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best advice for young soccer players - win
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866 NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis !!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/ https://www.playboytv.com/ https://www.playboyplus.com/ https://www.iplayboy.com/ Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/ https://www.microgaming.co.uk/ “This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/ As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1 They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea “Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/ Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said.
https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05 Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.”
https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the
Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003 Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing “Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
submitted by jeromeBDpowell to SPACs [link] [comments]
The Ultimate Guide To Dealing With Munchkins: how to make your worst players your best players
A Munchkin’s Manifesto
How to make your worst players your best players Tl;dr: Munchkins can be the most dedicated players at your table if you stimulate them in the right way. Let them be their power-hungry Munchkin-y selves, weave it into the story and into their characters to allow for RP as well and give them stupid hard fights all the time. Make them earn their wins and they’ll love you for it and repay you with unparalleled devotion to your campaign. If the Munchkin's PC is much more powerful than the other PC’s, balance by buffing the others, not nerfing the Munchkin and undoing his work.
Intro “The Munchkin is the Tabletop RPG player who plays the game to win at any cost, even if that isn't the point of the game. […] This clash of values — the pro e-sports player focused on the end goal of destroying everything and winning, versus the rest of the roleplayers whose focus is the journey and the end goal is not entirely relevant to them — is what makes the Munchkin so widely reviled by roleplayers.” - TV Tropes
Most DM’s here probably know a Munchkin or two. Most players do as well. Typically, Munchkins are disliked: they only care about winning, but DnD isn’t a game about winning, it’s a game about fun. How do you even win in DnD to begin with? It’s a cooperative game, for Christ’s sakes! The Munchkin's desire to win ruins it for the other players, because he just doesn’t get the game and does not let the other players have fun.
I’m here to tell you how to make Munchkin’s your favorite players. Why should you listen to me? Because I’m not just a DM like all of you, but as a player I’m also a proud Munchkin. I play games to win. Even DnD.
Why should you read this post? If you ever found yourself baffled by Munchkins, this is the post for you. If you think all Munchkins are losers/dicks/annoying/playing DnD wrong, give this post a chance and maybe you’ll have a different perspective at the end of it. If you struggle with engaging and handling Munchkins at your table, this post will offer some advice on how to tap into their better instincts, instead of their worst.
What this post isn’t This is not an argument that Munchkinning is the only right way to play or that anybody who doesn’t play to win is a scrub who doesn’t deserve respect. This is simply my attempt at trying to explain why I play to win, why I don’t think it’s necessarily a wrong way to play and how you can make Munchkins great players to DM for. This post also isn’t meant to cover every kind of possible Munchkin. Instead, it’s my view on what generally drives most competitive people after spending years in their company.
About me First off, let me tell a little bit more about myself to preempt a few things. I’ve played with people who decidedly weren’t Munchkins and we had a lot of fun together. Yes, it is possible. Right now, I’m DM’ing for people that aren’t interested in powergaming at all and I’m having a blast. Why? Because I like roleplaying and storytelling.
If I had no interest in RP, I would be playing wargames or just multiplayer video games where the mechanics are all that matter. If you do have a Munchkin at your table who genuinely only cares about the mechanics, perhaps this isn’t the game for him (though do consider, perhaps he hasn’t been able to find people to play a fully mechanics focused TTRPG with and your table is the closest he can get). This post isn’t written about Munchkins with no interest in storytelling at all, but about Munchkins like myself, who like to engage with a story or with their character, but whose primary goal will always be to win at all cost. Nonetheless, I think some of it will still transfer to Munchkins who do only care about the mechanics.
Why do you need to win so badly? Whenever I do anything for a significant amount of time, I try to be as good at it as I can possibly be. It doesn’t matter if it’s gaming, my studies, my job, sport, DM’ing or even something as mundane as making dinner. If I do it a lot, I’m going to try to get better at it. Why? Because I love the process of improving. I love the grind. It makes me happy and while it’s not all that fun sometimes, it’s always satisfying.
So then, why do I need to win? Why am I not satisfied with just getting better? The beauty of competition is its honesty. The scoreboard never lies, so competition and winning are the ultimate benchmarks of improvement. In my mind, if you want to improve, you need to test yourself and competition is the best way to test yourself.
But, there’s also a darker reason I like to win: I cannot stand being bad at something and most of all, I cannot stand being worse than somebody else. That’s not always a healthy attitude and I know it (though it can motivate me to achieve things I otherwise wouldn’t achieve). I have learnt to deal with it and I think almost every competitive person eventually does, because nobody gets to be the best at everything they do. Nonetheless, deep down I still have a part of me that is a petty child who’s only satisfied when he knows without a doubt that he is better than somebody else. I think most competitive people are at least a little bit like that. From this part on the post, I will call that darker side of a Munchkin ‘
the inner Michael Jordan’.
As a DM, I know that if a player starts listening too much to their inner Michael Jordan, things can get bad for the other players. After all, the inner Michael Jordan isn’t really interested in
winning, he’s interested in
beating other people and he’s only really satisfied when he dominates and humiliates them. When a Munchkin starts directly competing with the other players, that’s when you need to tell them that the other players aren’t their competitors, they’re their teammates. To drive the point home, maybe let them lose because they weren’t being a good teammate. Nothing teaches a Munchkin like losing (more on that later).
But don’t tell them winning isn’t the point. For a Munchkin, winning is always the point.
How do you even win in DnD? DnD doesn't necessarily have an objective win condition, but that doesn't stop Munchkins from trying to win. Why?
In the TV series The Wire, there’s a scene where a young boxer gets beaten the piss out of him by a much younger kid. Yet, his coach is proud of him, because the young boxer had just started with the sport and even though he is getting beat up, he doesn’t give up and keeps going back in. That young boxer is winning.
When I was still playing multiplayer shooters, I played a game that was built on the premise that if you were the better player, you should win every time. It was entirely unforgiving and games steamrolled out of control as a rule rather than the exception. 30 kills to 0 deaths was a common score line in 10-minute 1v1’s. When I curbstomped somebody like that, it never felt like a win.
My DM once ended the session with a cliffhanger: we were confronted with an enemy we could not possibly beat. I spent ten hours the next week coming up with a detailed battle plan. We executed my plan and we won. When the DM told us the enemy had died, I yelled out and pumped my fist. I had won.
Winning is about overcoming. It’s about hard work paying off. Even the inner Michael Jordan won’t be satisfied for long if his wins come easily. A Munchkin wants to be challenged and then overcome that challenge. That’s when the Munchkin wins. DnD can absolutely offer that experience. You can ‘win’ in DnD.
But if you want to be challenged, why do you don’t you play a weaker character? Why do you need to powergame? To the Munchkin, powergaming is as natural as breathing. You do it, because why wouldn’t you? After all, the Munchkin’s goal is to win. Whatever it takes to win, that’s what the Munchkin will do. Deliberately making it harder on himself to win is nonsensical to a Munchkin.
Somebody even wrote a whole book about it. You see, the secret to understanding a Munchkin is that he loves the process just as much as he loves the reward. When he’s actively striving for something, that’s when the Munchkin feels most alive. Similarly, while a Munchkin’s inner Michael Jordan might only care about the end goal, at some point in their lives, every competitive person has learned to love the grind towards that goal, otherwise they simply would have given up long ago.
The Munchkin is at their happiest when they’re eking out every little advantage they can. That extra +1 or that particular feat they wanted are all little wins that help them with getting the big win at the end of it all. A Munchkin wants to climb a mountain and powergaming is the path to the top.
If you have a player who truly only cares about the win itself and not the road towards it, you’re dealing with a sore loser. The best way to deal with sore losers is to let them win. If the other players aren’t bothered by it, there’s no harm in letting a sore loser make believe they’re good at stuff and indulging their power fantasies. After all, indulging our fantasies is why we play DnD. Of course, if you yourself do not want to deal with sore losers (as you can probably tell from my tone, I certainly don’t), you can tell them you don’t think your table is the right fit. Speaking of losing though.
But what if you don’t win? Sometimes when they lose, a Munchkin will give in to their inner Michael Jordan and turn into a raging asshole. I know a guy in my old online gaming community who is the nicest guy you could ever meet, until he started losing. I think it’s hard to imagine for ‘regular’ people how much some people can hate to lose.
However, that’s no excuse for bad behavior. I have learned to deal with losing. When I feel angry when somebody beats me, I compliment them, to remind myself they won because they played better and there’s nothing else to it. If I didn’t want to feel frustrated, I should’ve played better and practiced more.
It took me a very long time to get to that point though. Some Munchkins might never get there. And don’t get me wrong, I’m still pissed off when I lose, I just act on it less. If a Munchkin systematically gets toxic and abusive when they lose, tell them. If they keep on doing it anyway, maybe they’re not ready yet to be at your table.
Some Munchkins might tell you to get thicker skin if you confront them about their tantrums. It is true that fellow Munchkins can generally take more abuse from one another. They tend to simply fire back if somebody verbally attacks them. Also, while Munchkins sometimes carry deep and long standing grudges over something somebody said to them, at the same time they're usually remarkably good at forgiving and forgetting even the most horrible insults. I think it has two reasons.
Firstly, Munchkin tend to be used to environments where people shittalk each other a lot, so being shittalked isn't all that special or worth mulling over to them. Secondly, if somebody rages after a loss and starts insulting the other players, ultimately, Munchkins understand where it’s coming from. But it’s up to the Munchkin to extend that same level of understanding to non-Munchkins and realize when they call a non-Munchkin a lucky little shitstain, the non-Munchkin might not see that as an understandable and acceptable reaction to losing.
If losing is such a bad thing for Munchkins, should I avoid letting them lose? Hell no. Not only does it cheapen their wins (which makes them bored and more likely to act out), ultimately, nothing motivates a Munchkin like losing does. At first, the frustration might come out as rage, but that frustration will fester and turn into fuel for the inner Michael Jordan. The inner Michael Jordan takes every little loss as a grave personal slight and he will not let that shit stand: the Munchkin will do everything they can not to let it happen again. Losing will only strengthen their dedication to your campaign.
But how do I keep a Munchkin from ruining my campaign? Let’s get one thing straight. The Munchkin cares a lot about your campaign. Trust me. It’s something he can win at (in his mind anyway), so the inner Michael Jordan cares about it deeply. The trick is to turn his drive to win into an asset to your campaign, rather than a detriment.
I’ll be honest, it’s a simple trick. How do you engage roleplayers? You let them roleplay. How do you engage Munchkins? You let them be Munchkins. It’s that simple. Let them be powergamers and then give them insane challenges to keep them from being bored. As long as you play it straight, they’ll love you for it. Remember that story from earlier on, about my DM putting our party against a foe we could not beat? That’s one of my favorite DnD moments.
Like I said, I spent ten hours that week preparing before the session. When was the last time any of your players spent so much time on your campaign? By giving me an opportunity to overcome a big challenge – in other words, by giving me an opportunity to win – my DM drew out my drive to win and turned it into dedication to his campaign. To top things off, he even gave me an OP magic item at the end of it, allowing me to revel in my hard-earned advantages. He then proceeded to up the difficulty accordingly.
Much like intelligent dogs, if you don’t challenge a Munchkin, they will start finding their own ways to engage themselves and much like intelligent dogs, you might not like how they do it. If a Munchkin’s competitive instinct is insufficiently stimulated by the campaign itself, he might start competing with the other players, or god forbid, the DM. The inner Michael Jordan needs to get his validation somehow after all.
Challenging a Munchkin can be more work than handling a ‘normal’ player though. Because the Munchkin wants to win so badly, he’ll more likely than not put a lot of work into his powergaming and to keep challenging him, you as a DM are going to need to match that work. See it as a way to improve your DM’ing. Another way to look at it is that the Munchkin is giving you his best, so he deserves your best in return.
If you don’t want to spend so much time challenging one player,
that's because you’re a scrub that’s okay. Tell the Munchkin you don’t enjoy the same aspects from DnD as they do and you want to run a different game than they’re interested in. If the Munchkin is your friend and you’d like to keep playing with him, maybe start alternating your sessions with other games than DnD. If they have a direct competitive component, the Munchkin will like them, trust me.
Okay, but the Munchkin still won’t roleplay at all! Not everybody is comfortable roleplaying. Maybe the Munchkin is one of those people. I’ve played with somebody who came up with brilliant character concepts and wanted to play DnD for the RP elements, but when the time came to roleplay, she would clam up. Personally, I like roleplaying and when I DM, I barely make mechanical challenges because I’m so focused on the roleplaying aspects, but in that sense, I may be an atypical Munchkin. Nonetheless, I still have some advice on how to encourage a Munchkin to roleplay.
