it’s also a story that’s deeply rooted in America - *the* place with more guns than people. And if there’s one industry that’ll jump at the chance to push their products through one of the biggest games ever, it’s the weapons industry. In 2009, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was that game.

Within 24h of release, the game sold 5M copies. It was a masterstroke between realism and cinematic storytelling. The game’s publisher, Activision, spared no expense for the launch: red carpet, nice ladies, celebrities…it was a multi-million-dollar cultural moment.

But behind the scenes was a secret licensing deal with America’s oldest gun maker - Remindgton. The deal? Feature Remington’s ACR rifle—one of the first real-life brands shown directly on a gun in Call of Duty. Highly accurate, precise, low-recoil…it was replicated down to the smallest detail. The goal? Make the game feel more real of course. But on its own, this wasn’t yet anything unusual.

From guns, cars, sneakers to celebrities, games license anything that’s trademarked just for that extra realism. Especially in shooter games, realism isn’t just a feature; it’s a selling point. That’s why you’ll sometimes spot gun makers in the end credits, or find entire YouTube channels comparing game guns with real-life models.

Some games avoid licensing deals altogether by purely creating fictional brands.

But Remington’s deal wasn’t just any licensing deal. It marked the first real turning point in how gun makers approached underage audiences. With half of Call of Duty players under 18, Remington’s deal was the first known case that took licensing into a darker direction, using a popular game as a gateway to potential future buyers, way too young to drink, drive or buy guns. But if you wanna shape people minds, you gotta “start them young.” And for Remington, young meant very young.

So Remington devised a marketing strategy so deceptive, it wasn’t meant to be publicly revealed. Not until that one tragic event that exposed Remingt on’s so-called “Gaming Strategy.” But before I’ll show your their plan, we first need to understand gun marketing as a whole. So let’s go a little bit further back in the past.

Before gun makers started targeting toddlers, sexy ladies and emasculated men, gun makers had only one target: Strong, white men. Sportsmen. Hunters. Those that don’t eat tofu but only their own meat. A hundred years ago, owning hunting rifles was your John Wayne badge of honor; it showed you could protect your family and your nation.

But above all, it was about the bond between a father and his son on those holiday hunting trips and Christmas mornings because “Christmas lasts a lifetime when it’s a Remington.”

And if you as a young lad managed to “talk your dad into buying you that Remington, you should also talk him into getting his very own Remington.”

Oh, and if you were worried about safety, don’t worry. Even the little ones could handle it, because “papa says it won’t hurt us.”

Of course, all of this was rooted in the Second Amendment—a constitutional right whi ch, to this day, grants Americans the right to “keep and bear arms.” Under this right, American TV was soon flooded with the golden era of all-American heroes. Symbols of national pride.

But as the 90s kicked in, the tone shifted: With crime rates climbing, ads switched from hunting trips to dark parking lots - of course, with frightened women clutching handguns.

Fear, not happy Christmas mornings, was the new selling point. And boy did it work. A whopping 45% jump in household guns in just a few decades. A gun maker’s dream. But then, it all turned into a nightmare.

Its “strong, white men” market was dying out. Hunting became less popular as people moved to cities. Nor was the father-son bond enough to sell guns. As the market wa s shrinking, none of the old marketing messages seemed to stick anymore.

But as one door closed, another one opened: With the rise of “violent” video games. Iconic games like Doom and Wolfenstein kicked off the FPS genre, and soon, many more iconic games would follow, including Call of Duty. All games that would soon make gun makers very, very rich.

And this is where Remington’s ‘Gaming Strategy’ kicked in. They wanted players to walk into shooting ranges and say, “I shot one of these in Battlefield.” It might sound simple, but it works—I can vouch for it.. As soon as I started playing CoD, I couldn’t wait but to hold one of those sleek beasts in my very own hands. Totally different experience from the game, I know, but that’s how it starts, and that’s exactly what Remington was after.

Leaked emails and memos from the early 2000s show Remington’s big mission: “Create America’s foremost firearms empire.” Now to become America’s biggest firearms empire, they first had to solve a problem: “Increasing urbanization.” With more people moving to cities, shooting & hunting areas were in decvvline. Their solution?

A new target: Besides “Traditional Tom & Deercampers” they added ”Females. Millennials. Youth.” Tom and Deercampers are terms for traditional gun buyers. But their new target clearly included children. So to get their strategy rollin’, Remisngton reached out to Activision as they “wanted the brand exposure” of their Adaptive Combat Rifle. Why CoD? It was set to sell millions of copies and Remington knew this.

But that’s not all. Remington explicitly told Activision not to use their guns where gamers could play “non-military bad guys.” It had to be the good guys.

But that made MW2 actually an odd choice since it’s the game with the infamous “No Russian mission,” where you’re part of a terrorist attack at an airport, massacring civilians.

Exactly the kinda scenario Remington wanted to avoid - but according to the leaked document, Remington was fine if replicas were used, because they’d be recognizable by gamers and "still receive benefit from inclusion in the game.” Pretty ironic isn’t it. But Remington didn’t really care. In fact, they were pretty stoked about how gamers “love the gun because of its ‘low recoil’” and how “amazing it is that a game can sell a real-world product attribute.”

But their “Gaming Strategy” was just the beginning.

Remington, alongside their network of brands, wasn’t just out hunting gamers in video games; they flooded every social media channel with ads so ruthless, they would soon became Remington’s downfall.

“Consider your man card reissued,” reads one ad, promising you to restore your lost masculinity.

And because “Colin F is just unmanly and avoids eye contact with tough-looking 5th graders," the only way to reclaim his manhood is through a semi-automatic rifle.

And do you think tofu is an acceptable meat substitute? Yes? No? Of course ‘No.’ Because “real men” don’t eat tofu.

But if that didn’t convince you, how about an ad that confidently claims that with “Over 5M sold, the world’s largest army ain’t in China,” because America’s gun-owning civilians are the real army, sure. And so it continues. From “One rifle, many missions,” “Control your destiny,” or “Killin’ zombies before it was cool,” the message is always the same: real power and real masculinity come from holding a Remington Rifle.

But masculinity - or the lack of it - is just one avenue. Sex too is very powerful weapon, no pun intended. Check this out. A whole new world of gunfluencers, or so-called gun bunnies was called into existence - all very sexy ladies with their assets front and center. Because ‘real girls’ don’t want flowers for Valentine’s Day, they want guns.

Lots of guns. Sorry, but I had to say it. Anyways, if you think gun ads stopped at gun bunnies or emasculated men, then you’re wrong.

Yes, these are real rifles for girls and boys, just smaller and less powerful. But still, real firearms that shoot real bullets. So with adorable “My First Rifle” ads that come in all sorts of colors, no kid is left behind, especially not the ladies, who get their fair share of pink gun glory.

Oh, and here come the dad-ads again, this time not for hunting trips, but to “make dad jealous.”

From Tikok, Insta and Facebook, to trade shows and catalogs, not so kid-friendly ads with firearms are everywhere. But there’s one thing these ads never mentioned: Firearms had long surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death among children. Since 2015, there’s a website that tracks unintentional shootings by kids, with numbers that just don’t seem to go down. So when you see ads depicting kids with guns alongside Bible verses that encourage to “train them young,” you know why those numbers don’t go down.

But some numbers went up. Sales. With all that aggressive marketing around games and gunfluencers, sales boomed and gun makers were happy. But all that ‘success’ was just a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

And explode it did. In December 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary with his mother’s rifle. Five minutes and 154 rounds later, he killed 26 people. 20 of them first graders.

