If I’m being perfectly honest, the only reason why I was able to enjoy CONQuest 2023 was because I had a media pass. And even then, I was eventually guilt-stricken by the fact that my colleagues and I could go in and out while everyone else had to line up for hours only to be met with more lines inside the halls of the SMX Convention Center.

CONQuest Festival is an annual pop culture and gaming convention. The festival originated in Iloilo and was brought to Manila for the first time last year by AcadArena. Last year’s event was regarded as a huge success. Attendees finally had the chance to physically be with the bigger gaming and anime community as COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were loosened. Plus, CONQuest did what many local cons had not done as much – bring in some of the largest international talents into Manila.

This year, event organizers tried to go bigger by bringing in more talents, more brands, more partners, adding more venues, more events, and more displays. But in the end, things didn’t really work out as planned.

Yes, there were more things to do at CONQuest this year, but everyone was stuck in queues under sweltering heat for too long that in the end, not everyone got to enjoy the three-day affair.

The Bad

Let’s start with the obvious: there were too many tickets sold, and the main venue wasn’t big enough for what they intended.

Ticket claiming started ahead of the festival so that con-goers wouldn’t need to collect their passes on the same day which would’ve meant more lines. But even then, the queues were still too long. And despite long lines and the already packed convention center (it was honestly suffocating), there were still passes being sold onsite.

Hundreds of attendees had to line up for four hours (some even more) outside the SMX Convention Center, many of them in full cosplay.

Imagine wearing layers of fabric and other materials, plus wigs and accessories, while standing under the summer sun and over concrete radiating with heat. There were reports of people fainting while in the queue, and since there wasn’t much room to walk through, medics took too much time to get to them.

There are many entrances you can take to get into the SMX Convention Center, but many of them were closed during day three, which funneled people into one main entry point at the front of the venue. Queues were so bad, memes about them cropped up on the internet. At one point, even the designated entrance for persons with disabilities was closed.

What organizers tried to do to mitigate this was to add more venues where further activities could be enjoyed. Some of the panel discussions, gaming tournaments, meet and greets, and exhibits were held in adjacent locations like Conrad Manila, the National University MOA campus, Microtel by Wyndham, SM Mall of Asia’s Atrium, and even a portion of Seashell Lane right outside SMX.

Unfortunately, the main events were still found within SMX, so even though there were additional venues that con-goers could explore, the majority still flocked to the convention center. And who can blame them? All the exhibits and main events were found there.

Part of CONQuest’s appeal was also the fact that attendees can win passes for meet and greets with famous content creators, gamers, and artists. Some of these passes were raffled online ahead of the event, while others were supposed to be distributed onsite. To get a pass, people would have to queue at designated schedules and venues, but unfortunately passes were given away randomly and arbitrarily hours ahead of their supposed time slots. Many attendees expressed their frustration online, wondering how they were given away and to whom, and why schedules weren’t being followed.

Tickets started at P800 for a one-day pass, but premium passes with all the perks were priced at P20,000. This didn’t include the flights and accommodations some con-goers booked just to make it to CONQuest 2023.

There were also last-minute changes to plans and schedules that left vendors, exhibitors, and some of the talents confused.

Compared to the previous CONQuest festival, this year’s event was chaotic. Last year, I remember walking around freely and with less sweat. Sure, my colleagues and I chose to wear Squirtle onesies this year, but I also had on thick clothing the year before and I was totally fine. In fact, it was really cold last year because the crowd wasn’t as thick.

I also remember being amazed by everyone’s cheerfulness and amazing costumes. People were hyped about finally getting to attend a convention again, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that we really tried to bask in the moments of CONQuest 2022. This year, however, felt like we were all exhausted and frustrated. Some have even started Twitter threads about plans to file a lawsuit against the organizers.

The disaster also prompted Justin Banusing, one of the founders of CONQuest, to create an apology post. Organizers are also now accepting refund requests.

