A very sharp young lawyer (well, she’s waiting for her bar results but I have confidence) who goes by LadyLawTM on the Internet invited me to speak on a panel she wanted to do on lootboxes, games, and gambling at TwitchCon this year. I like talking, I like cons, and I Have Opinions, so of course I said yes. It was this past weekend and I thought I’d just share a few of the highlights with you. 🙂
Note: There is a list of all the streamers I met (and whose gamertags I got) at the bottom of this entry. Please check them out! If I missed you, so sorry, please comment and I’ll add you.
First, I am happy to report that our panel was a smashing success. The description is here, and here’s a VOD of our panel!
Second, the rest of the con was very good for the most part. There were some serious problems on Friday with the admission process, and those were the worst lines I have ever seen in 20 years of going to conferences, conventions, and other gatherings of geeks. I took a little video:
Twitch was sincerely apologetic and took concrete steps to address the issues. If they take care to keep ahead of it in future, that’s a good sign.
I went to panels by some of the other video game lawyers who were there and we went out for drinks and dinner and somehow I ended up at the party Saturday night with three attorneys. This happened.
This is after they did the bouncy slide (twice) and ran the bouncy obstacle course. I have video. Muhahahaha!
But in all seriousness, if you are a streamer, or interested in the subject, please do check out their videos as well. They can be found on the TwitchCon room streams (like where the one above is). Super useful stuff for streamers who want to do more.
Speaking of, I was also impressed with Twitch’s education pods in the expo hall detailing all the new tools they are providing streamers to help them get the most of out streaming. New channel moderation tools, analytics, and the Creator Camp feature. Too much to list here, and they are all on Twitch’s site, of course, but if you want, drop me an email and I’ll send you some of the info they shared.
Also met a lot of people with interesting products and services useful to streamers, content creators, and gamers in general. Admittedly, some of them were a little out there. I still can’t decide if this is the best branding I’ve ever seen, or the worst. But it is *memorable.*
“GamerGoo” is a hand lotion that allegedly gives you a better grip while keeping your skin healthy. I didn’t try playing a game after trying a sample but as lotion goes, it’s pretty nice. See more at https://www.twitch.tv/gamergoo.
I also had a nice chat with the people at Webaround, who make an ingenious portable greenscreen for streaming. If you stream, or use video chat, you might look into it. They are at https://www.thewebaround.com/gaming. I am fortunate enough to have an office with a semi-permanent background for video, but if I didn’t I’d get one of these things. No, I did not get an endorsement deal, sadly. But if you’re interested you can use code “WEBAROUNDTC” for a discount.
Streamers I met:
LadyLawTM –Â https://www.twitch.tv/ladylawtm/
- The moderator of our “Games and Gambles: The Future of Lootboxes” panel! Met her for the first time IRL at the con, she’s fantastic. Check out her stream and say hi.
Yuhoui – https://www.twitch.tv/yuhoui/
- Yuhoui is a European streamer who I happened to sit next to in line for one of the business panels. An absolutely charming person, and I don’t say that just because she let me talk her ear off.
AFBLURT – https://www.twitch.tv/afblurt
- Very cool guy I chatted with about hosting and streaming
spatsula – https://www.twitch.tv/spatsula
- Artist, cute stuff, didn’t actually meet her, met her booth partner…
AnnaCupkek –Â https://www.twitch.tv/AnnaCupkek
- Super nice. Game streamer.
superwae –Â https://www.twitch.tv/superwae
- Superwae is a streamer who streams games in his late brother’s memory. They’re games his brother bought but never got a chance to play and by streaming them, he’s helping keep his brother’s memory alive. A wonderful tribute and he and his friends were so friendly when I chatted with them at breakfast in the hotel. Please give him a look.
kaptan_0blivious – https://www.twitch.tv/kaptan_0blivious
- Met this fellow in a Lyft. Had a nice if short chat.
NinjaFalcon2 – https://www.twitch.tv/Ninjafalcon_2
- Sat down at a random table in the food court and struck up a conversation with NinjaFalcon.
Chigginators –Â https://www.twitch.tv/chigginators/
- Chigginators is the alias of one of the streaming business panelists. His job is helping streamers be successful and plan for the future. Seemed like a very nice guy and a sharp person. Here’s his site on financial tips for streamers:Â http://pajamapantsfinance.com/
Oko. C. Nella –Â https://www.twitch.tv/okocnella
- He was sharing a booth in Artist’s Alley with nicterhorst (see below.) Nice fellow. n And with a mustache like that, how can you go wrong?
- okocenalla is part of a streamer group called kittenzarmy, which looks like a good example of streamers helping each other https://www.twitch.tv/team/kittenzarmy
glitchbutt –Â https://www.twitch.tv/glitchbutt
- I saw her stuff in Artist’s Alley, I believe. In any event she is a fiber artist and streamer with a pretty dramatic business card!
voodoo_val – https://www.twitch.tv/voodoo_val/
- Another artist whose style grabbed my eye.
nicterhorst –Â https://www.twitch.tv/nicterhorst
- I saw her very cute and appealing drawings in Artist’s Alley. She was engaging and friendly, check her style!
Anthony – https://www.twitch.tv/afw_3900 and Cosmic Floyd – https://www.twitch.tv/cosmicfloyd
- Met these guys in the food court. Had a great talk with them about streaming, business, and video games.
ecko – https://www.twitch.tv/eckoeckos
- Another artist whose work got my attention to the point I grabbed her card. Her website is eckoeckos.com.
Slowburnstudio – https://www.twitch.tv/slowburnstudio
- She is an incredibly hardworking and talented artist I saw in Artist’s Alley. Her work is very fashion and design oriented.
Captsugarspice –Â https://www.twitch.tv/captsugarspice
- Another impressive artist from Artist’s Alley.
If I missed you, comment or drop me a line and I’ll add you in! As always, thanks for reading. Questions and comments are welcome.
-M
I don’t know if anybody asked you about phone card schemes after the talk, but I’d like to hear more about that. What was the deal?
One of the techniques that people have come up with to try to get around anti-gambling laws are sweepstakes which are not actually sweepstakes. One of the requirements for a sweepstakes to be lawful promotional activity and not unlawful gambling is that the player must get their chance to win either though an alternate means of entry (“Send a self-addressed-stamped envelope to…”) or as an incident of entering into an ordinary transaction with the sponsor. So, sure, you may be more inclined to buy the thing at McDonald’s that comes with a sweepstakes entry, but it costs the same as it always does and you get the same value you would have anyway. The sweepstakes entry is a “gift,” in a sense, because there’s no additional consideration paid for it.
Enter phone card sweepstakes.
There are “phone cards,” which are cards with pre-paid minutes you can use on any phone by dialing a special number, that have “sweepstakes” on them. Buy the card, scratch the concealed text on the back, find out if you’re a winner. There are even sometimes little storefronts – or are, until they get caught – that look like legit “stores” but which have these phone cards as nearly their entire stock in trade. The thing is, the cards do not actually provide much if any value, and even if they did, nobody uses it. They buy the card, they see if they won the “sweepstakes,” and then they throw the card away. Usually investigation finds that only a few percent of the “phone minutes” sold ever actually get used. What they really are is unlawful instant lottery tickets, because the money is being paid as consideration for a chance to win a prize, not to buy a legitimate product.
The analogy to lootboxes is left as an exercise for the student. 😉
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