The last drama post I did about Kuma Miko seemed to have gotten some praise, but some wished to see a Hobby Drama post that had consequences outside “people got angry over it”. So without any further delay, here’s a story about a studio that’s close to my heart, one that I’ve backed twice and seen die twice.
Note: This is a fairly lengthy drama, so forgive me if I’m not able to provide all of my sources. Most of the front half of this comes from this video, which chronicles the first half of Lab Zero entirely in Russian.
From Ahad to Mike Z
Let’s start in the beginning. Alex Ahad is a freelance illustrator who, in between other work, had created character designs for a prospective fighting game. Mike Zaimont is a professional fighting game player best known for games like BlazBlue and Marvel Vs. Capcom, but since 1999 had been coding a custom engine in his free time, which he hoped could be used for a fighting game. The two met in 2008, and the two quickly realized that with each other’s help, their dream could come true. In 2010, the two joined the newly developed game studio Reverge Labs. Joining their team was Mariel “Kinuko” Cartwright, a friend of Ahad’s and daughter of a Disney animator who helped animate games such as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Shantae; Peter Bartholow, who acted as CEO of Reverge as well as their PR arm; and an assortment of other animators and designers. Their goal: a fighting game in the style of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 with hand-drawn animation that they called Skullgirls.
After obtaining publishers in Autumn Games and Konami (at the time of development the Microsoft required indie devs to have a retail publisher in order to bring their games to Xbox Live Arcade), the team got to work on Skullgirls. Initial impressions were favorful - people liked Ahad’s unique character designs, the fluid animation, and the solid engine Mike Z built - but upon release, there were some concerns. The time and money needed to develop each character meant a starting roster of only eight characters, a far cry from other fighting games (the original MvC had 15 characters in 1998), and due to the team trying to get the game out, there was no in-game move list. Some were also concerned that the cast, consisting entirely of women, was too fanservice-filled, although Bartholow said that the characters were just attractive women who could fight as opposed to characters using their sexuality in battle (Ahad said that sex wasn’t his main focus, he just wanted to have monster girls fight each other). The team at Reverge Labs stressed that they would continue to update the game, with plans to add DLC if the game sold well enough. Good thing nothing could go wro-
Everything goes wrong
Alongside publishing Skullgirls, Autumn Games and Konami had previously published a karaoke game called Def Jam RapStar. Unfortunately, around March 2012, the time Skullgirls released, both parties were at the end of several lawsuits made against them - one argued that Autumn and Konami did not get the rights to some of the songs used in the game, while another claimed that the game was funded with a bank loan which Autumn Games was unable to pay back. The result of these costly lawsuits was that Autumn was unable to pay Reverge the money made from Skullgirls - this led to the entire Reverge team being laid off around July, and the future of the game in the air.
And so, the team decided on a whim to reconvene as a new development studio, Lab Zero Games. At a fundraiser for breast cancer research which included a fighting game tournament, Mike Z revealed the first DLC fighter and promised that new information about her and the team would be posted soon. This would turn out to be an Indiegogo fundraising campaign that asked for $150,000 to develop the first DLC fighter, with more characters promised if people backed enough.
In the end, $829,829 was raised in the campaign, enough to fund five DLC characters, a bevy of stages and voice packs, and other features. It was quickly becoming a cult classic.
The Skullgirls Curse
And so work on Skullgirls DLC was underway. However, a variety of events happened to befall Lab Zero during development, some causing controversy and others just annoying the team. Some dubbed this “The Skullgirls Curse”. So let’s go over some of them:

• Paypal Woes: During the Indiegogo DLC campaign, Lab Zero announced that Ahad had created around 30 prospective designs for DLC characters, and that there would be a vote to see which characters would be the two “mystery characters” teased in the Indiegogo campaign. As you would guess, this caused the Skullgirls fanbase to get heated, to the point where some stressed that they would ask Indiegogo for their money back if their character didn’t win. PayPal, who managed the funds for this campaign, was concerned about these threats and put nearly all of the money on hold. Bartholow tried to negotiate with PayPal, and was eventually able to get the funding - once PayPal was given a hefty sum as collateral.
• Bad Juju - If you notice on the list of prospective DLC characters, one character is Juju, a character who was designed by Ahad from a fan’s suggestion on a Whiteboard Wednesday art stream. Ahad seemed to like the idea of the character, and kept building her up until she became a legit character in the game. The original fan made a joke on Facebook that he’d like to be compensated for the design, which led Lab Zero to negotiate obtaining the character rights from him. They eventually worked out a contract that would give them the rights to the character, but only if the original fan didn’t reveal it until Lab Zero announced it themselves. The fan then posted about it on the Skullgirls forum the very next day, breaking the NDA immediately and making it so that Lab Zero couldn’t use the character at all.
• Don’t be (Red) Cross with me: One of the characters included in the base game of Skullgirls is Valentine. As you can tell, the two biggest features of her character are her being a nurse and a ninja - as such, her costume is decorated with red crosses. This was upsetting to the real Red Cross, which fights hard to prevent its trademark from being associated with violence - as such, when they came to the Skullgirls publisher demanding a change, all red crosses in the game had to be changed to magenta.
• #FucKonami: In November 2013, due to Konami barely helping at all with the publishing process for Skullgirls (they refused to greenlight any patch or DLC until Lab Zero tested it itself on their own time and money, they didn’t help with Microsoft’s certification process for Xbox, etc), Lab Zero dissolved their publishing agreement. This led to a massive snafu where, due to the dissolution, the original Skullgirls was taken down on consoles, and Lab Zero had to scramble to get a new publisher on the consoles side and then reupload the game as Skullgirls: Encore. It was a tangled web of issues which the above YouTube video relays, but required certification from both console storefronts and even the Japan storefront, as their publisher there was also coincidentally being dissolved at the same time without Lab Zero knowing.
• EVO 2014: During one of the largest fighting game tournaments of 2014, Skullgirls was promised a space for airing their tournament stream by controller distributor Madcatz. Lab Zero and Autumn provided a pot for the tourney, and everything was smooth sailing - until a multitude of delays made it so that the entire time Skullgirls had for streaming was replaced with Tekken tournaments. By the time these issues were fixed, only the final four matches were able to be shown.
• What’s the worst kind of ship? Censor-SHIP!: In April 2015, one of the patches of Skullgirls altered the animation of some characters, which according to Lab Zero themselves was because of their own artistic values (while they admitted that panty shots in a fighting game comprised entirely of girls is unavoidable, they didn’t want to go out of their way to show them). As you might expect, this led to a massive onslaught of negative Steam reviews and caustic tweets from people who abhor censorship of any kind. Funnily enough, this brigade started around October, six months after the changes were made, and only via word of mouth - people didn’t even notice there was a change until someone told them about it.
• Backer characters: As part of their Indiegogo campaign, some of the highest-paying backers could have their original characters put in the background of some custom stages. Lab Zero warned these backers that these stages would be a casino and a ballroom, respectively, so their OCs should ideally be designed with a formal flair. Some backers did follow this unspoken rule - ZONE, a notoriously NSFW Flash animator who helped work on the DLC characters, made a perfectly formal look for his mascot Zone-tan. As for the others, well...
• SonicFox: This isn’t included in the compilation video mentioned above as this occurred way after all the initial Skullgirls drama. Basically, SonicFox is a five-time EVO champion and one of the best Skullgirls players in the world. In May 2020, after Skullgirls was mostly complete, they were given a cameo in Skullgirls’ training stage. Of note is that SonicFox is black, non-binary, and a furry, and the character added to the game was their fursona, who has a trans rights flag in the inside of their jacket you can only see for like one frame. People reacted as you would expect. Also, one of the original backers requested to change their character as they were now transitioning, which didn’t get as much flak, so that’s nice I guess.

So as you can see, Skullgirls had a menagerie of problems and issues during its dev time. However, their Skullgirls curse seemed to have faded away, as they had a new game in store.
If I was Indivisible
Indivisible was a new project of Lab Zero, announced in 2015 as Skullgirls DLC production was nearing an end. Billed as a platformer RPG similar to games like Valkyrie Profile, it would tell the story of Ajna, a young girl whose town is stricken by tragedy and she finds out that she’s a portion of the god of creation, who has grown discontent with the world and wishes to remake it anew. Its Indiegogo campaign focused on Incarnations, party members who came from a variety of cultures, religions, and demographics not usually represented in popular culture. And as you can see by the fact that it got over two million dollars in funding, people were excited to see what Lab Zero could do. They even got enough funding to get Studio Trigger, of anime fame, to create the opening for the game.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Lab Zero without the occasional issue here and there. As shown above, some Incarnations were changed or scrapped during development, which irked some who backed because of that character specifically (not naming any names, but look in the incarnation list and see if you notice any). Backer characters were included again, and although there were more places to add them so they didn’t look out of place, you still had the occasional few that did. Critics liked the art and presentation of the game, but disliked some gameplay issues: the second half of the game became a cakewalk once you progressed far enough, it was a bit of a pain to go from one end of the map to another, especially for side quests, and a bunch of party members simply weren’t complete. Most egregiously of all, the Nintendo Switch version of the game was ported by a different company and released before Lab Zero was even aware of it - which forced them to scramble again to patch it up so it was on par with other consoles.
Still, it was a better situation they were in than when Skullgirls started. They had a legit publisher in 505 Games, people were satisfied with the base game, and Mike Z mentioned how the base game would continue to be refined with gameplay changes, small additions, and guest incarnations from other indie games. NBC even announced that Indivisible would be adapted into a television program for their Peacock streaming service. Things were looking up for Lab Zero.
Everything goes wrong... AGAIN
During the production of Indivisible, Alex Ahad was let go by Lab Zero. Not much is mentioned about it except that he was growing increasingly hostile, making it difficult to work with him, and his art was not meeting the standards for the game. He left, tried to sue Lab Zero, and eventually agreed to a sizable settlement. Mariel became the lead artistic director in his stead, and the art team had to be rearranged to compensate.
Now, as Lab Zero was preparing to transition from being employee-owned, Mike Z was made the temporary head of the studio. In June of 2020, Mike Z did an “I can’t breathe” joke during a Skullgirls livestream just days after George Floyd’s death - he later apologized for this, claiming he was trying to bring attention to the issue. Soon, more people provided proof that Mike Z has had a history of sexual harassment. Kinuko chimes in as well, noting that while she tolerated inappropriate behavior for years, when she talked to Mike Z about it, he blamed her for his actions. She talked with others in the team, who came to the conclusion that Zaimont had treated all of them like this. Some Lab Zero employees resigned on their own, while others pushed for Zaimont to resign. However, as Mike was still head of the studio, he dissolved the studio board and laid off the rest of the staff.
So where does that leave everyone?

• Ahad is still doing art on his own, and gets by with commissions and his Patreon.
• Kinuko, as well as the majority of Lab Zero, created a new studio called Future Club, which has promised to create new titles with the same art style they refined from Skullgirls and Indivisible.
• Autumn Games still own the rights to Skullgirls, and with the help of some former Lab Zero devs, created a mobile version of the game. It’s surprisingly not bad, although it’s of course stuffed with microtransactions. However, they’ve apparently made enough to fund a completely new character for the game for both the mobile and console/PC versions.
• After everything with Mike Z, 505 games put out a statement which signaled the end of all development of the game, leaving it unfinished. Mike Z has been suspended from Skullgirls streams and the like, making his future in the gaming world unclear.

There’s probably something I’ve missed in all of this, but yep. I backed them twice, both for Skullgirls and Indivisible. I don’t regret it, and I’m looking forward to whatever Future Club does, but I won’t lie - I’ll always miss what could have been.

While my car is getting worked on, I started to make a BCKY ETF and wanted to share it with you all. I welcome any additions or feedback!

TECH

AAPL - Apple Inc. - Becky never leaves her iPhone behind
BMBL - Bumble - shhh don’t tell Becky’s husband 🤫
FB - Facebook - they own Instagram, Becky’s most-used app
MTCH - Match - Tinder for the casual fling ☺️
NFLX - Netflix - for those nights in 💜
PINS - Pinterest - inspiration central
PYPL - PayPal - makes online shopping soooo easy once you figure it out! 🙌🏻
ROKU - Roku - Bridgerton is on Netflix, but The Bachelor is on Hulu! Having a Roku built into the TV makes it easy to navigate
SHOP - Shopify - online shopping 🛍
SNAP - Snap - Becky prefers IG but loves Snap for the selfies and group messaging (and the secret disappearing messages 🤫)
SPOT - Spotify - music fuels the soul 🎶
SQ - Square - CashApp makes splitting the bill sooooooo easy
Z and ZG - Zillow - for daydreaming and snooping on the neighbors
ZM - Zoom - in these trying times Becky has used Zoom to stay connected with her parents 💕

Entertainment

ABNB - AirBNB - For the little getaways, staycations and girls weekends
AMC - AMC Entertainment - Becky went to second base for the first time in the back of an AMC theater (didn’t even watch any of Along Came Paulie)
BALY - Bally’s - Becky likes a night out at the casino
DIS - Disney - for the kids 💕
LVS - Las Vegas Sands - bachelorette party, anyone?
MGM - MGM Resorts - can’t wait to get back to the clubs to do some DANCING 💃
MSGE - Madison Square Garden Entertainment - nightlife, dining, girls night???
MSGS - Madison Square Garden - Becky dated a basketball player after college (don’t tell dad! 🤫)
MTN - Vail Resorts - Becky’s favorite winter destinations
WYNN- Wynn Resorts - classy casino and hotel - Becky wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere else

Food/Beverage

ABT - Abbott - Baby formula was so helpful when Kai wouldn’t breastfeed. Pedialyte for when you have one too many proseccos 😜
APRN - Blue Apron - Soooo helpful to make Becky’s once-a-week meal or when Carla the “help” is sick.
BUD - Anheuser Busch InBev - those Bud Light seltzers are NECESSARY
CAKE - Cheesecake Factory - who doesn’t love Cheesecake? 😍
DASH - DoorDash - for those quarantine takeout meals with Greg 😍
GRUB - GrubHub - tapas delivered for girls night 😻
SBUX - Starbucks - there’s 4 seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, and PSL
SFM - Sprouts Farmers Markets - organic only 🍃
SHAK - Shake Shack - for the cheat meals 🤫
STZ - Constellation Brands - wine 🍷 anyone?

