Abbreviation Index:

BB -- Blackberry
AWS -- Amazon Web Services
IVY -- Intelligent Vehicles Yo. I don't actually know if this stands for anything
QNX -- Quick-Unix perhaps? It's a Unix-like embedded microkernel RTOS (real-time operating system)
EOY -- end of year
PT -- price target
SP -- stock price
EV -- electric vehicle
SoC -- System on a Chip
IoT -- Internet of Things
TL;DR: Blackberry ($BB) is almost daily announcing new partnerships and new clients for their software, including new deals with companies that are just now or just this year launching autonomous vehicles that run on QNX software. The big kahuna of all these deals is BB's recent partnership with Amazon to go 50/50 into BB's software IVY, a scalable cloud-connected software platform designed for intelligent vehicle data gathering and data sharing. With Amazon's Jeff Bezos stepping down, and Andy Jassy filling his shoes, who was the CEO of AWS, BB will have some very firm support behind Amazon's new CEO. BB and Amazon are having a webinar Feb. 23rd about their partnership and IVY, which should be a strong catalyst moving forward. IVY beta earnings are projected to begin impacting BB's Q3 or Q4 earnings beginning in November this year, with IVY fully being integrated around the 2023 timeframe. Through a lot of reading and analysis, I believe BB has a four-tiered business model dating back as far as 2013 when BB's CEO John Chen was hired to begin the massive BB turnaround process. Tier 1 was development of QNX and IVY, lasting from 2013 to today and onward, however, Tier 2 overlaps Tier 1. Tier 2 was customer acquisition, primarily distributing their secure software in QNX, SecuSuite, Spark, and AtHoc. They secured 37 automakers during this time, including 9 of the top 10 automakers, over 106 governments from around the world, including all of G7 governments and 18 of G20 governments, as well as 77% of Fortune 100 companies, including partnerships with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Sony, XPENG, XPEV, NVIDIA, Intel, Qualcomm, Baidu, IBM, LG, Samsung, and others. Well if they have such an incredible market share, why are they so undervalued? The answer is that QNX was not the end-all-be-all product. It was the base that the rest would be built on. Particularly IVY, which is the real money-maker. Tier 3 is IVY beta, and Tier 4 is IVY distribution and subscription revenue streams. So why is IVY the big deal and not QNX? They are both big deals, but QNX was never designed to be the money-maker. They are charging a one-time fee per vehicle use. There is a bigger goal here, to secure their clients as their customers for the bigger product in IVY. They also need QNX is to be a secure system in order for IVY to be trustworthy and reliable. And it certainly is secure. QNX has ISO26262 certification, as well as US government clearance, NSA clearance, and CIA clearance. The US government uses QNX and Blackberry products. Just let that sink in. That should tell you something about its security. Anyways, IVY will be used in autonomous vehicle level 4 and level 5 communication (note that QNX is level 5 certified... it has a business moat just in its security level and clearance), as well as EV and gas vehicle data collecting and AI-powered data synthesis. See below for more details on IVY. Wrapping up this TL;DR, BB is going to do well this year as IVY unfolds, but will do even better in the next 2-5 years. I have a PT of 25 by EOY and a PT of 80 by 2023 EOY, and a PT of 160+ by 2025 EOY
TL;DR: TL;DR: BB go up, but go slow for now because IVY revenue not here yet, but big fast later. Make big monies, BB is the future tech that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc will be building upon in the EV and IoT market

FAQs:

