Business
Gaming has led the metaverse, but NFTs pose new ethical challenges. The DICE Summit discussions
The probabilities — and the obligations — of an all-encompassing digital world such because the metaverse dominated discuss at this 12 months’s D.I.C.E. Summit, a gathering of gaming business professionals in Las Vegas that stood because the medium’s first main in-person convention for the reason that begin of the pandemic.
Gaming executives, and even “Avengers: Endgame” co-director Joe Russo, preached that the gaming business was on the verge of defining the subsequent technology of on-line worlds, even when everybody was quick on specifics. And but Laura Miele, govt VP and COO of Digital Arts, cautioned that the business must construct a extra welcoming, numerous house earlier than totally turning its consideration to the subsequent evolution of gaming and social connectivity.
With regards to constructing worlds, Russo stated everyone seems to be studying from the gaming sector. He talked about how “Avengers: Endgame” strove to construct an immersive world primarily based upon lore and a large number of movies audiences may get misplaced in. The movie, Russo stated, “doesn’t work with out 10 years and 21 motion pictures previous it. It doesn’t work.”
The metaverse, stated Russo, is “digital worlds.” He stated, “It’s the issues we need to swim round in.”
However one step at a time.
In a Wednesday morning discuss, Miele alluded to to the case towards Activision Blizzard, referencing reporting that documented a office the place sexual harassment is rampant and infrequently goes unpunished, and the place girls are paid much less, denied promotions and retaliated towards once they elevate points with managers. She didn’t single out Activision Blizzard by title, however she burdened that constructing an inclusive, constructive work atmosphere is step one towards a greater, extra considerate gaming tradition and a process that must be accomplished earlier than video games look to the “new wild west” of the metaverse and past.
“These are actual tales, actual human beings and this is happening at firms in our business,” Miele stated. “Now all of the success, progress … and energy that gaming has on this planet, if firms can’t determine this out and repair this burning problem, we don’t get to maneuver ahead and we is not going to cross go.”
Studio well being was a first-rate subject at D.I.C.E., the place a chat centered on what a return to the workplace appeared like with employee habits having been endlessly altered by the pandemic. Even a dialog on NFTs (or non-fungible tokens) and the way the net certificates that permit for the possession of digital items and so-called “play-to-earn” fashions may rework video games, fell closely on why the subject has been met with such resistance amongst builders at gaming studios.
“Disdain,” is how moderator Min Kim of Bonfire Studios summarized the early developer response to growing video games enabling NFT performance on the blockchain. The panelists tried to take a measured strategy, noting there hasn’t been successful recreation but that may present a mass viewers why participant possession will create a greater gaming expertise, whereas additionally conceding that lots of the early adopters have what’s perceived as questionable ethics, as preliminary video games within the house are constructed round money-making or collectible schemes firstly.
D.I.C.E. audio system in contrast it to the start of free-to-play cell video games, which launched numerous controversial mechanics, together with loot containers and their gambling-like nature in addition to countless microtransactions that may nonetheless right this moment sometimes be contentious topics. “We haven’t seen that blockbuster recreation that adjustments the angle of a developer,” stated John Linden, CEO of Legendary Video games. Linden used collectible card recreation “Hearthstone” for example of a piece that confirmed new potentialities for a selected style, arguing that NFTs are in want of such a recreation.
However earlier than anybody worries about new enterprise fashions, Miele cautioned that the sport business wants to scrub up its present one. Miele spoke in regards to the want for inside soul-searching but additionally preached the significance of striving to create secure and constructive participant communities.
“Let’s create some actual accountability,” Miele stated. “Whether or not it’s by means of our present business organizations or we create one thing new, we have to publicly observe the progress of [diversity and equity] commitments. Many people have labored collectively for a very long time, and guess what? We’re not making video games in our storage anymore. We now have an amazing quantity of energy and duty on this world.”
Miele spoke about a couple of pair of Digital Arts initiatives that she stated had a constructive affect on fostering a extra open-minded and welcoming gaming neighborhood, as on-line video games are infamous for gamers who exhibit foul language and troll-like habits. She singled out Respawn recreation “Apex Legends” for its so-called ping system, which permits gamers to speak through in-game symbols fairly than verbally. Miele stated different builders may use EA’s patented inclusivity instruments royalty free.