Adam used taped mags to reload faster, just like it’s done in CoD. Raised by gun-loving parents, Adam had a special bond to his mom, who he shot dead before the school shooting. Besides his mom and 20 kids, the last person he killed was himself. It was a wake up call. Not just for the shattered families but for the entire nation. And for Remington, whose rifle Adam used.

Because of this, families tried to sue Remington. But a U.S. law shields gun makers from lawsuits when their products are used in crimes. So, any direct form of legal retaliation was nearly impossible. But, there’s always a legal loophole if you look hard enough. And in Connecticut, where the shooting happened, there was one: deceptive marketing. A law that prohibits any business from engaging in false advertising.

So, the victims’ lawyers did some digging and uncovered Remi ngton’s secret “Gaming Strategy,” which laid out pretty much everything the court needed to see. The verdict? Guilty of charge.

Remington ended up paying $73M. Case closed. A landmark win.

But what was a win for some, was a PR nightmare for the gaming industry. Suddenly, violent video games became the nation’s favourite scapegoat - in the press, among politicians, and of course, the NRA - America’s biggest gun-rights advocate.

“Here exists in this country sadly a callous corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stowes violence against its own people through vicious violent video [games]"

Wayne LaPierre

Hmmm. Doesn’t the NRA know who is fun ding all thi s? Well, they must know that behind all this is none other but Cerberus Cap ital - THE private equity giant that owns pretty much every major gun brand out there. After the mass shooting, Cerberus officially “considered” selling their gun companies. But inofficially, they knew they weren’t gonna sell.

Why? Just look at this: School shooting - sales spike - sales decline - School shooting - sales spike - sales decline. Rinse and repeat. Of course they’re not gonna sell off anything. And Cerberus, they’re pulling the strings on both ends, making money left and right.

But instead of blaming private equity giants, we blame those “violent” video games, right? Though, funny enough, Adam spent more time on Dance Dance Revolution than in CoD. Yep, that’s him right there. But that didn’t stop politicians from meeting up with game studios to discuss a tax on violent video games.

Luckily, in the end, even a Mr. Biden had to admit that games aren’t the problem.

"That’s not the reason why we have this carnage on our streets.” (min 19:09)

And what about other game studios? How did they react? Activision cut ties with Remington of course. And EA, for instance, had to act. After backlash over Medal of Honor, which linked players to real-life weapons on its website, EA took down the website, cut ties with gun makers altogether and even removed a video with Magpul, EA’s tactical partner.

But here’s the irony: Instead of ditching branded guns, EA kept them - without paying for licensing. Because according to EA - “A book doesn’t pay for saying the word ‘Colt,’ either.”

And there you have it. Guns are just part of the game. Whether it’s “1 Billion,” “1 Million” or “One Gun,” it doesn’t change the core issue. The core issue is not gun makers profiting off gaming deals; the issue is the gun culture around them. A culture shaped not by violent video games, but by old, white men that don’t have to deal with the consequences:

”The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” (min 12:22)

That pretty much sums up that culture right there, doesn’t it. As if guns are the only answer. But games? They’re definitely not the problem. I’ll let Bill Murray have the final word on this:

“It’s a film. Why don’t the government talk about other things in Parliament...as opposed to worrying about damn games.”

Bill Murray, Actor

Remington Outdoor Co. filed for bankruptcy… twice. After years of lawsuits, the 2020 bankruptcy was their final blow. The company was sold off in pieces. But their marketing continues.

As the saying goes: If you’re not paying for a product, you are the product. I knew there’re some weird mobile ads out there, but I didn’t expect to see so many in “educational” kids’ games. Rated ‘Everyone,’ they’re just teaching kids how to click, watch and buy.

Yes I know, there are paid ad-free versions but parents usually hesitate to buy them ‘cos kids always want something new. So this ‘freemium app model’ is very appealing and cashing in on even those who are aware of the problem.

His son is one out of millions of kids unknowingly spending their parents’ money through obscure ads, with bills racking up in the thousands, often times just within a few days!

Well, kids don't really understand what ads are until they're about 8 years old. Before that, they see ads as normal entertainment, no filter. And the earlier a kid learns about a brand, the more likely they'll want the product later.

Many believe children's apps shouldn’t even have ads in them, but kids are a multi-billion-dollar industry, so there's just too much money to be made. We’re talking $6B in revenue in the educational app market alone, with kids apps accounting for 20% of that. And when over 80% of kids under 5 have access to mobile devices, it’s no surprise that aggressive casino-like marketing is being used left and right.

I couldn’t believe how any of this is even allowed. Where are the regulations? And for how long has this been going on? It seems it’s been going on for as long as kids have been watching TV.

Hasbro, the company that owns pretty much every toy brand out there, launched the first-ever TV ad promoting a toy directly to kids - not their parents. It was revolutionary, because never before did a toy on TV speak directly to kids.

But it also opened the flood gate for advertisers to deploy very sneaky tactics.

One of them is known as the “nag factor,” where kids are exposed to the same product over n over again until they pester their parents to buy it. The other, more powerful one is “host-selling,” where a child’s favourite character speaks to them directly, knowing full well how much kids trust them.

Once the public caught on to this trickery, host-selling was eventually banned. But it wasn’t until the Children’s Television Act of 1990 when kids ads were fully regulated. Regulations that still apply today, but just to TV.

The problem is, TV is no longer a kid’s first choice of entertainment - mobile games are. And there, ads play by their own rules. So much so that host-selling and sneaky tactics are making their comeback - and that in 5 different ways.

Banner ads, and you’ve definitely seen them before - flashing and bouncing to catch a kid’s eye and drag it into yet another “free” game.

Native ads, are those that blend in so well, you might not even spot them.

And then there are pop-up ads, the ones that drive us nuts, taking over the screen for a solid 20 seconds before that “X” pops up. And even then, clicking on it takes you straight back to the store with a giant “GET” button waiting for you.

But what’s worse are these ‘camouflaged’ ads. Blending right into the kids game. Shiny objects, gift boxes, in-game items - all ads in disguise. They’re labeled ‘ads,’ but how would a kid know that can’t read?

Now the last ad type, man, that’s the sneakiest. Rewarded ads. These are ads that give kids in-game items for watching an ad. Some ads take it so far and guilt-trip kids for NOT watching, since they’re letting their favorite character down if they don’t. Others want you to watch hundred ads just for one super-rare item.

And what’s crazier is that these rewarded ads give kids a sense of control, as if they’re calling the shots, when in fact, it’s just a classic conditioning. Watch an ad, get a treat. Don’t watch, and you’re letting your buddy down. These guilt-tripping tactics trap kids into a constant reward loop, and because their brains are still developing, these games literally set them up for addiction, depression and low self-esteem.

But guess which ads pay the developer the most? Yup, rewarded ads. That’s why they pop up at every decision point in the game.

But there’s more than just ads at play here. Almost every single kids app is designed just like adult casino apps: Item stores as landing pages. Stimulating sound effects taken straight from casinos. Time-bound pop-ups asking you to come back soon or poor little Tom might starve. Timers everywhere pushing for limited events or discounts. And if you linger too long in the item shop, some apps even ask you to “not just stand there, but do something.”

It’s disturbing, but true. And what many don’t know, is that most of these game companies hire specialized psychologists to work just on those persuasive tactics.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg though. The real issue isn’t just how these games manipulate, but what they exposed.

