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Computer programmer, Gary Bowser, faces up to 40 months prison time in 2022 for pirating games, ordered to pay $14.5M to Nintendo

Patricia Hernandez / The Guardian:

 

 

—  The hacker whose involvement with anti-piracy software ended in a jail sentence has emerged from prison struggling to make rent as he starts paying his fine. ‘It could be worse,’ he says.

‘The sentence was like a message to other people’ … Gary Bowser in Toronto in August 2023.Photograph: Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star/Getty Images

 

 

In April 2023, a 54-year-old programmer named Gary Bowser was released from prison having served 14 months of a 40-month sentence. Good behaviour reduced his time behind bars, but now his options are limited. For a while he was crashing on a friend’s couch in Toronto. The weekly physical therapy sessions, which he needs to ease chronic pain, were costing hundreds of dollars every week, and he didn’t have a job. And soon, he would need to start sending cheques to Nintendo. Bowser owes the makers of Super Mario $14.5m (£11.5m), and he’s probably going to spend the rest of his life paying it back.

 

Since he was a child, Bowser’s life has revolved around tinkering with electronics. His dad was a mechanical engineer, and he learned from him how to wire up model trains and mod calculators. As a teenager he already had a computer business: his mother died when he was 15, his father had retired and Bowser supported him.

Gary Bowser, left, in his 20s demonstrating projects for the TI-99 home computer event at the Chicago TI fair in the early 90s. Photograph: Courtesy of Gary Bowser

Bowser would go on to run an internet cafe, where patrons played Counter-Strike and Dance Dance Revolution, and repair hardware for a living. He got briefly caught up with the law during a stint fixing games consoles at flea markets, which nearly implicated him alongside vendors who sold pirated movies. Eventually he moved to the Dominican Republic in 2010. He spoke no Spanish for years, but he loved the place anyway: you could drive from one end to the other in just 12 hours, he recalls. It was here that Bowser – who, in a case of nominative determinism that feels almost too trite to acknowledge, shares a name with Super Mario’s in-game antagonist – started becoming the face of Nintendo piracy.

 

 

In the late 00s he made contact with Team Xecuter, a group that produces dongles used to bypass anti-piracy measures on Nintendo Switch and other consoles, letting them illegally download, modify and play games. While he says he was only paid a few hundred dollars a month to update their websites, Bowser says the people he worked with weren’t very social and he helped “testers” troubleshoot devices.

 

“I started becoming a middleman in between the people doing the development work, and the people actually owning the mod chips, playing the games,” he says. “I would get feedback from the testers, and then I would send it to the developers … I can handle people, and that’s why I ended up getting more involved.”

 

In September 2020, he was arrested in a sting so unusual that the US Department of Justice released a press release boasting about the indictment, in which acting assistant attorney general Brian C Rabbitt called Bowser and his co-defendants “leaders of a notorious international criminal group that reaped illegal profits for years by pirating video game technology of US companies.”

 

“The day that it happened, I was sleeping in my bed, it was four in the morning, I’d been drinking all night,” Bowser says. “And suddenly I wake up and see three people surrounding my bed with rifles aimed at my head … they dragged me out of the place, put me in the back of a pickup truck and drove me to the Interpol office.”

 

Bowser was arrested at the height of the pandemic, which complicated everything. He was imprisoned in a series of jails, and each transfer had Covid safety precautions that required him to spend time in isolation. Despite this, Bowser still caught the coronavirus and spent two weeks so sick that, he says, a priest would come over once a day to read him a prayer.

 

Bowser was charged with fraud over his connection to Team Xecuter. While in custody, he was also hit with a civil suit from Nintendo. Between the civil and criminal cases, he was ordered to pay $14.5m.

 

In transcripts from the court, Nintendo’s lawyer Ajay Singh outlined the company’s case against piracy. “It’s the purchase of video games that sustains Nintendo, and it is the games that make the people smile … It’s for that reason that we do all we can to prevent games on Nintendo systems from being stolen,” he told the judge.

 

Pirates are usually fined in court, but Bowser’s case was meant to draw attention. “The sentence was like a message to other people that [are] still out there, that if they get caught … [they’ll] serve hard time,” he says. As he tells it, Bowser didn’t make or develop the products that sent him to prison; he “just” updated the websites that told people what they could buy, and kept them informed about what was coming next.

 

Bowser maintains that he could have fought the allegations, and that other members of the hacking group remain at large. But fighting against 13 charges would have cost time and money. It was easier, he claims, to plead guilty and only deal with a couple of the charges. As a part of that agreement, Bowser now has to send Nintendo 20-30% of any money left over after he pays for necessities such as rent.

 

 

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— Techmeme

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 Upcoming ‘Help Me Write,’ Chrome experimental AI feature, potential key step for words  written by bots instead of people

—   Google is rolling out a new experimental AI web-writing assistant feature in Chrome

 

 

John Herrman / New York Magazine:

 

Thursday, Google will begin rolling its new experimental feature in Chrome, the most popular browser on Earth, and the portal through which an estimated 3 billion people read and contribute to the web: an AI writing assistant.

“Writing on the web can be daunting, especially if you want to articulate your thoughts on public spaces or forums,” the company says.

Chrome’s new tool will help users “write with more confidence,” whether they want to “leave a well-written review for a restaurant, craft a friendly RSVP for a party, or make a formal inquiry about an apartment rental.”

AI assistants have been popping up in popular software about as fast as developers can code them. Google has been testing generative AI in Gmail, Android messaging, and Docs for months; Microsoft has added similar features to Office, its Edge browser, and Windows itself.

This was, in other words, basically inevitable: as new features in an interface, “help me write” buttons and features are a natural extension of suggested replies and even spellcheck; Google has the technology to build this, and reason to believe at least some Chrome users will be excited to use it.

Millions of people already use software like ChatGPT and Anthropic to generate text that they then deploy in basically every imaginable context. Google building something similar into Chrome was only a matter of time — as soon as it could, it would.

 

At launch, this will be a right-click feature in limited testing. If it ends up anything like the generative AI tools Google has been building into Docs, it’ll be as easy to ignore as it is to use.

 

As generative AI rollouts go, though, this is a big one. For the first time, potentially billions of people will be confronted with the option to have software write on their behalf, in virtually every online context: not just emails or documents, but social-media sites, comment sections, forums, product reviews, feedback forums, job applications, and chat platforms. Instead of, or in addition to, people posting something themselves, Google will offer users statistically likely responses, as well as options for making them shorter or longer or adjusting their tone. The web as we know it is, basically, the result of billions of people typing into billions of browser text boxes with the intention of reaching other people, or at least another person. The experiences of searching, reading, shopping, and wandering on the web have depended on varying extents on the presence of text and media that other users have contributed, often for free and under the auspices of participation in human-centered systems — that is, as themselves, or some version of themselves, with other people in mind. What happens when the text boxes can fill themselves?

