<figure class="element element-image" data-media-id="24dbc2d95ea008563113b842a36fcd792cb4b849"> <img src="https://media.guim.co.uk/24dbc2d95ea008563113b842a36fcd792cb4b849/0_384_3002_1802/1000.jpg" alt="Gloucester’s Jamal Ford-Robinson: ‘I don’t take myself too seriously’." width="1000" height="600" class="gu-image" /> <figcaption> Gloucester’s Jamal Ford-Robinson: ‘I don’t take myself too seriously’. Photograph: Dan Mullan/Getty Images </figcaption> </figure>

Jamal Ford-Robinson is detailing precisely what the award he won at Gloucester’s end of season bash was for when eventually he explains that “essentially it’s about being a good club man”. Given his standing among his peers, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who he has shared a dressing room with to argue. The award was a welcome end to a hectic season for Ford-Robinson that began in mid-October when, after he was summoned into the squad at the 11th hour and scored the winning try against Harlequins. It could yet end with a second winners’ medal of the campaign with Gloucester facing South African side the Sharks in Friday night’s Challenge Cup final while along the way he has hit a century of Premiership appearances as well as 100 matches for Gloucester – celebrating each landmark in the self-deprecating style that makes him such a popular figure. <aside class="element element-rich-link element--thumbnail"> Related: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/may/22/leinster-antoine-dupont-toulouse-champions-cup-final">Leinster warned to fear ‘alien’ Dupont as Toulouse seek sixth Champions Cup</a> </aside> So how will he spend his summer reflecting on it all? “Weekend getaways in the caravan,” he says. “I’m all about the caravan life at the moment. I went down to Brean [in Somerset] and got some serious caravan envy because we definitely had the smallest one. But I only paid £3,500 for our one and I’m very happy with it. It’s big enough for me, the missus and the dogs.” Add caravanning to the already burgeoning list of interests that Ford-Robinson enjoys. And in his case, enjoyment is the operative word. He has dabbled in wrestling – “I’m undisputed, undefeated, still 1-0!” – as well as esports coaching and he is soon to be reunited with his American muscle car. He’s a keen photographer and has recently started vlogging, while it was during lockdown that his TikTok videos – which started out as a way to “keep me sane” – went viral. To the extent that he was given a community award by Premiership rugby and heralded as a “one-man lifter of spirits”. The TikTok videos may have dried up of late – though one of Ford-Robinson having his broken nose mended has received a million views – but he is prominent on social media, entertaining and engaging in equal measure. He has a big personality and does not mind sharing it. “I was in Leicester’s academy from 16 until 18/19 and one of the issues I had was that I just didn’t have anything going on outside of rugby,” says Ford-Robinson. “It wasn’t looking very good for me in terms of moving on to a senior contract. That was pretty tough, it was a dark period in my life and that’s what has led me to being the person that I am now. It’s about not taking yourself too seriously, not taking life too seriously, finding things outside of rugby that you can get some enjoyment out of. “It’s not that losing on the field doesn’t hurt, you never want to walk off the field feeling like you’ve not done enough, but at the end of the day it’s such a small part of what your life can be and if you let that become all consuming I just don’t think it’s a very positive thing.” As healthy a view as Ford-Robinson evidently has, you sense a hint of wariness to avoid coming across as someone who is not invested enough in Gloucester’s fortunes. For all that his off-field interests can garner attention, equally, he is pleased his performances on the pitch have been recognised this season. “I don’t take myself too seriously, I’ve very much willing to be open and have a joke but it’s also nice to receive an award like that, especially from Skivs [George Skivington, Gloucester’s head coach], because he does not give a flying monkeys about social media,” says Ford-Robinson. “I’m not sure he’s heard of it. So to have that recognition for what I’m doing on the field as well is massive. “One of the things that was referenced by Skivs when he announced me as the winner of the award was some movement in the Prem Cup final. I was due to start the game at loosehead but we had a few things happen during the week and I ended up being on the bench at tighthead. I was moved around to facilitate the bigger picture.” A victim of his versatility perhaps – Ford-Robinson is a rare breed in that he is equally happy on either side of the scrum – but clearly someone valued by Gloucester. When reaching his 100th game the former chief executive Lance Bradley explained how Ford-Robinson “is one of the best people I’ve ever worked with, including in my pre-sport days. Whatever trench you were in, you’d want him with you.” He will be needed in the trench with the Sharks packing a host of Springbok power in their forward pack including the prop Ox Nché and the second row Eben Etzebeth. Ford-Robinson is aware of their talents but does not strike you as someone who will be overawed by the occasion, nor succumb to paralysis by analysis. “You saw what [Nché] did during the World Cup. When I’ve seen him play I’ve been very impressed. Not that I’ve got an all-seeing eye for it. But you want to play against the big players and see how you fare. If I watch rugby on the rare occasion it’s more to just watch it as a game of rugby. At the end of the day he’s just another human being.” Gloucester head into the match on the back of a welcome win over Newcastle to round off their Premiership season and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/may/11/exeter-harlequins-premiership-rugby-union-match-report">flush the 90-0 drubbing by Northampton</a> out of their system. “Our Premiership performances aren’t where they should be but I call it back to the Prem Cup final, winning that at home, you don’t get that opportunity very often and being in a European final and hopefully walking away with that one. When you look back at your career, you’re not necessarily going to remember league positions, it’s more, ‘do you remember that final down in Tottenham? Do you remember that final that we had at home.’ It’s those big occasions when you have trophies on the line that will rest in your memory.”

Versatile prop believes there is more to life than rugby but is fully focused on Springbok forwards in Challenge Cup final

Gloucester’s Jamal Ford-Robinson calm as Sharks circle in Tottenham

<figure class="element element-image" data-media-id="89cd819d60b925803776369dadbe3e9513130d9a"> <img src="https://media.guim.co.uk/89cd819d60b925803776369dadbe3e9513130d9a/0_61_3000_1802/1000.jpg" alt="drake performs on stage" width="1000" height="601" class="gu-image" /> <figcaption> ‘I’m pretty sure Drake heard it, and he probably laughed about it, too,’ says Willonius Hatcher. Photograph: Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP </figcaption> </figure>