That being said though, there are certain things about this convention that left me wanting more.

The Good

If we ignore the chaos and the logistical mayhem, CONQuest 2023 would’ve been an experience to remember. The fact that this year’s headliners were some of the biggest names in online streaming internationally was quite the feat to pull off.

Streamers like Sykkuno, Pokimane, Valkyrae, Lilypichu, Michael Reeves, and iGumDrop all have thousands of fans across the world. CONQuest 2023 also brought in other well-known individuals in the scene like Anne Yatco and Laura Stahl who are best known for their roles in the hit game Genshin Impact; music performers like James Reid and the K-pop group The Rose; VTubers Demenishki, Bao, and Shoto; and local creators like MaggieKarp, Een Mercado, and KrisRey.

See the full guest list here.

Each of these individuals was given multiple opportunities to participate in shows, meet their fans, and have a good time.

And their respective fandoms and communities already intersect in one way or another, so to see everyone merge into one giant convention was inspiring.

CONQuest 2023 also had some upgrades that they tried coming off from their 2022 experience. For one thing, they added more food concessionaires and placed them in two main locations – outside at Seashell Lane in partnership with Mercato Centrale, and right at the doors of the convention center’s second floor. They also added more activities in the evening like music nights that featured a number of bands and performers. And, as mentioned earlier, they booked adjacent venues so crowds could spill over to other areas.

CONQuest was also an opportunity for creators to get their work seen directly by the people who would appreciate them. Questmarket, for example, was a zone for indie creators and vendors to sell their crafts. There was booth after booth after booth of artists selling prints, stickers, bags, and more.

There was also a section for people developing indie games and looking for players or investors. Amazingly too is that they added an advocacy section for social enterprises and groups working in the development sector to gain some support from the community.

And there were also places where people can play free games like a section dedicated to board games, and an improved retro games zone where con-goers can play classic titles from their childhood.

Several national gaming tournaments hosted by Alliance Games were concluded in CONQuest, giving students from different colleges and universities opportunities to impress gaming communities and win coveted trophies. Scholarships were given out too.

Plus A LOT of freebies and discounts for merch and products.

All in all, CONQuest would have been a mecca for gaming and pop culture fans to feel welcomed and uninhibited. It was a place where everyone can get their geek on and no one would be judgy. It’s a place where community inside jokes can make sense, and terms like MonkaS and KEKW mean anything.

And with gaming and anime becoming more mainstream, the community is also evolving into one that no longer gatekeeps but rather welcomes newcomers. And an inclusive community like this would’ve had a better experience as a collective if everyone had a fair chance at attending and enjoying the con.

Hopefully, next year would be better. – Rappler.com

US District Judge Edward Davila on Tuesday had set a June 22-23 evidentiary hearing in San Francisco and temporarily blocked the companies from completing the deal pending a decision by another judge on the same court on whether to grant a preliminary injunction.

The hearing will focus on whether to put the deal on hold while an administrative judge considers the case. But the companies said if a temporary hold is granted they would have to drop the deal altogether because the “glacial” pace of the FTC review would make waiting impractical.

“Time is of the essence,” the companies wrote in a court filing, noting that the agreement has a termination date of July 18 and contains a $3 billion termination fee that Microsoft would have to pay.

“Let there be no doubt, a preliminary injunction ruling is the only decision that matters under these challenging deadlines.”

The FTC declined to comment.

The companies asked the court to schedule a minimum of five days for an evidentiary hearing beginning on June 22 and running through the week of June 26. They also asked for a case management conference to be set for Thursday but emphasized they were not seeking to delay a resolution by asking for a longer evidentiary hearing.

If the court grants the FTC preliminary injunction “it will effectively block the transaction because the FTC’s process is ‘glacial’ and one no substantial business transaction could ever survive,” Microsoft and Activision wrote citing a 1986 case.

