Month: July 2020

This spring, the concept of “going out” became downright dangerous. As COVID-19 cases surged and stay-at-home orders were issued around the United States, millions of people hunkered down and spent their spring inside. With social activities put on pause, people stayed at home, logged on, and met their friends online instead.

Apps like Netflix Party exploded in popularity, and video calling technology once largely sequestered in the business world like Zoom became wildly popular. People all over the world checked in with loved ones, held virtual happy hours, and even theme parties. They also played a lot of games. The still-ongoing pandemic sparked record-breaking sales numbers for the video game industry. Nintendo Switch completely disappeared from stock as millions of gamers dove into Animal Crossing and others caught up on their back catalogs.

But it wasn’t just gamers playing solo while they passed the weeks and months as the pandemic raged. Couples and roommates bought up stock of board games. Sales of party games like Jackbox also soared, and through those games many people replicated the game nights they used to hold in person. A Gearbox study published in July found that 80 percent of those surveyed age 18-34 were playing more video games and watching more TV during the pandemic, 47 percent said they used games to socialize once a week or more. That’s from a company that makes Borderlands, mind you, but it speaks to the sheer number of people who have turned to games of all kinds to not just pass the time, but stay connected with others in a very trying time.

“Demand has definitely gone up. A lot of people have been introduced to our games via video conferencing software,” Jackbox Games CEO Mike Bilder said in April. “So we’ve seen quite a bit more demand and activity and sales and server activity just since this whole quarantine has been in place.”

Jackbox party games are sold in packs of five for every platform, as players use their phones to play trivia, drawing games and generally try to make their friends laugh. The games are quick to learn, come with built-in tutorials and only require access to a website — Jackbox.tv — to log in and play if they’re seeing a screen. The games are inherently meant to be played while in the same room, but the games have been popular on Twitch and other streaming sites. And so the company quickly put a guide to playing remotely on its website, exploring the various ways to play using video calls and Twitch on different consoles and devices. It also put all its packs on sale and even made games like Drawful as cheap as possible so people had something to do as unemployment and uncertainty soared.

Though the pandemic was unprecedented in many ways, Jackbox was in a position to lean into streaming and playing games over video calls because of its “audience” functions, which were added to some games that were particularly popular with large streaming audiences and at large gaming conventions like PAX.

“Those things have come out of use patterns,” Bilder said, pointing out games like Quiplash that can have up to 10,000 people in a game’s audience. “And we’ve embraced them and added features over the years to enhance them.”

Those features have put Jackbox at the forefront of games that have helped people stay connected over the last few months. Instead of going out, people sipped drinks at home trying to come up with funny things to draw with their fingers on smartphones and laughing with friends across the country. Instead of photos from nights out, social media feeds became places to drop in screenshots of the funniest answers on Jackbox.

Others had to be a bit more creative when it came adapting game night favorites to remote gaming. The online RPG site Roll20 saw a surge in people taking their Dungeons and Dragons games online, using video calling and other apps to replicate the in-person game night online. Sites like Roll20 can digitize much of the game’s necessary tools like player sheets, maps and even rolling. Others have simply had to convince people on the other side of the phone call that the natural 20 they rolled really happened, they swear.

“Playing remote D&D has been my primary means of keeping in touch with friends during the pandemic, and we’ve been surprised by how well it works,’ Ray Winnniger, executive producer of D&D Studio at Wizards of the Coast, said. “Once the dice start rolling, we feel like we’re sitting around the game table.”

And tabletop games weren’t left behind, either. Some companies have offered print-at-home games to play, including full-scale major titles that would be full price otherwise. Online versions of a number of games like Codenames became popular, too. Many cooperative games only need some slight tweaks to work remotely, though they tend to take a bit longer to coordinate move and talk over video calls. Even games like Pictionary could be played through Zoom calls using a white board or screen sharing technology.

“One of the hallmarks of Pictionary is it’s collaboration. It’s not a singular game. You’re not playing by yourself. And so by its nature you have to connect,” said Rob Angel, who created Pictionary and was thrilled to see it played remotely. “So seeing it adapted to Zoom or Facebook Live or whatever, it’s great. It really makes me feel good that it hasn’t gone by the wayside.”

Personally, I’ve played games like Burgle Bros, Pandemic and Codenames using a document camera, running the board while collaborating with friends in three different states to rob a bank, save the world or do some general espionage. DMing RPG campaigns and safely catching up with friends has been essential to feeling normal in what’s been a difficult year at times, a feeling millions can relate to over the last few months.

