Visionaries: Gaming, Media and the Internet Explained

The announcement of Counter-Strike 2 surprised its most popular streamer Erik “fl0m” Flom as much as the rest of the 20-year-old franchise’s player base. After more than two decades of successful game titles, Seattle-based Valve Software is making major changes to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, despite its popularity being close to an all-time peak. Can it take the already-popular game and push...

26-year-old Twitch streamer Frogan recently won Rising Star at the 2023 Streamer Awards. But what sets her apart from other streamers is her unique background in public health. Frogan gained popularity in 2021 after a clip of her went viral on the subreddit LivestreamFail. Since then she quit her job as a public health expert and now uses her platform to educate her viewers on public health issues...

Troy Baker is the voice behind some of the most iconic characters is more than a dozen video games. From Joker to Batman to starring as ‘The Last of Us’ main character Joel Miller, Baker’s life’s work has featured one through line: immersive storytelling. Hot off appearing as James in HBO’s adaptation of ‘The Last of Us’, he joins ‘Visionaries’ to discuss how video games are revolutionizing the wa...

As traditional investors turn their eyes away from esports, Saudi Arabia is continuing its aggressive acquisition of esports companies. In January 2022, Savvy Gaming Group, a subsidiary of the state-backed Public Investment Fund, acquired independent tournament organizers ESL and FACEIT for $1.5 billion, merging the two competitors into one and forming a super group. Now, just over a year later, t...

Jonas "AverageJonas" Navarsete is one of the fastest-growing streamers on Twitch, but before his newfound life as a content creator, he performed live on cruise ships as an opera singer. Now beloved by the 'VALORANT' community, he joins the show to discuss his rise, if 'VALORANT' will stand the test of time and how co-streaming is impacting esports and whether that is a net negative or positive. Y...

Zaqueri 'Aphromoo' Black is one of the longest tenured players in League of Legends professional play, with his career spanning almost 13 years and two championship runs. He is also the League Championship Series' only Black player in its decade-long history. But in mid-January, he announced his retirement, hanging up the mouse and keyboard and assessing what's next in his career. He joins Prem, w...

Ovilee May started her career young, creating content about professional 'League of Legends' in her late teens. She's had a meteoric rise, becoming a host at Comcast's G4 network and at Riot Games' official League of Legends Championship Series. Her content, known for its humor and intentional cringe, is a standard bearer in an esports industry that's struggling to retain viewership. In January, s...

'The Last of Us' recorded HBO's second-most watched premiere of the past 13 years, behind only 'Game of Thrones' spin-off 'House of the Dragon.' An adaptation of the 2013 video game of the same title, the $100 million post-apocalyptic zombie drama may just be breaking the video game curse of bad translation from small screen to big screen. What's so different about it? And why are video games the...

So far in 2023, the likes of Google, Microsoft and others have laid off tens of thousands of employees, with some in the gaming industry. Each day there's new news of layoffs and on this episode of 'Visionaries', Washington Post reporter Shannon Liao joins Jacob to discuss the layoffs and what they mean for the tech, entertainment and gaming industries at large. "A lot of this is due to the pendin...

If you're into games, chances are you've played—or at least heard of—League of Legends and its developer Riot Games. Despite League's success, though, Riot famously didn't publish any other titles for the first 10 years of its company's existence. That is, until it got inspired by a group who created a mod for one of its competitors, Dota. In less than six months, a small scrappy team at the Calif...

In November, the community-organized 'Super Smash Bros.' esports circuit Smash World Tour canceled its finale event just two weeks before its kickoff date, citing legal concerns stemming from conversations with the game's publisher Nintendo. But the organizers behind the event also made another accusation: the CEO of their biggest competitor, Panda's Alan Bunney, had threatened 'Melee' and 'Ultima...

Visionaries is back! 2022 capped off as one of the biggest year's ever for gaming entertainment, but for esports, the year was less than kind. What will happen in 2023? Award-winning investigative journalist Jacob Wolf and producer Prem Thottumkara sit down to dole out their big predictions for 2023. After allegedly stealing millions of dollars in customer funds, will 30-year-old notorious crypto...

Parth Naidu is the former general manager of esports organization TSM, which Forbes estimated in May is worth $540 million. After nearly a decade with the team, Parth decided to move on last fall and now, he's launched a consulting firm, Sido, focusing on tackling some of esports' most challenging issues. You can follow Parth here and Sido here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm...

