Pixelberry, Series Entertainment and the Rise of AI:
Ok, I was taking a break from watching Twilight: New Moon because sometimes the cringe gets too much and I get second hand embarrassment and I decided to doomscroll on social media. I, like many of you I'm sure, are aware of Series Entertainment (honestly i'm not going to say Pixelberry anymore bc I don't think its them and I genuinely am not sure if any humans actually work at that company anyme) recent failed attempt at rebooting the Hero franchise with this Captain Marvel esque AI bullshit:
Here are some screen grabs i pulled from social media /reddit:
In short:
*my reaction:*
Sorry for the strong language but I'm genuinely at my wit's end with this fuckin company. So, as i was saying, I was on Choices insta account and came across this comment:
Now, me being me, I was extremely confused. I only started on Choices in Spring 2023 after having to drop out of mt last year of school due to chronic migraines and as far as I had known, the It Lives franchise was cancelled after Book II, It Lives Beneath also lemme take a quick moment to shout out one of my favourite MC's Harper Vance🙂↕️🙂↔️.
So, i did what any sane 21 year old would do and I went on the Choices Reddit Page and guess what my unlucky ass found:
Now you may be thinking @artic-quills, what's the big deal? They brought back Elementalists hope that's the correct name I haven't played that series yet, just last year. Well, dear friend, the big deal is that I just one year ago roughly I remember because I finished the book a couple days after just moving into our new house I remember finishing a fan made project, with the exact same title:
Not only was this a fuckin masterpiece its part of the reason why I became so passionate about turning Choices stories into forms of visual media(movies, TV shows) one day if I ever had my own production studio it was an incredibly detailed, intricate game that was just as good, if not better in some instances, than the original work by the original Choices team. Whoever those individuals are who worked on the @itlivesproject gave up their valued time and energy into making something for every single Choices fan to enjoy - simply out of the kindness of their own hearts.
This was a project from what I can gather on their social media pages that clearly took months or years even - and even despite all the bugs, user feedback they still dogged it out and came out with an interactive game that honestly puts a lot of the interactive games out there to shame. You know why? Because they gave a damn. Something Series Entertainment clearly does not.
People in the literary world often take fanfiction unseruously. But I say this: do you know the level of skill you have to have to take an existing franchise, and make it your own? Take something that was wonderful all on its own and improvement it without further detracting from the original work's quality? Its fuckin hard.
Therefore it fuckin sucks when I come online and see this post from original creator behind @itlivesproject :
Not only did they not bother to rename the fuckin book, they leeched onto the popularity of another successful fan-made book in order to get a few clicks on their stupid soulless AI slop app Run.Tv