1) Why is Blackberry stock price going down?
A: A few possible reasons. One, as of today the whole market is down. BB is connected to overall market swings as most companies are. Two, there may be some market manipulation by bearish financial institutions as there are a lot of calls expiring on 2/19. I would expect that BB SP to be volatile between $11 and $14 between now and then, and to move upwards after 2/19 and especially after 2/23 (Amazon + BB webinar). Three, there are bearish investors who still think BB is a phone company and don't understand the underworkings of BB's business strategy, their software, their patents, or their partners. Their revenue has been affected by coronavirus and has not been particularly phenomenal so far this year.
2) Should I invest now or later?
A: First off, I'm not a financial advisor, these are just my opinions. Invest at your own risk. In my opinion, BB will see a large SP growth by EOY, anywhere from 50% to 150% growth by EOY. While revenue will likely not increase much this year, the partnership with Amazon and news regarding IVY will likely create new floors for their SP much higher than the current SP right now, at around the $12 SP
3) What's stopping competitors from building a similar product and hurting BB's business?
A: There's a lot of reasons why BB has a huge moat right now. One, notice the partners that BB has with QNX. They've got all the big boys working them, aside from Apple and Tesla. Seeing as SpaceX runs on QNX, and seeing that Apple was trying to make a deal with Hyundai that did not go through, I think it is still possible that either Tesla or Apple or both companies could also make a deal with BB to use QNX as their OS system. BB worked to develop their QNX embedded microkernel OS for the last eight years or so. Anyone trying to step into the game now is far too late. Apple has the best chance of all companies, as it has its own OS and Apple knows security very well, but this still requires an entirely new system in order to work in the EV sector. Also, Apple announced recently that they would be developing their own EV, although they did not give much details beyond that statement. The likelihood that they are both working on the hardware and software side of this thing is slim given the large number of difficulties that come with certification as it relates to the cybersecurity software space. Regardless, I would suspect that either Apple or Tesla is the most likely to be competitors in this space, but neither company has successfully completed a certified OS system, particularly for the emerging sector of autonomous EVs. Tesla is currently building a Linux-based system that is having a lot of difficulty in passing certifications such as ISO26262, a struggle that has been ongoing for years now. They may achieve a product that passes these safety regulations and certifications, but the question remains whether this will be in time as the EV and autonomous market picks up speed, and whether competing companies would even be interested in using their product. In fact, any car company is unlikely to develop their own OS software because none of their competitors would be likely to use it. BB is the perfect business to license since it is not competing in the hardware sector for the EV market. This argument can also be used for Apple if they are also building an EV.
4) Why is BB's revenue so low if they have so many customers and partners?
A: QNX has been licensed so far as a one-time purchase, per vehicle or IoT using their software. IVY will be a subscription-based software that also includes a one-time purchase. Thus, BB's revenue streams are somewhat unimpressive currently, but they are playing the long game. If my hypothesis is correct, it is John Chen's goal to lay low as software is developed and customer relationships are built. It's the same with the book market. It's the sequel that makes all the money, not the first book. QNX is just the first book of a series looking to hook in its customers with low costs before hitting 'em with the strong follow up in IVY. Additionally, in order to build a competitive business moat, it was to their advantage to not forewarn any competitors of their involvement and plans. Consider John Chen's work as a CEO in his last business Sybase. Chen worked as the CEO of Sybase for 10 years. For the first 7 years, the SP remained at around $10 a share. Three years later, the SP was at $100 a share. I suspect he is implementing a similar model with Blackberry. Chen joined Blackberry in 2013. BB stock actually dropped for most of the last 7 years, resting at a stock price of around $5. Now BB is at $12 a share. I would not be surprised if BB reaches $50 two years from now.

Now for the details.

Read this for DD on BB's achievements, certifications, markets, QNX products, EV growth, Spark software and clients, BB Radar, software pricing, and BB challenges:
Comprehensive Guide about BB and how it shall take off in coming years

Full List of Clients and Partners:

Blackberry Clients and Partners
Automakers: Honda, Audi, Jeep, Mitsubishi, Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Bentley, Lamboghini, Byton, Mini (cooper), Toyota, Subaru, Fiat Chrysler, Mazda, Nio, BMW, Porsche, Lexus, Kia, Land-Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Buick, Jaguar, Visteon, Skoda, Chevrolet, Nissan, Acura, Continental, General Motors, Baidu, Motional
Other: Denso, Aptiv, Bosch, Panasonic, Harman, Bugatti, LG, Vodafone, Bell, Carahsoft, CACI, Telus, iSec, KPMG, Tableau, Qlik
Major: Amazon, Google, Sony, XPENG, XPEV, Li Auto, NVIDIA, Canoo, Microsoft, Intel, Verizon, Qualcomm, IBM, LG, Samsung
Major Investors: PRIMECAP, Hamblin Watsa, Ontario Teachers’ Pension, Vanguard, Harris Associates, ETF Managers Group, Wells Capital, Arrowstreet Capital, Kahn Brothers Advisors, Norges Bank Investment
Governments: Albania, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Congo, Croatia, Czech Republic, DR Congo, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Marthinique, Mauritania, Mauritus, Mayotte, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Réunion, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, USA, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vatican City, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Blackberry Current Revenues:

BlackBerry Revenues: How Does BlackBerry Make Money? -- Trefis
This display the biggest bearish argument to BB. Until IVY begins producing new revenue streams, BB is likely to not exponentially increase revenue streams, but only sustain moderate YoY growth

Blackberry Analysis Regarding Infotainment and Google and Ford Deal:

see "Blackberry (BB) Stock News Analysis | What I need to say..." by Financial Live by LEYA on the forbidden video website
The media recently picked out a story that left out a lot of pertinent information, making it seems that BB lost Ford as a client. This is not true. QNX is designed to be a SoC. This means that other operating systems, such as Linux or Android, can be easily added to QNX. It is in fact encouraged. The Ford and Google deal was simply announcing the Ford would be using Android as their infotainment system. I believe that BB was never intended to try and be the predominant entity for all software systems in EVs or IoTs, but the backbone that connects all together, and to protect all components in a secure system. Autonomous EVs and even regular EVs in general would not be possible without a secure system protecting the product, as is true with IoTs. This is also why things like US Fighter Jets run on... you guess it, QNX. Ford is still using QNX. It is simply also now using Android that is running on top of QNX more commentary on this: Analyzing Blackberry Bear Argument - Case No. 1: Ford Deal

Pretty Charts

The New BlackBerry Everyone is Talking About $BB

Facebook Settlement with BB

Image
This is an interesting one to be sure. Facebook was being evil, like the do, and were caught using a number of BB patents. They settled in February, and the day that the settlement was finalized, John Chen (BB CEO) tweeted reminding everyone that BB is used on the ISS
https://twitter.com/JohnChen/status/1358853064153784321?s=20
Well, the connection and speculation here is that Blackberry is going to the moon, and that the settlement is rather significant. Someone else also dug out some information in Facebook's most recent 10-K, specifically a portion for a 'non-cancelable contractual commitment' of an amount of $7500 million dollars. That's 7.5 billion btw. We don't know how big the settlement is, but it is worth noting that BB's entire market cap is 7.5B. I highly doubt that a settlement would reach such lofty numbers, but it could be possible that FB settled for some initial amount of $1B or so, as well as $1B in reoccurring payments over several years. We won't know until March 15th actually, so stay tuned.

Blackberry New Partnerships

Within the last few weeks, Blackberry has announced a stronger partnership with Baidu (China's Google), as well as their involvement with Baidu choosing to use QNX for their autonomous vehicles that will be hitting the road, as early as this year and next. BB has also announced their involvement with Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, which will use QNX for their autonomous vehicles. Motional will be partnering with Lyft to use autonomous vehicles to begin serving customers and will be deploying their vehicles in 2023. It was also announced that QNX will be working with AOSP (Android Open Source Project), as well as announcing yesterday that QNX Hypervisor 2.2 is now released, which is what allows Android and Linux to run on top of QNX.
A sum-up of all the recent news on $BB

BB's Technical Page on QNX Security

Link
Very technical. But cool stuff.

Rumor: Blackberry Buyout? Here's why that's not happening:

Just read this post. It's quite revealing:
Great Day for BB despite stick dipping.
TL;DR: Amazon could have easily bought BB. Why didn't they? Well, all the big players are interested in this EV and IoT emerging sector. This is the new wave of technology that will dominate the market. First we had the dot.com boom, then the cell-phone and smart-phone market, and now we have the autonomous EV and IoT market. If Amazon were to buy BB, they would have to submit a tender offer. This would be a red flag to all the big players that Amazon were trying to buy up the best security out there. It would be a bidding war that could result in a double-digit multi-billion dollar buyout. It was much more to their advantage to create a secret alliance with BB and establish a 50/50 partnership, whose contract includes exclusivity for their use of IVY. Ouch! That's gotta hurt. This is where the importance of QNX lies. BB will be able to pull the rug out from any company that chooses to use something other than IVY. No IVY, no QNX, no EV. It will be a package deal where IVY is the big money maker. All other companies will have to build from the ground up or be forced to license QNX and make their money off of other sectors, such as the infotainment sector, as Google has already begun to do with the Ford deal. When this deal happened, the other big boys wet their pants realizing they needed to get into this space, and fast. Microsoft partnered with Cruise/GM. Apple tried to partner with Hyundai, who was so flattered, they may have initially said yes or indicated so, before realizing that they were already partnered with BB, so it was a no-go. Not sure if that is fact or fiction, but it is an interesting proposal.

