[HN Gopher] NBA Metaverse Partner Terminates Relationship, Threa...
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NBA Metaverse Partner Terminates Relationship, Threatens Reporters
Covering Deal
Author : pkilgore
Score : 160 points
Date : 2022-01-20 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (defector.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (defector.com)
| vernie wrote:
| It's always nice when an older generation of shyster tries to get
| into the latest tech fad.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Let's go boomers! What's sad is when the younger gen can't get
| into the older scams.
| penjelly wrote:
| metaverse is a word im already sick of
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This company feels like a combination of every shady business
| person and wantrepreneur I've ever crossed paths with. Bombastic
| CEO who thinks he can skip the "make it" part of "fake it till
| you make it" and then strongarm his way past any obstacles with
| legal threats.
|
| The way the CEO misspells NY (New York) as "MY" in his own e-mail
| signature is a fitting touch.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Also what is with that address, A108 Adam Street with a
| Manhattan zip code that doesn't exist? Google seems to place it
| at City Hall Park in lower Manhattan, which definitely isn't a
| place that receives mail. There's also a long list of scammy
| looking companies using that address.
|
| Edit: also looks like Google maps places it at the park down by
| Dumbo. Very weird.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| He literally lives in a van down by the river.
| Abrownn wrote:
| I see a lot of fake companies/websites list their address as
| 405 E 42nd St, New York, NY 10017 -- which is the UN's NY HQ.
| There's a few mailing centers with P.O. Boxes in the area
| that a lot of fake companies are registered to as well. They
| must think having Manhattan in their address lends them some
| credibility.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _They must think having Manhattan in their address lends
| them some credibility._
|
| It does. That's why, thanks to number portability, you can
| sell a 212 area code number for hundreds, or even thousands
| of dollars.
| nkurz wrote:
| Yes, searching for that does produce a bunch of odd results,
| many of which use "info@example.com" as their email address
| and literal "Lorem ipsum" as description :
| https://www.google.com/search?q=%22A108+Adam+Street%22
|
| Some of the results also include the odd term "Bootstrap
| Template". Perhaps there is some web building tool that uses
| this address as the filler text on a template page?
| notyourday wrote:
| It is a total scam - there's no such address in 10006.
| Anyone who is a CEO is not going to have an address of the
| office written incorrectly. The scammer(s) have not spent
| any time in NY hence they do not know that New York, NY is
| Manhattan but Brooklyn, NY is Brooklyn even though both are
| in New York City, NY
|
| What is mind boggling in that some idiots at 76ers and NBA
| got swindled by clearly a non-existent entity.
| usrusr wrote:
| Putting the virtual in virtual reality, can't fault them
| for inconsistency if nothing is real on any level.
| yelling_cat wrote:
| That's exactly it:
|
| https://bootstrapmade.com/demo/Flattern/
|
| Bootstrap is just a front-end web framework and there's
| nothing inherently wrong with using a nice-looking
| Bootstrap template to get a decent site up fast. Real
| companies doing that make sure to swap in their own contact
| info, though. Every search result with the Adam street non-
| address is for something shady.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| I mean, "he" can't even spell his own name:
|
| https://twitter.com/dhm/status/1480306092622024706
|
| Expecting him to know the correct abbreviation for New York may
| be asking a lot lol.
| stdgy wrote:
| This might be my favorite story of the year. So many weird twists
| and turns. It has to be some kind of money laundering operation,
| right?
| moate wrote:
| Feels to me like "con-man capitalist took the con too far and
| people started pay attention to how much of a con this sounds
| like".
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| This is one of the very few times I agree with an online
| assertion that money laundering is a plausible explanation.
| trembonator wrote:
| 04rob wrote:
| Background:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682102
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| The following is pretty far down on the list of facets of this
| story which are straight-up bonkers, but...
|
| I would think that any threat of legal action on Color Star's
| part is an empty one, since that would mean "Lucas Capetian"
| would have to appear (either in-person or via video) for the
| purposes of a legal deposition. That seems unlikely, given "his"
| reticence to appear in public or reveal anything at all about his
| true identity.
|
| Those with legal expertise, feel free to weigh in here.
| mattress wrote:
| LOL I'm pretty sure the screenshot of "their" avatar creation is
| actually from Forza Horizon character customization screen
| depingus wrote:
| It is! The author of the article is aware.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Descriptions of the alleged product in the article confirm that
| the metaverse is a cheap knockoff of Habbo Hotel.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Reminds me of Rabbitjack's Casino on QuantumLink in 1986.
| faangiq wrote:
| Amazing article.