Over the last month, the Drake v Kendrick Lamar rap battle has dominated the discourse in music and culture so completely that even a parody offshoot track about the rap battle has become a hit. BBL Drizzy, a song with Motown-style production and 70s soul album cover, has become a vehicle for anyone to join in on the fun of dissing Drake. The song features a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDhSHS3kpeU">Levi Stubbs</a>-like character braying the lines: “I’m thicker than a snicker / I’m thicker than you, ninja / Don’t act like you don’t know me / These yams deserve a trophy / Baby it ain’t no mystery / Got the best BBL in history” “It’s so ridiculous and over the top,” says Willonius Hatcher, the comedian behind the song. “You can’t help but laugh.” <figure class="element element-tweet" data-canonical-url="https://twitter.com/KingWillonius/status/1779653679164907615"> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet">BBL Drizzy <a href="https://t.co/0gPBUlk6VF">pic.twitter.com/0gPBUlk6VF</a>&mdash; Avocado Papi 🥑 (@KingWillonius) <a href="https://twitter.com/KingWillonius/status/1779653679164907615?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2024</a></blockquote> </figure> When the rap battle ended on Saturday with Kendrick sealing victory, Hatcher figured his BBL Drizzy moment was over. But then on Sunday, the producer Metro Boomin remixed the song to further humiliate Drake, who dismissed the sought-after artist as a run-of-the-mill beatmaker. Ordinarily, Metro’s remix – faster, higher-pitched and more percussive – would be the kind of thing he’d sell for a minimum of six figures. But in the spirit of spite, he posted it on the internet on one condition: “best verse over this gets a free beat,” he posted on X. The bounty, which Metro has since upped to $10,000 and a beat for first place, and a free beat for the runner-up, has talents of all stripes rushing to take turns to<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7AyK2SKbKU"> dunk Drake like a cop at the county fair</a> in an assortment of musical genres. SoundCloud rappers are crushing him in different languages, <a href="https://twitter.com/prod_by_bank/status/1787135133784354931?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1787135133784354931%7Ctwgr%5E4003dd6b5f2afb610b81cfff12b372eb9f8f0a86%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https://www.vulture.com/article/bbl-drizzy-freestyle-tracks.html">including Japanese</a> – wagyu beef, perhaps. In one viral video, the instrumental plays over a girl performing a <a href="https://x.com/Etrouse/status/1787488961599881263">classical Indian dance</a>. In others: the Duolingo owl<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingoenglishtest/video/7365866029420973355"> twerks over the beat</a>; a nun<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@sistermaryblaze/video/7365996835531689262"> serves</a>. The R&amp;B artist Masego uses it as a backing track for a<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE2VhEnmCiQ"> two-and-a-half-minute sax solo</a>, a genre that rivals <a href="https://twitter.com/lucasiovine12/status/1787422616929837326">shredding on the electric guitar</a>. Madison McFerrin, Bobby’s soul-singing daughter, has <a href="https://twitter.com/madmcferrin/status/1787275633736999106?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1787275633736999106%7Ctwgr%5E4003dd6b5f2afb610b81cfff12b372eb9f8f0a86%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https://www.vulture.com/article/bbl-drizzy-freestyle-tracks.html">made a run</a>. One kid riffs over the track in <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@misintended/video/7366041580785929518?_r=1&amp;_t=8mAE6eNg61r">sign language</a>. What’s more, all of this piling on is in addition to the usual onslaught of <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@merky_58/video/7366090607401389355?q=bbl%20drizzy%20sign%20language&amp;t=1715170772575">jokes</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/shOoObz/status/1787611948126802270">memes</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/scxba_/status/1787312531465257240">jigs</a> roasting Drake. “At the end of the day, my job as a comedian is to make people laugh,” Hatcher says. “If you listen to the track, you know it doesn’t come from a mean-spirited place.” A veteran club comic from south Florida who uses AI to enhance material, Hatcher – AKA Avocado Papi (“I make amazing avocado smoothies,” the 39-year-old coos) – did not have a dog in this historic hip-hop fight. In case you haven’t been paying attention: it started in April with Kendrick’s ambush via a song called Like That from the studio album We Still Don’t Trust You, a Drake hatefest led by Metro Boomin and the rapper Future. In response, Drake released Push Ups, returning fire on Rick Ross, the Weeknd and other rap Avengers who had taken aim at him, while dismissing Metro out of hand: “Shut your hoe-ass up and make some drums.” Drake underscored the line, posting a meme of Metro’s head superimposed on to Nick Cannon’s character from the movie Drumline and hiring a marching band to play drums outside of Magic City as Metro was promoting We Still Don’t Trust You at the fabled Atlanta strip club. As the war of words escalated, Hatcher created short AI films using Midjourney. The idea was to send up the underlying melodrama of what was, essentially, two guys arguing in sonnets – Drake and Kendrick in<a href="https://x.com/KingWillonius/status/1781893522888499318"> Dune</a>, or as heads of hostile houses in<a href="https://x.com/KingWillonius/status/1777941981089386680"> Game of Thrones</a>. Pullquotes from diss track lyrics and online barbs from the feuding rappers’ camps became fodder for original songs that Hatcher says he wrote himself, using AI tools to produce the actual music and accompanying cover art. “There’s this misconception that AI made all of it,” says Hatcher, recalling the early online discourse around his work. “You have to have the human element. For artists who have been very disciplined in their craft, AI is like a superpower.” <figure class="element element-video" data-canonical-url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF2MqFnPotc" > <iframe height="480" width="854" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/AF2MqFnPotc?wmode=opaque&feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen ></iframe> </figure> Once Rick Ross accused Drake on Instagram of <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@therealspillent/video/7357792893291187502?q=bbl%20drizzy%20sign%20language&amp;t=1715170772575">having undergone plastic surgery</a> – specifically, a Brazilian butt lift – “BBL Drizzy” (Ross’s words) became an internet punchline that Hatcher likewise couldn’t resist engaging. But of the slew of tracks he posted with that title, none hit quite like the Motown version – which Hatcher says he created with the AI music maker Udio. Again: the lyrics were all him. “AI wouldn’t say thicker than a snicker,” says Hatcher. “I remember heading to Vegas for an AI esports battle. When I got on the plane, before I fell asleep, it was at 30,000 views, which was amazing to me. When I landed, it was at a million something.” Altogether, Hatcher put out 20 songs during the course of the rap battle. “I was working harder than the rappers!” he jokes. “But there’s no way BBL Drizzy takes off if I had to create it under normal means. It would’ve taken too long. I would’ve missed the moment.” <aside class="element element-rich-link element--thumbnail"> Related: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/may/01/euphoria-most-brutal-moments-in-kendrick-lamar-drake-diss-track">‘You a scam artist’: the most brutal moments in Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss track</a> </aside> As of Wednesday, Metro’s original X post touting the BBL Drizzy beat giveaway had more than 23m views – enough to saddle Drake, a social media savant, with his first big internet loss. It also makes you wonder what Hatcher gets for crowd-sourcing all this comedy first. He swears the reward pales in comparison to the result – a bit of good, clean fun to help cleanse the timeline after weeks of enmity. At the very least he can count on more attention for bigger projects, such as the AI sci-fi musical he’s developing with Kevin Hart’s production company. On Sunday, Hatcher expressed some regret in an X post about having been forgotten as the song’s original creator. In response, Metro did something that had yet to be done in this rap battle: he apologized. “I wasn’t aware king,” he wrote, “but thank you for your contribution to history. Y’all show this man some love.” “Historically, we’ve seen these rap battles take a turn,” says Hatcher, the rap war’s clearest winner in the end. “If you listen to the original track, it doesn’t come from a mean-spirited place. It’s just meant to add levity to both sides. I have so many Drake fans messaging me like, ‘I’m still riding with Drake, but this song is hilarious.’ I’m pretty sure Drake heard it, and he probably laughed about it, too.”

The comedian Willonius Hatcher’s parody song is a phenomenon in its own right, with artists around the world creating their own versions

‘I bet Drake heard it and laughed’: BBL Drizzy is the real winner of the Drake-Kendrick feud

<figure class="element element-image" data-media-id="dce94a678ce01844c49b5f7ed52da3a59321b2d4"> <img src="https://media.guim.co.uk/dce94a678ce01844c49b5f7ed52da3a59321b2d4/730_1078_5970_3583/1000.jpg" alt="Stormzy at #Merky FC HQ at the Selhurst sports arena in south London." width="1000" height="600" class="gu-image" /> <figcaption> Stormzy at #Merky FC HQ at the Selhurst sports arena in south London. Photograph: Greg Coleman/Greg Coleman/adidas/Merky FC </figcaption> </figure>