The hearing in the FTC administrative proceeding is set to begin Aug. 2.

The FTC has argued the transaction would give Microsoft’s video game console Xbox exclusive access to Activision games, leaving Nintendo consoles and Sony Group Corp’s PlayStation out in the cold.

Microsoft’s bid to acquire the Call of Duty video game maker was approved by the EU in May, but British competition authorities blocked the takeover in April. – Rappler.com

The European Commission set out its charges in a statement of objections to Google two years after opening an investigation into behaviors such as favoring its own advertising services, which could also lead to a fine of as much as 10% of Google’s annual global turnover.

The stakes are higher for Google in this latest clash with regulators as it concerns the company’s biggest money maker, with the advertising business accounting for 79% of total revenue last year.

Its 2022 advertising revenue, including from search services, Gmail, Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube adverts, Google Ad Manager, AdMob and AdSense, amounted to $224.5 billion.

Google has a few months to respond to the charge. It can also ask for a closed hearing in front of senior Commission antitrust officials and their national counterparts before the EU issues a decision in a process that could take a year or more. The company also could potentially settle by offering stronger remedies than previously proposed.

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said Google may have to sell part of its adtech business because a behavioural remedy is unlikely to be effective at stopping the anti-competitive practices.

“For instance, Google could divest its sell-side tools, DFP and AdX. By doing so, we would put an end to the conflicts of interest,” she told a news conference.

“Of course I know this is a strong statement but it is a reflection of the nature of the markets, how they function and also why a behavioural commitment seemed to be out of the question.”

Google said it disagreed with the Commission’s charge.

“The Commission’s investigation focuses on a narrow aspect of our advertising business and is not new. We disagree with the EC’s view,” Dan Taylor, Google’s vice president of global ads, said in a statement.

Vestager said investigations would continue into Google’s introduction of a privacy sandbox set of tools to block third party cookies on its Chrome browser and its plan to stop making the advertising identifier available to third parties on Android smartphones.

She said the EU had closely cooperated with competition authorities in the United States and the UK.

The European Publishers Council, which filed a complaint to the Commission last year, welcomed the charge.

The Commission said Google favors its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers and online publishers.

It said Google has abused its dominance since 2014 by favoring its own ad exchange AdX in the ad selection auction by its dominant publisher ad server DFP, and also by favoring AdX in the way its ad buying tools Google Ads and DV360 place bids on ad exchanges.

Google is the world’s dominant digital advertising platform with a 28% market share of global ad revenue, according to research firm Insider Intelligence.

Google had sought to settle the case three months after the investigation was opened but regulators grew frustrated with the slow pace and the lack of substantial concessions, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters previously. – Rappler.com

The defendant, who also formerly worked at SK Hynix as a vice president, is accused of illegally acquiring Samsung data to build a factory in the northwestern Chinese city of Xian between 2018 and 2019, the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement.

The trial date was yet to be confirmed by the local court where the indictment has been filed.

The defendant, arrested last month, is denying the allegations, a prosecutor said.

He worked a combined 28 years at the South Korean chipmakers, prosecutors said. The officials did not identify the accused.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach him for comment.

The former Samsung executive allegedly tried to build the factory 1.5 km (1 mile) away from Samsung’s chip manufacturing facility in Xian after setting up a semiconductor company, prosecutors said.

The attempt to build the new plant using Samsung data, however, ended in failure due to funding issues, a prosecutor said.

Prosecutors said they have also indicted six other people for their involvement in the alleged crime, including an inspection company employee who is accused of leaking the architectural plan of Samsung’s semiconductor factory.

Prosecutors said they estimated the theft of the data to have inflicted at least 30 billion won ($23 million) worth of losses on Samsung Electronics.

“It’s a grave crime that could deal a heavy blow to our economic security by shaking the foundation of the domestic chip industry at a time of intensifying competition in chip manufacturing,” the prosecutors’ office said.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix declined to comment.

