What is the biggest lottery win someone cashed in? What the most lottery tickets someone bought?

We have all dreamed of winning, and we have all purchased lottery tickets or scratchers with high hopes. Let me hear your victory stories you lucky people.

We all hear about those crazy news stories about things that seem so distant from our everyday lives, and disregard them as things that probably would never happen. What are some of those crazy situations that actually happened?

Just yesterday I hit free twitch turbo partner on twitch after roughly 5 months of streaming (somewhat) consistently. Today I'm hoping to share some decent advice and give my own (learned) opinion on some of the frequent yet not always useful tips shared around here.
Before writing this I did a cursory search through the subreddit for frequently asked questions so hopefully this answers most of the ones that I myself have any experience to answer.
My simple request: I'm not going to be posting any links to my stream or anything but if you go out of your way to find it please don't follow/subscribe to the channel unless you are genuinely interested. Thanks big boss.

Should you stream?

If I have to read another thread or comment of a person asking if they should stream I am going to scream. What do you people expect to hear? Yes, please stream the world needs you, you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams and have all the clout to have ever been cloutted.
I know people who usually type out questions like that probably don't read posts but here is a hack I've used to answer my own dumb questions through out the years. Say that shit out loud and respond to it like someone asked you the question. Nine times out of ten, you end up answering it yourself and on the off-chance you actually don't you should have a more actionable question.
Example: Instead of asking "should I stream?" you end up realizing the only thing holding you back is having no mic or something. The question then becomes "I want to stream what's a good cheap mic?". Which is a lot better and doesn't make people want to pelt you with rocks.
For those of you who ask "should I stream or is it a waste of time?" please, I BEG YOU, stop. Most of the shit you do is a waste of time, you either want to stream or don't. Make a decision based on that.

Webcam, do you need one?

This question is asked so often that I see it every time I come on the subreddit. Unsurprisingly, the answer is always the same as well, yes you do.
However I disagree.
I have never streamed with a webcam, not a single time, yet I'm still here and somehow managed to get partnered.
Now, I know why every one parrots the same advice, it is because the people making tip threads, youtube videos, etc., all say to use a webcam. Harris Heller said it once and I'm pretty sure that was enough for the people who copy and paste what he says in text threads here to become their mantra.
The truth is, all that matters is the content. Ask yourself do you do/want to do a lot of react/just chatting content? If so, you probably want a webcam since your content will focus around reacting to content. Lirik doesn't use face-cam because his content is his gameplay and commentary, not his face. Corpse literally blew up and is famous for not showing his face (even though he is still a personality).
I know the whole "Lirik doesn't use a face cam" argument is going to be met with people saying "exception not the rule!!!" but seriously, just use your head. Half the people you watch probably don't need face cams. MoonMoon probably doesn't need a face cam, Critikal didn't have a face cam until he already had over a million subs on youtube, schlatt didn't either, Dream doesn't, AdmiralBahroo doesn't, almost every DBD streamer I watch doesn't, just think for yourself.
The point I'm trying to drive home here is not just that a webcam isn't required, but also you need to look at what you want to create and decide for yourself.
Edit: I saw someone say somewhere that you need a webcam for sponsors. That's cap. I've had a sponsor and nobody has seen this ugly mug.

Equipment in general

People like saying that they need this this and that before they start streaming. This is just stalling. Until last month I hadn't owned a desktop PC my whole life. Before that it was just laptops and using my phone to read chat or look up things. You obviously need SOME equipment to start, i.e. a computer and some form of internet connection, but that doesn't mean you need to pick up a shure, a streamdeck, 4 monitors, 6 consoles, and whatnot.
Here is my setup. Keep in mind I literally just upgraded this last month after saving up for several months:

• Blue Yeti: Hell ya baby got a free game with it too so I'm for sure pleased with this purchase. Edit: I recommend shopping around for mics since the yeti isn't as much of a "get this for streaming" mic as it once was. Plenty of good options out there for cheaper
• Two BenQ monitors: Like I said, I was using my phone for chat but that got old fast. These monitors are cheap and 144hz. There are some color issues but eff it I barely notice anymore
• Streamer PC from NZXT: My old laptop was from 2016 and made editing literal hell. Averaged 3 crashes every time I would try and render (and the renders took about an hour). Upgrading to this was the most worth purchase I've ever made. Also, the streamer PC got upgraded since I purchased, so you can grab a 2070 instead of the 2060 ti like I have :)
• Red Dragon Keyboard and Mouse: I'm a cheap ass so when I see light up peripherals for like 40 bucks total I am sold.
• Earbuds: Legit don't know the brand. I stole them from my sister like a year ago. I prefer these over a headset anyway since I don't want that gamer dent lmao

For those of you who are probably saying "GROSS A PRE-BUILT" remember that part prices are actual aids right now, not to mention the availability of even finding good parts. If you have the cash go pre-built that shit is amazing.
My recommendation:
Stay with your shitty set-up as long as possible but make sure to pick up a good mic first. Big streamers (looking at you Ludwig) shit on the Yeti, but straight facts all you need is to EQ that shit a lil bit and nobody will bat an eye. You don't have to pick up the Yeti (there are lots of cheaper options) but that's just the one I and many others have gotten since it is reliably a good ass mic.
Audio <- chat engagement <- pc upgrade

YouTube

How many people have to tell you bums to focus on YouTube before you do it? Twitch sucks ass. I'll say it, i'm brave. No discoverability, especially to those of you at the very bottom. Make a goddamn YouTube and start pumping out videos, it is not hard.
Ludwig made a power point on how to be a streamer that talks about a few things but the most important point of all was what he said on creating content for stream/YouTube. This isn't the exact timestamp but it do be close: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/896089267?t=01h24m14s
That advice is coming from a top streamer who also has over a million subs on YouTube by almost exclusively taking twitch vods and editing them for YouTube.
As for getting views on your videos here is my advice from my personal experiences:

• Thumbnail and title are important but there are outliers that can thrive without doing shit. One guy I saw has their most watched video (over 250k views) with a title like "[game] [character] gameplay" and the literal default thumbnail that youtube makes. AND to top that off it was just a VOD from their twitch channel.
• Audience retention matters. There is a reason massive YouTubers have these weird zoom in pans and flamboyant gestures all the time. Lots of movement and noises keep our tiny attention spans happy and frequently cutting is usually the key to success, although don't overuse it. I do very light edits and have been growing but that's more of my personal preference rather than a growth strategy.
• Respond and engage. If you have one comment on your video and they are complimenting you, why aren't you responding? This is by far the easiest way to get someone to continue to engage with you and trust me, that is the most important thing in the algorithms eyes.

My understanding of YouTube

So obviously, clickthrough rate and audience retention are the things that are constantly brought up when talking about gaining more views and what not, but I am fairly comfortable in saying that there are other metrics that you should be paying attention to.
Let me hit you with a something that would make Dream shake in his boots. I don't subscribe to anyone on YouTube. *gasp*
The reason for that being, I almost always have the videos I want to see on my home page. I never have to go, "wonder if x YouTuber made a video" since YouTube knows I watch and enjoy their stuff. The question for most people being, how does YouTube know what people like and how does it suggest it to them? Basically, by seeing how often people engage with your content AND also what type of content you create. (although keep in mind, youtube tries to throw new videos at you a lot as well, these are usually in-line with content you engage with though)
For engagement, think of it as like affinity points in a video game but in reverse. Before you get to bang that smoking hot sim, you got to woo them. Every time someone likes your video they get a point, every time they comment they get two, every subscription counts as like 10, watching an entire video might be 20, etc. Obviously, these are made up values but I hope you follow what I'm putting down here. Once they get enough points you start showing up more in their home page.
I know this because I have a different account on my phone that doesn't have the same suggestions as my main account because I watch different things on my PC than my phone. However, I do like to look at the comments while I'm taking a dump or something. Problem was, my videos were rarely every recommended. I solved this easily by liking a couple videos. I didn't even watch them, just liked and read comments. LITERALLY NOT EVEN SUBSCRIBED AND I GET NOTIFICATIONS ON MY PHONE SOMETIMES WHEN A VIDEO DOES WELL!
In other words, by getting people to like and comment on your videos you are almost guaranteeing they see future videos from you.
Now, keep in mind, engagement is only a small portion of the whole pie. And even though you might engage with a content creator often, there is still a chance you miss some of their videos because of one other reason, the content's genre.

Content Genre

You might have noticed this phenomenon on various different creators YouTubes, but sometimes they create a video that bombs. Usually, this happens when they create something outside of their niche. This could be as simple as changing games, or as radical as changing the entire direction of the channel. Even if you engage like crazy with a creator, if they change the content enough, you won't get that shit recommended to you.
This is the main reason some creators have several channels and why some even get pigeonholed to one type of content. The reality of it is, if you build your audience on one piece of content and then want to change it, you will be fighting an uphill battle. One of the best ways to fight that is to diversify early OR better yet, emphasize your personality over the content. Jschlatt shits views and he does whatever the hell he wants really. Same goes for jacksepticeye, markiplier, Ludwig, Critikal, XQC, and numerous other creators.
That being said, doing one game/genre isn't a bad strategy either. A metric fuck ton of OfflineTv's videos are the same game. DisguisedToast played Hearthstone on repeat, then switched to TFT, THEN switched to among us, and his videos absolutely kill. Valkyrae is one of the biggest streamers period and all she does is play/upload among us and rust. Then of course we have all the minecraft streamers too.
It's really up to you to decide, but I'd recommend going towards personality content since that allows the most flexibility.

Other Social Media (Twitter, IG, etc)

Lots of people here seem to think that they don't have time to do YouTube or some other BS they think up as an excuse, so they think that twitter, instagram, tiktok, etc are all ways to grow. Trust me, they are not good ways to grow.
These are all stupid treadmills that trick you into thinking you're doing something when in reality you aren't moving the needle by much if by any at all. Posting ten dumb tweets and reposting memes on IG seem "productive" if you frame it in the light of "content creation" but the two people that see all of these things don't really give a shit. Spend that time working on a video for YouTube.
Don't give me this "I don't have time" bullshit. Do small videos and work yourself up, become better and faster. Perfectionism is a cute word for procrastination.
Ok, now that I took a shit on them so hopefully, you won't grind on them all day, these are still ways to grow and are important. Having multiple platforms for fans to communicate and engage with you is always a good idea, but don't spread yourself so thin early on when nobody knows who you are. Prioritize the thing that will get eighty percent of your results.
I personally have a discord for people to come and chat in. Thing is, I had no intention of doing so because I don't really use discord that much. The only reason it exists is that people kept asking for it in the comments on my YouTube videos so I made one.
TL;DR: Don't put the cart before the horse :)
Edit: Oh ya I forgot to mention. TikTok is trash for growth. I won't mention names cuz that's probably toxic(?) but there is someone signed on luminosity who has 690k TikTok followers and 95k YouTube subscribers who barely cracks 100 views on Twitch and has a hard time getting over 1k on YouTube. So don't go thinking TikTok leads to immense fame ya darn kids

Hosting/Raiding

Getting hosted/raided means actual jack. I remember pretty clearly when I had like ten viewers, I got hosted by someone with twenty-five or something. I think only one person ended up saying anything in the chat to me about it and although some stayed for the entire stream, by the time I went live again I lost all of the people who were in the host. This seems to be something others have mentioned as well, you won't retain almost any views from hosts/raids.
Edit: Please do try raiding/hosting or otherwise networking with other streamers at least once. Your mileage may vary and it could end up blowing up your channel. Who knows?
Edit edit: Having something that you can do during the stream is huge when getting hosted/raided. Most of the time, if not all of the time, a streamer is ENDING their stream and sending viewers to you rather than timing it for your own content. So if you are doing something uninteresting or are in the middle of something you are going to get less retention than if you did something crazy to impress the newcomers. In other words, having a strategy for hosting/raiding growth is key.