Strange, horny game ads flooding through kid-friendly games. Games that shouldn’t even be played by adults, they’re so bad. The amount of parents complaining about adult ads is endless, often times with no response other than “uninstall them,” “report it” or “complain to the creator.” Some of those games aren’t even for sale, so there is no way to stop the ads. Others are so graphic, showing people literally jerking each other off! With sounds! Whether it’s prostitution that’s promoted to 4 year olds, interactive story ads, or ads in which hubby is cheating on his chubby wife - the cases are disturbing. Parents desperately ask app stores to help, but the usual answer is always the same: They’re not responsible for these ads. The developer is.

Hold on a second. The developer is responsible for what ads are being shown to kids? Really? Let’s check it out.

When a game dev launches a free app, they hook it up to an ad network, like a middleman between game and advertiser. As kids play, the app requests the ad network for ads. While the dev decides when ads pop up, they don’t choose which ads - that’s on the ad network. But then why do adult ads still slip into kids’ games? Because of flaws in the system. Here’s the thing: Devs are supposed to tag their app as child-friendly, to comply with let’s say Google’s Families policy. But that tag doesn’t block bad ads at all; it only tells advertisers not to collect a child’s data, which is illegal. To really block them out, devs must take a few extra steps. But that’s not something ad networks clearly communicate. So much so, devs scratch their heads on forums as to why their games still show “ads for adult dating websites”, despite the tag. Well, as I said, ironically, that tag has nothing to do with the content. It’s only keeping advertisers from collecting children’s data.

And just like that, a game meant to be safe for kids is showing them things they shouldn't see. Because of loophol..ehem…system flaws. This way no one can be blamed. If game devs, advertisers and ad networks are all colluding…ehem..I mean unaware, responsibility gets real blurry. But mabye this isn’t just an oversight - but a system flaw by design.

It’s called “The Big Catch Playbook.” Created by Meta/Facebok, it tells advertisers how to “overcome the challenge of fishing for the same players in a small pond.” In other words, how to exploit player motivations through ads, also called “baits.” Google has its own “Machiavellian” playbook. “The Winning Combination” - a masterclass of manipulation, with frameworks on how to turn users into spenders. And when you look at the bottom of the book, you see that this isn’t just between advertisers and ad networks - it ropes in game devs too, like Tabtale - now called CrazyLabs - the company behind some of the biggest mobile games for kids, all downloaded millions of times.

Now, what does it tell you when all of this is coming from companies that struck a secret ads deal to target teenagers - from companies that told advertisers it can identify teens feeling ‘insecure’ and ‘worthless’ - from companies that track your data even when your phone’s turned off.

What does it tell you if all this is coming from companies whose kids’ apps are spying on them?

That’s right. Kid’s apps are designed for one thing only: hook them with blatant ads and consumer tactics only to snoop on them. From names, phone & social security numbers to behavioral and financial data, these free kids apps collect every click on a shockingly huge scale. All data they send to companies that track their deepest interests. And all that illegally! You see, the law in the U.S. states that the collection of data from minors under 13 is prohibited. But by the time a child is 13, advertisers have collected an average of 72M data points about one individiual.

How? Through a giant loophole:

When you download a kids’ app, you see an age rating that tells you if the content is appropriate. But, it doesn’t say anything about how the app treats a child’s data. So by labeling an app as “Everyone,” and setting the default age to something like 2000-2001, it “assumes” all players are adults. That way, companies can claim they don’t know who is actually using it.

And if they don’t know who is actually using it, they can pretend their app is a general audience product and track personal information left and right.

And just like that, they’ve bypassed policies - Mission complete.

Now what do app store owners do about it? Enabling it. While they promise you they’ll do what’s best for your family, they rather do what’s best for their YoY growth metric. There is a mountain of studies showing just how many kids’ apps are sending out very private information. All because data is the new gold. Because…

The more data, the more advertisers can predict your buying habits.

The more data, the better developers can tweak the game to keep you hooked.

The more data, the better app stores can maximize profits.

Plus, both Apple’s and Google’s privacy polices are so vaguely written, that “may not include third-party ads” really means “it may include third-party ads.”

It’s heartbreaking. Even if some of you think it’s an open secret, there are so many trusting parents out there that have no idea what’s going on. I played one of CrazyLabs kids’ games and the first prompt that popped up was “On the next popup, allow tracking to help support the game and keep it free. It’ll allow us to provide you with the best personalized ads for you.” A kid can’t read or understand that. So of course it’s quick to click “Allow.”

So how’s is this gonna end? Honestly, it won’t. There is just too much money to be made in a culture dominated by multinational corporations. Sure, they get sued, but the fee they’re paying is peanuts compared to the profit they’re making from millions of families. This won’t end, unless we take action. That doesn’t mean we should avoid free apps, but we should use them consciously. There are so many healthy, kid-friendly apps out there without ads and for little money, that priortize education over profit. Websites like Common Sense Media are a great resource to help families find the right kids’ apps. But what we really need is a Children’s Television Act 2.0 but for mobile apps. Because in a world of too many choices and too little trust, we need must make sure that our kids are not the price of play.

Look at these credits. These are all the people that worked on The Legend of Zelda - or at least, the ones Nintendo wants you to know about. But did you know that there are people missing from the credits? Not because someone forgot, but because they're not allowed to be credited. And they have a name…

The industry calls them Ghost Developers—the invisible creators behind some of the biggest games. Secretly hired by major companies, these ghost devs craft everything from level design to even entire games. The only rule? No credits. And that’s a problem - because with no credits, no proof of work. And no proof of work means no career. So why would any developer choose to stay invisible, especially in times of mass layoffs? Well, it turns out that not all ghost devs are unhappy about staying hidden. Some of the very people behind the biggest games actually prefer to work this way. But why? Let’s find out.

Credits have always been a big deal, from games to movies to TV shows. Without your name in the credits, there’s no proof of work, no resume, and no future. That’s what makes the world of “Ghost,” “Shadow” or even “Ninja” developers so strange. They choose to stay uncredited. But in a field where layoffs are common, how do you apply for a new job if you can’t show your portfolio? Well to understand this conundrum, I realized there are actually two kinds of ghost devs. Those that wanna stay uncredited, and those that are uncredited without a choice. It’s a widespread struggle in the gaming industry - and it’s bigger than I thought, with devs striking and fighting against unfair crediting practices.

So, to find out why we have two camps of devs and what has changed, I had to go all the way back to the good old Atari days!

Atari never credited their employees in their games. Why? Out of pure disregard for their work. They weren’t seen as creators, just tools to make the next big hit. But one employee wasn’t having it and did something that would change gaming forever: He secretly coded a hidden room into the game ‘Adventure,’ with the message “Created By Warren Robinett.” When Atari found out a year later, Warren Robinett had already left the company, but his secret message was a wake-up call - it showed other developers they didn’t have to stay invisible.

Like Sega. Across the ocean, Yuji Naga - the genius behind Sonic - had the same problem. Denied credit, he secretly added his and his team’s names in black text on the black opening screen.

You’d never see them unless you’re using this code on a Japanese Mega Drive which changes the screen to white.

These moments of defiance weren’t just clever—they were necessary. Developers were tired of being just another nameless tool. So if getting credited is so important, why would some prefer to stay ghost? To answer this, I first had to find out why studios are so secretive about their devs to begin with - and I found four big reasons:

The first reason is simple: There are no standards. In film, we have unions that enforce strict rules on crediting literally everything and everyone - ehem… but in gaming? No such rules. The lack of regulation gives studios free pass to decide who gets credited and who doesn’t. That’s why game studios can use this against you. Which leads us to reason number 2.