Stormzy has won three Brit awards, headlined Glastonbury, persuaded Usain Bolt and José Mourinho to star in a music video, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jun/28/everyones-excited-afc-croydon-responds-new-owners-stormzy-wilfried-zaha">bought AFC Croydon Athletic</a> with the former Crystal Palace player Wilfried Zaha. His skills on the pitch, however, are not up to much. “I’m shit at football. I was never going to be a footballer,” he said. “But maybe if I knew how to be a pundit [I’d have gone down that road]. Maybe if I knew how to be a data analyst or all the intricate jobs behind the scenes that people might not know about.” Britain’s biggest rapper’s new mission is to give people this information: to shine a spotlight on jobs in football off the pitch, and to address the racial inequality that plagues the industry. To follow his #Merky music label and book imprint, he founded #Merky FC (the FC stands for football careers. Last week, he opened <a href="https://www.merkyfc.com/">#MerkyFC HQ</a> in Croydon, south London – a football pitch, recording studio and gaming centre built with help from Adidas. Young people from across London will be able to use it to take part in football and “explore creative passions in music, content creation and esports”, Adidas’s Steve Marks said. While 43% of Premier League players are black, the proportion of managerial and backroom staff <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/mar/11/something-is-not-right-odds-remain-loaded-against-black-football-managers">is just 4.4%</a>, according to a report last year from the <a href="https://www.bfporg.com/">Black Footballers Partnership</a> (BFP), which warned that progress “had been glacial”. Stormzy told the Observer that addressing this disparity was “the whole reason” for the venture. “You’ll see black players but you might not see a black ref or a black commentator – all those other jobs away from the quote-unquote ‘talent’,” he said. “I’ve always thought, no, we’re so much more than that. If we had the avenues to become all those other things, I’m sure we’ll be able to do that.” It’s about “encouraging youths”, Stormzy added. He said there was “a whole plethora of reasons” why black people had less success behind the scenes in the football industry. “I think people don’t have that information or knowledge or education and they don’t even see the in, they don’t see the route to get there. “Even that route being invisible to people is a big thing. So I thought that if we can make these things more visible and actually get people the information, that’s part of [the solution].” The Football Association has created a Football Leadership Diversity Code to address the issue, but only 56 of the 92 football league clubs have signed up, and the BFP said that there were greater barriers to advancement in the lower leagues – a “glass ceiling”. Only two black referees have ever officiated at Premier League games, and only two of the commentators used by ITV and the BBC during the Qatar World Cup in 2022 were black, although there was more diversity among pundits and co-commentators. The new #MerkyFC HQ comes two years after it was founded. It has helped find training and placements for 60 young people so far at Fulham, Manchester United, Arsenal and the Scottish FA, as well as Sky Sports, ITV and other media, gaming and data companies. In 2018, Stormzy, whose real name is Michael Omari Owuo Jr, launched the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/29/stormzy-on-hitting-30-politics-and-the-kids-he-sent-to-university-when-i-see-these-guys-im-like-just-fly-fly-fly">Stormzy Scholarship</a> with the University of Cambridge, paying the tuition fees and a maintenance grant for two students a year. He did not initially plan to meet the students who received his grants. “I was adamant that I didn’t want to meet them in real life,” he said. “I didn’t want them to feel the pressure of meeting [me] – just let them breathe and do their own thing and not be in their face. <aside class="element element-rich-link element--thumbnail"> Related: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/29/stormzy-on-hitting-30-politics-and-the-kids-he-sent-to-university-when-i-see-these-guys-im-like-just-fly-fly-fly">Stormzy on hitting 30, politics and the kids he sent to university: ‘When I see these guys, I’m like, just fly, fly, fly’</a> </aside> “But I was convinced – and rightfully so – to meet them. I think the scholarship showed me that it’s actually necessary. It’s not just these flippin’ diversity quotas and fancy buzzwords and all these things that feel very surface level – it’s real-life human beings at the end of this who are really getting a chance to show their potential.” He is now meeting young people who have benefited from MerkyFC, too. “There was a kid who was one of the alumni from MerkyFC year one, and he had a placement at Versus [a football news site] and after his second year he got made permanent. So yesterday we saw him at the launch – and he was working to cover it for Versus. It was like a full-circle moment. “There was loads of kids there. I go to Old Trafford for Man Utd games and some of them will be working on the day and come and say hello. There are loads of beautiful stories. “In five years I hope that I’m seeing someone – maybe I’m doing something for Sky Sports, or a game at Old Trafford or I go to the Champions League final – and someone taps me on my shoulder and says, ‘I was year two of MerkyFC’. “That’s all I want. Seeing the ripple effect – the domino effect – and for it to be a real thing, not just something that looks good and sounds good.”

Rapper says sport, music and gaming venture in south London is aimed at widening opportunities for young black community

‘We’re so much more than that’: Stormzy opens #MerkyFC HQ centre to tackle racial inequality in football jobs

<figure class="element element-image" data-media-id="0cdad0d30d799a4b3febb4856f1ba81e9f201d19"> <img src="https://media.guim.co.uk/0cdad0d30d799a4b3febb4856f1ba81e9f201d19/170_0_3126_1876/1000.jpg" alt="Screenshot of Money Idol Exchanger" width="1000" height="600" class="gu-image" /> <figcaption> Money Idol Exchanger is a head-to-head puzzle game that looks like an upside down game of Tetris. Photograph: @aaru_hokutomaru/Twitter </figcaption> </figure>

A girl scored a win at one of Japan’s top fighting video game contests, in a competitive puzzle game released before she was born. The girl, known as “Money Idol-chan” after the game she competed in, has grown up playing competitive video games. Since 2022, her parents have run Anegasaki Shooting Star, a tiny arcade on the east side of Tokyo Bay. Her name has not been released and her age has been given only as between 12 and 16. Her appearance at Evo Japan, the local offshoot of the American esports tournament at the pinnacle of the competitive fighting game scene, was the first time she had been able to play in real competitions. Until this year, the events, which can run late into the evening, had finished past her bedtime. <figure class="element element-tweet" data-canonical-url="https://twitter.com/kenzzy_grc/status/1784343231079260382"> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://t.co/kx8kgugLuU">https://t.co/kx8kgugLuU</a> EVOJapanサイドイベント「投銭祭」（マネーアイドルエクスチェンジャー）の大会結果 トーナメント部門 🥇マネーアイドル 🥈いとやご 🥉はかせ RTA部門 🥇マネーアイドル(4:11.41) 世代交代！？女子中学生マネーアイドルが圧巻の２冠！おめでとうございます！ <a href="https://t.co/U4MiY2CSm8">pic.twitter.com/U4MiY2CSm8</a>&mdash; まはふらい先生 (@kenzzy_grc) <a href="https://twitter.com/kenzzy_grc/status/1784343231079260382?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 27, 2024</a></blockquote> </figure> “The person who shocked me most on the first day of EVOJ was the girl playing Money Idol Exchanger,” one competitor, Aaru Hokutomaru, <a href="https://twitter.com/aaru_hokutomaru/status/1784314228834459873">said</a>. “She appeared like a comet and won the championship with amazing lever operation. This was a development for a game released in 1997, and it was exciting even outside of fighting games.” <figure class="element element-tweet" data-canonical-url="https://twitter.com/aaru_hokutomaru/status/1784314228834459873"> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet">個人的にEVOJ初日で一番衝撃を受けたのがマネーアイドルエクスチェンジャーに出場していた女の子。保護者の方と来場していたプレイヤーで、まだ中学生とのこと。彗星の如く現れて、凄まじいレバー操作で見事W側のまま優勝。1997年に発売されたゲームでこの展開、格ゲー以外も熱かった。<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EVOJ24Sides?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#EVOJ24Sides</a> <a href="https://t.co/U5LQd5Inxg">pic.twitter.com/U5LQd5Inxg</a>&mdash; アール (@aaru_hokutomaru) <a href="https://twitter.com/aaru_hokutomaru/status/1784314228834459873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 27, 2024</a></blockquote> </figure> Money Idol Exchanger is a head-to-head puzzle game that looks like an upside down game of Tetris. Players battle to rearrange descending columns of coins into groups of five or 10, at which point they disappear and are replaced by one of the next denomination up; they lose if a column hits the bottom of their screen. The girl, whose identity has been protected by the friendly and close-knit community, added flair to her victories by repeatedly choosing the same character as her opponents, a so-called “mirror match-up”. <figure class="element element-tweet" data-canonical-url="https://twitter.com/fgc_futohato/status/1784303631736443231"> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet">evojapan、自分の出場とは何も関係ないけど、マネーアイドルエクスチェンジャーってゲームで、中学生？の女の子が、無双しててびびった。しかも全試合相手のキャラと同じキャラを被せにいく分からせぶり 若い頃のウメハラってこんな感じだったのかって思った <a href="https://t.co/aicaqVX0gR">pic.twitter.com/aicaqVX0gR</a>&mdash; 太った鳩@ゲーム垢 (@fgc_futohato) <a href="https://twitter.com/fgc_futohato/status/1784303631736443231?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 27, 2024</a></blockquote> </figure> It is not uncommon for retro games to be dominated by children and young people born long after their heyday. In a competitive scene where fast reflexes and hours of practice matter greatly, the younger generation often have a leg-up on the original players whose greater experience may be offset by slower responses or hand cramps. In January, a 13-year-old American, Willis Gibson, became the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/03/oklahoma-teen-beat-tetris-first-person-willis-gibson">first person ever to beat Tetris</a>, playing the original Nintendo Entertainment System version of the game perfectly for 38 minutes until his score was high enough to freeze the game. Elsewhere on the first day of the Evo Japan competition, the Taiwanese champion Lin “ET” Chia-hung won the King of Fighters XV contest, while Japan’s SHO came first in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and Kyo won the Under Night In-Birth II competition. All three picked up $6,000 prize money for winning a featured game event.