The indictment comes as South Korea has vowed to step up support for its chip sector.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has described competition in the industry as an “all-out war” amid heightened Sino-US tensions.

South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix, the world’s top two makers of memory chips, have invested billions of dollars in chip factories in China. – Rappler.com

“There is no more money available in the budget,” the newspaper quoted Lindner as saying in an interview. “We are trying to consolidate the budget right now, not expand it.”

The company was due to receive 6.8 billion euros in government support for its fabrication plant in Germany. However, due to higher energy and construction costs, it is now demanding about 10 billion euros, the newspaper reported.

Intel did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment outside office hours.

The company announced last year it had picked the central German city of Magdeburg for a new chip-making complex as a part of an $88 billion investment drive across Europe, which included boosting a factory in Ireland, a packaging and assembly site in Italy and setting up a design and research facility in France.

Intel is among several chipmakers, including Taiwan’s TSMC and Wolfspeed of the US, seeking government funding to build a factories in Europe. – Rappler.com

The increase compares to last year’s $4.4 billion in gross merchandise value, representing the worth of total goods sold through its online marketplace TikTok Shop, the report said, adding that the company is betting on markets such as Indonesia.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

TikTok’s e-commerce platform lets customers purchase goods through links on the app during live broadcasts.

The development comes as the Chinese-owned company faces scrutiny from governments and regulators because of concerns that China could use the app to harvest user data or advance its interests.

The company is also working to expand its sales in the US and Europe, the report said.

Financial Times had last year reported that TikTok is due to enter a partnership with Los Angeles-based TalkShopLive to launch its live shopping platform in North America by outsourcing its operations. – Rappler.com

“We have explicitly said there should be no regulation on smaller companies. The only regulation we have called for is on ourselves and people bigger,” he said, speaking at an event hosted by national daily Economic Times.

Altman is on a whirlwind tour around the world, meeting heads of states of several countries.

OpenAI has so far raised $10 billion from Microsoft at a valuation of almost $30 billion as it invests in building computing capacity. – Rappler.com

“It happened — first day in the books!,” she tweeted, without providing further details.

Yaccarino, the former advertising chief at NBCUniversal, is taking over Twitter at a time when the social media platform has been trying to reverse a plunge in ad revenue.

Musk, who has served as the CEO since his $44 billion buyout of Twitter last October, previously said that Yaccarino would help build an “everything app.”

Former NBCUniversal executive Joe Benarroch also joined Twitter on Monday. He oversaw communication strategy for the Comcast-owned company’s Advertising and Partnerships division, reporting to Yaccarino, before joining Twitter. – Rapler.com

The company had been charged with violating the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information from children who signed up to its Xbox gaming system without notifying their parents or obtaining their parents’ consent, and by retaining children’s personal information, the FTC said in a statement.

The order requires Microsoft to take steps to improve privacy protections for child users of its Xbox system. It will extend COPPA protections to third-party gaming publishers with whom Microsoft shares children’s data, the FTC said.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was committed to complying with the order. The spokesperson added the account creation process will be updated and a data retention glitch found in the company’s system will be resolved.

“Our proposed order makes it easier for parents to protect their children’s privacy on Xbox, and limits what information Microsoft can collect and retain about kids,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

“This action should also make it abundantly clear that kids’ avatars, biometric data, and health information are not exempt from COPPA,” Levine added.

The law requires online services and websites directed to children under 13 to notify parents about the personal information they collect and to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting and using any personal information of the children.

From 2015 to 2020, Microsoft retained the data that it collected from children during the account creation process, even when a parent failed to complete the process, according to the complaint. – Rappler.com

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., listed 13 charges against Binance, Zhao, and the operator of its purportedly independent US exchange.

The SEC alleged that Binance artificially inflated its trading volumes, diverted customer funds, failed to restrict US customers from its platform and misled investors about its market surveillance controls.