One other initiative the corporate undertook was being extra aggressive in reaching out to problematic gamers.
“We’ve seen that when gamers obtain suggestions about their habits, lots of them really change it,” Miele stated. “So, for instance, 85% of ‘Apex Legends’ gamers who obtained an e mail from us after they have been exhibiting habits that violated our constructive play constitution didn’t do it once more. We didn’t should ban them, we didn’t should punish them. We simply despatched them just a little love notice to remind them in regards to the guidelines of the sport. I nonetheless consider within the goodness of individuals.”
Metaverse-like worlds have come underneath better scrutiny since Fb rebranded itself to Meta, however all through D.I.C.E. numerous points have been alluded to in terms of constructing a hospitable digital universe. Issues surrounding social media and the unfold of disinformation have but to be solved, and gaming communities, Miele argued, replicate the atmosphere by which they’re created. She inspired the business look to its personal home earlier than developing extra digital ones.
“Right here we we’re, sitting in a uniquely highly effective place on the intersection of expertise, leisure and social exercise,” Miele stated. “All of you this week are going to have a good time speaking about fascinating topics like NFTs and crypto and blockchain and metaverses, however we even have to connect with the humanity.”
Business
Amazon Prime Will Release a Melania Trump Documentary
Amazon said on Sunday that its Prime Video streaming service would release a “behind the scenes” documentary about Melania Trump’s life.
The film will head to movie theaters and stream on Amazon Prime in the second half of this year, the company said in a statement. Mrs. Trump will be an executive producer of the documentary, which started filming in December, the month after her husband, Donald J. Trump, won the presidential election.
Amazon said it was “excited to share this truly unique story.”
The company and its founder, Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, had a rocky relationship with Mr. Trump during Mr. Trump’s first presidential term. But in recent months, Amazon and Mr. Bezos have taken steps to repair it. The tech giant said last month that it would donate $1 million to the president-elect’s inaugural fund, joining Meta and executives of some other Silicon Valley companies in writing checks to the inaugural committee. Mr. Bezos has said he is “very optimistic” about Mr. Trump’s new term in office and is eager to work with his administration on reducing regulation.
During his first presidential term, Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Bezos because of his newspaper’s political coverage and questioned whether the U.S. Postal Service was charging Amazon too little for shipping. Amazon, in turn, accused Mr. Trump of using “improper pressure” on the Pentagon to deny the company a cloud-computing contract.
Amazon now appears to be eager to turn the page.
In October, The Post said it would stop endorsing presidential candidates, a decision made by Mr. Bezos, and did not publish an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris that had already been drafted. Mr. Bezos defended his decision, saying newspaper endorsements “create a perception of bias.”
Last week, Ann Telnaes, a Post cartoonist, said she was resigning after the paper’s opinion section rejected a cartoon that showed Mr. Bezos and three other technology executives bending the knee to a statue of Mr. Trump while offering the president-elect bags of money. David Shipley, The Post’s opinion editor, said the cartoon was rejected because the section had published a column on the same subject and had already scheduled another one for publication. He said he had asked Ms. Telnaes to rescind her resignation, saying, “The only bias was against repetition.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the efforts by the company and Mr. Bezos to forge closer ties to Mr. Trump. The Trump transition team also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mrs. Trump has recently shown more willingness to share details about her life with the public. Last year, she published a memoir that described her career as a model, marriage to Mr. Trump and time in the White House. It became a No. 1 New York Times best seller. Her role as executive producer of the documentary suggests that she will have some influence over how it depicts her life.
Brett Ratner, a director and producer behind movies like “Rush Hour” and “The Revenant,” will direct the documentary. Mr. Ratner has kept a lower profile in recent years after questions were raised about his behavior. In 2011, he resigned as co-producer of the Oscars broadcast after he used an anti-gay slur at a public event. In 2017, Mr. Ratner was accused of sexual misconduct by six women in an article published by The Los Angeles Times, claims that he denied.
