Gm and welcome to the lobby.

A special Thursday edition of Private Lobby! Hecz sues Activision for $680M. VALORANT sets record viewership. EA NCAAF is back. StatusPro takes VR Sports to the next level. And OpenAI’s Sora is going to takeover the world?

Ok, grab your coffee, ready up, and let’s drop in 🪂
Here’s what we have for you today:

• HECZ & Scump sue Activision for millions in monumental lawsuit 🧑‍⚖️

• VALORANT’s VCT sets record viewership with 2024 kickoff 💥

• EA NCAA Football is baaaacccckk this summer 🏈

• A Text-to-Video Pandora’s Box? Meet OpenAI’s Sora 🎥

• StatusPro lands $20M investment & look to redefine VR Sports 🎮

🧑‍⚖️ HECZ & Scump Sue Activision

This past week OpTic Gaming’s CEO Hector “HECZ” Rodriguez & Retired Call of Duty Pro Seth “Scump” Abner filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard. Together they are looking for $680 million dollars in damages alleging that Activision has a monopoly over the Professional Call of Duty market.

Here are some of the of the alleged violations from the lawsuit… 💼

• Activision excluded Hecz from acquiring the OGLA spot, which resulted in him being forced to merge with Envy

• Activision limited & suppressed Scump’s ability to acquire sponsorship due to strict guidelines from the CDL

• Hecz & OpTic’s brand was damaged by Activision’s monopoly

• Scump’s brand was damaged by Activision’s monopoly

Activision shared this statement after the lawsuit was filled…🗯️

👀 Our POV

Really interested to see what the outcome of this case is, it holds major precedent when it comes to relationships between publishers, leagues, organizations, and players.

A lot of publishers & developers see esport leagues & tournaments as marketing opportunities to showcase their game at the highest level, hoping viewers will want to download and play their games (This works really well on me 🥴). With these game IP’s solely belonging to the publishers, it’ll be interesting to see how much power a judge gives them in this lawsuit.

However though… COD esports has been around long before Activision officially supported it with the Call of Duty League, with multiple opportunities for pros to make money in multiple tournaments. So does Activision have the right to step in and tell these teams how to run?

I will definitely keep an eye on this case and how it develops… 👀

- Justin Palacios (Private Lobby)

💥 VALORANT sets record viewership

Riot Games kicked off the 2024 VCT season in North America this past week. The format this year has been faced with backlash, dramatically reducing the matches team play in a year. For teams that lose twice in the group stage, they wont play a professional match until April. 🤯

All eyes this weekend were on LOUD & Sentinels peaking at 590k for the group play matchup. A 17% increase to the top group play match from last year, once again LOUD vs Sentinels, peaking at 504k viewers.

📈 By The Numbers: VCT 2024 Americas Group Stage

• Average Viewers - 305,333 

• Peak Viewership - 589,773 

• Hours Watched - 5,419,66

All three of the top matches so far have featured teams from North America taking on teams from South America, bringing a potential boost to viewership from the hardcore and loyal Portuguese & Spanish speaking fans (2 of the top 3 streams by language).

👀 Our POV

I was worried to see how VCT would play out with the numerous layoffs by Riot these past few months, but from a viewership standpoint - VCT is still growing slowly.

With the combo of NA’s most popular team along with the most popular team in Brazil, along with massive costreamers from both region  - you’re bound to set record viewership.

While there’s a lack of matches for teams who might not perform in the moment, I’m wondering if Riot featuring the top teams more with this new schedule will bring an increase to viewership this year with more exciting gameplay. 🤔
 
- Justin Palacios (Private Lobby)

🏈 EA NCAA Football is baaaacccckk

While being arguably the biggest tease in all of game development (I know dozens of you will have a different title in your back pocket that you’ve been waiting for, but I digress), EA Sports is bringing its college football franchise back to fans. 

The last iteration of this game, NCAA Football 14, dropped in July of 2013. After a tweet on February 2, 2021 that confirmed its return, the publisher has dodged, ducked, dipped, dove, and dodged any other questions. Granted, Electronic Arts has undergone a large-scale transformation since that pseudo-announcement, and fought a lawsuit that tried to kill the project (thanks, Brandr group). 

Alas, last week an official teaser video was published to their accounts that set the Internet on fire.

👀 Our POV

This game launch is going to be massive. We can’t undersell how much of a cultural moment this is going to be. EA FC was last year’s sport sim tent pole due to the uncertainty around EA’s ability to continue its dominance in soccer without FIFA IP, and they proved they most definitely could, but as soon as this release date drops… circle that on your calendar. 

The one thing I noticed that was interesting? They’ve dropped the use of NCAA in the title. It’s now just EA College Football 25. Could be a “cya” move from a branding and licensing perspective after the FIFA/EA FC shift, or (more likely) an output from all of the conversations that had to take place around NIL before this could become a reality, but interesting nonetheless.