Speaking on stream

This seems to be something a lot of people struggle with on Twitch since so many people ask how to do it when nobody is watching/chatting. Coming from someone who had this problem, the answer is pretty simple, talk for the content not the chat.
What I mean by this is you should be focusing on your content more than the chat. Since I play games, what I do is just say some shit about whats happening on screen and sometimes say something that is hopefully funny. Pick up a garbage item? Say something about how garbage the item is, ez.
If you're streaming to NO VIEWERS you shouldn't be streaming to stream anyway. What you should be doing is making a YouTube video in the hopes of getting viewers to watch your stream. The only way to do that is to have good content planned out that should effectively act as your script. Again, Ludwigs stream on this is good (it'll probably be a video soon) so make sure to check it out.
A more recent problem I've had was just how much I engaged with chat (suffering from success I know). When I went to edit the videos I had to cut large swathes of the video because I was just chatting to people. Make sure to avoid this when you are actually trying to get content out for YouTube as it can mess up the flow of a video and make it harder to edit. You still can chat with people just make sure not to go overboard. Again, Ludwig is a perfect example of this, just look at his videos and streams and notice the difference between the two.

Streaming as a job/hobby

I hate this dumb argument of streaming isn't your hobby or twitch isn't your job. You have 24 hours in the day, subtract 8 for sleeping and depending on your job, 9 for work. All that extra time can be spent doing whatever the fuck you want. Want to get big and make money streaming? Do work. Want to just stream while you're playing games anyway? Do that.
IF YOU WANT TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL AT SOMETHING YOU PUT IN THE AMOUNT OF EFFORT REQUIRED TO DO SO! So stop telling people it has to be a hobby or it has to be a job. It can be either for christ's sake.

Partner difference

I have a checkmark which makes me a better person.
No, but seriously, partner doesn't really do much other than add more emote slots and some quality options. Also, you don't gain extra cash as a partner either. I don't have the mystical bounty board or god-tier split, just the checkmark to flex baby.

Opinion on affiliate

Devin Nash made a video about how affiliate is a scam, which is kinda true but only for people with no viewers. Having the sub button is huge and even when I was small small, affiliate gave me a couple hundred bucks a month for no effort on my part. Patreon is probably better though, no lie.

Twitch "grind"

If you stream 5+ hours a day without making content that lives somewhere else please form a neat line so I can smack you all. People saying they have no time drives me nuts, but when they also "grind" all day AND say that, it makes me want to punch air.

1. Stream YouTube friendly content
2. Stop stream and edit content
3. Upload and plug twitch in the video
4. repeat

That is the only "grind" you should be on. Affiliate is stupid if the 3 viewers you have are all just you on a different ipad.

Luck

You know what? Maybe PewDiePie got lucky and that's how he is such a big YouTuber. Maybe early twitch streamers got all their views because they were early adopters. Or maybe these people only got lucky because they showed up and actually put the effort in.
There are plenty of videos on my channel that looked like flops at first. They got like a couple of hundred views and didn't do well. However, after continuously publishing, a whole bunch of them ended up blowing up and becoming some of the most-watched. Without publishing more videos they would have ended up dead in the water. Consistency > luck.
I don't believe too much in luck when it comes to doing very simple things (LIKE MAKING A YOUTUBE VIDEO) but you literally cannot win the lottery if you do not purchase a ticket, it's that simple.

Editing Software

A couple of people asked this so I thought I should add it here. I use davinci resolve for my videos. Previously, I used hitfilm or something like that I can't quite remember the name, but I had to switch because they don't allow you to have split audio channels (i.e. one for desktop audio and one for mic audio).
I've literally never touched any paid software like premier or anything because, again, I'm a cheap ass.

What should you upload to YouTube?

Seriously just look at Ludwig, smallant, DisguisedToast, literally every top Twitch streamer with a YouTube. All three of the people I just mentioned are over one million subs on YT and are top streamers, so they are definitely doing something right.
In terms of off-stream content, guides are king. If you're a small YT channel with ZERO subs you can still get thousands of views by hitting the search algorithm of YT. My first 3 videos were uncut gameplay, guide video, guide video, in that order. Guess which ones have tens of thousands of views and which has less than a thousand? Guide videos are insane for small channels.
Edit: Actually, let's just call it searchable content. Searchable content is king

Ending notes

I think that's about it for this post. Hopefully, I covered everything although I doubt I did. If you have any questions I'll try my best to answer them and will probably edit the good ones into the post.

Hello again folks. This is an extension of my DD last week in which I shared some research on short positions, GME’s debt, and some speculation on institutional investing. Since that post, GME is up 75% and there’s been lots of good bullish / bearish DD on the short term.
In this post, I’m going to cover 3 topics, focusing on the mid-to-long term prospects for GME: 1) Cohen, 2) GME’s market cap potential, and 3) potential investors that could continue to pile in.
TL:DR; You need to think about GME differently. Not as a trader. Not as an investor. You need to think like a venture capitalist. This is an unprecedented opportunity, and the first time I’ve gone all-in - I’m more bullish now than when the stock was trading sub $15. If you’re in GME you need to get in with conviction otherwise you’re going to lose by selling when it drops.

Quick aside - my history and positions:

I’ve been a passive investor for many years. This is literally the first time I’ve taken an interest in becoming an active investor. I opened an RH account in August to start speculating on GME. My first post called out some cheap lottery plays that took my speculating account from $5K - $20K in 3 weeks. I’ve since posted a few times on GME, even trying to tell you to buy the post-earnings dip, and added more to my active trading accounts. I’ve taken $10K -> $130K on RH and $230K -> $480K in IBKR since slowly adding to GME since September.
UPDATE: I have deleted my positions in this post - will explain why in my next post. I'm still holding.
All that being said, thus far I’ve been thinking about GME as a trade - trying to get in at the lowest cost I could for the maximum upside on a near-term exit, but I’ve switched completely into thinking of GME is a ridiculously asymmetric investment with massive potential in the next 2-3 year timeframe - even at $35. Even at $45, $50, $60. That’s why I added roughly 2500 shares on Friday at around $36 despite adding very cautiously when GME was below $20. I’m also completely all-in on RH with options (mostly deep ITM, a few fds) - $0 buying power left.
Grab a drink, sit down. Let me tell you why I’ve gotten more aggressive, and probably why you shouldn’t worry about what price you pay right now, as long as you’re willing to believe and hold.

About Cohen (and friends)

From the recent 8K about the board changes (which you should definitely read if you’re putting serious money in):
As part of the Agreement, RC Ventures has agreed to customary standstill provisions*, which provide that from the date of the Agreement until the earlier of (a) the date that is 30 calendar days prior to the deadline for the submission of director nominations by stockholders for the Company’s* 2022 annual meeting of stockholders and (b) the date that is 120 days prior to the first anniversary of the 2021 Annual Meeting (such period, the “Standstill Period”), RC Ventures will not, among other things: (i) acquire beneficial ownership in, or aggregate economic exposure to, directly or indirectly, more than 19.9% of the Company’s outstanding common stock; (ii) make any proposal for consideration by stockholders at any annual or special meeting of stockholders of the Company; (iii) make any offer or proposal with respect to any extraordinary transactions; or (iv) seek, alone or in concert with others, the appointment, election or removal of any directors in opposition to any recommendation of the Board, in each case as further described in the Agreement. As part of the Agreement, the Company has permitted RC Ventures to acquire, whether in a single transaction or multiple transactions from time to time, additional shares of the Company’s common stock to the extent such acquisitions would result in RC Ventures having beneficial ownership of less than 20.0% of the outstanding shares, without triggering the restrictions that would otherwise be imposed under Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”), and RC Ventures has agreed that upon acquiring beneficial ownership 20.0% or more of the outstanding shares of the Company’s common stock, the restrictions under Section 203 of the DGCL would apply to a potential business combination with RC Ventures as an “interested stockholder” (as defined in Section 203 of the DGCL).
This is critical: This agreement was the result of a negotiation between Cohen and the existing board.

1. After his activist letter calling out the board and then 13D buy after the earnings dip rocketed the stock up from 12 -> 20, it was clear to everyone that RC was the reason GME’s stock was heading up. The GME board was afraid of a hostile takeover / losing their jobs. This agreement allowed Cohen and 2 others on the board as long as he didn’t attempt a hostile takeover.
2. Cohen wants it all. In the activist letter, he publicly said “no” to just one board seat. He then publicly bought more as soon as Sherman threatened a shelf offering to dilute him below 10%.

In addition to getting added to the board, Cohen brought along 2 execs who built Chewy with him:

• Alan Attal - the previous COO and CMO of Chewy (2011 - 2018)
• Jim Grube - the previous CFO of Chewy (2015 - 2018)

He’s not fucking around folks. He wants to build another Chewy, and he’s bringing the people who helped him do it the first time to do it again.
As a result of the agreement, he’s limited to buying up to 20% of shares until 2022. Why not 13%? Simple - Cohen wants the option to buy more. He’s not happy with a single board seat; he’s not going to settle for simply getting added to the board; and he’s not going to settle for 13% ownership.
Also, remember that Alan and Jim have 💲 to buy in as well. I haven't seen their holdings yet. Their time is worth more than their money and they've already decided to put their time in.

Cohen is not an exec - he’s a founder with an all-in mentality

Go read this bloomberg Cohen interview to understand his mindset.

1. Cohen himself is an all-in person. Key quote:
   1. “When I find things I have a lot of conviction in, I go all-in*.”*
   2. Cohen is a founder that has gone through the successful creation of a startup. When you are startup founder, most of your NW is tied to equity in your company. You are trained to have skin in the game. You’re not allowed to think you have a safety net. You give up years of your life and bet everything because you have to believe in what you’re doing. Founders typically have 30-50% ownership of their company.
   3. “Cohen uses the word “conviction” a lot. He says it’s something he learned from his father, who ran a glassware importing business in Montreal where Cohen grew up. “He taught me how to block the noise from the masses,” says Cohen. “To have a point of view and have conviction and not waver.”
2. He only sold Chewy rather taking it to IPO because of his Dad’s health. He cut his entrepreneurial career short and he’s itching to get back in.
3. Cohen sold Chewy for $3.35B, with estimates stating he personally walked away with about $600M after taxes.
4. Cohen has a lot of capital to buy more. After selling Chewy, he went all-in on Apple & WFC, which as of June was up 40%.
   1. “ Cohen says his portfolio, when including dividends and a few other stock holdings, has returned more than 40% over the past 3 years, beating the market.”
   2. Aapl was his largest holding, and is up another 50% since June 5 when the Bloomberg article was published.
   3. Cohen lives in FL - with no income or capital gains for individuals, unlike other founders who live in CA which taxes all cap gains as ordinary income.
   4. I’m going to estimate his net worth (minus his GME holdings) is around $800M-$1B.
5. Cohen’s 9,001,000 (it’s over 9000! 🐲🏐) shares have thus far been purchased at something like an average of $12/share, for a total investment of around $110M.