Amazon, which will have exclusive rights to the movie about Mrs. Trump, said it would reveal more details on the project as filming progressed and it completed release plans.
Business
Brett Ratner directs Melania Trump documentary on Prime Video
Director Brett Ratner is back behind the camera again for a new documentary on Melania Trump, his first film since facing allegations of sexual harassment raised nearly a decade ago by several female associates, including actor Olivia Munn.
The documentary, which has been licensed by Amazon Prime Video, will be released later this year in theaters and also on the streaming platform. The film is produced by Fernando Sulichin (New Element Media) and Trump.
“We are excited to share this truly unique story with our millions of customers around the world,” Amazon said in a statement Sunday.
Amazon and a representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why Ratner was picked as director for the film or past sexual harassment allegations against him. Ratner is best known for his films “Rush Hour,” “X-Men: The Last Stand” and “The Family Man.”
In an interview with ABC News in 2018, the then-first lady said that when people accused others of harassment they needed to provide proof.
“You cannot just say to somebody, ‘I was sexually assaulted, or you did that to me,’ because sometimes the media goes too far and the way they portray some stories — it’s not correct, it’s not right,” she told the news outlet.
Sexual harassment and misconduct allegations against Ratner were reported by The Times in 2017. The allegations included a model who said she was forced to perform oral sex on Ratner and an actor who said she saw Ratner masturbating and ejaculating when she came into his trailer.
Ratner’s attorney, Martin Singer, disputed the accounts to The Times in 2017.
“I have represented Mr. Ratner for two decades, and no woman has ever made a claim against him for sexual misconduct or sexual harassment,” Singer wrote to The Times in 2017. “Furthermore, no woman has ever requested or received any financial settlement from my client.”
After The Times reported on the allegations, Ratner experienced a setback in his career.
In 2017, Warner Bros. severed ties with the embattled filmmaker and said it would not renew its production deal with Ratner. At the same time, the Diageo liquor company discontinued Ratner’s whiskey brand, Hillhaven Lodge, named after the director’s Beverly Hills estate.
In 2017, Ratner sued a woman who’d accused him of rape for defamation. He dropped the lawsuit in 2018.
Meanwhile, Amazon — which was founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, who recently met with President-elect Donald Trump — has told the Associated Press that it will donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund and will carry the Jan. 20 ceremony on its streaming platform, which is considered an in-kind donation worth an additional $1 million.
Times staff writer Amy Kaufman and night archiving supervisor Valerie Hood contributed to this report.
Business
The Fallout From the End of the U.S. Steel Deal
The end of a troubled takeover bid
President Biden is set to officially block Nippon Steel’s $14 billion takeover of U.S. Steel as soon as Friday, most likely putting an end to an industrial megadeal that ran up against widespread political opposition.
But the decision could set off a cascade of consequences, including whether it would dissuade foreign investment in key industries, even from crucial U.S. allies like Japan. There’s one near-certainty: Expect a lot of litigation.
The deal’s demise seemed increasingly inevitable. In March, Biden said it was “vital” that U.S. Steel remained American-owned. The United Steelworkers’ union opposed the transaction from the start, questioning Nippon Steel’s commitment to maintaining the American company’s production and unionized employment levels. (That U.S. Steel is headquartered in Pennsylvania, a crucial election battleground state, escaped no one’s notice.)
Last month, the federal government panel, known as CFIUS, that reviewed the deal on national security grounds expressed concern that the Japanese suitor’s global business considerations could eventually outweigh any commitments it made to preserve U.S. Steel production levels.
President-elect Donald Trump also pledged to block the takeover once he took office.
Others have worried that blocking the deal could chill foreign investment. In recent days, some senior Biden advisers warned that rejecting the transaction could damage relations with Japan, The Washington Post reported.
Japanese officials pressed Biden to approve the deal. Rejecting it “will send a stark message that investment from Japan, regardless of lack of security concerns, is not welcome in the U.S.,” Takehiko Matsuo, a senior trade minister, wrote to Biden administration officials last month.
