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In Conversation With Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links Producer Kenichi Kataoka

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I recently got the chance to interview Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links Producer, Kenichi Kataoka. You may not know his name, but you’ve definitely seen his work. He’s worked on the game practically since its inception. In our interview, Kenichi took us through Duel Links’ inner workings while dropping small tidbits of what we can expect to see in future updates.

Just Lunning: What makes a card a good fit for the Duel Links card selection?

Kenichi Kataoka: We add cards to the game in a way that promotes Deck diversity. Therefore, we try to add cards that are not too overpowered for the Duel Links metagame.

JL: You have somewhat recently added the card Ojamandala, a card which does not exist in the OCG/TCG but comes straight from the anime. What made you decide to branch out the card pool from the original format? And is this something we can expect more of in the future?

K: As stated above, our interest is to promote Deck diversity. “Ojamandala” was added to the game as we believed it could create new, unique strategies. We are considering adding more non-TCG cards in the future.

JL: How did you get into Yu-Gi-Oh?

K: I first got into the series during the manga’s original run in Shonen Jump.

JL: As you know, the TCG is releasing products for in-paper Speed Dueling. Has Duel Links been a part of that discussion?

K: We aren’t directly involved, but we do keep in touch with the people working on it.

JL: What was the most well-received in-app event?

K: It’s different depending on the demographic. For casual players, the Pegasus event. For hardcore players, the KC Cup.

JL: Recent TCG sets have included small card support engines for old decks (Amazon, for example) which were lackluster in paper but extremely strong in Duel Links. Are there cards in the TCG specifically designed to be eventually included in Duel Links?

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K: So far, no cards have been designed specifically for Duel Links. However, our level designers often strive to make archetypes that saw little use in the TCG popular in Duel Links.

JL: How does the testing process for cards differ between the card game and Duel Links?

K: It differs little from the TCG side. However, we do have to take Skills into consideration when testing, as it is a unique feature to Duel Links that affects the gameplay greatly.

JL: How important is community feedback when implementing new features/events into Duel Links?

K: We value community feedback very much. We keep an eye on major online communities, as well as our survey results, which (if not in Japanese) we translate into Japanese and share amongst the dev team. It would be safe to say that all our new events and features reflect user feedback to a certain degree.

JL: Has the massive success of Duel Links been a surprise to the team? It looks to easily be the most popular Yu-Gi-Oh! video game of all time.

K: We knew the game would be popular, as we were confident in its quality. What surprised us was the quantity of people it attracted. Duel Links was created with all Yu-Gi-Oh! fans (OCG/TCG, anime, and manga) in mind, but we greatly underestimated how huge that audience is. We simply did not realize how many people around the world love Yu-Gi-Oh!

JL: Duel Links’ Steam release was fairly well received. Is there a chance we could see it ported to other consoles like the Nintendo Switch?

K: We have considered this in the past, but currently have no plans to do so. The main reason being that Duel Links is a game that is constantly updated, and the slower pace of consoles would not be a good fit.

JL: How did the plot for Duel Links come together? Has Noah’s Virtual World from the Yu-Gi-Oh! Anime played a part in the creation of the Duel Links virtual world?

K: Duel Links wasn’t really inspired by a single source, and is a whole new world in and of itself. However, we did structure the world of Duel Links in a way that it can accommodate all Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series as well as hold various events.

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JL: Being an online only game, hacking can be a major problem for the community. How much work goes into protecting the game from hackers or other online threats?

K: We always keep an eye out for hacking and cheating, and check our user inquiries regarding such things regularly. All I can say is that we do put a lot of our resources into preventing hacking and cheating.

JL: Are there any plans to go back and update older card boxes?

K: There are no plans as of now.

JL: How often is the meta of Duel Links looked at? Is there a temptation to try immediately shake things up if a meta becomes stale or if a particular deck becomes dominant?

K: We look at the metagame and how players are playing the game every day, and share the information amongst the dev team. The temptation to drastically alter the meta is definitely there, but we try to hold ourselves back as we don’t want older cards that players invested in to become outdated too fast.

While this wasn’t touched on during our interview, Duel Links is rumored to receive a story mode in 2019. The story is said to take place in the games’ recently added Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds world. Kenichi also hinted that his staff is currently brainstorming how to incorporate a draft mode into the game.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links is currently available on iOS, Android, and Steam.

I'm a comedy writer living in NYC with a devotion to the PlayStation brand and a nasty anime obsession. When I'm not writing for the site, you can find me playing games or watching some form of television.

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Pixel 8 Pro runs Google’s generative AI models

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Rick Osterloh, Google’s SVP of devices and services, says the Pixel 8 Pro will be the first hardware to run Google’s generative AI models.