So Cohen has put in $110M out of his $1B into GME. Does that sound like he’s all-in? Absolutely fucking not. Cohen’s going to buy up to the max he can this year (20%), likely by selling some other holdings prior to cap gains tax law changes. He can add more next year after the standstill period is done.

What will lead to Cohen’s next purchase of GME

Thus far, every RC purchase has been about sending a message.

1. Prior to Q3 earnings, his purchases were signaling an intent to the board that he was serious about wanting to get involved. He also rubbed it in their faces that the stock price was largely appreciating because of him. From the activist letter:
   1. “We recognize that the Board may feel it is insulated from stockholder scrutiny after adding new directors this past spring and seeing a recent stock price uptick (which only came on the heels of RC Ventures filing its 13D)” (what a fucking burn).
2. If there was any doubt about RC’s impact on the stock price, it was put to rest after Q3’s earnings, where the current leadership’s hubris and threat of diluting RC led to a drop of almost 30%. RC then bought the dip, shoved it in their faces, and the market GME again rocketing GME to 20 in a massive post-earnings recovery. Message sent again - “The market wants me. Let me the fuck in.”
3. Now that Cohen and the Chewy folks are on the board, he’s going to angle for CEO. He’s not looking to advise GME. He wants to go all-in, to run GME. He’s holding the optionality of buying more based on the success of his attempt to take over GME through non-hostile means.

If you see Cohen buy more GME, he’s sending another message. This time it’s because it’s clear to him he’s going to be CEO and wants to max his skin in the game. If you see Cohen buy, it’s “CEO talks going well” - you fucking buy.

GME’s market cap potential

1. Cohen sees a $200BN+ total addressable market cap for gaming by 2023. For contrast, Chewy was playing in the pet food/supplies market, which has a total addressable market (TAM) of under $50BN annually. GME’s potential is at base 4x that of Chewy. This does not even account for the pc gaming hardware market, which is another $35BN+.
2. Chewy’s market cap is $44BN on $6BN of annual revenue.
3. Chewy’s Q3 quarterly income was up 45% YoY. While GME’s quarterly income was down YoY, its e-commerce revenue was up 257% trouncing Chewy’s growth rate.
4. GME’s Q4 early sales preview reported 300% E-commerce growth and annual run-rate of $5BN

In other words, even if you give GME’s physical locations no value, GME’s ecommerce business is growing 5x faster than Chewy and already has 75% of online revenue.
Summary: Chewy is priced > 7X times its annual total revenue. GME is priced at .45 its annual ecommerce revenue, despite GME having 5-6 greater TAM and growing its ecommerce business 5X as fast Chewy.
What. The. Fuck.
I’ve never seen a stock more mispriced.
People talking about $100 price targets are suffering from a fucking lack of imagination.
Even if you completely discount

1. GME’s physical business
2. its rev sharing partnership with MSFT
3. its 5x faster growth and 5x TAM

and give GME the same P/S multiple that Chewy has on its ecommerce business, that puts GME currently at a fair market cap above $35BN. That means GME should be at least $500/share.
In pictures:
​
Comparing Ecommerce Revenue vs Market cap on Chewy vs GME today
​
Showing what the fair market value Market Cap of GME would be with Chewy's P/S
​
Fair Market Value (using comps) of GME is at least $500/share.
$35/share is a fucking steal. Who cares about the short-term dips as shorts try to weasel themselves out of their positions. The market will eventually wake up to this sleeping beast. In a year you’re not going to care if you got in at 4, 12, 20, 35, or 50. You’re going to only care if you’re in or not.
​

Potential Investors

An asset is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it, right? So are the potential buyers of this growing company?
Here’s a list in decreasing order of likelihood.

1. Elon (Least likely, completely improbable, but cataclysmic event). Elon hates shorts. Elon, with TSLA, went through the pain that GME is going through. TSLA almost went bankrupt because shorts were pushing the price down so it was difficult to raise the cash they needed to survive. Sound familiar? Elon’s wealth swings more in a day than GME is worth in entirety. Elon could buy all the fucking float of GME with what he makes in 8 hours. One call from fellow entrepreneur and aspiring twitter-meme-god would absolutely wreck the game.
   1. If you are short gamestop, you are one meme purchase by the richest man in the world away from a fucking cataclysmic event. "Hey son, I heard you like games. So I bought you gamestop. All of it." 🚀
2. Buffett (More likely, still improbable). I’m actually amazed that while Buffett & co were lamenting that there are no interesting stocks to invest in and moving to cash, that they absolutely missed the boat on GME while it was at its lows. It’s a complete value play right up his alley (in a business he can understand). My only hypothesis here is that the market cap is too small and he could not make a meaningful investment. Once GME grows to a more respectable market cap ($10b+) I can see Buffett stepping in and making an investment.
3. Cohen’s connections. (Highly likely if Cohen is CEO). This is the big one. And I mean absolutely nail in the coffin re-pricing of GME for the foreseeable future. Go read this Harvard Business Review piece on Cohen specifically on how Cohen puts importance on raising money and the people that backed him.
   1. Look, I’ve started a startup before in the valley (unsuccessfully unfortunately). However, you don’t start a company without making a shit-ton of venture capitalist & angel investor connections. Cohen has stated that when pitching Chewy he was rejected by over 100 investors. I can absolutely-fucking-guarantee you that every single one of them remembers their mistake and would not miss the opportunity to invest in Cohen again. And don’t forget all of the investors who DID invest with Cohen and reaped the benefits with Chewy. While venture capitalists don’t generally make investments in public equities, this is a truly unique situation. Cohen is treating this like a rebirth, a new venture bootstrapped from GME’s bones. If VCs as a firm will not invest, you can bet your ass that those individuals will throw their personal money at Cohen. However this only happens if he’s CEO. As soon as he’s CEO, a single long weekend trip to the valley might mean 100+ investor meetings with the strategic pitch.
      1. My biggest fear here is that VCs/PE band to take the company private at some small multiple (2-3x) and then reap the benefits while Cohen turns the company around only to re-list it to us 5 years down the road at 30X the valuation.
   2. Thus far, it’s been us retail retards vs the wall street shorts. HFs shorting this thing have the advantage in both tactics and capital. However, if Silicon Valley money starts pouring money into this the game is over. You cannot believe the amount of money that gets thrown into startups with 90% of it burning up into thin air. $3B market cap? That’s nothing. Folks with Silicon Valley money & risk tolerance would have no problem betting on a serial entrepreneur making something amazing out of a company that already has a customer base, revenue, distribution - all in the same business (e-commerce) the entrepreneur already proved themselves in.
4. You, and every other retard that believes. Look, this was my point at the beginning. You need to think like a VC here. VCs are the ultimate YOLO autists making million dollar bets and not seeing a penny of it for years. They are the ultimate 💎✋🤚. You need to decide if you have conviction for the long term and then buy in. 💎✋🤚 doesn’t mean selling at $100. It doesn’t means selling at $200. It means not selling at all this year no matter the price, and at least until you learn for sure whether Cohen is the new CEO. It means believing so hard that you 20-100X your investment in 2 years when the market wakes up to the ridiculous mispricing.
   1. Remember that if Cohen is elected CEO he can (and likely will) buy more than a 20% stake in 2022.
   2. Remember Buffett’s actual quote: "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient."

I’ve put every dollar I can into shares in IBKR, minus some April calls. I hold no covered calls except for some call spreads I had in RH prior to recent bump. I have April calls because I will put more cash into GME after taxes are done, and I know much cash I have to use. Calls let me cap the price I would have to pay now.
This is personal research. Do your own DD.
A wiser investor than me gave the advice of “Don’t aim to maximise profit, minimize regret.” If you’re not in GME yet, ask yourself how you would truly feel if what everyone here is saying panned out to be true, and you weren’t participating.
Oh, and of course: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Update 1: I'm still holding today, but I realized I made a pretty big mistake on the ecommerce revenue analysis. GME's 2019 e-commerce revenue was 1.35B (not 1.35B for the quarter), so divide my price target by 4 - $125/share or $8B market cap.

Gosh this is a hard one for me to write. I know I've let my readers down for ending the Maintenance Magazine series, then briefly resurrecting it and giving hope to some of you, only to burst that bubble now yet again. The decision is a very heavy one, to say the least.
I hate to say it, but guys I really think this is it. Last time I was quitting because I ran out of things to write about, but I still wanted to write and contribute to this great community, and that was what brought me back. This time, I ran out of motivation to play the game. I haven't even bothered to collect my daily login bonuses for a week, and I have largely moved on to other hobbies.
As usual, I thought long and hard about the whole situation, and I've got several reasons that I believe contributed to my decision. Before I go on, I must stress that I don't mean to rant. These are just reasons that affect me personally, and should not necessarily affect you. If you still find the game enjoyable, good for you! I sincerely hope you have the best time with the game. I'm only here to explain why I've had enough of PES.
Reason #1: Lack of offline support
I'm sure this is nothing new to anyone who has spent a reasonable time on the game. Offline mode events are frighteningly unimaginative, and have stayed so for years. While I understand KONAMI's stance to focus on the online scene, they've quite clearly given up on dangling the carrot in front of offline players. If the developers have given up, I don't see any reason to continue hoping and sinking in the hours.
Reason #2: Player inflation and COM difficulty
To keep the game interesting, KONAMI has been releasing new and better players all the time, either in the form of Featured Players, Legends or IMs. On one hand they've been incredibly generous in giving them out affordably (compared to other mobile games). On the other hand, this leads to a rapid inflation of player strength, which has become problematic.
Here I don't mean the team strength rating, but ability of players in general. Let's wind ourselves back three years. Back then Aubamayang was the ultimate speedster, Mbappe has just been promoted to Gold from Bronze, and my Silver ball Iheanacho stood a fighting chance against most COM teams. Right now the elite players (you know the ones) are so OP that the rest have just not been able to keep up.
In offline matches, just to keep the COM difficulty mildly interesting, KONAMI had to bump up the difficulty adjustment (my personal definition of scripting btw) to ridiculous levels. It's obvious when there are games where my best IMs and legends suddenly play like imbeciles, shots flying everywhere but towards the net, passes go all over the place and player always lag for a few milliseconds before moving a muscle to react. Then once you lose a match things go back to normal the next game. How is that enjoyable in any way? I don't care if the naysayers claim this is realism; all I want is reliable enjoyment. And having my team's performance entirely at mercy of the game is simply not fun. More importantly, the sense of progression in developing my squad is completely gone, as the AI straight up nerfs my team right in front of my face.
Reason #3: Online scene
Some of you might remember my penultimate piece, in which I proudly announced joining the online scene and had been enjoying it so far. Ironically, that all turned south almost immediately after.
Players at Intermediate rank and those in Expert rank really do behave quite differently, don't they? While I cannot actually prove the existence of laggers, neither could I help but notice the absence of lag at Intermediate and the contrasting situation at Expert. All while using the same smartphone and under the same network conditions. Could be the Expert servers broke down, the worst thing is I could never be sure.
I also grossly underestimated how frequent I would play against long ball spammers and back passers. Right now I'm at a spot where I found myself enjoying perhaps one or two games out of five, where the lag is bearable and I feel the opponent is also there for a good game. And frankly that is not a ratio I'm confortable with, and I'm far better off investing my free time elsewhere.
Before I got into online, I always felt I couldn't fully blame KONAMI for trashing the offline gameplay. I felt like they have an excuse, they might be absolutely nailing the online mode, and it was my own fault for choosing not to enjoy the game the way developers intended. Ironically, trying online mode simply burst that bubble of hope for me.
Reason #4: eFootball Points
To give credit where it's due, this was a brilliant idea. And for multiple reasons too: 1) it sparkled interest in the online mode; 2) by giving points regardless of match results, it drastically lowered the stakes and the potential frustration to lose in an unfair manner; 3) all players are given new IMs to play with, without having to pay a single cent; and 4) the gifts are rare enough that it doesn't have a major impact on the game meta. Without a doubt, I would have loved this idea if I was new to PES.
However, every plus comes with a downside. As a veteran player however, I saw the other side of the coin. Corresponding to the reasons above: 1) the online mode was not fun to begin with, see reason #3 above; 2) with the stakes so low, I simply lost interest in winning and I stopped caring; 3) I've already got most of them in legend form, and where's my Lampard? and 4) these IMs are so rare that I have to grind for months to get one, and there aren't other things to keep me engaged for that long.
What I'm trying to say is, it felt like the eFootball Points scheme is almost perfectly made for new players. It also felt like KONAMI didn't care about veterans like me half as much, and only served to magnify the problems I already had with the game.
Right, enough of my rambling. Looking back over the years, I am very grateful for the fond memories I had from playing PES and from contributing in this community. Here are some of the highlights:

• Getting my first two BBs, Marco Reus and Ivan Rakitic, on my first day, followed by a BB draught of a month. BBs were rare to come by and special back in PES17. Reus was such a versatile attacker and was amazing to build a team around.
  