Features like this will be, among other things, a massive test of how people actually want to use generative AI. Text generation is already popular in situations where people have to perform highly artificial tones and styles — from the jump, ChatGPT users have found it appealing for writing résumés and cover letters, for example (although it’s unclear, for a variety of reasons, whether this is a good idea). Does a “help me write” button make sense to anyone in the context of a Reddit thread, a fired-up comment section, a jokey response to a friend’s post, a Goodreads review, or an Amazon product page? These are contexts where evidence of humanity is valuable, and where the averaged-out tones of generated text might read as competent spam.

Optimistically, based on having access to a few similar tools for the last six months, my guess is that, in many and maybe most cases, they’ll feel absurd or inappropriate to use — like productivity hacks jammed into what are basically social situations, bug-eyed Clippys hovering awkwardly next to comment threads, tools presenting themselves in contexts where their use would be strange and borderline offensive.

AI text generation makes some sort of sense when content is being extracted from people who don’t particularly want to produce it: in the form of an assignment, a mundane work task, or as a form that just needs to get filled. These are situations that are already in some way dehumanized. In less antagonistic scenarios, where writing as yourself is the point — basically, the entire category you might call elective uncompensated “posting,” or, uh, “social interaction” — using generative AI could seem like an odd choice, antisocial, self-defeating, ineffective, and indistinguishable from spam. If you’re using AI to generate a Facebook comment, why post at all? Perhaps text generation presents itself to billions of users and most of them say no thanks, most of the time, and the transformative era of generative AI instead takes the form of a somewhat more assertive grammar checker. This would amount to — or at least preview — a deflation in expectations about where this tech is heading in general; in any case, Google will be finding out soon.

It’s worth imagining weirder outcomes, though, in part because of what automation has already done to the web, and how comparatively niche uses cases have started affecting the internet for everyone else. Since the arrival of tools like ChatGPT, search results — which Google is also planning to supplement or replace with generated text — have been overwhelmed by passable (to Google, at least) generated content, tipping the already barely managed problem of SEO bait into a full-blown crisis for the basic function of one of the core tools for finding things online. Last year, in an attempt to mitigate declining search quality, Google started surfacing more “perspectives,” which is its term for posts by people with “firsthand experience” on “social media platforms, forums and other communities” — basically, posts that are categorically less likely to be SEO-driven spam, created as they were for human audiences rather than a search algorithm. Soon, with Chrome, Google will be inviting more synthetic content into every remaining source of such “perspectives” left on the open web, which, setting aside what this means for users, is a big part of the corpus on which Google trains its AI tools in the first place, leaving Google to train its next generation of AI on material generated by the last, which doesn’t sound ideal for Google.

In the narrow context of Google’s story, then, text generation is best understood as a continuation of a trend, an escalation of a process of increasingly assertive automation — of content discovery, categorization, distribution, and now creation — that was only ever leading in one direction. In the context of the slow death of the open web for reasons that predate AI — namely, the commercialization of all online interactions and subsequent collapse of the business model with which they were commercialized — it’s probably more symbolic than consequential.

Still, at the very least, we can expect the wide rollout of text generation tools to change the texture of the parts of the web that remain more or less intact and functional as spaces where people talk to each other and voluntary, helpfully share information — look out, Reddit and Wikipedia — and to subtly alter users’ feelings about contributing to such projects in the first place. We have the technology, in other words, for a web that publishes itself. Will anyone want to read it?

 

 

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— Techmeme

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Business Digital - AI & Apps Government Lifestyle Perspectives Regulations & Security Technology

US Copyright Office in spotlight as it plans to release three key reports in 2024 about its  copyright law and AI positions

—  The office is reviewing how centuries-old laws should apply to artificial intelligence technology, with both content creators and tech giants arguing their cases.

 

 

Cecilia Kang / New York Times:

 

For decades, the Copyright Office has been a small and sleepy office within the Library of Congress. Each year, the agency’s 450 employees register roughly half a million copyrights, the ownership rights for creative works, based on a two-centuries-old law.

 

In recent months, however, the office has suddenly found itself in the spotlight. Lobbyists for Microsoft, Google, and the music and news industries have asked to meet with Shira Perlmutter, the register of copyrights, and her staff. Thousands of artists, musicians and tech executives have written to the agency, and hundreds have asked to speak at listening sessions hosted by the office.

“We are now finding ourselves the subject of a lot of attention from the broader general public,” said Shira Perlmutter, the director of the Copyright Office. Credit — Jared Soares for The New York Times

 

The attention stems from a first-of-its-kind review of copyright law that the Copyright Office is conducting in the age of artificial intelligence. The technology — which feeds off creative content — has upended traditional norms around copyright, which gives owners of books, movies and music the exclusive ability to distribute and copy their works.

 

The agency plans to put out three reports this year revealing its position on copyright law in relation to A.I. The reports are set to be hugely consequential, weighing heavily in courts as well as with lawmakers and regulators.

 

“We are now finding ourselves the subject of a lot of attention from the broader general public, so it is a very exciting and challenging time,” Ms. Perlmutter said.

 

The Copyright Office’s review has thrust it into the middle of a high-stakes clash between the tech and media industries over the value of intellectual property to train new A.I. models that are likely to ingest copyrighted books, news articles, songs, art and essays to generate writing or images. Since the 1790s, copyright law has protected works so an author or artist “may reap the fruits of his or her intellectual creativity,” the Copyright Office declares on its website.

 

That law is now a topic of hot debate. Authors, artists, media companies and others say the A.I. models are infringing on their copyrights. Tech companies say that they aren’t replicating the materials and that they consume data that is publicly available on the internet, practices that are fair use and within the bounds of the law. The fight has led to lawsuits, including one by The New York Times against the ChatGPT creator OpenAI and Microsoft. And copyright owners are pushing for officials to rein in the tech companies.

 

“What the Copyright Office is doing is a big deal because there are important principles of law and lots and lots of money involved,” said Rebecca Tushnet, a professor of copyright and intellectual property law at Harvard Law School. “At the end of the day, the issue is not whether these models will exist. It’s who will get paid.”