Again, it’s a simple trick. The Munchkin is power hungry and so is his character! Tie his story arc into his desire to get big wins. Maybe he’s a wizard who wants to defy the laws of reality itself. Maybe he’s a warlock who wants to overthrow his patron. Maybe he’s simply a fighter out to prove he is the baddest man in the land. In the campaign I keep referring, I played a cynical nobleman who felt like he was entitled to the throne of the realm. A character like that doing whatever it takes to reach his goals makes perfect sense.
That last example also segues nicely into the next way to engage a Munchkin with roleplaying: make roleplaying a way to gain more power and therefore eventually win. A Munchkin does whatever gets the job done. If roleplaying is the way forward, he’ll roleplay. My noble character was constantly schmoozing up to other nobles and trying to impress the common folk, because it might help him with his quest for the throne. Maybe that powerful +5 sword the Munchkin wants so badly isn’t at the end of a dungeon, but a reward for solving a long-standing feud. Maybe that proficiency they’re trying to get can only be obtained by training with a mysterious, Zen-like figure who only lets the Munchkin proceed to the next lesson if they answer his latest riddle. Maybe the best way to beat the dragon is by convincing his kobolds to betray him.
So now my Munchkin is happy, but my other players aren’t! Not every group is destined to play together I think, but nonetheless, I feel the DM’s on this sub jump to “well just kick that dude” a bit too quickly. After all, a lot of people want to play with their friends and for other people, a DnD group might not be easy to come by. So in this section, I will give advice on how to let Munchkins co-exist peacefully with
scrubs non-Munchkins and keep your group together.
Personally, I don’t think everybody needs to be fully engaged at every point of the session. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think people should actively dislike parts of a session, but is it really all that bad if one player isn’t all that engaged for 15 minutes, so another one can be? That’s really the easiest way to let Munchkins co-exist with their fellow human beings who aren’t burdened by an inner Michael Jordan: cater to each of them separately within the same session. Give the roleplayer 15 minutes of chatting up the local innkeeper, then let a bar fight break out to give the Munchkin 15 minutes to show these clowns who they’re fucking with.
Another way is to combine the needs of the Munchkin with the needs of the other players. Maybe one PC is close to finally meeting their sister again after years of separation, but a band of powerful warriors is in the way. Maybe the king is hosting a tournament, which gives the charming bard in the party an opportunity to schmooze with the dignitaries, while the Munchkin is battling the king’s finest knight. Maybe the wizard needs a scroll for their research, but it’s in a heavily guarded, poorly lit library, which allows the rogue with their +11 stealth to sneak in and scout the area.
Speaking of rogues with +11 stealth, often, a Munchkin will have a stupid OP character who’s much more powerful than the other PC’s and that can make it hard to balance your campaign. One way to make it easier is either to have the Munchkin help the other players with their build (provided they want help) or simply give the other players stupidly powerful magic items to even things up. Tie it into their story arcs, so if the Munchkin might complain the other players didn’t earn these weapons, you can point out it’s their reward for RP (it might even motivate the Munchkin to RP more, after all, now RP suddenly helps him with winning!).
Balance by buffing the other players, not by nerfing or limiting the Munchkin, because then you’re undoing his hard work. To make a comparison, imagine if three of your players had relatively bland characters and one had an absolutely fascinating one. You wouldn’t ask that fourth player to make his character less interesting. He worked hard on that and it would suck if you wouldn’t reward him for engaging with your game.
Another bad way to do it is balancing for the weaker characters. The Munchkin will feel bored because he isn’t being challenged and the other players will feel bored because they won’t be as impactful as the Munchkin
My Munchkin is a cheater! Munchkins will do whatever it takes to win, but more often than not, most competitive people will draw a line: you do not cheat to win. Cheating invalidates your wins after all, because you didn't really earn them. Simple, right? Well...
In ball sports, like basketball or soccer, players make tactical fouls all the time, where they make a trade-off between the penalty for the foul and whatever benefit they achieve by making the foul. In a sense, that's cheating. In boxing, boxers hit below the belt when the referee can't see it. My favorite sport to watch is cycling and there, cheating is almost institutionalized. For instance, holding on to your team car for a quick pull is done all the time (
though it's rarely as blatant as this). At the same time though, upping the tempo when an important rider has just crashed is perfectly legal according to the rules, yet in certain situations, cyclists will consider it cheating. And then we're not even getting into doping and the morality of cheating when everybody else is cheating too.
In my favorite video game, Quake, the community not only considers abusing bugs acceptable, but the entire gameplay is build around abusing the
strafejumping bug. There's even
a mod where people race each other by abusing whatever bugs help them go faster. People who are good at it are highly respected within the Quake community.
To summarize, Munchkins in sports and competitive games tend to abhor cheating, but they also tend to have a complicated relationship with what does and doesn't constitute cheating. Where does that leave the Munchkin's DM?
When I started playing DnD, I took the same position I took in video games: if the game let's me do it, then it's fair game. So, if it's RAW, then it's fair game no matter what. I think that is the easiest position to deal with for Munchkins. They know what is and isn't allowed and that's that. Do be aware though, a Munchkin will use whatever tool they can to win, so if they can win by using the rules, they'll be the worst rule lawyer you've ever seen.
Another approach is to tell the Munchkin that your word is final: you determine what's cheating and that's the end of it. If you go that route, a Munchkin will appreciate if your rulings are consistent. If your rulings are inconsistent, a Munchkin will almost certainly complain and call your rulings arbitrary. A Munchkin wants to know where the line is. After all, he wants to go right up to that line, but he doesn't want to cross it. Then you might penalize him and that might stop him from winning!
So far, I've been talking about the grey areas of cheating within DnD. I think we can all agree though some things aren't grey at all, like faking rolls or changing your character sheet. What if your Munchkin consistently does stuff like that?
I honestly don’t have advice on how to stop repeated cheaters from cheating. If it’s harmless enough, perhaps you could turn a blind eye to it if the other players don’t mind, similar to how you can let a sore loser keep on winning. However, I think more often than not, the only route here is to give them an ultimatum: the next time you catch them cheating, they’re gone. No excuses. Perhaps their inner Michael Jordan won’t let them be humiliated like that, or perhaps their inner Michael Jordan can’t help himself and make them cheat. Either way, you’ve given them a chance and it’s up to them how they deal with it.
Outro I hope I’ve been of some help to people who were struggling to understand what makes Munchkins tick or how to engage them at your table and keep them from ruining things. If you still think all Munchkins are losers/dicks/annoying/playing DnD wrong,
my inner Michael Jordan has a message for you I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments
so I can beat you in an argument.
[MS] I pretended to be a missing girl.
Mikayla Murray went missing twelve years ago, on the eve of her 18th birthday. She didn’t have any big plans or anything, but her friends described her as having been in a particularly good mood for what was an otherwise perfectly normal Friday. She’d gone to school, soccer practice, work, and then came home for a night of movies with her kid brother, James. He was more excited for her birthday than she was. Even wanted to stay awake with her until midnight but, of course, had fallen asleep right away. When he woke in the middle of the night, he saw her headlights shining through his window and watched as they rushed down their country road, not knowing that it was the last he’d ever see of her. The poor kid was only five and would be forever tormented over why she’d left him, or why she’d never come back.
It wasn’t until the sun came up on that cold Saturday morning that anyone realized something was wrong. Her parents entered her room to wish her a happy birthday, only to find her bed empty, car gone, and phone off. They’d started their rounds of calls to all Mikayla’s friends, but nobody had seen or heard from her. Panic really started to set in when Mikayla’s car was found abandoned on the side of a heavily wooded road, facing the wrong direction, practically in the middle of nowhere. There were no parks or hiking trails, nor were there any signs of a struggle, or any evidence of where she might have gone next.
Until Mikayla’s parents followed that road on a map. They knew she had a boyfriend, Tom. He was a year older and had just gone off to college. He’d been trying to get Mikayla to come visit him but her parents forbid it. But if they hadn’t, this was the very road Mikayla would have taken to get there. So while Linda Murray filed the missing person’s report, Paul Murray sped on up that road, all the way to Tom’s university. Tom swore to him (and, later, the investigators) that he hadn’t seen her in weeks. That he’d been in his room studying that night. His roommate confirmed as much, with the added disclosure of having later gone home, where he’d then spent the weekend. The rest was uncertain. The police looked deeper into Tom and found strands of Mikayla’s hair in his car, which proved nothing foul, but it spooked him enough into admitting that he’d seen Mikayla more recently than he’d stated. That he’d picked her up late the weekend prior for a midnight drive. This sounded precisely like what had happened the night she’d gone missing, but police found nothing to substantiate it. Tom was eventually cleared as a suspect, and the Murrays would never let it go. They were certain he was involved in Mikayla’s disappearance. So certain, that Paul Murray spent several nights sitting outside Tom’s dorm, waiting to catch his daughter going in or out. Tom’s family wanted to press charges, but Paul had friends in the Sheriff’s Office, who’d assured the family that it would not happen again, and left Paul with a very stern warning. But being friends with law enforcement only went so far, as the case would soon go cold, with days, weeks, and months passing by without any further updates. The public moved on, while the people in Mikayla’s life were left with this dark cloud of uncertainty, wondering what had happened to her. If she was out there somewhere, alive.
And she was. She was about to return home after more than a decade gone. Because I’m Mikayla Murray, and I ran away that night to start a new life.
That’s what I told the Murrays, anyway. I had no fucking idea what happened to that girl.
———
I’m awful, I know. I’m not proud of myself. I was desperate. Homeless, and on the run. Smoking a pack a day. Sleeping with men from bars for money, only to spend it at another bar and do it all over again. I was stuck and needed a plan. Then I saw her face. Mikayla Murray. It was on a bulletin board at some cheap motel I’d been passing through. There were half a dozen girls on there, but Mikayla stood out, her blonde hair straight and pretty, her blue eyes as wide as her smile. It stopped me dead in my tracks, because she looked like me. Exactly like me. I could’ve swapped in one of my old high school photos and nobody would’ve noticed. Not that anyone was paying attention to this board or these girls anymore. Even the lady at the motel, who’d spotted me staring, said, “They ain’t comin’ home, dear, but I don’t got the heart to take’em down.” I was curious, enough to turn on the phone I’d kept in my bag just in case. My father had long stopped paying for it, but the motel offered free WiFi and I’d used it to read more about Mikayla. I learned that she was only two years older than me, and that the photo in the lobby wasn’t just a one-off. She resembled me in every other photo, of which there were many, along with theories about what had happened to her. I couldn’t have given any less of a shit about that rabbit hole. What got my interest were the earrings Mikayla wore in these photos, or the necklace her mother wore at the press conference, or the watch on her dad’s wrist. As I dug deeper, it became clear that the Murrays had money, a fair good amount of it. After entertaining Jerry from the bar (and stealing his jacket), I ripped a butt late that night and decided… one of those girls was coming home. And it was going to be me.
The Murrays still lived in the same house, an hour west of the small Michigan towns I’d been nesting in, which worked perfectly, as I’d been toying with the idea of going back home to Chicago. It was a cheap way to justify the awful thing I was about to do, because in reality there was no fucking way I was actually going back home, even with Murray fortune in my pockets. It’s frightening what we’ll do to ensure we’re the good guys in our story. As I dished out a small chunk of my remaining cash to hop on a bus, I felt no hesitation, or fear. Sure it was risky, but I wasn’t planning on being there for more than a night. I’d done enough research on Mikayla to get in, find what I could take, and get out. I was going to beg the family to give me one day before alerting anyone that I’d returned. To let me rest in my own bed before being swarmed by whatever media Nowhere, Indiana had to offer. After miles and miles of cornfields, I’d hoped to have plenty of time to escape that wave. When the bus arrived at the station, I could’t help but notice how out of place it looked, like it had been copied and pasted from somewhere else, standing out among the run down outlets, shops, and restaurants. I spotted a seedy looking bar next to an even more questionable looking mechanic and thought about making a detour. I needed a drink. But I couldn’t. I had to make sure not to talk to anyone. I couldn’t risk being mistaken for the town’s longest missing girl, not here, not now.
So when an older man approached me outside the station as I smoked one last cigarette, I’d panicked. He asked if I could bum him one, said that he really needed it. So I did, just to make him go away. Then he started rambling on about his car having broken down in this shithole and how he was stuck here until they fixed it. He told me his name and then asked me my mine. I told him it was Abby. It’s not. He said I’d reminded him of his niece back in Iowa, something I pretended was interesting. Maybe I can pretend to be her too, I thought. When I finished smoking, I wished him luck and set off for what I came here to do. I shoved the rest of my cigarettes and lighter deep into my backpack, along with my real identity, and when I turned down Lincoln Ave, I was no longer me. Or Abby. I was Mikayla Murray.