As the pandemic stretches into late summer and fall and states see cases continue to rise, the question for many developers becomes whether the surge in remote gaming is a sudden necessity or a more permanent trend not just the way people play games, but the distance needed to safely live. It’s something that’s already impacted the way companies make games, but it could also change the way we play them, too.

“From a personal standpoint I really hope this is temporary,” Bilder said. “There is definitely something missing to being co-located and having meetings and being able to pull in people and the spontaneity of game build. We can do things like that over video conferencing but it’s really not the same.”

Bilder said Jackbox will continue to focus on the living room experience with Party Pack 7, which will be released in the fall, but it’s a company that’s already embraced emerging markets likely to grow in the wake of extended social distancing.

“I expect going forward, if unfortunately this becomes the new norm, or we expect play to continue even if the world goes back to ‘normal’ as we knew it, play will continue to happen over video software,” Bilder said. “There will likely be some feature tweaks or some adjustments or things we will add to the game to better embrace that reality of how people are playing it.”

Most designers and companies stress remote play won’t become the centerpiece of game design, but it might create more innovative concepts as companies adjust to, as Angel called it, “the new norm.”

“It’s opened all kinds of creative doors. This is just a new technology, if you will, being quarantined,” Angel said. “It’s forcing game inventors and marketers and everybody to come up with new ways to play. And I think it’s just going to accelerate the creative process over time.”

As the United States attempts to emerge from its life in quarantine in fits and starts, for better or worse, Saturday nights may no longer be evenings spent inside looking for things to replace more traditional entertainment. For many, though, the realization that they can replicate game nights from afar will keep people connected long after this new normal starts to look and feel more like the old one. Until then, plenty of game companies will be ready to entertain.

“I’m sure there are other game developers who are trying to figure out ways to embrace what this current environment is,” Bilder said. “From our standpoint it’s a bit of a validation. People like to laugh together and socially interact and play and to see that that’s happening even though everyone’s stuck at home and alone? They can still do that with our games. It’s something that we’re very proud of.”

In other words life in quarantine didn’t end the game night, it just made it a bit more technical.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating effect on Black small business owners. An analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the number of active Black business owners in the U.S. dropped by 41% from February to April 2020.

That figure is nearly double the national average of 22%.

By comparison, the number of Asian small business owners dropped by 26% and Latino by 32%.

While those numbers are surely devastating, there is a ray of hope in a recent study published by Yelp. From May 25 to July 10, 2020 there was a historic surge in interest Black-owned businesses on the site.

During that period there were over 2.5 million searches for Black-owned business, compared to just 35,000 during a similar period in 2019.

“In general, most of the spikes we see are tied to holidays and events,” Justin Norman, Yelp’s vice president of data science, told Business Insider. “We haven’t seen a previous movement-based spike to date and we’re thrilled and inspired by the continued support and increase in searches for Black-owned businesses.”

via Yelp

The surge of interest in Black-owned businesses is most likely related to the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd. During that period, people also celebrated Juneteenth and “Blackout Day” on July 7.

“In general, most of the spikes we see are tied to holidays and events,” Norman said. “We haven’t seen a previous movement-based spike to date and we’re thrilled and inspired by the continued support and increase in searches for Black-owned businesses.”

According to the report, Yelp users were particularly interested in searching for Black-owned bookstores and restaurants. Bookstores saw a 1,437% increase and restaurants a 2,508% increase over 2019.

Officials at Yelp believe this recent change in consumer behavior may be part of a long-term trend of supporting the Black community through business.

“We do expect to see continued elevated interest in Black-owned businesses,” Norman said. “There has been sustained interest in Black-owned businesses since the initial peak at the end of May and beginning of June, and this interest is diversifying past the initial generic searches for Black-owned businesses and restaurants into a wider range of business types.”

“To me, this signals a shift in consumer behavior and habit that I expect will continue.”

via Geoff Livingston / Flickr

The death of George Floyd inspired countless people across America to lift their voices in support of creating a society that treats people of color equally. Much of that has been centered at creating government policy that increases opportunity and reduces police brutality.

But as we know far too well, political change around civil rights has always been slow.

That’s why it’s wonderful to see that Americans everywhere are taking direct action and helping Black business owners in this time of economic and social strife. One of the most effective ways to help traditionally-undeserved communities is by supporting their businesses. Let’s hope the Yelp study is an indicator that Americans are aligning their spending habits with their hearts.