The Copyright Office, part of the Library of Congress, has in the past weighed in on how copyright would apply to technological innovations like records, the internet and streaming music.  Credit — Jared Soares for The New York Times

 

Congress created the Copyright Office in 1870 to register licenses for books, maps, essays and other creative works and store those works for the use of lawmakers at the Library of Congress. The first registration was given to the “Philadelphia Spelling Book,” a children’s language book.

When Ms. Perlmutter, a veteran copyright official and former intellectual property lawyer for Time Warner, was appointed to lead the Copyright Office in late 2020, she promised to bring the office into the modern era by focusing on big tech trends. She took inspiration from previous leaders, who dealt with technological innovations including the camera, records, Xerox machines, the internet and streaming music, all of which required the office to weigh in on how copyright would apply and advise Congress on proposed updates to the law.

 

Right away, A.I. became a hot topic. Stephen Thaler, a computer scientist, tried to register an A.I.-generated art piece for a copyright by submitting an application on the Copyright Office’s website. In 2019, the office rejected his first attempt to register the piece, a pixelated scene of train tracks running through a tunnel overgrown with brush and flowers called “A Recent Entrance to Paradise.” In February 2022, Ms. Perlmutter declined his second attempt to register the piece on the same grounds: Copyrights were given only to original works created by humans.

 

The decision — a first on an A.I.-produced work — set an important precedent. Artists and lawmakers flooded Ms. Perlmutter’s office with emails and phone calls asking her to also intervene in the way A.I. companies were using copyrighted material to train their systems.

 

In August, she opened the formal review of A.I. and copyright law. The office said it would examine whether the use of intellectual property to train A.I. models violated the law and would look more deeply into whether machine-generated works could be eligible for copyright protections. The office said it would also review how A.I. tools were creating content that used the names, images and likenesses of individuals without their consent or compensation.

 

“The attention on A.I. is intense,” Ms. Perlmutter said in an interview. “The current generative A.I. systems raise a lot of complicated copyright issues — some have called them existential — that really require us to start grappling with fundamental questions about the nature and value of human creativity.”

 

The interest in the office’s review was overwhelming. The office solicited public comments on the topic and received more than 10,000 responses on a form on its website. A typical policy review gets no more than 20 comments, the office said.

 

Tech companies argued in comments on the website that the way their models ingested creative content was innovative and legal. The venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has several investments in A.I. start-ups, warned in its comments that any slowdown for A.I. companies in consuming content “would upset at least a decade’s worth of investment-backed expectations that were premised on the current understanding of the scope of copyright protection in this country.”

 

OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta (Facebook’s parent) and Google are currently relying on a 2015 court decision in a case filed by the Authors Guild.

 

The guild sued Google in 2005 for scanning books to use in excerpts in its search engine results and to share with libraries. A court ruled that Google had not violated copyright law. It said that the scanning of entire books was permissible because Google didn’t make the full book available and that it was “transformative” use of copyrighted material. Google relied on an exemption to copyright law known as “fair use” that allows limited replication of copyrighted material for things like criticism, parody or other transformational uses.

 

Google, Meta and the A.I. start-up Anthropic all echoed arguments from that case in their comments to the Copyright Office, including that A.I. copies the information to analyze data, not repurpose it for creative works.

 

Authors, musicians and the media industry argued that by taking their content without permission or licensing payments, the A.I. companies were robbing them of their livelihoods.

 

“The absence of consent and compensation in this process is theft,” Justine Bateman, the “Family Ties” actress and author, wrote in comments to the Copyright Office.

 

News Corp, which publishes The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, implored the office to “not lose sight of this simple truth: Protecting content creators is one of copyright law’s core missions.” (The Times also submitted a comment).

 

Ms. Perlmutter said she and a staff of about two dozen copyright lawyers were going through each comment filed to the office.

 

Still, the office may not offer clear-cut views that will satisfy either the tech companies or creative people.

 

“As technology gets more and more sophisticated, the challenges are exponentially more difficult and the risks and rewards are exponentially greater,” Ms. Perlmutter said.

 

 

 

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— Techmeme

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Apple’s proposed App Store, iOS changes seek to retain some iOS control but still regard the  EU’s DMA letter

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

 

 

—  On Saturday, Apple announced a broad, wide-ranging, and complex set of new policies establishing their intended compliance with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, which comes into effect March 7.

 

There is a lot to remark upon and numerous remaining questions, but my favorite take was from Sebastiaan de With on Twitter/X, the day before any of this was announced.

 

After quipping “Oh god please no” to a screenshot of the phrase “Spotify also wants to roll out alternate app stores”, de With had this conversation:

de With:

The EU is once again solving absolutely no problems and making everything worse in tech. I gotta say, they are if anything highly consistent.

“Anton”:

Overly powerful, rent-seeking gatekeepers seem like a problem.

de With:

I love that I can’t tell if you are talking about the EU or Apple in this case.

My second-favorite take, from that same thread, was this from Max Rovensky:

DMA is not pro-consumer.

It’s anti-big-business.

Those tend to coincide sometimes, which makes it an easy sell for the general public, but do actually read the DMA, it’s quite interesting.

 

I’d go slightly further and describe the DMA as anti-U.S.-big-business, because as far as I can tell, nothing in the DMA adversely affects or even annoys any European tech companies. There are aspects of it that seem written specifically for Spotify, in fact.

 

But Rovensky’s framing captures the dichotomy. Anti-big-business regulation and pro-consumer results often do go hand-in-hand, but the DMA exposes the fissures. I do not think the DMA is going to change much, if anything at all, for the better for iOS users in the E.U. (Or for non-iOS users in the EU, for that matter.) And much like the GDPR’s website cookie regulations, I think if it has any practical effect, it’ll be to make things worse for users. Whether these options are better for developers seems less clear.

 

I’ve often said that Apple’s priorities are consistent: Apple’s own needs first, users second, developers third. The European Commission’s priorities put developers first, users second, and “gatekeepers” a distant third. The DMA prescribes not a win-win-win framework, but a win-win-lose one.

 

Apple is proud, stubborn, arrogant, controlling, and convinced it has the best interests of its customers in mind.

 

The European Commission is proud, stubborn, arrogant, controlling, and convinced it has the best interests of its citizens in mind.

 

Ever since this collision over the DMA seemed inevitable, starting about two years ago, I’ve been trying to imagine how it would turn out. And each time, I start by asking: Which side is smarter? My money has been on Apple. Yesterday’s announcements, I think, show why.