| colpabar wrote:
| footage of a meeting between the NBA and the "metaverse partner"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8f-BQFo7lw
| adoxyz wrote:
| first thing I thought of lol.
|
| I can't believe South Park is as solid as ever when it comes to
| capturing the absurdity of cultural phenomena.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| All they give butters is a piece of paper and he uses that to
| break out of a mental asylum, spread chaos, and sell nfts.
| Incredible.
| DamnYuppie wrote:
| I laughed so hard I ended up spitting all over my monitor while
| watching this...
| beebeepka wrote:
| You lure your customers in, and then you fuck them with some
| NFTs. You can't just sell food to people.
|
| Thing is, people have been shelling real money for virtual
| items for a long time. Remember MMOs, hell even Diablo? Team
| Fortress 2 and the whole hats money making machine? Well, now
| all that is going to end up mainstream.
|
| I don't like it one bit but status symbols have been around
| since before there were humans. You can see this shit in animal
| societies, too
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I agree the virtual goods thing is not new, hats etc. But
| those were always viewed as a little silly too, and I'd argue
| they actually provide more value than the average NFT. I
| really don't think it's going to go mainstream. Most of us
| are already tired of NFT nonsense, and other virtual goods
| can barely be said to have gone "mainstream" either, after
| all this time.
| psyc wrote:
| As a gamer, I can fully understand cosmetic items as sort of
| pricey micro-expansions. I still don't understand NFTs. How
| do you show off an NFT? I'm imagining people posting a long
| cryptographic signature into a group chat, and the other
| people replying with "ooo" and "aaah" emojis? Not really sure
| I want to know any more about that subculture than I already
| do, though.
| hn8788 wrote:
| I think NFTs are mostly a scam, but I could see people
| showing them off in some sort of centralized "gallery" type
| of game. It'd be like how people show off their islands in
| Animal Crossing, except you could show off the artwork and
| other things you collected. There's way too many hurdles to
| make it viable, but I can see a hypothetical way that
| people could show them off like real collectibles.
|
| Another thing I thought would be useful in games, but
| unlikely to ever happen, is using NFTs to track ownership
| of in-game cosmetics. That way cosmetics you get from known
| e-sports pros could be worth more than cosmetics you
| purchased from whatever store, the same a pair of Michael
| Jordan's shoes he wore during a game is more of a
| collectible than buying the equivalent shoes from
| Footlocker.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| Social media (twitter), dating apps, job site profiles
| (skill accreditation NFT's), "metaverses" (probably
| overlaps with social media), the ability to even get into a
| given group chat (NFT required for access).
|
| Just think of NFT's as a digital receipt (incl. tickets or
| club membership), certificates and then think of use-cases
| where proving that you have one of those would be useful.
| Of course you can argue that the entire blockchain aspect
| isn't necessary but that's a different conversation. Or if
| this is a good thing or not.
| mabbo wrote:
| > people have been shelling real money for virtual items for
| a long time
|
| I think the difference is that at least to _someone_ , those
| virtual MMO goods had value. You could wear the stupid hat.
| You could buy in-game stuff with the virtual gold. You could
| live in your Ultima Online castle.
|
| NFTs really don't have any intrinsic value to anyone, at all.
| fullshark wrote:
| Everyone knows there's SOME sort of market for NFTs, if you
| spend your life terminally online, it makes sense that you'd
| be interested in status symbols for them. Or if you play a
| game, you'd want items that give you a leg up or have some
| aesthetic appeal. I can even see a situation like some magic
| the gathering cards, where an NFT in a particular game could
| gain value over time if the game has a contingent of diehards
| and the NFT provides some unique ability.
|
| But the whole thing seems so craven, just like freemium games
| that south park also skewered, based on taking advantage of
| some addicts/clout chasers who crave the rush of some digital
| bits attached to their avatars.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2luhwy3KAE0
| egypturnash wrote:
| People have been trading items in online games for real
| money for as long as there have been online games. Which is
| longer than "blockchain" has been a thing, much less NFTs.
| Some games welcome it, some try to fight it.
|
| The only thing NFTs seem to offer is an extra middleman who
| can make money off of these transactions.
| hn8788 wrote:
| > The only thing NFTs seem to offer is an extra middleman
| who can make money off of these transactions.
|
| Even that isn't new. Valve has been taking a 30% cut of
| everything sold on their community market for as long as
| I can remember.
| egypturnash wrote:
| yeah, a lot of "web3" really seems to boil down to "I'm
| the person all the money runs through now instead of the
| existing players, also everything has a few more extra
| layers of complexity and abstraction for no good reason".