Does the H in Hulu stand for Hillary Clinton? Because the streaming service can’t seem to get enough of the former Secretary of State.

Earlier in the year, Hulu aired Hillary, a documentary that focused on Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign in the lead up to its shocking defeated by Donald Trump, and now the polarizing politician is getting her own fictional series. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, Rodham, will explore an America where Hillary makes a very different decision that dramatically affects her life, career, and the nation as a whole. That decision? Not marrying Bill Clinton.

Here’s the official description via Deadline:

Rodham imagines an alternative history where Hillary Rodham never marries Bill Clinton and asks what would have happened to her life and our country, if she had made a different choice. A modern parable about choices, feminism and why this country has such a complicated relationship to women in power… Rodham tells the story of an ambitious young woman, developing her extraordinary mind in the latter part of the 20th century, moving from idealism to cynicism and all the way back again.

When you hear the words “alternative history series about Hillary Clinton,” it’s hard not to imagine a show that simply undoes her historic loss to Trump. So the narrative hook that Clinton’s life would’ve drastically changed had she not tied to her political fate to Bill should hopefully ease concerns about re-litigating the 2016 election.

As for the book itself, which has only been on bookshelves since May, Rodham received a positive review from NPR‘s Annalisa Quinn who called it a “nauseating, moving, morally suggestive, technically brilliant book that made me think more than any other in recent memory about the aims and limits of fiction.”

(Via Deadline)

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Corporate (Comedy Central, 10:30 p.m.) — Remember working from an office? Yeah, that’s still a thing on Corporate’s third and final season, which premieres tonight. Matt and Jake continue to try to survive their tyrannical CEO while also dealing with crises in their personal lives. For Jake, that means learning a disturbing truth about a beloved children’s show. For an HR rep at Hampton DeVille, that means attempting to rewrite the finale of a favorite TV series that ended disappointingly.

How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast): Season 2 (Netflix) — The first season of this German comedy exploded onto Netflix last year and was quickly renewed for a second season. Based on a weird, unbelievable true story, the show follows an entrepreneurial high school student who grows Europe’s largest online drug ring in the hopes of impressing the girl he loves. This season, Moritz gets in over his head as his business continues to boom, costing him relationships in his personal life and leading to some dangerous confrontations with competing drug lords.

Norsemen: Season 3 (Netflix) — This show is the Viking-period comedy you never knew you wanted. No seriously, it’s got everything. Bloody battles, petty politics, ridiculous and interesting characters, and a Monty Python-like appreciation for chaos. The show’s third season is, oddly enough, the perfect entry point, serving as a prequel for the first two outings. So you’ll find out just how two former best friends and Viking warlords earned their decades-long rivalry.

Bulletproof (CW, 9:00 p.m.) — Bishop is blinded by his need for revenge against the Markides family but Pike is reluctant to help him get it.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC, 10:00 p.m.) — The Zephyr struggles to survive a time storm that hurtles it towards destruction, forcing Coulson and Daisy to relive their failed attempts to save the team over and over until they find a way to fix things or end up getting swallowed by the disaster.

During a promotional appearance for his just released memoir, The Answer Is… Reflections on My Life, it was revealed that beloved game show host Alex Trebek would stop his experimental cancer treatment if it’s not producing the desired results. The Jeopardy! host wrote in his book that he’s “not going to go to any extraordinary measures to ensure my survival.” When asked about telling his family about the new treatment and how it might not be successful, Trebek made the following remarks to Good Morning America.

“They understand that there is a certain element regarding quality of life,” Trebek said. “And if the quality of life is not there — it’s hard sometimes to push. And just say, well, I’m gonna keep going even though I’m miserable.”

Obviously, Trebek’s remarks raised concerns about his nearly two-year battle with stage IV pancreatic cancer as fans became worried that the situation was taking a turn for the worse. In light of those concerns, Trebek released a new statement via the official Jeopardy! Twitter account in which he provides an optimistic update on his condition. Most importantly, the host stated that if his experimental treatment stops working, which hasn’t been the case so far, he would simply return to his prior chemo regimen and not stop all treatment as he previously suggested during an understandably low point.

I feel the need to clarify my quote that, if my course of cancer treatment does not continue to work, I would consider stopping treatment. That quote from the book was written BEFORE my current regimen, and I was going through some bad times. My current numbers are very good, but we will have to be patient with this new immunotherapy program that I am on. But, if it were to stop being successful, I would return to my previous chemo treatment — NOT stop all treatment. I apologize for any confusion, and want everyone to know that I am optimisit about my current plan, and thank them for their concerns.