Bargaining power. You see, when you’re the brain behind a hit game, you’re not just entitled for a raise, but other studios can snatch you up too. To prevent this, studios prefer to keep things quiet, so you have no bargaining power over them. It usually works. But sometimes, it backfires.

Like in Atari’s case. Five of their top talents had enough, left the company and made history by starting the first third-party game publisher ever: Activision! And boy, did Activision credit their devs literally everywhere.

The third reason is pretty sneaky. Punishment. If you leave before the game’s release, you won’t see your name in the credits. Even though you worked your ass off. That was the case with Gotham Knights. Warner Bros. put over a 100 longtime devs into the ‘special thanks’ section - without their titles. No credits for those that don’t stick around. Meanwhile, names like Sweet Baby Inc. are front and center - a useless narrative consulting firm that did practically no valuable work on the game.

Anyways, threatening devs with credits to push them through the finish line is unfortunately pretty common. Rockstar Games for instance- man, they are notorious for this. After crunch-working on Manhunt, GTA V and Red Dead for years, those who left before release were also left off the credits. The only proof they exist is on some page on Rockstar’s website, with no details of their work.

And then there is reason number four, which struck me the most: BRANDING. Studios want to maintain the illusion that their games are built entirely in-house. The truth? Many rely on external teams to handle the grunt work. But acknowledging that would “dilute the brand,” so publishers go to great lengths to hide the contributions of outside developers.

Like Nintendo. You’d think Donkey Kong, Mario Kart or Metroid Prime were all Nintendo’s doing? Not quite. Much of the grunt work was done by Retro Studios in Texas. But when Metroid Prime Remastered rolled out, Nintendo lumped the devs into a mere 15 words. A "travesty” according to the developers.

To hold up the brand illusion, the list of uncredited work is endless; from super old games to even the latest and greatest stars, studios are free to do whatever they want without facing any real consequences.

Even Robin Williams, a huge Legend of Zelda fan, who famously named his daughter Zelda, commented on the lack of recognition in gaming, saying “gaming industry is lacking recognizable stars.” And he was right - while a few are well-known, it’s true that game devs aren’t exactly household names. EA - back in the days - actually tried to combat that, by depicting devs as “artists,” celebrating them in ad campaigns like they were the next Beatles of the gaming world.

But this was just EA. No other studio would do that. And so, to this day, devs have been fighting to be credited where credit is due.

Except “Ghost Devs”, who are never credited for their work and PREFER it that way. But why? Well, the answer brought me to the biggest and yet most invisible game studio you’ve probably never heard of…

TOSE. Based in Kyoto/Japan, TOSE’s 3000 em ployees have worked on more than 2000 games and are still pumping out about 100 games per year - from Dragon Quest to Zelda, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Resident Evil…the list is so long you might start asking which games they DIDN’T work on.

TOSE has been secretely developing games for all the major pu blishers since 1979. They handle everything from ideating to level and sound design, porting and - yeah, even entire games, like the Starfy series, the only game they actually own the rights to.

But if you ask them, they’d rather not say anything. Their company policy prohibits them from taking credit - unless an overseas client insists.

And don’t even bother looking them up - Youtube channel? Empty. LinkedIn? Just another “game dev company.” Their website? Doesn’t reveal much either. The games you see there are only a fraction of what they’ve worked on. As their wiki page says: They’re the *real* shadow samurai of the industry.

But why stay uncredited when everyone else is fighting for it?

Well, it turns out - it’s a Japan thing. Over there, gamers often choose games based on the publisher, not so much the developer. It’s actually very common in Japan to say “I’m gonna play this and that game because it’s from the publisher Atlus, Nintendo or Square Enix,” not so much the developer. And because of this culture, TOSE’s vision has always been one of not having a vision.

“Our policy is not to have a vision,” they said in an interview. “We follow the customer’s vision.”

And by doing that, they focus on their main strategy: Build a company that lasts forever by staying behind the scenes.

As TOSE’s CEO put it:

"We thought at some point that the best thing to do would be to be No. 1 behind the scenes."

And you know what? That strategy works. If a game’s a hit, they profit. If it flops, TOSE isn’t on the hook. They just move on to another client’s game. No one will know.

But with all this secrecy, how do new clients find them? Well, in Japan, TOSE is already well-known amongst publishers. But to reel in foreign clients, they invite them over to their hidden office vault containing all their secret games—a private showcase of their uncredited work. It’s like a clandestine museum where future clients get to see TOSE’s work without any titles ever being publicly disclosed.

But here’s the catch: what works in Japan doesn’t work overseas. And that’s the challenge with ghost dev companies: It’s hard to sell yourself if you can’t talk about your work.

When TOSE tried to break into the U.S., they hit a wall. Wes tern publishers wanted to see public portfolios, titles to verfiy and demos to test. But due to strict confidentiality agreements, TOSE couldn't openly showcase their past work.

But that’s how it goes with ghost devs, especially in Japan. There, the brand is everything. If gamers knew who really worked on these , it would dilute the brand way too much and the worry is that games will say, ‘Wait a minute, Square Enix didn’t make that? I thought they did.’

And here’s where things get interesting: This brand illusion is starting to crumble. Despite their efforts to stay hidden, TOSE has been on the news laterly - They’re in trouble due to layoffs and game cancellations, and ironically, it’s Square Enix that’s pulling the plug.

After Square canceled $140M worth of games, TOSE, who’s been workin g with Square for ages, is now showing red numbers with losses in the millions.

We all know mass layoffs are hitting the industry everywhere, bu t in Japan, mass layoffs aren’t as common because they have very strong worker protections. So instead of letting go people, they let go games. Which is killing TOSE’s business.

And that’s the things with Ghost developers. It’s a double-edged sword—work without recognition, stability without visibility. It’s a trade-off between credit and job security. But as we know, no job is ever secure. Especially not in the West, where we’re using credits as a power play.

Trapping workers in a studio, denying them reco gnition and surpressing their bargaining power, that will just backfire. As an industr y insider states, while American capitalism is all about “profit, profit, profit, and profit,” in Japan, the thinking is different.

As I said, there, they rather cancel games, then people. That's why they're much better at keeping talented developers than some Western studios. Companies like Xbox rather throw pizza parties for laid-off devs. Instead of trying to keep th em, they feed them a few goodbye slices of pepperoni to show gratitude for their hard work.

And so, TOSE might be around for many more years to come - with their loyal army of developers, they can easily pivot to whatever becomes more popular, whether that’s mobile games, smart devices or the next big thing. Those ghost devs aren’t going anywhere for now.

It’s July 2024 and after years of debate, competitive gaming has finally become an Olympic sport.

“You have created the Olympic Esports Games. Congratulations and thank you very much.”

But just 2 years before this glorious moment, esports was almost dead.

From a struggling industry to the most hyped one ever, investors poured in billions, hoping to make some quick money.

But then…the bubble burst, the hype died, and everyone thought it could never come back. The question is: How DID esports manage to come back and become an Olympic sport after all this chaos?

Well, it all started with Britney’s debut in 1998 - ok, maybe not Britney, but with StarCraft’s same-year launch over in South Korea.

High-speed internet and PC bangs turned it into a national obsession. Back then, it wasn't about the money—it was all about the joy of watching others play, whether it was StarCraft, Doom, Quake, or Unreal Tournament.

That's when esports exploded. New esports leagues popped up everwhere, sparking not just massive events, but also one of the best gaming anthems ever.

It was THE GOLDEN AGE of LAN parties. I was blown away to learn that the first massive LAN party, the Gamers Gathering, actually took place in my hometown of Duisburg, Germany!