Lifestyle/Shopping

AXP - American Express - Becky’s black card never stops 🤪
BMWYY - BMW - for the Beckies with an X5
BURBY - Burberry - 💁‍♀️👜
CHWY - Chewy - Becky’s frenchie needs food, duh
COTY - COTY - Becky secretly (or not so secretly 🤪) loves Kylie, Dolce & Gabana and Chloé
DFS - Discover Financial - Becky likes getting cash back 😍
DMLRY - Daimler - For the Benz loving Becky
DOGZ - Dogness - luxury goods for the Frenchie
EL - Estée Lauder - cosmetics company founded by a fellow woman 🙋‍♀️
ELF - e.l.f. Beauty - makeup 💄 what else needs to be said?
ETSY - Etsy - omg so many cute things to buy
FLWS - 1-800-Flowers - I mean who doesn’t love flowers 🌸
FTCH - Farfetch - designer clothing ONLY
GOOS - Canada Goose - Much needed during winter when walking around Manhattan and taking selfie’s at Rockefeller Center. A little trendy but still loving it.
HOME - At Home - cute stuff for the house and cheap enough to throw away after getting that perfect pic for IG
HTHIY - Hitachi - the magic wand is Becky’s little secret
JWM - Nordstrom - designer brands ONLY
KNL - Knoll - luxury designer furniture that is so cute and so comfy. IYKYK
KSS - Kohl’s - Kohl’s Rewards are practically a currency right? 💵
LULU - Lululemon - quintessential Becky. The leggings don’t just make her butt look good, but they’re comfy and perfect for the IG flex
LVMUY - LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton - this just speaks for itself
M - Macy’s - ugh kinda for the poor people but they have good deals so Becky will shop online
MA - MasterCard - when the farmer’s market won’t accept American Express
MLHR - Herman Miller - super expensive furniture for the home and sooo comfy
PFE - Pfizer - why is this in the lifestyle category? Because Becky would have a breakdown without her Xanax
TEVA - Teva Pharmaceutical - Becky runs on adderall that is prescribed to her son
PTON - Peloton Interactive - the ultimate Becky item - if you didn’t post your workout on your IG story did you even spin?!
REAL - The RealReal - Cartier, Chanel, Christian Louboutin, LV, Gucci, Hermès, Prada, Tiffany’s and more!
REV - Revlon - some of Becky’s fav actresses promote their products
RH - Restoration Hardware - only the best for Becky’s home
SFIX - Stitch Fix - Becky took the styling quiz and gets emails from them all the time, but still hasn’t placed an order (but she really wants to to support a company headed by a woman CEO 👩🏼‍💼)
(S)TIC - Northern Star - Becky’s frenchie gets soooo excited for her monthly Bark Box
TCS - The Container Store - Becky just CAN NOT walk by without going in
TGT - Target - 🎯 this one is self explanatory- Becky doesn’t leave until it’s dark out
TSLA - Tesla - for the more environmentally conscious Becky that still needs to flex
TUP - Tupperware- perfect for packed lunch boxes and leftover tapas 🥰
ULTA - Ulta Beauty - looks are everything and Ulta sells everything Becky needs
V - Visa - Becky recognizes that name from the front of some of her credit cards
WSM - Williams-Sonoma - Becky buys a lot of her home goods at Pottery Barn and West Elm

I'm so fucking mixed up right now. My dad is so deeply invested in Trump and QAnon that he has completely fucked everything his father worked for til the day he died. Forced his mother, my complete saint of a grandmother, to sell their house and income property in one of the most desirable cities to live in and move out to BFE Oklahoma. She and my Uncle, his brother, both have heart conditions and now 0 infrastructure to manage them. My germaphobe Uncle is being forced to attend medical visits where he is regularly in contact with unmasked people. They feel unsafe and disconnected where they live, though they love the new house itself. I got the you-told-us-so call a few days ago, and I feel more upset than before. I managed to get my grandmother to stop actively propagating Q material on facebook, and my impression is that she just doesn't know what to believe at this point and is trying to avoid politics. I can understand that, at least. She is an extremely kind woman who was taken in on the child-trafficking claims and nothing else, it wasn't too hard to talk to her.
My dad is so fucking sick now. He's in recovery and has now taken up gambling for fun, and has been going to the casinos and coming home (endangering the remainder of the at-risk household) since they reopened. He openly brags about being at bars, smoking and singing maskless. He voted for Trump in 2016 because he hated Hillary and the libertarian candidate wasn't going to win (or so he told me). Now he's so far gone he can do nothing but post on Twitter about HCQ and how he refuses to bend to "covid fascist edicts" and won't allow himself to be "reprogrammed" by the government. He railroaded my whole family into tearing up their roots and starting anew in a brand new place and now he isn't even unpacking because he plans to move to Texas with his girlfriend. My Uncle gave up the business he built for over a decade, and the relationship he'd been in for nearly as long. All of my grandma's comfort and independence have been stripped away. I kept begging them not to do it, I kept telling them it wasn't safe, but they were constantly being manipulated with my dad in the house and everyone screaming about the stupid governor trying to destroy everyone's livelihoods with shutdowns. So many people are dead, and all he could be assed to think about was his own freedom. I begged and begged, but my grandma just won't think of herself or her wellbeing. They used her for her money so that they could afford to move, and they are already priced out of the market they just left. My childhood home, lemon trees, rose vines, ugly old tile and all is being rented out to randoms now. The thought of picking up and moving again sounds horrific but less horrific than the consequences of staying where they are and in a home with him.
I found out the day after the Capitol riot that he had traveled all the way to DC to take part when a friend I had at my last job sent me a news article with his extremely unique name in it. There he was, in front of God and everybody, disgracing the family name and making us look like a bunch of hateful lunatics. I wonder if I'll ever be able to get a job again. I was planning on changing my name when I get married, I might have to do it sooner. That day I discovered the extent of his issues (3200 tweets in 3 months) and how awful the things he was saying had become. When I found out he was one of the people joining 'militias" to "keep the peace" during the George Floyd protests, I knew he was gone. I didn't understand how deeply he had bitten into the conspiracies until now. Being someone who has frequented 4chan from much too young an age, it was so hard to fucking explain to these people that the things they were sharing (literal photos of computer screens showing 4chan posts!!! I'm not even making this shit up) came from a place with complete anonymity and less vetting for posts than any of their social media platforms, let alone wikipedia. An actual forum full of gore, porn, and memes. I could not get through to them, but now even my Uncle who voted for Trump thinks he has gone too far.
This week has been a fucking mess for me. This is the man I used to call my hero. He used to be an avid musician, a gentle hand on my shoulder when I was wound up and tense, a patriot in the military who served and strove to better himself. There were several times in my life when it was us, and just us. I have been neglected or abused by most of my family, including him. My conflicted feelings go back further than when he started to openly oppose women's rights, back before QAnon even existed. But he is a different person now. He is not the man who spent all the cash in his wallet to win me the biggest dog at the booth in the fair, nor the man who brought me a copy of our favorite book when I was hospitalized for making an attempt on my life, nor the man who took me to see snow, stars, and the countryside in thousand-mile-trips cross country. He's gone. I am crying here with the letter he slipped me when I was in the mental hospital with instructions to read it when I was hurting. Here it is, the final sentence, a quote older than both of us.
"You have been, and always shall be, my best friend."
I reported him to the FBI the day before the inauguration. You won't see me on the news being called a hero, I am here in my home unable to sleep or eat, existing in obscurity. I have no parents anymore, though my chosen family is wiser than me to say I never really did. When I found out he had not returned home after the riot, and had a weapon with him, the choice was made for me. None of the adults in my family have the strength to even stand up to him, they certainly aren't going to grow up now.
I don't know where he is, or what's going to happen. I don't think he can go back to being that person, he is as invested in avoiding admitting he is wrong as he is in getting his way. His actions are those of a bitter man who feels wronged by the world and is trying to extract what he can for himself from society. It saddens me to say that I am not his only child, which makes that outlook even more disturbing. I started treatment for PTSD a couple months ago, and I am barely functioning. Today, I had to email my landlord and go to the post office. I have already broken down three times, and drank until I could pass out for a few hours this afternoon. The nightmares are intense. The shaking is intense. I keep remembering things he did and said, good and bad. I wish I knew how to get through to him. He calls me a fucking libtard. The last safe space I had is gone because of him. He just doesn't care, about his kids, his mother, nothing. My grandfather is rotting in a grave miles from the product of his life's achievements, and the family is slowly going broke now. I stopped thinking of him as family years ago, but going through this with his mother is really difficult.
I am sorry for being all over the place. I feel like I'm barely surviving right now, for a combination of reasons that reach far beyond my parents.

TEKKORP DIGITAL (TEKK) is a NASDAQ-listed blank check company created to acquire and unlock the value of businesses poised for growth in the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and/or gaming ecosystems, by coupling transformative expertise with access to the deepest, most liquid public capital markets in the world.
287.5M Trust; Jefferies / Macquarie Capital (runners)
IPOed 10/21/2020
2021-0204 Near NAV: $10.62
https://www.tekkorpdigital.com/
S-1 Filing:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1822027/000121390020028479/fs12020_tekkorpdigitalacq.htm
Team and Board of Directors:
Matthew Davey — Chief Executive Officer and Director
Mr. Davey has over 25 years of experience within the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming ecosystems. CEO of SG Digital, the Digital Division of Scientific Games Corp. Oversaw seven acquisitions OpenBet, Cryptologic/Chartwell; PokerStars and Intercasino
Robin Chhabra — President
Mr. Chhabra has been at the forefront of corporate acquisition activity within the digital gaming landscape for over a decade. Mr. Chhabra’s M&A experience is extensive and covers multiple global geographies across the digital gaming value chain and includes the following: TSG/Flutter Entertainment; TSG/Sky Betting and Gaming
Eric Matejevich — Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Matejevich is a seasoned gaming executive with extensive experience in both the online gaming and traditional casino industries. Interim-CEO of Ocean Casino Resort (formerly Revel Casino), CFO of NYX. CFO of Resorts International Holdings; COO - Atlantic Club Casino. Led acquisition of Harrah’s Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment. VP of High Yield Research for Merrill Lynch.
Morris Bailey — Chairman
Mr. Bailey has been a leader in turning around Atlantic City, Mr. Bailey partnered with two of the largest digital gaming companies in the world, PokerStars, part of the Stars Group, and DraftKings. In 2010, Mr. Bailey bought Resorts Atlantic City. Signed an agreement with Mohegan Sun to manage the day-to-day operations of the casino. Established a platform to engage in online gaming by partnering with PokerStars, now part of the $24 billion Flutter Entertainment. Resorts announced deals with DraftKings and SBTech to open a sportsbook on-property and online.
Tony Rodio — Director Nominee
Mr. Rodio has nearly four decades of experience in the gaming industry. CEO and director of Caesars Entertainment Corporation. President, CEO and a director of Tropicana Entertainment. Exec positions at Trump Marina Hotel Casino, Harrah’s Entertainment, Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort and Penn National Gaming.
Marlon Goldstein — Director Nominee
Mr. Goldstein is a licensed attorney with nearly 20 years of experience in the gaming space. Exec VP, Chief Legal Officer - The Stars Group. Exec VP, Corporate Development and General Counsel of TSG. Participated in numerous M&A transactions and capital markets offerings at TSG: TSG/Flutter Merger, TSG/Fox Bet; TSG/Sky Betting & Gaming; CrownBet, PokerStars.
Sean Ryan — Director Nominee
Mr. Ryan is a digital media and technology operator with extensive global experience in online payments, e-commerce, marketplaces, mobile ad networks, digital games, enterprise collaboration platforms, blockchain, real money gaming and online music. VP of Business Platform Partnerships at Facebook, Inc. **Yeah, that Facebook!
Tom Roche — Director Nominee
Mr. Roche has more than 40 years of experience in the gaming industry as a regulator, advisor and independent auditor. Mr. Roche joined Ernst & Young as a partner in 2003 and opened its Las Vegas office. Mr. Roche has been integral to numerous transactions that have shaped the current gaming landscape, including Wynn Resorts initial public offering. Mr. Roche headed the regulatory advisory services on the buyout of Harrah’s Entertainment; Dubai World/MGM Resorts. Mr. Roche headed the regulatory and due diligence advisory services to Dubai World in its approximately $5.1 billion investment in MGM.

Overview

Well, I'm sure everyone has seen the news. The end of MassForTheDead is upon us. I started in early November. After doing all the story quests and some other things I ended up with only 3 5-star people, and sort of quit because the odds were horrible. I can't remember the exact number of rolls, but I saved every single Choas Stone.  
I quit around Thanksgiving, it isn't that the game isn't fun, but the odds were horrible and the prices made no sense. I will get into the problems with this game later, but eventually, I started back up before Xmas. I had better luck this time, while I didn't get any xmas people, but I had decent luck getting other 5-stars.  
It's a fun game, but it has many problems. As a developer, I somewhat expected it to fail, but I really was hoping that it wouldn't. I actually mentioned many of the reasons behind it in my review on google play. I shared my review with a few others, but I didn't actually make a post about it. However now I guess it's the last chance I get. I hope that the creators of MFTD see this... because many of these problems I feel almost anyone could come to the same conclusion as me.  

NOTE: My language gets a little spicy, do forgive me for not being PC.

Online Only

One of the biggest problems with the game is it being online only. This means that if the game servers are shut down... simply the game doesn't work. Meaning if the game ends in 3 months (like now) everything you have to spend was pretty much wasted. It isn't like steam where you can buy and sell skins or items... you buy a digital product with the potential chance of it being taken away from you at any time.  
No one likes this... I would like to blame the devs, but typically it isn't them who make this decision. It's almost always someone higher up, but either way to be honest it was retarded.  
It should have been an offline game, are at least playable offline people wouldn't have felt so bad by buying stuff, since they could still use it after the servers are shut down.  

