Their last (2022, pre-acquisition) annual reports literally spell that out.
> For example, in 2022, revenues associated with our three franchises—Call of Duty, Warcraft, and Candy Crush
—collectively accounted for approximately 79% of our net revenues—and a significantly higher percentage of our operating income. We expect that a relatively limited number of popular franchises will continue to produce a disproportionately high percentage of our revenues and profits. - https://investor.activision.com/annual-reports
CoD is a different beast though. In 2021, PlayStation tracked that that 1 million players on their console only had CoD installed and played no other games. Most Ubi franchise aren't that type of game ouside Rainbow Six which has a lot of years on it now.
Ubisoft games used to be varied and innovative and they boiled a dozen IP's down to the exact same open world slop with different coats of paint while sending loved unique titles like Splinter Cell to the graveyard.
It's like the companies who have tried to be the next Destiny or WoW. Those games did not become what they were by copying predecessors but by innovating and creating something new and unique that engaged gamers.
This is what killed Bioware. Decades of innovation, each game something new and different. Improvements on previous design, ne styles of game play... then it became let's just copy what we did last time and what everyone else is doing.
> How, then, do contrails stack up in terms of total warming? They contribute roughly 2% to the world’s effective radiative forcing; tackling them would reduce that by a similar amount.
I don't watch Futurama, so I may be wrong in how the story goes. But I think he thought that he's rich but inflation shouldn't be much lower than interest (irl, it's actually way higher), so the 4 billion is likely worth 4 bucks or at most 4 hundred.
It seems like the episode treats him as legitimately rich, but you're right: assuming targeted 2% inflation, it's like $10. That's being pretty generous too, 1000 years is a long time to go without some kind of societal shakeup event where people stop honoring 800 year old numbers on a screen as legitimately valuable. It's not like there is any entity today who would feel obligated to give you $4 billion dollars for your 11th century banknote.
If we're only in the realm of video games, Nintendo has some of the highest prices for their games, and rarely drop below half price. This does factor in somewhat, since their games (assuming you get a physical version) maintain their value better.
I think Nintendo should include a few months of free online play for their flagship titles with Nintendo Online service. The fact that all online activity is basically gated to a monthly subscription is one of the few things I dislike as a consumer about Nintendo's product strategy.
If we're going across different "entertainment" forms, I would argue the cheapest form of entertainment is probably football, aka soccer, or something similar as that just requires a ball.
> Also, I understand why they tested multi-vitamins and fish oil,
I don’t see that in the linked article or in the paper. The words vitamin and fish don’t appear anywhere in the paper either. I didn’t see supplement use in the tables.
Numerous studies have concluded that honey does have a better effect on health than the same amount of simple syrup, at least.
> It has been demonstrated that honey consumption can influence plasma lipid, glucose, and insulin levels through different biochemical mechanisms. The decrease in blood glucose may be due to the fact that honey has a stimulatory effect on insulin secretion and improves insulin sensitivity
If I'm rich in time and money enough to routinely take the time to wander down to my friendly beekeeper and buy their small-batch artisanal honey, for so many reasons I will live longer than someone who isn't.
Someone should randomize people to honey vs fake-honey-sugar-mix and settle the issue.
> Forty-eight articles published in 42 different journals were analyzed, with a total of 3655 subjects with 29.51 ± 21.51 years of age, of whom 1990 consumed or were treated with honey. Of the 3655 subjects, at least 1803 were women (two studies did not specify). The studies included different population groups (healthy subjects, overweight or obese subjects, diabetic subjects, subjects with cancer, children, etc.) and included more than 30 different types of honey. Although it is not a systematic review, the results of the PEDro scale regarding the quality of the articles were in the range of 6–10, with articles scoring 6 or higher being considered of good methodological quality.
> My first thought was to work remotely and use the 90 days permitted by the tourist visa. Yet working in Japan on this visa is a gray zone at best and a practice I would stay away from. In fact, the US Embassy in Japan strictly advises against this:
> Persons found working illegally are subject to arrest and deportation.
> Persons believed to be entering Japan without a working visa but who intend to work here can be denied entry into Japan. This means that you will not exit the airport and will be required to return directly to the U.S.
Did more quick reading, Nomad visa gives you 6 month(tourist is 90 days), as long as you don't take local jobs you're fine, and there is no need to pay tax to Japan as well. now it seems just like a visa double the duration of tourist visa to me.
In my experience, ONE thing will cause a game to trend towards toxicity - higher stakes. The more "important" the win or loss feels to the player, the more toxicity shows up.
It's pretty easy to filter out "toxic" games if you filter out anything which has a ranked mode and is not designed to be played infinitely.
Unfortunately, games in the online era have trended in that direction, because they are the most profitable.
For example, some variables that affect toxicity:
- competitiveness, often implemented by sort of ranked system, but also just any sort of head-to-head competition. Tournaments and betting will do this as well.
- longer investment (via playtimes, either of a single "run" or in total) - people won't get mad at a 5-10 minute game as much as a 1 hour game. Games as a service like MMOs where people have 1000s of hours of playtime are the extreme end of this.
- punishing gameplay, where a mistake can cause you to lose a lot of progress (Hardcore modes where dying means you have to restart your character, for example)
- tone (casual vs serious tone, e.g. Fall Guys vs Call of Duty) - More serious generally results in more toxicity.
Adjusting these variables can even turn a single player game into a toxic one (e.g. self-imposed challenges/achievements, Dark Souls, Jump King or Getting Over It).
Similarly, you can lower the stakes so that the gameplay doesn't devolve into toxicity, even with multiplayer (e.g. Animal Crossing)
I have wondered if the act of passing personal accountability for retirement to individuals is part of the cause of the housing affordability crisis.
I'm basing this on the assumption that, when given the option of "making ends meet" today and saving for retirement, most people put off retirement savings. If enough people do this, prices will stabilize on a 0% savings rate - basically paycheck-to-paycheck.
This assumption combined with the American mentality of treating homeownership as an investment means that people often take on as much housing costs as they can.
Activision had three or four studios dedicated to Call of Duty leapfrogging each other to release one every year. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty)
Their last (2022, pre-acquisition) annual reports literally spell that out.
> For example, in 2022, revenues associated with our three franchises—Call of Duty, Warcraft, and Candy Crush —collectively accounted for approximately 79% of our net revenues—and a significantly higher percentage of our operating income. We expect that a relatively limited number of popular franchises will continue to produce a disproportionately high percentage of our revenues and profits. - https://investor.activision.com/annual-reports