I had assumed, largely because I was directly told, that the conglomeration known as Goo-Tube was purchasing Twitch. It certainly seemed to map out, what with Twitch cracking down on copyright in exactly the same way YouTube had. But that's apparently just hedge trimming now, work that must be done in advance of acquisition by any party. Amazon picked them up. On accident?
When we hear about Jonas, and the whale which constituted his temporary housing, we are (correctly) skeptical. But nine hundred and seventy million dollars borders on that level of mythic power. It occupies a zone adjacent to pure fact. Amazon is doing all kinds of weird shit, including making what is functionally an urban "lair" and building out a credible internal game division. Twitch has vast cachet, and is essentially social-media powered television enterprise. What does Amazon see it as? And does it ultimately result in me having a branded cornea? Because I'm down.
Monday's comic featured the plaintive cries of those banned for being actual neo-nazis or for encouraging others to die with tremendous specificity, focused largely around the fact that Lyte (the Riot equivalent of a Blue Response) is either Mother Mary or Charon, and I like either interpretation.
When trying to find Lyte's official title, I hit up the Wikia for the game. I recognized him in his picture, and the name was familiar, but you have to understand how many people I see. I see so many people. And I get a lot of false positives. I used to do IT shit at fifty-odd sites, and I swear to God some of these principles, librarians, secretaries, and teachers were the same Goddamned person in different clothes at another school. I figured maybe I saw him at their booth or something, that was probably it.
But no: he's this Jeffrey Lin, the young man we awarded our scholarship to in 2010. The stated purpose of the Penny Arcade Scholarship is to "recognize one student shown to have the most potential to positively impact the game industry," and the motherfucker has basically taken on on the Kobayashi Maru of complex, high-pressure gaming interactions. We rarely get to find out where they end up, but look at this shit. They haven't cracked it yet, and maybe it's not crackable in the classic sense, but they've got it surrounded. That's all there is to say about it, really. I just think it's cool that the Scholarship is inserted at any point in that causal chain.
(CW)TB out.