Multiple Versions

Having multiple versions of the game is stupid. Simply stupid. It is already hard enough for developers to support Android, Apple, and say the web... but now they need to support Android (jp), Apple (jp), Android (globe), Apple (global).  
You rarely see this in western games... However, it is pretty common for Asian games. Rpgs especially almost always get a special global version. My only guess is because of location and language... however you should have designed your app to work with multiple languages. This is web dev 101, you space things out or have scroll bars or cut it off with a popup to give the full name or details. There are tons of ways around this... It's the same story with locations, you should have designed the online game from the ground up to be usable with multiple servers.  
I don't want to go on forever about this, but it's basic things. Just add multiple languages, that was it. All you needed to do, yet tons of games every year get a "global" version just for it to die a few years later. STOP IT. Make 1 version, with servers globally. Not enough people in Germany?... shut that server down and move them to another server.  
Sorry for the rant on this part, I've played at least 20 games they forced you to play the global version and ended up shutting it down after a year or 2. Honestly, at as dev it drives me crazy they do this. People don't care you have a special ____ holiday or whatever... AWESOME, cool you have a holiday about some cucumber god, ok let us play it, we don't need a second version.  
I guess what I'm trying to get at... Crunchyroll shouldn't have been involved in the first place. Maybe as translators, but AAAaaah fuck me dude, why do they keep doing this?

Worse than Gambling...

You buy "chaos stones", which give you a chance to roll for people in the game. Aka gambling, but instead of getting a chance for money, you get a digital item that could disappear at any moment when they shut the game down. At least with gambling, you have a slim chance of getting your money back.  
There have been many countries trying to put regulations on loot boxes in games... I'm pretty sure this game would eventually fall into that category. If they are not forced to change it, at the very least they will probably make it 18+ or the local equivalent. Some countries have been trying to force similar taxes onto these types of apps that casinos have to deal with. Potentially they are going to run into an issue with this game because of the random aspect.  
They continue to make it worse by having "free" Choas Stones mixed with "paid" Chaos Stones. Honestly, I'm surprised some mom hasn't created a Facebook group about how it's tricking their children. Anyway, I don't care about this, but it is something to note, that this will probably be brought up against them later on.  
I know some people will probably argue saying baseball cards, or pokemon cards are similar... however you are getting a physical object. You have it forever, you can sell it, trade it, lick it. It's yours forever. Yes, they are both random chances, but as I explained above... at any moment you could lose it. I could go on with other things, but I'm ranting, so we will leave this here.

Price

... do I have to explain this. The prices are INSANE, let's just forget about it being something you could lose at any moment or the random chance. There are many packs and things for $32.99. Let's look at one. 515 paid stones plus some other stuff. That is 1 roll or ten items... WHAT?!?  
Look at any other game, even the MOST money-hungry games like Clash of Clash or Fortnite are 1/4 of this price... and they are games that have been around for years, with tons of content, and tons of game play, and large player bases.  
It's like paying $30 goto a movie... or $15 to goto another movie at a better theater, that also in 3d. Don't get me wrong... I LOVE OVERLORD. I love it, I read at least 2 novels a month... but the prices for MFTD are just crazy. Personally, I bought VIP, I think that it's a decent price to support the game and help them developed it... but to be honest for $20 you don't shit. I understand they need to make money, but I 100% guarantee if they cut the price in half, they would more than double their sales. Many of the people reading overlord are younger in high school or college... I can't imagine they are looking forward to throwing down $32 for a roll at 10 cards? (or whatever you call it)... however $16? it far more reasonable. How many of would have bought a "pack" for $16 yet didn't because it was $32?  
I'm an old (not really old, 31), and I didn't because it's a ripoff. I just feel like I'm getting bent over around back.

Summary / Horrible

LMAO, guys... honestly this game I love it. I love Overlord, but some of the ideas behind it were horrible. It isn't just 1 of them... but when you add them up all altogether I knew it wasn't going to last long.  
What is even worse... they announced they are closing the game down... YET you can still buy shit. YOU CAN STILL BUY DIGITAL ITEMS that will be gone in 2 months. WHAT THE FUCK?!? Am I'm crazy, or is this just me or is this a total douchebag move?  
They don't force you to see the notification, nothing pops up... just a quiet little whisper "psst, the game ends April". I will admit, they are at least shutting it down in march... Do they are not a complete scumbag... However, it should have been locked the moment they announced the ending of this game. People love this game, they are dedicated to it. They have spent thousands of hours grinding just to save up for the new stuff coming out next week. I'm sure there are people who just bought stuff yesterday...  
What is even worse, I'm pretty sure someone knew about this at least a week ago. I can't imagine some CEO just say, yea I'm done, lets tell them today the game ends. There were meetings, discussions, multiple companies involved... probably a public relations person who spend a day to come up with that announcement.  
I'm going to end it here, while I wasn't surprised I wish it continued or was offline as its a fun little game to play throughout the day.

Proof: https://imgur.com/a/lFRzQTe
Best one to do: War Thunder
Time it took: 2 hours
Reward: 700
Download & install and play 1 game... was fun too.
2nd best one to do: 21 Blitz
Reward: 1200
Time it took: 2 hours
Just win 25 games... doesn't require any money. Somewhat fun to do.
Best Casino game: PopSlots
Time it took: 2 days
Reward: 2500
Was the easiest one to do. Just sit on Fire & Lightning and collect every single one you can here: https://www.myvegasadvisor.com/mobile/pop-slots-free-chips/
If you're lucky you'll get it done in a few hours. If unlucky, a few days.
Second best casino game: Club Vegas Slots
Time it took me: 2 days
Reward: 3500
Machines don't matter as it's random, go to there facebook for free coins.
Third/Fourth best casino game: Huuuuge + Billionaires(they're the same thing)
Reward: 4500 each(currently 5500 each I got screwed)
Billionaires took - 6 days
Huuuuge took - 1 day(got lucky)
On Billionaires I did it through only slots which is why it took so long. DO NOT DO THAT. GO THROUGH ROULETTE AS SOON AS YOU CAN.
Billionaires I managed to snag a 2b jackpot then just did roulette the whole way then still had 1b+ so I just did 140-150 through slots(ran out of money reaaaall quick)
YOU NEED TO WIN 20-22b TO HIT LEVEL 150 ON BOTH.
WORST ONE IMAGINABLE: Star Slots
Reward: 4000(I had it for 3000 but luckily it went up as I was doing it)
Time it took: 7 days with ONE lucky break of winning 1b and machine going even for a few bil. It was 6 days of torture to even hit level 60.
These slots are super rigged. Same company as Huuuuge + Billionaires but worse slot machines and nowhere near as many players. You also don't get nearly as many free stuff from your clubs, etc.
YOU NEED TO HIT 11-13B TO HIT LEVEL 100.
Overall, it took me 2 weeks(not really I paused a few days in between on some) of leaving my phone spinning on these things to get a new graphics card... whatever, worth.