This could also really open the flood gates for larger NIL influencer plays in the gaming/gaming partnerships realm. Excited to see what comes from it this summer!

- Brendan Valentine (Private Lobby)

🎥 A text-to-video Pandora’s Box

Sam Altman’s latest creation from OpenAI is “Sora.” A tool that lets users generate photorealistic videos from just a text prompt. Sora takes impressive leaps forward in quality for text-to-video models and shows us a future where virtually any video can be made by anyone, with no editing skills required. Users can generate up to 60 seconds from a given prompt and/or image. One of the examples on OpenAI’s website is “Historical footage of California during the gold rush,” which it achieves with surprising realism. That said, it still features the usual glitches and small incorrect details that keep these models in check for now.

It’s no surprise that Sora's announcement attracted both significant praise and objection. Numerous concerns around Deepfakes, the threat to artist jobs, and misuse of content make the conversation surrounding AI image or video generation quite thorny. OpenAI’s Sora landing page attempts to address safety concerns by saying, “We’ll be taking several important safety steps ahead of making Sora available in OpenAI’s products. We are working with red teamers — domain experts in areas like misinformation, hateful content, and bias — who will be adversarially testing the model”. OpenAI is making a concerted effort to assess safety and concerns around public use before releasing this into the wild. The company spokesperson said they are “taking several important safety steps ahead of making Sora available in OpenAI’s products” when asked about a public release.

While text-to-video generation will certainly be a part of our future, its impact on the world is hotly contested. Many people see it as a significant threat to artistic jobs, the way society consumes content, and film. However, others see a harmonious future where these models have a significant role in content generation, marketing, and social media. For marketers, tools like Sora could enable your content pipeline to multiply in speed. These tools can also enable people to create brands and tell stories. There is still hope for a future with ethical AI use.

👀 Our POV

OpenAI’s Sora is undoubtedly an impressive piece of technology that carries massive implications for the future of AI and AI-driven content generation. Though, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say it scared me! While I trust OpenAI’s safety measures, to a degree, it’s hard to imagine public access to these tools not having some adverse effects on society and the content industry. While many people are fairly savvy with the internet and current content trends, a large amount of the population isn’t, and they are susceptible to misinformation and disinformation. Not everyone knows to look for that pesky sixth finger!

As someone who works closely with professional creative staff, it’s hard not to carry a slight bias against a tool that could be used to eliminate their jobs. AI may never truly match the human touch, but it can surely put a dent in the creative world. I think what this technology does, in a vacuum is SO damn cool. It’s incredible that a quick sentence is enough to generate a nearly photorealistic video. However, I can’t deny the great potential for harm to occur if this technology isn’t properly managed. As AI becomes increasingly relevant, these companies must take responsibility for the risk and coordinate with governments and platforms to ensure their misuse isn’t tolerated. You can always trust large companies and governments to have your best interest at heart, right?

- Brendan Valentine (Private Lobby)

🎮 StatusPro lands $20M investment & look to redefine VR Sports

StatusPro, a sports tech and gaming company, has secured $20 million in Series A funding to expand its build upon it’s successful VR football game, NFL Pro Era. The game, which uses real-time player data to simulate NFL games, has attracted over 1 million users and is the fastest-selling VR sports title on Meta’s Quest.

The funding round was led by Google Ventures, with a number of celebrities and athletes joining the round.

⛏️ Let’s Dig Deeper

• VR Sports: This move from Google Ventures indicates a strong interest and potential for growth in the VR sports gaming sector.

• Celebrity & Industry Support: LeBron James, Drake, and NFL player Myles Garrett, and a number of other celebrites & athletes joined the round, showcasing a diverse range of support and confidence in StatusPro's founders and company vision. 

• Future of VR and AR in Sports: With the success of NFL Pro Era and the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro and other VR products, StatusPro is not just a VR sports gaming company. The company is looking to capitalize on the growing enthusiasm for immersive sports experiences and the evolving landscape of gaming tech.

👀 Our POV

Bagging a cool $20 million in Series A dough, led by Google Ventures with heavyweights like LeBron James and Drake joining, StatusPro is about to shake up the VR sports gaming world.

We know VR’s true “moment in gaming” is still a few years away as we wait on the technology to get there but StatusPro's NFL Pro Era proved there is hunger for a virtual gridiron experience.

My take: Forget the short-term, I’m excited to see where StatusPro is in 5 years, in 10 years. StatusPro could legitimately compete with EA Sports. It’s more likely that EA Sports buys StatusPro and just integrates their work into their existing IP but I’m sure that would be a big win for Google Ventures and the other investors here so I feel pretty optimistic about this one!

- Zach Eller (Private Lobby)

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