APPLE’S PROPOSED CHANGES

 

It’s really hard to summarize everything Apple announced yesterday, but I’ll try. Start with the main Apple Newsroom press release, “Apple Announces Changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European Union”:

“The changes we’re announcing today comply with the Digital Markets Act’s requirements in the European Union, while helping to protect EU users from the unavoidable increased privacy and security threats this regulation brings. Our priority remains creating the best, most secure possible experience for our users in the EU and around the world,” said Phil Schiller, Apple Fellow. “Developers can now learn about the new tools and terms available for alternative app distribution and alternative payment processing, new capabilities for alternative browser engines and contactless payments, and more. Importantly, developers can choose to remain on the same business terms in place today if they prefer.”

 

Schiller is the only Apple executive quoted in the press release, and to my ear, his writing hand is all over the entire announcement. Apple was quite clear before the DMA was put into law that they considered mandatory sideloading on iOS a bad idea for users, and their announcement yesterday doesn’t back down an inch from still declaring it a bad idea.

 

Apple has also argued, consistently, that they seek to monetize third-party development for the iOS platform, and that being forced to change from their current system — (a) all apps must come from the App Store; (b) developers never pay anything for the distribution of free apps; (c) paid apps and in-app-purchases for digital content consumed in-app must go through Apple’s In-App Payments system that automates Apple’s 30/15 percent commissions — would greatly complicate how they monetize the platform. And now Apple has revealed a greatly complicated set of rules and policies for iPhone apps in the EU.

 

MG Siegler has a great — and fun — post dissecting Apple’s press release line-by-line. Siegler concludes:

I’m honestly not sure I can recall a press release dripping with such disdain. Apple may even have a point in many of the points above, but the framing of it would just seem to ensure that Apple is going to continue to be at war with the EU over all of this and now undoubtedly more. Typically, if you’re going to make some changes and consider the matter closed, you don’t do so while emphatically shoving your middle fingers in the air.

 

Some of these changes do seem good and useful, but most simply seem like convoluted changes to ensure the status quo actually doesn’t change much, if at all. Just remember that, “importantly, developers can choose to remain on the same business terms in place today if they prefer.” What do you think Apple prefers?

The puzzle Apple attempted to solve was creating a framework of new policies — and over 600 new developer APIs to enable those policies — to comply with the DMA, while keeping the path of least resistance and risk for developers the status quo: Apple’s own App Store as it is.

 

So the first option for developers is to do nothing — to stay in Apple’s App Store, exclusively, under the existing terms. (Apple made a few announcements yesterday that are effective worldwide, not merely in the EU, such as changes regarding the rules for streaming game services, mini-games, and mini-apps. For the sake of brevity — well, attempted brevity — I’m focusing on E.U.-specific changes related to DMA compliance.)

 

One point of confusion is that some aspects of Apple’s proposed DMA compliance apply to the App Store across all platforms (iPhone, iPad, Mac, TV, Watch, and soon, Vision), but other aspects are specific to the iOS platform — which is to say, only the iPhone. Third-party app marketplaces1 and web browsers using non-WebKit rendering engines are only available on iOS specifically, meaning they are iPhone-only,2 and not available for iPadOS. Apple’s main press release yesterday breaks out iOS changes and App Store changes separately, but on my first read did not make clear that the iOS changes did not apply to iPadOS.3

 

 

Here’s my summary of the options available to developers in the EU, under Apple’s proposal:

  1. Stay in App Store under the current (pre-DMA) rules, exclusively. Developers that take this option:
    • Are not permitted to use any of the new business termsavailable in the EU, but new iOS platform options for the EU, such as alternate browser engines, are allowed. (Because they are required to be allowed.)
    • Because nothing business-related changes under this option, the existing worldwide rules apply for paid apps, subscriptions, and in-app purchases (IAP), including the 30/15 percent commission to Apple and a requirement that apps exclusively use Apple’s App Store payments system.
    • The Core Technology Fee (CTF) is not collected, because the business terms haven’t changed. (See below re: the CTF.)
  2. Opt in to the new EU rules (all sub-options available under this choice require paying the Core Technology Fee for each app with over 1 million downloads in the EU):
    • After opting in to the new EU rules, developers can choose to remain in the App Store, and:
      • Use Apple’s App Store payments system: 20/13 percent commission + CTF paid to Apple automatically.
      • Use a custom in-app payments system (e.g. Stripe): 17/10 percent commission + CTF paid to Apple.
      • Use external links from inside apps to the web for payments and subscriptions: 17/10 percent + CTF paid to Apple.
      • The latter two options — using custom payment processing and/or external links to the web — are similar to the announced-last-week External Payment Link entitlement policy, regarding the developer’s obligation to track these payments, report sales to Apple monthly, and submit to audits by Apple to ensure compliance.
    • Distribute apps in one or more third-party marketplaces:
      • No option to use Apple’s App Store payment processing, because the apps aren’t coming from the App Store.
      • The only money due to Apple is the Core Technology Fee — there is no commission percentage on in-app transactions or links to the web.

 

Under option (2) — the catch-all for opting in to the new rules available in the EU — the sub-options are not mutually exclusive. Developers that opt in to the new EU rules can have (or keep) apps in the App Store and distribute those same apps, or different apps, via third-party app marketplaces. Or they can stay in the App Store exclusively (under the new business terms, with lower commissions but also the CTF), or they can distribute exclusively via app marketplaces.

 

Only options (1) and (2) are exclusive. However, once a developer opts in to the new EU rules, that decision is irrevocable. Quoting from the Q&A section of Apple’s “Update on Apps Distributed in the European Union” document:

Developers who adopt the new business terms at any time will not be able to switch back to Apple’s existing business terms for their EU apps. Apple will continue to give developers advance notice of changes to our terms, so they can make informed choices about their businesses moving forward.

(That entire FAQ section is a good summary and worth reading.)

 

THE CORE TECHNOLOGY FEE

Apple’s description of the CTF:

The Core Technology Fee (CTF) reflects Apple’s investment in the tools, technology, and services that enable developers to build and share their apps with Apple users. That includes more than 250,000 APIs, TestFlight, Xcode, and so much more. These tools create a lot of value for developers, whether or not they share their apps on the App Store.

 

The CTF only applies to developers who adopt the new terms for alternative distribution and payment processing — and whose apps reach exceptional scale. With membership in the Apple Developer Program, eligible developers on the new business terms get a free one million first annual installs per year for each of their apps in the EU. See terms for more details. Under the new business terms for EU apps, Apple estimates that less than 1% of developers would pay a Core Technology Fee.