———
The Murray’s lived a pretty secluded life. Their home sat alone in the middle of endless planes, their neighbors barely dots in the distance. I was starting to understand why Mikayla might have run away. Although, the house itself was beautiful, with many protruding sections and gables, a wraparound porch, and a large, two-door garage. There was even an inground swimming pool out back (now covered and topped with autumn leaves), and a cute little gazebo further off in the field, draped in numerous flags and dreamcatchers, with flower pots lining the railings. It certainly didn’t look like the kind of place tragedy had struck.
I stepped quietly up the stairs and was almost spooked by my own reflection in the glass of their front door. Nerves were definitely setting in now. I rang the bell and felt my stomach sink. What if my dirty-blonde hair wasn’t light enough, or if Mikayla had had some obvious birthmark I’d overlooked? I was sweating underneath my coat, unable to recall the name of the name of the man I’d taken it from. When the door opened, my heart stopped. Linda Murray was standing there in her casual weekend wear, pleasantly confused.
“Hello,” she greeted me. Then her face went white in an instant, like her soul had left her body. She shrieked and clasped her hands to her mouth, bursting into tearful exclamations. “Oh my god!” she kept repeating. She suddenly lunged forward and squeezed me tighter than I would have liked, her arms attempting to wrap all the way around my backpack. I stood there awkwardly, bracing all of her weight onto my mine, as she surely was about to collapse. The dog at her legs was barking madly, and, as Linda’s tears dropped onto my back, all I could think about was how pissed off I’d be had I gotten caught because the fucking dog didn’t recognize my scent.
“What is it, Linda?” Mikayla’s dad called from somewhere inside. He soon appeared in the doorway, his button-up tucked into his jeans, and when saw my cold, pale face poking over Linda’s shoulder, he stumbled back.
“What is this?” he gasped. His eyes went wide and his bushy grey mustache twitched. The dog was still barking, reminding me that I was in fact a stranger in this house.
I smiled and said, “I’m home, Daddy.” I was trying to make myself cry, and if Linda had squeezed me any harder, I just might have. She held onto my sleeve as we let go, as though afraid her daughter would run off again. Paul Murray was still staring at me in disbelief, when something shifted in his face and he stepped forward.
“Come here, baby girl,” he uttered. Linda passed me off like a toy she did not want to share. Paul pulled me into his arms and held even tighter than she had. We rocked back and forth for a moment. “I can’t believe it’s you,” he whispered. Linda rushed for the door and yelled inside, calling for her son James.
“Come inside, baby,” Paul beamed as he released me, keeping a hand on my back and beckoning me inward. “It’s cold, come!”
We moved into the foyer where Paul asked to take my coat, which I happily handed him. Now that I was inside, I could practically smell the bar on it. “Your bag, sweetie?” he added.
I shook my head and said, “No, that’s okay.” He made a face and I worried it was suspicion, and then worried more that my worrying was the only thing suspicious. I had to settle down. I’d nearly jumped when Paul turned the locks and hit a button on the alarm system. It chimed louder than I would have expected. I wondered if all this had always existed or if it was a result of their daughter having slipped out one night, never to be seen again. One of her coats still hung on a hook by the door, untouched after all these years. Now mine hung next to it. Well, Danny’s or whatever.
As we moved even further inside, I was blown away by how nice this place was, so much so that I’d slipped and let it show; nothing in this house was supposed to be surprising to me. It was hard not to be impressed by the high ceilings and book shelves, or the many sofas beside a grand marble fireplace, or the fact that this was just the room that branched off to all the other rooms, one they’d probably hardly ever used. As I continued to survey my surroundings, a figure high above caught my eye. It was James. He looked down over the railing and looked more flabbergasted than anyone to have seen me. At seventeen, he was now the same age his sister was when she vanished, only much taller, but with the same baby face.
“Look, James! Look who it is!” Linda cried joyfully. “It’s sissy! Come give her a hug!”
I wanted to puke. James didn’t move right away, and when he did it was this slow, cautious crawl. I figured surely, of all people, I’d have been safest around James. After all, he’d hardly ever known his sister. Yet the baby blue eyes behind his jet black hair were piercing into mine, searching for the girl he so dearly missed. I couldn’t think of what to say to him, and was distracted by the feel of the cigarettes in my bag. I needed one.
“Hi,” was all he mustered, stopping at the foot of the stairs.
“Hey goober,” I replied. I had no idea if that was something Mikayla ever called him, but neither had anyone else. James and I then did something resembling a hug and let go. Linda looked on, face red, still overcome with emotion. Paul was smiling at us.
“Let’s go sit, yeah?” he suggested. “You look exhausted.”
He wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t wait to sit down. There probably wasn’t a piece of furniture in this place less comfortable than the mattresses I’d been living on for the last decade. I held in my amazement as we marched from room to room, deeper and deeper into the house. Linda was still exhaling this stuttered, painful sob, and kept reaching to touch me in any way, a hand on the back or a light brush of the hair. It was annoying, but then again I’d never learned how to have a mother. When I shrugged Linda off, she looked heartbroken. It was at that moment that I finally began to feel like the asshole I knew I was.
After passing through the kitchen and down another hall, we stopped in their second, larger living room. It was very open, the ceiling reaching all the way up to the third story, with photos lined as high as a ladder could reach. I followed Mikayla’s progression of school photos, remarking how eerily similar they were to mine, and how they were one photo short. There was an upper level beside us, where a grand piano sat in one corner, and a bar in the other, separated by yet another fireplace. I imagined how nice a Christmas tree must’ve looked in here, even during the day with the natural light coming in through the sliding glass doors to the back porch.
Each Murray dropped onto a separate couch on the lower level. Paul gestured for me to sit next to Linda, who, of course, was eager to be next to me. James was slouched directly across, staring down at the ground. The rest of us were darting our eyes, waiting for someone to begin.
Paul cleared his throat. “Let me just start by saying that… we’re not mad.” Linda was nodding feverishly in agreement. Paul went on. “We just want to know what happened.”
Something inside my gut wrung. If my actual dad had showed even an ounce of this concern, I might not have run away myself. Instead, he took his brother’s side. My abuser.
I dropped my head. “I needed to get out of here. I felt trapped. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, I just didn’t know what else to do. I’m really sorry...” It certainly wasn’t Oscar-worthy, but I wasn’t playing the long-con. I only needed to be passable long enough for me to swipe several of the items we’d passed along the journey to this room.
Paul nodded slowly, gazing off somewhere over my shoulder. “Okay,” was all he said. It was somehow worse than anything else he could have said. For all I knew, Mikayla had had a great life here, with a loving family. Now I was making them feel responsible. Each of them was staring off somewhere, letting my story sink into their minds. I wanted to sink into the couch.
“Where did you go, Mikayla?” Linda suddenly wondered.
Paul leaned forward. “No, Linda. It’s okay. She’s not a little girl anymore. That’s her business. Listen baby girl, we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want. All that matters now is that you’re home, and you’re safe.”
He reached for my hands and held on gently. It was strangely comforting. For the first time in my life, I’d felt cared for, and safe. In my short time there, I’d completely flipped my thinking. What if Mikayla was just another stupid teenager rebelling against parents who were only trying to protect her? What if she’d sneaked out to celebrate her 18th birthday with her college boyfriend at some frat party? What if he slipped something into her drink? Or if she got too experimental? What if someone offered her something she’d never tried before, and she took it? To be cool? To show off in front of her college boyfriend’s college friends?
I’d spent my whole life wishing I had hers. What if she’d just left it?
“You know what? I have an idea,” Paul said with a clap. “Linda, why don’t you go out and get stuff for pork sandwiches? I’ll cook up some tater tots? Yeah?” He was looking at me with raised eyebrows like I was supposed to know what the fuck he was talking about. So I pretended to. This must have been some sort of Murray tradition or Mikayla’s favorite meal.
“That sounds great,” I replied. I tried to smile at James but it was clear he wasn’t ready to forgive his sister for abandoning him.
Linda hopped up. “Mikayla, sweetie, do you wanna come with me?” I hated how often she was saying her name, and how she spoke to me like I was five.
Before I got a chance to respond, Paul chimed in. “Hun, let her breathe. Run to the store, I’ll get things started here, and you,” he said to me, “go rest up. It’s gonna be crazy here by tomorrow. I just wanna have one night as a family first.”
I could not have agreed more. Everything was going exactly as I had planned, maybe better. There was a really shiny, diamond-studded vase across the room calling my name, right next to an autographed jersey of some football player I’d never heard of. I was gonna walk out with one while wearing the other.
“Go on up to your room,” Paul said to me. “We’ll come get you when it’s ready.”
Linda pulled me in for another hug and kissed me on the side of the head. She looked over at James and saw that he was looking rather lifeless. She caught his attention and made a tipping motion toward her mouth, to which James replied, “I took them already.” He finally glanced my way, but it wasn’t quite the look I wanted to see. There was more than just betrayal in his eyes.
Everyone broke at once and dispersed, Paul heading for the kitchen, and Linda making her way out. I grabbed my backpack and followed a sluggish James up the stairs, feeling good about how things were going so far. Until it occurred to me that I’d had no idea which room was Mikayla’s. It wasn’t something she’d ever have forgotten, not even after twelve years. James and I rounded the corner and were faced with a long, narrow hallway with several doors. I feared I was going to have to guess the right one, when James threw me a lifeline.
“Hey,” he began. He’d stopped in front of his door and turned to me. “Do you want to hangout? Watch a movie or something?” Even this had come out tense, like he was being forced to ask. Then I remembered that this had been the last thing he and Mikayla had done together.
“Yeah, sure,” I said happily. “I don’t think I’m ready to see my room yet anyway.”
James nodded, and the knot in my stomach untwisted. When we entered his room and I was surprised by how neat it was, so much so that it felt wrong laying my dirty bag down. James’ baggy jeans and messy hair gave me a totally different vibe, but his bed was made, the walls were bare, and the desk in the corner looked like it had hardly ever been used. The one window in the room had a perfect view of the setting sun beyond the fields. Its shadow cast a line between the pool below and the gazebo that was just barely visible from this vantage point.
I heard a lock click.
“We need to go, now,” James whispered. He let his neutral expression drop into one of panic. I watched in confusion as he rushed over to his closet and threw on a sweater, cursing under his breath as he did so. When he looked up at me again, it was like he’d forgotten I was there.
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
James shook his head. “He knows. He knew the whole time.”
My brain was automatically rattling off ways to salvage this, but there was no point. I was caught, and something other than my identity was bothering him. That made me nervous.
“What gave it away?” I wondered.
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Do you have any idea what’s going on here? He killed her! He buried her!”
My heart stopped. “What?” That wasn’t in any of the theories I’d read online. Like everyone else, I had been so sure it was the boyfriend, Tom. It was obvious. But the look of fear washing over James’ face was hitting me as well. “How do you know that?”
He took me by the arm and dragged me to the window. “Look,” he spat with a outward finger against the glass. Far beyond the covered pool sat the gazebo, lifeless and weather worn, with noticeable chips in its white paint. Only its right side was visible from behind the rest of the house. I could see the flags encircling its beams, waving calmly above a row of gardening supplies. James was breathing heavily as he stared out at it, his eyes fixed, even as he spoke. “He built it right after she disappeared. And we’re not allowed to use it. Calls it his garden. I climbed it once when I was ten and he beat the shit out of me. But I’ve seen him out there at night, a couple times. Spraying the plants. Fixing the dirt. And look—” He hurried to his dresser and rummaged through before pulling something out and jamming it into my gut. I reached down. It was a dirty, purple bracelet, all stretchy and rubber. It had Mikayla’s name on it. I played with it in my hand.
“Remi dug that up last year,” said James. “Dropped it right at my feet. And I remember it! I remember her wearing it that night!”
I stared at it and let it slide down onto my wrist, trying to find any counter to his theory. “You saw her drive off,” I reminded him.
“I saw her car drive off.”
There was a voice in the back of my mind telling me he was delusional. But the voice that believed him was louder, and much more afraid. I watched, mouth agape, as he struggled to tie his shoes. He kept messing up and starting over, spitting more curses under his breath. My thoughts were swirling. “James, why haven’t you called the police?”
“Because I can’t!” It was louder than he’d intended. He stood up and recollected himself. “My dad is friends with the sheriff. If a cop pulls up, he’ll kill us. If I run, he‘ll—he’ll—kill my mom! I don’t even think she’d believe me!”
I put my hands up to quiet him but the fearful cry he’d been holding in had burst out. He covered his mouth to push it back in, along with the snot and tears that were oozing out of him. He rushed over to his bedside drawer and picked up a bottle of pills, swiftly popping a few into his mouth. My chest was getting tighter. “Why can’t we just play along a little longer?” I said. “I’ll leave tonight.”
“If we go downstairs, we’re dead. We were dead the second you got here. The police, the news, they’ll all be here tomorrow whether you’re here or not. They could find her. I could tell them. My dad might snap, like he did on Mikayla. You don’t understand, he’d rather die than get caught. And he’d take us with him, I know it. So we need to go. Out the window. Now. We’ll just run.”
At that point, it no longer mattered to me if James was right or if he was out of his fucking mind. I wanted to get out of there. I looked out the window again. It was starting to get dark. I would’ve preferred a more casual escape over jumping off the roof, but if what he was saying was true then we had no choice. I was craving a cigarette more than ever, and that alone was almost enough to get me on that roof.
“We could take a bus,” I said. “It’s how I got here. It’s only a couple miles that way.”
“I know where it is. We just have to stay off the roads. We can use the fields for cover, and then once we—”
There was a knock on the door.
“James?” It was Paul. He tried turning the handle. “Everything all right in there?”
Without hesitation, James ran for the window and opened it. I could hear the faint chime of the alarm from somewhere out in the hall. Paul’s jiggling of the locked door grew more aggressive. “What the hell is going on in there? Open the door.” When he started pounding on it, I threw on my bag and joined James, who was already halfway out the window. Together we scurried on the roof, hopped onto the back porch, and dropped down onto the rather large portico above the back door. I’d almost fallen down the side but James held me up. A loud crash came booming from back up in his room. I looked up.
“Don’t stop!” James yelled.
He jumped first onto the lawn, and I followed. Both of my feet and knees took the impact hard, the ground underneath the autumn foliage deceptively solid. James helped me up, and we took off running. Against his advice, I looked back and saw Paul peeking out James’ window. He shouted to us and then disappeared. James had already separated himself a good distance from me. I kept pushing my legs as he called back for me to do so, my backpack bouncing off my ass with each stride. There was a road in the distance, the same road I’d trudged along to get here. I could see where it met the orange and purple sky. It felt like it was never getting any closer.
A gun shot rang loud, ripping across the plains. Paul was now standing by the back door aiming a rifle in our direction, his cries chasing us behind the gunpowder. Another bang and my legs buckled. When I’d reached the gazebo, I hid behind it to catch my breath. There was a sharp, debilitating pain in my side. I held myself up on one of the railings and thought I could feel my heartbeat vibrating against the wood. I swore if I’d survived this, I would quit smoking. I peaked around the corner and saw Paul hurry into the garage, James calling out for me by the road. But as I stood there frozen against the gazebo, flags caressing my shoulder, I thought about the girl buried underneath. What if James was right? What if nobody ever found Mikayla’s remains? What if we didn’t make it out of there, and nobody ever knew? I thought of my own story, unheard and not believed. When I’d told my dad what my uncle had done all those years, he hit me. I couldn’t let this story stay buried too.
I took out my lighter and lit a flag, and then another. The fire burned slowly, picking up quick as it caught onto more flags and dreamcatchers, then down to the plants below. I stumbled back and watched the flames spread and dance along the darkening sky. I hoped, at the very least, it would be a distraction, and more so enough to attract law enforcement. I could hear Linda’s shrill voice crying out at the sight of it. She’d rushed around the side of the house with groceries in her hands, calling out for her husband who had just sped off in his truck. He was coming.
I made one last dash for James, who was impatiently waving me on. He took my arm and led me across the road his father would soon be turning onto. We slipped into the cornfield and kept going until we heard the roar of an engine pass by. We froze until there was nothing but the wind, the pain in my side still nagging me. As dark as the sky had rapidly grown, it was even darker in that field, the corn towering over us, clinging to life as much as we were. Paul’s headlights were shining through from not much farther ahead. We waited in terror, for a crunch, or a shout, or, ideally, for the truck to zoom off. Another gunshot rang high into the air. I gasped and had to cover my mouth to quiet my breathing.
“What are you doing with my son?” Paul called in a singsongy fashion. We could hear him walking about over the sound of his engine purring. “Where the fuck are you?” His footsteps wandered around, farther, closer, then farther again, separated only by the sound of swishing corn as he searched randomly along the outer edge. There was a pause, followed by a door slamming shut. Paul’s truck whirled and sped back down the road. I exhaled as James tugged on my arm and instructed to keep going. We pushed through more corn and followed along the road as best as we could. I never would have imagined being in this situation when I’d walked down it earlier that day. Now I was wishing I never had.
Sirens suddenly wailed nearby, and eventually rushed past us. The glow of the flames had grown noticeably brighter in the distance, the smoke visible high above the fields.
“Holy shit,” James gasped. “C’mon, we need to keep moving. Are you okay?”
“Yeah...” I wasn’t.
We shuffled farther through the corn, shoving it aside more aggressively as we went. I could hardly see more than a few feet in front of me. After a while, we could hear a steady buzz of passing vehicles, indicating that we’d reached the city, but also the end of the cornfields. We stepped out onto a road and into the glow of street lights. I felt like I could breathe again, for just a moment.
“You ready?” he said. “We gotta move quick, but we gotta blend in.”
I’d realized in that moment how truly young James was, and how insane I was for having put my life in his hands. I was twenty-eight, but felt just like the same little girl I was all those years ago, hoping her father would protect her. I’d only hoped James was better at it.
We dashed across an empty street and then slipped into the downtown area. I kept my head down. Most of the businesses on the strip were closed for the night, but the bar I’d seen earlier was now glowing in its neon signs, which did a good job masking its otherwise unapproachable façade. There were locals standing outside having a smoke, drunkenly arguing about nothing. James and I crossed the street, and when we reached the bus station, I was relieved to see the lights were still on. This relief would not last.
“Incoming only, folks,” the man at the desk told us. “You’ll have to wait until morning. Sorry.”
I was already making my way for the exit. James caught up with me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting the fuck out of here.”
“What am I suppose to do?” He followed alongside me, being more conspicuous than I would’ve liked.
I stopped and leaned in close. “I don’t fucking care. Come with me, or don’t. I’m leaving!”
I was on the verge of crying, the lump in my throat growing larger. James stood there at a complete loss. I looked at him and saw the five year old boy who woke up that night all alone, the streetlights above shining in his eyes like the headlights he’d watched disappear. “I’m sorry,” I added. “I just wanna go home.” I couldn’t believe I had said it, and meant it. Then I realized James couldn’t go home. If my fire failed, he was going to be on his own, on the run, and homeless at seventeen. Just like I was.
“They’re going to find Mikayla,” I assured him. “Then you’ll be safe.”
He was trembling. “What if they don’t?”
I had no answer, not one he would have liked anyway. Even if we’d made a call to the police that very moment, I could already see Paul going home and putting the rifle to Linda’s head before putting it in his mouth. I’d wondered if he already had. I think James did too. He leaned into me and started to cry. He was a whole foot taller than me, and boney, but I held onto him, not like I had with Paul or Linda, but with earnest.
“Excuse me!”
A voice suddenly called out to us. I was about to run when I saw a familiar face. The old man I’d smoked with earlier was approaching us from the mechanic’s lot next to us. His face twisted when he recognized me back. “Oh, it’s you! Abby, right? Everything all right over here?”
James and I looked at each other but said nothing. An idea crossed my mind. “Actually no, sir. We’re stuck here too.”
The man, whose name I’d forgotten, grinned. “Huh. Well. Car’s fixed! I’m about to head out if you guys need a lift. Where ya’ headed?”
“Anywhere,” I begged.
His smile faded. “Right. Okay. Sure. That’s fine. I’m gonna be driving west down 80 for a while, if that works for y’all.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s perfect.”
James and I followed the man back to the lot and hopped into his old station wagon. I took the front. I thanked the old man repeatedly, even offered him gas money, but he refused it. Said he was happy to help. He introduced himself to a catatonic James in back, reminding me his name was Frank. My eyes kept darting between Frank’s and the rearview mirror he was periodically checking. James was huffing short, panicked breaths. I’d wondered if he needed his meds.
We drove in silence for a while. You couldn’t see anything beyond the headlight’s path, just a deep empty void. The old man tried to spark up conversation, but neither James nor I were up for it. He’d asked if we wanted the radio on or off, if we were hungry, if we were cold, hot. Each time, I told him we were fine. He took the hint, and we drove for hours down the same stretch of highway having barely spoken. Until James had fallen asleep.
“I know it ain’t my business, young lady, but are you sure you and your friend are okay?” Frank kept his voice just above the hum of the radio. I assured him once more that we were fine, even though my mind was still back on Lincoln Ave, wondering what had been happening that very moment at the Murray household. If the flames revealed the truth below, or if they were extinguished before they got the chance. I played an imagined scene in my mind over and over: the fire trucks, the inspection of the damage, Paul watching eagerly nearby, ready to run. The discovery of bones, the call to the Sheriff, the arrest of the man he’d known and tried to help all those years ago, or whom he might now have to hunt down.
“Will you at least tell me your real name?” Frank asked, bringing me back to reality. We had so clearly been withholding truth from this poor man. All he wanted was just a small piece of it, maybe so he could justify the crazy thing he had done that day.
I looked down at my fidgeting hands and noticed the purple bracelet still tight along my wrist, the pink lettering of Mikayla’s name flashing with every passing street light. I’d forgotten that I was still wearing it. I thought about how badly I wanted to give her the ending she’d deserved. The one she’d wanted for herself. An escape. Freedom. How easy it would have been to do it, to say her name.
“It’s Rachel,” I uttered instead.
Frank smiled at me. “Well, Rachel. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
I let him drive us another hour. It was almost midnight. When I woke James to get out, he jumped. I had Frank drop us off at a cheap bed and breakfast, something I’d grown quite accustomed to over the years. I tried once more to pay him but he wound up giving me money instead. It wasn’t much, but the gesture alone was beyond kind. In spite of everything I’d been through that day and all that came before it, it wasn’t any less meaningful coming across someone as genuinely good as that man.
I felt bad that I’d lied to him about my name again.
———
James and I shared a bed, sleeping head to toe beside a rattling air conditioner. I wouldn’t have slept anyway. I was plenty happy with the four hours I got. When I woke early the following morning, I stepped outside for a cigarette and enjoyed every moment of it. I’d quit another day. James was sitting up in bed by the time I went back inside, his hair an awful mess, his tired eyes red. He’d asked me what our plan was. He was impatient, and I understood. I told him that we should eat breakfast first and figure it out from there. It had almost been an entire day since I’d eaten last.
When we entered the dining area, we saw that there were only a few other guests inside. I still wanted a table in back but James insisted we sit by the bar where a TV was playing the news. I gave in. He was worried about his mother, and I couldn’t blame him for that. I’d have been worried about mine too if she were still alive. I was really hoping this aspect of our lives remained different.
James was glued to the TV, even as the waitress came and took our order.
“You’re going to drive yourself crazy,” I told him as she walked away. He shook his head at me and kept his eyes fixed. We sat in silence as we waited for our food, and potential news.
“Your coat,” James suddenly recalled. “You left your coat at my house!”
I laughed, to which James looked bewildered. “It’s not my coat,” I explained.
“Whose is it?”
“Some guy named Scott, I think. Maybe Jordan.”
It wasn’t long before the waitress arrived with our meals. We‘d ordered the same thing, only my eggs were scrambled. There was something about the smell of bacon and home fries that brought comfort strong enough to make you forget that you were on the run. I moaned at the first bite. Probably could have eaten both plates. I even thought I saw a moment of calm in James’ face as he ate.
The TV caught our attention.
“Thank you, John. Authorities say they responded early last night to a fire in one very familiar Indiana home. The home of Mikayla Murray.”
James nearly fell out of his seat. I dropped my fork and a home fry fell on the floor.
“…Missing since 2008, Mikayla’s disappearance was one that rocked the small town of Millersburg, Indiana, but left many hopeful that she was still out there, listening. But when authorities found her car abandoned near the Elkhart River just miles from her home, friends and family began to fear the worst. Mikayla was gone, her whereabouts never discovered. Until now.”
I wanted to turn back to James but was afraid of the look on his face.
“When authorities cleared the scene last night at 1108 Lincoln Avenue, they made a shocking discovery that would answer a decade-long mystery, but spark a new one.”
It cut to the sheriff’s press conference. He spoke matter-of-factly while cameras clicked all around him. “The fire department responded to a 9-1-1 call around 5 PM last night. There was a gazebo on fire in the yard of the Murray residence, and when we assessed the damage, we discovered a bunker hidden underneath. Upon further inspection of the bunker, we found the body of a young woman and child. We’ve indeed confirmed the woman to be Mikayla Murray, but have no further information at this time.”
James squealed. “They found her?”
I ignored him, my face sunken. Waitresses and patrons were noticing our panicked state. Something wasn’t right. She’d been buried under there for so long, there shouldn’t have been much to find. And a child?
”It is believed that Mikayla had been held captive inside the bunker since that fateful day twelve years ago. Until last night when, tragically, both she and the child suffered fatal smoke inhalation resulting from the fire. Authorities have yet to confirm the identity of the child, or who started the fire. Mikayla’s mother, Linda, is being questioned by police while federal officials search for her father, Paul, and brother, James, both of whom are now missing. If you have any information on their whereabouts, please call this number, and stay tuned for more on this story...”
I couldn’t feel my body. I turned around and stared down at my shaking hands on the table, the world caving in on me.
“What happened?” James cried. His breathing was heavy, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, staring at me, bewildered.
I finally looked at him. “I killed Mikayla.”
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The Complete Guide to Betting Russian Ping Pong
P
reface Let's take a quick journey back to March, when the absence of major-market sports caused degens everywhere to turn to betting Korean Baseball, Madden Sims, and even weather markets to get their gambling fix. Among these, Russian Table Tennis emerged from the depths of the motherland, becoming popular on books of all sizes.
Nobody knows much about these games. Are Russia Liga Pro games fixed?
Probably. Personally, I theorize that the games aren't necessarily fixed, but that each night, the Russian Mafia feeds winning players while the others watch. Why else would they be motivated to try? The league has no playoffs and no apparent prizes for top performers.
The games feature players from apparent grandpas with white hairs and knee braces to young boys who hardly look old enough to drive. They are played in a
small room with tarped walls, with only the scorekeeper and players in view. The league is practically made to be bet on, and with over 100 twenty minute games a day, there's plenty of opportunities for aspiring degenerates to get the rush of gambling without sitting through 90-minute soccer matches and three hour-long tennis matches.
Now, why should you take advice from me? I've maintained about a 78% record on my Russian TT picks, and have doubled my bankroll multiple times over. I've been banned from a few books for "sharp action," and had my
table tennis limited on others. Feel free to PM me to get access to the discord where I post all my picks for free ;) But enough of that, let's talk about my betting strategy.
Step 1: Narrow Down the Slate Before you even sign in to your book, I recommend narrowing down the upcoming games within the next ~3 hours on
Flashscore. Don't worry about the odds at this point, simply pick the games that stand out to you. Go down the list, and click on each game to view the stats for the matchup. When you see a game you like, simply click the checkbox next to it and it will be added to the "My Games" section for easier access. When looking for games to bet on, I look for two main criteria. In order of importance:
- Head to Head Results - This is my most important criteria when selecting games to bet on. In most cases, I only take games where one opponent is clearly dominating the H2H category. I look for games where one player has won AT LEAST 4 of the last 5 games head to head, and preferably at least 8 of the last 10 games head to head. As a rule of thumb, if the recent H2H look solid but the longer-term head to head is split between the players, avoid betting that game. If there are less than five previous meetings between the players, I recommend avoiding the game. Remember, we want to bet high-probability games to beat the house edge. If you are unsure about a matchup, avoid it. There are plenty of other games to bet on, so don't force it. Here is an example of a game with a great H2H record. Molodstov has won all five of the recent meetings, and nine of the previous ten. Here is an example of a game with a bad H2H record. While Poletaev has an advantage having won six of the previous ten meetings, Nikiforov has won three of the most recent five. Avoid betting on games like these!
- Overall Form - Once you've checked off the head to head category, check out the players' recent non-H2H games. Look at their most recent ten matches rather than just the previous 5. If their form is mostly similar, such as this example where both have a similar number of wins in their previous ten, then the bet meets the criteria. Another possibility is that the player that has dominated in H2H is in significantly worse form than their opponent, such as here. In this situation, avoid betting the game. The best-case scenario is when the player who has dominated H2H is in significantly better form than their opponent, who may have a losing record over the previous ten or be on a losing streak. In this example, Kutuzov has dominated head to head, and is in significantly better form than Migalov, who is on a 10 game losing streak. We would take action on Kutuzov here. As a rule of thumb, never bet on a player on a 5+ game losing streak to win, and vise versa.
Go through the slate and look for games that meet these two criteria. Don't worry about the odds at this step, simply short-list the games you'd like to bet!
Step 2: Making the Bets Once you have your shortlist, it's time to place your bets. One important thing to keep in mind is that it's
perfectly fine to take a juiced line to get a bet you're perfectly confident in. Often times, I play lines that are as low as -270 to get a moneyline bet that I like. When we're betting heavy favorites, your win percentage should be
at least 70% to stay consistently profitable. I typically bet 2 units on most straight plays, though you can play around with your unit size to see what works best for you. Consistency is key!
Often times, you will find that the lines on the games you've picked simply have too low odds. In this case, don't give up on it yet! There are a few strategies you can use to still take action on these games while not having to risk a significant amount. Keep in mind, not all books will offer these options. Bovada is one of the
worst books to use for table tennis! Bet365 is my favorite, as they have the most options for action beyond only moneyline bets.
- Parlay Favorites - You can parlay two of your selections together to get it down to very good odds, and often times even plus-value odds! Some books will only allow you to parlay games from the same league (Liga Pro), others will only let you parlay from separate leagues (ex. 1 game from Setka Cup, 1 game from Liga Pro). If your book lets you parlay Table Tennis, you have a great tool at your disposal, use it! If you usually bet 2U on your straight bets, I recommend betting only 1.5 on parlays, as you are spreading the risk over two games instead of one, even if they are heavy favorites.
- Play -1.5 Sets - Be careful with this one! Most books will let you play -1.5 sets at odds between -105 and -145. Make sure you look at the H2H scores before placing a bet on this prop. If the player you're betting on usually wins 3-2, avoid this bet. If he is winning 3-1 and 3-0 the majority of the time, then this bet makes sense. Use your judgment here! For this bet to hit, you need your player to win with a score of either 3-1 or 3-0.
- Play the Under - Most books will give you an oveunder on total points. If you're really confident on your player to dominate, you can take the under (total will typically be between 72.5 and 76.5). This is usually the riskiest of the options, as even a set score of 3-1 can hit the over if the game is close. I typically do not recommend playing the under, unless it is a particularly high number (74.5 or above) and the player typically wins 3-0 in head to head.
Step 3: Enjoy the Games, Reverse Jinxes are Key! Unless your book offers you a live stream, it's often hard to find a good stream to watch Liga Pro games. If you're hell-bent on watching the game, I recommend using sportplus(dot)live, though they are inconsistent with their TT streams working. I usually keep track of the live scores on FlashScore. Now, when you're watching these games, NEVER, not even for a second, get confident that your bet is going to win. This is how you get screwed. I cannot stress enough how many times I've seen -300 or lower favorites go up 2-0, only to blow a 9-5 or such lead in the third set and get reverse swept. If you want to win your bets, you must be consistently reverse-jinxing Vladimir or Pavel or whoever you've bet on. He's up 10-5? Screw him. He's going to choke. He gives up a point? Screw him and everything he stands for. This mindset will work you wonders, trust me. No positivity until your bet wins. The moment you become confident, they fuck up - it happens every time!
Closing I hope this guide is helpful to my fellow degens out there. I will likely publish a second edition discussing Live Betting tactics and other betting strategies I use to pick lower-juice plays in the near future, but this should be a great starting point for anyone looking to make some money betting Russian Table Tennis. As always, best of luck! Feel free to PM me or comment with any questions.
Okay let’s see if it’s any of these words
Why Nerds are Unpopular February 2003
When we were in junior high school, my friend Rich and I made a map of the school lunch tables according to popularity. This was easy to do, because kids only ate lunch with others of about the same popularity. We graded them from A to E. A tables were full of football players and cheerleaders and so on. E tables contained the kids with mild cases of Down's Syndrome, what in the language of the time we called "retards."
We sat at a D table, as low as you could get without looking physically different. We were not being especially candid to grade ourselves as D. It would have taken a deliberate lie to say otherwise. Everyone in the school knew exactly how popular everyone else was, including us.
My stock gradually rose during high school. Puberty finally arrived; I became a decent soccer player; I started a scandalous underground newspaper. So I've seen a good part of the popularity landscape.
I know a lot of people who were nerds in school, and they all tell the same story: there is a strong correlation between being smart and being a nerd, and an even stronger inverse correlation between being a nerd and being popular. Being smart seems to make you unpopular.
Why? To someone in school now, that may seem an odd question to ask. The mere fact is so overwhelming that it may seem strange to imagine that it could be any other way. But it could. Being smart doesn't make you an outcast in elementary school. Nor does it harm you in the real world. Nor, as far as I can tell, is the problem so bad in most other countries. But in a typical American secondary school, being smart is likely to make your life difficult. Why?
The key to this mystery is to rephrase the question slightly. Why don't smart kids make themselves popular? If they're so smart, why don't they figure out how popularity works and beat the system, just as they do for standardized tests?
One argument says that this would be impossible, that the smart kids are unpopular because the other kids envy them for being smart, and nothing they could do could make them popular. I wish. If the other kids in junior high school envied me, they did a great job of concealing it. And in any case, if being smart were really an enviable quality, the girls would have broken ranks. The guys that guys envy, girls like.
In the schools I went to, being smart just didn't matter much. Kids didn't admire it or despise it. All other things being equal, they would have preferred to be on the smart side of average rather than the dumb side, but intelligence counted far less than, say, physical appearance, charisma, or athletic ability.
So if intelligence in itself is not a factor in popularity, why are smart kids so consistently unpopular? The answer, I think, is that they don't really want to be popular.
If someone had told me that at the time, I would have laughed at him. Being unpopular in school makes kids miserable, some of them so miserable that they commit suicide. Telling me that I didn't want to be popular would have seemed like telling someone dying of thirst in a desert that he didn't want a glass of water. Of course I wanted to be popular.
But in fact I didn't, not enough. There was something else I wanted more: to be smart. Not simply to do well in school, though that counted for something, but to design beautiful rockets, or to write well, or to understand how to program computers. In general, to make great things.
At the time I never tried to separate my wants and weigh them against one another. If I had, I would have seen that being smart was more important. If someone had offered me the chance to be the most popular kid in school, but only at the price of being of average intelligence (humor me here), I wouldn't have taken it.
Much as they suffer from their unpopularity, I don't think many nerds would. To them the thought of average intelligence is unbearable. But most kids would take that deal. For half of them, it would be a step up. Even for someone in the eightieth percentile (assuming, as everyone seemed to then, that intelligence is a scalar), who wouldn't drop thirty points in exchange for being loved and admired by everyone?
And that, I think, is the root of the problem. Nerds serve two masters. They want to be popular, certainly, but they want even more to be smart. And popularity is not something you can do in your spare time, not in the fiercely competitive environment of an American secondary school.
Alberti, arguably the archetype of the Renaissance Man, writes that "no art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it." I wonder if anyone in the world works harder at anything than American school kids work at popularity. Navy SEALs and neurosurgery residents seem slackers by comparison. They occasionally take vacations; some even have hobbies. An American teenager may work at being popular every waking hour, 365 days a year.
I don't mean to suggest they do this consciously. Some of them truly are little Machiavellis, but what I really mean here is that teenagers are always on duty as conformists.
For example, teenage kids pay a great deal of attention to clothes. They don't consciously dress to be popular. They dress to look good. But to who? To the other kids. Other kids' opinions become their definition of right, not just for clothes, but for almost everything they do, right down to the way they walk. And so every effort they make to do things "right" is also, consciously or not, an effort to be more popular.
Nerds don't realize this. They don't realize that it takes work to be popular. In general, people outside some very demanding field don't realize the extent to which success depends on constant (though often unconscious) effort. For example, most people seem to consider the ability to draw as some kind of innate quality, like being tall. In fact, most people who "can draw" like drawing, and have spent many hours doing it; that's why they're good at it. Likewise, popular isn't just something you are or you aren't, but something you make yourself.
The main reason nerds are unpopular is that they have other things to think about. Their attention is drawn to books or the natural world, not fashions and parties. They're like someone trying to play soccer while balancing a glass of water on his head. Other players who can focus their whole attention on the game beat them effortlessly, and wonder why they seem so incapable.
Even if nerds cared as much as other kids about popularity, being popular would be more work for them. The popular kids learned to be popular, and to want to be popular, the same way the nerds learned to be smart, and to want to be smart: from their parents. While the nerds were being trained to get the right answers, the popular kids were being trained to please.
So far I've been finessing the relationship between smart and nerd, using them as if they were interchangeable. In fact it's only the context that makes them so. A nerd is someone who isn't socially adept enough. But "enough" depends on where you are. In a typical American school, standards for coolness are so high (or at least, so specific) that you don't have to be especially awkward to look awkward by comparison.
Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires. Unless they also happen to be good-looking, natural athletes, or siblings of popular kids, they'll tend to become nerds. And that's why smart people's lives are worst between, say, the ages of eleven and seventeen. Life at that age revolves far more around popularity than before or after.
Before that, kids' lives are dominated by their parents, not by other kids. Kids do care what their peers think in elementary school, but this isn't their whole life, as it later becomes.
Around the age of eleven, though, kids seem to start treating their family as a day job. They create a new world among themselves, and standing in this world is what matters, not standing in their family. Indeed, being in trouble in their family can win them points in the world they care about.
The problem is, the world these kids create for themselves is at first a very crude one. If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices, what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. Presumably it was not a coincidence. Presumably someone wanted to point out to us that we were savages, and that we had made ourselves a cruel and stupid world. This was too subtle for me. While the book seemed entirely believable, I didn't get the additional message. I wish they had just told us outright that we were savages and our world was stupid.
Nerds would find their unpopularity more bearable if it merely caused them to be ignored. Unfortunately, to be unpopular in school is to be actively persecuted.
Why? Once again, anyone currently in school might think this a strange question to ask. How could things be any other way? But they could be. Adults don't normally persecute nerds. Why do teenage kids do it?
Partly because teenagers are still half children, and many children are just intrinsically cruel. Some torture nerds for the same reason they pull the legs off spiders. Before you develop a conscience, torture is amusing.
Another reason kids persecute nerds is to make themselves feel better. When you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water down. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. I've read that this is why poor whites in the United States are the group most hostile to blacks.
But I think the main reason other kids persecute nerds is that it's part of the mechanism of popularity. Popularity is only partially about individual attractiveness. It's much more about alliances. To become more popular, you need to be constantly doing things that bring you close to other popular people, and nothing brings people closer than a common enemy.
Like a politician who wants to distract voters from bad times at home, you can create an enemy if there isn't a real one. By singling out and persecuting a nerd, a group of kids from higher in the hierarchy create bonds between themselves. Attacking an outsider makes them all insiders. This is why the worst cases of bullying happen with groups. Ask any nerd: you get much worse treatment from a group of kids than from any individual bully, however sadistic.
If it's any consolation to the nerds, it's nothing personal. The group of kids who band together to pick on you are doing the same thing, and for the same reason, as a bunch of guys who get together to go hunting. They don't actually hate you. They just need something to chase.
Because they're at the bottom of the scale, nerds are a safe target for the entire school. If I remember correctly, the most popular kids don't persecute nerds; they don't need to stoop to such things. Most of the persecution comes from kids lower down, the nervous middle classes.
The trouble is, there are a lot of them. The distribution of popularity is not a pyramid, but tapers at the bottom like a pear. The least popular group is quite small. (I believe we were the only D table in our cafeteria map.) So there are more people who want to pick on nerds than there are nerds.
As well as gaining points by distancing oneself from unpopular kids, one loses points by being close to them. A woman I know says that in high school she liked nerds, but was afraid to be seen talking to them because the other girls would make fun of her. Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids too nice to pick on nerds will still ostracize them in self-defense.
It's no wonder, then, that smart kids tend to be unhappy in middle school and high school. Their other interests leave them little attention to spare for popularity, and since popularity resembles a zero-sum game, this in turn makes them targets for the whole school. And the strange thing is, this nightmare scenario happens without any conscious malice, merely because of the shape of the situation.
For me the worst stretch was junior high, when kid culture was new and harsh, and the specialization that would later gradually separate the smarter kids had barely begun. Nearly everyone I've talked to agrees: the nadir is somewhere between eleven and fourteen.
In our school it was eighth grade, which was ages twelve and thirteen for me. There was a brief sensation that year when one of our teachers overheard a group of girls waiting for the school bus, and was so shocked that the next day she devoted the whole class to an eloquent plea not to be so cruel to one another.
It didn't have any noticeable effect. What struck me at the time was that she was surprised. You mean she doesn't know the kind of things they say to one another? You mean this isn't normal?
It's important to realize that, no, the adults don't know what the kids are doing to one another. They know, in the abstract, that kids are monstrously cruel to one another, just as we know in the abstract that people get tortured in poorer countries. But, like us, they don't like to dwell on this depressing fact, and they don't see evidence of specific abuses unless they go looking for it.
Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens' main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I've read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it.
In outline, it was the same at the schools I went to. The most important thing was to stay on the premises. While there, the authorities fed you, prevented overt violence, and made some effort to teach you something. But beyond that they didn't want to have too much to do with the kids. Like prison wardens, the teachers mostly left us to ourselves. And, like prisoners, the culture we created was barbaric.
Why is the real world more hospitable to nerds? It might seem that the answer is simply that it's populated by adults, who are too mature to pick on one another. But I don't think this is true. Adults in prison certainly pick on one another. And so, apparently, do society wives; in some parts of Manhattan, life for women sounds like a continuation of high school, with all the same petty intrigues.
I think the important thing about the real world is not that it's populated by adults, but that it's very large, and the things you do have real effects. That's what school, prison, and ladies-who-lunch all lack. The inhabitants of all those worlds are trapped in little bubbles where nothing they do can have more than a local effect. Naturally these societies degenerate into savagery. They have no function for their form to follow.
When the things you do have real effects, it's no longer enough just to be pleasing. It starts to be important to get the right answers, and that's where nerds show to advantage. Bill Gates will of course come to mind. Though notoriously lacking in social skills, he gets the right answers, at least as measured in revenue.
The other thing that's different about the real world is that it's much larger. In a large enough pool, even the smallest minorities can achieve a critical mass if they clump together. Out in the real world, nerds collect in certain places and form their own societies where intelligence is the most important thing. Sometimes the current even starts to flow in the other direction: sometimes, particularly in university math and science departments, nerds deliberately exaggerate their awkwardness in order to seem smarter. John Nash so admired Norbert Wiener that he adopted his habit of touching the wall as he walked down a corridor.
As a thirteen-year-old kid, I didn't have much more experience of the world than what I saw immediately around me. The warped little world we lived in was, I thought, the world. The world seemed cruel and boring, and I'm not sure which was worse.
Because I didn't fit into this world, I thought that something must be wrong with me. I didn't realize that the reason we nerds didn't fit in was that in some ways we were a step ahead. We were already thinking about the kind of things that matter in the real world, instead of spending all our time playing an exacting but mostly pointless game like the others.
We were a bit like an adult would be if he were thrust back into middle school. He wouldn't know the right clothes to wear, the right music to like, the right slang to use. He'd seem to the kids a complete alien. The thing is, he'd know enough not to care what they thought. We had no such confidence.
A lot of people seem to think it's good for smart kids to be thrown together with "normal" kids at this stage of their lives. Perhaps. But in at least some cases the reason the nerds don't fit in really is that everyone else is crazy. I remember sitting in the audience at a "pep rally" at my high school, watching as the cheerleaders threw an effigy of an opposing player into the audience to be torn to pieces. I felt like an explorer witnessing some bizarre tribal ritual.
If I could go back and give my thirteen year old self some advice, the main thing I'd tell him would be to stick his head up and look around. I didn't really grasp it at the time, but the whole world we lived in was as fake as a Twinkie. Not just school, but the entire town. Why do people move to suburbia? To have kids! So no wonder it seemed boring and sterile. The whole place was a giant nursery, an artificial town created explicitly for the purpose of breeding children.
Where I grew up, it felt as if there was nowhere to go, and nothing to do. This was no accident. Suburbs are deliberately designed to exclude the outside world, because it contains things that could endanger children.
And as for the schools, they were just holding pens within this fake world. Officially the purpose of schools is to teach kids. In fact their primary purpose is to keep kids locked up in one place for a big chunk of the day so adults can get things done. And I have no problem with this: in a specialized industrial society, it would be a disaster to have kids running around loose.
What bothers me is not that the kids are kept in prisons, but that (a) they aren't told about it, and (b) the prisons are run mostly by the inmates. Kids are sent off to spend six years memorizing meaningless facts in a world ruled by a caste of giants who run after an oblong brown ball, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. And if they balk at this surreal cocktail, they're called misfits.
Life in this twisted world is stressful for the kids. And not just for the nerds. Like any war, it's damaging even to the winners.
Adults can't avoid seeing that teenage kids are tormented. So why don't they do something about it? Because they blame it on puberty. The reason kids are so unhappy, adults tell themselves, is that monstrous new chemicals, hormones, are now coursing through their bloodstream and messing up everything. There's nothing wrong with the system; it's just inevitable that kids will be miserable at that age.
This idea is so pervasive that even the kids believe it, which probably doesn't help. Someone who thinks his feet naturally hurt is not going to stop to consider the possibility that he is wearing the wrong size shoes.
I'm suspicious of this theory that thirteen-year-old kids are intrinsically messed up. If it's physiological, it should be universal. Are Mongol nomads all nihilists at thirteen? I've read a lot of history, and I have not seen a single reference to this supposedly universal fact before the twentieth century. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been cheerful and eager. They got in fights and played tricks on one another of course (Michelangelo had his nose broken by a bully), but they weren't crazy.
As far as I can tell, the concept of the hormone-crazed teenager is coeval with suburbia. I don't think this is a coincidence. I think teenagers are driven crazy by the life they're made to lead. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance were working dogs. Teenagers now are neurotic lapdogs. Their craziness is the craziness of the idle everywhere.
When I was in school, suicide was a constant topic among the smarter kids. No one I knew did it, but several planned to, and some may have tried. Mostly this was just a pose. Like other teenagers, we loved the dramatic, and suicide seemed very dramatic. But partly it was because our lives were at times genuinely miserable.
Bullying was only part of the problem. Another problem, and possibly an even worse one, was that we never had anything real to work on. Humans like to work; in most of the world, your work is your identity. And all the work we did was pointless, or seemed so at the time.
At best it was practice for real work we might do far in the future, so far that we didn't even know at the time what we were practicing for. More often it was just an arbitrary series of hoops to jump through, words without content designed mainly for testability. (The three main causes of the Civil War were.... Test: List the three main causes of the Civil War.)
And there was no way to opt out. The adults had agreed among themselves that this was to be the route to college. The only way to escape this empty life was to submit to it.
Teenage kids used to have a more active role in society. In pre-industrial times, they were all apprentices of one sort or another, whether in shops or on farms or even on warships. They weren't left to create their own societies. They were junior members of adult societies.
Teenagers seem to have respected adults more then, because the adults were the visible experts in the skills they were trying to learn. Now most kids have little idea what their parents do in their distant offices, and see no connection (indeed, there is precious little) between schoolwork and the work they'll do as adults.
And if teenagers respected adults more, adults also had more use for teenagers. After a couple years' training, an apprentice could be a real help. Even the newest apprentice could be made to carry messages or sweep the workshop.
Now adults have no immediate use for teenagers. They would be in the way in an office. So they drop them off at school on their way to work, much as they might drop the dog off at a kennel if they were going away for the weekend.
What happened? We're up against a hard one here. The cause of this problem is the same as the cause of so many present ills: specialization. As jobs become more specialized, we have to train longer for them. Kids in pre-industrial times started working at about 14 at the latest; kids on farms, where most people lived, began far earlier. Now kids who go to college don't start working full-time till 21 or 22. With some degrees, like MDs and PhDs, you may not finish your training till 30.
Teenagers now are useless, except as cheap labor in industries like fast food, which evolved to exploit precisely this fact. In almost any other kind of work, they'd be a net loss. But they're also too young to be left unsupervised. Someone has to watch over them, and the most efficient way to do this is to collect them together in one place. Then a few adults can watch all of them.
If you stop there, what you're describing is literally a prison, albeit a part-time one. The problem is, many schools practically do stop there. The stated purpose of schools is to educate the kids. But there is no external pressure to do this well. And so most schools do such a bad job of teaching that the kids don't really take it seriously-- not even the smart kids. Much of the time we were all, students and teachers both, just going through the motions.
In my high school French class we were supposed to read Hugo's Les Miserables. I don't think any of us knew French well enough to make our way through this enormous book. Like the rest of the class, I just skimmed the Cliff's Notes. When we were given a test on the book, I noticed that the questions sounded odd. They were full of long words that our teacher wouldn't have used. Where had these questions come from? From the Cliff's Notes, it turned out. The teacher was using them too. We were all just pretending.
There are certainly great public school teachers. The energy and imagination of my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Mihalko, made that year something his students still talk about, thirty years later. But teachers like him were individuals swimming upstream. They couldn't fix the system.
In almost any group of people you'll find hierarchy. When groups of adults form in the real world, it's generally for some common purpose, and the leaders end up being those who are best at it. The problem with most schools is, they have no purpose. But hierarchy there must be. And so the kids make one out of nothing.
We have a phrase to describe what happens when rankings have to be created without any meaningful criteria. We say that the situation degenerates into a popularity contest. And that's exactly what happens in most American schools. Instead of depending on some real test, one's rank depends mostly on one's ability to increase one's rank. It's like the court of Louis XIV. There is no external opponent, so the kids become one another's opponents.
When there is some real external test of skill, it isn't painful to be at the bottom of the hierarchy. A rookie on a football team doesn't resent the skill of the veteran; he hopes to be like him one day and is happy to have the chance to learn from him. The veteran may in turn feel a sense of noblesse oblige. And most importantly, their status depends on how well they do against opponents, not on whether they can push the other down.
Court hierarchies are another thing entirely. This type of society debases anyone who enters it. There is neither admiration at the bottom, nor noblesse oblige at the top. It's kill or be killed.
This is the sort of society that gets created in American secondary schools. And it happens because these schools have no real purpose beyond keeping the kids all in one place for a certain number of hours each day. What I didn't realize at the time, and in fact didn't realize till very recently, is that the twin horrors of school life, the cruelty and the boredom, both have the same cause.
The mediocrity of American public schools has worse consequences than just making kids unhappy for six years. It breeds a rebelliousness that actively drives kids away from the things they're supposed to be learning.
Like many nerds, probably, it was years after high school before I could bring myself to read anything we'd been assigned then. And I lost more than books. I mistrusted words like "character" and "integrity" because they had been so debased by adults. As they were used then, these words all seemed to mean the same thing: obedience. The kids who got praised for these qualities tended to be at best dull-witted prize bulls, and at worst facile schmoozers. If that was what character and integrity were, I wanted no part of them.
The word I most misunderstood was "tact." As used by adults, it seemed to mean keeping your mouth shut. I assumed it was derived from the same root as "tacit" and "taciturn," and that it literally meant being quiet. I vowed that I would never be tactful; they were never going to shut me up. In fact, it's derived from the same root as "tactile," and what it means is to have a deft touch. Tactful is the opposite of clumsy. I don't think I learned this until college.
Nerds aren't the only losers in the popularity rat race. Nerds are unpopular because they're distracted. There are other kids who deliberately opt out because they're so disgusted with the whole process.
Teenage kids, even rebels, don't like to be alone, so when kids opt out of the system, they tend to do it as a group. At the schools I went to, the focus of rebellion was drug use, specifically marijuana. The kids in this tribe wore black concert t-shirts and were called "freaks."
Freaks and nerds were allies, and there was a good deal of overlap between them. Freaks were on the whole smarter than other kids, though never studying (or at least never appearing to) was an important tribal value. I was more in the nerd camp, but I was friends with a lot of freaks.
They used drugs, at least at first, for the social bonds they created. It was something to do together, and because the drugs were illegal, it was a shared badge of rebellion.
I'm not claiming that bad schools are the whole reason kids get into trouble with drugs. After a while, drugs have their own momentum. No doubt some of the freaks ultimately used drugs to escape from other problems-- trouble at home, for example. But, in my school at least, the reason most kids started using drugs was rebellion. Fourteen-year-olds didn't start smoking pot because they'd heard it would help them forget their problems. They started because they wanted to join a different tribe.
Misrule breeds rebellion; this is not a new idea. And yet the authorities still for the most part act as if drugs were themselves the cause of the problem.
The real problem is the emptiness of school life. We won't see solutions till adults realize that. The adults who may realize it first are the ones who were themselves nerds in school. Do you want your kids to be as unhappy in eighth grade as you were? I wouldn't. Well, then, is there anything we can do to fix things? Almost certainly. There is nothing inevitable about the current system. It has come about mostly by default.
Adults, though, are busy. Showing up for school plays is one thing. Taking on the educational bureaucracy is another. Perhaps a few will have the energy to try to change things. I suspect the hardest part is realizing that you can.
Nerds still in school should not hold their breath. Maybe one day a heavily armed force of adults will show up in helicopters to rescue you, but they probably won't be coming this month. Any immediate improvement in nerds' lives is probably going to have to come from the nerds themselves.
Merely understanding the situation they're in should make it less painful. Nerds aren't losers. They're just playing a different game, and a game much closer to the one played in the real world. Adults know this. It's hard to find successful adults now who don't claim to have been nerds in high school.
It's important for nerds to realize, too, that school is not life. School is a strange, artificial thing, half sterile and half feral. It's all-encompassing, like life, but it isn't the real thing. It's only temporary, and if you look, you can see beyond it even while you're still in it.
If life seems awful to kids, it's neither because hormones are turning you all into monsters (as your parents believe), nor because life actually is awful (as you believe). It's because the adults, who no longer have any economic use for you, have abandoned you to spend years cooped up together with nothing real to do. Any society of that type is awful to live in. You don't have to look any further to explain why teenage kids are unhappy.
I've said some harsh things in this essay, but really the thesis is an optimistic one-- that several problems we take for granted are in fact not insoluble after all. Teenage kids are not inherently unhappy monsters. That should be encouraging news to kids and adults both.
Thanks to Sarah Harlin, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, Eric Raymond, and Jackie Weicker for reading drafts of this essay, and Maria Daniels for scanning photos.
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Grand Theft Auto V: A Look Back at the Major Leaks
Here we go again. Buckle in. This post is a biggie, this time covering Rockstar’s latest entry in the series about grand theft…and auto, "
Grand Theft Auto V". There were so many questions about what possible direction this franchise could go, with many rumours seemingly just spouting nonsense and seeing what gained traction, but there were some common themes amongst the leaks. Whether this meant that this was all genuine information, or whether they just all started copying each other, no one will know – although I believe in the latter.
Of course, naturally, with this being Rockstar’s biggest franchise and people desperate for just about any piece of information they could get, legitimate or otherwise, there were hundreds of rumours and leaks for this game, and I will do my best to sift through the endless supply of such and talk about the ones worth mentioning.
Let’s jump in, and here is a
spoiler warning just in case.
May 4, 2010 – E3 Leak Reveals “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City 2”
Way back in 2010,
Game Reactor shared the alleged lineup for 2010’s E3 event, detailing many games that are going to be revealed, including “
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City 2”. Other interesting mentions in this “leak” include a new “
Half-Life”, a sequel to “
Bully”, and a premature announcement of “
Kingdom Hearts 3”.
Outcome? Fake. Never trust E3 leaks.
26 July, 2010 – Is "GTAV" Heading to Hollywood?
VG247 shares with the world the first real hint that the game is headed back to America’s sun-spoilt West Coast. While the article linked does have the tease in a conversation format, it does make mention of Hollywood and that an announcement could be coming soon. Separately, it seems
Eurogamer reached out to their own sources and were able to confirm that while Rockstar had been scouting out the Hollywood area, they were unable to confirm for what actual franchise it was for. This wouldn’t be the first time Rockstar has taken "
GTA" to Los Angeles, with "
San Andreas" already staking that claim.
Outcome? Confirmed. As we all know, "
GTAV" was set in Los Angeles, and this was our first clue to such.
February 28, 2011 – Rockstar Registers Web Domains
Courtesy of
XboxAchievements, due to the original source being taken down, readers are able to treat themselves to a handful of domain names that Rockstar had publicly registered. While on the surface these do not appear to have any mention on the game, as correctly speculated in the article, these turned out to be related to in-game websites and businesses. The one’s registered were;
CashForDeadDreams.com - buy second-hand items from the elderly
SixFigureTemps.com - a job site to make money fast
HammersteinFaust.com - an employment firm business in the game
LifeInvader.com -the game's social networking service
The only one registered that doesn’t seem to make an appearance in the game is StopPayingYourMortgage.net, although typing this into an actual browser will take you to Rockstar’s "
GTAV" site.
Outcome? Confirmed. As we can see, majority of these actually end up in the game, and I am sure I didn’t even have to provide proof for LifeInvader.
March 8, 2011 – Casting Call Leaked, Rockstar’s Next Game Codenamed “Rush”
GameWatcher reports that Rockstar have put out a casting call for an “interactive project”, which has been code-named “Rush”. The call seeks performers for the following roles;
Mitch Hayes – 38 yrs old – Annoying, wise cracking, highly successful FBI agent. In great shape. Does triathlons, drinks low cal beer, but still has a sense of humor.
Miguel Gonzalez – 25 yrs old – Young Mexican American FBI agent, caught between a few mob bosses. Very clean cut
Clyde – 23 yrs old – Moronic, almost inbred and creepy white trash hillbilly. Very naïve but in a creepy ‘it’s only incest sort of way’
Brother Adam – 50 yrs old – Welsh monk, cult leader, yoga teacher, very lithe, very into exploring your personal tension through gripping massage. Needs Welsh accent.
Mrs Avery – 48 yrs old – Neurotic soccer mom, home maker, anxious and addled on pain killers. Very angry at neighbor MRS Bell.
Mrs Bell – 45 yrs old – Swinger, and mellow Californian divorcee. Ugly but comfortable with self.
Eddie – 47 yrs old – Weed evangelist, guy who started smoking at 30, and is now a leading proponent of marijuana’s fantastic properties. White, awkward.
Ira Bernstein – 56 yrs old – publicist for an actress known as America’s newest sweetheart who just so happens to love animals, orphans, drugs and sex. He’s always trying to hide her latest indiscretion.
Kevin De Silva – 18 yrs old – Albert’s fat, FPS playing gamer son. Smokes a lot of weed, has anxiety issues and a card for a bad back, very soft, very opinionated. Into making racist comments while playing online.
Harut Vartanyan – 42-52 yrs old – Armenian car dealer, moneylender, would be Fagin and would be bully. Heavily connected to the underworld, but irritates people so much no one likes him.
Nervous Jerry – 48 yrs old – paranoiac living in the sticks, near Simon, completely paranoid, and terrified of Simon.
Calvin North – 55 yrs old – clapped out FBI agent who now mostly works offering advice on TV shows – whose only claim to fame turns out to be entirely false – but a decent guy in other ways. Badly dressed. Divorced. Putting on weight.
Jerry Cole – 53 yrs old – disabled IT expert and criminal information vendor.
Rich Roberts – 35 yrs old – English hardman actor, who acts tough but who wants to do serious work – the only problem is he can’t quite read the words.
Alex – 52 yrs old – white, loosie goosie hippy rich guy who has lost his money and is getting desperate but trying not to.
Scarlet – 45-52 yrs old – unshaven female spiritualist and hippy with a love of exploring the wilderness. Very into journeys.
Chad – 29 yrs old – pretty boy misogynist Beverly Hills party boy. Made money, but not as cool as he thinks he is.
Tae Wong – 39 yrs old – somewhat incompetent Chinese mobster, loves doing ecstasy, going to raves.
Taes Translator – 45 yrs old – VERY STRAIGHT LACED Chinese translator, terrified of his boss’s dad. Male, awkward. Needs to speak Chinese.
A big thank you to
GTA Fandom for being able to compare the casting call with the game’s final release. Here is a table for those who want to see it;
Comparison between the casting call and the in-game characters What else is interesting is that Trevor Phillips, one of the game’s main protagonists, was referred to as Simon here, while Albert De Silva in-game is instead Michael De Santa.
Outcome? Confirmed. Although the names have changed, you can definitely see the resemblance of many of the characters in the game, and that the majority did appear albeit under a different name.
March 29, 2011 – Stuntman “Typo” Places "GTAV" on his Resume
Declan Mulvey just might have made a typo when he placed "
Grand Theft Auto V" on his
resume, saying he did stunt work for the game. However, once eagle-eyed internet sleuths noticed this, according to
Eurogamer he told CVG (which I cannot find the article), that it was simply a typo and meant to write “Grand Theft Auto IV”. What is interesting is that this was never corrected, and that he was never in the credits for that game - I think he simply made an oopsie.
Outcome? Confirmed. Definitely not a typo, as he is credit in "
GTAV "and is not credited in "
GTAIV".
June 5, 2011 - Play as a Cop in "GTAV"
As shared on
GTAForums, one very controversial rumour regarding the game is that it would feature a story where you play as a rookie cop, working your way up in the ranks to either being the biggest detective in the city, or a cop-gone-rogue. I won’t post the whole “leak” word-for-word, but it sounds like it would have played a lot like L.A. Noire, Rockstar’s detective game also set in Los Angeles.
Based on the rumour, you would start the game as a rookie cop fresh out of the academy, named “Rock or Brock”, and as the story moves along, the player would find himself challenged by his partner who is working in the criminal underworld. The further you progress, the more you would find out that your partner is dirty, but you have a choice to either work with him illegaly or to investigate him - with the endgame resulting in either the player becoming the captain of the police force, or a “dirty cop Kingpin”. Post game, you would continue performing these roles, either abiding and enforcing the law as the captain, or selling contraband and performing other illegal tasks as a kingpin.
Gameplay wise, you would have to respond to dispatches over the radio, perform traffic stops, aid civilians, participate in car chases and even menial traffic tasks such as fining those with faulty brake lights, or speeding. The further you progress, the more involved you get with drug dealers, pimps, and organised crime. If a player wants to stray to the dark side, they can plant and steal evidence, beat informants, and sell drugs and guns.
Other minor details include the return of some characters from
San Andreas such as “CJ”, being able to go through SWAT training, helicopter training, performing traffic duty, being able to carry a baton, mace, and taser, and being able to handcuff characters through rotating the analogue sticks.
Obviously, you will learn more details about this leak by opening the above forum post, but at the time this was not well received by all, some questioning why a game made famous for allowing players to commit the crimes they want, would now have them play on the other side of the law.
Outcome? Fake. Nothing turned out to be true, although it did “guess” that the weapon wheel from
Red Dead: Redemption would return.
June 20, 2011 – 2012 Release “Pretty Likely” for "GTAV"
Sources close to Rockstar Games have confirmed with
GameSpot that development is “well under way”, and that a 2012 release is looking pretty likely. Additionally, Gamespot reports that the final touches are being worked on now, such as minigames, and that the scale of the game is vast, saying “It’s the big one”.
Outcome? Plausible. As we know, the game launched in 2013, and it was a “big one”.
October 25, 2011 – Rockstar Announce "Grand Theft Auto V"
Rockstar Games announce "
Grand Theft Auto V" on Twitter.
October 25, 2011 – Kotaku Confirm LA setting, Possible Multiple Playable Characters
On the same day that the game is announced,
Kotaku is able to confirm that "
GTAV" will be set in Los Angeles, according to their source who is familiar with the game. As well as talking about the setting, they have other sources that the game will feature multiple playable characters -something that was somewhat touched on with "
GTAIV’"s expansions. Not much else to report here.
Outcome? Confirmed. The game, as we all know, features three playable characters and is set in Rockstar’s version of LA.
November 2, 2011 – "Grand Theft Auto V" Trailer drops
Get nostalgic here! November 4, 2011 – Los Santos Map Leaked by Employee?
Thanks to
iGTA5 we can see that an employee apparently shared a version of the game’s map on Twitter, which is viewable
right here. It does show Los Santos and Vinewood, but we know that this map isn't an accurate representation of the released version - it
could be an early version, but I doubt it. Shortly after posting, the account named “toronotoJack233” got deleted.
Outcome? Fake. November 5, 2011 – UK Magazine Leaks "GTAV" Information
As reported on
VG247, it seems that an employee of a Playstation-focused magazine has leaked some information about the recently announced "
GTAV". There is quite a lot of information, but it basically comes down to;
- A massive world pushing console hardware to the very limits, including more details in the world than ever before such as more NPCs interacting in the world, higher populated areas, and more scenery than any other game. Will also feature interior locations including a mall, college campus, police station, hospital, and underground sewers
- Improved shooting mechanics
- Climbable elements such as ladders and overhangs
- Animals in game
- Cars can be upgraded and repaired, but also have to manage fuel use
- No dating aspect, phone only used for being asked to complete missions
- Rupture a fuel line, then shoot the gas to ignite the fuel line
- Mini-games such as bowling and darts are gone. Now there is basketball, weight training, arm wrestling, cage fights, triathlons, water races, abseiling, sky diving, rock climbing, canoeing
- No children NPCs
- You can use human shields in combat
- There must be witnesses to a crime for you to get a wanted level
- Skills are based on what you do, so for example, the more you ride a motorbike, the better your motorbike skill
- Weather effects include torrential rain fall, sunshine, and even earthquake tremors should feature
It is possible that this is a legitimate leak, some of the points made are representative of some aspects of the final game. However, just looking we can see stuff like rock-climbing, canoeing, and abseiling did not feature, or neither did earthquake tremors. There also was no need to focus on refuelling vehicles, nor was there the ability to use human shields in combat.
Outcome? Plausible. It is possible that some of this information genuinely came about as a leak, although I don’t feel confident enough in the content to say a verified leak – especially as this came after the trailer.
November 8, 2011 – More “Leaks” at GTAForums
Another big pile of leaks, this time from a user called OpenSuvivor, and now on the GTAForums. However, the post had been deleted pretty swiftly by the forum moderators, so we will be using this
reddit post as our source of information.
Another big list of stuff that I encourage you to read, even if just for old time’s sake. Some interesting notes though mention;
- "GTAV" is landlocked, not an island map, expect to see heavy snow areas with tonnes of snowfall, and deserts
- Bowling is returning
- The story features Mexican drug cartels, and you will be able to cross the border into Mexico
- The protagonist is a divorced male in his mid-50s named Ray, and has two children – Daniel and Skyler, who are both about 10 years old
- The Yucca Desert is on the eastern part of the map, and is infinitely long
As we know, 99% of this list is just completely inaccurate, making it easy to determine the validity of this “leak”. Having said that, it’s still fun to read, and of course at the time there is just no way of knowing if it really is fake.
Outcome? Fake. I don't think it is coincidence that these recent fake leaks all came out after the trailer.
March 28, 2012 – Former Rockstar Employee Reveals Information
Another “insider” leak, this time coming from “a friend of someone who recently got sacked from Rockstar North for general misconduct”. While the original document is no longer viewable, it is possible to find out what was written thanks to
Playstation Lifestyle. Straight away, looking back, we can make a pretty quick judgement about the validity of this “leak”.
Firstly, they mention that the protagonist “will be one character, and one character alone”. This character’s name is Albert De Silva, and he has a kid Kevin who is pretty much your typical gamer who smokes weed. Our protagonist is the man that we saw in the first trailer, and he will not die at the end of this game.
Next we know that multiplayer lobbies can hold 32 players on Xbox 360 and PS3, and that you will be able to form gangs that level up with reputation, rather than XP. There is an underworld that has a working economy, and the players can take drugs – which will have side effects.
We learn (again) that the map is five times as large as the "
GTAIV" map, and that planes are now flyable in this game, unlike the previous "
GTA" entry. Guns and cars will also be customisable in this game, allowing suppressors on weapons, and nitrous on cars. Gunfights are now meant to be more realistic, and shooting will be more difficult out of cars due to shaking cameras.
The most interesting piece of information is the mention of the game aiming to be released in May 2013. A release date hadn’t been formally announced at this point by Rockstar, but an end of 2012 release I believe was the consensus at the time.
Outcome? Fake. Some of these points are a mix whole truths and entirely inaccurate, while some also blur the line. For example, they got the main character part correct (as we know that Albert was Michael’s name in development), but they were incorrect in stating one character and that he will not die (for as we know it is possible he can). Multiplayer lobbies only held 16, and there was no underworld economy.
April 10, 2012 – Rockstar Employee’s CV Leaks October 2012 as Release Date
Character animation developer for Rockstar, Alex O’Dwyer, mentions on his CV that he had worked on "
Grand Theft Auto V", and that it is expected to release during October 2012, as viewable
here. Since this was spotted, it has since been removed, with no comment from O’Dwyer or Rockstar. What is interesting, is that if this is also a legitimate leak, it would have also confirmed a PC version of the game.
Outcome? Confirmed. While the launch dates did end up being incorrect, the mention of the PC version and taking into consideration that he did work on the game, I believe that it is possible that October 2012 was a launch goal internally at Rockstar – at least at one point.
May 15, 2012 – "GTAV" Vehicle List Found in "Max Payne 3"
A user on
GTAForums had allegedly found the vehicle list for "
Grand Theft Auto V" within the game files of "
Max Payne 3", outlining the types of trains, cars, boats, helicopters, and bikes that players would be able to use. Vehicles of note included a cable car, a chair lift, a ski-mobile, and an APC. If memory serves me correctly, these are some of the vehicles mentioned that did not make it into the final game, while on the other hand there are dozens of vehicles that are not mentioned here that are in the game.
Outcome? Fake. September 9, 2012 – Our First Gameplay Leak?
A popular video that I personally remember doing the rounds before the game’s release was
this video here, which shows a car being driven through the incredibly detailed desert, before getting into a helicopter. The map shows an incredibly detailed mountain range, and a desert populated with scenery. It definitely seems like something that would be in the style of the
"GTA" series, and one I somewhat believed when I first saw it.
Outcome? Fake. As it turns out, this was just a fan-made video, that has gone over multiple name changes throughout the years – I believe a comment mentioned that this title had once been renamed to suggest it was a "
GTAVI" leak.
October 28, 2012 – Polish Site Leaks “GTAV” Promotion Material and Release Date
The promotional material and release date had seemingly been made public – not through Rockstar but a Polish site (a site from Poland…not that stuff you shine stuff with). The posters include Franklin and his dog (at the time I believe he wasn’t revealed), as well as characters preparing to rob the jewellery store (revealed days earlier, per
Kotaku). The tagline on the posters suggest that the game is available in Spring 2013 – (March, April, May for us southern hemisphere-ers), which at the time seemed likely as it was pretty clear the game was not coming out in 2012. It is also interesting that “
Red Dead: Redemption” was also released in Spring of 2010 – so it isn’t entirely unfeasible to suggest the same for “
GTAV”.
Outcome? Confirmed. I believe this is a genuine leak, the artwork is too legitimate, as well as the release date being able to be confirmed by the following…
October 30, 2012 – Rockstar Announce Spring 2013 Release Date
Rockstar Games are “proud to announce that Grand Theft Auto V is expected to launch worldwide spring 2013 for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3”.
January 31, 2013 – Rockstar Announce September 17, 2013 Release Date
Well that was quick. August 23, 2013 – “GTAV” files discovered on Playstation Store
As
Venture Beat reports, users who had preordered “
GTAV” on the European version of the PlayStation Store were able to download some files as they had become available on the 22nd of August. Users mined these details, being able to discover the
game's soundtrack (here is a reddit thread about it), while the game’s main theme was leaked as well - video of such has since been deleted. Due to the nature of the files, the leaks were primarily audio files, and did not leak to any actual gameplay leaks.
A day later, Playstation
provided a comment on the matter, saying;
Regrettably, some people who downloaded the digital pre-order of Grand Theft Auto V through the PlayStation Store in Europe were able to access certain GTA V assets. These assets were posted online. We have since removed the digital pre-order file from the PlayStation Store in Europe. We sincerely apologize to Rockstar and GTA fans across the world who were exposed to the spoiler content. GTA V is one of the most highly anticipated games of the year with a very passionate following, and we’re looking forward to a historic launch on September 17.
Outcome? Confirmed. September 10, 2013 – Strategy Guide Leaks Map
The world were able to discover just how big the game was when the map for the game was
taken from the game’s official strategy guide. The map was posted onto reddit for all to see
right here, and many were impressed – one user liking the map to a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle”. The guide was originally meant to release with the game’s release on the 17th of September, but it seems once retailers received their copies they were able to scan and share some of the information.
Outcome? Confirmed.
September 17, 2013 - Grand Theft Auto V Released
September 22, 2013 – Micro-transactions Discovered
Reddit user
u/1880 seemed to discover why it was so hard for players to earn cash in the game and
discovered a file that references “cash cards”, ranging from $100,000 to $1,250,000. A copy of the file was uploaded
here. However, these "cash cards" were unable to be accessed – despite the game being playable. The original post is quite hopeful that it is just something that was scrapped in development as it “seems very un-Rockstar-y” to the poster.
Unfortunately, reddit user
u/Nouveau_Compte was able to provide proof that it was only for online, shared on the same thread.
Outcome? A sad confirmation. Closing Thoughts & Some Housekeeping
That was a big read, featuring a good mix or confirmed and fake leaks - hopefully giving you the hint to stay vigilant as rumours start to increase in frequency for
Grand Theft Auto VI. Having said that, you'll never know what you read that does turn out to be true. Here are a couple other links that you might also find interesting, but didn't include in the post;
GTA V Location Teased in GTAIV Manual New Casting Call for GTAV It seems Rockstar games seem to have a high number of rumours, leaks, and just plain lies, given their reputation and the popularity of their games. I can also tell you, the next GTA game that I am working on a post for, already has more sources and "leaks" than I found for GTAV...but this post won't be ready any time soon.
Some other housekeeping notes, I just want to find out a few things;
- Are you liking the long posts, or would you rather them split up over a Part 1, Part 2 type thing?
- Would you like to see some games revisited, such as Destiny, and cover the post-launch leaks?
- What games do you want to see?
Other things, these posts might start slowing down - but fear not! They are still being worked on, got a few more in the pipeline. I am also going to limit these posts to games that have only been released. For those who are asking, the idea of a video format is also being explored.
Here are some previous editions of this series;
Thanks for reading, appreciate any and all feedback.
Cheers!
best advice for young soccer players video
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