The matter will probably head to court. Nippon Steel has complained of the White House’s “impermissible influence” in the CFIUS process. That lays the groundwork for the Japanese company or U.S. Steel to sue over Biden’s expected move.
DealBook also wonders whether the companies would sue each other, perhaps citing a failure to do enough to win approval. (The deal agreement requires Nippon Steel to pay its American counterpart $565 million if regulators block the transaction.)
What next for U.S. Steel? The company’s C.E.O., David Burritt, has warned that the steel maker needs investment to upgrade its aging plants. Even CFIUS acknowledged that the company had a “history of inadequate attempts to improve its competitiveness.”
One possibility is another bidder — such as Cleveland-Cliffs, which had been previously rebuffed by U.S. Steel and whose stock has been under pressure — could swoop in. But there’s bad blood between Burritt and his Cleveland-Cliffs counterpart, raising the question of whether U.S. Steel investors would need to heap on the pressure to get a deal done.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
Mike Johnson faces a nail-biter vote on Friday for House speaker. Johnson has the backing of President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk, but is hampered by a razor-thin majority and a fractious House Republican conference. Corporate America will closely watch the vote’s outcome for what it says about the chamber’s ability to pass legislation once Trump takes office.
The authorities identify the driver of the Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion. The man was an Army master sergeant on leave from active duty, who killed himself immediately before the rented Tesla detonated outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day. The F.B.I. said it had found no link between the incident and the deadly New Orleans rampage hours earlier involving an Army veteran.
China places trade restrictions on dozens of U.S. companies. The Ministry of Commerce announced on Thursday that export-control limits would be put on 28 companies, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The move comes just weeks before Trump takes office, and will probably escalate a trade war between Washington and Beijing. More shots could be fired soon: The Biden administration is weighing a ban on Chinese-made drones.
Does Tesla sales stall matter?
At any other car company, the sales numbers announced by Tesla on Thursday would have been a catastrophe. Deliveries for the year fell slightly in a growing market, the first annual decline in the company’s history.
Yet the reaction on Wall Street was relatively muted when compared to the huge rally in Tesla’s share price in recent months, The Times’s Jack Ewing writes for DealBook. That reflects how much Elon Musk has sold investors on the idea that the cars are a piece of a much bigger vision that includes self-driving taxis and humanoid robots — and his close ties to President-elect Donald Trump.
Shares closed down but the stock is up more than 55 percent since Election Day. Musk’s relationship with Trump has given him a direct line to the White House that he can use to promote his business interests.
“Investors have shifted,” Erik Gordon, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, told DealBook. “They thought of it as an E.V. company. Now they think of it as a technology platform. ‘What will Elon think of next?’”
Musk has revealed little detail about his plans. During conference calls with investors and analysts, he has focused on what he says will be trillions of dollars in revenue from self-driving taxis that are probably years away from mass production.
Yet Musk may find it difficult to realize his grand visions if the company keeps losing market share to rivals such as General Motors, BMW and BYD. (The Chinese car maker reported record sales in 2024.)
Does Musk need to accelerate plans for a lower-cost Tesla? He told investors in October that the company would begin selling a car this year that would cost substantially less than a Model 3 sedan, which starts at $42,500 before state and federal incentives.
But Musk has sounded ambivalent about the new vehicle, calling it “pointless” unless it’s capable of driving autonomously. And Tesla has not displayed a prototype yet.
That has led to speculation that Musk is not that interested in mass-market cars anymore. “What excites Musk is the technology for the day after tomorrow,” Gordon said. “An econobox E.V. just doesn’t ring his bell.”
One thing to watch in 2025: Musk’s reaction if car sales remain tepid and Tesla shares fall further. Would that prompt him to deploy more of the skills he used to build Tesla into the world’s largest maker of electric cars?
A blow to net neutrality
A federal appeals court has knocked down one of President Biden’s biggest tech policy accomplishments: the F.C.C.’s net neutrality rules on broadband internet providers that sought to safeguard consumers’ access to online content.