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alarm,lawn mower,nail polish,Band-Aid,Star Wars,clothes hanger,toe,mud,coconut,jaw,bomb,south,firework,sailboat,loading,iPhone,toothpick,BMW,ketchup,fossil,explosion,Finn,Einstein,infinite,dictionary,Photoshop,trombone,clarinet,rubber,saxophone,helicopter,temperature,bus driver,cello,London,newspaper,blackberry,shopping cart,Florida,Daffy Duck,mayonnaise,gummy worm,flying pig,underweight,Crash Bandicoot,bungee jumping,kindergarten,umbrella,hammer,night,laser,glove,square,Morty,firehouse,dynamite,chainsaw,melon,waist,Chewbacca,kidney,stoned,Rick,ticket,skateboard,microwave,television,soil,exam,cocktail,India,Colosseum,missile,hilarious,Popeye,nuke,silo,chemical,museum,Vault boy,adorable,fast forward,firecracker,grandmother,Porky Pig,roadblock,continent,wrinkle,shaving cream,Northern Lights,tug,London Eye,Israel,shipwreck,xylophone,motorcycle,diamond,root,coffee,princess,Oreo,goldfish,wizard,chocolate,garbage,ladybug,shotgun,kazoo,Minecraft,video,message,lily,fisherman,cucumber,password,western,ambulance,doorknob,glowstick,makeup,barbecue,jazz,hedgehog,bark,tombstone,coast,pitchfork,Christmas,opera,office,insect,hunger,download,hairbrush,blueberry,cookie jar,canyon,Happy Meal,high five,fern,quarter,peninsula,imagination,microscope,table tennis,whisper,fly swatter,pencil case,harmonica,Family Guy,New Zealand,apple pie,warehouse,cookie,USB,jellyfish,bubble,battery,fireman,pizza,angry,taco,harp,alcohol,pound,bedtime,megaphone,husband,oval,rail,stab,dwarf,milkshake,witch,bakery,president,weak,second,sushi,mall,complete,hip hop,slippery,horizon,prawn,plumber,blowfish,Madagascar,Europe,bazooka,pogo stick,Terminator,Hercules,notification,snowball fight,high score,Kung Fu,Lady Gaga,geography,sledgehammer,bear trap,sky,cheese,vine,clown,catfish,snowman,bowl,waffle,vegetable,hook,shadow,dinosaur,lane,dance,scarf,cabin,Tweety,bookshelf,swordfish,skyline,base,straw,biscuit,Greece,bleach,pepper,reflection,universe,skateboarder,triplets,gold chain,electric car,policeman,electricity,mother,Bambi,croissant,Ireland,sandbox,stadium,depressed,Johnny Bravo,silverware,raspberry,dandruff,Scotland,comic book,cylinder,Milky Way,taxi driver,magic trick,sunrise,popcorn,eat,cola,cake,pond,mushroom,rocket,surfboard,baby,cape,glasses,sunburn,chef,gate,charger,crack,mohawk,triangle,carpet,dessert,taser,afro,cobra,ringtone,cockroach,levitate,mailman,rockstar,lyrics,grumpy,stand,Norway,binoculars,nightclub,puppet,novel,injection,thief,pray,chandelier,exercise,lava lamp,lap,massage,thermometer,golf cart,postcard,bell pepper,bed bug,paintball,Notch,yogurt,graffiti,burglar,butler,seafood,Sydney Opera House,Susan Wojcicki,parents,bed sheet,Leonardo da Vinci,intersection,palace,shrub,lumberjack,relationship,observatory,junk food,eye,log,dice,bicycle,pineapple,camera,circle,lemonade,soda,comb,cube,Doritos,love,table,honey,lighter,broccoli,fireplace,drive,Titanic,backpack,emerald,giraffe,world,internet,kitten,volume,Spain,daughter,armor,noob,rectangle,driver,raccoon,bacon,lady,bull,camping,poppy,snowball,farmer,lasso,breakfast,oxygen,milkman,caveman,laboratory,bandage,neighbor,Cupid,Sudoku,wedding,seagull,spatula,atom,dew,fortress,vegetarian,ivy,snowboard,conversation,treasure,chopsticks,garlic,vacuum,swimsuit,divorce,advertisement,vuvuzela,Mr Bean,Fred Flintstone,pet food,upgrade,voodoo,punishment,Charlie Chaplin,Rome,graduation,beatbox,communism,yeti,ear,dots,octagon,kite,lion,winner,muffin,cupcake,unicorn,smoke,lime,monster,Mars,moss,summer,lollipop,coffin,paint,lottery,wife,pirate,sandwich,lantern,seahorse,Cuba,archer,sweat,deodorant,plank,Steam,birthday,submarine,zombie,casino,gas,stove,helmet,mosquito,ponytail,corpse,subway,spy,jump rope,baguette,grin,centipede,gorilla,website,text,workplace,bookmark,anglerfish,wireless,Zorro,sports,abstract,detective,Amsterdam,elevator,chimney,reindeer,Singapore,perfume,soldier,bodyguard,magnifier,freezer,radiation,assassin,yawn,backbone,disaster,giant,pillow fight,grasshopper,Vin Diesel,geyser,burrito,celebrity,Lasagna,Pumba,karaoke,hypnotize,platypus,Leonardo DiCaprio,bird bath,battleship,back pain,rapper,werewolf,Black Friday,cathedral,Sherlock Holmes,ABBA,hard hat,sword,mirror,toilet,eggplant,jelly,hero,starfish,bread,snail,person,plunger,computer,nosebleed,goat,joker,sponge,mop,owl,beef,portal,genie,crocodile,murderer,magic,pine,winter,robber,pepperoni,shoebox,fog,screen,son,folder,mask,Goofy,Mercury,zipline,wall,dragonfly,zipper,meatball,slingshot,Pringles,circus,mammoth,nugget,mousetrap,recycling,revolver,champion,zigzag,meat,drought,vodka,notepad,porcupine,tuba,hacker,broomstick,kitchen,cheesecake,satellite,JayZ,squirrel,leprechaun,jello,gangster,raincoat,eyeshadow,shopping,gardener,scythe,portrait,jackhammer,allergy,honeycomb,headache,Miniclip,Mona Lisa,cheetah,virtual reality,virus,Argentina,blanket,military,headband,superpower,language,handshake,reptile,thirst,fake teeth,duct tape,macaroni,color-blind,comfortable,Robbie Rotten,coast guard,cab driver,pistachio,Angelina Jolie,autograph,sea lion,Morse code,clickbait,star,girl,lemon,alarm,shoe,soap,button,kiss,grave,telephone,fridge,katana,switch,eraser,signature,pasta,flamingo,crayon,puzzle,hard,juice,socks,crystal,telescope,galaxy,squid,tattoo,bowling,lamb,silver,lid,taxi,basket,step,stapler,pigeon,zoom,teacher,holiday,score,Tetris,frame,garden,stage,unicycle,cream,sombrero,error,battle,starfruit,hamster,chalk,spiral,bounce,hairspray,lizard,victory,balance,hexagon,Ferrari,MTV,network,weapon,fist fight,vault,mattress,viola,birch,stereo,Jenga,plug,chihuahua,plow,pavement,wart,ribbon,otter,magazine,Bomberman,vaccine,elder,Romania,champagne,semicircle,Suez Canal,Mr Meeseeks,villain,inside,spade,gravedigger,Bruce Lee,gentle,stingray,can opener,funeral,jet ski,wheelbarrow,thug,undo,fabulous,space suit,cappuccino,Minotaur,skydiving,cheerleader,Stone Age,Chinatown,razorblade,crawl space,cauldron,trick shot,Steve Jobs,audience,time machine,sewing machine,face paint,truck 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pig,motherboard,wheel,brick,egg,lava,queen,gold,God,ladder,coin,laptop,toaster,butter,bag,doctor,sit,tennis,half,Bible,noodle,golf,eagle,cash,vampire,sweater,father,remote,safe,jeans,darts,graph,nothing,dagger,stone,wig,cupboard,minute,match,slime,garage,tomb,soup,bathroom,llama,shampoo,swan,frown,toolbox,jacket,adult,crate,quill,spin,waiter,mint,kangaroo,captain,loot,maid,shoelace,luggage,cage,bagpipes,loaf,aircraft,shelf,safari,afterlife,napkin,steam,coach,slope,marigold,Mozart,bumper,Asterix,vanilla,papaya,ostrich,failure,scoop,tangerine,firefly,centaur,harbor,uniform,Beethoven,Intel,moth,Spartacus,fluid,acid,sparkles,talent show,ski jump,polo,ravioli,delivery,woodpecker,logo,Stegosaurus,diss track,Darwin Watterson,filmmaker,silence,dashboard,echo,windshield,Home Alone,tablecloth,backflip,headboard,licorice,sunshade,Picasso,airbag,water cycle,meatloaf,insomnia,broom,whale,pie,demon,bed,braces,fence,orange,sleep,gift,Popsicle,spear,zebra,Saturn,maze,chess,wire,angel,skates,pyramid,shower,claw,hell,goal,bottle,dress,walk,AC/DC,tampon,goatee,prince,flask,cut,cord,roof,movie,ash,tiger,player,magician,wool,saddle,cowboy,derp,suitcase,sugar,nest,anchor,onion,magma,limbo,collar,mole,bingo,walnut,wealth,security,leader,melt,Gandhi,arch,toy,turd,scientist,hippo,glue,kneel,orbit,below,totem,health,towel,diet,crow,addiction,minigolf,clay,boar,navy,butcher,trigger,referee,bruise,translate,yearbook,confused,engine,poke,wreath,omelet,gravity,bride,godfather,flu,accordion,engineer,cocoon,minivan,bean bag,antivirus,billiards,rake,cement,cauliflower,espresso,violence,blender,chew,bartender,witness,hobbit,corkscrew,chameleon,cymbal,Excalibur,grapefruit,action,outside,guillotine,timpani,frostbite,leave,Mont Blanc,palette,electrician,fitness trainer,journalist,fashion designer,bucket,penguin,sheep,torch,robot,peanut,UFO,belt,Earth,magnet,dragon,soccer,desk,search,seal,scribble,gender,food,anvil,crust,bean,hockey,pot,pretzel,needle,blimp,plate,drool,frog,basement,idea,bracelet,cork,sauce,gang,sprinkler,shout,morning,poodle,karate,bagel,wolf,sausage,heat,wasp,calendar,tadpole,religion,hose,sleeve,acorn,sting,market,marble,comet,pain,cloth,drawer,orca,hurdle,pinball,narwhal,pollution,metal,race,end,razor,dollhouse,distance,prism,pub,lotion,vanish,vulture,beanie,burp,periscope,cousin,customer,label,mold,kebab,beaver,spark,meme,pudding,almond,mafia,gasp,nightmare,mermaid,season,gasoline,evening,eel,cast,hive,beetle,diploma,jeep,bulge,wrestler,Anubis,mascot,spinach,hieroglyph,anaconda,handicap,walrus,blacksmith,robin,reception,invasion,fencing,sphinx,evolution,brunette,traveler,jaguar,diagram,hovercraft,parade,dome,credit,tow 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Here are some excerpts from an interesting interview with magician Steve Brooks. Steve has a lot of valuable insights about magic to share, based on his own experience and involvement in this performing art. He's even in the process of writing a couple of books about magic theory, which is in itself a testimony to his ability to be a creative thinker.
When did you first get interested in magic, and what got you started?
I’ve been studying and performing magic since I was about nine years old or so. I saw a magician on television doing something and asked my mother, "How did he do that?" She said, "He’s a magician. I don’t know." That kind of piqued my interest.
When I was maybe nine or ten, my grandmother took me to see Harry Blackstone Jr., to see a show somewhere in Los Angeles. And Harry did all the stuff he was doing, like the big Buzz Saw Illusion and the Floating Light Bulb, and birds, and more. All this was more than a little nine or ten year old could take at the time, and I just had to know how this stuff works. I wasn’t content thinking, "Well, he’s a magician and it’s secret and you can’t know."
So when the show was over I broke away from my grandmother’s hand in the crowd and decided I would go back stage so I could see how this stuff worked - because if he could do it, maybe so could I. So I crawled under the curtain and got backstage and I was touching and checking out the Buzz Saw Illusion. And I hear this really deep voice, "Can I help you young man?" And I turned around, and it was Harry Blackstone Jr. - who stood like a mountain to a little boy! I was totally scared, because I knew I wasn’t supposed to be back there.
And he kind of knelt down on one knee and he pulled a little red ball (in hindsight I’m sure it was a billiard ball). He just threw it up in the air and it vanished, and he said, "When you can do that, come back and see me and I’ll show you how to do the good stuff." Then he took me by my hand and helped me find my grandmother.
How did you continue to learn magic after first meeting Harry Blackstone Jr?
After I first saw Harry Blackstone in person, a couple of years later or so, I saw a magician on television, Marshall Brodien who was selling his TV magic cards and TV miracle cards and TV mystery cards. And I saved up my pennies and I went to my local Thrifty drug store and I purchased those.
When you got those decks, inside with the instructions would be a little folded catalog, and you could buy more magic tricks by mail. Back then, I didn’t know there was such a thing as a magic shop. So I started ordering tricks, e.g. Fun Incorporated items under the Royal Magic brand. You know, classics like the Ball and Vase, Drawer Box, Crazy Cube, Pentro Penny, etc. As the years went by, I would continue to save up my money and buy even more magic tricks, books, etc.
I also had a neighbor who was in the Boy Scouts and I would borrow his Boys Life magazines and look in the back and they’d have all these ads for magic shops. So I’d send off my quarters or dimes off and get all their catalogs, and look through all the amazing things I might get. So I grew up doing magic.
Did you ever meet Harry Blackstone Jr again?
Around 40 years later, probably in the early 2000s or the late 1990s. Harry Blackstone was doing a show here in Northern California, and I saw him do his show at Chico State University. After the show he and Gay Blackstone came out, selling little magic sets for kids. I was prepared this time, because I had brought a billiard ball and I told Harry the story. I threw the ball up in the air and vanished it, and he started crying. It was a very emotional moment. He had tears coming down his eyes and he says, "I’ll be right back." And he disappears.
He comes back and he brought me a bunch of stuff, including this huge photograph which I still have. I said, "Because you were kind to a little boy who was someplace he shouldn’t have been, that turned out to be pretty much what I’ve done all my life." So it kind of came full circle, I guess.
What should be the goal of a performing magician?
What we’re really here for as magicians is to create that wonder, so that people can say: "For five minutes I can forget about my pain. Maybe I’m losing my house, or my daughter’s pregnant, or I’m going through a divorce, or my father just passed away. But for five lousy minutes, I don’t have to think about that stuff." For a short time I don’t have to think about all the drama and all the craziness. Right now with the coronavirus and everybody panicking and dying, people need laughter, entertainment, and magicians. They need something positive in their lives.
And this is why if you go back and look at the late 1920s and 30s and 40s when you had the Depression and Prohibition and a war going on, Vaudeville was so popular. This is why we needed the Marx brothers and Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy, and we needed the Slapstick and we made fun of things. Back when folks understood what humor was – you know, a joke? A story with a humorous climax. Back before everyone became afraid they might offend someone.
Magicians take you away from pain and make up something wonderful. This is something that we need to keep in mind. Why are you doing magic? Are you trying to impress yourself or are you doing it for your audience? And are they just spectators or are they participants in the moment?