The SEC also claimed that Binance and Zhao, its billionaire founder and one of the crypto industry’s highest-profile moguls, secretly controlled customers’ assets, allowing them to commingle and divert investor funds “as they please.”

Binance created separate US entities “as part of an elaborate scheme to evade U.S. federal securities laws,” the SEC also alleged, citing a number of practices first reported by Reuters in a series of investigations into the exchange published this year and in 2022.

From almost three years ago until June 2022, a trading firm owned and controlled by Zhao, Sigma Chain, engaged in so-called wash trading that artificially inflated the trading volume of crypto asset securities on the Binance.US platform, the SEC also alleged. Sigma Chain spent $11 million from an account on a yacht, the SEC said.

“We allege that Zhao and Binance entities engaged in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure, and calculated evasion of the law,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement.

In a blog post, Binance said: “We intend to defend our platform vigorously,” adding that “because Binance is not a US exchange, the SEC’s actions are limited in reach.”

“All user assets on Binance and Binance affiliate platforms, including Binance.US, are safe and secure,” the blog post said.

In a statement, Binance said it had “actively cooperated” with the SEC “from the start” and “respectfully disagree” with the SEC’s allegations. Binance had been trying to find a “reasonable resolution” with the SEC but the agency “at the eleventh hour” issued new requests and went to court. Binance said the SEC’s actions appeared to be an effort to “claim jurisdictional ground from other regulators.”

Binance.US, which is ultimately controlled by Zhao, said in a tweet that the lawsuit was “unjustified by the facts, by the law, or by the Commission’s own precedent.”

Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, fell as much as 6% BTC=BTSP on the news to its lowest in almost three months. Binance’s own cryptocurrency BNB, the world’s fourth-largest by market size, dropped more than 5%.

Market players said the SEC’s allegations could hobble Binance, with the lawsuit likely to reverberate through the crypto industry. Binance dominates crypto trading, last year processing trades worth about $65 billion a day.

A March report from CCData showed that Binance’s spot market share across top-tier exchanges fell in March for the first time in five months to 57.7% from 62.0% in February. Its derivatives trading volume, however, rose.

“I think that there’s a big risk here that this could be crippling to Binance,” said Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda.

Legal headaches

The SEC complaint is the latest in a series of legal headaches for Binance, which was also sued by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in March for operating what the regulator alleged were an “illegal” exchange and a “sham” compliance program. Zhao called those an “incomplete recitation of facts.”

Binance is also under investigation by the Justice Department for suspected money laundering and sanctions violations, according to people familiar with the probe.

The holding company of Binance is based in the Cayman Islands. It was founded in Shanghai in 2017 by CEO Zhao, a Canadian citizen born and raised in China until age 12. The exchange says it does not have a headquarters and has declined to state the location of its main Binance.com exchange.

The SEC alleged that Zhao designed and implemented a plan to “surreptitiously evade U.S. laws.” The agency said Binance’s chief compliance officer admitted that: “We do not want [Binance].com to be regulated ever.” It said Zhao directed Binance.US even though the US entity has long said it operates independently.

The SEC said billions of dollars in Binance customer funds were commingled, or mixed with corporate funds, in breach of US laws, in a bank account of an entity controlled by Zhao, then transferred to a trading firm, Merit Peak, also controlled by Zhao.

Last month, Reuters reported that Binance commingled its customers’ funds with its corporate revenues in a US bank account belonging to Merit Peak. Binance denied mixing customer deposits and company funds, saying users who sent money to the account were not making deposits but rather buying Binance’s bespoke dollar-linked crypto token.

Reuters reported on Monday before the SEC lawsuit that a senior Binance executive was the main operator for five bank accounts belonging to BAM Trading, the operator of Binance.US, including an account that held American customers’ funds.

The SEC wrote that the executive had at least until December 2020, also had “signatory authority over BAM Trading’s US Dollar accounts.” – Rappler.com