The Wilson Lootbox, Star Wars and TotalBiscuit!

Hi everyone,

It’s been a crazy 2 weeks so I wanted to provide a brief update on what’s going on:

The Wilson Lootbox

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTLFNlu2N_M&t=292s

This started out as a review for Star Wars Battlefront II, but the more I wrote, the more it become about the business of videogames and the history of lootboxes, and that story led right back to one man: EA CEO Andrew Wilson. It took a huge amount of research to put this video together, including pouring over the annual reports of all major publishers, but the result is a video that details just how core pay-2-win is to EA’s DNA, and why I think their company is over-valued. The video has been very well received, with Jim Sterling responding to it (he said he still thought that Overwatch was the cause of the current lootbox drama), and TotalBiscuit also reached out to me, leading to…

The Cooptional Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZgggxWruNE&index=1&list=PLFE010B0EEA9E5F06

Each week, Totalbiscuit invites a guest to hang out with he, Jesse Cox and Dooger, to talk through what’s been happening in the whacky world of videogames. I was honoured to be a guest on the show where we chatted through Assassin’s Creed (which I am currently reviewing) Wolfenstein II and a whole bunch of other stuff. It’s a great listen if you can spare the time.

Star Wars Battlefront II review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNF2q8Pxm2g

I resurrected the actual review components of my old script and finished it. 14 hours straight spent editing resulted in a 30 min vid that pays tribute to the incredible work of DICE, Motive and Criterion, while also cautioning against the corrosive impact of this game. SWBFII is a modern day videogames tragedy, but the silver lining is that it’s shaken us into action and forever changed the way we’ll view predatory monetisation practices in AAA games. For that, we have to be thankful.

Laymen Explodes

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwpmyAEOxIFmiXHFk4XbLMA

In just over two weeks, my second channel ‘Laymen Gaming’ has grown from 8k subs, to nearly 30k subs. My brother and I have a huge amount of fun doing what we do. We’re there for a laugh, but we’re also there to talk about the games industry and where it’s going, and the chance to do that regularly on that channel (as opposed to just once a week on Skill Up) really fits schedule. If you’re already a sub to that channel then thanks for the support, and if not then come check it out sometime (so long as you don’t mind dank memes and low-quality clickbait).

Coming up…

The next few weeks, I’d like to knock over a review of Destiny 2’s DLC, The Division Patch 1.8, and Assassin’s Creed Origins. After that, I’d like to do a game of the year video- I’m looking forward to that one in particular :P

Thank you everyone for your incredible, on-going support. The success of Laymen and the continued growth of Skill Up is making the dream of going full time on youtube look more and more likely every day.

All the best.

Ralph