I remember a conversation with Eugene Burger, and I asked him, "Eugene, when you go to perform, whether it’s for one person, two people, a room full or a whole auditorium, whether it’s magicians or it’s lay people, what is your number one goal?" And he looked at me without blinking an eye and said, "To fool them." And I said, "Really?" And he looked at me and said, "Why, what is it you do?" And I said, "To entertain them." If I fool them, that’s great. That’s icing on the cake. But honestly, I’ll take a pie in the face if it makes somebody laugh, if it makes them giggle, if it makes them just have fun.
How should this impact how we approach our audience when performing magic?
I’m actually writing a couple books on magic theory. We need to look at whatever we do - and especially magic - and concentrate on making them have fun.
If your audience likes you, they’re going to stop being confrontational. Every magician I know, at some point during their career or in doing magic, has had this experience: The audience has folded arms and is rolling their eyes backward, saying, "Okay, Mr. Magic Man, fool me, do your trick." You have to turn that moment around because you can’t sit there and fight your audience. And as long as they are there to fight you and confront you, there’s a problem.
We all build this little wall around us, and we don’t allow people into our personal space. In order to connect with your audience, you can’t bust through their wall. Instead you have to let them open the door for you. And once they open the door and allow you into that personal space, now you have an opportunity. Now you can tell a stupid joke and they’re still going to laugh because they like you. And if they like you, they’re having fun and they’re enjoying the moment rather than trying to deconstruct the moment.
This is all about how we approach them. I don’t think you have to be the greatest magician in the world to have your audience walk away thinking "That person was awesome!" If they had a good time and they enjoyed themselves, they’ll remember you.
How important is sleight of hand compared with entertaining?
I know guys that are some of the best "mechanics", you might call them, with cards and such in the world. But some of those guys couldn’t entertain themselves out of a wet paper sack. They can do all these great moves, but when they get in front of an audience, they freeze, or they’re boring. You’d rather watch grass grow than to watch them perform.
For example, if you’re in front of some people and you throw a ball up in the air and it vanishes, they don’t know how you did it. And whether you did it by fantastic misdirection and sleight of hand or whether you use some gizmo is irrelevant to them because all the audience saw was the ball vanish. And that’s what’s important, that moment: the ball vanished.
You have a couple of different schools of thought on this. Some magicians say, "If it’s not done with sleight of hand, then you’re not really a magician." Others say, "If you can use a gaff card and make the trick work, that’s what I’m going to do." It’s like comparing Vernon and Larry Jennings, and how they would sit together at the Magic Castle and somebody would come up with a problem to solve. There are different ways of achieving something, and which one you choose doesn’t matter. So find the things that work for you. Not everybody has great dexterity. That’s okay.
Is it essential to be a good performer in order to be involved in magic?
Not everybody in magic needs to be a performer. There can be people that just collect props, or they collect posters, or books or whatever they collect. Or they are historians.
Just because you don’t go out and perform for audiences doesn’t mean anything. You still can be in magic. You can still hang out with your magic buddies. You can still enjoy everything that is magic. You don’t have to necessarily be a professional magician.
How important is hard work in order to be successful in magic?
There are seminars about how to get rid of a bad habit, or how to create a good habit. Let’s say I want to create a habit like getting more work done in my office. I’m going to condition myself to go to work one hour earlier every day so that I can get more work done. If you do that, after about a month or so, you’ll just keep going in an hour earlier.
Or if you want to spend time writing a book, but your life is a mess. You start off by saying, "I’m going to start at least once a week, on Tuesdays. Every Tuesday I’m going to devote two hours to writing my book." At first it will be tough. You may not even make it every Tuesday. But if you keep doing it, after a couple of months, you will do it and you might even spend more than two hours. In fact, it’ll get to the point where you don’t feel right unless you do sit down and write something on your book.
You can apply that to magic. I want to learn a new trick but it’s really hard, and it’s got a lot of difficult moves. So you start practicing and you put yourself in a habit of practicing.
What can we learn about hard work from performers who have been successful in magic?
People that make it in business, or people who make it in magic - whether it’s Penn and Teller, David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy, David Blaine, Criss Angel, Mac King, any of them - they didn’t get there because they didn’t work at it.
Somebody could say, "Well, they got lucky." Did they now? Maybe the harder the work you do, the luckier you might get, and you place yourself into situations to have the opportunity to be lucky and meet somebody. But you don’t do it by sitting playing video games on Xbox or reading BS on Facebook You do it by actually going out, and because you give something else up.
So you say: "So I want to be the next Criss Angel." So what are you willing to give up? What does Criss give up? I’ll tell you what he gives up. For years he gave up hanging out with all his buddies. He gave up chasing girls everywhere, and going to the parties. He gave up tons of stuff. Why? Because he was too busy trying to be successful.
You need to ask yourself: "How am I going to learn this? How am I going to get into this position? How am I going to meet the right people that will open doors for me to get over here?" I’m not going to do it sitting at home. So you take chances. You invest money that you might lose. You invest time that you may not get back and you try things and you fail at them and then you say to yourself, well that was a mistake, so I’m going to do it different next time, but I’m not going to give up.
Does this change once you achieve a successful career in magic?
You can say "Somebody in Vegas that makes $20 million a year has got it made." Really? So are you willing to do what they do? That $20 million contract is also wrapped in golden chains. Because it means I can’t go anywhere. I’ve got to do two shows at night, whether I feel like it or not.
And I have got to go and hang upside down off the stage whether I feel like it or not, and get in that tank of water and do this trick again and again in front of my audience and smile and be happy whether I feel happy or not. Maybe I just got in a fight with my mom or my brother or whatever, but I still have to be there. It’s seven o’clock, and I’ve got to do my show. I’ve got all this money, but I don’t have any time to really enjoy it. Because most of my time is at my showroom or at the casino I work at.
And who are really my friends? The people that just want to hang out with me because I’m famous? Do I have real friends, somebody that I can talk to and they’ll just tell me the truth because they don’t want anything from me?
Why is magic so much harder in real life than when a famous magician does it on TV?
I’ve seen this on the Magic Café. Some person will attempt to do a trick, and say: "I saw David Blaine do this great trick, but I tried to do it, and this homeless guy threw a beer bottle at me."
When somebody like David Blaine or Criss Angel or anybody else is going to do magic on the street, they have a bunch of advantages you don’t have. They’ve got a crew of camera people and grip holders and light people and sound people with them and they walk up and they get to know the guy. They find a guy that is receptive to this. So now we’re going to run the cameras and I’m going to do four or five tricks. And finally we’ll do the trick that we want to show on TV. But by the time we edit the episodes, we don’t have time to show you us getting to know him. We just walk up, do the trick and it’s done. That’s the way it works.
In real life you can’t always do that. It’s tough. You watch videos of how to learn magic and then it looks great on a video. Someone like Michael Ammar or somebody else who knows what he’s doing, and everything just works great. But when you do it, that lady grabbed the deck out of my hand, or that kid ran off with my scotch and soda coins. Yep, that’s the real world.
How important is it to get experience when performing magic?
That’s the thing that’s missing from these videos. It’s not that the videos aren’t good. It’s not that the books are not good. They are good. But they don’t teach you the experience.
Say somebody wants to be a doctor. So they go to medical school for eight or nine or 10 years or whatever, and they come out and they know all the technical stuff. They know all about chemistry and how the body works and what these tools do. But when they start working with real people things don’t always happen the way the book says it might happen. So experience, experience.
I worked restaurants for years, and behind bars alongside bartenders. Some of the toughest magic to do is working beyond a bar because why? Because you’ve got alcohol involved. Alcohol plus humans often equals disaster. People will do things when they’re drunk that they wouldn’t do otherwise. And they’re not paying attention all the time.
So books can get into how to do the moves, and tell you how you might want to dress. But they can’t give you experience. You’re going to have to go up there and fail. You need to fail. You need to get busted a few times. And any magician who says "I’ve never been busted" I say: "bs. Yes, you have. Quit lying. Yes you have."
So learn from that and always be a step ahead of your audience. Always have an out in the back of your mind and say "What happens if this fails on me?" You must be able to adapt. Or do you just say "Oh sorry, it didn’t work." That’s really not a good out. You need to be able to take a bad situation and make it into a good situation.
What has experience taught you about dealing with hecklers?
It teaches you how to deal with a rowdy spectator. For many years it was said that there’s no bad audiences, only bad magicians. I call bs on that. There could absolutely be a bad audience. You could like do a show thousands of times and it’s awesome. But then get an audience and it’s just a train wreck. You can have unruly spectators and people who basically aren’t there to have a good time.
You’ve got to understand another thing about magic: some people don’t like it. It’s a psychological thing. If they’re sitting in a seat watching a magic show, somewhere in the back of their mind, they feel that if they get amazed and fooled by this, they must be an idiot, and everyone’s going to laugh at them. It’s almost as if they think the rest of the theater is too smart for this and they would be the only ones getting fooled by it. So they have to be the heckler, the rowdy guy, or the person who knows everything.
When I was younger and did kids’ shows, I learned a couple of little tricks for dealing with kids. Kids can really be a problem. I would set up all my stuff and stand by the doorway and watch the kids for the first two or three rows. Sure enough, there’d always be some kid who is slugging other kids in the arm and pulling people’s hair. That kid’s going to be my problem, so I’m going to deal with that right now.
So you walk up and say: "What’s your name? Come here." And you take him out in the hall and say "Listen, I’m going to be doing this show and I got a couple of tricks which I’m going to need your help. Can you keep a secret?" And you get the kid involved somehow. You make him feel special. You make him feel wanted because a bully at school is a bully at school because he’s being bullied at home where he feels like he has no power. So give him some power in your show and guess what? He’s not slugging kids in the arm, shouting things at the magician, or grabbing things, because he’s part of the show now. So it’s a pre-emptive strike.
What insights about magic have you gained from your passion for science fiction?
I like things like Star Trek and Star Wars and BattleStar Galactica, Stargate SG-1. You could make a movie and put billions of dollars into it and have the greatest special effects. But if it doesn’t have good characters that you care about, it’s not a good story. A series like the Lord of the Rings by Tolkien is good because it has good characters. Similarly Star Trek has always been good - not because of the cool space ships or the battles – but because of the relationship of the characters, and their ethics and ideas of morality. That’s what creates good stories.
That also applies to magic. Magic is more than just making something appear or disappear and standing up there saying, "See how wonderful I am. Aren’t you impressed?" Good magic is about how you can touch your audience on an emotional level.
That’s why I love close-up magic. Most people have never experienced magic in person. They see it on television and they might be impressed with it, but they’re thinking in the back of their heads, "Those people were in on it", or "It was a camera trick." But when you borrow somebody’s finger ring that their mother gave them as a gift and you do something wonderful with it, there’s this emotional connection because, "Hey, that’s my ring," or "That ring belonged to my grandmother. That’s not a camera trick, that was real. I saw it."
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed hearing from Steve Brooks and reading his insights and observations as much as I did. He certainly has some real wisdom to share. There's a wealth of knowledge we can gain from interacting with fellow hobbyists, whether they be playing card collectors or magicians. So thank you Steve for doing this interview and for sharing your perspectives on magic!
Author's note: I first published this article at PlayingCardDecks here.

