Tyler

Developing: The Los Angeles Clippers-Toronto Raptors trade centered on Kawhi Leonard will not be complete until the NBA investigation into the Clippers is over. Statement from the Clippers to ESPN:   For the past 10 months, our organization has fully cooperated with an NBA investigation, participating in dozens of interviews, providing tens of thousands of documents, and facilitating access to our staff. While the process has been challenging, we have remained committed to transparency.   On June 30, we reached an agreement in principle to trade Kawhi Leonard to the Toronto Raptors. We have since been informed that the trade can only be finalized if the Raptors' ownership group assumes the risk of penalties related to Kawhi’s contract that could theoretically result from the ongoing investigation.  The investigation is ongoing, and we expect the trade to be finalized following its conclusion.   At the heart of this investigation are Joe Sanberg and Aspiration. We did not funnel money to Kawhi Leonard through Aspiration. Like many sophisticated investors, financial institutions, and business partners, we were victims of a fraud initiated by Sanberg, who has been convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison.     We recognize the uncertainty this has created and the impact it has had on our team, our fans, the Raptors organization, their fans, and the players whose futures remain affected while this process continues.   We remain confident that, when the facts are evaluated fairly and thoroughly, the NBA will confirm exactly what we have said from the beginning: We have not done what we are accused of doing.

Asmongold goes OFF, saying "It's mind boggling that people still don't understand this. No matter whether it's physical or digital, you never truly own it” after people complained about "having" less ownership following Sony's PlayStation decision to move away from physical media copies 👀😬 “This is what makes me so mad about this just because you buy a digital version doesn't mean that you should be giving up any of your consumer rights. And this concept and this dichotomy between physical and digital editions they are just almost assumed that you have less ownership of them is bullsh*t. It is a false dichotomy that has been created by companies in order to give you the illusion that you have control. Whenever you buy a disc of something, but the disc is running on software, they can choose not to run the program”

From my perspective, Miyazaki is a rather unique, yet extremely serious game developer. His career did not begin in the game industry. In fact, he didn’t become a game developer until he was almost thirty years old. Even among developers of my generation (those of us born in the 1970s), I think it’s remarkable that someone who wasn’t even a game developer during the dawn of the polygon era eventually became one of Japan’s most representative game creators. (In other words, compared to the rest of us from the same generation—including myself—his career path is exceptionally unusual. Most notably, unlike many of us, he was not working at one of the major development studios that held a significant technological advantage during the early polygon era. That, more than anything else, is what makes his path so unique.) Next, regarding my impression of Dark Souls. People often focus on its difficulty as a game, but I believe Miyazaki’s true creativity shines through in the world he created. (By the way, I personally think Dark Souls has fairly simple action mechanics, and I don’t actually consider it to be an especially difficult game.) If you look into my own career, you’ll see that I was personally involved with the Dark Souls series and Elden Ring as the General Manager overseeing both production and marketing (Just to clarify, I wasn't part of the development team itself. My involvement was simply as the General Manager of the publisher-side department overseeing production and marketing). From that perspective, I can say that Dark Souls didn’t suddenly become a massive success overnight. It was the result of everything Miyazaki and his team had built up through their previous titles. Today, he receives offers from all over the world, but when I think back to the days when he and his team were struggling the most, many of those offers seem like they’re coming from people who only know who they are today. Some of them almost feel like complete reversals in attitude. Well, that’s just my personal perspective. Personally, I had grown tired of people who would simply compare games by saying things like, “That title cost X billion yen to make and sold Y million copies,” and then use nothing but those numbers to judge them against other games. There were so many people who couldn’t appreciate the journey or the growth of the developers themselves. Anyone can look at the current numbers—they’re available to everyone. Whenever I heard those kinds of opinions, I always thought, “That’s exactly what you’d expect from someone who’s never actually developed games.” What surprised me even more was that, even if people couldn’t properly evaluate that journey, almost nobody even seemed interested in trying to understand the process of how those developers gradually reached where they are today. (I'm NOT talking about the fan community). Now, going back to Miyazaki, there are two things about him that have always stayed with me. The first was back when I was developing Summer Lesson for VR, around the time it was generating a lot of buzz. One day, he came to try an early build of Summer Lesson along with people from several other game companies. While everyone else was laughing, chatting, and having fun with it, Miyazaki alone played it with incredible seriousness. Then, after everyone had finished and started discussing their impressions, he remained completely silent, staring intently at the preview monitor, deep in thought. Everyone became curious and finally asked him, “Miyazaki, what are you thinking about?” He suddenly smiled and said, “Oh… I got completely absorbed in thinking about what I would do if I were making this, and what kind of game I’d create.” What he talked about after that was, in the best possible sense, completely insane. It was one of those rare moments when I caught a glimpse of what I’d call his “mad scientist” side—his deeply serious, obsessive approach to creativity. The other thing that left a strong impression on me was that he generally dislikes video interviews (including live streaming). I once asked him about it by email, and he replied with quite a long explanation. After reading it, I completely understood where he was coming from. Simply put, he doesn’t like watching himself moving around on video. (Psychologically speaking, it’s actually a bit more complicated than that.) But there was another reason. According to him, there are naturally many people in this industry who know games far better than he does. Whenever he listens to those people speak, he realizes that his own understanding is still shallow, and it makes him feel that he’s not yet in a position to be the one talking about games. I mean… it’s common for well-known developers to say, “I still have a long way to go.” But whenever someone like him says that, my reaction is always, “Come on… if you say you’re still not there yet, then the rest of us won’t feel qualified to talk about games at all.” (laugh) Anyway, that’s one of the reasons why video interviews with Miyazaki are extremely rare. And conversations with him on camera—especially long-form discussions with another developer—are even rarer. They almost don’t exist at all. By the way, the other game developer in that photo is Masahiro Sakurai. If you ask me, he’s basically: “A Saiyan who genuinely believes he’s just another ordinary human.” Every now and then, when the rest of us are struggling with some problem, he’ll say something that sounds exactly like Goku saying, “Well… why don’t you just fly?” And I’ll reply, “Because we humans can’t use Flight Technique.” Then he just stares at me with a completely puzzled look. To put it in terms of Demon Slayer, I’d describe him as: "Like Muzan Kibutsuji casually showing up at a drinking party where all the Hashira have gathered, genuinely believing he's just another ordinary guest". That’s the kind of person he is.

“Kids enjoy the Minions because for them, the land of reason is still a foreign place. Adults enjoy the Minions (well, those of us adults who do enjoy the Minions, at any rate) because the land of reason is a prison, and we’ll take any escape from it we can, however brief or vicarious.” - me, 2022