Girl of between 12 and 16 was making her first appearance at Evo Japan as contests previously finished past her bedtime

Schoolgirl impresses at Japanese gamer event with win in retro game

<figure class="element element-image" data-media-id="f82fd4419af520621d6ee90bd8c4590ef5566728"> <img src="https://media.guim.co.uk/f82fd4419af520621d6ee90bd8c4590ef5566728/288_604_4632_2779/1000.jpg" alt="Competitors at the Pokémon European championships last weekend." width="1000" height="600" class="gu-image" /> <figcaption> ‘Nobody’s trash talking’ … competitors at the Pokémon European championships last weekend. Photograph: PR </figcaption> </figure>

I spent much of my weekend at the ExCeL convention centre in London, where about 10,000 people from across Europe were gathered for the European Pokémon championships. There were 4,500 competitors, playing the perennially popular trading card game, Pokémon Go, the arena battle game Pokémon Unite and, of course, the video games (currently Scarlet and Violet). The Pokémon championships aren’t like many of the other esports events I’ve been to over the years. The prizes are only a few thousand dollars and a lot of the 340 Pokémon professors (who act as judges and facilitators) attended on their own dime. The crowd is also significantly younger, as you might expect. Among the competitors were plenty of kids and teenagers, and there were even more among the spectators. It feels like a family event, which could not be further from the testosterone-infused, quasi-adolescent vibe of other competitive gaming events. There were colouring-in tables and fairground games in the corner, and a giant inflatable Pikachu hung over the flashy stages where players were competing. Most of the hall was filled with tables where people were throwing down Pokémon trading cards almost too fast to follow, the competitors slowly diminishing in number as the qualifying rounds wore on. When I was a kid, it was my dream to go to the first Pokémon world championships, in the year 2000. I never made it and by the next time a Pokémon worldwide tournament was held in 2009, I had long moved on from these games. I did finally make it to a Pokémon tournament in 2014, when the finals were held in Washington DC. The event is a lot bigger and better organised now than it was then: the Pokémon Company has leaned into the games’ competitive scene, organising and live-streaming regional events that culminate in one finals tournament in an exciting location (this year’s is in Hawaii in August, and last year’s was in Yokohama). The top-ranking players from the regionals all get to go on a dream summer holiday to try for a trophy. I spoke to one of the youngest victors, 11-year-old Kevin Han from Pennsylvania, after his finals face-off against Ismael Hoggui, a French kid in his first year competing. His older brother Chris had been competing in the seniors division (for players up to age 16), but hadn’t made it to the finals. “I helped Kevin prep a lot for this finals match,” said Chris. “We stayed up until 10.30 and then after I got ready in the morning, we came here and played together on the Switches until I felt like he knew what to do. I am so proud!” Kevin got into competitive Pokémon through watching his brother play: Chris used to go to tournaments alone, but Kevin started joining in after the whole family attended one together in Florida. Chris won the US Seniors division in 2022, making both brothers Pokémon champions. “My dad was the one who took me to my first tournament,” Chris tells me. “He was like, if you’re going to be playing this so much you may as well compete in it! And I got steamrollered. I don’t think I won a single game. But I had a fun time – to me that is what playing Pokémon is about. Competing is what brings the fun, for me.” Like any other sport, competitive Pokémon is an opportunity for kids to hang out with other kids who share their interests – and develop resilience when they lose. “Most of the other competitors are really nice, and nobody’s trash talking or being mean to each other or anything,” says Kevin. “We all talk to each other between matches.” On stage, with hundreds (or thousands) of people watching live and on Twitch, he says he tries not to look away from the screen: “I try to stay really focused on the game and not everything else.” I brought my own kids along for a day of the championships to soak up the energy, and I won’t lie: I’d be thoroughly delighted if they ever end up competing like the Hans. The intergenerational (and adorable) nature of Pokémon makes it the most welcoming competitive gaming scene out there. Almost 25 years since I first played Pokémon myself, it’s touching to see kids living out their trainer dreams. <h2>What to play</h2> A mix of period drama and puzzle game, Botany Manor casts you as a retired Victorian botanist pottering around a grand inherited manor and looking after strange plants. The puzzles are challenging enough to make me frown but not hard enough to get me stuck, the atmosphere is calm and relaxing, and it looks a little like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/26/the-witness-review-an-incredibly-impressive-collection-of-puzzles">The Witness</a> (though less abstract and austere). If you’ve never successfully kept a houseplant alive, don’t worry: its lead designer, Laure de Mey, is not particularly into gardening, either. It’s a theme that arrived naturally while she was playing around with ideas for a first-person puzzle game. Available on: PC, Xbox, Nintendo Switch Estimated playtime: 4 hours <h2>What to read</h2> <ul> <li>An update on this story about the people trying to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/mar/28/i-wasnt-sure-it-was-even-possible-the-race-to-finish-80000-levels-of-super-mario-maker">finish all 80,000 levels of Super Mario Maker</a> before the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS servers shut down last Monday: <a href="https://x.com/Team0Percent/status/1776438706187927849">they did it!</a> There was one last (illegal) level outstanding at the beginning of last week, but through sheer determination, Team 0% completed it anyway. Related: see how players celebrated/commiserated the server shutdown together <a href="https://www.eurogamer.net/see-the-moment-3ds-and-wii-u-online-servers-shut-down-forever">here</a>.</li> <li>A new team at Microsoft is being established to ensure forwards-compatibility and game preservation for Xbox, according to <a href="https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/exclusive-xbox-president-sarah-bond-has-set-up-a-new-team-dedicated-to-game-preservation-and-forward-compatibility">Windows Central</a>. Given how much Xbox has spent acquiring its library, and its history of offering backwards-compatibility, it makes sense the company wishes to preserve players’ access to it when a new hardware generation comes around.</li> <li>The sad, slow decline of bricks and mortar video game retail continues: <a href="https://www.eurogamer.net/game-staff-told-to-expect-redundancies-as-most-workers-move-to-zero-hours-contracts">Eurogamer reports</a> that staff at GAME, the only remaining video game shop on the high street, have almost all been moved to zero-hours contracts, and have been told to expect redundancies. This may come as no surprise to anyone who’s visited a branch of GAME in the last year or so, as the shelves are mostly stocked with merch, T-shirts and copies of EA FC.</li> <li><a href="https://games.london/">London games festival</a> is on this week, comprising several public events across the capital and a mini developer conference. I’m giving a wee talk about the book I’m working on, <a href="https://www.faber.co.uk/journal/guardian-faber-acquires-super-nintendo/">Super Nintendo</a>, on <a href="https://www.londondevconference.com/24schedule">Thursday</a> morning. If any Pushing Buttons readers are there, come say hi!</li> </ul> <h2>Question Block</h2> Reader Chloe asks: My five-year-old wanted to try Operation Ouch’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/games/embed/cbbc-genie-tower-defence-operation-ouch">Snot Defence</a> – advertised to her on CBBC – which looked like a good introduction to tower-defence games. It started well, but the difficulty spike is wild (for both of us). What other games marketed at children have tested your gaming abilities as an adult? For a long time, many games marketed at children simply weren’t very good – particularly those attached to a movie or a big franchise, because developers were often given maybe 10 months, if they were lucky, to turn around something remotely playable. As a result the games were often extremely difficult to play because they were a bit broken. When my stepson was younger, my partner doggedly played all the way through the awful Ben 10 tie-in game, with its fiddly jumps and floaty combat, because it was way too difficult for him to complete himself. Then there are games that are unexpectedly difficult by design, like basically all of 2D Mario. Only the most talented and dedicated child could reasonably complete any of those games unassisted. Even now, the post-game challenge in something like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/oct/18/super-mario-bros-wonder-review-an-all-levels-multiplayer-with-madcap-moments-of-delight">Mario Wonder</a> is wild. In fact, most of the cute-looking video games of the 1990s were secretly evil: Crash Bandicoot, Sonic the Hedgehog, even the old Lion King and Mickey Mouse games. That’s to say nothing of the extreme difficulty of basically any game made for 80s home computers. Gen X kids were just built different. If you’ve got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on <a href="mailto:pushingbuttons@theguardian.com">pushingbuttons@theguardian.com</a>.