"Total krass," as we'd say in German.

But something else was “total krass” as well:

In 2007, back when Twitch was just Justin.tv, the Championship Gaming Series hit the scene. It was televised, it had the largest prize pool ever, 50 million views and $50 million in cash. It was so over the top, they even held the draft event at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion.

On paper it was the ultimate payout. But things went south very fast.

The 2008 financial crisis hit, and the league had to shut down.

Teams and talents were left stranded and investors saw “that profitability was too far in the future.” To many, this marked the first setback for the industry and people wondered if esports would ever recover.

But on the other hand, esports made its debut in the Olympics, over in Asia.

The Olympic Council of Asia featured FIFA, NBA and Need for Speed at the 2007 Asian Indoor Games. With millions of views, the International Olympic Committee would soon realize just how big esports would get.

Meanwhile, over in the West, something else was happening: Streaming platforms and live service games. Justin.tv became Twitch - and also the no. 1 game streaming platform. At the same time, Riot Games launched League of Legends and their first World Cup with $100k prize pool. They even sold out famous sporting venues and landed big brand deals.

But it still wasn’t clear if esports was back. On top, many still didn’t see it as a legitimate sport.

To grow, esports needed to amp up its image. And so it did - with Riot launching its second championship series. But this time, not with $100k, but a $2M prize pot. Slowly it became clear: Esports was back and worth watching.

So in just a few years, esports went from this…

to this…

It was the era of the Esports Golden Summer, with rapid investment growth, real business models, training regimes, and even gaming towers and gaming houses.

But - there is always a but - but no one realized they were fueling a huge financial bubble that was about to burst.

In 2016, Activision Blizzard releases Overwatch.

At that year’s BlizzCon, then CEO Bobby Kotick held a private meeting for a few of his billionaire friends from the sports business.

His pitch deck looked something like this:

• Big Idea: Launch an Overwatch League, kinda like the NFL but for gaming

• Big Money: Ticket sales, merch, sponsorships and hot dogs

• Big Crowds: Packed arenas & millions of views, just like in football.

• Oh, and let’s not forget: let’s charge a $20 Million franchise fee for each spot

That was the pitch. And the media (I love Emily Chang) was asking if that was for real!

Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, was one of the first to invest.

“We think this is a solid company, a great company, and we thought this Overwatch is the future…”

Robert Kraft

And this Overwatch seemed to be the future. In 2018, the OWL finally launched as the largest esports event ever, with a traditional sports league model, city-based teams and seasonal playoffs.

And it didn’t take long before another player would join - Saudi Arabia - which invested $3.3B in Activision Blizzard that year.

With all that money pumped into esports, it seemed to be booming. But it wasn’t. The profits didn’t show up.

Investors threw money at it hoping for quick returns but publishers got the numbers wrong…and fudged the truth. They pretended everything was fine, when in fact everything was running at a loss. Showing images of packed stadiums and pushing incorrect headlines just kept investors in the dark. Soon, streaming deals dried up, sponsors walked away, and even some publicly traded esports orgs tanked.

Numbers that couldn’t be fudged anymore. And so came the reports, the angry articles, and even lawsuits accusing the publisher of ”rent-seeking behavior creating economic injury to the league.”

And then, by the end of 2023, the league was officially declared dead. The financial bubble finally popped.

The aftermath? Layoffs across the board and deep disappointment at the publisher - especially with bad bad Bobby.

To many investors, “esports” became a joke, a byword for bad investement. From the Esports Golden Summer it officially became the “Esports Winter.”

All because of too little credibility and too much hubris. Now, with no money and no credibility, how could esports ever recover from this? And, who would step in to save it from dying?

In January 2024, Blizzard dropped some big news: A partnership with the world's leading esports company, ESL FACEIT, to create the Overwatch Championship Series; a rebrand of the old league.

But here is the twist: It meant partnering with Saudi Arabia.

Back in 2021, the kingdom scooped up ESL FACEIT for $1.5B. Their buying spree continued, with stakes in Nintendo, Activision, Capcom, EA, Take-Two and many many more.

It was a clear signal: Saudi Arabia was diversifying beyond its oil-rich economy. From golf to soccer and boxing, their plan to become the crown prince of sports & gaming was inevitable.

And so, in 2022, the Saudi government launched the Gamers8 tournament with a $15M prize pool.

But while the spectacle was going on, serious issues bubbled up nearby

Only 20 miles away, a young woman faced 11 years in prison, a punishment from a secret Saudi tribunal for wearing yoga pants and posting feminist views on Snapchat.

Back in 2019, she talked about "radical changes" in Saudi Arabia, feeling free to express herself thanks to promises from the Crown Prince.

Yet, just a few years later, she was jailed for living those very freedoms.

Esports teams and players were literally disgusted by everything from death penalty over social posts to death penalty even for children.

But some esports teams played along: Team Liquid for instance. They criticized Saudi Arabia's human rights record, but couldn't turn down the cash either. To appease the fans, they announced a $50k donation to charities but made clear why they were still participating:

“Truth be told, for better or worse, I don’t see a path or future for the organization to stay at top tier and not partcipate in any of these events.”

The community quickly called out their hypocrasy. But hypocrasy wasn’t anything new.

When Riot Games announced a partnership with NEOM, Saudi’s new tourist city, everyone lost it. The community, including a gay commentator, bashed Riot for the deal, especially after Riot had just celebrated Pride Month.

The backlash was so fierce, that within a week, Riot Games ended the NEOM deal.

It was clear. Despite mixed feelings about the Middle East, “the funds are too enticing for esports teams to be turned down.”

And the man with the funds?

Mohammed Bin Salman, also known as Mr. Everything, as he literally controls everything.

He promotes himself as a gamer…

“You’re a big gamer?” - “Since I’m a kid I love it.” - “Really?” - Yes, it disconnects me from reality.”

…and doesn’t care what others think as long as it grows his GDP

“I don’t care, I have 1% growth of GDP from sports, call it whatever you want, we’re gonna get that 1.5%”

MBS

With his involvement, esports recovered. But not without the other key player, the Olympic Committee.

Under Thomas Bach’s leadership, the Committee became more open to esports. But despite the success at the Asian Games and strong arguments for why “Esports should be in the Olympics,” the Committee was still at odds with something:

The “violence” in esports. Which to the president, was crossing a red line:

“The glorification of violence or discrimination, this red line cannot be crossed by the Olympic movement.”

Thomas Bach, then-president of the IOC

Violence eh? A rather hypocritical standpoint considering the Olympic Committee’s own track record of corruption.

While they preach fair play and respect human rights, they still select host countries notorious for human rights abuses. After choosing China as the host country in 2022, insiders realized that the Olympics are just “easier in dictatorships.”

In a hearing titled “China, Genocide and the Olympics,” the human rights commission criticized the Olympic Committee for continuously selecting corrupt host countries, including China.

But violence or not - the Olympic Committee had a problem: Declining viewership. And so, what they did next would pretty much turn into a joke.

“The first ever Olympic Esports week has officially kicked off in Singapore…

…over the next three days Spectators can catch more than 100 Esports athletes competing across 10 sports.”

Except, these weren’t our usual esports games. During the Olympic Esports Week, they did try hard, but totally missed the mark.

“So the Esports games are going to be archery, baseball, chess, cycling, dance… “

With the Saudis and the Olympic Committee in the mix, esports started getting some buzz. But with all the chaos, making it a legit Olympic sport still seemed far off.

What it really needed was someone who could fix that—and fix it very quickly.