The dismantling comes as companies brace for the incoming Trump administration to usher in a new era of deregulation, and further limit regulatory reach.
The decision is a win for cable and telecom companies such as AT&T and Comcast, ending a two-decade effort to regulate them like utilities. It also shows the impact of a recent Supreme Court ruling that is expected to limit federal agencies’ power.
A recap: The regulations, which have been championed by Google, Facebook and Netflix, were put in place under the Obama administration amid concern that internet service providers could become de facto gatekeepers with the power to slow or block access to content. The rules were revoked during the first Trump term, only to be reinstated by the F.C.C. in April.
Brendan Carr, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the F.C.C., has been a vocal critic of the rules.
The ruling could inspire other legal challenges. It relies on the Supreme Court’s upending last year of the Chevron doctrine requiring courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous statutes. “The F.C.C.,” Judge Richard Allen Griffin wrote, “lacks the statutory authority to impose its desired net-neutrality policies.”
Tim Wu, a former Biden administration official who coined the term “net neutrality,” slammed the decision, calling it “blatant judicial activism that puts corporate interests over American democracy.”
What’s next? The fight over net neutrality isn’t over: The decision doesn’t affect state laws, including those in California, Washington and Colorado. And Democrats at the F.C.C. called on Congress to enshrine net neutrality into law. Still, many commentators note that net neutrality isn’t the hot-button consumer issue it had once been.
“The market no longer thinks it’s a big deal and hasn’t for a while,” Blair Levin, a former chief of staff to the F.C.C., told The Times.
A big reshuffle at Meta
In the latest sign of how Big Tech is repositioning itself for the new Trump administration, Meta has tapped a prominent Republican to head its global policy team.
Joel Kaplan, a longtime Meta employee and a deputy chief of staff under former President George W. Bush, will take over from Nick Clegg, as first reported by Semafor.
Meta has tried to take itself out of the political spotlight. Clegg, a former deputy prime minister of Britain, joined the tech giant when the company was facing fierce blowback, including for its handling of disinformation on its platform during the 2016 election.
He’s credited with smoothing relations with regulators, especially in Washington and Brussels.
Could his leftish politics have become a liability? Clegg may have been planning his exit before the election, but he didn’t hide his opinions. Last month, he warned that Elon Musk, whose X and xAI compete with Meta, could become a “political puppet master” and criticized Musk’s stewardship of X.
The remarks came as many businesses worry about retribution from President-elect Donald Trump and Musk — and as Big Tech C.E.O.s have gone out of their way to curry favor with them.
Kaplan’s deep Republican roots could help Meta in the new Trump era. He joined Facebook in 2011, and later served as Clegg’s deputy. Before that, he clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court and is a close friend of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. (He appeared at Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation hearings, and later apologized to Meta employees who thought his presence showed a political preference).
He has also been one of the loudest voices inside Meta pushing against restrictions on political content.
Mark Zuckerberg has largely turned away from politics. For years, the tech mogul publicly campaigned for liberal causes but has shifted after coming under sustained fire. Trump criticized Zuckerberg and threatened to put him in jail after accusing Meta of censoring conservative views.
But Zuckerberg, like other Big Tech leaders, has made efforts to court Trump, having traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet the president-elect after the November election.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
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Several prominent hedge funds — including Millennium, D.E. Shaw, Bridgewater Associates and Ken Griffin’s Citadel — reported double-digit returns last year. (Reuters)
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Hindenburg Research, the activist short-seller, announced a bet against Carvana, accusing the used-car sales platform of accounting manipulation. (CNBC)
Politics and policy
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President-elect Donald Trump picked Ken Kies, a longtime tax lobbyist for clients including Microsoft, as the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for tax policy. (Bloomberg)
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“How Silicon Valley won a powerful House committee” (Politico)
Best of the rest
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The U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, called for cancer warnings to be placed on alcoholic beverages; doing so would require Congress to act, however. (NYT)
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Richard Easterlin, an economist whose work challenged the assumption that more money always leads to more happiness, died Dec. 16. He was 98. (NYT)
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“The Rise Of Big Potato” (The Lever)
We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.
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