At an event today, Osterloh said the Pixel 8 Pro’s custom-built Tensor G3 chip, which accelerates AI workloads, can run “distilled” versions of Google’s text- and image-generating models to power image editing and other apps.

Osterloh said, “We’ve worked closely with our research teams across Google to take advantage of their most advanced foundation models and distill them into a version efficient enough to run on our flagship Pixel.”

Google improved Magic Eraser, its photo-editing tool, to remove larger objects and people smudge-free using on-device models. Osterloh claims that this improved Magic Eraser creates new pixels to fill in shot gaps, producing a higher-quality image.

Osterloh says a new on-device model will “intelligently” sharpen and enhance photo details, improving zoom.

On-device processing benefits audio recording. The Pixel 8 Pro’s recording app will soon summarize meeting highlights.

Gboard will use a large language model on the Pixel 8 Pro to power smart replies. Osterloh claims that the upgraded Gboard will provide “higher-quality” reply suggestions and better conversational awareness.

Osterloh said an update in December will add on-device generative AI features except for Magic Eraser, which appears on the Pixel 8 Pro at launch.

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Telegram launches a global self-custodial crypto wallet, excluding the US

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Telegram, with 800 million monthly users, is launching a self-custodial crypto wallet. The move will solidify its presence in the vibrant crypto community that has grown from its chat platform and may attract more people to crypto.

Telegram and TON Foundation announced TON Space, a self-custodial wallet, on Wednesday at Singapore’s Token2049 crypto conference, which draws over 10,000 attendees.

Telegram has a complicated blockchain relationship. After the SEC sued Telegram over a massive initial coin offering, the chat app abandoned its Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain project in 2020. The Open Network Foundation (TON Foundation), founded by open-source developers and blockchain enthusiasts, supports the development of The Open Network (TON), the blockchain powering a growing number of Telegram applications, including the wallet.

The Open Platform (TOP) and TOP Labs, a venture-building division, created the TON-based wallet.

TON Space will be available to Telegram users worldwide without wallet registration in November. The U.S., which has cracked down on the crypto industry and promoted many crypto apps to geofence users, is currently excluded from the feature.

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Google’s massive antitrust trial begins, with bigger implications

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The Justice Department’s landmark antitrust case against Google began in court today, setting off a months-long trial that could upend the tech world.

At issue is Google’s search business. The Justice Department claims that Google has violated antitrust laws to maintain its search title, but the company claims that it does so by providing a superior product.

The Justice Department sued Google for civil antitrust in late 2020 after a year-long investigation.

“If the government does not enforce the antitrust laws to enable competition, we will lose the next wave of innovation,” said then-Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen. “If that happens, Americans may never see the ‘next Google.’”

A large coalition of state attorneys general filed their own parallel suit against Google, but Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the states did not meet the bar to go to trial with their search ranking complaints.

The search business case against Google is separate from a federal antitrust lawsuit filed earlier this year. The Justice Department claims Google used “anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means” to neutralize threats to its digital advertising empire in that lawsuit.

Justice Department attorney Kenneth Dintzer set the stakes for the first major tech antitrust trial since Microsoft’s late 1990s reckoning on Tuesday. “This case is about the future of the internet, and whether Google’s search engine will ever face meaningful competition,” Dintzer said.

Beginning the trial, the government focused on Google’s deals with phone makers, most notably Apple, that give its search product top billing on new devices. Dintzer claimed that Google maintains and grows its search engine dominance by paying $10 billion annually for those arrangements.

“This feedback loop, this wheel, has been turning for more than 12 years,” he said. “And it always benefits Google.”

Google lawyer John Schmidtlein refuted that claim, hinting at the company’s legal defense in the coming weeks.

“Users today have more search options and more ways to access information online than ever before,” Schmidtlein said. Google will argue that it competes with Amazon, Expedia, and DoorDash, as well as Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Google planted the seeds for this defense. According to internal research, Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan said last year that more young people are using TikTok to search for information than Google Search.

In our studies, almost 40% of young people don’t use Google Maps or Search to find lunch, Raghavan said. “They use TikTok or Instagram.”

Google will be decided by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in the coming months. We’re far from that decision, but the company could be fined heavily or ordered to sell parts of its business.

The trial could change Google’s digital empire if the Justice Department wins. Other tech companies that dominated online markets in the last decade are also watching. If the government fails to hold an iconic Silicon Valley giant accountable, big tech will likely continue its aggressive growth trajectory.

If the Justice Department succeeds, the next decade could be different. The industry-wide reckoning could cripple incumbents and allow upstarts to define the next era of the internet, wresting the future from tech titans.

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