 

Apple’s description is clear on the following point, but it’s worth reiterating: the CTF only applies to downloads above 1 million, like a marginal tax rate. So a developer whose app goes from 1,000,000 EU user downloads to 1,000,001 will only owe Apple €0.50 in Core Technology Fees. The CTF is recurring each year however, and updates count as downloads. Installing the same app on multiple devices does not count as multiple installations though.4 The CTF is calculated per user, per app, per year. (Apple has a CTF calculatordevelopers can use to game scenarios of prices, distribution method, and download counts.)

 

In plain language, the DMA demands that Apple unbundle its monetization for the App Store from its monetization of the iOS platform. Apple’s existing, purely commission-based, monetization for iOS apps implicitly bundles together the value provided from the App Store and iOS.

 

So under option (1) — where developers choose the existing rules for App Store distribution, including App Store exclusivity — nothing changes and Apple collects its 30/15 percent commissions from App Store transactions.

 

But under option (2) — where developers opt in to the new EU rules — Apple’s monetization for the App Store is severed from its monetization for the iOS platform itself. That’s why the commission fees under the new EU rules are reduced to 20/13 percent for apps distributed through the App Store that use the App Store payment system, and 17/10 percent for apps distributed through the App Store that use custom payment processing. Effectively, Apple is saying that their fair share of App Store distribution is 17/10 percent, and that Apple’s own App Store payment processing is worth an additional 3 percent. (3 percent is almost indisputably a fair estimate for the cost of payment processing alone.)

 

And, that’s why apps distributed outside the App Store will only pay Apple the CTF, with no commission on sales. The commissions under the new EU rules are only for the App Store, so apps from marketplaces don’t pay them. The Core Technology Fee is how Apple proposes monetizing the value provided by iOS itself.

 

All developers who opt in to the new EU rules are subject to the CTF. No developers who remain in the App Store under existing policies are subject to the CTF.

 

MARKETPLACE APPS ARE THE ONLY DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE THE APP STORE

Third-party marketplace apps are the only way for developers to distribute apps in the EU outside the App Store. Apple’s proposal has no option for direct downloads of apps from developer websites. Apple has rules for who can become an app marketplace. You have to be a company, not an individual. You must “provide Apple a stand-by letter of credit from an A-rated (or equivalent by S&P, Fitch, or Moody’s) financial Institution of €1,000,000 to establish adequate financial means in order to guarantee support for your developers and users.” And more. In short, the qualifications aren’t trivial, but nor are they overly complicated.

 

But marketplace apps must be real “stores”. A marketplace can decide to exclusively distribute apps from a certain category — like games — but must be open to submissions from any developer in that same category. Company XYZ can’t create a marketplace that only distributes XYZ’s own apps. That’s not a proper category. Nor would Apple consider to be a proper category something like, say, “Apps from companies founded by Harvard dropouts whose origins were depicted in fun movies by Aaron Sorkin.”

 

One key restriction for developers who wish to distribute through multiple stores (including Apple’s App Store): an installation from one store cannot overwrite an existing installation of the same app from another store. The user must manually delete the installation from the old store first, then re-install the app from the other store. Apple claims — reasonably, perhaps — that this restriction is because they don’t know whether a fresh installation from a different store will preserve the data from the app installed via the previous store.

 

But this also means that if, say, Meta starts distributing their apps through a third-party marketplace (perhaps their own Meta Store), and wishes to encourage iOS users to switch from App Store installations to installations from the Meta Store, each user who does so must delete their existing installations of Meta’s apps before installing the new ones.

 

Third-party marketplace apps — the actual app store apps — will not be permitted in Apple’s App Store. To install a marketplace app — and third-party app marketplaces will be apps themselves — users must go to the marketplace app’s website. Safari (and other web browsers that adopt new APIs) will offer to install marketplace apps after confirmation from the user that they really want to install it. That confirmation scaresheet and the subsequent installation is provided by the system.

 

Part of what makes the DMA a terrible law (in this writer’s estimation) is its ambiguity and inscrutable language. It’s completely unclear whether Apple’s proposal to only allow distribution of apps outside the App Store through marketplace apps is compliant. Many proponents of the DMA have been under the conviction that the DMA mandates gatekeeper platforms like iOS to permit direct downloads of apps from the web (like on PCs and Macs). Here’s Article 6, Section 4 of the DMA, boldface all-caps emphasis added:

4. The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications OR software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications OR software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall, where applicable, not prevent the downloaded third-party software applications OR software application stores from prompting end users to decide whether they want to set that downloaded software application OR software application store as their default. The gatekeeper shall technically enable end users who decide to set that downloaded software application OR software application store as their default to carry out that change easily.

 

By Apple’s interpretation, all of those or’s would be and/or’s or and’s if the DMA demanded that iOS support both third-party marketplaces and direct installation of individual apps and games. See below regarding the uncertainty of this interpretation.

 

 

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— Techmeme

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Flipkart’s co-founder Binny Bansal resigns after selling his entire stake in the company

—  Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal has resigned from the e-commerce group’s board

 

 

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

 

 

Binny Bansal, Flipkart co-founder, and Sachin Bansal, the Bengaluru-headquartered startup’s other co-founder, experienced a scuffle with the investors, and Binny has resigned from the e-commerce group’s board, the two said Saturday.

 

Binny Bansal, who reserved the rights to stay on Flipkart’s board, (which was acquired by Walmart in 2018), as long as he preferred, instead opted to leave. He cited conflict of interest with his new venture as the reason for the move.

 

Bansal launched OppDoor, a cross-border e-commerce startup, late last year. OppDoor offers end-to-end solutions — including market entry analysis, demand mapping, inventory management, cross-border logistics and taxation assistance — to businesses, according to its website.

 

The move also follows Bansal selling his entire stake in Flipkart, which was acquired by Walmart in 2018 for $16 billion, in recent years ahead of the e-commerce group’s much-awaited IPO, which is now slated for 2025. Bansal — who is also on the board of PhonePe, a position he is maintaining — has become a prolific investor in recent years, backing a number of startups including PhonePe.

 

“I am proud of the Flipkart Group’s achievements over the past 16 years. Flipkart is in a robust position, with a strong leadership team and a clear path forward, and with this confidence, I have decided to step aside, knowing the company is in capable hands,” Bansal said in a statement.

 

After leaving Flipkart, Sachin Bansal founded Navi, a financial services firm that is looking to go public. In 2022, Navi filed the paperworks for its initial public offering, but deterred the plan after the market conditions worsened.