In 2023, Saudi Arabia then launched the Esports World Cup.

8 weeks of competition, 1500 players and a prize pool of $60M, the biggest in esports history.

The marketing…over the top, filled with dazzling ads and promotions promising the most intense gaming experience. The World Cup turned Riyadh into an “epicentre of esports fandom” and teams celebrated their victories.

But not just teams are celebrating - sponsors were too.

The ones that had backed out during the "Esports Winter" were all crawling back.

Apparently, the “winter was thawing,” so much so that even Riot Games confirmed its participation. At the same time, Saudi Arabia also partnered with the Esports Awards to bring it exclusively to Riyadh.

At this point, the community really went bezerk. Members stepped down and resigned from the panel; others declined working at the World Cup and some even retired from playing in tournaments altogether.

Everyone just slammed the Saudis for being a dystopian monopoly, with corporate malpractice, and that there was no going back now.

British esports journalist Richard Lewis put it very bluntly:

“If we'd stop blowing VC money and lying to the VC investors for two decades, if we'd stop buying sponsors for two decades, we actually would have built something that we wouldn't need to sell.”

But the sellout wasn’t over. While all this was going on, the Olympic Committee noticed Saudi Arabia’s rise in esports and realized:

”If we want to continue to inspire the next generations with our Olympic values then we have to go where the young people are.

We have to go to esports.”

(International Olympic Committee)

And so, knowing that esports was hungry for the Olympics and the Olympic Committee was hungry for viewership, the Saudis made a move that would change the game forever:

“With your vote you have created the Olympic Esports Games. Congratulations and thank you very much and also congratulations to uh our friends and partners from the Saudi national Olympic Committee - thank you Mr President and thank you to the members, thank you very much.”

A historic milestone. For the next 12 years, Saudi Arabia will be the host for the Olympic Esports Games. Which games will be competing, hasn’t been announced yet, but to many, this was already yet another “digusting decision by the Olympic Committee.”

Many stated that it wasn’t esports that needed the Olympics but the other way around. The backlash across channels was yet again, loud and clear.

And so is the hypocrisy. Loud and clear.

It’s tough to see the industry celebrate Pride Months and then cozy up with those who go against everything it stands for.

So what’s next for esports? While the top dogs gloat and young gamers chase dreams of becoming esports athletes, few realize just how fragile the industry still is. With two corrupt powers in control, Esports may have reached the top, but at what cost? Its community spirit, its soul, its authenticity—the very things that made it cool in the first place? I’m not sure. But one thing is for sure: all that glitters is not gold, after all, afterall.

ACT 1

This is Roblox, the biggest pedophile platform in the history of gaming.

You might know it as platform played by millions of kids, but behind this innocent facade lies a cunningly calculated system designed to groom young kids online. This isn’t just a story about a gaming platform; but about one of the most creative platforms that lost all of its reputation in just two years. And I will show you how it happened.

For most of us, it all started here, in 2006, when Roblox launched as a simple learning tool. Kids would playfully simulate physics and construction and dive into a community where “Adventure Awaits.” Pretty soon, kids discovered that they could use Roblox for more than just learning:

But kids were not the only ones who loved it; parents too were impressed with Roblox:

And the visionaires behind it?

David Baszucki, CEO & Founder and co-founder and VP of Engineering, Eric Cassel.

Both David and Erik, though strong partners, were very different in real life.

David, known as ‘Builderman’ on Roblox was the cool dude that everyone loved & respected.

In the early days, he would invite kids and parents on tours through Roblox and gather feedback to make Roblox more fun and safe. But for David, Roblox was more than just a learning tool - it was an entirely new category of human co-experience. With his background in investment, he pushed the platform to great heights, driven by growth and financial success.

Erik, on the other hand, was the heart of Roblox. He was the VP of Engineering who worked with all engineers to make everything work. It was Eric who perfected Roblox’s core system and nobody knew the ins and outs of Roblox like he did. A private guy with a big heart, he was one of the kindest persons, making sure the company’s values showed up in every line of code he wrote.

Back then, in the early days, Roblox had maybe 10 people online.

“We would sit around in the office […] and we knew every single person on Roblox…hahah.”

David Baszucki

And so Erik and David would manually moderate the chats and directly talk to players.

When they finally launched their first multiplayer game with - 20 users - Roblox started to explode. From 20 it became 17M users in just 6 years.

To stay financially independent, they soon introduced Robux. It would become central to Roblox’s growing economy. But as Roblox grew, so did the challenges. Their manual moderation just couldn’t keep up with millions of users online. The solution was to build a proper moderation system that would keep users safe. And so while David handled business, Erik focused on building their moderation. Everything was going well, they even launched their first TV commercial.

It was a dream come true. But then….

On February 11th, 2013, Erik Cassel passed away - from cancer. The news hit hard. In a public blog post, David reflected on the 20 years they had spent together, remembering Erik as the “nicest guy he has ever met.” But now, David was left to carry their vision for a safe and creative platform all alone. And just as he took on this new role, something disturbing was happening behind his back, that would expose a side of Roblox no one had seen coming.

But right now, David was busy at the GDC, showing off Roblox which had grown to millions of users.

With his new-found responsibility, David had a big decision to make:

How to keep kids safe while growing the business.

And so, David rolled out 3 major updates:

• Paid access, so that creators could charge entry to their games

• A price floor, which set the selling price for items so high, it pushed users to buy more Robux.

• And the third update was their biggest one yet: The Developer Exchange, known as DevEx. DevEx allows developers to convert their earned Robux into real cash, with Roblox taking a cut. However, while great for Roblox, these updates weren’t so great for the community. They felt betrayed, as Roblox began to openly capitalize on creativity. Many quit, cancelled their memberships and even protested.

All of this happened within months after Eric’s passing.

But just when Roblox began to make more money, something terrible happened that no one could have ever imagined.

In a small home in Adelaide, Australia, Holly Newcombe was playing Roblox when another user suddenly messaged her and asked “Do you know what a child predator is?” Holly didn’t know what to say; she was just 12 yo. The stranger kept on asking “are you a pre-teen?” Allegedly knowing where she lived, he started threatening her to “take her clothes off and tape her to the bed.” At this point, Holly broke down in tears and called her mom who immediately reported it to Roblox. But despite multiple complaints, Holly’s mom never received a response; it became painfully clear to her that Roblox didn’t take her seriously, and so random users stepped up to report predators themselves, all in an attempt to keep Roblox safe. Meanwhile, it took David two months to finally ban the person who abused Holly.

But soon, David faced a much darker problem that demanded his immediate attention.

ACT 2

“Now Roblox includes something called Condo Games, which feature adult themes and foul language…CBS 2 Anna has more”

Around this time, a type of game known as “condo games” popped up on Roblox - a whole industry on its own. These aren’t your typical games. They’re virtual sex parties where avatars walk around naked or wear special outfits, act out special scenarios and have special physics.

The chats in there can get downright abusive too - obviously not a game for kids under 18. But users wouldn’t find these games advertised as ‘condo games’ anyways; they usually hide behind unrelated names that don’t give away the actual content.

But a quick Google or Reddit search can lead you to weird Discord servers where lewd chats and “public uploads” point the way. Every other minute a new upload pops up and once inside, regardless of age, it’s a hunting ground for predators that can get all wild on grooming, send you more ‘room invites’ and - what’s worse - even continue their chats over on Discord. The news made its round and soon countless articles started describing Roblox as a “children’s game with a sex problem” or revealed its “war on porn.” Yes, porn, because those games don’t just end up on Roblox. No, they also land on pornographic websites. While you can play them on Roblox, the activities within can of course be recorded and uploaded. As I said, it’s a whole industry on its own.