With its giant inflatable Pikachu, fairground games and friendly vibe, this just might be my favourite esports event around, and it’s touching to see kids living out their trainer dreams

Pushing Buttons: Meet the pint-sized Pokémon pros

<figure class="element element-image" data-media-id="64ea6105bfc8d8ff8659a1f51e775b1db3e0f70e"> <img src="https://media.guim.co.uk/64ea6105bfc8d8ff8659a1f51e775b1db3e0f70e/301_187_6713_4029/1000.jpg" alt="A person playing a retro game at Gamescon 2024" width="1000" height="600" class="gu-image" /> <figcaption> Younger fans embraced the retro offerings at this year’s Gamescom in Germany. Photograph: Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images </figcaption> </figure>

The bouncy, midi melody of Nintendo’s Wii theme <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MzZ7otQCfk">descends into a drill beat</a>. A Game Boy Colour opens up into a <a href="https://kgifts.shop/products/romand-x-sanrio-my-melody-kuromi-whatever-girls-edition-limited-qty">lip gloss case</a>. A$AP Rocky goes <a href="https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/asap-rocky-loewe-hoodie/">“full Minecraft”</a> in a pixelated hoodie, and a panting man bobs up and down with <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dem_bruddaz/video/7206340756620037381">his arm stuck in a bush</a>. This is not a glitch. Both online and IRL, pop culture is embracing the sounds, visuals and experience of retro gaming. On TikTok, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/search/video?q=%23retrogaming&amp;t=1709804305826">#retrogaming videos</a> have amassed over 6bn views. On <a href="https://www.youtube.com/trends/articles/retrogaming-community-1000x-growth/">YouTube</a>, uploads have increased 1,000-fold. Spotify users are creating 50% more retro-gaming-themed playlists than they were at this time last year, and live streamers are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jul/26/npc-tiktok-trend-ice-cream-so-good-gang-what-is-explained-pinky-doll">cashing in</a> on the repetitive catchphrases and mechanical movements of NPCs (non-player characters). So why, in this age of hyperrealistic graphics and ever-expanding technological possibility, are younger generations captivated by an era of technological limitation? For Kingsley Ellis, a millennial raised on the bleeps and bloops of Sega Mega Drives and N64 cartridges, the allure of retro gaming is simple. “It’s all about the nostalgia,” says Ellis, whose TikTok account, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@unpacked1?lang=en">UnPacked</a>, has 1.5 million followers. He says his interest lies mostly in old gaming hardware. His most-watched videos revisit the gloriously bizarre world of retro peripherals – those often ridiculous attachments designed to enhance (or overengineer) the gaming experience, such as <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@unpacked1/video/7249027565627739419?lang=en">screen magnifiers and foldout speakers</a> clipped on to consoles. “Some of the attachments I wasn’t even aware of as a child blow my mind,” he says – for example the <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/pediatric-dentists-create-game-boy-with-nitrous-oxide-feed/">PediSedate</a> snorkel, which allowed paediatric dentists to deliver doses of nitrous oxide to their patients while they played games, or the Game Boy-controlled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiU5AG34Y_o">sewing machine</a>. Ellis’s content offers a winning combination of innovation, discovery, novelty and nostalgia. “I think the current wave of tech will almost be disregarded in the future,” he says. “I don’t feel the nostalgic properties are there.” This sentiment seems to resonate with a growing segment of gen Z and gen Alpha, too. The popularity of channels such as Ellis’s reflect a broader fascination with retro tech that’s evident in the rise of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6PtP_zYfx0">reaction videos</a>, the resurgence of web 1.0-era <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL7kTMtvebQ">Frutiger Aero aesthetics </a>(think futuristic optimism, glossy buttons, gradients and Windows XP screensavers), a filter transforming people into <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/ps2filter">PS2 </a>characters, and the increasing adoption of Y2K-era devices by young consumers. Last year, Urban Outfitters sold out stock of refurbished iPod Minis, and a 20-year-old Olympus digital camera was dubbed the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/technology/digital-cameras-olympus-canon.html">hottest gen Z gadget</a>”. Among the ubiquity and instant gratification of tech today, Ellis suggests that the charming limitations of retro devices foster a “hack and discover” mentality that leads to a longer-term satisfaction. Thanks to the memetic nature of the modern internet, this thrill of discovery extends beyond gameplay, as video game soundtracks and graphics increasingly find life in new contexts. Gaming has long been a source of inspiration for artists – think Jay-Z’s Golden Axe sample on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31xa0CLbcls">Money, Cash, Hoes</a>; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P6-V7J5S-0">Lil B</a>’s use of Masashi Hamauzu’s Final Fantasy score; and D Double E’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8hi7CaqE8A">Street Fighter Riddim</a>. On the independent online radio platform NTS, which boasts a dedicated audience of millions, video game music is part of regular programming. NTS’s monthly Otaku show dives into specific games or themes, from iconic franchises such as The Legend of Zelda to the history of video game sampling in rap. The show’s curator, Thierry Phung, says: “Our passion stems from the belief that video game and anime music often doesn’t receive the recognition it deserves.” For him, and other children of the 90s, video games were a gateway to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/29/video-games-introduced-me-to-the-chemical-brothers-now-teens-find-music-through-fortnite">musical discovery</a>. Genres such as jungle and breakbeat were first encountered by many kids while battling virtual foes. PinkPantheress’s viral hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oftolPu9qp4">Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2</a>, Phung suggests, sounds like something straight out of a PlayStation ad, and Charli XCX <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/charli-xcx-galantis-nintendo-we-are-born-to-play-937269/">soundtracked</a> a commercial for Universal Studios’s Super Nintendo World with producer Galantis. <figure class="element element-video" data-canonical-url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks3Dfzfny4o" > <iframe height="480" width="854" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ks3Dfzfny4o?wmode=opaque&feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen ></iframe> </figure> Earlier gaming electronica is also experiencing a revival via YouTube DJs such as Ryland Kurshenoff – whose <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do5_wU9X1pc&amp;t=693s">PlayStation jungle mix</a> has garnered over 2.4m plays in the past year – and Slowerpace 音楽 (Slowerpace Music), who imagines vaporjazz soundtracks to <a href="https://youtu.be/Bu9Ia0n95rM?si=CznxjSQ1zw8y68id">fictional games</a>. Through these kinds of creative retrospectives, gaming – an activity often dismissed as a frivolous waste of time by boomer parents – is being positively recontextualised and appreciated. And plenty of artists and content creators are taking familiar retro game elements and spinning them into something new. On TikTok, the whistle synths of the G-funk-inspired Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas theme and the whimsical Mii Channel music now soundtrack thousands of videos – some gaming related, but many not. There’s also been an uptick in actors and dancers behaving like NPCs, such as Pinkydoll, with her 1.7 million followers, and gen Z choreographers @dem_bruddaz, who take this trend and transform it into a kind of urban cosplay, acting as NPCs in streets, carparks and other public spaces. “They take slow-moving, superfluous and unimportant [pedestrians] that no one’s paying attention to, and transform them into front-and-centre characters,” says gamer and esports talent agent Britt Rivera, who works for Pinkydoll’s agency. “She’s on this futuristic platform, acting like she’s in the past, and it’s such an unexpected marriage … it has a really strong foothold because it’s the pioneer style of gaming. There’s something cool about this world being brought into a contemporary context.” But for Gabi, 27, (known on TikTok as <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@babesgabes?lang=en">@babesgabes</a>), and a growing community of so-called cosy gamers, the appeal of older games lies not in their modern interpretations, but the comfort and simplicity of the past. Though cosy gaming can encompass recent titles too (“It’s like comfort food – different for everyone,” Gabi says), the crossover is common. “I game for nostalgia,” she says. “[It] eases my mind and lets me escape into a different world. [It’s] an excellent stress and anxiety-reliever.” <a href="https://www.razorfish.com/articles/perspectives/razorfish-vmg-metaverse-research/">A 2022 study revealed that half of gen Z</a> said gaming improves their mental health. In a world of relentless technological advances and increasing AI anxiety, Rivera wonders whether gen Z’s affinity for retro gaming is connected to its stability. “It provides a constant – it’s not going to morph into something else tomorrow,” she says. Given the continually disrupted times that this generation has grown up in, it’s not hard to see why younger players might find something comforting and unthreatening in pixelated graphics, the janky character animations of an early Grand Theft Auto, or ever-predictable NPC soundbites. And as technology fixates on the latest and greatest, retro gaming offers a refreshing break, perhaps a comforting idealisation of simpler times. But more than that, the games of the 80s and 90s are the foundation on which the gaming giants of today were built. “The music, the graphics, the dialogue, the clothes – it’s a whole experience,” says Gabi. “There is a deeper cultural significance. It’s a piece of history.”

Retro video games and aesthetics are having a moment, but it’s not just gen X and older millennials reliving their heyday: younger millennials and gen Z are getting in on the nostalgia too

Why are younger generations embracing the retro game revival?