 

“Flipkart is the outcome of a great idea and a lot of hard work, built by teams committed to transforming how India shops,” Flipkart Group chief executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy said in a statement Saturday. “We wish Binny the best as he embarks on his next venture and thank him for the deep impact he has enabled for the Indian retail ecosystem.”

 

 

 

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— Techmeme

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Israel supporters use apps to mass report pro-Palestinian content; tech platforms question ‘citizen-led propaganda’

—  The apps raise questions for tech platforms over ‘citizen-led propaganda’ campaigns, experts say

 

 

Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post:

 

 

As the war in Gaza rages on, and both sides battle for support and public attention, supporters of Israel are making use of tools that allow them to mass report pro-Palestinian content as violating a platform’s rules.

 

The tools also generate AI-written suggested responses to posts online, allowing users to flood the comments of pro-Palestinian posts with pro-Israel messaging.

Experts who study communication online say the widespread use of such tools influences the online discussion of the war and is ushering in a new era of citizen-led propaganda campaigns. But the use of the tools does not appear to violate platform rules against what’s known as “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” or posts that appear to come from unrelated individuals but are really the result of an organized effort, often through automated accounts.

“Working in an orchestrated fashion can be violative, but it quickly becomes a gray area, and that’s why these apps exist,” said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights at Free Press, a nonpartisan organization that lists its goals as protecting free expression and civil liberties.

Researchers say it is difficult to determine which comments have been generated by such tools because there’s no way to publicly track a user’s private activity across multiple apps. Social media companies would have to come up with ways to detect their use, which is challenging because the apps operate on their own platforms, not those of the social media companies. If the apps were automatically posting, they would likely violate rules against inauthentic activity. But third-party apps that simply encourage legitimate users to report posts escape that sanction.

There’s also no way to know with precision that actions taken against someone’s account or posts are in response to activity from these apps. Anecdotally, some users report that after their Instagram and TikTok posts were mentioned on the apps, the posts were either removed or heavily downranked, making them less accessible to a large audience.

Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, did not respond to a request for comment. TikTok also did not respond to requests for comment.

“I’ve had many posts taken down, I’d say upwards of 15 to 20 posts removed,” said Nys, a content creator who posts on TikTok under the handle @palestinianpr1ncess and spoke on the condition that she be referred to by first name only because she’s worried about repercussions when traveling to the West Bank. Nys said that each of her posts that has been surfaced on one of the apps has received a flood of pro-Israel, seemingly AI-generated comments. The post is also usually removed after many users report it for bullying or hate speech. “I’m not using hate speech,” Nys said. “I’m just doing commentary on everything happening in Palestine.”

Laura Chung, a content creator and podcaster, said that she believes a mass reporting campaign facilitated by one of the apps is what led to her TikTok account being removed in December. “I was creating pro-Palestine content for education purposes and I was going massively viral,” she said. “I believe it’s these apps that got me banned on TikTok.”

Joan Donovan, a noted disinformation expert who is an assistant professor of journalism at Boston University, said the apps are a new development in the propaganda battle being waged on the internet over Israel’s offensive in Gaza and that social media companies need to find ways to monitor their use.

“Social media is a terrain of warfare, not just for cyber troops, but also for citizen battalions armed with AI-enhanced bots and the ability to generate endless unique posts that evade current content moderation tools,” she said. “It is incumbent on tech companies to defend against such abuses.”

“This level of organization only exists on one side of the conflict,” said Emerson T. Brooking, a former cyber policy adviser to the Defense Department who studies disinformation and propaganda campaigns as a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “It exists for pro-Israel voices, and it exists because there are government ministries in Israel that support these tools and encourage their use.”

Brooking and other experts said they aren’t aware of any similar tools for Palestinian supporters.

At least one of these apps is directly tied to Israel. The app, called Moovers, encourages users to “Advocate for Israel, One Click at a Time.” It pulls in allegedly pro-Palestinian content from Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X in a never-ending feed, allowing users easily to take action on that content, reporting it for review or commenting on it. It also provides pre-written pro-Israel scripts to respond to such posts.

In early December, a representative from Leaders, a Tel Aviv-based Israeli influencer marketing firm, began contacting creators in the United States, offering to pay them to promote Moovers to their audiences on Instagram. In emails viewed by The Washington Post, a representative from Leaders touted content on the Moovers app as “endorsed by Israel’s Government Advertising Agency.”

 

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— Techmeme

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The AACCNJ plans to host a Town Hall Meeting to address  ‘The Fierce Urgency of Now’ — A Presentation on the State’s Disparity Study

TRENTON, N.J. —  “The African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey (AACCNJ) will host a town hall meeting topic: “The Fierce Urgency of Now” – A Presentation on the State’s newly released Disparity Study, conducted by Mason Tillman Associates, LTD.

 

The Town Hall Meeting will be held at The Crowne Plaza Princeton, N.J. on Feb. 6 from 3 to 5 p.m., and is a free event. The Presentation will be led by Dr. Denise Anderson, Founder & CEO, Denise Anderson & Associates (DA&A) LLC, moderated by John E. Harmon, Sr., IOM, Founder, President & CEO, AACCNJ, and will include a Q&A session with the audience.

 

“The Study, as expected, revealed that African American businesses received little of the $ 18.5 billion the Murphy administration spent on contracts for construction, professional services and goods and services from 2015 to 2020,” said John E. Harmon, Sr.

 

“While expecting the worst, little did we know that the Study would document African Americans received less than one (1) percent of the $18.5 billion dollars the State awarded to contractors. African American businesses received a pittance despite the fact that we represent, 14 percent of the population, and over 10 percent of the businesses in New Jersey willing and able to contract with the State.”

 

The Study also documented that all ethnic groups received fewer contracts than expected given the number of New Jersey businesses owned by people of color. More than 25 percent of the businesses the Study identified as willing and able to contract with the State were owned by African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans.

 

“Now that the State’s commissioned study has documented the institutional discrimination our members have long experienced, we must demand that the Murphy Administration immediately establish a race and gender-based program with minority and woman-owned business utilization goals to end the discriminatory practices in its award of contracts,” said Harmon.

 

“As we move forward, we ask the Governor and his administration to also hold a statewide meeting, to discuss the results of the disparity study,” said Harmon.

 

“We plan to work in partnership with the State to put forth best practices that will provide the constituency of the AACCNJ, and others, with consistent access to opportunities and resources that they can leverage to strengthen their enterprises and ideals while mitigating past underperformance,” said Harmon.

