EA Sports have been teasing the return of College Football for so long, even they poked fun at themselves in the latest “Yeah, it’s really happening” teaser video. Their latest announcement about compensating college athletes who appear in the game, shows that - yes, it is happening, and - it will be different this time.

Stepping away from sports and video games, into the world of art and GPUs, we went to Refik Anadol’s “Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive” show last week. It is a triumphant vision of what art of the future looks like, today.

And finally, another obby drops on Roblox, this time it’s to promote “Kung Fu Panda 4” and it has already been extremely popular.

In the Playable Media Report this week

• EA Sports offers a $600 deal to every college football player

• Refik Anadol brings technical brilliance with artist vision

• The Kung Panda 4 Obby is the new branded king on Roblox

Let's get started...

EA Sports offers a $600 deal to every college football player

EA Sports has taken the next step by offering more than 11,000 college football players $600 each to appear in its upcoming game, EA Sports College Football 25. Contracts have been sent out to 134 schools in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, with up to 85 players per school eligible to participate in the game. Players have the option to opt in for their name, image, and likeness to be included in the game, with the opportunity to opt-out in future editions if they wish.

This development is significant as it marks the first time college athletes will be paid for their likeness to appear in a video game. Previously, NCAA rules prevented such compensation, but a law passed in California in 2019 led to a reversal of this policy, paying the way for this and other NIL deals. 

EA Sports seized the opportunity and revived its college football series, promising compensation to players who agree to have their names and likeness featured in the game. The move signals a shift in the landscape of college sports and opens up new avenues for players to benefit from their association with video game franchises.

However, concerns have been raised about the adequacy of the compensation offered to players. Last year, it was reported that EA had allocated a total of $5 million as a cash pool for athletes featured in the franchise, translating to roughly $500 per player. This led to criticism from the College Football Players Association, which organized a boycott in June 2023 over what they deemed as an insufficient amount of money. The issue highlights ongoing debates surrounding fair compensation for college athletes, especially in comparison to professional counterparts like NFL players who receive substantially higher payments for similar appearances in video game franchises such as EA's Madden series.

Why you should care

The scale of this is unprecedented.

Offering consistent terms to 11,000 college athletes is the first such deal like this I have seen, and will potentially open up a path for other deals like it.

EA Sports is uniquely placed to do this, as the game formerly known as NCAA College Football was dope! And the game is clearly made better with player names and their likeness. Previously the players were recreated in the game, including their height, physique, and other attributes, but not their name. You could play EA Sports’ NCAA College Football 2005 with Georgia Tech, and it was obvious which WR was Calvin Johnson. (Sidenote: Calvin Johnson was incredible)

👆This felt like a rip-off.

It was deals like that that justified NIL. I know that the media rights deals were the significant driver for compensating players, due to the significant value attached to them, and the fact that the players weren’t compensated despite being on television. However, the kids would have all expected to be on TV; they might not have expected to have themselves recreated, virtually in a video game, and not receive a penny for the sometimes imperfect recreation of their actual face.

Even EA Sports admitted as much - indirectly - by discontinuing the game in 2014. I imagine it was no longer able to stomach the fact that it was recreating these young people without providing them any compensation at a time when the noise and campaigning around NIL was really growing.

Some will complain that the new deal doesn’t offer student-athletes suitable compensation for the value that they provide. However, I think this is a highly substantial amount of beer money and likely paves the way for other deals to come in sports like basketball, where male and female athletes might get in on the action.

Refik Anadol brings technical brilliance with artist vision

The Playable Media Report took the show on the road to see Refik Anadol’s latest, and largest exhibition to date, "Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive," at Serpentine Galleries in London. For anyone in London, this free exhibit is a must-see! 

The show offers a fusion of artificial intelligence, visual brilliance, and natural splendor. The exhibit showcases Anadol's innovative approach to AI art, redefining our relationship with technology and the natural world. Through dynamic interpretations of landscapes like underwater scenes and rainforests, Anadol employs ML models to create immersive, massive-format, visual experiences. 

One of the exhibition's pieces is "Artificial Realities: Coral (2023)," which transports viewers into a digitally rendered oceanic realm crafted from a vast dataset of over 135 million coral images. Another highlight is the "Living Archive: Large Nature Model," making its UK debut after premiering at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Why it matters

So much fuss has been made about AI's role in destroying art.

…oh, boo hoo!

This exhibit starts to show us what really is possible. Refik Anadol strikes down the notion of ‘AI subverting the importance of the artist’. Instead, Anadol shows us how, with sufficient vision and technical ability, an artist can use technology and machine learning to achieve new artistic heights.

Having done commissions for the World Economic Forum, The Grammys and MoMA’s recent acquisition of his work, “Unsupervised: Machine Hallucinations (2022)”, Anadol is staking his claim as the artist of the moment. 

Like I said, anyone who can should go. The show is on until April 7th, you can book your FREE tickets her

The Kung Panda 4 Obby is the new branded king on Roblox

The Kung Panda 4 Obby has surged to become Roblox's top branded experience, boasting the highest concurrent user count. This event centered around the release of the movie and offered players a free "Skadoosh" emote and a collaborative obstacle course inspired by Kung Fu Panda.

Despite not being a full-fledged game, it garnered excitement among players who were drawn to the opportunity to engage with Kung Fu Panda content within the Roblox platform.

With over 12,000 concurrent users (CCUs), the Kung Panda 4 Obby - remember obbies? -currently stands as the 53rd most popular experience across all of Roblox, a remarkable feat considering the vast array of over 15 million active experiences available on the platform. Although it has previously reached even higher CCU numbers, its consistent popularity underscores its significance within the Roblox community.

Comparatively, the previous branded experience Queen on Roblox was Barbie DreamHouse Tycoon, now occupying the 78th spot overall with 9,000 CCUs. Launched by Universal Pictures and Sawhorse Productions, the Kung Panda 4 Obby has garnered impressive metrics, including 1.8 million visits, an average session time of 12 minutes, and an impressive 96% user rating, all achieved within just 40 hours of its debut.

Why does this all matter?

This is a compelling combination of IP being delivered way on a platform in which people care about the subject matter, married against a significant real-world event that will drive commercial value to the IP owners.

Naturally, all of this reach and immersive engagement is perfectly timed to promote the upcoming Kung Fu Panda 4 theatrical release, which is set for early March. Cha-ching!

It also uses a FREE EMOTE as the user-generated content (UGC) item to draw players in. As someone who spent time trying to license motion into games and experience, it is cool to see this new potential IP asset grow in popularity and utility.

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