Blackberry IVY + AWS Partnership:

Alright, so what's the deal with IVY? Why is it going to be so profitable? Why is IVY the real money-maker, while QNX has been used as the customer-acquisition software tool? Check out this picture:
Image
For one, IVY is designed for real-time communication between EVs or other IoTs. Autonomous driving level 5 requires vehicles to communicate with one another. This is where IVY comes in. IVY connects the different software components of an EV (which presumably are running on QNX), as well as harvesting data on those systems. The data used can be distributed for a wide-variety of uses, including, but not limited to, automakers and suppliers, app developers, consumer services, smart cities, EV charging providers, insurance companies, and vehicle maintenance providers. All of these different sectors will be willing to pay subscriptions for these data services, as well as the automakers and IoT makers who will also be willing to pay subscriptions for IVY. For instance, IVY can help share information between vehicles that will allow for a car detecting ice roads in one area so that other cars using IVY can take a different route. This results in less crashes, which helps the automakers. Insurance companies can use data from all these different data points as well, allowing them an inside-view of their clients. The list of what is possible here is inexhaustible.
As for price points, the subscription models for multiple outside companies wanting to use the data will be create huge revenue streams for BB. With Amazon as a 50/50 partner, and with their resources and strategic management, BB will be poised to be the foundation in security and data sharing for the entire EV, and somewhat of the IoT market (the IoT market has more competitors for sure)
see "Is BlackBerry Stock Undervalued?" by Wealthy Mindset on the forbidden video website
see "Roadmap to $180 a share (BlackBerry Stock)" by Wealthy Mindset on the forbidden video website

Revenue, revenue, revenue...

Blackberry is poised to be an industry leader in EV, government, and IoT security and data sharing with products such as QNX, IVY, Spark, and their other software products. Stock price will likely stay somewhat stunted until IVY revenue begins picking up. It is possible that more announcements and marketing related to IVY will make this growth more rapid. In my opinion, either way BB over the next 5 years will 10x. The question is whether you want to get in now at $12 / share or two years from now at $40 a share or something similar, assuming that either way this stock is going to push for that 100B market cap (it's currently at 7B). There will be bearish analysts that will continue to say that Blackberry is a worthless company until those IVY revenue streams begin to come in. It is also possible that a realistic competitor may emerge within the next three years, such as Tesla or Apple. But if Apple is seeking to create its own EV product, then both companies will have a hard time finding any way to license their software to any other company. It remains possible that Apple and/or Tesla may strikes deals with BB as well in order to be able to produce autonomous vehicles and get a bite of that market share

Really, no competitors?

Well it's called a business moat for a reason. As we have recently seen, QNX is working with AOSP, and so clearly, they are not to be worried about. Tesla is not a true competitor as their OS product is not certified yet, and has demonstrated difficulty in doing so, and additionally, other automakers will not want to benefit their competitors by using their product. A third-party non-auto-maker will be much more desirable. Other companies such as VxWorks, have a lot of to prove both in security and certifications, as well as producing an OS product that is compatible with an emerging autonomous level 5 EV market. QNX's embedded microkernel RTOS is very much unique in this regard. This type of system allows for real-time processing and power distribution, while protecting the system from attacks. In an embedded microkernel system, if one part of the system is attacked, the whole system will not shut down, in layman's terms. This is essential for the security of any high-risk product that is built upon an underlying software that controls that different components of the system.

Conclusion:

All eyes are turned towards Blackberry right now. People want to know what this deal with Amazon will look like, how it will work, what they will focus on, (will Amazon also use this system for a fleet of delivery drones? hmmm), what the revenue streams will look like, what are their projections, what markets and sectors are they targeting, what are their future goals, what will Amazon be doing on their end, etc, etc. The Amazon + BB webinar may answer some of those questions, or maybe they won't. Time will tell (Feb. 23rd, specifically -- here's a link to sign up and watch: Next-Gen Vehicle Architectures Unlock Unprecedented Opportunities for Automakers). Also look out for that FB settlement numbers on March 15th, and Q4 earnings March 31st. I don't expect Q4 earnings to be particularly interesting unless they include the FB settlement numbers. Could those numbers instead be put into Q1 earnings for 2021? Possibly.
Initially IVY beta is expected to begin being released late this year. I will also be looking forward to see how Apple and Tesla respond in the coming months. Ultimately, BB is a long-term play, but is poised to dominate this emerging industry with the partnerships and security focused software they have secretly been building. Now if only the could do something about their logo, some rebranding would be nice...
This is not financial advice, just my own opinions. I am not a financial advisor nor a professional. I own 14k shares in Blackberry, as well as options (10x 8/17/21 20c BB). Do your own DD and fact check me as well