Team has been involved in a substantial number of the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming industries’ most significant merger and acquisition transactions, holding key positions at, and transacting with Scientific Games Corp, Inspired Gaming Group, FOX Bets, Ocean Casino Resort, Resorts International Holdings, PokerStars, DraftKings, Mohegan Sun, Caesars Entertainment Corporation, Harrah’s Entertainment, Tropicana Entertainment, Inc., TSG/Sky Betting & Gaming, Facebook, Inc, Wynn Resorts, Dubai World/MGM Resorts
Here's all the Bios. These guys are stellar! TEKK closed at $10.30 today. Still cheap!
If you don't like to read... you don't like to make money!!!!
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Matthew Davey — Chief Executive Officer and Director
Mr. Davey has over 25 years of experience within the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming ecosystems, as well as experience in the public sector. He is an experienced public company executive officer and board member. He has served in executive management positions across the gaming technology arena. Over the course of Mr. Davey’s career, he oversaw more than ten mergers and acquisitions and over $1.2 billion in debt and equity capital raised to support the companies he has led.
Most recently, Mr. Davey was Chief Executive Officer of SG Digital, the Digital Division of Scientific Games Corp. (“Scientific Games”) (Nasdaq: SGMS). SG Digital was established following the purchase by Scientific Games of NYX Gaming Group Limited (“NYX”) (formerly TSXV: NYX), where Mr. Davey served as Chief Executive Officer and Director. The NYX acquisition provided Scientific Games with a vehicle to significantly accelerate the scale and breadth of its existing digital gaming business, including the strategic expansion into sports betting. In his capacity as Chief Executive Officer of NYX, Mr. Davey developed and implemented a corporate strategy that generated strong revenue growth. Mr. Davey shaped company strategy to focus on digital gaming supplier platforms and content that provided various gaming operators with the underlying gaming and sports betting systems for their online gaming business. In 2014, Mr. Davey oversaw the initial public offering of NYX, and his experience in the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming industries helped NYX recognize momentum as a public company. After the public offering, from 2014 to 2018, Mr. Davey oversaw seven acquisitions which helped establish NYX as one of the fastest growing global B2B real-money digital gaming and sports betting platforms. These acquisitions included:
• OpenBet: In 2016, NYX completed the $385 million acquisition of OpenBet. This was one of the more complex and transformative acquisitions that Mr. Davey oversaw at NYX. Through securing co-investments from William Hill (LSE: WMH), Sky Betting & Gaming and The Stars Group (formerly Nasdaq: TSG, TSX: TSGI), Mr. Davey was able to get the acquisition from Vitruvian Partners completed successfully, winning the deal against much larger and well capitalized competitors. By combining two established and proven B2B betting and gaming suppliers, NYX was well positioned to provide customers with exciting player-driven solutions across all major product verticals and distribution channels. This allowed NYX to become the leading B2B omni-channel sportsbook platform in the market and the supplier to over 300 gaming operators globally with an extensive library of desktop and mobile game titles, including more than 700 on NYX platforms and more than 2,000 on the OpenBet platform.
• Cryptologic/Chartwell: In 2015, NYX completed the $119 million acquisition of Cryptologic and Chartwell. The acquisition provided NYX with more than 400 titles of additional leading gaming content, a broader customer base, and direct exposure to PokerStars and Intercasino, part of the Gamesys Group (LSE: GYS) — two of the world’s largest online casino offerings.
• OnGame: In 2014, NYX completed the distressed acquisition of OnGame, a premier poker content, platform and service provider. This acquisition provided NYX with one of the best poker products in the industry, access to several regulated jurisdictions, and a valuable talent pool that was instrumental in the growth of NYX. The addition of OnGame further established a path for NYX to continue its growth in both European and U.S. markets.
These acquisitions, together with meaningful organic growth, increased NYX’s revenue from $24 million in 2014 to $184 million annualized in 2017. During that time, Mr. Davey helped build NYX to have over 200 customers in the global gaming industry and a team of 1,000 employees. Mr. Davey’s success at NYX ultimately led to its sale to Scientific Games for $631 million in 2018.
Mr. Davey joined Next Gen Gaming, the predecessor to NYX, in 2000 as the Vice President of Technology, was appointed as Executive Director in 2003 and named Chief Executive Officer in 2005. Prior to that, he was the Senior Consultant for Access Systems, a company that specializes in the provision of back-end software for licensed online casinos. Prior to joining Access, Mr. Davey worked for the Northern Territory Government specializing in matters pertaining to the internet and e-commerce along with roles in the Department of Racing and Gaming. Mr. Davey received a Bachelor of Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Northern Territory University, Australia (also known as Charles Darwin University).
Robin Chhabra — President
Mr. Chhabra has been at the forefront of corporate acquisition activity within the digital gaming landscape for over a decade. His prior experience includes leading corporate strategy, M&A, and business development at two of the global leaders in the digital gaming industry, The Stars Group (“TSG”) and William Hill, and a leading supplier, Inspired Gaming Group (Nasdaq: INSE). Mr. Chhabra served on the Group Executive Committees of each of these companies. From 2017 to May 2020, Mr. Chhabra served as Chief Corporate Development Officer at TSG and, from 2019 to August 2020, he also served as the Chief Executive Officer of Fox Bet, a leading U.S. online gaming business which is the product of a landmark partnership between TSG and FOX Sports, a transaction which he led. During that period, Mr. Chhabra led several transactions which transformed TSG into the largest publicly listed online gambling operator in the world by both revenue and market capitalization and one of the most diversified from a product and geographic perspective with revenues of over $2.5 billion. Mr. Chhabra’s M&A experience is extensive and covers multiple global geographies across the digital gaming value chain and includes the following:
• TSG/Flutter Entertainment Merger: In 2019, Mr. Chhabra led the TSG M&A team that was responsible for TSG’s $12.2 billion merger with Flutter Entertainment (LSE: FLTR). The merger between TSG and Flutter Entertainment is the largest transaction in the digital gaming industry to date. The combination created the largest publicly listed online gaming company with approximately 13 million active customers and leading product offerings, which include sports betting, online casino, fantasy sports and poker. The combined entity includes some of the world’s most iconic digital gaming brands such as Fanduel, Fox Bet, Sky Bet, PaddyPower, Betfair, PokerStars and SportsBet. TSG/Flutter Entertainment is one of the most geographically diverse digital gaming and media companies with leading positions in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Germany and Georgia.
• TSG/Sky Betting and Gaming (“SBG”): In 2018, Mr. Chhabra led the acquisition of SBG from CVC Capital Partners and Sky plc, Europe’s largest media company, in a transaction valued at $4.7 billion. At the time of the acquisition SBG was the largest mobile gambling operator in the United Kingdom and one of the fastest growing of the major operators having doubled its online market share in three years. The acquisition of SBG provided TSG with (a) greater revenue diversification, significantly enhanced expertise and exposure to sports betting just ahead of the judicial overturn of The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) by the U.S. Supreme Court, (b) a leading position within the United Kingdom, the world’s largest regulated online gaming market, (c) improved products and technology as a result of the addition of SBG’s innovative casino and sports book offerings and a portfolio of popular mobile apps, and (d) expertise in deeply integrating sports betting with leading sports media companies, positioning TSG to create more engaging content, deliver faster growth and decrease customer acquisition costs.
• William Hill (LSE: WMH): At William Hill, from 2010 to 2017, Mr. Chhabra served as Group Director of Strategy and Corporate Development where he led several transactions which contributed to William Hill’s transformation from a land-based gambling operator in the United Kingdom to a leading online-led international business. Mr. Chhabra led William Hill’s entry into the U.S. sports betting and online lottery markets with the acquisition of four businesses, including the simultaneous acquisitions of three U.S. sportsbooks, Cal Neva, American Wagering and Brandywine Bookmaking, in 2011 for an aggregate purchase price of $55 million. These businesses ultimately led William Hill to achieve a leading position in the U.S. sports betting market with a market share of 24% in 2019. Additionally, Mr. Chhabra played a key role in structuring William Hill’s successful joint venture with PlayTech Plc (LSE: PTEC) in 2008. The combined entity created one of the largest online gambling businesses in Europe at the time of its formation and led to William Hill’s buyout of Playtech’s interest for $637 million in 2013. Prior to the transaction, William Hill had struggled in its attempt to establish a strong online gaming platform and a meaningful presence outside the United Kingdom.
Mr. Chhabra has also successfully completed four transactions worth over $1.2 billion in Australia, the world’s second largest regulated online gambling market, and various partnerships in Asia. Additionally, he completed several technology and media related transactions, including William Hill’s investment in NYX, where he worked with Mr. Davey on NYX’s transformational acquisition of OpenBet.
Prior to working in the gaming sector, Mr. Chhabra was an equities analyst and a management consultant. Mr. Chhabra received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Eric Matejevich — Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Matejevich is a seasoned gaming executive with extensive experience in both the online gaming and traditional casino industries. From February to August 2019, he served as Trustee and Interim-Chief Executive Officer of Ocean Casino Resort (“Ocean”) (formerly Revel Casino, which had a construction cost of $2.4 billion) in Atlantic City, where he successfully led the management team through an ownership change and operational turnaround effort. Over the course of seven months, Mr. Matejevich managed to reduce the property’s weekly cash burn of $1.5 million to an annualized cash flow run rate in excess of $20 million.
Prior to Ocean, from 2016 to 2018, Mr. Matejevich served as the Chief Financial Officer of NYX. At NYX, he focused his efforts on integrating the company’s many acquisitions and multiple debt refinancings to simplify its capital structure and provided liquidity for growth initiatives. Additionally, Mr. Matejevich was instrumental to the executive team that sold NYX to Scientific Games for $631 million.
Prior to NYX, from 2004 to 2014, Mr. Matejevich was the Chief Financial Officer of Resorts International Holdings and later, from 2011, also the Chief Operating Officer of the Atlantic Club Casino, a property under the Resorts International Holdings umbrella — a Colony Capital (NYSE: CLNY) entity. As Chief Financial Officer, he provided managerial oversight for all finance functions for a six-property casino company with annual gaming revenue exceeding $1.3 billion, 10,000 gaming positions, 7,000 hotel rooms and over 11,000 staff members during his tenure. Mr. Matejevich led the transition effort to integrate a four-casino, $1.3 billion acquisition from Harrah’s Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment (Nasdaq: CZR). As Chief Operating Officer of Atlantic Club, he lobbied for and was successful in obtaining the first internet gaming legislation passed in the United States. The Atlantic Club was the sole New Jersey casino proponent of the legislation.
Prior to serving in various gaming positions, Mr. Matejevich was a Vice President of High Yield Research for Merrill Lynch, where he managed the corporate bond research effort for the gaming and leisure sectors and marketed high yield and other debt transactions totaling $4.8 billion. Mr. Matejevich received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from The College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
Our Board of Directors
Morris Bailey — Chairman
Over the past 10 years, Mr. Bailey has been a leader in turning around Atlantic City, as well as being among the first gaming executives to embrace online gaming and sports betting in the United States. In his efforts, Mr. Bailey partnered with two of the largest digital gaming companies in the world, PokerStars, part of the Stars Group, and DraftKings (Nasdaq: DKNG). In 2010, Mr. Bailey bought Resorts Atlantic City (“Resorts”) and initiated a comprehensive renovation which allowed for the property to be rebranded and repositioned. In 2012, Mr. Bailey signed an agreement with Mohegan Sun to manage the day-to-day operations of the casino. In addition to Mohegan Sun’s operational expertise and ability to reduce costs via economies of scale, Resorts gained access to their robust customer database. Soon thereafter, Mr. Bailey and his team focused on bringing online gaming to the property. In 2015, Resorts established a platform to engage in online gaming by partnering with PokerStars, now part of the $24 billion Flutter Entertainment, PLC (LSE: FLTR), to operate an online poker room in Atlantic City. In 2018, Resorts announced deals with DraftKings and SBTech to open a sportsbook on-property and online. For 2020 year-to-date, Resorts has performed in the top quartile in internet gross gaming revenue in New Jersey. Mr. Bailey’s efforts in New Jersey helped set the framework for expansion of online sports and gaming throughout the United States.
In addition to his gaming interests, Mr. Bailey has over 50 years of experience in all facets of real estate development, asset M&A, capital markets and operations and is the founder, Chief Executive Officer and Principal of JEMB Realty, a leading real estate development, investment and management organization. Mr. Bailey has notable investment experience within the energy, finance and telecommunications sectors through investments in the Astoria Energy Plant, Basis Investment Group and Xentris Wireless.
Tony Rodio — Director Nominee
Mr. Rodio has nearly four decades of experience in the gaming industry. Most recently, Mr. Rodio served as the Chief Executive Officer and director of Caesars Entertainment Corporation (“Caesars”) (Nasdaq: CZR), one of the world’s most diversified casino-entertainment providers and the most geographically diverse U.S. casino-entertainment company, from April 2019 until its acquisition by Eldorado Resorts, Inc. in July 2020. Mr. Rodio led Caesars through its $17.3 billion merger with Eldorado Resorts, one of the largest transactions in the gaming industry to date. Additionally, Mr. Rodio was instrumental to Caesars’ expansion into the digital gaming industry and oversaw the implementation of new digital segments such as its Scientific Games powered retail sportsbook solution that now operates in various states throughout the U.S. From October 2018 to May 2019, Mr. Rodio served as Chief Executive Officer of Affinity Gaming. Prior to Affinity Gaming, he served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a director of Tropicana Entertainment, Inc. (“Tropicana”) for over seven years, where he was responsible for the operation of eight casino properties in seven different jurisdictions. During his time at Tropicana, Mr. Rodio oversaw a period of unprecedented growth at the company, improving overall financial results with net revenue that increased more than 50% driven by both operational improvements and expansion across regional markets. Mr. Rodio led major capital projects, including the complete renovation of Tropicana Atlantic City and Tropicana’s move to land-based operations in Evansville, Indiana. Each of these initiatives, among others, generated substantial value for Tropicana. Ultimately, Mr. Rodio’s efforts at Tropicana led to its sale to Eldorado Resorts in 2018 for $1.85 billion. Prior to Tropicana, Mr. Rodio held a succession of executive positions in Atlantic City for casino brands, including Trump Marina Hotel Casino, Harrah’s Entertainment (predecessor to Caesars), the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort and Penn National Gaming. He has also served as a director of several professional and charitable organizations, including Atlantic City Alliance, United Way of Atlantic County, the Casino Associations of New Jersey and Indiana, AtlantiCare Charitable Foundation and the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming Hospitality & Tourism. Mr. Rodio brings extensive knowledge of and experience in the gaming industry, operational expertise, and a demonstrated ability to effectively design and implement company strategy. Mr. Rodio received a Bachelor of Science from Rider University and a Master of Business Administration from Monmouth University.
Marlon Goldstein — Director Nominee
Mr. Goldstein is a licensed attorney with nearly 20 years of experience in the gaming space. He joined The Stars Group (Nasdaq: TSG)(TSX: TSGI) in January 2014 as its Executive Vice-President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary until his retirement from the company in July 2020 following the merger of TSG with Flutter Entertainment, PLC (LSE: FLTR). Mr. Goldstein also previously served as the Executive Vice-President, Corporate Development and General Counsel of TSG. Mr. Goldstein was also the senior TSG executive based in the United States and was one of the primary architects of TSG’s strategic vision for its U.S.-facing business. During his tenure, TSG grew from an approximately $500 million market-cap company to an approximately $7 billion market-cap company through a combination of organic growth and strategic mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Goldstein participated in numerous M&A transactions and capital markets offerings at TSG, including several transformational transactions in the digital gaming industry. Notable transactions in which Mr. Goldstein was involved include:
• TSG/Flutter Merger: In 2019, TSG merged with Flutter for a $12.2 billion transaction value, the largest transaction in the digital gaming industry to date.
• TSG/Fox Bet Partnership: In 2019, TSG entered into a partnership with FOX Sports to create FOX Bet in the U.S., a leading U.S. online gaming business. Wall Street Research estimates an approximate $1.1 billion valuation for Fox Bet post-partnership with The Stars Group.
• TSG/Sky Betting & Gaming: In 2018, TSG acquired Sky Betting & Gaming, the largest mobile gambling operator in the United Kingdom at the time, for $4.7 billion.
• TSG/CrownBet and William Hill: In 2018, TSG simultaneously acquired CrownBet and William Hill, two Australian operators, for a total of $621 million in a multi-part transaction.
• TSG/PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker: In 2014, TSG acquired The Rational Group, which operated PokerStars and Full Tilt and was the world’s largest poker business, for $4.9 billion.
Through his ability to legally structure large and complex transactions, Mr. Goldstein was integral to TSG’s vision of becoming a full-service online gaming company. Additionally, he assisted in structuring TSG’s capital markets activity, which generated liquidity for acquisitions and strengthened its balance sheet.
Prior to joining TSG, Mr. Goldstein was a principal shareholder in the corporate and securities practice at the international law firm of Greenberg Traurig P.A., where he practiced for almost 13 years. Mr. Goldstein’s practice focused on corporate and securities matters, including mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, and financing transactions. Additionally, Mr. Goldstein was the founder and co-chair of the firm’s Gaming Practice, a multi-disciplinary team of attorneys representing owners, operators and developers of gaming facilities, manufacturers and suppliers of gaming devices, investment banks and lenders in financing transactions, and Indian tribes in the development and financing of gaming facilities.
Mr. Goldstein brings experience and insight that we believe will be valuable to a potential initial business combination target business. Mr. Goldstein received a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in accounting from Emory University and a Juris Doctorate with highest honors from the University of Florida, College of Law.
Sean Ryan — Director Nominee
Mr. Ryan is a digital media and technology operator with extensive global experience in online payments, e-commerce, marketplaces, mobile ad networks, digital games, enterprise collaboration platforms, blockchain, real money gaming and online music. Since 2014, Mr. Ryan has been serving as Vice President of Business Platform Partnerships at Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”) (Nasdaq: FB), where he leads a more than 500 person global organization that manages the Payments, Commerce, Novi/Blockhain, Workplace and Audience Network businesses. Prior to his current role, Mr. Ryan was hired in 2011 as the Director of Games Partnerships to lead and grow the global Games business at Facebook. While the Director of Games Partnerships, Mr. Ryan focused on re-shaping Facebook’s games and monetization strategies to derive more value for Facebook, its users and its partners, including the addition of a Real Money Gaming offering in regulated markets. Mr. Ryan’s team helped accelerate a major trend in engagement through cross-platform games and therefore the opportunity to increase users through establishing games on multiple platforms. Prior to joining Facebook, Mr. Ryan created the new social and mobile games division at News Corp, an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by Rupert Murdoch. While at News Corp, Mr. Ryan led the acquisition of Making Fun, a San Francisco social-game start-up, that created News Corp’s games publishing division.
Before joining News Corp., Mr. Ryan founded multiple digital businesses such as Twofish, Meez, Open Wager and SingShot Media. Mr. Ryan co-founded Twofish in 2009, a virtual goods and services platform that provided developers with data analytics and insights for individual application’s digital economies. Twofish was later sold to online payments provider Live Gamer, where Mr. Ryan served on the board of directors. From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Ryan founded and led Meez.com, a social entertainment service combining avatars, web games and virtual worlds. The white label social casino gaming company Open Wager was spun out of Meez and was later sold to VGW Holdings, Mr. Ryan also co-founded SingShot Media, an online karaoke community, which was sold to Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: EA) and merged into its Sims division.
We believe Mr. Ryan’s experience will be valuable to a potential initial business combination target and would provide an expanded perspective on the digital gaming landscape. Mr. Ryan received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Tom Roche — Director Nominee
Mr. Roche has more than 40 years of experience in the gaming industry as a regulator, advisor and independent auditor. Mr. Roche joined Ernst & Young (“EY”) as a partner in 2003 and opened its Las Vegas office. He was subsequently appointed as the Office Managing Partner and Global Gaming Industry Market Leader. In 2016, Mr. Roche relocated to the EY Hong Kong office to supervise the expansion of the EY Global Gaming Industry practice in the Asia Pacific region. Mr. Roche has been integral to numerous transactions that have shaped the current gaming landscape, including:
• Wynn Resorts (Nasdaq: WYNN) initial public offering: Mr. Roche was the lead partner on Wynn Resort’s initial public offering, which raised $450 million in 2002.
• Harrah’s Entertainment/Apollo Management Group & Texas Pacific Group: Mr. Roche headed the regulatory advisory services on the buyout of Harrah’s Entertainment, the world’s largest casino company at the time, for $17.1 billion.
• Dubai World/MGM Resorts: Mr. Roche headed the regulatory and due diligence advisory services to Dubai World in its approximately $5.1 billion investment in MGM. Dubai World bought 28.4 million MGM shares, or 9.5 percent of the casino operator, for $2.4 billion. It then invested $2.7 billion to acquire a 50% stake in MGM’s CityCenter Project, a $7.4 billion 76-acre Las Vegas development of hotels, condos and retail outlets.
• MGM Growth Properties (NYSE: MGP) initial public offering: Mr. Roche provided tax and structural transaction services to MGM Resorts in the creation of MGM Growth Properties, a publicly traded REIT engaged in the acquisition, ownership and leasing of large-scale destination entertainment and leisure resorts. MGM Growth Properties raised $1.05 billion in its 2016 initial public offering.
Mr. Roche also directed EY advisory services to boards and management teams for profit improvement and technology related initiatives. In addition, Mr. Roche provided advisory support to the American Gaming Association on several research projects, including those specifically related to sports betting, the revocation of The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) and anti-money laundering best practices in the gaming industry. Equally, he has assisted government agencies in numerous international locations with enhancing their regulatory approach to governing the industry especially in the online gambling sector.
Prior to joining Ernst & Young, Mr. Roche served as Deloitte’s National Gaming Industry Leader and as the co-head of Andersen’s Gaming Industry Practice in Las Vegas. In 1989, Mr. Roche was appointed by then Governor of the State of Nevada, Robert Miller, to serve as one of three members of the Nevada State Gaming Control Board for a four-year term, where he was directly responsible for the Audit and New Games Lab Divisions. As a board member, he spent a substantial amount of time assisting global jurisdiction regulators enact gaming legislation in the design of their regulatory structure. During his career, Roche has been involved in numerous public and private offerings of equity and debt securities. His background includes providing casino regulatory consulting services to casino licensees and to federal and state agencies including the National Indian Gaming Commission and the Nevada State Gaming Control Board, and industry associations such as the Nevada Resort Association and the American Gaming Association.
We believe Mr. Roche’s highly regarded reputation as a gaming auditor and advisor in the gaming industry will be valuable for us and a potential business combination target. Mr. Roche is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and is licensed by the Nevada State Board of Accountancy and Mississippi State Board of Public Accountancy. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Southern California.

