Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for the 2nd of December, and the episode title is “Protection and Partnerships”.
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[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #220]
DR Games is in the Spotlight thanks to votes from Geek Native’s fantastic patrons.
I know it’s uncharacteristically fast, but I’m in contact with DR Games already; the ball is in my court to get some questions over to them, which I’ll do next week.
It’s the festive season, right? It eats time and money while generating reasons to go out and have fun. With a bit of diligence, we attempt to get the best of all worlds and get interview questions up before the end of the year.
So, who are the candidates for January 2024, then? Who do Geek Native’s patrons get to vote for? I’m glad you asked. They are;
Bronwen and I are just back from an event called First Saturday. Before retreating to our respective homes through the dark Edinburgh chill, we were lazily battling away on the border of the old and new towns. The game is called Ingress, which you might remember from the hype of its Google launch, then mentioned as the precursor to Pokemon Go, but some of us still play, and it’s my excuse to go for a walk.
I’m an old Level 16 grump. Bronwen is new to it, and I had the great pleasure of watching what happened when she hit level 6, accessed a new tier of weaponry and set about rescuing portals with deadly abandon.
That’s what you get in an event like First Saturday, where there’s no particular focus on shielding your portals, and it’s all about the attack.
I’m not here to talk about an old augmented reality game, though, and the connection is to a press release I got about a new service from AtlasVPN. The company has introduced tech to protect your Apple TV.
Had you imagined that was necessary? Is your PlayStation protected by a VPN? Are the smart lights or thermostats in your apartment? Do they need to be?
I’m a Google and Windows person, so don’t need this Mac-level protection, but I imagine some people would rather have it than not. The discussion as to whether the service helps reduce buffering and lag seems to be a bit of a rabbit hole.
However, my conjecture is that we’ll start to get more and more VPNs deployed at the router level, perhaps ISP level and that’ll start both a debate about the pointlessness of your ISP being your VPN while also becoming a political debate about privacy versus security and safety again.
I just think that even at a residential level, having a myriad of device-specific VPNs becomes unsustainable, and a local network defence or encryption is the only possible answer.
In RPG news this week there’s a key piece of technology that’s also increasingly unsustainable. That’s Roll20’s VTT.
In 2024, Roll20 won’t just face competition from Fantasy Grounds and Foundry, but they’ll have to contend with Wizard of the Coasts’ own Unreal Engine-powered official D&D VTT.
What’s worse is that WotC could kick Roll20 when it’s down by either stopping the deal which makes sure D&D goodies are on Roll20 or just by slowing the releases to the third-party VTT down.
Roll20’s have this week announced Jumpgate which is a rebuild of the behind the scenes code. In some places, code than a decade old, is going and new code that leans towards WebGPU is coming in.
WebGPU is near future tech and all about graphics on browsers. In fact, Unity, Unreal’s open source rival, has announced future support for it. It’s possible to imagine Roll20 starting to compete with the likes of Board Game Arena and Tabletopia next year, or after, depending on how quickly Jumpgate rolls out.
I think virtual tabletops are here to stay but I don’t think all the virtual tabletops we have in 2023 will be here in 2025.
That makes me think of interviews covered in Routinely Itemised this week and where Dicebreaker talks to Matt Mercer.
Alex Meehan’s second interview with the Critical Role DM discovers that Matt isn’t worried about the actual play bubble bursting. In fact, Matt can see it becoming increasingly mainstream.
Granted, the voice talent does say it will need adaptation, care and timing. He also talks about unsustainable budgets. If the word ‘bubble’ was used without being challenged, then that’s pretty significant, but I agree that budgets are the magic factor. If the money in is greater than the money going out, ie the costs, then actual plays will persist.
I see many actual play stars on social media being appropriately biting when they’re offered a role without being offered money for it.
The thing is, I’ve been playing roleplaying games for free for years. It’s a hobby. I enjoy it. No one asks me to dress up for it. If someone happened to stream a game I was in and had no objections, I don’t see why I’d ask for money. If someone made money from a game I was in, which they streamed, that’s a different matter. I’d want a fair cut. That seems sustainable, but whether or not my cut would pay for a slice of pizza or become my salary for the month is the debate.
Actual plays aren’t the only spicy tabletop topic this week. Goodman Games announced The Indie RPG Creator Summit, and you might think the reaction was “Yay, more love for indie games”, but that wasn’t the universal story.
Emphasised by a poster and social media thumbnail for the online event, all the speakers are white and present as male. Maybe that’s just a statistical representation of the indie design community but I imagine it would have been possible to invite a woman or a person of colour to speak.
In fact, Goodman Games has people who present as women on their About Us page. I don’t associate Goodman Games with the toxic aspects of OSR. I think it was just an oversight.
We should be deep into this podcast’s title of Protection and Partnerships, but let’s keep going and talk High Strangenesses with SpectreVision and the comic book publishers Oni Press.
SpectreVision is Elijah Wood’s production company. That’s Elijah Wood of the Lord of the Rings, Sin City and the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. To name just a few.
L.A. Comic Con is on right now, just as I say these words, and it’s right now that Oni and Elijah are talking about their plans. High Strangeness is either an imprint to make comics or the name of a comic book series about cryptics and other weird stuff.
If movie makers are only interested in reboots or turning comic book IPs into films then I understand the logic of getting into comic books.
This week, Bronwen wrote up some research from The Toy Zone on the most popular Funko Pops by country. Once again, we see the geek franchises and comic books.
The most expensive Funko, by the way, seems to be the Superhero Stan Lee Platinum Metallic, which of which only 10 were made and one sold last year for $18,000.
The Toy Zone used search frequencies, that old trick, to work out the most popular Funko by country and then tallied the Funkos that appeared the most often.
It was a tie for first place with Moon Night and Naruto, the most popular in five countries each.
After those two, the top eight are
- Captain America
- Thor
- Pikachu
- Stranger Things
- Batman
- Boba Fett
- Spider-Man
- Minecraft
In the UK, Rick was the most popular Pop, Princess Leia in the States and NHL in Canada.
My highlight is that in the Philippines, the most popular Funko is Jollibee. That’s actually a fried chicken fast-food restaurant.
From fast food to fast feet and another team-up, Bronwen also noticed that RSVLTS, they of the great but expensive shirts, had teamed up with Street Fighter.
The designs look good, but I still think the Loki Alligator and Jurassic Park designers are more sly.
On to outros and some bundle offers for you. This week, we’re exclusively with the Bundle of Holding.
Sly Flourish has both Lazy GM and Fantastic Adventures on offer.
The 1998 edition of Shadowrun, that’s 3e, is also in a bundle, and I think it’s selling like hot cakes.
A new but short-lived offer is from Magpie and their emotional horror, where all the players play the same character. That’s Bluebeard’s Bride.
On that note, look in the basement, keep safe, do the shopping and see you next week.
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