You can see Trebek’s statement below:

(Via Jeopardy! on Twitter)

The number of Americans diagnosed wit COVID-19 has exploded over the course of July, but that hasn’t stopped the Trump Administration from aggressively pushing for schools to reopen in the fall.

Earlier in the month, Trump tweeted that virtual learning “has proven to be terrible compared to in school.”

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who’s been a strong advocate for school choice and reducing the federal role in districts, has done an about-face and is pushing schools to reopen as well.

“I think the go-to needs to be kids in school, in person, in the classroom,” she told CNN. “Because we know for most kids, that’s the best environment for them.”

Her department has also threatened to pull funding from districts that refuse to reopen. “The basic premise of federal funding under law is to provide a full-time education to students. How can you take the money and not provide the service?” a statement from her department read.

The issue of whether to open up schools or not in the fall has myriad considerations. What does science say about children’s ability to spread the virus based on age? Has the curve flattened in a specific region? How will the schools handle social distancing?

How does being out of school for an extended period harm children psychologically? What do working parents do if they’re children can’t go to school?

These are all worthy of consideration, but one of the biggest concerns should be, what do the teachers think?

Foo Fighter and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl penned a beautiful essay in The Atlantic supporting the idea that teachers should lead the way through this crisis.

Dave opens the letter admitting he’s not a great role model when it comes to education.

“So, with me being a high-school dropout, you would imagine that the current debate surrounding the reopening of schools wouldn’t register so much as a blip on my rock-and-roll radar, right? Wrong,” Grohl wrote.

“My mother was a public-school teacher.”

via NME / Twitter

“She helped generations of children learn how to learn, and, like most other teachers, exhibited a selfless concern for others,” Grohl continued. “Though I was never her student, she will forever be my favorite teacher.”

Given his lifelong experience with educators he believes they are “essential workers.”

“It takes a certain kind of person to devote their life to this difficult and often-thankless job. I know because I was raised in a community of them,” Grohl wrote. “I have mowed their lawns, painted their apartments, even babysat their children, and I’m convinced that they are as essential as any other essential workers.”

Grohl asked his go-to expert on the topic, his mother Virginia, her thoughts on the issue. “There’s so much more to be addressed than just opening the doors and sending them back home,” Grohl’s 82-year-old, now retired mother, told him over the phone.

She also gave him a list of issues that should be considered before reopening districts: “masks and distancing, temperature checks, crowded busing, crowded hallways, sports, air-conditioning systems, lunchrooms, public restrooms, janitorial staff.”

Given the large number of staff at most schools that are older and more vulnerable to the virus, Dave’s mother believes schools should remain temporarily closed.

“Remote learning for the time being,” Dave’s mom said.

via Gage Skidmore / Flickr

Grohl also questioned the qualifications of DeVos, a woman who never spent any time teaching in a classroom.

“I wouldn’t trust the U.S. secretary of percussion to tell me how to play ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ if they had never sat behind a drum set, so why should any teacher trust Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to tell them how to teach, without her ever having sat at the head of a class?” Grohl wrote.

The “Smells Like Teen Spirit” drummer concluded his letter recommending that, in the school debate, we let teachers lead the way.

“Teachers want to teach, not die, and we should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are. For without them, where would we be?” Grohl wrote.

“May we show these tireless altruists a little altruism in return. I would for my favorite teacher. Wouldn’t you?”

AAAAAHHHHH!

The Denver Nuggets began their stint in the NBA’s Orlando bubble league on Wednesday afternoon with a scrimmage against the Washington Wizards. There is a problem that Michael Malone has to deal with: The team’s roster is still working itself out due to the players arriving late to the bubble due to the NBA’s strict rules about COVID-19 testing and what needs to happen for individuals to gain entry. As a result, here was something the Nuggets team writer Eric Spyropoulos put in his game preview (emphasis mine):

Following Monday’s practice, head coach Michael Malone revealed that he expects to have nine healthy bodies for Wednesday’s scrimmage. Even though the game is limited to 40 minutes, this will likely result in some unique lineups for Denver as Malone focuses on not overworking players in the first organized game.

Several hours later, nine became eight.