<figure class="element element-image" data-media-id="77b08a304911d1fb070192d178418a82194708cc"> <img src="https://media.guim.co.uk/77b08a304911d1fb070192d178418a82194708cc/0_0_7736_4645/1000.jpg" alt="Spain's Salma Paralluelo lies on the Stadium Australia pitch with her medal after winning the 2023 Women’s World Cup against England" width="1000" height="600" class="gu-image" /> <figcaption> Spain's Salma Paralluelo lies on the Stadium Australia pitch after winning the 2023 Women’s World Cup against England. UK Sport wants Britain to host the event. Photograph: Abbie Parr/AP </figcaption> </figure>

UK Sport has set its sights on bringing the Women’s World Cup to Britain for the first time in the 2030s – but has ruled out hosting the Olympic Games for at least 20 years. Simon Morton, the deputy CEO of UK Sport, also revealed the organisation would be evolving its strategy to focus on urban and e-sports because the rise of Saudi money made it harder to bid for large sporting events. <aside class="element element-rich-link element--thumbnail"> Related: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/mar/05/england-women-draw-sweden-and-france-in-euro-qualifying-group-of-death">England Women draw Sweden and France in Euro qualifying group of death</a> </aside> “The Women’s World Cup is the biggest sporting event that the UK has never hosted and so in that respect, it has a special appeal to us,” said Morton. “There is definitely an aspiration to host it in the 2030s. “The impacts that we look for most strongly now around big sporting events are societal. And actually the ability to have these moments of real shared human experience where we bring people together, particularly in a sort of post-Covid world, particularly in an increasingly digital world.” UK Sport will start looking more closely at the specifics after May, when Fifa will select the hosts for the 2027 tournament, with Brazil, Belgium/Germany/Netherlands and US/Mexico vying to stage it. If the European bid wins, the earliest Britain could host the Women’s World Cup would be 2035. “We have to respect the fact that there are other countries interested in hosting them,” said Morton. “So that’s why you see a little bit of an open-ended position. But what is clear is that the UK’s mega-event hosting pipeline is tightening, and our international rivals are catching up. And so we need to respond. “Live sport is a fundamental part of this country’s social fabric,” he added. “And our love of live sport is unsurpassed. No other country buys more tickets to major sporting events per head than we do in the UK.” UK Sport also announced plans to bid for part of the Tour de France in 2027, the World Athletics Championships in 2029 or 2031, and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/rugby-world-cup">Rugby World Cup</a> in 2035 or 2039. However it confirmed it would also pursue events which it said would “resonate and align with evolving consumer habits” such as urban and e-sports. “When we talk to cities about events, pretty near the top of the list are urban sports,” said Morton. “And e-sports is quite a broad church. At one end of the spectrum, you’ve got a pure gaming, Call of Duty, at the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got virtual and simulated Olympic and Paralympic sports. And so where we’re going to start exploring is from that place, rather than the opposite.” However Morton admitted that tightening economic conditions and the rise of Saudi money meant that UK Sport had to be strategic with the events it targets. And, significantly, there is no Olympics Games, men’s World Cup or Commonwealth Games on its list of targets for the next two decades. “The challenge for us thinking about the Commonwealth Games in the future is simply a value for money one, rather than does it have benefit?” said Morton. “We’ve got an open dialogue with the Commonwealth Games Federation, but until there is a little bit more clarity on what a sustainable Commonwealth Games model looks like in the future, it doesn’t appear on our list.” UK Sport also downplayed the possibility of hosting the Olympics until at least 2044, given that the US and Australia both waited 32 years between Games. “To the IOC – with us hosting the games in 2012 – we are still a recent host,” said Esther Britten, head of major events at UK Sport. “We can’t see that until the 2040s at the earliest.”

UK Sport wants to bring the Women’s World Cup to Britain for the first time in the 2030s but has ruled out hosting the Olympics for at least 20 years

No Olympics until 2044 but UK Sport targets Women’s World Cup and esports

<figure class="element element-image element--showcase" data-media-id="71f1840eecd00afc951067553e2ac0503857ef02"> <img src="https://media.guim.co.uk/71f1840eecd00afc951067553e2ac0503857ef02/0_0_2121_1273/1000.png" alt="illustration of child playing video game in the dark, while the lighting casts military-style camouflage over their body" width="1000" height="600" class="gu-image" /> <figcaption> Online gaming spaces are popular with minors, many of them not yet 13 years old. Illustration: Federico Tramonte/The Guardian </figcaption> </figure>

Amid a recruitment struggle, branches are using huge hits like Fortnite as marketing tools. Some veterans see the practice as unethical – especially given the age of the gaming audience

The US military is embedded in the gaming world. Its target: teen recruits

<figure class="element element-image element--showcase" data-media-id="cf2e827b6ebc9d07f15001a8761093d4ab7e0047"> <img src="https://media.guim.co.uk/cf2e827b6ebc9d07f15001a8761093d4ab7e0047/0_41_4928_2957/1000.jpg" alt="A young man wearing headphones playing a first-person shooter game on a laptop with illuminated skins" width="1000" height="600" class="gu-image" /> <figcaption> Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a globally popular game with a huge market in add-on artefacts or ‘skins’. Photograph: Alamy </figcaption> </figure>