| [deleted]
| agar wrote:
| That flipchart presentation reminds me of so many PowerPoints
| that I'm feeling a little targeted...
| seanhunter wrote:
| "...this would seem a strange time for the 76ers to end their
| contract with Color Star, the Cayman Islands-registered, Dubai-
| based ready-mix concrete outfit pivoting to Web3 technology and
| hyping the forthcoming launch of a celeb-populated metaverse"
| Such a fantastic quote
| pjmorris wrote:
| Perfect. It sounds like something Matt Levine would either mock
| or write.
| moneywoes wrote:
| no redflags at all
| duxup wrote:
| Would love to hear the backstory on how this deal ever happened.
|
| Granted sports organizations and can be as dysfunctional as any
| organization, but you would hope they would do a little vetting
| of who they make deals with.
| awb wrote:
| Back story:
|
| https://defector.com/what-the-hell-is-this-company-the-76ers...
|
| HN discussion of the backstory:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682102
| duxup wrote:
| Doesn't quite tell me how the deal got made with this almost
| non existent company.
| awb wrote:
| I think that's part of why this is such an intriguing
| story.
|
| It smells of fraud and I'm sure more is yet to come.
| Animats wrote:
| Some years back, one of the major English football teams,
| Southhampton FC, had a partnering deal with Banc De Binary.[1]
| BDB was a leading company in the binary options industry, which
| was a total scam. The Times of Israel started a series, "The
| Wolves of Tel Aviv", and blew the whole thing apart.[2]
|
| For months, the Times of Israel kept pounding on this story. It
| took quite a while. At peak, something like 40% of the Israeli
| finance industry was binary option scams. Some of the scammers
| were well connected politically.
|
| Amazingly, it was legal in Israel to run financial scams
| against non-Israelis. That changed only when it became an
| international embarrassment big enough to hurt the country's
| image.
|
| Some of the scammers pivoted to crypto. Others moved operations
| to Bulgaria. But none of them seem to have gone to jail in
| Israel. Some were caught in the US or the EU and did go to jail
| there.
|
| [1] https://financefeeds.com/we-lobby-southampton-fc-on-why-
| they...
|
| [2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-
| israels...
| duxup wrote:
| That's terrible, I gotta think even a high level vetting
| would set off alarm bells with something like that.
| tclancy wrote:
| Trust the process.
| gzer0 wrote:
| Is there any reason why the press release thumbnail is a picture
| of a Fortnite lobby?
|
| This has gotten to the point where it transcends even the most
| bat-shit insane people; this has to be an elaborate troll or they
| are delusional.
| mdoms wrote:
| Can someone translate the first sentence of the article for me? I
| have literally no idea what any of this means.
|
| > Eagle-eyed viewers of Friday night's Celtics-76ers tilt in
| Philadelphia will have noticed a sudden absence of the ubiquitous
| Color Star banners recently seen splashed on every available flat
| surface inside the home team's arena
| ryandamm wrote:
| In case you're not being facetious: It just means that Color
| Star's advertisements are no longer visible in the 76ers' arena
| (because the partnership was terminated).
| Infinitesimus wrote:
| Celtics vs 76ers game last Friday. NBA games tend to have a lot
| of banner ads and anyone paying attention could have noticed
| that there were no Color Star banners to be seen during the
| game.
| chrisoverzero wrote:
| > Last night, the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers played
| a basketball game in an arena in Philadelphia. If you were
| looking carefully (I write sarcastically), you may have noticed
| that the interior of the arena looks different from how it has
| recently - the advertisements for Color Star, which had been
| everywhere (I write hyperbolically), were now missing.
| mdoms wrote:
| Thank you. The article assumes I know a lot of background:
| what Celtics-76ers is (apparently two basketball teams), what
| a "Celtics-76ers tilt" is (a match between them?), what Color
| Star is, that their banners (advertisements?) are
| ubiquitous...
| the_doctah wrote:
| The target audience is likely people who don't live under a
| rock.
| chrisoverzero wrote:
| Defector is a sports website, so I think they can safely
| assume some background knowledge.
| [deleted]
| moneywoes wrote:
| How can a person like this fool a billion + organization?
| notyourday wrote:
| Because people who run the a billion+ organizations are
| imbeciles that who don't know how to wipe their own ass without
| a team of twenty people providing support. So it is just the
| question of being introduced to the people who tell those that
| run the organizations what to do. It is not that difficult is
| those that that tell those who runs the organizations are
| properly incentivised.
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(page generated 2022-01-20 23:01 UTC)