When people ask me how to get into games journalism these days, my main piece of advice is “don’t.” I’m really not kidding, as while I am privileged to be where I am, it’s an almost impossible path to walk given the state of the industry and the instability found within.
Case in point, a wild scene unfolded last night as long-time gaming site The Escapist fired some of its team members, including EIC Nick Calandra, for reportedly not meeting goals set by its parent company Gamurs.
After Calandra was fired, Escapist staff members, contributors and producers all took to Twitter to announce they were also leaving the site, with many of them indicating they would be working on some new project with Calandra directly.
The departures and firings essentially cleaned out the entirety of The Escapist’s video department, including most significantly at all, the departure of Yahtzee Croshaw, the voice of Zero Punctuation, one of the oldest and most famous game criticism video series, and one I grew up watching long before I started doing this for a living. Croshaw resigned, but he does not own the rights to Zero Punctuation itself, so whatever he does next, it will be without that branding. Though it’s obvious the branding can’t survive without him, even if The Escapist retains it.
By all accounts Calandra was a great EIC, and clearly inspired a lot of loyalty in those working for him, given the events of last night. Gamurs feels like yet another company trying to squeeze blood from a stone with likely unreasonable growth targets in an industry where large increases are more or less impossible.
‘The Escapist’ Faces Mass Resignations After EIC Firing, 7 November 2023
Nor is The Escapist the only place where some major shakeups in entertainment journalism are coming. It’s going to be intriguing to see how things develop going forward, as some of our competitors – who shall go unnamed – are similarly structured and are facing similar pressures, which suggests that it may not be too much longer before experiencing similar disruptions forced by the financial interests.
As to why this is suddenly happening among companies that were acquired in the last ten years, the answer is economic: the acquisitions were made with debt that was obtained at historically low interest rates. Now that the interest rates on that debt is rising, the acquisitions are no longer as profitable as the acquiring company expected them to be, thereby leading the acquirers to put pressure on the acquired companies to produce more and more money.
Once these debt finance-driven demands start cutting into the resources required to perform basic functions, and once key personnel start leaving instead of subjecting themselves to the ever-increasing demands of the new owners, the death spiral has begun and the fate of the organization is sealed.
Which, of course, is a very good thing for its stronger, more conservative competitors.
The United States has for the first time begun buying Japanese seafood to supply its military there, a response to China’s ban on such products imposed after Tokyo released treated water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.
Unveiling the initiative in a Reuters interview on Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said Washington should also look more broadly into how it could help offset China’s ban that he said was part of its “economic wars.”
China, which had been the biggest buyer of Japanese seafood, says its ban is due to food safety fears.
The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog vouched for the safety of the water release that began in August from the plant wrecked by a 2011 tsunami. G7 trade ministers on Sunday called for the immediate repeal of bans on Japanese food.
“It’s going to be a long-term contract between the U.S. armed forces and the fisheries and co-ops here in Japan,” Emanuel said. “The best way we have proven in all the instances to kind of wear out China’s economic coercion is come to the aid and assistance of the targeted country or industry,” he said.
The first purchase of seafood by the U.S. under the scheme involves just shy of a metric ton of scallops, a tiny fraction of more than 100,000 tons of scallops that Japan exported to mainland China last year.
I’m sure the Japanese seafood industry appreciates the gesture. But one can’t help but ask two questions:
Why hasn’t the USA been buying Japanese seafood to supply its troops occupying Japan until now?
How, exactly, is replacing less than 1/100,000th of the lost business, or .001 percent, going to keep the Japanese seafood industry solvent?
French winemakers quite literally painted the town red today when they intercepted trucks carrying cheap Spanish booze and smashed crate-loads of it all over the road.
Le Boulou tollbooth, just ten miles from France’s border with Spain, was turned into a battleground this morning when dozens of protesting winemakers halted lorries and tore into their contents. They destroyed several wine shipments, smashing the bottles and pouring the red booze all over the tarmac in a vintage demonstration of the French public’s penchant for demonstrating against perceived injustices.
In videos posted on X, protesters can be seen tumbling over a mountain of crates carrying Freixenet wine. Many of the crates had been upended so their valued contents spilled out across the road. Bottles upon bottles of bubbly were seen rolling around amid a sea of broken glass and wasted booze.
What sort of world are we living in, that outrages such as these are allowed to happen! I blame teetotal immigrants and beer-swilling peasants. Thank Bacchus that they didn’t interrupt the Torres trucks!
Figures from the European Commission say wine consumption for the current year is estimated to have fallen 15 per cent in France, 7 per cent in Italy, 10 per cent in Spain, and a staggering 34 per cent in Portugal. However, production in the EU has risen by 4 per cent.
