Level 0: Tutorial
Picture this scenario…
It’s the year 1985, you’re a 16-year-old high-school student who just finished class on Friday. You and your friends decide to go to an arcade. You spend the whole afternoon hanging out with your friends, eating (probably) mediocre pizza, and inserting an infinite amount of quarters into a Donkey Kong game. You have a blast.
And that was the last time you played a video game.
Back to today: you open your New York Times app, and you see that Disney, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world, just invested 1.5 BILLION dollars to acquire a stake in Epic Games, the parent company of Fortnite. Sure, you've heard those names before. But when you read the article, you see the words "entertainment universes", "cross-platform", and "immersive experiences". These concept seem far removed from the quarter-a-pop game machine with a big gorilla in it you used to play as a teenager. And that big gorilla never saw the kind of money Fortnite sees on a yearly basis.
These news may leave you wondering, how come there is so much money being poured into the gaming industry? What value are big media conglomerates seeing in this new media channel? Why is so much money used, and why is it needed? What the hell are “skins” and why are kids spending hundreds of dollars of their parents money to buy them?
That’s where Checkpoints comes in.
In this blog, I will be discussing the business side of news in gaming, but in a fun, approachable way. I'll break down the main concepts behind stories in gaming for those who may not know much about this industry. I’ll also provide some content for the gamers among you, who are curious about the business side of the games you play. For to those who do know a lot, I'll be supplying my hot takes for FREE, and you get to yell at me for being so terribly wrong!
Now the obvious question: why would you even trust me?
I haven’t had formal experience working in the gaming industry. Though I have conducted serious research into the ins and outs of how the industry works. I have also interviewed and talked to numerous professionals from Executive Producers to Sound Designers about their views of the industry. I have also consumed countless industry reports articles and blog posts and podcasts, etc. Those were definitely directed at individuals with previous knowledge of industry basics. You can count on me to give you that base of knowledge, but distilled into an easy to understand format. I was also a Product Manager at Mastercard for 3 years. Through that experience, I understood what it means to ship, scale, and service products. I hope to bring some of that perspective to my writing here.
With that said, let’s dig in, and jump into Level 1, where we’ll talk about Disney, Fortnite, and what the hell “skins” are! Stay tuned for next