Period: 28.79 days

	Submissions	Comments
Total	998	12151
Rate (per day)	34.66	400.14
Unique Redditors	630	2168
Combined Score	35640	42023

Top Submitters' Top Submissions

1. 1509 points, 7 submissions: Imamoto
   
   1. We all would be fit af (368 points, 11 comments)
   2. money = skill (349 points, 31 comments)
   3. It‘s kinda both (252 points, 13 comments)
   4. Always in need (212 points, 6 comments)
   5. IH did change a lot during the last years (205 points, 25 comments)
   6. Yeah, how is that possible? (91 points, 18 comments)
   7. I hope it‘s better than it looks (32 points, 3 comments)
2. 1173 points, 13 submissions: Reliiq
   
   1. CNY preview (184 points, 113 comments)
   2. Second batch of Void Enabled heroes! Next Wednesday on TapTap (163 points, 160 comments)
   3. Prophet Orbs + Heroic Miracle event rewards (153 points, 92 comments)
   4. Details about Void Expansion (107 points, 52 comments)
   5. Campaign Drop & Wishing fountain + Gem boxes rewards (96 points, 24 comments)
   6. Delacium new skin (89 points, 21 comments)
   7. Imp's Adventure + Shelter event rewards (84 points, 53 comments)
   8. Campaign Drop + Casino event rewards (72 points, 52 comments)
   9. Tussilago - New Light Assassin (65 points, 52 comments)
   10. Void Ark update on Taptap server (64 points, 24 comments)
3. 966 points, 9 submissions: Leffious2
   
   1. Is morax worth building? I think I might be able to E69 him. (439 points, 31 comments)
   2. Finally got my 0st antlers cane. (306 points, 11 comments)
   3. Wow thanks for the rewards. (85 points, 21 comments)
   4. I guess we will never get e10 heroes. (66 points, 12 comments)
   5. Delacium army already paying off boys. (29 points, 13 comments)
   6. Honestly I just wasted my time. (16 points, 2 comments)
   7. Hero exchange event heroes next week. (12 points, 5 comments)
   8. My heart watcher died on round 2, but I still hit my first 150B damage. (12 points, 3 comments)
   9. Next week mysterious chests has 8k relic and guild coin chest with Flora. (1 point, 5 comments)
4. 904 points, 30 submissions: JimmyBeh18
   
   1. [Guide] Void Ark And Starspawns Comprehensive Guide (Picture Version) (393 points, 112 comments)
   2. Preview Of Void Ark And Galactic Tree (88 points, 37 comments)
   3. New Light Reassemble By 菠萝4747 (70 points, 19 comments)
   4. More Details Of Void Ark And Void Egg (46 points, 15 comments)
   5. Second Batch Heroes Imprints And Void Ark Improvements (41 points, 14 comments)
   6. [Guide] Void Ark And Starspawns Comprehensive Guide (30 points, 15 comments)
   7. Low Specs Inosuke With Antlers Fighting Realms Puppet And Boss At Void Corruption 4X (29 points, 19 comments)
   8. Inosuke Fighting Realms Gate Puppet And Boss With Void Corruption 6x (28 points, 25 comments)
   9. Delacium And Morax Clear Abyss Seal Land 20 (20 points, 2 comments)
   10. Antlers Inosuke With 10 Star Supporter Fight Void Corruption 46 Gluttony And Plunder (17 points, 9 comments)
5. 808 points, 3 submissions: DonAdmir
   
   1. The most useful character in idle heroes (755 points, 31 comments)
   2. Its meme time (44 points, 1 comment)
   3. Can u help me, my Garuda is rly bad (9 points, 10 comments)
6. 725 points, 2 submissions: MiekoOnReddit
   
   1. Why is this still sent as mail..just give us the rewards when we kill the BOSS (637 points, 16 comments)
   2. He's a bit confused but he got the spirit (88 points, 14 comments)
7. 715 points, 9 submissions: Citralityy
   
   1. A quick word of advice from our colleagues over at Facebook (291 points, 20 comments)
   2. Just spent 15 min prepping everything for my attempt to finally push to Death 100 and I get treated with this (171 points, 29 comments)
   3. Can we please make a weekly thread for this Facebook stuff lolol (152 points, 34 comments)
   4. Well, I was number 1 Aspen Dungeon on my server for effectively 1 day before server merge hit me lol (44 points, 8 comments)
   5. Just got this. Do I open this as my first? (23 points, 14 comments)
   6. Is it worth going further than this? Or should I start imprinting other heroes now? (11 points, 15 comments)
   7. Can anyone sort the man out? (10 points, 12 comments)
   8. is this little guy generally good even tho i dont have a Russel? (9 points, 5 comments)
   9. when we timer is still running but I can force ene, do I get the rewards for the ones that are progressing still? Or should I end tomorrow? (4 points, 9 comments)
8. 685 points, 3 submissions: gxpopo
   
   1. Petition to replace Limited Skin into Core of Transcendence. (529 points, 28 comments)
   2. Dh "The Rock" Joonson Aspen Dungeon motivation quote (152 points, 11 comments)
   3. Forest Seal Land 20 - V3 Flora (4 points, 1 comment)
9. 618 points, 2 submissions: ibex_sm
   
   1. [Suggestion] Add a counter to Void Ark so you can see how many heroes deployed (502 points, 32 comments)
   2. Such relief every time (116 points, 20 comments)
10. 510 points, 3 submissions: damycho
    
    1. Please DH, add the damn smash all button (406 points, 31 comments)
    2. Yooo that was close (81 points, 7 comments)
    3. Cleared my last SL today (23 points, 5 comments)

Top Commenters

1. Reliiq (790 points, 75 comments)
2. CptnSAUS (785 points, 180 comments)
3. RoddyBobby (611 points, 115 comments)
4. JimmyBeh18 (484 points, 149 comments)
5. FruitCrisps (347 points, 44 comments)
6. EppiDL (344 points, 105 comments)
7. FurSkyrimXB1 (316 points, 64 comments)
8. Lethal-Force (315 points, 106 comments)
9. FeelTheShadow (307 points, 72 comments)
10. IH-Fury (305 points, 81 comments)

Top Submissions

1. The most useful character in idle heroes by DonAdmir (755 points, 31 comments)
2. Why is this still sent as mail..just give us the rewards when we kill the BOSS by MiekoOnReddit (637 points, 16 comments)
3. Petition to replace Limited Skin into Core of Transcendence. by gxpopo (529 points, 28 comments)
4. [Suggestion] Add a counter to Void Ark so you can see how many heroes deployed by ibex_sm (502 points, 32 comments)
5. [GUIDE] Void Vortex by itirnitii (483 points, 75 comments)
6. Is morax worth building? I think I might be able to E69 him. by Leffious2 (439 points, 31 comments)
7. Can we have a button to upgrade the heroes directly at lvl 100 plz by Mother-Winner3308 (431 points, 35 comments)
8. Sum up the recent events by nghianc (425 points, 28 comments)
9. Truth has been spoken by TwitchIma (410 points, 18 comments)
10. Please DH, add the damn smash all button by damycho (406 points, 31 comments)

Top Comments

1. 136 points: FranticFrogX's comment in Can we all agree that latest events were actually good?
2. 131 points: night_ID's comment in The most useful character in idle heroes
3. 122 points: baby_you_suck's comment in [GUIDE] Void Vortex
4. 114 points: Shadow-_-M's comment in 6 elite light pulls...
5. 110 points: FruitCrisps's comment in Incredible prediction on the next light hero
6. 109 points: beppeskate57's comment in New Light Robot Lady
7. 107 points: Reliiq's comment in Campaign Drop + Casino event rewards
8. 101 points: cAsH_mOnEy_aLpHa's comment in what did i just watched 💀
9. 98 points: Mojello_'s comment in 3 years ago still haunts me to this day
10. 87 points: mimo-bobo's comment in CNY preview

Generated with BBoe's Subreddit Stats

"Some Simple tips for CD devs to make CP2077 feel more alive in upcoming DLCs (Please read)
First off, this game was an aesthetic treat and compared to GTAV, it is indeed much more "dense" with the core areas so much more beautiful in that regard... But no game is perfect, nor is it realistic in this decade to expect a full "city simulator" for any dev or in any game, so that's not what I'm expecting out of Night City not even under the most ideal of circumstances... That said, there are plenty of room for improvement, bug fixes sure, but also beyond that I'd like to see more in the upcoming DLC's that make NightCity more alive, not even necessarily newer and larger maps, but just practical added-elements and additional functional components that would go a long way towards making the city appear more 'alive', and immersive and dynamic and all that was illuded to but never fully manifested...
So in terms of most bang for buck and the low-hanging fruit (80/20 principle):

TRANSPORTATION

1) Bring back (or rather develope for the first time) the promised subway system... this shouldn't be that hard to do... it would add an element of connectivity of the different parts of the city... Leave fast travel as an option, for those that want to ride the train shouldn't be forced to use loading screens
2) Air taxi(s) -- in the age of Telsa self driving cars, hyperloops, drone taxis we should have plenty of automated air taxi options in the world of CP2077, basically like the taxi hailing component in GTAIV (Liberty City) except the player can hail an air taxi that lands close to where he is standing, he gets in, and then chooses any destination and it automatically flys him to the location, while allowing him to look out the windows and enjoy the night city from above / higher perspective... this is simplier than simply giving the player ability to fly hovercars/etc since an air taxi is just from point to point and its trivial to code a system that flys the player from any point in the city to any other point without crashing into any buildings... we've seen NightCity from the ground, now lets see it from the sky!
3) Rented transporation -- user pays to be able to rent jet packs, hoverboards, scooters at different locations in the city so he can use a public transportation but on a personal level... for the jet packs cap a max height so that its still basically hovering at or around slightly above ground level, giving the user the discretion of travel but not allowing him to fly or scale above buildings etc... this requires money to rent and if the equipment is damaged, lost, stolen or not returned properly the users bank account will be deducted for the amount ( see #ECONOMY)

INTERIORS

1) Skyscrapers with observation deck -- in every major city there is a theme like this, take Seattle for example you can visit the tallest building in Seattle downtown and go up on the obs deck and see the city view from high above, I would say incorporate some options like this where user can enter some of the taller buildings in NightCity, ride up the elevator to the higher decks and see the city from that view... maybe even add a floor with fine dinning where user can take a friend/date/group to the restuarant and eat while enjoying watching the scenery of the nightcity below etc...
2) All major buildings enter-able (is that a word? lol) with at least a ground lobby.... right now most of the buildings are just fake exteriors, nice to look at from the outside but completely fake and empty with no insides... Due to system restrains its not practical to simulate every room of every floor of every building in nightcity with furnished interiors and real windows and all that... but at least make the first floor /lobby area of every large and major building enter-able so that the character can walk in and out of them... for certain buildings you may want to make a working/functional lobby elevator that leads to an underground garage and/or allows the user to ride the elevator to above ground higher floors of the building... or have the elevator only allow certain floors to be accessed and furnish these floors with realistic settings/environment and this can tie in nicely with the job/work/career paths discussed in #ECONOMY section with gives you the office space to put a number of companies in which the user can find and switch jobs and work in corporate paths etc... for example allow the user to customize and decorate his own "office/desk", and if he has a window office, then that would provide another unique view/scenery of nightcity from above ground perspective, one that can only be gotten from working at that particular company/job, and gives him an incentive to work late to see the city from nighttime while burning the midnight oil
3) Multiple apartments, the user should be able to pick and choose from a vast selection and array of living arrangements and this necessities a lot of hotel/condo/apartment options which means these buildings need to have interiors and furnished and environments fully built out...

ECONOMY

1) Ability to find and work a job, with multiple career paths and with ability to move up in the corporate world... this provides the user with a stead stream of income for which he can use to buy fancier cars, to move into newer and better apartments /condos etc.. and to buy fancier items like designer cloths and the suches... not to mention to spend on fine dinning in high end restuarants which can tie in nicely with going on datings, impressing women with luxury cars and expensive meals and "date nights out" at elaborate events.... basically there has to be a purpose and meaning to making more money, and the process of making more money has to be derived from a job or work or career of some sort as the main component...
Have a real economy with unemployment, inflation, commodity prices, and all of that impact and influence and affect the user in his everyday life... for example if a major terror event or pandemic causes the Nightcity to suffer an economic depression for a few months then its possible the company that the user is working at has to lay off people and he gets canned and has to downsize to a smaller apartment, loses his girlfriend/wife, and then has to find another lower paying job and stuck in the downward cycle for a few years until he is able to win the lottery (#GAMBLING/SPECUTLATION/BETTING) or his luck somehow changes...
Everything should cost money, it costs money to rent an apartement and it should also cost money to eat and drink... basically he user has to spend money to eat otherwise he will starve to death... and the user has to keep paying rent every month for whatever apartment he resides otherwise he gets evicted and could even become homeless and have to live in one of those nasty tents in tenty city or under a highway bridge etc etc
Grocery stores, restuarants, movie theaters, hotels, and shopping malls... There should be at least a few convinennce stores, shopping malls, restuarants and other retail places spread throughout nightcity, this is a component and element of the economy as well as a means for the user to spend all the hard earned money he worked towards... for example if you give a homeless a few bucks he should be able to use it to spend at a store on the corner to get something to eat and then that makes him happy because he is no longer so hungry... there should be a tie in for economy, money, and the ability to exchange that for goods and services (barber, tatto artists cough cough) and associate these goods and services to emotional feelings of happiness and satisfication for both the user /player and the NPCs...

SEASONS

There should be a distinction between autumn/fall, spring, summer, winter etc... This gives a big cycle sense of passage of time that cannot be simulated with the current day/night cycles along... in the winter the sun should rise and set at different times/angles than the summer...
In addition, I'd like to see an accurate night sky map/ stars. NightCity takes place in SoCal, its trivial to map the nightsky for the year 2077 in the SoCal area... even in the latest Flight Simulator 2020 the stars are now accurate at night...
Ability to choose LIVE weather based on current user location (see Flight Simulator) so say its raining in Dallas Texas where a user is playing, then in NightCity it will match that and we raining in the game as well... also ability to customize weather on-the-fly in real-time (see Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020) and have that instantly change in the game without reloading...
Along with seasons I'd like to be able to see holiday celebrations for example Christmas time espeically... I want to hear holiday music and see buildings decorated with Christmas lights and the jolly spirits of it all... Think the ambiance and environment of say Polar Express, bring that alive to Night City for Xmas...