No one likes to imagine they might have given a loved one a ticket to a gambling problem as a gift. But Jeff, a professional video gamer, thinks well-meaning parents, partners and friends may have done just that if they have celebrated a special occasion by presenting someone with a voucher for an online gaming&nbsp;platform. Jeff is prodigiously talented at Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), a wildly popular military-style shooter played by millions around the world. He has 750,000 subscribers on YouTube alone, a highly engaged fanbase willing to spend money on their hobby. One day in spring last year, Jeff opened an email from his agent and his eyes widened. A company was willing to pay him $280,000 over two months in exchange for just a handful of 30-second advertising spots on his YouTube channel. But rather than grab the opportunity with both hands, Jeff took a different approach. He decided to break ranks with the elite CS:GO player community and battle a new enemy by exposing the murky business behind the tantalising offer: “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/14/video-games-gambling-big-spenders">skins&nbsp;gambling</a>”. “I wanted to show how unregulated gambling is rotting the brains of young people,” he said. For the uninitiated, “skins” are virtual items within a computer game that can be bought for money, or won as a reward for gameplay. Skins might be devastating weapons, a snazzy uniform for a character or – in a football game – a player who could be the missing link to complete an all-conquering team. As the cost of developing video games has soared, such in-game spending opportunities have helped gaming companies open up new sources of regular, repeating revenue that extend beyond the initial&nbsp;purchase. Typically, skins are contained in “loot boxes” or “cases”, which gamers pay small sums for without knowing what they will get. Loot boxes have already become a lightning rod for controversy due to their gambling-style mechanism, although the UK government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/17/uk-will-not-ban-video-games-loot-boxes-despite-problem-gambling-findings">has refused to recognise them as gambling products</a>. While skins can be found in loot boxes, they can also be bought in the online marketplace operated by online gaming platform Steam – the medium through which many games such as CS:GO are played. Through that marketplace, skins can also be transferred between players and into the game. There, competitors can use them to gain an advantage, or just for cosmetic effect. What bothered Jeff, however, was not so much the loot boxes or the skins in themselves but another phenomenon that they have spawned: skins gambling. This works like any other casino. You load up your account with funds, place a bet, watch the graphics spin and either win or lose. The big difference in this case is that the casino taking your bet has no gambling licence and, in some cases, no reliable mechanism to stop under-18s getting their first taste of gambling – via an online ecosystem that is, to many parents, a total mystery. Nor can you win any money, at least not directly. In the world of skins gambling, websites allow gamers the opportunity to stake cash, cryptocurrency or even other skins for the chance of winning a skin of great value. If you do win, the gambling website effectively procures the skin on your behalf, through a peer-to-peer skins trading platform, and passes it on to you for use in the game. Some skins carry enormous price tags in the real world. One website that tracks skin prices values a “Gungnir” sniper rifle, available in the CS:GO game, at more than $18,000. A knife – a “factory new, case-hardened Karambit, pattern 387 (blue gem)” – is reputedly the most expensive CS:GO skin in history, attracting a $1.5m offer that its owner turned down. Further down the scale, guns, outfits, stickers and knives sell for hundreds of dollars. The overall size of the skins wagering market is not well charted but one estimate from 2016 put a figure of $3bn on the amount wagered through skins casino sites. CS:GO is almost the only game in town when it comes to skins and their use in gambling, with the majority of such sites focusing almost exclusively on skins linked to the game. The operator that offered the promotional deal to Jeff, Cyprus-based KeyDrop, attracted almost 17 million visitors in one month last year. It has dozens of competitors, sites such as Hellcase, from Singapore, Belize-registered CSGORoll and CSFail, whose website cites a UK address in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. None of these sites has a licence from a gambling regulator such as the UK Gambling Commission. Yet the service they offer bears striking similarities with an online casino, including games that mimic roulette, slot machines or other games of chance. The only difference, ostensibly, is that you are wagering to win a digital asset rather than cash you can take to the&nbsp;bank. So far, in the UK at least, the ability to “cash out” is a crucial determining factor in whether an activity is defined as gambling or not. The government stopped short of designating loot boxes as gambling earlier this year partly on this basis. But the reality is that it can be literally child’s play to turn skins into hard cash. To use sites such as KeyDrop, players must have an account on the Steam platform, which was created by the maker of CS:GO, US-based game developer Valve. Steam has its own marketplace, where gamers can trade skins. Gift cards to help gamers buy such skins are big business at Christmas, an obvious choice for anyone with a relative or a friend who loves nothing more than spending hours in front of a game. The Steam marketplace is self-contained, at least initially. You can load cash into your wallet and use those funds to buy skins from Steam or from other gamers. You cannot, however, withdraw the funds. In ­theory, therefore, the marketplace is not somewhere you could properly cash out any winnings. But an industry has sprung up: third-party marketplaces such as SkinBaron and Skinwallet, where you can sell skins, including those won on gambling sites, for real money. Jeff thinks that while Valve does not endorse or take a cut from skins gambling, or the third-party websites where bettors can effectively cash out their winnings, it benefits indirectly from this little-scrutinised industry. “It [skins gambling] helps drive the value of the skins up and Valve takes a cut of every Steam market sale. So in the end they get more.” Plenty of other participants in the world of online gaming benefit too. When Jeff rejected the offer to promote skins gambling, he instead <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT17l53Fkj0">set about making a documentary</a>, raising his concerns about the industry. That meant exposing some of the biggest names in esports – the professional video gamers who make a good living from sponsorship deals with the very websites Jeff was openly condemning. Of the top 300 CS:GO streamers, more than 200 are sponsored by the industry. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there has been some backlash to Jeff’s decision to blow the whistle. While the response from ordinary gamers has been positive – comments on his YouTube channel are overwhelmingly congratulatory – he has received threats and intimidation too. “We know where you live my dude,” one anonymous person wrote. Skins gambling has grown increasingly controversial in the gaming world amid the growing realisation that what looks like just another facet of gaming is actually more akin to bog-standard gambling. A study published last year, led by Dr Heather Wardle of the University of Glasgow, found that, among adults, participation in skins gambling was a reliable predictor that someone would develop a gambling problem – more reliable than the playing of high-octane casino products such as online slot machines. Slowly, parts of the CS:GO community and the wider world of gaming appear to be growing uneasy about this. Soon after Jeff’s documentary aired, Twitch – the user-generated video-streaming site where gaming is big business – banned the promotion of skins gambling. G2, one of the world’s top esports teams, came under fire recently for announcing a partnership with the skins website CSGORoll – a tie-up launched by one of their star players, who had turned 18 the day before. G2 appears to have started removing CSGORoll imagery from its own material recently, although the team still features prominently on CSGORoll’s own site. CSGORoll said it was not offering a gambling product and that it used third-party age verification services to check that customers who deposited more than £500 were aged 18. <aside class="element element-rich-link element--thumbnail"> Related: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/oct/30/counter-strike-trading-found-to-be-nearly-all-money-laundering">Counter-Strike trading found to be ‘nearly all’ money laundering</a> </aside> Some governments are taking notice. Denmark has blocked the IP addresses of several skins gambling sites, while countries such as France are taking similar steps and the Netherlands is understood to be behind proposals to legislate at European level. The UK, by contrast, has taken no action at all. The UK Gambling Commission has previously expressed concerns about this but there is little, in practice, that the regulator can do when the law does not recognise skins casinos as gambling platforms. The regulator said it was “continuing to explore the legal position of different models”. A spokesperson for SkinBaron said Steam’s owner, Valve, had introduced a seven-day lock on trades of skins, making skins “not a valid short-term payment option” for gambling. They said SkinBaron operated a strict over-18s policy. Hellcase said its service was not gambling and that it operated an over-18 age gate. CSFail and KeyDrop did not return a request for comment. Skinwallet could not be reached. Valve did not return a request for comment sent via its website. • In the UK, support for problem gambling can be found via the NHS <a href="https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/services/mental-health-services/addictions-and-substance-misuse/national-problem-gambling-clinic">National Problem Gambling Clinic</a> on 020 7381 7722, or <a href="https://www.gamcare.org.uk/">GamCare</a> on 0808 8020 133. In the US, call the <a href="https://www.ncpgambling.org/">National Council on Problem Gambling</a> at 800-GAMBLER or text 800GAM. In Australia, <a href="https://www.gamblinghelponline.org.au/">Gambling Help Online</a> is available on 1800 858 858 and the National Debt Helpline is at 1800 007 007

In-game purchases of bonus items have long been available. But now gamers are being lured into casino-style betting to win them