• Searching for scout combinations for specific players to get the max event bonus. I spent a minor fortune in GP on Tagliafico for one event, and probably never played him ever since.
  
• Pulled Mbappe from a free 2-star scout in PES2017, back when he was still callled K. Mbappe Lottin. I so nearly released him right away, but thought the name sounded familiar and did a double-take.
  
• Getting so obsessed to pull Kante from the France box draw, that I exhausted all my saved up coins and emptied the box with my wallet. Eventually got him as the final player in the box. As OP as he was in 2018, I realized I've spent far more than I was comfortable with, and since then has never paid for anything other than the $1 coin sale pack.
  
• Completing tours for all those limit break trainers, limit breaking Messi and training him to max level. That took ages and I was so proud for that.
  
• Got my very first legend who was Diego Maradona. I thought I won the freaking lottery, despite the fact that he always runs out of steam before even reaching the hour mark.
  
• Got so hyped when KONAMI released the legend agent with 7 BBs (including Vieira and Romario) and 1 GB, then got so pissed when I got Bebeto, only to find out he's actually pretty good and fell in love with his goal celebration.
  
• Farming those free Bronze+ agents in the WC2018 event. I got several hundreds of those and got at least 10 BBs.
  
• Having been unable to pull Ronaldo for years, I went for him immediately when the Trade system was introduced. At that time, his lethal trifecta of speed, physique and clinical finishing was on another level.
  
• There was a short phase during which I was obsessed with long shots after pulling Nedved. I would attempt to score at all sorts of ridiculous ranges (against Top Player COM). Adriano soon joined my squad and doubled the fun.
  
• The Legend Barcelona challenge that was nearly impossible to beat. I scraped through on my 5th/6th trial with the help of an early lucky goal from Maradona and a lot of back passing; it was the only time I was forced to use that tactic.
  
• Got Matthaus and Cruyff from the same box draw, within my first 10 draws. It saved me so much GP (I was hell-bent on emptying the box) and I got two of my best ever players in my PES squad.
  
• Wrote my first Maintenance Magazine article when regular maintenances were becoming a thing. Bored out of my mind with all those free hours all of a sudden and decided to review all my legends. That was the start of something beautiful and one of my most proud achievements. The reception has always been incredible, and I still thank the Mods for the sweet flair.
  
• Got so many blessings from you guys after announcing I was getting married. It was such a sweet, moving moment where I felt the warmth of this community for something totally unrelated to football.
  
• Pulled Pirlo on that fateful morning, and then embarked on the journey of "figuring him out". It all started as a personal quest out of pure admiration, but ultimately led to the creation of perhaps my most well-received piece of content.
  
• KONAMI has been giving out so many legends by the end of PES2020. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with MVB, Inzaghi, Del Piero (Rummi overrated imo), Rivaldo and Bergomi. I was also lucky enough to pull quite a few IMs this year, including Ronaldinho (beast), Owen (beast), Xabi Alonso (decent), Ljungberg (meh) and Robson (beast).
  

And alas, so ends my time with PES that lasted for nearly half a decade, yet all good things must come to an end. My biggest regret was probably never getting the chance to pull legend / IM Lampard, which is doubly sad given his current predicament of freshly being sacked. I've had a good run, a most sincere thank-you to all of you who appreciated my content, and my best wishes to all the faithful PES fans out there.
Cheers,
u/MarkLCM

It's that time of year again - several posts asking that admitted students withdraw from other schools early so that other students can take those slots. There's a lot of things wrong with this and I want to clarify them so none of you make a serious mistake.
1. Your applications and acceptances are yours. You paid the application fee, you did the work to warrant consideration, and you put the application together. Don't feel bad for other people who might get waitlisted or rejected. Keep your options open until you need to close them.
2. You aren't actually helping anyone. You can only take one spot at one college. Every top university will end up with full enrollment, like they do every single year. This is four years of your life and six figures of someone's money on the line - you owe it to yourself to make this decision based on what is best for you, not some random other applicant. That is not your problem and there is literally nothing you can do to help that person. Thinking you can is like helping the poor by not buying a lottery ticket, thereby increasing their odds of winning. It's silly.
3. Let colleges manage yield. Colleges admit people knowing full well that not all admitted students will enroll. They have a timeline for issuing acceptances, assessing enrollment, and addressing yield and the waitlist. They know way more about historical numbers and the current situation. You do not owe anyone else your spot.
4. Withdrawing early probably won't impact the waitlist timeline anyway. A lot of people say you should withdraw anyway so other students might find out their results sooner. According to former admissions officer FeatofClay:

I keep seeing this exhortation (that withdrawing helps waitlisted students get in earlier) on this community. I'm curious as to the source of this "conventional wisdom," and a sense of how many schools where this holds true.
There were years in the past when we'd use the pattern of March deposits to try to predict May 1 deposits, and we might admit more people in March and April since we anticipated being down on May 1. However, we learned that the "signals" we got in March ended up being too unreliable to change our admit plans. We don't do that anymore. So whether you say "no" on March 20 or on May 1, that wouldn't change the timing of decisions for students who were still waiting.

And even if it does move the timeline up, that's not your responsibility.
5. Don't try to "be nice" by giving up your spot at a college because your situation could change. This is the biggest reason not to withdraw early. Schools give different, often wildly different, financial aid packages (Seriously I've had students get $50K+ a year from Columbia and only $20K from WashU, as well as many other similar examples). Even if you have your heart set on a school and you got in, it might prove too expensive to be a viable option. Experience has shown that you will have an easier time negotiating for more financial aid if you have multiple offers. You could also have a family medical emergency, loss of employment, or other calamity that affects your decision on where to go. You could get threatened with rescinded admission for getting 2 Bs. You could decide you want to be closefurther from home. You could decide to major in bioengineering instead of economics and therefore switch from UChicago to Georgia Tech. There are hundreds of reasons why your plan could change, so don't close doors for yourself before you have to.
6. Read the details of the admissions agreement and follow them. Early action programs don't require you to withdraw other applications, so don't do it until you've made your decision. Early Decision programs usually do require that you withdraw other applications, but only after you have received your financial aid package (and it is affordable). Don't play games or try to find out where else you can get in just to inflate your ego. Keep your end of the agreement you signed. But also, don't withdraw your applications until you're SURE of where you're going.

The cannabis market right now is so similar to the start of the green energy market.. its nowhere near done being bullish. Save for some small dips, there will very likely be a huge bullish trend for 2021. EVEN NASDAQ AGREES. I’ve posted my positions a few times, and I’ll continue to do so. But this is my reasoning for investing in cannabis stocks in general for 2021.

• I've been a bull on cannabis since the democrats had a strong pro-cannabis platform. But what made me go balls deep into the market was that the UN changed its classification of cannabis. Countries follow the UN closely for guidance on their own classification of controlled substances. Congress has repeatedly cited the UN’s classification as one of the reasons for not changing it. Several countries immediately changed their stance on cannabis in response to this, including Israel, which In November 2020, announced that it was moving forward with a plan to legalize recreational cannabis nationally. “The country is aiming to implement recreational legalization within nine months, and even if there are delays, that means mid-to-late 2021.” (This is my reason for investing in Canadian cannabis companies, because they are already poised to expand internationally since its legal there nationwide)

​

• THE SENATE IS NOW BLUE! The Georgia runoffs were won by Democrats, and they can now swing the vote left with VP Harris. She promised it as part of her platform, so we know it will be prioritized. CHUCK SHUMER SPONSORED THE MORE ACT. HE WILL BE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER. IT WILL 100% BE PRIORITIZED BETWEEN HIM AND VP HARRIS.

​

• EVERYONE predicted beforehand that the republicans would win Georgia... everyone talked down decriminalization passing the house because of they believed it would NEVER pass the republican majority senate. But the left spent more than any senate race in history to encourage voters to go out and vote. Only once the race started did it become clear that the left had a chance. Then some gains from the surprise that they won. However the gains from 1/5 onwards definitely hasn’t been priced in for all the future legislation, because some of it will be completely new legislation that wasn’t possible to consider before without a blue senate. THIS HASN'T BEEN PRICED INTO THE MARKET YET.

​

• The SAFE BANKING ACT has bipartisan support, and is likely to pass BEFORE decriminalization because it is tied into some stimulus bills.

​

• The government is broke post-COVID. There is a terrible image of the police. They don’t want to waste more resources on cannabis related crimes that would be fixed under decriminalization. And the tax revenue from decriminalization would be significant. Decriminalization (THE MORE ACT) opens up the borders to interstate-commerce and international import/export. This would all trickle down into Uncle Sam’s empty pockets.

