Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for December 14th, and the episode title is “Mysterious Geforce RFX GPU and monsters”
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #266]
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The World Anvil won the RPG Publisher Spotlight this month.
I do have enough to write up from Tommaso, but I still need to. Sorry. It’s the season. You won’t be pleased to know that I’ve had Christmas parties that have kept me from the keyboard. However, we will make the end-of-month deadline to get the interview live.
Huzzah!
I asked about the other World Anvil and whether the two companies having the same name have been a problem. Yes, as you can imagine, it’s been a pain.
I think the big news this week was one that we didn’t write up. Amazon and Games Workshop have a Warhammer deal.
Firstly, there’s no timeline.
Secondly, it covers Warhammer 40K first but also Warhammer Fantasy if Amazon wants.
Third, Games Workshop has laid down some creative rules.
What else? Games Workshop broke the news to the market at the same time, they beat analyst expectations. The company’s licensing revenue is up 150% to £30m, and they’ve only just started.
Amazon can do movies or TV shows, and it’s their exclusive.
I think it took Amazon about five years to bag the Lord of the Rings TV rights and then do the Rings of Power but COVID-19 got in the way of that; I suspect Warhammer will be swifter.
The Amazon deal was not a surprise. What was a surprise this week was seeing some The Witcher IV teaser.
Shot on Unreal Engine using a yet-to-be-revealed NVIDIA Geforce RFX GPU was a dramatic scene with Ciri.
Bronwen, the biggest Witcher fan I know, was on the story like a flash. I’m left to wonder what and if there’s any reason behind the early tease.
Cyberpunk: Edgeunners just got a surprise manga prequel today so perhaps we should be thinking about how commercial timings might pan out.
Bronwen definitely gets the Geek Native Arts and Entertainment reporter of the year award, or would if we had one, because was also early into the 28 Years Later debate about Cillian Murphy.
One scarecrow-thin zombie looked a lot like the star, and it led to speculation that it could be. That fan theory has now been debunked, but, hey, movie companies and so-called-insiders lie all the time.
There has been game news on the blog this month. I wrote up some of the story of The Game of 20.
Iranian and Italian archaeologists found this board game in a grave in 1977. It’s the oldest complete board game known to humankind at about 4,000 years old. It’s a precursor to Chess.
The problem was we didn’t have the rules. Now, though, they’ve been largely figured out, AIs have helped and there’s a link to a free-to-play online version on Geek Native. As usual, follow the link to the transcript in the show notes to get to that.
This week we also had guest reporter Shona Macpherson talk to Robin Zetina and Jack of Definitely Not Goblins.
This actual play D&D show are, on the 15th, doing a live charity show in the Blackfriars’ Basement in Glasgow. That’s no good to you if you’re not able to get there but Shona and the not Goblins talk favourite D&D monsters and other general topics.
I had a bash at writing up Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune and specifically about why it won the Goodreads Readers’ Favourite in Fantasy.
My conclusion? Tens of thousands of people voted for this pro-diversity same-sex romance because there’s lots of us. It’s a feel good book.
Lastly, I spotted signed copies of several of the Rivers of London graphic novel series in Forbidden Planet. I ordered one! Sadly, it’s late. It should have arrived now, so I’m not very pleased, but perhaps it’ll turn up on Monday and that will be in a nick of time.
Forbidden Planet says the last day to order for Christmas for mainland deliveries is Monday.
On that note, keep safe, let me know if Santa would survive a zombie apocalypse and see you next week.
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