https://preview.redd.it/pd0xmv18trf61.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=7797a4cfe50c33a06ab65ed46ccd00c204fffe8a
Greetings Call of Duty: Mobile Community! We are back today with your usual type of community update filled with info about recently released or upcoming events and modes, but this time we are also happy to share that the next public test build is here! We’ll have that in first section following the events schedule, but it is being released far earlier than normal, especially for one that is filled with content from the next major in-game update. However, for Season 1: New Order the biggest release this week is the featured event, Fight For Humanity.
https://reddit.com/link/ldpeki/video/tei7fdebwrf61/player
This new event, released yesterday, asks you to pick a side and join the fight alongside your fellow players while you earn points in an attempt to control territories. There are many unique rewards to snag this time, both as a team and solo, and we’ll have more details about that event below in its own section of the update.
In this update we also have responses for recent feedback and bug reports alongside various event, store, mode, and playlist updates that recently released or are coming soon. First off though, we want to say thank you to the many players who have reported a variety of bugs and created discussions to give feedback about new features, modes, balance changes, or other aspects unique to this season.
Members of our development teams who create these events, make balance changes, add new pieces of content, game modes, and more, also read your responses and feedback. Thank you all for your dedication, passion, and commitment to making this game better through so many different ways. With that said, let’s jump into this update!
https://preview.redd.it/nhr33madwrf61.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=d92f9a5116c867106b75da4711ad83cde764de4a
Here is a quick look at all of the new events starting today and others launch soon:

02/03 – 02/09 ~ 10v10 Collection (MP)
02/03 ~ Two New Seasonal Challenges
- Deadly Mist (Gas Grenade) and Premier Operator
02/05 – 02/11 ~ 3v3 GunFight (MP)
- Check out the Gunfight Trio event
02/05 – 02/11 ~ BR Sniper Only
02/05 – 02/19 ~ Fight For Humanity event
02/05 – 02/18 ~ System Overload Draw
- The brand-new Ether – Network is here!
02/08 – 02/14 ~ Grind Baby, Grind! (MP)
02/10 – 02/16 ~ Russian Nuketown 24/7 (MP)
Coming Soon – Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year store content

*All Dates UTC
We covered a number of these topics in the last community update, but we’ll go over some again if it is launching today or if we have some new information to share. First though, just a reminder that for Battle Royale we have limited modes launching every week in February and the newest mode, Blitz, will be back later in February.
https://preview.redd.it/9v3crd9vwrf61.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=3d2f76132c10f62ea1ccf812db1329dc2724f4c8
February 5th - Public Test Build We are back quite early in the season with a public test build ready to go for our next update, which does not release until March. This test build will be larger than the last couple in relation to the player limit and new playable content, much of which may release in one of the next two seasons.
We are thrilled this time to announce that we have added iOS to the mix! You'll need Test Flight to access it, but otherwise it should be a relatively straight forward install. Here are all of the usual details, but please note that we have two different APKs to download this time.

Begins today on February 5th (PT)
- Test end date not specified
Available for Android and iOS devices
Download Size: 2 gigabytes, Wifi connection is highly recommended
Player Registration Limit: 40,000 (30K Android, 10K iOS)
Content suited for ages 16+
All information and player data collected during this test will be deleted

This time around we have two different versions, 32 bit and 64 bit. For anyone unfamiliar, 64 bit is more suited for higher-end/newer devices while 32 bit is generally more suited for lower-end/older devices. We recommend that you only download the 64 bit version if you have no issues running the current version of CODM on the more demanding (high/highest) graphical settings.
With all of that said, the 64 bit version is the ideal version we would like players to test during this specific public test build. If you can, please download and use that version of the build. Please find all of those download links below along with the player registrations limit per version.