​

• New York Governor Cuomo announced on Jan 6 his plan to legalize marijuana for adult use (right after New Jersey vote, as I anticipated in my last post) as part of his State of the State agenda. The next step is a ripple out on the North East. NY didn’t want to miss out on tax revenue, neither will any of the other states in the northeast within driving distance of NJ and NY. This is Cuomo’s third attempt in three years to legalize adult-use cannabis in the state; last year, Cuomo included a legalization proposal in his state budget, but the plan was ultimately cut in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other ongoing state legislature:

• Rhode Island: Regulators have received 45 applications for six new medical cannabis dispensary licenses in the state. If all applicants meet the requirements for a license, six will randomly be selected in a lottery to operate retail locations in different regions across the state. Read more
• Missouri: Rep. Shamed Dogan has filed legislation that would place an adult-use cannabis legalization measure on the state’s 2022 ballot. Meanwhile, Missourians for a New Approach has announced plans for a separate 2022 ballot initiative after an unsuccessful signature campaign to get the issue before voters in 2020. Read more
• Alabama: Sen. Tim Melson plans to reintroduce a medical cannabis legalization bill this year. Medical cannabis legislation passed the Alabama Senate during the 2020 session, but failed to clear the House. Read more
• Illinois: Illinois lawmakers have proposed the creation of 75 new cannabis retail licenses to give disadvantaged and minority applicants a second chance at licensing following the controversial licensing lottery to issue an initial 75 dispensary licenses. A work group made up of lawmakers and members of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration met this week to finalize details of the bill, which will be introduced in a lame-duck session that starts Jan. 8, before new lawmakers are sworn in Jan. 13. Read more
• Minnesota: House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler is again renewing his push to legalize adult-use cannabis in the state, announcing plans to reintroduce a legalization bill this year. Winkler told WCCO that he sees “Senate leadership as being the number one obstacle,” but said that if lawmakers agreed to place an adult-use legalization initiative on Minnesota’s 2022 ballot, “it would pass overwhelmingly.” Read more
• Virginia: Del. Steve Heretick has reintroduced a bill to legalize adult-use cannabis. Heretick has proposed legislation related to decriminalization and legalization in the past, and this year’s bill would legalize the cultivation, sale and consumption of cannabis in the state. Read more
• Connecticut: Gov. Ned Lamont renewed his push for adult-use legalization during his State of the State address Jan. 6, announcing that it is a priority for the new legislative session. Connecticut’s 2021 legislative session opened Jan. 6, and Lamont, a Democrat, kicks off the session with increased majorities in the House and Senate, which could increase his chances of passing an adult-use legalization bill. Read more

Now that you understand why I’m going green, here’s my reasoning for my positions.
TLRY (Tilray)

• largest cannabis company in the world by revenue post merger. Will run out of Seattle and New York City. New York Legalization on top of senate turning blue is a big catalyst for TLRY.
• Merger hasn’t completed yet, and the merger happened before the senate went blue.. that was the gamble APHA was making, and they won. The sky is the limit now. When they merge, they will reduce expenses and be much more likely to post profitable quarters. (This is why mergers have so much hype; the sum is > than their parts because they can reduce operating expenses while maintaining revenue from the two companies)
• Tilray CEO Brendan Kennedy: “I think medical cannabis will be legal at the federal level, which means medical cannabis can cross state lines and be imported into the U.S., like we export cannabis from Canada and Portugal to about 15 countries now,” Kennedy said. “Anyone who thinks there’s a state-specific medical market is wrong.” As for the recreational market, Kennedy says the state-specific markets, with interstate trade banned, “are not going to last long.” Kennedy believes that cannabis will be distributed like alcohol and tobacco within two years’ time. That would require significant overhaul of US federal drug laws—and would significantly disrupt all US cannabis companies’ existing business models. Brendan Kennedy, the cannabis billionaire will step down as Tilray's chairman and CEO. Irwin D. Simon, Aphria's current chairman and CEO will take Kennedy's place.
• [On December 18, 2020, just three days after the U.S. Senate adopted the Cannabidiol and Marihuana Research Expansion Act (CMREA or the Act) (more on this below), the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA or the Administration) published in the Federal Register a final rule, “Controls To Enhance the Cultivation of Marihuana for Research in the United States” (Rule), which finally paves the way for DEA to issue additional licenses to grow “marihuana” (i.e., cannabis) for research purposes.](https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/on-heels-of-senate-s-adoption-of-36129/)

GNLN (Greenlane Holdings)

• One of the largest global sellers of premium cannabis accessories. Pax/JUUL/Volcano products. I’ve had Pax products, and although I prefer Arizer because of the affordability, I can’t deny Pax has quality products and is like the “iPhone” of vaporizers. I like their products, I like their branding. There’s lots of hype and loyalty, especially with their Volcano desktop vaporizer.
• Strong US brands.
• The main reason they did poorly was bad timing. They IPO’d during the year that JUULs started being banned. They’re actually at all those levels again. Theres a ton of upside potential.
• Market cap is ridiculously low for some really renown brands all because of the JUUL flavor pod ban. Everyone knows Pax, Volcano, and JUUL. But no one knows Greenlane because of the bad timing of their IPO and the subsequent JUUL flavor ban. It’s crazy. They’ve already broke all time high for the year. But I’m holding until they break 1B market cap.
• Recently became the exclusive distributor for the world's first gravity powered contactless water hookah.
• Overall i think too many people count it out just because of their IPO and subsequent decline in JUUL sales from the JUUL flavored pods ban. They definitely have the potential because of their strong branding and quality products. I’m betting on them having more high quality products in the future with equally loyal customers.

​
SNDL (Sundial Growers)

• SNDL must close above $1 per share for 10 consecutive sessions by June 26, 2021 or it will be delisted from NASDAQ. People see this as a fear factor, I see this as “they will do anything necessary to reach $1 for a week so they won’t be delisted”.. IMHO reverse splitter probably isn’t on the table since they could have done that in 2020, but instead applied for a 6 month extension after announcing “alternative strategic investments”. We can already see this by their predatory loan SPAC spinoff.
• Rumors of a merger with CGC; SNDL also purchased a SPAC recently and entered an agreement with Zenabis, immediately claiming they defaulted. Turning that SPAC into predatory loan/debt repurchasing company. Imo if they want to complete a merger, it would be easy to sell ownership through that SPAC to the buyer.
• THEY RECENTLY WENT DEBT FREE by selling off unprofitable assets in the business. This means we are much more likely to see earnings in future quarters, and they are much more attractive for mergers.
• Because they are indoor growers, they are more likely to be bought up by a company in the consolidating Canadian cannabis market than fail all together. The amount of space licensed to grow cannabis in Canada is now heavily skewed toward outdoor cultivation instead of indoor for the first time, according to new data from Health Canada. A growing population of licenses for outdoor growers means that there aren’t as many indoor licenses being given out... If a company ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD wants to quickly expand into indoor growing OR into the west, they would have to purchase an existing company that has the license to quickly do so. This is WAY faster, and a guaranteed way to obtain a license rather than applying for one and waiting x amount of months and be rejected for some requirement that wasn’t met.
• From my own experience, outdoor cannabis is subpar quality to indoor grown cannabis. So a growing market for outdoor cannabis doesn’t necessarily mean its better... it is likely just cheaper. I would imagine a high quality “craft cannabis” company would want to purchase SNDL, or an existing outdoor growing company that wants to quickly expand to indoor grown cannabis. With this being a Canadian company, there’s a chance a company in another country like Israel would be interested in purchasing it in the near future.

​
PLNHF (Planet 13 Holdings)

• Biggest tourist trap in Las Vegas if you’re a stoner, casual smoker, or just wanting to try it. From my own experience, I think they will continue to be successful. If I went around the US trying other brands I’d probably be more confident in putting 5-10% of my portfolio into those picks or choosing to not include them lol. Like for example, I used to have Curaleaf. But there's tons of bad feedback on Curaleaf, a friend has tried it said the nug is really subpar quality and if I tried their nug I’d probably confirm that I wouldn’t want to invest in them. With PLNHF, i’ve seen the ambience and tried the product myself. It’s definitely a lot of hype price wise, but still quality. This is my own bias showing, but I still think they’ve got solid fundamentals and excellent location/strong US branding.

​
I’m well aware of other good stocks like GTBIF, CRLBF, SSPK, TCNNF, GRWG.. but these stocks haven’t been swinging as hard in response to pro-cannabis news. E.g. TLRY, SNDL, GNLN swung more than 20% some days from pro-cannabis news...I will likely reduce my current positions shortly after inauguration, after some news about the timeline for cannabis legislation, and diversify my positions more between these other good picks.
​
2021 is the year of cannabis boys

I had started writing a post about what the next steps for the franchise could entail when I realized that a huge amount of it revolves around one guy... the player return we got from the Harden trade who happens to be entering Unrestricted Free Agency in a few months.
When the news came through that we had traded LeVert for Oladipo, many assumed that it was just a move to reduce salary by Tilman, but I reject that as overly pessimistic. Oladipo in his prime (which was not long ago at all) was a 2-time All Star and one of the premier defensive shooting guards in the league. His horrific injury has taken a bit of time to come back from, and worried Indiana enough to scare them off from wanting to deal with re-signing him to the max contract he will be requesting in Free Agency next summer. They saw so much value in having LeVert locked up on a cheaper deal for extra years that they were willing to take him on with his cancer concerns instead of dealing with a potential max deal for Vic. I don't see this as a salary move from Tilman so much as I see it as a gamble on a player returning from injury by Stone. Between taking chances on Wall, Boogie, and Nwaba, hoping players can come back from bad injuries is a common thread in his gambles and seems to be his "M.O.", so I'm thinking he honestly hopes Victor can come back to a significant percentage of his peak level.
Trading Harden for a younger All-Star SG +8 FRP assets is a massive coup of a deal... if Oladipo is capable of playing close to the level he was at before his injury.
Unfortunately, Victor hasn't gotten back to that level yet... But he isn't that far away, either. He has flashed his potential several times, but has had an equal number of horrific shooting nights. This lack of consistency is problematic, but if he could stabilize around the level of his better performances (which he is obviously capable of), there isn't really a question that he would be worth a near-max deal if not a full max.
Obviously, getting that consistency back is his primary goal and there is no reason to believe that it isn't our hope for him as well. If he does, then we can feel safe signing him to a long-term deal or, if he returns to form quickly enough, we can flip him for more assets.
The first option there is relatively straight forward. Re-signing him if he is close to his old production levels is a no-brainer. You've seen the reports that neither side are giving committed answers one way or the other at this point, which is sensible in terms of leverage in negotiations. Both sides know that he has more to prove and if he doesn't prove it, there isn't a good reason to offer him a max deal next summer. Some team will likely do it anyway, and there is even a chance that it may be us; but saying we are looking to do it before seeing that proof of play is a bad move (especially with no guarantee that another team will do it). It would be a mistake to offer him $34M/yr with 8% increases if he doesn't show serious progression from his current level of play. The question is... at what point does it no longer become a mistake?
Here is a list of available UFAs next summer (from Hoops Rumors):

2021 Unrestricted Free Agents

Point Guards

• Alex Caruso (27)
• Mike Conley (34)
• Quinn Cook (28)
• Matthew Dellavedova (31)
• Dante Exum (26)
• Shaquille Harrison (28)
• Reggie Jackson (31)
• Kyle Lowry (35)
• T.J. McConnell (29)
• Patty Mills (33)
• Raul Neto (29)
• Cameron Payne (27)
• Elfrid Payton (27)
• Derrick Rose (33)
• Dennis Schröder (28)
• Ish Smith (33)
• Jeff Teague (33)

Shooting Guards

• Sterling Brown (26)
• Reggie Bullock (30)
• Alec Burks (30)
• Wayne Ellington (34)
• Evan Fournier (29)
• Langston Galloway (30)
• Danny Green (34)
• Tyler Johnson (29)
• Furkan Korkmaz (24)
• Patrick McCaw (26)
• Ben McLemore (28)
• E’Twaun Moore (32)
• Victor Oladipo (29)
• J.J. Redick (37)
• Jerome Robinson (24)
• Iman Shumpert (31)
• Tony Snell (30)
• Garrett Temple (35)
• Denzel Valentine (28)
• Lou Williams (35)