But why do these games even stay on Roblox; why’s nobody doing anything about it? Well, a look at their financial report reveals why: From a total of 2000 employees, 1700 are moderators. But with over 200M users every month, 1700 moderators are not enough. No wonder reports stack up faster than they can handle. Sure, they’ve got AI bots helping them, but those bots often mess up, wrongly banning users for saying 'lol' or flagging normal items as 'sexual content.'

Despite Roblox's policy of "zero-tolerance for endangering minors,” their flawed moderation lets predators slip right through. Even on Roblox’s own dev forum, people openly doubt the platform’s safety. But whith all this chaos unfolding, what is Roblox doing about it? Going public.

Yes, on March 10, 2021, David launched the company’s IPO on the NYSE and officially became a billionaire - overnight. But not just he was swimming in billions but the games too - from Brookhaven to Adopt Me, each top game raking in billions of visits. With such numbers, fixing moderation didn’t seem to be on their agenda..

But something else was definetely on their agenda: Something that would be the beginning of the end for Roblox.

On the 21st of November, 2021, 24 yo Benjamin Robert Simon got a message:

“In 2021, the day before Thanksgiving, I woke up to my fans messaging me news articles that the Roblox Corporation was suing me for $1.6 million.”

Benjamin, better known as Ruben Sim, was one of the few people actively reporting Roblox’s predators. But instead of embracing him, they sued him, for sexual conversations and harassment - all fake charges with made-up evidence from his past; stuff that didn’t even happen on Roblox but outside of it.

But this was just the beginning because one month later, Roblox tried to pull down a YouTube video that accused the company of child labor and exploitation. And the very month after that, two of Roblox’s own developers were caught grooming kids…I mean, what a mess. In just 2 months after the lawsuit, not just Roblox’s but David’s reputation took a massive hit. The community was raging. People didn’t understand what was going on and demanded answers.

And the answers came - in form of a report. “Roblox is a platform for children but also the leading platform for pedophiles, with ex-employees, developers, award winners and users being linked to a wide array of misconduct.”

The report was loaded with cases of child abuse and devs exploiting Roblox for all the wrong reasons. But this was no ordinary report - it was published by a newsletter known for calling out bad company practices.

So on the day it came out, Roblox’s stock dropped by 4%, and within the next two months, it tanked by 50%.

Such news always hit a company hard, but in Roblox’s case, it was especially hard: Because ever since going public, Roblox never turned a profit. Revenue was up, sure, but the earnings were deep in the red.

And with the company bleeding billions, one investor even fired off a letter to David, saying “You and your team need to get dead serious about becoming profitable.”

And David did get serious. With the pressure mounting, he knew he needed to act fast.

ACT 3

“What’s really interesting about the dating market, there’s probably a third of the population that won’t go on Bumble or Tinder or Hinge or whatever, just because of awkwardness.”

David Baszucki

David was hinting at the future roadmap. Because shortly after this interview, David announced he would ease restrictions on profanity, dating, gambling simulations and alcohol according to age guidlines. These news came 2 years after Roblox’s Director of Safety assured that while “Roblox is a safe space for meeting, we prohibit content that portrays romantic relationships.”

And then David dropped the bombshell.

Interviewer: “Do you think like the more mature things like nudity will ever be allowed on Roblox in any way?”

David: “I think what I would say is we would lead first and foremost with safety and civility, and then second with mirroring what happens in the physical world, and so I would never rule it out. I would say getting to that kind of stuff probably isn't in the short term future for us.”

David won’t rule out nudity. A statement that would yet again face scrutiny.

The National Center of Sexual Exploitation called out David in an open letter for knowing that Roblox was being used to*“target, groom, and abuse children”* with “inadequate parental controls” and a “false sense of security.” Like Holly, hundreds of other children were also mentioned in the letter. Yet, the letter ended optimistically, hoping “that Roblox will make the necessary changes.”

But to everyone’s surprise, just a few months after the letter, Roblox, instead of a kid’s app, announced it now “wants to be a dating app.”

At the RDC opening keynote, David dropped his plan to allow online dating on Roblox.

Ironically, David seemed a bit shy when breaking the news:

“Ultimately, we think 3D simulated meetings—I’m not gonna use the d-word—but real-life relationships are going to happen.”

David Baszucki

But while David was acting fast to please shareholders, parents too were acting fast. In their most recent case, parents sued Roblox over false safety promises and “child grooming,” with pretty clear evidence to support their claims. Roblox however dismissed every single accusation. In the U.S., Roblox is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which shields them from liability for “thirdparty content.” Anything not directly published by Roblox falls under this protection.

How ironic—Roblox sues Ruben Sim for actions outside of Roblox, but uses the same excuse to dodge issues that happen inside of Roblox.

And so, to Roblox the “Plaintiffs are simply wrong” and have “cherry-picked statements.”

David…the cool guy that was once loved by kids and parents, is now drowning in scandals. But why go this far? Well, the community came to a tough conclusion:

Erik. On forums everywhere, users remembered the times when he was still around and that ever since “Erik died, Roblox has been on a downhill stretch.”

And when you realize that the whole moderation system wasn’t even David’s idea, things become painfully clear.

“And then my partner Erik said, “We have to build a moderation system.”

David Baszucki

Yes, a moderation system. It was Erik’s idea to begin with. But with all the growth and lack of moderation, what would Erik say now, if he was still alive?

Interviewer: “You mentioned your co-founder, Erik Cassel, who died tragically of cancer in 2013. If he was here today, what do you think he would think of the Roblox that Roblox has become today?”

David: “Wow, I think he’d be….proud….it’s a good question.”

Not sure he would be proud. Erik’s dream was that of a safe creative space. But in the world of business, dreams take a backseat when profits are at stake. And that's when even the most powerful words from the most powerful men are spoken in sheep's clothing. Who would have thought that “Adventure Awaits” would come to mean something completely different.

And yet, it sold millions of copies and outsmarted the industry on many fronts. An unusual success according to some top studio developers.

But beyond its masterstroke of a game, Elden Ring's marketing was just as masterful. Instead of loud campaigns, they let the game speak for itself, which had fans calling it many things.

But what might have seemed like poor marketing was actually a deliberate three -part strategy designed by an unseen architect who knew that sometimes the best noise is no noise at all.

Guys, this game needs no introduction.

And maybe that's what their marketing team figured when launching the game with a seemingly little fanfare.

But to really understand their unusual marketing, we first got to understand their game philosophy.

Now, while the Tarnished ones among you know all about this game, stay tuned. And for the Untarnished ones, let me give you a really quick primer because all you need to know is the following:

Crafted by souls-like innovator Miyazaki and enriched with lore by George R.R. Marting, this so-called niche game blasted past sales of so-called AAA games, became an instant bestseller, was the most tweeted about game, YouTube's biggest game launch ever and with uncountable accolades and sky-high scores it stands unrivaled as the most awarded video game of all times.

One more thing: While its acclaim is record-setting, its brutal difficulty in a marker-free world where dying is expected, makes it a true outlier. You’re tossed into a vast, gothic world on a quest to assemble the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord; but that’s a quest marked by over 9 billion player deaths.

@concludelyKai Cenat Has Finally Defeated The Tree Sentinel Boss In Elden Rings after 6 hrs #kaicenat #eldenring #fyp @kai_cenat

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And when you find yourself dying and grinding six hours on an optional boss, nailing down near-perfect precision patterns, you'll start to wonder: How does a so-called niche game, with no hand-holding and daring difficulty become a beacon of success?