There is the real problem. Now do your patriotic duty, Frenchmen! Stand by your vines, Spaniards! Have a second glass at lunch, all you Portuguese! European civilization depends upon you!
At first glance, Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited looks like a great deal to serious readers. For only $9.99 per month, you can read whatever you want from a catalog of more than 2.5 million books. And it is a great deal, for now. The downside is that it has had terrible consequences for authors and publishers alike, consequences that will only continue to get worse over time. Here is the fundamental problem with the KU program from a book industry professional’s point of view.
The proper price range for an ebook, as defined by Amazon, is $2.99 to $9.99. Outside that range, the 70 percent royalty is halved, so those are the relevant price boundaries. While the Big 4 publishers price their new ebook releases at $9.99, Castalia generally prices its ebooks at $4.99, so we’ll use that for the purposes of analysis.
Using a hypothetical 300-page book as an example, an ebook sale generates around $3.49 in royalties for the publisher after Amazon deducts its delivery fee and infrastructure charges. A full Kindle read of the same ebook generates around $1.20 per finished book, the precise amount depending upon the monthly KENP royalty, which has recently averaged around .0040 per page read.
So, on it’s face, KU means reducing the payout to the author by about $2.29, or 52 percent. That’s bad, but superficially survivable for a successful writer.
However, the reality is considerably worse. Think about what percentage of the books you read that you actually finish. I read 4.5x faster than the average reader, I consciously try to finish every book I read on principle, and I would still estimate that my book-completion rate is only around 90 percent. Sometimes a book just isn’t that interesting, sometimes a better book comes along, and sometimes you only want a specific piece of information contained in a particular book that is otherwise of no interest to you.
And consider the fact that Amazon literally markets KU as a means of “trying out new authors”, which tends to increase the number of books that the average individual samples, but doesn’t finish, as he tries, and discards, new authors he doesn’t like.
“I would never be able to afford reading so many books if not for KU. It also allows trying new authors and series. Since I don’t need to pay extra, I’m willing to try books/authors I would normally hesitate to spend money on.”
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that KU readers finish one out of every 3 books they download onto their Kindles. That estimate is probably on the high side, given the way there is a strong correlation between readers and collectors, but it will serve to illustrate the point. This means that while an author gets paid for every ebook sold, whether it is read or not, he’s only going to get paid for the partial percentage of his KU books that were actually read.
(This is probably why KU only reports normalized pages read, not book downloads. It would likely be depressing to a lot of authors to realize how few of their books downloaded are actually read at all, let alone in full.)
Multiplying the difference between a sale and a book read (0.48) by the percentage of completed books (0.33) suggests that on average, authors are making about 15.84 percent of what they were making prior to Kindle Unlimited being introduced. It also means we can estimate the amount of ebook sales revenues that has been eliminated by Kindle Unlimited by multiplying the monthly KDP Select Global Fund for Kindle Unlimited by 6.3131, which is the inverse of that 15.84 percent.
Since the September 2023 KDP Select Global Fund was $49.6 million, this suggests that Amazon is now destroying about $313 million in potential ebook sales every single month. And this doesn’t even get into the fact that because Amazon controls the sales across its site with its A9-A11 algorithms, as well as secret algorithms like Project Nessie, to influence prices and pick winners and losers on a monthly basis.
People familiar with the FTC’s allegations in the complaint told the Journal that it all started when Amazon developed an algorithm code-named “Project Nessie.” It allegedly works by manipulating rivals’ weaker pricing algorithms and locking competitors into higher prices. The controversial algorithm was allegedly used for years and helped Amazon to “improve its profits on items across shopping categories” and “led competitors to raise their prices and charge customers more,” the WSJ reported.
So, if you want to know why so many great little independent publishers have disappeared, why independent authors are struggling, and why genre publishing houses like Tor and Baen Books are teetering on the edge of failure, and why the comics publishers like Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and IDW are facing the prospect of looming shutdowns, you’ve got your answer: Amazon ebook sales hurt the print market, and Kindle Unlimited is killing the ebook sales market.
Now, you don’t need to worry about Castalia. Even though we’ve seen the same cataclysmic decline in ebook sales that other publishers and authors have, starting in October, you’re going to see us publishing more hardcovers, paperbacks, and ebooks than you’ve seen us publish in the last three years. We just published CARAVAN OF THE DAMNED by Chuck Dixon, and next week we’ll be publishing THE ALTAR OF HATE by yours truly and QUANTUM MORTIS: A MIND PROGRAMMED & OTHER STORIES as soon as the cover art is ready. And a whole host of books that haven’t appeared in print before, including THE CASTALIA JUNIOR CLASSICS Volumes 7 and 8, are in production. We’re also going to systematically expand the number of ebooks and print editions available on the Arkhaven Store over the next year.