Small Forwards

• Trevor Ariza (36)
• Nicolas Batum (33)
• Kent Bazemore (32)
• Torrey Craig (31)
• DeMar DeRozan (32)
• James Ennis (31)
• Tim Hardaway Jr. (29)
• Maurice Harkless (28)
• Solomon Hill (30)
• Stanley Johnson (25)
• Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot (26)
• Wesley Matthews (35)
• Doug McDermott (29)
• Darius Miller (31)
• Abdel Nader (28)
• David Nwaba (28)
• Kelly Oubre (26)
• Otto Porter (28)
• Glenn Robinson III (27)
• JaKarr Sampson (28)

Power Forwards

• Carmelo Anthony (37)
• Nemanja Bjelica (33)
• Marquese Chriss (24)
• Gorgui Dieng (31)
• Jared Dudley (36)
• Rudy Gay (35)
• Taj Gibson (36)
• Jeff Green (35)
• James Johnson (34)
• Trey Lyles (26)
• Paul Millsap (36)
• Markieff Morris (32)
• Mike Muscala (30)
• Georges Niang (28)
• Semi Ojeleye (27)
• Jabari Parker (26)
• Patrick Patterson (32)
• Mike Scott (33)
• P.J. Tucker (36)

Centers

• LaMarcus Aldridge (36)
• Khem Birch (29)
• Bismack Biyombo (29)
• DeMarcus Cousins (31)
• Ed Davis (32)
• Andre Drummond (28)
• Cristiano Felicio (29)
• Harry Giles (23)
• Udonis Haslem (41)
• Willy Hernangomez (27)
• Richaun Holmes (28)
• Dwight Howard (36)
• Mfiondu Kabengele (24)
• Frank Kaminsky (28)
• Enes Kanter (29)
• Luke Kornet (26)
• Alex Len (28)
• Robin Lopez (33)
• Boban Marjanovic (33)
• JaVale McGee (33)
• Nerlens Noel (27)
• Kelly Olynyk (30)
• Daniel Theis (29)
• Moritz Wagner (24)
• Hassan Whiteside (32)
• Cody Zeller (29)

Although there are some interesting names on the list, unless Schroeder ends up with a FMVP or Jrue Holiday or Kawhi Leonard decide to leave their teams, Victor Oladipo is probably going to be the most sought-after Free Agent next summer. A fair number of teams have max space, so it is likely that he will get his max deal from somewhere. Oladipo has expressed interest in Miami, but they aren't likely to have a max slot available after signing Bam to his extension. A number of other teams do have plenty of space available, though, including the Knicks, Bulls, and Spurs.
If you can't see where I'm going with this, the question is... should we also consider being a team that offers him a max contract? Obviously we don't want to get caught up in a bad contract that prevents us from missing out on other Free Agents! Well, who else on that list strikes you as someone we should spend money on? There are some interesting names. Harry Giles... Otto Porter... Hey, maybe we could get Kelly Oubre!
But anyone we would want will also be wanted by another team, and there will be a bidding war that also makes that guy overpaid. In short, I'm suggesting that year 1 of an Oladipo max would not be a problem even if it were an overpay.
Well what about year 2? Here is a list of available FAs the following summer:

Unrestricted Free Agents

Point Guards

• Patrick Beverley (34)
• Michael Carter-Williams (31)
• Stephen Curry (34)
• Tyus Jones (26)
• Rajon Rondo (36)
• Terry Rozier (28)
• Ricky Rubio (32)
• Delon Wright (30)

Shooting Guards

• Gary Harris (28)
• Jeremy Lamb (30)
• Zach LaVine (27)
• Marcus Smart (28)

Small Forwards

• Kyle Anderson (29)
• Danuel House (29)
• Wesley Iwundu (28)
• Josh Jackson (25)
• Jake Layman (28)
• Taurean Prince (28)
• T.J. Warren (29)

Power Forwards

• Robert Covington (32)
• Dorian Finney-Smith (29)
• Aaron Gordon (27)
• Joe Ingles (35)

Centers

• Thomas Bryant (25)
• Marc Gasol (37)
• Jahlil Okafor (27)
• Tristan Thompson (31)
• Jonas Valanciunas (30)

Zach LaVine is obviously the highlight here. Aaron Gordon and Terry Rozier are some other interesting names (and it's worth pointing out that Brooklyn's Big 3 could opt-out and enter FA). Is the hope of convincing Zach LaVine to sign here worth leaving open space for? Maybe you think so, but I'd suggest it's not.
Because here's the thing...
We can trade Oladipo.
Obviously we can trade him in the next 7 weeks, but we can trade him after re-signing him, too. In fact, as long as he doesn't get re-injured or regress horribly (the latter being something we can probably determine this year if you aren't already convinced), it won't be so hard to move his contract. A 30% max contract is not the problem that a 35% supermax represents. Any of the big name Free Agents could be sign and traded by their teams in return for Oladipo. If his contract has turned negative, we may need to include a pick or two... but we have a lot of those! And using them to move a bad contract as a way to sign a top-tier FA really isn't a waste of picks. It's essentially the same thing as using picks to trade for a superstar (WHICH WE CAN ALSO DO! more on that in a minute). Using Oladipo as salary filler in future trades is a good reason on its own to keep him around. There is a chance the deal will look like an overpay, but unless he has a horrific injury or falls off a cliff (which doesn't seem likely, imo), it isn't going to be that negative.
Victor will make over $10M/yr less than Harden is scheduled to make next year. Add that to an increased salary cap, and we can probably re-sign him to a max, re-sign Nwaba with Early Bird Rights, and along with Wall, Gordon, Wood, House, Tate, KJ, Ma$e and KPJ, have room to use the MLE and still fill out a roster while remaining under the tax.
It's basically this year's roster minus PJ, Ben, and Brown, but with an MLE signing to help out. Is that a Championship roster? No. It is competitive and has significant upside if the youth improve and the vets recover further from injury, but Wall and Oladipo are not the top-tier superstar needed to win a title.
But either one of them could easily be the 3rd best guy on a Championship team (with the other being sent away as salary match if/when such a deal arises) and resigning Vic - even to a max contract, if necessary - allows us time to find a trade for a superstar (or sign one in Free Agency by trading one of our guards).
I hear you calling me crazy for suggesting it. But what are the alternatives? Let's game plan them out, too. The popular idea is trading Vic before the deadline for more assets. This is not a bad idea... in fact, it may even be a better plan than re-signing him... but only if he can bring back a good deal.
What does a good trade for Oladipo look like? Well, in his prime he was a decidedly better player than Jrue Holliday, who just got traded for a decent player in Eric Bledsoe as well as 3 FRPs. It's unlikely that Oladipo will return to that form in the next 7 weeks (although not impossible, especially with the extra opportunity that Wood's injury affords him), but if he continues to flash that level of potential, we would be getting robbed to let go of him for anything less than 2 very lightly protected FRPs.
If that's the price for someone to trade for him, do you see it happening? I really don't. Maybe we get lucky and Miami gets desperate. Maybe another contender with assets to spare (there aren't so many left) decides to throw down an offer with hopes of a promise that he will re-sign (likely a max contract) with them. Again, I don't see this as likely. It would be great if it happens, though!
No, it is unlikely we can trade Oladipo for more than a FRP and some expiring filler. Now you may think that sounds like a good deal, but is it? Certainly it isn't good compared to what New Orleans got for Jrue, and while Oladipo doesn't look as good as Holiday right now, he undeniably has the potential to look that good. So the question is, do we certainly lose value on him by trading him on the cheap, or do we take a risk of losing value if he can't regain max-contract form. The former is obviously safer, the latter could obviously blow up if he has a career-ending injury (but it could also pay off with significantly higher rewards than a FRP).
So unless we get a lucky deal, it comes down to what our appetite for risk is. I'd say roll the dice on Vic. He's only 28, so age is not really a factor on his next contract. It's completely a question of how close to his old self he can return to. We've seen some promising signs in the short season so far, and will now get a month of real opportunity to gather information on him.
And here's the biggest problem with trading him for bad value... if we trade him for a pick without getting a very solid player in return, our roster will absolutely get worse. It drops us from our current status of 'bottom bracket playoff team' to 'No-Mans land'... being in the 9-12 range.
That's a horrible spot to land. If we are there, it makes more sense to tank, leading us into the last section of this essay on guarding our assets...
DON'T TANK
It's 2 AM here and I've been writing for too long, so I'm gonna make this short and sweet.
Tanking sucks. Losing sucks. We don't want to be losers if we can be semi-competitive. Showing a commitment to winning attracts Free Agents, keeps Wood happy, and allows us to maintain a franchise that is literally one piece away from being right back as a contender.
We are not Oklahoma City. Free Agents want to play in Houston. Maybe its not LA, NY, or Miami, but there aren't many other cities above us on the list of destinations. If we trade for a guy, he's liable to stay. We don't need to rely on high draft picks to get talent.
(side note: tanking is not even a reliable way of getting talent! Between reduced lottery odds and the uncertainty of high picks panning out, it's a bad way to depend on getting a superstar. Philly and OKC are the closest examples of it 'working out' and those were under the old lottery odds... now it would be significantly harder. Additionally, remaining competitive keeps our Brooklyn pick swaps in play as being assets. If we sell all assets and aim for the bottom, then it will be a long climb out in which at least 2 and quite possibly 3 of our swaps are basically completely surrendered, whereas keeping competitive can allow those swaps to become quite valuable even if the Nets don't bottom out as badly as they did for Boston. Not to mention the increased danger of giving much better picks to OKC)
Signing or trading for stars are MUCH more reliable methods... and we now have the picks to trade with. So that should be our preferred path to contention. Wait for the next top-tier superstar to become unhappy and fire away to get him. Only OKC and NO can compete with our picks package (and we can offer a decent player in return as an additional bonus!)
So when that next disgruntled star shakes free (which has happened more and more frequently), we stand poised to strike stronger than any team in the league.
A new era of contenders is on the horizon. The Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, and Nets are aging out. The Nuggets and Celtics are the types of teams we look to be competing against in a few years. Those are the superstars we need to be worrying about for now... not the old guard, but the young ones. Tanking next year puts us way behind in a rebuild that is only one move away. So get those thoughts out of your heads. We can compete with those teams with Wood, another star, and Oladipo or Wall along with all our promising young talent.
We will be back sooner than anyone expects. And as surprising as it sounds, the first step may well be signing Oladipo to a max contract next summer.