MINI GAMES and other Microcosm

There is a "Go" board in Chinatown... but its fake... and the players aren't even attempting to play Go... See what Google Deepmind did with AlphaGo, Facebook made an OpenGo that they open sourced... there is also LeelaZero and KataGo free AI engines that have already been trained using deeplearning/machineAI to be far better than the Go masters... the same applies to Chess by the way... but I didn't see a Chess board in Night City yet... in any case all these board games the computer AI can now master... make these games playable in NightCity, so the user can watch two NPC's play a round of Go/Chess/etc (Ai vs Ai) or can join and sit down and take a seat and play against an NPC a real game of Go/Chess, (or in the future if CP gets a multiplayer than humans can play against one another etc) basically a microcosms and games-within-a-game....
Spotify/Netflix/youTube integrations... I'd like to see the user have a portable/personal mp3 player or app on his virtual smartphone that allows him to link to his personal -reallife- spotify account to listen to music while in the game... also on the TV screens at home to be able to watch netflix movies while in this virtual apartment chilling with his date/friends... and things like YouTube integration would be nice... maybe even pornhub integration....
Other simple games like darts, bowling and even toys like RC cars or DJI drones... give the use the ability to fly drones (check out DJI Simulator) or operate rc model cars etc... basically toys that he can buy at electronic stores or corner outlets that he can then use these toys in real life for any variety of enjoyments... this also ties into #ECONOMY and why its important to have a good job /career that pays good money!

GAMBLING/SPECUTLATION/INVESTMENTS/BETTING

Have some form of virtual casinos in the game, NightCity reminds me of Vegas, yet not one slot machine and not one means to gamble or bet? How about the ability to play the stockmarket, bitcoins, and make bets and well as go gambling, cards, poker, etc this not only provides a form of entertainment but also gives the user a way to quickly win / lose a lot of money and for the risk takers they may wish to invest their money in high risk high reward speculative stocks in the stock market instead of immediately spending it on a new apartment, new car, new tech gadget etc etc... this would also tie back to #ECONOMY since the more the user earns the more income he has to spend on gambling/stocks and the better the economy does the higher his stocks return on investment...

ROMANCE/RELATIONSHIPS

Should be able to court any pretty woman on the streets, to walk up to her and say hi and have a path/chance to a dialogue that leads to setting up a first date... and following that if it goes well can progress to more dates and evetnually her moving in with the user and eventually even having a kid, getting married, and the works... each female NPC should have a male preference and a threshold of compatiblity... so that for example if on the first date the guy is cheap and takes her to low end resturant, doesn't have a nice car to pick her up with, and otherwise seems like a low life then she wouldn't process/continue with him... whereas if he is already established with a multimillion apartment, supercar, takes her to most expensive restuarant in NightCity, then I could see her going back to his place on the first date and maybe even getting pregnant right then and there that night etc..."

First off, this game was an aesthetic treat and compared to GTAV, it is indeed much more "dense" with the core areas so much more beautiful in that regard... But no game is perfect, nor is it realistic in this decade to expect a full "city simulator" for any dev or in any game, so that's not what I'm expecting out of Night City not even under the most ideal of circumstances... That said, there are plenty of room for improvement, bug fixes sure, but also beyond that I'd like to see more in the upcoming DLC's that make NightCity more alive, not even necessarily newer and larger maps, but just practical added-elements and additional functional components that would go a long way towards making the city appear more 'alive', and immersive and dynamic and all that was illuded to but never fully manifested...
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So in terms of most bang for buck and the low-hanging fruit (80/20 principle):
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In real life there is a sense of interconnecitivity and permanance... NightCity doesn't have this and is just a disconnected Hodgepodge of static elements that have no effect on one another... for example I should be able to balance the transportation cost of getting to work versus the career path that I want and the amount of money I'm making and taking into account my net worth... it wouldn't make sense for me to accept an entry level position that requires hours of commute every morning when I'm living on the other end of town... and on the otherhand if I'm processed to a VP making bigly bucks I can afford to take the automated air taxi every morning to work in central business district and still live outside by the beautiful beachfront property etc... likewise a downturn in the economy will affect my company and I could get laid off or no bonus for the year, or if I'm working a gig job that is seasonal then come spring I wouldn't need to find a second side gig to make up for the loss of income... and all of that ties into what kind of loft I can afford, what kind of car I can buy/lease/rent and the food I can eat (tv dinner vs fine dining) and the cloths that I can put in my back which affects the sort of women on the street that I can radnomdly hit on and get intro interested into d going on a date with me etc etc etc... its all interconnected and has a continuation that affecst so much more than just mindless NPCs spawning and despawning right in front on my eyes...
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#TRANSPORTATION
1) Bring back (or rather develope for the first time) the promised subway system... this shouldn't be that hard to do... it would add an element of connectivity of the different parts of the city... Leave fast travel as an option, for those that want to ride the train shouldn't be forced to use loading screens
2) Air taxi(s) -- in the age of Telsa self driving cars, hyperloops, drone taxis we should have plenty of automated air taxi options in the world of CP2077, basically like the taxi hailing component in GTAIV (Liberty City) except the player can hail an air taxi that lands close to where he is standing, he gets in, and then chooses any destination and it automatically flys him to the location, while allowing him to look out the windows and enjoy the night city from above / higher perspective... this is simplier than simply giving the player ability to fly hovercars/etc since an air taxi is just from point to point and its trivial to code a system that flys the player from any point in the city to any other point without crashing into any buildings... we've seen NightCity from the ground, now lets see it from the sky!
3) Rented transporation -- user pays to be able to rent jet packs, hoverboards, scooters at different locations in the city so he can use a public transportation but on a personal level... for the jet packs cap a max height so that its still basically hovering at or around slightly above ground level, giving the user the discretion of travel but not allowing him to fly or scale above buildings etc... this requires money to rent and if the equipment is damaged, lost, stolen or not returned properly the users bank account will be deducted for the amount ( see #ECONOMY)
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#JOBS/CAREERS/WORK/EDUCATION/GIGs
Ability to work a day job to earn steady money and climb a career ladder by taking courses or going to school at night... ability to go on the nightcity job boards or online to hunt and interview for other jobs... to change industries and do other jobs... to participate in the Gig economy... like drive around in some version of ubereats delivering food or packages to people... or a corporate desk job thats basically on the computer all day... for corporate day jobs the game should give the user the ability to fastforward just like he can go to bed and fast forward for eight hours etc....
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#INTERIORS
1) Skyscrapers with observation deck -- in every major city there is a theme like this, take Seattle for example you can visit the tallest building in Seattle downtown and go up on the obs deck and see the city view from high above, I would say incorporate some options like this where user can enter some of the taller buildings in NightCity, ride up the elevator to the higher decks and see the city from that view... maybe even add a floor with fine dinning where user can take a friend/date/group to the restuarant and eat while enjoying watching the scenery of the nightcity below etc...
2) All major buildings enter-able (is that a word? lol) with at least a ground lobby.... right now most of the buildings are just fake exteriors, nice to look at from the outside but completely fake and empty with no insides... Due to system restrains its not practical to simulate every room of every floor of every building in nightcity with furnished interiors and real windows and all that... but at least make the first floor /lobby area of every large and major building enter-able so that the character can walk in and out of them... for certain buildings you may want to make a working/functional lobby elevator that leads to an underground garage and/or allows the user to ride the elevator to above ground higher floors of the building... or have the elevator only allow certain floors to be accessed and furnish these floors with realistic settings/environment and this can tie in nicely with the job/work/career paths discussed in #ECONOMY section with gives you the office space to put a number of companies in which the user can find and switch jobs and work in corporate paths etc... for example allow the user to customize and decorate his own "office/desk", and if he has a window office, then that would provide another unique view/scenery of nightcity from above ground perspective, one that can only be gotten from working at that particular company/job, and gives him an incentive to work late to see the city from nighttime while burning the midnight oil:)
3) Multiple apartments, the user should be able to pick and choose from a vast selection and array of living arrangements and this necessities a lot of hotel/condo/apartment options which means these buildings need to have interiors and furnished and environments fully built out...
​
​
#ECONOMY
1) Ability to find and work a job, with multiple career paths and with ability to move up in the corporate world... this provides the user with a steady stream of income for which he can use to buy fancier cars, to move into newer and better apartments /condos etc.. and to buy fancier items like designer cloths and the suches... not to mention to spend on fine dinning in high end restuarants which can tie in nicely with going on datings, impressing women with luxury cars and expensive meals and "date nights out" at elaborate events.... basically there has to be a purpose and meaning to making more money, and the process of making more money has to be derived from a job or work or career of some sort as the main component...
2) Have a real economy with unemployment, inflation, commodity prices, and all of that impact and influence and affect the user in his everyday life... for example if a major terror event or pandemic causes the Nightcity to suffer an economic depression for a few months then its possible the company that the user is working at has to lay off people and he gets canned and has to downsize to a smaller apartment, loses his girlfriend/wife, and then has to find another lower paying job and stuck in the downward cycle for a few years until he is able to win the lottery (#GAMBLING/SPECUTLATION/BETTING) or his luck somehow changes...
3) Everything should cost money, it costs money to rent an apartement and it should also cost money to eat and drink... basically he user has to spend money to eat otherwise he will starve to death... and the user has to keep paying rent every month for whatever apartment he resides otherwise he gets evicted and could even become homeless and have to live in one of those nasty tents in tenty city or under a highway bridge etc etc
4) Grocery stores, restuarants, movie theaters, hotels, and shopping malls... There should be at least a few convinennce stores, shopping malls, restuarants and other retail places spread throughout nightcity, this is a component and element of the economy as well as a means for the user to spend all the hard earned money he worked towards... for example if you give a homeless a few bucks he should be able to use it to spend at a store on the corner to get something to eat and then that makes him happy because he is no longer so hungry... there should be a tie in for economy, money, and the ability to exchange that for goods and services (barber, tatto artists cough cough) and associate these goods and services to emotional feelings of happiness and satisfication for both the user /player and the NPCs...
​
​
#SEASONS
​
There should be a distinction between autumn/fall, spring, summer, winter etc... This gives a big cycle sense of passage of time that cannot be simulated with the current day/night cycles along... in the winter the sun should rise and set at different times/angles than the summer...
​
In addition, I'd like to see an accurate night sky map/ stars. NightCity takes place in SoCal, its trivial to map the nightsky for the year 2077 in the SoCal area... even in the latest Flight Simulator 2020 the stars are now accurate at night...
​
Ability to choose LIVE weather based on current user location (see Flight Simulator) so say its raining in Dallas Texas where a user is playing, then in NightCity it will match that and we raining in the game as well... also ability to customize weather on-the-fly in real-time (see Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020) and have that instantly change in the game without reloading...
Along with seasons I'd like to be able to see holiday celebrations for example Christmas time espeically... I want to hear holiday music and see buildings decorated with Christmas lights and the jolly spirits of it all... Think the ambiance and environment of say Polar Express, bring that alive to Night City for Xmas...
​
​
#MINI GAMES and other Microcosm
​
There is a "Go" board in Chinatown... but its fake... and the players aren't even attempting to play Go... See what Google Deepmind did with AlphaGo, Facebook made an OpenGo that they open sourced... there is also LeelaZero and KataGo free AI engines that have already been trained using deeplearning/machineAI to be far better than the Go masters... the same applies to Chess by the way... but I didn't see a Chess board in Night City yet... in any case all these board games the computer AI can now master... make these games playable in NightCity, so the user can watch two NPC's play a round of Go/Chess/etc (Ai vs Ai) or can join and sit down and take a seat and play against an NPC a real game of Go/Chess, (or in the future if CP gets a multiplayer than humans can play against one another etc) basically a microcosms and games-within-a-game....
Spotify/Netflix/youTube integrations... I'd like to see the user have a portable/personal mp3 player or app on his virtual smartphone that allows him to link to his personal -reallife- spotify account to listen to music while in the game... also on the TV screens at home to be able to watch netflix movies while in this virtual apartment chilling with his date/friends... and things like YouTube integration would be nice... maybe even pornhub integration....
Other simple games like darts, bowling and even toys like RC cars or DJI drones... give the use the ability to fly drones (check out DJI Simulator) or operate rc model cars etc... basically toys that he can buy at electronic stores or corner outlets that he can then use these toys in real life for any variety of enjoyments... this also ties into #ECONOMY and why its important to have a good job /career that pays good money!
​
#GAMBLING/SPECUTLATION/INVESTMENTS/BETTING
Have some form of virtual casinos in the game, NightCity reminds me of Vegas, yet not one slot machine and not one means to gamble or bet? How about the ability to play the stockmarket, bitcoins, and make bets and well as go gambling, cards, poker, etc this not only provides a form of entertainment but also gives the user a way to quickly win / lose a lot of money and for the risk takers they may wish to invest their money in high risk high reward speculative stocks in the stock market instead of immediately spending it on a new apartment, new car, new tech gadget etc etc... this would also tie back to #ECONOMY since the more the user earns the more income he has to spend on gambling/stocks and the better the economy does the higher his stocks return on investment...
​
#ROMANCE/RELATIONSHIPS
Should be able to court any pretty woman on the streets, to walk up to her and say hi and have a path/chance to a dialogue that leads to setting up a first date... and following that if it goes well can progress to more dates and evetnually her moving in with the user and eventually even having a kid, getting married, and the works... each female NPC should have a male preference and a threshold of compatiblity... so that for example if on the first date the guy is cheap and takes her to low end resturant, doesn't have a nice car to pick her up with, and otherwise seems like a low life then she wouldn't process/continue with him... whereas if he is already established with a multimillion apartment, supercar, takes her to most expensive restuarant in NightCity, then I could see her going back to his place on the first date and maybe even getting pregnant right then and there that night etc...