CHUCK DIXON’S CONAN #2: CARAVAN OF THE DAMNED
But while we probably deserve some credit for anticipating the negative consequences of KU and taking steps to avoid them, it’s your support of Library, History, and our various crowdfunding projects, and your willingness to buy books directly from us, that is the main reason Castalia is healthy while publishers who relied upon bookstores, comic stores, and Amazon to keep them afloat are rapidly circling the dustbin of history.
It’s interesting to see a post from six years ago turned into a meme. But it’s even more interesting to see how no one who purports to be an economist ever bothers to apply the financial reality to their empty theories about immigration being “good for the economy” and the need for more skilled workers somehow justifying mass immigration.
The United States, South Africa, and Zimbabwe all provide copious historical information on the economic results of changing the demographics of the population. And the per capita lifetime budgetary impact makes it clear that even a relatively small demographic shift on the order of 10 percent can have a massive and lasting impact on the wealth of nations.
For example, the annual cost to White Americans to subsidize the population of Black Americans is $420.7 billion dollars and rising. As the white population falls as a percentage of the population, so does the ability of the various levels of government to continue providing that level of subsidy. And this doesn’t even begin to take into account the additional effect of declining average IQ levels.
If you thought nothing worked before, just wait and see what happens as the converged corpocracy reduces the average intelligence of its workers by encoloring itself:
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission requires companies with 100 or more employees to report their workforce demographics every year. Bloomberg obtained 2020 and 2021 data for 88 S&P 100 companies and calculated overall US job growth at those firms.
In total, they increased their US workforces by 323,094 people in 2021, the first year after the Black Lives Matter protests — and the most recent year for which this data exists.
The overall job growth included 20,524 White workers. The other 302,570 jobs — or 94% of the headcount increase — went to people of color.
The best part is that each and every one of those new hires is a hugely expensive discrimination lawsuit that is just waiting to happen. Which is why there will be no accountability whatsoever for these 300k new workers, and very likely no performance either.
This is a fantastic opportunity for ambitious white people, because there will be no end to the need for outside contractors to do the jobs that the corporate employees won’t, or in most cases, can’t, do.
There is absolutely no way for any country, least of all one that is industrially developed, to come anywhere close to meeting the various ecological goals set for them by their various Green parties.
Germany’s flagship airline Lufthansa has warned that it would need to consume half of the country’s entire electricity output if it were to shift to green fuels such as e-kerosene, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr reportedly stated that synthetic fuels manufactured using renewable energy represented the best approach to decarbonize aviation. However, it is unlikely that there is sufficient green electricity in Germany to generate them, the executive warned.
“We would need around half of Germany’s electricity to create enough of the fuels,” Spohr was quoted as saying at an aviation conference in Hamburg. “I don’t think Mr. Habeck is going to give me that,” he added, referring to Economy and Energy Minister Robert Habeck.
Normally, I’d say one doesn’t have to be innumerate to be Green, but it helps. Except the fact is that one literally has to be totally incapable of understanding math, numbers, and basic addition to genuinely support Green Party policies.
And if you want to get a lot of cars off the roads, it’s very simple and easily accomplished in less than one year. Just ban auto loans. 89 percent of new cars and 55 percent of used cars are purchased with debt.
It’s obvious to any rational observer that NATO is losing the war in Ukraine, and is losing it badly. And by badly, I mean in terms that exceed Arabs vs IDF and are beginning to approach British regulars vs Zulus. But it was always perfectly clear to everyone who understood the nature of modern land war that the US military never had any chance whatsoever of winning either a direct or a proxy war against the Russians in Ukraine.
Just as the coming naval war with China will depend almost entirely upon shipbuilding capacity to replace the ships on both sides that are inevitably sunk, the war in Ukraine depends upon the production of artillery shells. Consider the following four points.
Artillery is the king of the battlefield again, accounting for 85 percent of the casualties in Ukraine.
One 155mm round made in the USA by USA contractors costs 5,500 dollars, while a 152mm round made in Russia costs 600 dollars.
One 152mm made in North Korea probably costs less than 60 dollars. The Russians just bought 10 million of them, and due to their oil production, can afford to buy as many shells as the North Koreans can make.
Outsourcing ammunition production to China is not exactly an option these days.
Quod erat demonstrandum. Apparently this new shell-supply arrangement is very upsetting to the South Koreans. Or rather, to their puppet masters in the US who are speaking through them. Only the USA is permitted to have allies, right?