This is going to be a really long post, so read it at your pace. I'll try my best to make it worthwhile but I ain't much of a good writer.
​
Genshin Impact has been released since 28th of September and so far the game has received a lot of mixed reactions from the players and most of them not being good ones. Let's dig into them. So this is a criticism/feedback/bitching/complaining post or whatever you like to call it.
​
First of all What is Genshin Impact?
This is something even the game itself doesn't know and is what's confused most of the people around and is what created the first problem. Genshin has severe identity crisis. It's a JRPG? It's a Mobile gacha game? It's a AAA title aimed for all?
The game tried to find something in between all this and created the mess we see today.
You see people trying to defend the game by saying "This is a Gacha game. This is how it works. This is how it's been for years." Now all these things are complete BS.
Genshin isn't and was never intended to be your typical mobile gacha. It tried to appeal to the mainstream audience. The instant Genshin was being developed for PC, Switch and PS4 it rose above your typical Gacha game. It wanted to cater to the mainstream crowd. Now this creates the very big problem that is the difference between Mainstream gamers like PC, PS4, Switch and Gacha Addict mobile market. While gacha addicted mobile gamers are used to being fcked over by shitty practices by those companies, the mainstream crowd is different. Some of them are completely new to the gacha system. Just accept the fact that gacha is a very bad monetization model, some games have implemented it in a nicer way which actually isn't bad, but Genshin monetization is just straight up ridiculous.
Genshin was promoted as JRPG from the very beginning instead of being your usual gacha mobile game. This is where most of the mainstream players expectations shattered. Things like being limited by stamina system for play is a norm practice in mobile games(Not all games do this but most of them do) BUT it's not in the mainstream market and this is something which is not acceptable when you go for broader market. You can't just expect them to conform to your shitty stamina system and be all happy happy. You're gonna get backlash.
​
Resin(this absolute piece of shit item in Genshin)
Resin system is just ridiculous. While being already bad in the first place, it's way worse compared to even the stamina system of other mobile gacha games. Almost 95% of the stuff you do in the game is locked behind resin system. You wanna farm Mora? go spend resin, you wanna farm exp? go spend resin, you wanna farm artifacts? go spend resin, you wanna farm upgrade materials? go spend resin. What's even more ridiculous is the amount you need per dungeons, bosses and the amount you get.
​
Resin is capped at 120. So you can run hypostasis 3 times and poof it's gone. Once you get to higher level even running hypostasis 3 times doesn't give you enough material to level up your character. The regen rate is also crap 1 resin per 8 minutes.
​
This doesn't stop here. One of the shittiest thing in the game is the weekly bosses.
YOU CAN FCKING FIGHT IT ONCE A WEEK AND IT'S STILL WALLED BEHIND RESIN. Can you see double the bs here. On top of being only available once a week you still need to spend 60 Resin just to collect rewards. The sheer amount of bs is ridiculous.
​
Let's talk Experience
To raise your character. The very first laughable thing is that beating monsters of lv60 gives you 14-15 Character exp. I mean why even have it in the first place. This is just shitty on the face of people. You need to fight monsters for months then maybe you can raise one Level of your character. The sheer amount of stupidness that fighting monsters doesn't give you Exp is just wow. You get most of the exp from those Exp Books(Adventurer's exp, Hero's Wit). And guess what you need to spend resin to get those. And what's another fcked up thing is that one run costs 20 resin and doesn't even give you enough to level up even 1 level. Yes you can get it from chests and quests but you'll run out way too soon once you reach higher levels.
​
Money walks in now which is Mora.
You need iirc 60000 Mora just to ascend a character and a lv35 Leyline gives you 44000. The amount of Mora you need to upgrade gears and characters is once again another very bad thing. You can spend few days farming 1 Million Mora and guess what it'll be gone in a poof once you get upgrade 3-4 artifacts(which you'll get fcked along the way. We'll get to that). Everything in the game needs mora be it levelling up character, talents, artifacts, weapons. The amount needed is 100x more than what you are earning. You'll always be short on this.
​
Comes in the Artifact now
You have greater chance of winning a lottery ticket than rolling good stats on the artifacts. The amount of RNG implemented on Artifacts is baffling.
First you need a good main stat(Pray to RNG), then you good secondary stats. Did you know these are also assigned via RNG. Then once you upgrade the artifact additional stats are assigned based on RNG. Once you keep upgrading the artifacts existing sub stats are upgraded(based on RNG) and more new Sub stats are assigned(Based on RNG) which are further upgraded(based on RNG). Those are whole 6-7 layers of RNG to get a good Artifact. So yeah you're better off praying of being able to kamehameha than getting a good Artifact.
You can say that no problem I'm a hardcore grinder I'll farm them till I get them. But then Resin comes and grabs your a$$ and puts you in place.
Oh did you also know that Artifact drops are RNG!? Also Domains drops multiple type of artifacts you on top praying to get a good artifact main stat, first you need to pray to get the artifact at all. And you need to do this with 6 runs per day ONLY IF YOU GRIND SINGLE DOMAIN AND NEGLECT EVERYTHING ELSE.
​
Now Don't ya worry because in comes the weapons upgrade materials
Weapon ascension materials are dropped from different domains and you need 20 resin per run and need to do multiple runs to get enough material to ascend your weapon.
​
Talent Books have joined the Chat
You thought it was over, but it was I the talent books. Yet another piece of upgrade material which drops from yet different type of domains that require resin. Higher levels require 9 per talent level to upgrade and the domain drops 1 per run.
​
Now what's the center of all the problems mentioned above? IT'S RESIN!
This single piece of item limits everything you can do in the game. The only thing you can do in this game without resin is just farming chests which(don't even get me started on this) are just another piece of shit in the game. Chest rewards are very very underwhelming. It's isn't worth farming them except for that Adventure Exp. Have you ever played a Open world RPG which limits 95% of the content behind such a system? This is one of the biggest bs in the game.
So yeah what's the game at higher levels? You login -> burn resin in 10 minutes -> you get trash -> you curse -> you logout -> rinse and repeat. Basically you're a trash collector.
​
​
Congratulations you've made it so far. Now that the resin is done we look at another horrendous aspect of the game that is Monetization and Gacha.
Now for all those white knights out there just accept the fact that the gacha rate is horrendous. 0.6% to get a 5 star character is way too low. As the CN guy said it's just double the rate of a glass blowing up.
Gacha has been for around quite a while. There are examples of good and bad gachas all around. BUT GENSHIN FALLS INTO THE WORST ONE.
You have 0.6 rate to get a 5 star character which is basically non existent and you get pity at 90 pulls. Here's comes another scummy part. At 90 pulls you have 50% chance to get the UP characters. See this bs. It's actually a pity but not a pity. You can pull 90 times but are still reliant on RNG to get you the desired character. Real pity comes at 180 Pulls which is just straight up ridiculous. 180 pulls are 32000 primogems and converting them to real life money that's a whopping $400 just one Freaking 5 star character. That's like whole month worth of food.
and Congrats if you got the 5 star character cuz that's not his full potential. You need another 6 of him to max him. So in worst case you're looking at $2400 just to max out one 5 star character. Holy flames this shit.
4 star rate is also so low that you rarely get them out of 10 pull pity which is just another scummy practice.
Cost for primogems is yet another crappy practice to greed money. $100 gives you 8800 primogems which are about 55 pulls. This is not even enough to hit that initial pity of 90 pulls let alone that 180 one.
​
Monthly Pass and Battle Pass
Another two methods of monetization that the game uses. These two are absolutely worthless. Now you may say that Monthly Pass is actually really good value. You can get 3000 Primogems for $5 which is a steal. and Yes it could have been good had the rates been decent.
Just look at what 3000 primogems net you. A 4 star character you don't want? A useless 4 star weapon? or will you hold out on to hope that it will give you a 5 star character? Even after spending money you are still reliant on that small chance to get something good.
Battle Pass. Oh don't get me started on this piece of crap. It's the single worst BP I've seen during my whole gaming life. From those ridiculous requirements which force you spend primogems to refresh resin to the locking of weekly Exp, this is just accumulation of every single crap lying around. Not even worth a shit.
​
Achievements
This doesn't fall under Monetization but is another bs aspect of the game that I'd like to discuss. Achievements spit in the face of the player. Collecting 100 chests gives you 10 primogems. and what's that number? That's 1/16 the amount you need for one damn pull. Even if we count the primogems you get from those 100 chests it nets you 200(2 from each) + 10 = 210 primogems which doesn't even amount to two pulls. I feel like this system is there just to mock the player.
​
Hats of to you. You've made it this far. Next we move on to other aspects.
​
COMMUNITY
First of all I'm very happy that people are shitting on these crappy practices and voicing their opinions. There's definitely no need to accept these types of things. Once you accept this, they'll go even lower next time.
Along with this I'm baffled at the people still trying to defend such scummy tactics. Take a look at these posts
https://www.reddit.com/Genshin_Impact/comments/j799kw/i_will_say_my_biggest_tip_to_enjoy_the_game_and/
https://www.reddit.com/Genshin_Impact/comments/j7atw9/my_take_on_the_negative_reviews_as_a_long_time/
I won't go into any of them. Feel free to look at them yourselves.
CN players are not happy and they're bashing the game everywhere and trying to make sure their voice is heard. This is what we also need to do. Some people say that "It's a Chinese Company. It won't matter whether you bitch here". This is 100% bs. This is not just a chinese game. It's released worldwide for everybody to play. They have people everywhere looking at stuff. So voice you complaints wherever you want official discord, forums, reddit, twitter, youtube, in game feedback.
Keep in mind if you don't speak at all nothing will ever change. Once they receive enough backlash from their playerbase things will get better. The community definitely has the power to change things,
Youtube channels
To be honest I was hoping for those youtube channels would bring up some of those concerns of the community but nope. Every single one of them is dripping wet for Genshin and just screaming into the mics.
"5 AWESOME TIPS FOR GENSHIN". "5 INSANE TIPS FOR GENSHIN". "5 SUPER DUPER INSANE TIPS FOR GENSHIN". "5 TIPS FOR GENSHIN TO LEVEL UP AND GET THAT HOT MILF IN YOUR AREA".
I don't mean to criticize those channels, they may create content they want, but a good chunk of community watches those channels so bringing issues with the game will definitely help.
​
"This is a Gacha Game. This is how it's supposed to be. If you don't like it quit it. You aren't enjoying the game" ---- Genshin Impact Whiteknights
First of all I have absolutely no need to hear from someone how to enjoy my game so yeah get the hell outta here with this advice.
And for all you sorry a$$ mobile gacha gaming gambling addicts out there get it through your thick skulls of yours that GENSHIN IS NOT A MOBILE GACHA GAME.
This is something even the game tries to achieve but fails very hard to do so. It wanted to be something more than your typical gacha game but in the end it's own system doomed it.
From the start Genshin is being marketed as OPEN WORLD JRPG rather than a gacha game. It also has every aspect of open world rpgs cuz that's what the game is. It is also a game that it playable on PC and console rather than mobile. 90% of the mobiles don't even run the game good. The moment Genshin touched the PC, Switch and PS4 platforms it needed to shed the skin of mobile gacha gaming concepts.
Currently the Genshin Impact for high level player is login -> burn resin in 10-15 minutes -> logout.
This is how you play Mobile Gacha games. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU PLAY PC, PS4 OR FOR THAT MATTER MAINSTREAM GAMES. This part is limited to mobile gaming. It has absolutely no place in the mainstream market cuz most of the time people play for longer hours on these systems.
Genshin is not a game that you'll play waiting at a bus stop for 5-10 minutes or waiting for your friend at the cafe. The game wants you to play it like a full RPG. and in here comes the point where the game contradicts itself.
It wants you play the game but limits it greatly or just 99% behind a stamina system.
See the absolute madness in this? This is where the greed comes in. It's where they sell Resin refills. Look at the $20 BP with extra resin, look at weekly packs in the shop selling resin. The sheer ridiculousness of the game selling you stamina just to play the game. For people waiting for the feature to pet the dogs, just hope that it doesn't cost you 20 resin to do so or they are only pettable once a week.
​
Even as a gacha game Genshin Impact is a big disappointment
This is coming from my experience as a gacha gamer. The game is literal crap when compared to other gacha games. You've got examples of great gacha games like Azur Lane around(I'm saying comparatively better, not that other ones don't have problems) but still it choose to go with worst ones.
​
​
I have nothing expect gratitude for you for reading this so far. Next we move on to the final segment that is the Company Itself.
​
Mihoyo
The final boss of all is Mihoyo itself and they themselves have been really scummy and shitty.
So far they have been completely turning a blind eye and not listening to the people at all. Starting from the very first CBT to the OBT they have received constant feedback but have completely neglected the main parts which include resin and monetization. Now keep in mind that Mihoyo is not a new company. They have been in the market for years. Their other mobile game Honkai Impact 3 is very big in CN and also quite popular in global too. Throughout constant feedback from players and being in market they have learned what's good and what's bad.
And the shittiest thing is that they choose to completely ignore it and push there scummy tactics. Let's see some of them....
​
The first and very obvious one being the gacha and monetization. Monetization was available during the CBT3 on CN server. It received quite a feedback due to rates being so low. But they still didn't change a thing. They just rolled it exactly the same way meaning they didn't pay any heed to the feedback regarding the monetization. They know about gacha and what's good and bad about it but still purposely chose to go with the shittiest kind of gacha.
​
Unskippable Cutscenes. Let's just accept it that the only reason the cutscenes are unskippable is because they want to prevent people from rerolling accounts. Though it didn't prevent them but it was their intention. That's why they even went as far as banning accounts who pulled 5 star but had no activity for 24 hours or so but didn't even touch those accounts that only had 4 stars. Criticism threads on the official forums are being deleted. Just another scummy tactic.
​
There have been constant bashing on CN forums since 15th, taptap score is 4.7 and on other forums too. Yet they still haven't considered any of them and are just ignoring their playerbase completely.
​
What's Mihoyo trying to do?
At this point it's either two possibilities one that either they didn't research enough into the mainstream audience or it's just deliberate. And the chance of it being the former is let's say 0.6
It seems like rather than catering to what the mainstream playerbase expects, Mihoyo is trying to lure them into the shady and absolute bs world of Mobile Gacha gaming. This is what garnered so much hate from the mainstream audience. While the gacha gaming addicts are used to being fcked over by these scummy tactics all year around, this is not the case with others. Some of them are even completely new to the terms like Gacha. And just accept the fact that Gacha is a horrendous system of monetization. Like Gigguk said "Who said gacha is like drugs. Drugs are way cheaper." To any sane person this model of monetization is absolute bs and it is. Even among this Monetization Genshin goes for the worst one their is. So yeah expecting a whole different player crowd to shut up and just fall into crappy and scummy practices is not gonna work and is definitely gonna blow up in your face.
And I hope that people continue to bash such systems cuz if such kind of system is accepted it will shift many other aspects to the shittier side and thing will continue to get worse. This is the reason why mobile gacha gaming is so bad. The devs pushed poorer rates and people just sat there and accepted it blowing thousands on such practices. This is the reason why something like 0.6% chance to get a 5 star character exists. It's derived from the Mobile Gacha Gaming.
​
​
What's all these complaining posts? Why don't you just enjoy the game?
FCKING STOP PROTECTING/WHITE KNIGHTING THESE SCUMMY PRACTICES. First of all get it through your thick skulls that the who are doing the so called "complaining" are doing it because they love the game and WANT IT TO BE BETTER. They aren't doing it out of spite or anything.
You can dismiss a few troll threads when a user is hating without a reason anywhere. But know that when multiple people are complaining about one thing it means there is something wrong with that. People are making long posts giving proper reasons as to why something is bad and giving a reply like "This is how it is. Quit if you don't like it." is a rotten and crappy mindset.
The reason people are taking their time to write of such lengthy posts is because they genuinely love the game and want it to be better and more awesome. That's why something called "FEEDBACK" exists in this world. As it stands the game is just heading to its doom and the people trying to prevent it are the ones who care about it. People giving crappy answers are contributing nothing to it.
And let me ask this question why do you have to fcking head crash into people who care? Is it bad that the game gets better and everybody enjoys it rather than your sorry a$$ of a gacha gambling addict.
A fact is that if things get better these so called white knights will be jumping in joy too. BUT THERE IS ONE VERY BIG DIFFERENCE. They will call it like "Wow! mihoyo is so generous. They're the best devs in the world." rather than actually crediting it to the people who made the change possible.
​
FINAL WORDS
The game itself is very beautiful. The awesome Open world map, absolutely banger soundtrack all are just too good. I absolutely love the game itself. But the current game system is very flawed and this needs to addressed as soon as possible.
If Genshin Impact stays like this, it will be removed from the mainstream audience. That's why changes need to occur if they want this crowd to stay, otherwise if all want is just money then they'll carry on with these shitty practices.
Know that at the end of all this if nothing is changed Genshin will just be another Generic Mobile Gacha Game where you'll save primogems for months for a char -> Get fcked by abyssal rates -> Curse the devs and game -> Go to sleep -> Rinse and repeat and if you enjoy it that's good for you. What sucks the most is that a game with so much potential will be ruined.

