Year: 2019

edition.cnn.com/2019/03/21/asia/china-cultural-soft-power-intl/index.html
 
In 2014, President Xi Jinping called for a stronger national effort to boost China’s global popularity in proportion to its economic rise. “We should increase China’s soft power, give a good Chinese narrative and better communicate China’s message to the world,” he said. But nnless the Communist Party relaxes its censorship of domestic films, experts say Beijing’s dreams of wielding Chinese soft power globally through its film industry could stall.
 
The US film industry is quite successful in China — likely to become the world’s largest cinema market in coming years, according to industry insiders — even though regulators only allow a limited number of foreign films to be screened each year.
 
China has not enjoyed the same success in Western markets. Italian film director Gianluigi Perrone says that is because while Hollywood films often also carry a patriotic message, it is done with greater subtlety.
 
“The ‘soft power’ in US films has been very subliminal and subtle since the post-WW2 era,” says Perrone, who has experienced censorship in China. “The messages in Chinese films have to be so explicit that it’s too direct for Western audiences. It overcomes the entertaining part.”
Consequently, some independent filmmakers who want to create more nuanced films are bypassing the domestic market.
 
Even huge popularity is no longer enough to save a director or a seemingly anodyne piece of entertainment from the censor’s gaze.

www.cartoonbrew.com/vr/breaking-google-spotlight-stories-shuts-down-171383.html

It marks the end of an era when tech companies invested heavily in vr animation content with open-ended non-monetary goals to develop the technology. Facebook, too, launched a similar initiative — Oculus Story Studio — which it shuttered in May 2017.

www.polygon.com/2019/1/16/18178332/game-developer-union-crunch

variety.com/2019/gaming/news/liz-schuler-game-developers-unionize-1203141471/

www.gameworkersunite.org/

AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Liz Shuler took to Kotaku with a post that asks workers in the games industry to fight for adequate pay, sensible work hours, and against toxic work conditions.

“We’ve heard the painful stories of those willing to come forward, including one developer who visited the emergency room three times before taking off from work,” writes Shuler. “Developers at Rockstar Games recently shared stories of crunch time that lasted for months and even years in order to satisfy outrageous demands from management, delivering a game that banked their bosses $725 million in its first three days.”

“Growing by double digits, U.S. video game sales reached $43 billion in 2018, about 3.6 times greater than the film industry’s record-breaking box office,” she writes.

“While you’re fighting through exhaustion and putting your soul into a game, Bobby Kotick and Andrew Wilson are toasting to ‘their’ success,” she says.

“They get rich. They get notoriety. They get to be crowned visionaries and regarded as pioneers. What do you get? Outrageous hours and inadequate paychecks. Stressful, toxic work conditions that push you to your physical and mental limits. The fear that asking for better means risking your dream job.”

Some of the biggest players in game development and publishing have fostered hostile and unforgiving environments where our favorite games are made.

Co-founder and vice president of Rockstar Games Dan Houser seemingly bragged that staff were pulling 100-hour weeks to get the much-anticipated “Red Dead Redemption 2” ready for its launch last year.

Similarly, companies like Telltale have laid off the majority of their staff with little to no notice or severance. Many developers took to Twitter afterwards to air their grievances and express their hopes for change under the hashtag #AsAGamesWorker.

www.bectu.org.uk/news/2933

www.awn.com/news/halo-vfx-bankrupt-bohemian-rhapsody-visual-effects-artists-still-unpaid