‘It’s rotting young people’s brains’: the murky world of gambling in video games

Picture a specific image from Google Street View. You’re going to try to guess exactly where in the world the photo was taken. The cloudless sky and desert landscape indicate somewhere hot. The grey road stretches far ahead of you with few defining characteristics. There are telegraph wires to the left of the road, above some short trees. You can zoom into the photo. You can pan around. You can’t, however, zoom out for added context. Can you guess? Oh, and you had one minute. Now you have about 30 seconds. In a 450-seat arena in Stockholm, one 31-year-old Dutch man doesn’t just correctly surmise that this photo was taken in Jordan; he guesses the location within 3 metres. To the uninitiated, watching the <a href="https://www.geoguessr.com/world-cup">GeoGuessr World Cup</a> might not just sound unexciting, it might sound like a cruel and unusual form of punishment. Attending the tournament involves sitting in an arena and watching two nerds (“Everyone in this room is a nerd,” says one of the commentators confidently) sit in front of two computers and try to identify locations based on Google Street View photos. The closer you get to the exact location, the more points you get. That’s it. One nerd wins; both nerds are replaced by two different nerds. Well, call me a nerd because this simple spectacle turns out to be one of the most thrilling days of my life. The game <a href="https://www.geoguessr.com/">GeoGuessr</a> could not be easier to understand. It was invented by Anton Wallén, a software developer who got the idea for the concept while on a road trip through the US. He was in New England when he thought that the forest landscape looked just like his native Sweden. When he arrived home he released an “ugly version” of the game and posted it on Reddit, where it immediately went viral. Now 10 years old, GeoGuessr has about 60 million subscribers. If you have come across the game, it may be thanks to the online antics of Trevor Rainbolt, GeoGuessr’s most public champion. Rainbolt has made a name for himself in the last few years by posting clips of his unsettling ability to identify a Google Street View location despite seeing the photo for only a split second, or seeing only a blurred version of the photo. It is, for all intents and purposes, a superpower. The American is 25 but tells me he thinks he has spent more than 10,000 hours playing the game. That he didn’t think he was good enough to enter the World Cup tells you all you need to know about the other players. Although it had an unofficial World Cup last year, this year the company means business. CEO Daniel Antell says that GeoGuessr spent more than £350,000 on the tournament. This includes £12,000 and a Venice holiday for the winner, and travel for all of the 24 players, who have come from countries as far away as Australia. For a relatively small company – GeoGuessr was only able to take on full-time employees in 2021 – this represents a huge investment. In a bar during the preliminary round of 24, I pull up a stool and speak to some of the people watching on the big screens. It is an overwhelmingly male room. “I&nbsp;thought it would be boring to watch, but it’s not,” says Pawel, who is 22 and from Poland. He started playing every day during the pandemic. Key to its success, he thinks, is that there is no pressure to take it seriously. “It can be competitive, but it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to be quick if you don’t want to. You don’t have to be that precise if you don’t want to.” A cheer erupts. Trabota, a player from Singapore, has guessed a location within 12 metres. Pawel and two other fans from Poland, Matt and Simon, begin to explain some of the “metas” that seasoned players look out for. If you are in Australia you may be able to tell which state you are in because each uses slightly different telegraph poles. If you don’t know whether you are in Italy or San Marino, look at the image quality: San Marino’s is poorer. You can tell you are in Ghana if the Google car has a bar with black duct tape on it. (You can often see slivers of the car that has taken the photos.) Because there are more than 220bn Google Street View images, it would take a long&nbsp;time to go through all of these tips. They can be as&nbsp;specific as the type of trousers men wear in India. GeoGuessr is made a touch easier because only 100 of the world’s 195 countries are represented on Google Street View. China doesn’t feature, and there is comparatively little coverage of Africa or the Middle East. In practice, this means that if you are presented with a photo and suspect you are in Africa, you can only be in Lesotho, Eswatini, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, Botswana, Egypt, Rwanda, Nigeria, South Africa, the Canary Islands, Tunisia or Kenya. Easy. Although there is a whole online ecosystem devoted to learning and sharing the various clues within these 100 countries, the masters often rely on instinct, or what the players call “vibes”. I appreciate this when a photo flashes up. I know within seconds that it was taken in the UK. But I can’t articulate what has made me sure; it is simply that I have lived in the country for 34 years and am intimately familiar with its features. The most devoted players have “lived” in various countries by studying their landscapes for multiple hours every day for several years. As Matt says, “I&nbsp;usually know … but I don’t know how.” To be exceptional at GeoGuessr is to be a kind of topographical Sherlock Holmes. Blinky, a bearded, beanie-wearing, 24-year-old Frenchman, goes into the tournament as the favourite. Real name Mathieu Huet, he is widely considered to be invincible in moving games (games in which you can move wherever you like in order to identify your location). “It is annoying beforehand, having everyone say that you’re the favourite,” he says, “because you don’t want to get too confident, or you don’t want to have that pressure on you.” The lack of fighting talk among GeoGuessers is noticeable: these are people for whom the game has been not just a way of learning a skill but an important way of making friends. An Austrian fan called Daniel tells me that sometimes they don’t even play, they just talk. Nevertheless, when the final eight meet for the quarter-finals in the Space Arena in Stockholm, there is an inevitable gladiatorial atmosphere. The circular black stage is dominated by the markings of a large white compass. A video plays on the big screen like a movie trailer: “Competitors come together, exploring unknown lands; remote places; forgotten back alleys. They seek hidden secrets, driven by a love of learning … Heroes are born. Together they master the art of finding anything, anywhere.” Eight different nationalities are represented here and the first match is between the Hungarian “Debre” and the Canadian “Fungus” (real name Nathan Pfeffer). Players here are exceptionally young; Fungus is only 18. Some of the best players are about 14 years old but were prevented from competing in the World Cup by the 18+ age limit. The first image looks like a European farm. Here, the players are allowed to move around however they please. Debre guesses Belgium, forcing his opponent’s clock down to 15 seconds. Fungus guesses Belgium also. Debre is 96km away, Fungus 116. There are three rounds, each comprising 10 games if players don’t prematurely lose their allotted 6,000 points. As the games progress, the “damage” sustained rises, making a player’s losing guess increasingly catastrophic. I realise four games in that we are looking at a photo of the UK. The players stroll around the area, both finding a billboard advertising Alexander Armstrong’s Classic FM show. Fungus sees a sign for Sandyhills parish church. The image turns out to be from Glasgow, and Fungus is only about 40km away, winning the game. When I ask Blinky and Rainbolt how to tell you are in the UK, Rainbolt says: “If it looks cloudy and depressing.” Both point out that if you know you are in Europe and can tell that the road is a left-hand drive road, you must be in the UK or Ireland. But there is a phenomenon called “death by Ireland”, says Rainbolt, that sees players incorrectly guess Ireland when they’re in the UK. You would also look out for yellow rear number plates and brick houses, but the latter may indicate Denmark or northern France. The UK also has an “obsession with hedgerows”, says Blinky, who considers England fiendish because there is little variation within the country. At one point, in the round in which players can pan and zoom but not move, we are presented with a photo of a busy mountainside town with plenty of signage and a bridge in the centre of the image. Commentating, Rainbolt says it is Turkey. Both players go for east Turkey, but while Debre is 211km off, Fungus pinpoints it to within 8 metres. The skill is unfathomable. Not long afterwards, he goes through to the final four. As Blinky emerges, whooping fans brandish a banner that says: “Blinky and you’ll miss it!” He calmly beats Gelotris, a Turkish player, after which he uses a fan’s back to autograph a map. In the semi-finals, Fungus takes on Consus, the Dutchman I mentioned at the top (real name Patrick Noordijk). They are locked at 2-2 when a rural image comes up. They can’t move, pan or zoom. Fungus guesses Mississippi. At the last minute Consus guesses Atlanta. Fungus is 136km away and Consus 315, but Consus clings on with only 320 points left. Next up is a nondescript road flanked by what look like pine trees. Both competitors realise it is Russia – incredible in itself – but there is a lot of Russia – about 17.1 million sq km. Both of them guess west Russia, but Consus is a staggering 25km away, bagging his place in the final, where he’ll meet the Frenchman with the beanie. Although AI is fast catching up with humans, the abilities of a great GeoGuesser are in demand. Not only has Rainbolt released promotional videos for brands such as the NFL and Domino’s, he also helps people identify the locations in treasured old photos and has even helped arrest people (though he doesn’t want to expand on that). He reads all his requests – “the good, the ugly, and the worse” – and won’t help people stalk other people. “It’s a pretty big responsibility to make sure you’re doing the right thing and having the right moral compass,” he says. * * * “Years from now, you will be able to say you were&nbsp;at&nbsp;the first GeoGuessr World Cup grand finals!”&nbsp;says&nbsp;the on stage hype-man as the final arrives. “Raise … the … roof!” Blinky is the favourite here – though his semi-final was extremely tight – but Consus has been breathtaking. The first image is of New Zealand, a country Consus struggles with, and Blinky moves ahead. After this it is neck and neck, with Blinky predictably taking the first moving round but Consus pulling it back to 1-1 – and with a New Zealand image no less. “Blinky is upset,” says Rainbolt. To everyone’s surprise, Consus then wins the next moving round (Blinky’s first defeat in 10 moving rounds), at one point coming within 7 metres in Vermont. In round four, in which they can pan and zoom, the two are neck and neck for nine games. The 10th game is crucial. They see an image of a crossing flanked by trees. There are blue skies above, green fields to the left, and a white house with a red roof to the right. The music pumps and pumps and pumps. With almost no time left, Consus zooms in to west Finland; Blinky goes south. Who’s closer? All of a sudden, being only 75km away, it’s Consus. The Dutchman wins the GeoGuessr World Cup. The arena erupts into a standing ovation for the bashful 31-year-old. “I never knew GeoGuessr could be this intense, holy shit,” says one of the live followers. Consus drops the lid of the trophy as he holds it aloft. Can GeoGuessr compete with the esport big boys? By and large, the most popular esports are combat-centric. And League of Legends, arguably the world’s biggest esport, offered $2.25m to its winners in 2023. But GeoGuessr’s appeal lies in its accessibility. “The barrier of entry for this is probably lower than any esport ever,” says Rainbolt. Daniel Antell likens it not to any esport but to darts. “I think we are aiming to go a little broader than the regular esport community audience,” he says. GeoGuessr’s chances of sitting at the big table depend on whom you ask. Blinky says: “I don’t want to doubt them, but I’m a bit sceptical as to how successful it can be.” One development that would help is a proliferation of Rainbolts: charming and articulate online presenters able to pick up millions of followers (2.7 million people currently follow Rainbolt on TikTok). This could be the game’s achilles heel: though games such as League of Legends and Counter-Strike have numerous players earning millions playing and streaming, there are perhaps three people currently making a living from playing GeoGuessr. Although Consus is elated to have won, he doesn’t think he could hack it as a content creator. And Blinky? “I don’t have a yearning for stardom,” says the Frenchman, modestly. Nevertheless, if you build it, they will come. The World Cup provided a 20% rise in subscribers and will be bigger next year. One realisation was how nail-biting the game is as a spectator sport. Fans can’t wait another year to watch the greats compete. In 10 years, perhaps identifying locations on Google Street View will be a legitimate career aspiration. “I think it can be big,” says Antell. Having utterly seduced me, it’s certainly right up my street. Answers 1 Finland: specifically Mikkeli in the country’s south-east. 2 Jordan: Ar-Ramtha: east of Irbid on the Syrian border. 3 New Zealand: Burbush, west of Hamilton on the North Island.

The competitors at the GeoGuessr World Cup can do just that. The clues are in brick houses, distinctive trousers and unusual telegraph poles