The Utah Jazz are having a moment. They’re 20-5 with the league’s best Net Rating. No one has buyer’s remorse on the Rudy Gobert contract extension. Everyone is suddenly a Jordan Clarkson fan. And Mike Conley could finally make his first All-Star game.
It must also be mentioned that up until recently Utah’s core has been unusually healthy.
Aside from the two games that Donovan Mitchell missed last month due to a concussion, and Mike Conley’s recent hamstring flare-up, Utah has been the picture of health. So far, the Jazz have used only three different starting lineups all season. Only the Sacramento Kings, who are on a hot streak of their own, have used fewer.
https://imgur.com/VwLwaoG
The chart above shows the cumulative number of different starting lineups each team has rolled out over the course of the season. Teams are ordered by their total number of starting lineups used as a percentage of games played.
The Miami Heat sit atop the chart, having used 16 different starting lineups in their first 24 games. The Heat have had to rejigger their starting lineup every other game due to COVID health protocols and other general nicks and scratches. According to data from Spotrac.com, nine players on the Heat have missed a combined 30 games due to health and safety protocols. Only the Dallas Mavericks have more games missed for the same reasons.
Compare Miami and Sacramento in the chart below, which visualizes the number of distinct starting lineups each team has used. Both Miami and Sacramento have played the same number of games, but one team has had to use eight times as many different starting lineups as the other. Is it really shocking then that the Kings are a .500 team while Miami has stumbled out of the blocks? Or compare the suddenly spunky San Antonio Spurs, who have only used five different starting lineups, to the Dallas Mavericks, who have used 12 different starting lineups—and none for longer than five games. Is it starting to make sense why the Spurs are the sixth seed in the Western Conference while the Mavericks are in the lottery?
https://imgur.com/GTMeSg6
It’s tempting to say that good teams are healthy teams, but if we want to be specific it’s more accurate to say that most of the early season surprises come down to health. Many of the teams that are playing surprisingly well this season have had a high amount of continuity in their starting lineups. At the same time, the teams that are playing surprisingly poorly are basically using a random lineup generator.
One way to think about this idea is to look at the relationship between how well a team is playing relative to their expectations coming into the season and how much continuity they’ve had in their starting lineup. The chart below shows each team’s current win-percentage above or below their projected win-percentage from the preseason (based on their oveunder win total) versus the number of different starting lineups they’ve used, adjusted for games played.
https://imgur.com/OU11zdH
Any team above zero on the horizontal axis is winning more games than would have been expected coming into the season, while teams below the dotted line are winning fewer games than expected. Although the relationship is not a perfect one-to-one, you can draw a linear trendline running from the top left of the chart to the bottom right. Meaning, on average, the fewer starting lineups a team has had to use this season, the better off they have been relative to preseason expectations. Conversely, the more starting lineups a team has gone through, the worse off they’ve been. To put it simply, surprisingly good teams are surprisingly healthy.
I should mention that the causality could run both ways — a team playing surprisingly poorly might be more inclined to shake things up and use different starting lineups — but based on what we know about why so many teams are going through different starting lineups (COVID), it seems more likely that roster discontinuity is adversely impacting team performance rather than the other way around.
Looking at the continuity in the starting lineup is not the only way to get a picture of a team’s health. After all, an injury to a key bench player can be just as impactful as an injury to a starter. Additionally, not all starters are equal. Losing Karl-Anthony Towns is going to have a bigger impact on a team than losing Juan Hernangómez. In other words, if anything, the previous chart makes teams like the Hawks (who have missed games from key bench contributors) and the Timberwolves (who have missed games from their best player) look healthier than they really are.
Because of this, I also looked at the relationship between a team’s win-percentage relative to preseason expectations versus the average amount of cash the corresponding team has spent on injured players per game. Salary, while not a perfect representation of player value, is a little better than just using starter designation to measure a player’s worth to a team.
https://imgur.com/1AdwnMD
Although the relationship isn’t as strong (or as linear) as in the previous chart, I think it tells a similar story overall. Once again, we see a cluster of teams in the top left corner of the chart and in the bottom right corner. Broadly, this indicates that overperforming teams have been healthier on average than teams that are underperforming.
(Note that some of the cash being spent on injured players is already baked into a team’s preseason expectations. For example, The Warriors are paying Klay Thompson around $400,000 every game he misses with his Achilles injury. But that was known before the season and the Warriors’ preseason expectations account for that. To make sure I’m only capturing cash spent on players whose injuries would effect over- or under-performance, I omitted cash spent on the following players: Klay Thompson (GSW), Jaren Jackson Jr. (MEM), Justice Winslow (MEM), Al-Farouq Aminu (ORL), Jonathan Isaac (ORL), and Kris Dunn (ATL))
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that one of the biggest positive outliers on both of the previous charts is led by a frontrunner for MVP and an early season Coach of The Year candidate. The Philadelphia 76ers have exceeded expectations far more than we’d expect for a team that’s dealt with as much roster discontinuity as they have and Joel Embiid and Doc Rivers will both deservedly get a lot credit for that.
If all these charts seem like a lot of work to show something so obvious, then you’re probably right. But I don’t think health and general luck is mentioned as often as it ought to be when discussing why a team is suddenly succeeding (shoutout to John Hollinger for being the only analyst I’ve seen mention it with respect to the Jazz).
Meanwhile, the lack of health is often the first thing that’s mentioned as an excuse for why a team is playing poorly. This isn’t surprising. It’s the natural way that humans tend to represent reality. When times are tough, we blame our problems on bad luck or things that are outside of our control. And in the good times we point to specific actions or changes that we believe brought about our good fortune. It’s more exciting to say that Jazz are playing well because Donovan Mitchell is a stealth MVP candidate than it is to say the Jazz are playing well because they’ve benefited from injury-luck.
But health and luck is an especially relevant factor this season in which COVID casts a long shadow over everything. The chart below shows each team’s win percentage relative to preseason expectations versus the number of starting lineups used. This time I also included data going back to 2015 as a reference.
https://imgur.com/aSe8U1s
Between 2015 and 2020, no team used 15 or more different starting lineups through their first 25 games. Already this season, there are three teams that meet that criteria. Surely, teams like Miami and Brooklyn will find some continuity as players come back from injuries and integrate into the starting lineup. Still, it’s worth emphasizing just how lucky teams like Utah, Sacramento, and others have been to not have to deal with this issue.
I’m not suggesting the Jazz are frauds or that the Heat don’t have anything to worry about now that they’re healthy. I just think we need to be more open and honest about the outsized impact of external forces that shape whether a team succeeds or fails. It may not be exciting, but it’s real.
Hey everyone,
This is an excerpt from my (free) weekly newsletter about the NBA told through charts and data.
If you enjoyed this piece, or one of my others that I've excerpted here on this sub, then I hope you'd consider subscribing.
https://thef5.substack.com/welcome