(Priority) Android - Downloadable via 64 Bit APK here: (Registration Full)
- 20,000 Player Limit
Android - Downloadable via 32 Bit APK here: (Registration Full)
- 10,000 Player Limit

For iOS players, you’ll just need to have Apple’s Testflight application installed on your phone and this link below should take you to the correct page to download the test build.

iOS Testflight Link: (Registration Full)
- 10,000 Player Limit

We do have a general cap (as listed above) on how many players can enter into both the iOS and Android versions of this test. You unfortunately won’t be able to see if that limit has been met until you try to register an account at the login screen. We’ll update the page here once registration is closed, but this is just a heads up for anyone who manages to download after we’ve hit that limit.
In this build you’ll be able to find a variety of new content, but some of the main ones you might notice are: Shoothouse (MP Map), Shipment 2019 (MP Map), updated Night Modes, Sword & Stones mode, the Truck in BR, new perks, and the new Bull Charge Operator Skill. Of course, there are plenty of smaller changes or new additions hidden in there too, but this is just a glimpse at what you’ll be able to try out.
Some general tips for downloading this rather large file:

Do your best to make sure you on a secure uninterrupted connection so that the whole package is downloaded without any issues
Try to turn off or stop your device from going into any kind of rest mode
If you are running into issues download the file, try using a different browser
Make sure you have 5-6 gigabytes of data free on your device

This file and build is independent of the main build, you do not need to remove or do anything with your main CODM application. It will install as another application that is executed separately.
Thank you to everyone who takes the time to help us test out this new content and please make sure to report any feedback or bug through the in-game options, like the in-game survey that may not be available right off the bat but will show up once the beta has been out for a while.
Fight for Humanity Sides have been drawn, the field of battle has been laid bare, and the Fight for Humanity has begun! Your first choice is simple, Atlas Corporation or Cordis Die, where will your loyalties lie? Pick one of the two sides, open up the map, see what territory is currently being fought over, and what tasks you can complete to help your side win that battle.
https://preview.redd.it/zab957iyxrf61.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=d12d6a7edf27d89ac7cf5ffac1bbd2f15d67602c
Each side will have its own set of Faction rewards available and they are broken down into milestones, winning prizes, and leaderboard rewards. Each faction has its own version of the Cordite to grab (seen above) and the Russian Merc operator. Additionally, the faction that wins it all will snag the ATV – Override and the those who reach the top of the leaderboards can snag the Legendary Calling Card — Rupture. Through all of those different methods there are many rewards to grab by participating in this global battle of territory control!
Lastly, you can boost your points by using various weapon sets that are indicated in the top right of this event page in-game. If you’d like to get the upper hand with some tips and tricks then head on over to our Fight For Humanity blog post.
Good luck out there and may the best faction win!
Seasonal Challenges Two seasonal challenges are already out in the wild as of last week and now this week two are more coming your way! The first challenge, Premier Operator, is more of your usual type of seasonal challenge with a variety of rewards and tasks, while Deadly Mist is a unique one due to the fact that you can earn a new piece of a tactical equipment the Gas Grenade by completing it. Find the details below!
Premier Operator This six-part seasonal challenge is all about using different operators in Battle Royale and Multiplayer modes. The tasks all vary, ranging from just playing BR matches to getting kills with the S36 while using Outrider. You can earn nearly 20K Battle Pass XP for completing these tasks plus the following rewards:

(Uncommon) Mechanic – Warp
(Uncommon) S36 – Warp
(Rare) Charm – E-Chatter
(Rare) Special Ops 5 – Trance

Deadly Mist This five-part seasonal challenge went live a few days ago and it is your rare chance to grab a brand-new piece of equipment. The gas grenade is a tactical grenade that slows down your enemies with debilitating smoke that also provides cover. Complete a variety of tasks related to equipment, scorestreaks, and perks, and you’ll be able to snag this new tactical grenade along with the following items:

(Uncommon) Smoke Grenade – Warp
(Rare) Calling Card – Dystopia on TV
(Common) Gas Grenade

https://preview.redd.it/q44od4330sf61.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=afcc9e6aac686ea0447b4f8763ed595860013219
3v3 Gunfight Mode This tactical showdown played on perfectly symmetrical small maps has returned, but this time around each team is bringing an extra teammate with them for this competitive challenge. This team-based mode released yesterday on 2/5 (UTC) and for anyone unfamiliar with it we have a new video just to show off the basic rules and objectives. Take a look!
https://reddit.com/link/ldpeki/video/uqcb2ql60sf61/player
While you are playing 3v3 Gunfight make sure to check out the Gunfight Trio featured event in order to earn some rewards while you are challenging yourself to intense tactical gameplay. There are eight tasks to this event and they are all straight-forward, like get kills or play matches, and by completing these you can earn the following rewards:

(Uncommon) Frag Grenade – The Numbers
(Uncommon) Knife – Warp
(Rare) Kilo Bolt-Action – Cosmic Wave
(Epic) Cyber Clown Frame

System Overload Draw While we rarely highlight any draws, crates, or bundles through these community updates, it is hard not to bring up the System Overload Draw. This draw brings with it the second blueprint for the newest assault rifle, the FR .556 - Superhighway, and of course the highly sought-after new operator, Ether - Network. Here is a glimpse at those two main new pieces of content:
https://reddit.com/link/ldpeki/video/txshs60b0sf61/player
Another unique aspect of this draw, related to the Fight for Humanity event, is the Breach Set. If you acquire the three breach camos for Outlaw, the EMP, and the Karambit then you’ll receive a weapon set bonus for that featured event.
That specific weapon set increases the points earned from battles between factions by 50%. You can find all of the information in-game on this new draw or in the featured event. Get a jump on it while everything is still active.
Feedback Since the Season 1 launch we’ve primarily been focused more on reporting bugs, but there are still a few feedback-related topics we’ve seen come up and have been trying to respond to on a one-to-one basis whenever we are able to. Let’s jump in!

Voice Overs – We’ve brought up this topic numerous times in previous updates or on social media channels, but we keep seeing interest in upcoming voice overs, updating current (or missing) voices, and of course brand-new operators. We are of course working on all of those, just like we released many updated voice overs alongside some new ones in Season 1, but we are also working on ways to provide more visibility about all of that in future updates.
China Version Content – As you may see in the public test build (if you manage to snag a spot before it is full) we have some content coming in future updates that is also in the Chinese version of CODM, like Trucks in BR. Most likely, we won’t always keep content the same in each version of the game, but the teams managing the game are always working together to coordinate, discuss, and decide what content should release in each version.
Cheater Reports – For whatever reason, most of the time we release an update we see an increase in cheater reports. These have traditionally tapered off one or two weeks into the season, but we have seen no abnormal increases in cheaters. We will always keep an eye out for reports in community areas, so please keep sharing, but also please keep reporting in-game as well and we’ll keep monitoring and acting to make sure your experience isn’t compromised.
Master of All Event – A special shout-out to those who have been giving feedback back about the unique rewards on this event (6000 credits and BP XP as the final reward). The team was looking to see if this type of reward felt valuable to players and so far all we’ve seen is positive feedback about it, which may pave the way for similar reward setups in the future.
Next Update – While we cannot confirm any dates for our next season or update, it is always a moving target for a variety of reasons, we can confirm that the next update will be in March.

Bug Reports We’ve been going through many smaller bug reports lately thanks to threads, PMs, and posts sharing details, videos, or screenshots explaining the issue. We don’t have any huge issues to bring up this week, at least nothing new or seemingly troublesome, but we are working with our teams to investigate many of those smaller issues and please do keep sharing. It is always appreciated!

Battle Royale Bugs – We’ve seen a variety of BR related bugs come in over the past two weeks and they vary greatly in relation to the types, the severity of them, and how widespread they seem to be experienced. While we can’t list it all here, we just wanted to give a general shout-out and thank you to several community members who have spent a significant amount of time making videos, screenshots, and posts to highlight these issues clearly.
Black Screen Issues – We are happy to say that we have seen fewer reports of these types of issues after the Season 1 release after we implemented some general stability improvements for all players in that update. We’ll have more on that front coming in the next major update (next month) and we’ll be monitoring both in-game and external channels for reports.
Blitz Mode Performance – We have seen various discussions about performance issues in Blitz mode due to the changes made to put more players and items in a smaller area. This seems to be a similar issue to why some devices struggle with Warfare mode. We recommend experimenting with different graphical settings before jumping into these modes to see if that helps performance, but we’ll also see if there is anything we can do to help improve performance in these types of modes.