“Our mutual goal henceforth is to have a more equitable participation in every area of the public sector wherein economic opportunities exist.”

 

“These times remind me of words that were expressed by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy,” said Harmon.

 

 

About the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey

The AACCNJ performs an essential role in the economic viability of New Jersey. While providing a platform for New Jersey’s African American business leaders, to speak with a collective voice, the AACCNJ advocates and promotes economic diversity fostering a climate of business growth through major initiatives centering on education and public policy. The Chamber serves as a proactive advocacy group with a 501(c) 3 tax exemption, which is shared by the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

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Top resolution for 2024 New Year: To avoid financial pitfalls by prioritizing savings as big safety net

NEW YORK — After more than two and a half years of struggling with high inflation, financial analysts are urging Americans to make building a solid nest egg of savings their top New Year’s resolution.

 

The prolonged period of high inflation has created severe financial stress for most U.S. households, as they are forced to pay more for everyday needs like food and housing. Low-income households have been particularly hard hit.

 

Despite the economic volatility in 2023, a recent study by USA Today found that more than four in five Americans feel some level of positivity about the U.S. economy going into 2024. However, Real Estate Developer, Serial Entrepreneur, TV Producer and Talk Show Host Dee Brown warns that there are several steps all households must take to help secure their financial foothold.

 

According to Brown, securing a financial future should be a priority for families. To assist with this, Brown recommends the following three steps:

 

1. Establishing an Emergency Fund: Setting aside a portion of income into an emergency fund can provide a safety net for unexpected expenses and financial hardships.

 

2. Budgeting and Expense Tracking: Creating a detailed budget and tracking expenses can help families prioritize spending, identify areas for saving and avoid unnecessary financial stress.

 

3. Investing in Retirement Accounts: Contributing to retirement accounts such as 401(k)s or IRAs can help build long-term financial security and ensure a comfortable retirement.

 

By taking these steps, Brown believes that households can secure their financial future and mitigate the impact of high inflation and economic volatility.

 

Dee Brown quote/tips:

“Building a solid nest egg of savings is a lifeline in times of economic uncertainty. By establishing an emergency fund, budgeting wisely and investing in retirement accounts, families can take control of their financial future and secure their foothold in today’s challenging economy.”

 

More on Dee Brown:

Dee Brown is a multifaceted entrepreneur, award-winning producer, director, writer, author, talk show host and philanthropist. He is the Founder and CEO of the P3 Group Inc., the nation’s largest African American owned, public-private partnership real estate development firm. Brown has amassed more than 30 years of solid, record breaking experience in real estate sales and development, management, construction, infrastructure, water/sewer and environmental projects in the private and governmental sectors. He also serves as the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the nonprofit Brown Foundation Community Development Corporation.

 

He is also a proud 2023 recipient of President Biden’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

 

Brown holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Memphis, an MBA from Bethel University and numerous professional certifications. He is a lifetime member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc., NAACP, Producers Guild of America, National Academy of Television, Arts & Sciences, the International Documentary Association and Entrepreneur Leadership Network. He also serves on the Documentary and Nonfictional Committee for the Producers Guild of America. As a contributing writer for Forbes.com, Entrepreneur.com, Metro & Peoria Magazines, Brown shares his insights and vast business experience with readers around the world.

 

Dee Brown is also the Executive Producer and Director of Tiger Run: The Untold Story. This highly acclaimed documentary compiles interviews, game footage and other behind the scenes video of Coach Prime — NFL Legend Deion Sanders — and showcases his mission to transform the lives of players at Jackson State University at its annual Pro Day event.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC73Xj-FDCE

www.DeeBrownCeo.com

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Brazilian world sales company O2 Play nabs Marcelo Gomes’ ‘Portrait of a Certain Orient’ ahead of Rotterdam premiere

Marcelo Gomes’ new film “Portrait of a Certain Orient” will be represented for world sales by Brazil’s O2 Play.

 

The deal was sealed ahead of the film’s premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it plays as part of the Big Screen Competition.

 

(Courtesy of IFFR)

                                                                      

O2 Play is the distribution arm of O2 Filmes group, a production, post-production and advertising company owned by Fernando Meirelles, the Oscar-nominated director behind “City of God,” “The Constant Gardener” and “The Two Popes.” Meirelles heads the company alongside Andrea Barata and Paulo Morelli. Founded by Igor Kupstas in 2013, O2 Play has theatrically released over a hundred films in Brazil, including Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and, most recently, Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla.”

 

Gomes, whose 2005 feature debut “Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures” was funded by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund, returns to the festival with his eighth feature, an adaptation of eminent Brazilian-Lebanese writer Milton Hatoum’s eponymous 1989 novel about a trio of Lebanese immigrants heading to Brazil.

 

Gomes said: “In my film, I try to show that the only way to deconstruct prejudices is by viewing the world through the eyes of others as an antidote to fanaticism. In view of the many crises engulfing us around the world that seems more important today than ever.”

 

Igor Kuptsas, director of O2 Play, said: “Marcelo’s body of work is proof that he is one of the most renowned Brazilian filmmakers working today, and his sensitive and incisive treatment of questions of migration and belonging go to the heart of one of today’s most pressing global issues in a family saga that is universally relatable.”

 

Speaking exclusively to Variety ahead of the film’s premiere, Gomes says he was attracted to Hatoum’s novel due to it being “unfilmable,” going on to explain he appreciated the idea of adapting a book featuring several streams of consciousness. The story, which follows two Catholic Lebanese siblings who meet a Muslim Lebanese man on a boat to Brazil, felt like a “puzzle” to the “Joaquim” director.

 

(Marcelo Gomes, Courtesy of Getty)

“I wanted to show the Amazon through the eyes of someone who had never been there, to show Brazil from the perspective of a foreigner. My first film is about a foreigner in the northeast of Brazil and I think that film made me understand my country better than any other films,” he added. “I love the thought of someone coming from the Middle East, from the desert, and landing in the Amazon.”

 

The director went on to describe the making of a film as a “saga.” “This film is a miracle! We were three days into shooting when we had to stop because of the pandemic. We all went back home and had to raise money again later on to restart production.” Still, even with the difficulties, Gomes managed to produce a film in several languages including Arabic, French and the Tucano Indigenous language, and featuring an international cast including Wafa’a Celine Halawi, Charbel Kamel, Zakaria Al Kaakour and Eros Galbiati.