Well, it’s easy: because in today’s industry cluttered with microtransactions, quest-marker flooded open worlds and hand holding in games that are single-player, Elden Ring does the exact opposite.

It doesn’t hold your hand, doesn’t tell what’s in the distance; it leaves you in the dark, a realm of challenge, mystery, and discovery. And that’s exactly how they marketed it: Low key, no hype and keeping everyone guessing. A marketing that mirrors their game design. As above, so below.

BUT - pulling this off wasn’t a walk in the Lands Between.

The challenge: global expansion and broader appeal for a franchise that’s typically made for hardcore gamers. So what do you do? You switch publishers to one that is a good fit for Elden Ring, does all overseas marketing and hires a wizard known for boosting big-name brands.

And that’s what happend: While Fromsoft handled marketing in Japan, Bamco took care of the rest. But with a game shrouded in mystery, how do you introduce it to a detail-hungry world without revealing too much?

You just trust your publisher. Or in this case, the Unseen Architect. In an industry hooked on massive AAA budgets and flashy marketing, Bamco focused on their own expertise: Know thy fans. Instead of investing millions into promotion, they bet on a ‘small but secure success’ within their core fanbase. After all, Fromsoft already had a legion of die-hard fans from previous releases. It’s a strategy not about chasing every player out there, but satisfying the right ones. Manage expectations and the rest will come. It’s Bamco’s ‘recipe for success.’

But how to begin when traditional marketing dictates a funnel from Awareness to Consideration to Conversion? Well, our Unseen Architect here reshaped the playbook. Delete ‘Consideration’ - another word for constant marketing - and bring in ‘Silence’ - almost like the calm before a storm. .

And just to ditch the corporate vibe, let’s call these stages Awakening, Sustenance, and Ascension

THE AWAKENING

When players first enter the world of Elden Ring, they are 'awakened' into a vast, mysterious realm that’s new, yet unknown with only minimal context. And that’s mirrored in their marketing: it awakens your curiosity by revealing just enough to intrigue and spark a discussion. It’s the start of a journey marked by something new, yet unknown.

And this journey starts in 2019. Actually in 2016, when a leak described a Dark Soul remaster being in the works written by a big-name man.

Leaks aside, because the official marketing kicked off at E3 2019 with Fromsoft’s announcement trailer. No gameplay. Just epic narration, a big-name man and beautiful CGI.

Remember, the mission was to appeal to a wider audience without revealing too much. So this trailer was their first with a more ‘hopeful’ tone, rather than their typical depressing one. Nevertheless, it was also a trailer shrouded in as much secrecy as promise. All that marketing did was giving you a sense of speculation. And boy, did the community speculate.

As the Twitter marketing machine kicked off, comments about its secrecy popped up. Questions lingered without answers. r/Eldenring was created, art, fake lore and memes emerged from fans eager to fill the void with their own imagination.

But above all, some even begged for an ‘easy mode;’ as if they didn’t know better from previous souls games.

Because if one thing Miyazaki is good at, it’s at saying ‘No.’

More marketing? No. Easy mode? No. Why? Because brand identity. Souls games are tough—that's their trademark. When everyone has to deal with the same Herculean tasks, it fosters a shared culture. In marketing, being known for something specific is crucial - and so is staying on brand.

Fromsoft is resilient in perfecting their own game. That’s why: no easy mode and only some cryptic tweets and concept art. And that. was. all. A strategic move to not only heighten the initial buzz, but to also match the game’s ethos of facing the unknown. “Show, don’t tell” is what set the tone for what was yet to come.

THE SUSTENANCE

So, the Unseen Architect got your attention. You’re an awakened one. Now what? Traditionally, game studios now keep beating the markting drum to maintain hype through collabs, teasers, showcases. But Elden Ring’s drum fell silent. For 2 years. I call it the ‘Sustenance’ stage. Because in Elden Ring, after you’ve been exposed to the Lands Between, you must sustain yourself through self-directed exploration. No guidance. Only lore in measured doses.

Their marketing mirrors this: Instead of continuous updates, they kept their cool. No overload, no spoilers. Neither on Twitter, the Tokyo Game Show or Gamescom. No Elden Ring line-up whatsoever. Instead, endless threads that either question the strategy, the marketing team, or the company as a whole.

Granted, you’d think that aiming for global reach would mean showing up at least at major regional events - but - our unseen architect remained determined to guard the mystery with a stoic resolve. It wasn’t because of Covid or the delayed release date, no. He understood the law of diminishing returns: Too much hype dulls the excitement.

Deathloop for instance overhyped and under-informed so much that threads emerged to complain about their over-the-top marketing.

And what does Miyazaki think? Well, he is big on imagination. His games drop clues in item descriptions so you can piece together the narrative in your own way. Just like when he was a kid and pieced togehter English fantasy books he barely understood. “That power of imagination is important to me,” he said and it’s something he loves to see unfold not only in his games but in the marketing, too.

No wonder they didn’t milk the heck out of the big-name man. His role was modest, after all.

They could've hyped his involvement to attract the wider audience. Yet, they didn’t even use their ‘Ultimate Game of All Time’ award for Dark Souls to pitch Elden Ring as its successor. They rather play it safe to avoid the risk of potential backlash. But the press didn’t see it the same way.

Headlines speculated on everything from a cancelled game to the lack of news. On Reddit, it went wild, with memes, fake lore and even an impressive timline of the entire subreddit. When Phil Spencer claimed to have played it, the subreddit went crazy. Some say the real marketing magic happened here, but in reality, it was more an echo chamber of the most dedicated fans.

People started counting days, hours and minutes and on Twitter, all they got was a mere “Thank you for your support” post.

And then…a leak. Internal gameplay footage circulated online that was allegedly meant for investors.

It was blurry and shot from a weird angle, but fans didn’t have to wait much longer anyways, because 2 months later, it finally arrived:

*watch first 20 seconds

THE ASCENSION

And Elden Ring it was. The first gameplay trailer, two years after announce and 8 months before release. It’s typical for a marketing strategy to now start releasing a more steady stream of information, leading up to the game’s launch. Here our Unseen Architect went back to doing traditional marketing. Actually, Red Dead Redemption 2 did the very same thing. Announce release, then do nothing for years until one month before launch. Instead of the usual promotions, Rockstar opted for a campaign of ‘painting the world red,’ from Thailand, to Tokyo, Melbourne and Hollywood.

After Elden Ring’s first gameplay trailer, which - yet again - provoked more questions than answers, the game won a few more awards at Gamescom and then announced a Closed Network Test with some lucky as well as some unlucky fans.

For the rest of the year, Elden Ring continued winning award after award, released a story trailer and ended the year with another “Thank you.”

And then, new year, new post. Just 2 months to go. In the game, players approach the endgame and face the most challenging fights; similarly, the final phase of the marketing ramps up with more updates and more media coverage. Now it’s time to beat the international marketing drum like never before. Suddenly, Elden Ring was everywhere. It showed up on Redbull’s Twitter and even at the UFC event in Houston, Texas - as a major sponsor.

London too was soaked in Elden Ring lore. Bandai Namco UK worked with a single image to spread the word. Whether it was on billboards, buses, the London Underground or old telephone booths, the dragon spread the lore all under the mission of reaching a wider audience.

On Twitter, a fan-made Mr. Bean became the best valentine’s gift ever, system requirements were released and then the long-desired countdown: