I got nudged by the official WB Shop to pre-order their exclusive Ted Lasso Believe pool float, and suddenly everything fell into place.

I mean, I’m not going to get the pool float as I live in Scotland, very few brave souls have a pool, and I don’t foresee a sunny pool holiday for years. But, for a minute, I did smile.

[Shop link]

And it’s that smile power which I think drives Ted Lasso forward. I don’t have Apple TV+ and am even less likely to get it than I am to have a pool break of a holiday, but despite Apple’s tempting sci-fi and geeky investments in shows, that’s not working on me.

It’s Ted Lasso that people are watching smiles and for the feel good, on friends and family recommendations and for the smiles.

All that flash of not-quite-insight happened to line up with data from JustWatch that I got last week and didn’t immediately use.

The TV streaming search engine shows that the top 10 popular shows (or, at least, searched for) include Severance, Foundation, For all Mankind, Servant and Black Bird. It’s Ted Lasso that comes out on top.

A synopsis of Ted Lasso

… written by someone who’s never seen it but heard many friends recommend it!

Ted Lasso is an American sports comedy-drama television series created by Bill Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly. It stars Sudeikis as Ted Lasso, an American college football coach hired to coach an English Premier League football team, AFC Richmond, despite having no experience coaching football. The team’s owner, Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), hires Lasso hoping he will fail as a means of taking revenge on the team’s old owner, who happens to be her unfaithful ex-husband. However, Ted’s charm, personality, and humour win over Rebecca, the team, and those sceptical about his appointment.

Shades of Vengeance has been Kickstarting Era projects for years, including the tabletop RPG Era: The Empowered.

There have been comics before, and now the designer and creator, Ed Jowett is back on the crowdfunding platform to raise only £3,500 for a movie. There’s already something to watch, and you see that below or find out more from the funding page.

[Back this Campaign]

The short movie will be around 19 minutes long and about two heroes disagreeing on how to defend a city from the return of an Old God.

It’s a dark alternative timeline in which ancient powers have returned to take over the world. There are superheroes, but these gods thoroughly outmatch them.

There are four actors, two of which have lead roles and a greenscreen approach with the Kickstarter to pay for extra CGI on the otherwise privately funded project.

Drift (Daisy Boyden) and Snake (Mark Hunter) are two of the less powerful heroes in the world, and they find their city taken over by an Old God with so much more power than them, they have no chance.

The two are long-time allies, but they choose a different approach to this.

While Snake chooses to go underground and fight back using his power to change into other people, Drift chooses to placate Herne. Hoping that she can delay the people’s suffering until more powerful people on her side can arrive, she ends up at odds with Snake’s combative plans.

It takes just £5 to get your name in the credits.

Backers who pledge £10 or more will also get a digital copy of Occupied and any stretch goals that might manifest later.

Collectors get a DVD, with postage to work out later, and global shipping is supported for £20. The DVD is also an add-on, so you can skip the digital delivery if your internet is poor.

There are higher tiers; £25 gives backers access to an early cut or a t-shirt. £35 gets the hardback of the Occupied book with character design, sketches and world details.

At £60, you can come to the premiere if you can get yourself to London and £80 for the script and hardback.

The last tier, that’s not sold out, is £100, which gets the DVD, hardback, early cut and t-shirt.

The release date varies, with the book out in February 2024 with the premiere, except the digital download should be available before both in December 2023.

In April, content creators on Twitch, YouTube and a few other streaming platforms will take part in the second The World Streams For The Wish. Make-A-Wish is taking part, and they created the event in the first place.

Make-A-Wish International founded the charitable streaming event in response to the significant increase in gaming-related desires from over 50 nations and the rising costs of granting those wants. Wishes for technology and travel to destinations such as the world’s most popular theme parks are currently two of the most prevalent wishes expressed by children undergoing medical treatment.

This year brings more good news for the event and the youngsters who will have their wishes granted. Park Beyond, a Bandai Namco Europe product set for release in 2023, will be the primary partner of the philanthropic campaign. Park Beyond is a fresh approach to theme park administration created by the German studio Limbic Entertainment. Players will take on the exciting challenge of designing and controlling every part of their amusement park with a twist as visionary architects.

In Park Beyond, players will quickly find the ‘Impossification’: a state in which technology, money, and gravity are not insurmountable barriers, and only the player’s imagination serves as a constraint. By supporting the upcoming worldwide fundraising, the concept of ‘Impossification’ will now help grant wishes to children worldwide living with serious illnesses.

Luciano Manzo, CEO of Make-A-Wish International, told the press;

We pride ourselves on being innovative and offering this community of fundraisers the chance to support a global charity that makes an impact around the world and in their own communities. This will be the second year of our global event and Bandai Namco Europe’s support and investment in our mission will help grant these life-changing wishes and raise awareness in the streaming community that we are here and ready to partner with them as a charity of choice,”

Bandai Namco Europe, as a supporting partner, also got to speak up, and Arnaud Muller, CEO at Bandai Namco Europe, noted;

At Bandai Namco, we aim at delivering fun for all, so supporting Make-a-Wish International’s livestream fundraiser was only a matter of time. With Park Beyond, we’ve found a perfect match – as both the Foundation and our game are all about making wishes come true! We strive to make seemingly impossible wishes possible in the future!”

If you’re a streamer, you can sign up at Make-A-Wish.

Earlier this week, I had stats for movies and TV shows popular on streaming platforms in the States last year.

Now, I have got the same analysis from JustWatch but for British searches. The inference is that shows people are looking for are shows that people are watching.

We see that UK and US movie tastes are similar, with the top 10s almost overlapping. Brits liked Black Adam a bit more or searched for where they could see it, and I think the only answer in 2022 was “at the cinema”. Other than that, Tom Holland’s Uncharted knocked Nope out.

TV shows are very different. Everyone knew that the House of the Dragon was exclusive to Sky Atlantic.

Top Gun: Maverick

Powered by JustWatch Top Gun: Maverick is the next part in the life story of Maverick, a highly-skilled fighter pilot who is enlisted to train a new generation of recruits. With time running out, Maverick must lead his team in a mission to protect the world against an unknown foe. Along the way, he must come to terms with his past and take on a more authoritative role to succeed.

Stranger Things

Powered by JustWatch

Stranger Things series 4 continues the story of Mike, Eleven, and the rest of the Hawkins gang, but with a significant twist: Vecna, a powerful new character. Vecna is a horrific, mysterious being with the power to manipulate time and space. With Vecna’s arrival, the Hawkins gang has to confront new challenges and dangers and ultimately try to save their beloved town again. It’s sure to be a thrilling ride for fans of the show!

Do you think we’ll get a third Top Gun movie?

]]> https://www.geeknative.com/149499/justwatch-but-british-this-time-what-did-we-want-to-watch/feed/ 0 149499 https://www.geeknative.com/149435/justwatch-what-did-we-stream-the-most-in-2022/ https://www.geeknative.com/149435/justwatch-what-did-we-stream-the-most-in-2022/#respond Mon, 02 Jan 2023 16:23:35 +0000 https://www.geeknative.com/?p=149435

Throughout the year, Geek Native has been sharing stats from JustWatch. It looks at what’s popular on streaming platforms in the UK and US, divided into movie and TV series.

The New Year and the arrival of 2023 have thrown us a curveball. I don’t have December stats, and I have got a look back at the most popular overall in 2022, which is excellent! But only for the US, which is less excellent.

There was much competition this year, although the most-streamed movies of 2022 include the blockbuster hit “Top Gun: Maverick” and DC’s “The Batman”. On the other hand, the top streamed shows are “House of the Dragon,” which is a new favourite and Netflix’s record holder “, Stranger Things”. “Wednesday” has also been a fan favourite, ranking fourth in the country after its November release.

Top Gun: Maverick

Powered by JustWatch

Top Gun: Maverick tells the story of Maverick, an elite fighter pilot recruited to train a group of new pilots. He soon finds himself in a race against time as he attempts to save his team and protect the world from a new type of enemy. Along the way, he must confront his past and learn to become a leader to succeed.

Stranger Things

Powered by JustWatch

The fourth season of Stranger Things follows the characters as they recover from the aftermath of the previous season. Eleven and the gang face a new enemy, the Russians, attempting to open a portal to the Upside Down. With the help of allies, old and new, they must find a way to close the portal before it’s too late. Along the way, they uncover secrets about their past and discover a new strength in their friendships.

There’s a lot of good geek content in there. Let’s hope 2023 is as generous.

]]> https://www.geeknative.com/149435/justwatch-what-did-we-stream-the-most-in-2022/feed/ 0 149435 https://www.geeknative.com/148046/justwatch-october-halloween-didnt-dominate-halloween/ https://www.geeknative.com/148046/justwatch-october-halloween-didnt-dominate-halloween/#respond Sat, 12 Nov 2022 17:05:03 +0000 https://www.geeknative.com/?p=148046

It’s a little late due to technical difficulties, but JustWatch’s October stats are out, which means we see which TV shows and movies were the most popular for the Halloween month.

No surprises? Not really. There’s plenty of Halloween, but it’s not that dominant. Halloween and Halloween Ends topped the US movies but not in the UK. What did Brits watch? Here we watched Lord of the Rings!

The spike in interest in The Fellowship of the Ring is probably due to Amazon’s Rings of Power, but it wasn’t alone. In TV shows, we have House of the Dragon, Doctor Who and Andor doing well.

Most searched-for movies in October

Most searched-for TV shows in October

A curveball comes from Netflix launching their ad-supported plan. The $6.99 plan is cheaper, but there are ads. The ads only pre-roll for movies, so there’s no annoying disruption, but I’ve not tested the service. Have you? What’s it like?

JustWatch compares AVOD (ads) catalogues and SVOD (subscription) for US Netflix as a quick way to check options. We can also see in the graph above what that does for the relative market share of the two options.

Amazon has shared a first look at Critical Role’s animated The Legend of Vox Machina. The series will return in 2023 and then, it has been confirmed, there will be a third season.

The Critical Role team of Travis Willingham, Marisha Ray, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Sam Riegel, Liam O’Brien, Laura Bailey, and Matthew Mercer will return to their roles as the heroes of Vox Machina. How could it be otherwise?

The show is based on Critical Role’s first live-streamed tabletop RPG campaign. Critical Role premiered in 2015, and the voice actors took part in a D&D campaign helmed by Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer for two years and 115 episodes.

The TV show was initially funded on Kickstarter to produce a single animated episode. The campaign became the highest-funded Kickstarter for a television production, and by the end, it had met the stretch goals for ten full episodes. Amazon then purchased the project’s rights in 2019, adding the money and support to fund a further 14 episodes. And dragons.

Titmouse, the animation studio, provide the talents behind the digital pens.

Quick Links

• Watch The Legend of Vox Machina.

Romancing the Dungeon describes itself as “A Softcore DnD podcast about finding that special someone in a world full of peril, monsters and heartbreakers!”.

Sound bold? The series picked up a bronze award in the recent Irish Podcast Awards.

I got the chance to ask the team some questions. I was, of course, curious about the romance angle.

There are very few DND podcasts/streams who not only refuse to shy away from romance, but embrace it as strongly as we do. The show began as inspired by RomComs but we soon found that we were naturally drawn to the drama of real life relationships and how messy they can be. Organically, we began exploring relationships with parents, exs, friends, strangers, mentors, and more, and that is what the heart of Romancing the Dungeon is now.

Does this work for the fans, though? It’s not uncommon to find gamers turning to RPGs and actual plays for escapism. Who wants more heartbreak?

Seeing these relationships displayed so honestly, all of the good and the bad, makes the characters relatable. We’ve received many messages from fans saying that they see something of themselves in one character or another, either through trauma the character has experienced or through their reactions to things that have happened to them. We don’t dance around how messy relationships are, and as fantastical as our world is, our characters are so devastatingly human you can’t help but love them.

Declan, Romancing the Dungeon’s DM, added;

I think she show has an audience, has done well, because we put effort into the editing and production of the show; it is still at heart a game with friends, sat around a table, rolling dice and just having fun!”

The team estimates there are a good few years left in the show, and Declan has plans for other projects. It’s about evolution;

The podcast will continue to move along, and we will continue to challenge ourselves to one up our story telling. And as this chugs along we have branched out into other projects as well. We stream on Twitch 2-3 times a week with everything from other campaigns to exploring new systems with one shots games.

Louise, who plays Fia in Romancing the Dungeon, told me;

The world that our DM has created is vast and exciting and I think we all want to see what other mad/crazy/wonderful adventures he brings us on, whether it is with these characters or others. We have already started a stand alone stream (Saving Grace) that goes down a more gothic root that ties into the world of Romancing the Dungeon, and will have repercussions on the story for the podcast characters in the future.”

Dungeons, romance and charity

Romancing the Dungeon has run two charity events, including a 24-hour extravaganza with volunteers and one shot games for Child’s Play and Project Hope. This effort raised over €2,000.

The other, which took €1,500 for Planned Parenthood, was important to the female majority group.

We were watching our friends in the States panicking about losing rights, knowing that we have made connections with fans in America who were experiencing a terrifying decision; we had to get involved, how could we not. We rand 7 one shots over 2 days, again with a number of incredible volunteers who were all as passionate about the cause as we were.

Amber, who plays Hephaesta, explained,

Planned Parenthood was a no-brainer, as soon as Roe v Wade was repealed. We had been debating a few different charities at the time, but the instant the decision was made in America, our decision was made for us as well. As an American myself, I was behind this decision full force. It could have been my health and autonomy threatened, had I not left the country. I have friends and family being directly effected by this decision, we had to do something. It was admittedly harder to get sponsorship. We expected this, it’s a polarizing topic and many people want to avoid getting involved, especially small businesses who are just trying to get by. We found some great support, though, and it was a fantastic event.”

Thoughts on One D&D

I had to ask about the big D&D news, which is the new edition and edition less One D&D. Many gaming groups, newish to the hobby, have never been through an edition change and while the podcast group admitted they are terrible at keeping up on nerdy news, James, who plays Cael, had something to say;

The rise to mainstream popularity D&D has seen in the last few years has meant a lot of new folks coming into the hobby, with new ideas and new types of stories to tell. Along with this comes a renewed focus on the rules we’re using to tell those stories, how those rules are imparted, and whether they’re still relevant. A refreshed version that accommodates for new people and new stories, taking into account the lessons learned from the current edition, can only be a good thing! We can all agree that DnD, and TTRPGs in general make us happy, that’s why we partake in them, and anything that makes the world of gaming more accessible is a win as far as we’re all concerned.

Quick Links

• Romancing the Dungeon

Were you expecting this? Everything Everywhere All At Once with Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis has edged Top Gun, the original, as the most popular movie to stream in the US in June.

This, according to JustWatch, the streaming search engine, means the geeky film has been more popular than Tom Cruise’s classic despite the billion-dollar sequel.

It’s a different story in the UK. Here, Top Gun is top, with Everything Everywhere All at Once in second and ahead of Spider-man, the Batman and a lot of Jurassic World/Parks.

Most popular streaming films in June

Top Gun: Maverick appears in both, and while I can find the pre-order on Amazon Video, I’m not quite sure how people are legit watching it online.

It may be that JustWatch is reporting what people are looking for, as they are a search engine, and perhaps people are already expecting to see it online.

Sites like Fandango will help you find cinema/theatres that might still have the big screen experience.

Most popular streaming TV shows in June

Aotearoa (New Zealand), the land of the long white cloud, will host KiwiRPG Week from May 1st. There will be bundles at DriveThruRPG and Itch, actual plays and game (sort of) premieres.

Last year, the event started as #KiwiRPG hashtag for which podcasters, live streamers, and game designers promoted. Why? Well, in their words;

It isn’t always easy to share news of our creations with the rest of the world. We can’t easily make it to GenCon or Dragonmeet! However, everyone here sort of knows everyone else*, and #KiwiRPG uses these friendly networks to combine our voices and reach further, together.

(* not actually a joke, it really is like that here)

KiwiRPG will now mark the occasion of the 2022 week with the launch of Hamish Cameron and Ardens Ludere’s Kratophagia and Morgan Davie and Taleturn’s Paranormal Wellington.

Live streams will include Monster of the Week: The Faces of TolTeTotl which runs on Sunday 1st from 7pm NZST and “YES, AND” CHARITY STREAM PRESENTS: CULT OF KEVIINE which kicks off on the 7th at 2pm NZST.

Kiwi RPG, or Kēmu Whakatau O Aotearoa, as it can also be called, is coordinated by Liz Parker and Morgan Davie. The event no longer fits on Liam Stevens’ Discord server, which was host last year.

Kratophagia

Cameron and Ludere’s game is an intense one.

Kratophagia features radical body transformation, violence, and hunger in a sci-fi setting.

The crashed ships of the Progonoi pierce the land like teeth of a dead god. The domed cities of the Katoikoi lie squat and empty among them, strewn like droplets of the land’s blood. The air is fetid and deadly, but you’ve learned to breathe it. You’ve learned other things besides. And your swollen glands thirst to know more. In the land of the dead, you eat or you die.

How to do you pronounce the Powered by the Apocalypse RPG? Krah-toe-fah-gee-ah.

Paranormal Wellington

Paranormal Wellington is a different tone and features bumbling sleuths on the trail of the supernatural.

Wellington, New Zealand/Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. A very serious city where serious things happen and only the most serious investigators will thrive. Seriously.

You and your partners will look into supernatural happenings while being recorded for a curious audience. Bumble through! Keep the audience informed! Careful now, don’t get puffed!

Paranormal Wellington is based on John Harper’s World of Dungeons, which was Powered by the Apocalypse.

This particular take on PbtA features such skills/abilities as “Sweet As”, “Yeah Nah”, and “Bugger”. Well, there you go!

Quick Links

• Kiwi RPG