So basically Denver had a bunch of gigantic dudes and no guards, and as a result, Malone — who is now earning my non-existent vote for Coach of the Year — decided to roll out a monstrous starting five. A backcourt of Nikola Jokic (7′) and Jerami Grant (6’8) is tremendous, as is NBA debutant Bol Bol (7’2!) lining up next to Paul Millsap (6’7) and Mason Plumlee (6’11).

The only rule is it has to work, though, and the early returns were really good, particularly with regards to Bol, who the team got with the 44th pick in the 2020 NBA Draft due to some injury concerns. Also really good: The team having its announce team Zoom in to call the game, which is just tremendous.

Denver’s success in the bubble might be tied to how well guys like Murray, Barton, and Gary Harris play, because while Jokic will be brilliant, he will certainly need some help. However, I would like to propose that the team uses this gigantic starting lineup for every single game, both during the bubble and for the rest of time.

Dave Franco’s sinister-looking directorial debut The Rental comes out this weekend, but enough about that, let’s get to the part where he’s playing Vanilla Ice in a biopic about the ’90s rapper. The Neighbors star’s participation was rumored last year, but he confirmed his involvement during a recent interview with Insider, saying, “We have been in development for a while but we are inching closer and closer to preproduction.”

Franco compared the biopic, which follows Vanilla Ice from a “high school dropout selling cars in Dallas to having the first hip-hop single to top the Billboard charts,” to The Disaster Artist, which chronicled the making of Tommy Wiseau’s cult classic The Room (he played Greg Sestero to brother James Franco’s Tommy). “With that movie, people expected us to make a broad comedy where we make fun of Tommy Wiseau, but the more real we played it, the funnier and heartfelt it was — that’s the tone we want for this one as well,” he said. The movie’s current title is To the Extreme, a reference to Vanilla Ice’s 1990 debut album which has sold over 15 million copies worldwide. I would have gone with Hittin’ Like a Ninja Turtle, but that’s why I’m not in the movie-making business.

“[Vanilla Ice / birth name Rob Van Winkle] is such a sweet and intelligent guy and he’s been super helpful in the process of getting all the details correct and making us privy to information the public doesn’t know. Just talking to him I can’t help but think about the rabbit holes I’m going to go down to get ready for the role.”

I am excited for Franco’s shot-for-shot recreation of the “drop that zero and get with a hero” scene from Cool as Ice. He prepared by using that line on Alison Brie (it worked).

(Via Insider)

Like most musicians who have released a record in recent months, Jeff Rosenstock was not planning on debuting his album No Dream during a global pandemic. But once he realized how quickly the world was adapting to the circumstances, he decided to surprise-release No Dream at the end of May. Now, the singer has followed-up the record with a video accompanying his track “Scram!”

The “Scram!” video is modeled after daytime television and poises Rosenstock as a fervent news anchor. The singer animatedly yells into the camera while lyrics flash across the screen like breaking news. Rosenstock tapped his other band members to appear in the video, posing as the stars of hilarious infomercials.

In a recent interview with Uproxx, Rosenstock spoke about how his album’s meaning has shifted post-pandemic: “It was very surprising once I started showing this record to people who were like, ‘Holy sh*t this relates to all this stuff happening with the pandemic.’ It never dawned on me that would be the case. When we decided to put it out early, I kind of figured it might not even resonate with anybody at all. But, at the same time, the fact that it even relates at all can be a little frustrating, in a larger sense.”

Watch Rosenstock’s “Scram!” video above.

No Dream is out now via Polyvinyl. Get it here.

The New Orleans Pelicans are among the three teams currently tied for ninth in the West, along with Portland and Sacramento, 3.5 games back of the Grizzlies for the eighth and final playoff spot. As the NBA is eight days out from the restart of the season, with scrimmages beginning on Wednesday, New Orleans is currently without the presence of their star rookie Zion Williamson.

Williamson left the Orlando bubble last week to attend to a family matter and, as the Pelicans noted in an update on Wednesday, remains away from the team and with his family, with no timetable for his return.

The Pelicans do note that Williamson is being tested daily and has been returning negative tests throughout his absence, which is important because players who are tested daily while out of the bubble are granted shorter quarantine periods — as few as four days — once back in Orlando, so long as they continue to produce negative test results.

Williamson’s chief focus right now is on his family, as it should be, and hopefully whatever is going on that pulled him away from the bubble will see a positive resolution. He still plans to rejoin the team, but with their first game in just eight days, there’s a very legitimate chance he misses some game action even if he does make it back to Orlando soon, as he’ll have been away from the court for two full weeks once he clears a quarantine period.