Fortnite's first Summer Skirmish faced unique challenges, but the one I can't stop thinking about was the fact that the game's quirky, slapstick vibe gets perforated a bit when the stakes increase.

The Omegathon we operate at PAX takes regular games and then appends a caboose of complex social systems. I've said it before: it's one thing to play a game, but if the systems are a gateway to a bunch of money, to say nothing of the fact that there are thousands of fucking people watching you, it can make it difficult to even use your body correctly. This is what made Jenga especially cruel as an Omegathon round. But I digress.

PUBG is already very simmy/stalky, so it all still kinda makes sense when there's money on the line. I think that R6: Siege excels as an "electronic sport" because it's always been comparatively cautious - but it was made to be watched from the outset.

I think this hesitant play is something they'll figure out very quickly, honestly, and I'm excited to find out how they do it. Do you have a prize for winning, plus a bounty on Kills? That's probably too brute force, but I would certainly watch that. In the same way that we have said that "freemium" warps mechanics until the strange contours it generates are indistinguishable from a distinct genre, real-world consequences may have a similar effect on systems that requires conscious labor to accommodate.

I know what you're thinking: will Ryan Hartman be returning to our Visual Novel stream today as Tommy No-Chill? Will Joshua Price return as a slightly older Tommy, whose chronological remove from the events in question grants him the wisdom of years gone by? Will I, your host and dare I say friend Jerriford K. Horkims be there to embody literally every other person? The answers to these questions are "Mostly Yes." Ryan won't be here because he's a villain. But We WILL be joined by Ubiquitous Online Sensation Kris Straub. As dads ourselves, we know what dads like. We know where they roost. Maybe it takes a dad to fuck a dad.

Welcome… to Dadfuckerz, Inc.! (But not right now. Like… at 2pm PDT.)

(CW)TB out.