 

This was vital to the director because, in the book, the Brazilian city of Manaus is described as a Babylon, with immigrants coming from countries such as Spain, Portugal and Lebanon to work in the region’s many plantations and factories. “It was a very cosmopolitan city, so I thought this film needed to be in multiple languages,” said Gomes. “I had to invite Lebanese actors because I needed actors speaking in their language and their own accents and I also wanted actors who had never seen the country with their own eyes. I thought this would give a truth to the film that was very important.”

 

Of broaching contemporary issues such as land demarcation and immigration in a period film, the director said: “Immigrants want a place to call home. This is a problem we have in Brazil. In the Amazon, farmers want to steal the land from the natives. The book was written in 1981, but I am a person living in 2024 and touched by the issues that are going on around me. I had to include Indigenous issues in the film, I had to mention the Middle East issues in the film and the immigration crisis.”

 

Premiering the film in Rotterdam has a special meaning to Gomes, who claims the festival to be “the most important of my career.” “I have shown my shorts there and, when I was developing the script for my first feature back in the late 90s, I had no money. So I applied for the Hubert Bals Fund and received the grant. Because of that grant, I wrote the script, applied for other grants, succeeded to make my film and then presented it at Cannes. The festival is like my mother.”

 

“Portrait of a Certain Orient” will premiere at IFFR on Jan. 27.

 

 

 

— Variety EXCLUSIVE

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Palworld, a Pokémon-like game launched on Jan. 19, has sold 5M+ copies; currently most played game on Steam, amid plagiarism claims 

—  The Pokémon-like has sold over 5 million copies in the three days since its early access launch

 

Ash Parrish / The Verge:

 

It seems like everyone on Earth is either talking about or playing Palworld. Indeed, in the three days since its early access launch on Steam on Jan. 19 (and simultaneous release on Game Pass), the game has sold over 5 million copies.

 

While that’s not quite Tears of the Kingdom numbers, to have a game from a relatively unknown developer do that kind of work in that short of time? Okay, Palworld, you have our attention. Let’s see exactly what it is you have to say.

 

Palworld’s announcement trailer released in 2021. It started generally enough, with a bright, colorful world populated with cute monsters that bear an almost uncomfortable resemblance to another game featuring cute, catchable creatures.

 

But then come the AK-47s. Midway through the game’s trailer, the tone shifts from “catch these cute monsters that will help you build your home” to “shoot these cute monsters and use them as slave labor.”

 

One of the most memorable moments from that first trailer was the image of a bunch of pals (the monsters are called pals) that look startlingly like Sprigatito, mournfully manufacturing assault rifles on an assembly line.

 

 

Fast forward two years, and while I haven’t quite gotten my gun factory up and running yet, I do feel a jolt of excitement when my Lamball helps me make a new tool or weapon. Crafting / survival games are not my jam; I bounce off them like Pikachu bouncing off a Snorlax belly. Yet for all my relative disinterest in what Palworld’s trying to sell me, I’m kinda buying it anyway. I definitely see the vision, and I completely understand how if I was someone who did enjoy the Pokémon or Minecraft games of the world, Palworld would have lit my brain on fire like a Charizard at butcher shop.

 

When you first load into Palworld, you create your character and then your world. I do appreciate that the tutorial is very good about explaining what it is you need to get started. There’s a robust survival guide that not only explains how the basic controls work but also offers tips on what to do first. And like any survival game, the first thing I wound up doing was punching trees and rocks.

 

Catching pals is a simple affair frontloaded with a bunch of busy work before you can even think about building your team. You’ve gotta craft the game’s version of pokéballs, but before you can make them you need a special kind of stone that you can either pick up off the ground or mine from rock deposits. Then you’ve gotta craft the workbench to craft the pokéball. After that, catching a pal works like it would in any other game: weaken it (with weapons, your fists, or another pal you’ve got on your team) then throw the ball to catch it. The game will tell you, based on how much you’ve weakened the pal, your likelihood of successfully catching it, which is a nice touch. But make sure you aim that ball precisely because if you’re off by one pixel, you’ll miss and lose your ball. This is especially frustrating in the early game because of all the work it takes to make the suckers in the first place.

 

Haven’t quite gotten to this level of automation yet. Image: Pocketpair

The game’s survival features are all what one would expect. There’s a hunger bar for your character, your pals have a hunger bar, and there’s even a hot / cold weather feature a la Tears of the Kingdom, so keep a torch handy or stay near campfires at night.

 

Setting up your base is similarly simple. Building a special structure will establish a base, and assigning any pals you’ve caught to that base will put them to work. If there are any resources within the base’s perimeter, your assigned pals will start harvesting them. Also, if you’re crafting within the base, whether it be tools or structures, your pals will bust out little hammers and help. You have to manage your pals carefully, providing them with shelter, food, and something to do.

 

And… that’s it. I have two hours in the game across PC and Game Pass. (The Xbox version is vastly inferior to PC — lots of frame rate drops, texture pop-ins, and visual glitches. Also, the Xbox version doesn’t have dedicated servers, which means multiplayer games are limited to up to four players, not 32 like on Steam. According to a report from IGN,Palworld developer Pocketpair is working on it).

 

It feels like I’ve got a decent understanding of most of what the game’s offering: catch pals, build stuff. The game’s novelty combined with its dissonant and edgy tone might be enough to hold players’ attention for the first 20 hours (or more, if you’re playing with friends), but I’m curious what the next 20 hours look like. The game’s still in early access and according to its Steam page, it’ll be at least a year before the full release.

 

Then there’s all the controversy. Multiple outlets and people on social media have pointed out the similarities between Palworld’s pals and pokémon.

 

https://x.com/TeeHallums/status/1748808064604504089?s=20

On X, user byofrog created a video showing models of pals superimposed over pokémon with the models lining up perfectly.

https://x.com/byofrog/status/1749198773295743156?s=20

https://x.com/byofrog/status/1749188773127016772?s=20

As of this writing, Palworld has sold over 5 million copies, and it is currently the most played game on Steam with over 870,000 players — it’s 300,000 players shy of beating Counter-Strike’s record for the most players on Steam ever. I can see why. First, it’s dry January. Outside of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown — which you should absolutely be playing! — and Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, there’s not much going on such that a game like Palworld with its “Pokémon with guns” premise has the breathing room to make a big splash.

 

Secondly, Palworld is different. I don’t mean that it’s special in its difference; it’s not doing anything particularly inspired with its survival, crafting, or monster-catching elements. But the fact that Palworld mashed all those highly popular game mechanics together makes it enough to catch the attention of starved Pokémon fans who haven’t had a decent meal since Sword / Shield.

 

 

— Techmeme