Marcus Bromander is the co-founder of Innersloth and the co-creator of 'Among Us', the online multiplayer titles that became one of the most popular video games in 2020. But before its smash success, 'Among Us' nearly died, as it struggled to maintain a player base and Marcus and his team looked to move on. Yet thanks to the pandemic, 'Among Us' became a favorite of gamers isolated away from their...

This past weekend, YouTube star Ludwig Ahgren hosted the Mogul Chessboxing Championship, an exhibition event featuring chessboxing. What is chessboxing, you might ask? It's exactly as it sounds: chess and boxing. Competitors compete in both, alternating between the board game and the combat sport every round until there's a winner in one or the either. 2018 chessboxing world champion Matt Thomas,...

After she got laid off in 2020, 32-year-old professional animator Youna had an idea: start a Twitch channel and stream almost exclusively using a 3D avatar. She invested nearly all her savings and went $20,000 into depth to purchase a motion capture suit. The result? CodeMiko, a 3D character full of dry wit and dirty humor. Within a year, she became a hit sensation on Twitch. Now, almost two years...

There's something incredibly satisfying about games that let you command the superheroes, and Second Dinner co-founder Ben Brode and his team have perfected the process in 'Marvel SNAP'. He joins the podcast to talk about his time at Blizzard, his departure, and how Second Dinner became the developers of the 2022 Game Awards Mobile Game of the Year Winner, Marvel SNAP! Follow Ben and Second Dinner...

It's been a long week in 'Super Smash Bros.' and we can only explain with a long episode. The Yard's Anthony "Slime" Bruno and Aiden McCaig, long-time tournament organizers and now staff at Ludwig Ahgren's Mogul Moves, join the podcast to discuss the nuance behind why Nintendo is enforcing its copyright rights on the 21-year-old title. You can follow Slime and Aiden here. Learn more about your ad...

Known as the "Internet's busiest music nerd", Anthony Fantano, aka The Needle Drop, is the web's most popular music critic. His takes on Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean and Kanye West have garnered him hundreds of millions of views and in 2020, The New York Times called him, "The Only Music Critic Who Matters (if You’re Under 25)." Recently, he got in a feud with Drake after giving Drizzy's latest alb...

It's been four months since we launched 'Visionaries' and there's been one reoccurring theme: No one gives a fuck about esports. With a recent report from Deloitte that esports engagement decreased by nearly half in 2022 versus 2021 in Europe, Jacob and Prem take some time to review past interviews, answer audience questions and discuss critically why fewer and fewer people are engaging with compe...

Rosie "jasminericegirl" Nguyen is a content creator and the co-founder of Fanhouse, a PG-13 creator platform helping influencers better monetize their content. Rosie's Twitter first became famous for openly speaking about her thoughts on sex and her sex life. She founded the company after losing a work-study job while in college at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business amid f...

After just three years, beloved esports social media startup Juked is shutting its doors after failing to find funding and gain product momentum. Why is that esports startups continue to fail? Why aren't there deeply engaged esports fans? And are all the data reports out there about esports being "the next big thing" just absolute bull$!%&? Juked's founder Ben "Fishstix" Goldhaber joins the sh...

QTCinderella has become one of the most recognizable women on Twitch in the past few years. Her regular streams have built her a loving community, but her events have built her a fanbase of millions. After being nominated for Content Creator of the Year 2022 by The Game Awards on Dec. 8, she's not sure if she truly deserved the nod. After a year with TSM, she is excited about her potential to find...

Ahmed Ali Akbar is a James Beard Award-winning food journalist, the former host of Vox Media's "Delivery Wars" and now, the host of Crooked Media and Duolingo's "Radiolingo" podcast, which releases Nov. 15. Prior to becoming a journalist, Ahmed competed in and commentated "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" mod Project M and its successor Project+. "Everybody can understand through food. It's a basic, funda...

Gaming may seem just like a passive activity. But as more research around its effects on mental and physical health is studied, how concerned should we be about its bigger picture impacts on players' well-being? Doctors Rachel Kowert, a psychologist who is the research director at Take This, and Cait McGee, a physical therapist who is the co-founder of 1HP, join Jacob to discuss their findings. "I...