The Battle Royale boom is taking over the gaming world. Rooster Teeth's Ashley Jenkins joins Cheddar to break down the massive success of "Fortnite" and "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds." The phenomenon led Take-Two Interactive's CEO to weigh in on whether "Grand Theft Auto" and "Red Dead Redemption 2" would ever take part in the trend.
Strauss Zelnick called the success of Battle Royale modes "really interesting" but said the company would steer clear of doing anything too derivative. "Fortnite" had its most successful day of gaming ever with 3.4 million concurrent users. The high activity caused the game's servers to crash.
Finally, fans got their first look at Tom Hardy's "Venom" movie. The "Spider-Man" spin-off will see the actor play the iconic villain. Jenkins says some audiences were disappointed to not see Hardy suit up as the character in the teaser.
API platform RapidAPI recently became a unicorn with a $1 billion valuation after raising $150 million in a Series D funding round led by Softbank Vision Two Fund. Microsoft's Venture Fund, M12, and Andreessen Horowitz also participated. RapidAPI says it provides the world's largest API hub which enables millions of developers and companies to build software faster. Iddo Gino, founder and CEO of RapidAPI, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Facebook parent Meta officially has changed it’s ticker symbol from ‘FB’ to ‘META’. Paul Meeks, a portfolio manager, Independent Solutions Wealth Management, and a professor of practice in the Baker School of Business at The Citadel, joined Cheddar News to discuss why the tech giant has had to make big changes to its name, its ticker, and its business plans. "When you see what's happening in digital advertising — and there was a slowdown there even before the threat of a recession, which could cause a even more drastic slowdown next year — they had to pivot," he said. Meeks noted he sees Facebook dominating in the metaverse space going forward — whatever that may end up being.
In a recent Bumble survey, more than a third of respondents revealed that they would be willing to date people in other cities. Shan Boodram, a sex and relationships expert for the app, joined Cheddar News to talk about the long-distance dating trend and tips on how to go about taking part. "I think this is the magic of what we experienced over the past couple of years, is that we have already learned the tools necessary to stay connected with people despite not being able to be close to them," she noted. Boodram also pointed to Bumble's travel mode and using video conferencing in order to ease into such relationships.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: CEO of Achieve Life Sciences discusses a new plant-based compound that's being used to fight nicotine addiction; President & CEO OF DiaMedica Therapeutics explains a new ischemic stroke treatment option that expands the window for effective therapy for stroke patients; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Asteroid Rush.'