SEOUL, Sept 19 (Reuters) – South Korea summoned Russia’s ambassador to warn Moscow against any military cooperation with North Korea on Tuesday after last week’s summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Vladimir Putin raised concerns about a possible arms deal. First Vice Foreign Minister Chang Ho-jin summoned Russia’s ambassador in Seoul to urge “Russia to immediately halt any moves to expand military cooperation with North Korea and to abide by (UN) Security Council Resolutions,” South Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
No doubt the Russians will be duly chastened and refrain from further military cooperation with the North Koreans. In the meantime, and in not-unrelated news, Poland is out of the Ukrainian arms business.
“Poland will no longer arm Ukraine to focus on its own defense,” Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced just hours after Warsaw summoned Ukraine’s ambassador related to a fresh war of words and spat over blocked grain, according to the AFP. Warsaw has throughout more than a year-and-a-half of the Ukraine-Russia war been Kiev’s staunchest and most outspoken supporter.
A business analyst predicted the Great Bifurcation on the basis of nationalism back in 2018, not due to any geostrategic acumen or historical pattern analysis, but his observation of international business activity and the transition to a younger generation of leaders:
Most great business leaders are successful because they are able to create, nurture, and support a unique and believable company value system that sets the tone for their strategy and execution. But according to the leaders I spoke with, something has changed; “Country-based value systems” are becoming increasingly important and the foundational roots of “nationalism” are starting to become more apparent in the business. By way of example, twice this week I was running different Leadership Simulations for high potential leaders. In the simulation, small teams are responsible for setting and executing a global strategy across multiple regions (which are made up of countries). I saw something in both sessions that I’ve never seen before; intense and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about how countries are losing their identities and therefore customer segments are also losing their identities which makes it harder to differentiate solutions to customers. I was surprised to see the concept of Nationalism show up in conversations about business acumen.
My take-away observation is that this is an issue that business leaders should put on their radars as my sense is that different value systems by country and market are going to be disruptive forces.
Generational Disparities are Real
The next generation of leaders are knocking on the door and their perspectives are different which is truly bothering the current leaders, but apparently not the stock markets. The next generation of leader wants their companies to do something important and meaningful and are very adept at building strong cultures quickly around values. Legacy companies that don’t make “new and cool stuff” are losing key talent and the war on talent is actually showing up in a way that is much different than anyway ever expected.
My take-away observation is that the big disruptions aren’t going to come directly from new technologies, but from new types of employees that want more value in in their business lives and if they don’t get it, will close once-thriving businesses.
Laws and Regulations are Going to Matter More
Political nationalism and in some cases political isolationism has direct impacts on business specifically when it comes to new laws and regulations. We can only all pray that physical wars don’t erupt between nations because of increased global fractionalization but one big challenge is going to be wars fought through regulations on business. It’s not a matter of if, but when.
This is fascinating, because it has long been my belief that the future can be seen, indeed, must be seen, from varying perspectives due to the fact that every change from present to future will be eventually be observed by a wide variety of individuals specializing in a wide variety of subjects. Just as a military historian can correctly anticipate that a NATO-supported Ukraine will lose a war with Russia, or that the Japan-USA historical analogy applies to a future USA-China naval war, an astute business consultant can perceive a shift in the qualitative nature of the coming executive class in the international business community and extrapolate successfully from that change.
If one is extrapolating successfully – and only time can confirm that – then the predictions in one area will necessarily line up with the predictions from another area. Think of it as transdomain futurology.
Beijing is obsessed with suppressing dissent among ethnic Chinese living in democracies and has no hesitation intimidating human-rights activists and dissidents in the West.
Beijing calls it, euphemistically, ‘persuade to return’ and thinks it legitimate because democracies will, by and large, not extradite people to dictatorships like China. Indeed, the European Court of Human Rights has effectively banned its member states (which include Britain) from extraditing to China anyone under their jurisdiction. Hence the ‘persuasion’.
China thinks it has a right to enforce this because, under Chinese law, its citizens are subject to Communist Party law wherever they live. And China’s National Intelligence Law requires its people and companies to assist Beijing’s spies whenever requested — and to keep that assistance secret.
The irony of paper citizens arguing that borders don’t exist and the economy is global, but that the Chinese people don’t have the right to govern Chinese people around the world, requires a degree of intellectual incoherence that is both impressive and historically ignorant.
Meanwhile, they have no problem with private corporations attempting to control the behavior of people of every nation, everywhere around the world.
Again, the incoherence is astounding. Especially when it wasn’t until November 1991 that the USA defined economic growth in terms of state-based Gross Domestic Product rather than the historical nation-based Gross National Product.
Finally, it’s more than a bit ironic that the article warns about China infiltrating and making use of the Five Eyes surveillance system used by Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States to spy on each other’s citizens.