Support Options Lastly, thank you to everyone who have been reporting various issues since Season 1 released and please do keep using our support channels on top of community areas to repot issues. In the off-chance you haven’t seen this information in every single one of our community updates 😉, here are our main support channels:

In-game support chat
ATVI Assist Twitter: Activision Support (@ATVIAssist) / Twitter
ATVI Assist Facebook: Activision Assist - Facebook
Player Support Website: Contact Us

https://preview.redd.it/5e5mlmwm0sf61.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=8041bf5e80de983c00bcb5cf20bbbe42664d8bb5
One of our greatest pleasures each week is looking through various community areas to see the latest and greatest in CODM memes, but also to see the latest and greatest art designs created by some extremely talented community members! This week, we are thrilled to be able to highlight Sarcstoon, who you may know as Sagar in certain community areas.
Urban Tracker by Sarcstoon
Sarcstoon is a character artist and their online portfolios are filled to the brim with impressively detailed pieces of art that range from CODM operators to commission pieces for real life couples. One thing is clear through all of their pieces, their style is unique and in particular for faces and expressions.
Park Safehouse by Sarcstoon
Whether it is Helen Park or Urban Tracker, they’ve blown us away with their vibrant, welcoming, and charming pieces of work that make us proud that CODM is lucky enough to be a receipent of their designs. If you’d like to see more of Sarcastoon then you have plenty of options to see their work:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClQ-Byi1KgJyaEn-UCffLYA
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarcastoon/?hl=en
Art Station: https://www.artstation.com/sarcastoon

Thank you all once again for being the type of community that supports artists and designers by providing positive feedback, supportive words, or even just upvotes or positive reactions. There are so many talented folks in the community and we are always eager to look for more each week.
With all of that said, we’ve come to the end of yet another community update! We plan to return next week with more and with some info on our upcoming Valentine’s Day events & activities. You know us, we love to use holidays as an excuse to design new content, create giveaways, or just create engaging events with the general community.
We’ll see you all next week and for those of you in the public test build make sure to jump on that before we hit that player limit! Thank you all and stay safe out there.
-The Call of Duty: Mobile Team

Abbreviation Index:

FAQs:

Now for the details.

Full List of Clients and Partners:

Blackberry Current Revenues:

Blackberry Analysis Regarding Infotainment and Google and Ford Deal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIrjrNYR3Lw
The media recently picked out a story that left out a lot of pertinent information, making it seems that BB lost Ford as a client. This is not true. QNX is designed to be a SoC. This means that other operating systems, such as Linux or Android, can be easily added to QNX. It is in fact encouraged. The Ford and Google deal was simply announcing the Ford would be using Android as their infotainment system. I believe that BB was never intended to try and be the predominant entity for all software systems in EVs or IoTs, but the backbone that connects all together, and to protect all components in a secure system. Autonomous EVs and even regular EVs in general would not be possible without a secure system protecting the product, as is true with IoTs. This is also why things like US Fighter Jets run on... you guess it, QNX. Ford is still using QNX. It is simply also now using Android that is running on top of QNX more commentary on this: Analyzing Blackberry Bear Argument - Case No. 1: Ford Deal

Pretty Charts

The New BlackBerry Everyone is Talking About $BB

Facebook Settlement with BB

Blackberry New Partnerships

BB's Technical Page on QNX Security

Link
Very technical. But cool stuff.

Rumor: Blackberry Buyout? Here's why that's not happening:

Blackberry IVY + AWS Partnership:

Revenue, revenue, revenue...

Really, no competitors?

Conclusion:

Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

Welcome to the /Bitcoin Sticky FAQ

You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments.
It all started with the release of Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper however that will probably go over the head of most readers so we recommend the following articles/books/videos as a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:

Some other great resources include Michael Saylor's "Bitcoin for Everybody"' course, Jameson Lopp's resource page, Gigi's resource page, and James D'Angelo's Bitcoin 101 Blackboard series. Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found at the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute.
If you are technically or academically inclined check out developer resources and peer-reviewed research papers, course lectures from both MIT and Princeton as well as future protocol improvements and scaling resources. Some Bitcoin statistics can be found here, here and here. MicroStrategy's Bitcoin for Corporations is an excellent open source series on corporate legal and financial bitcoin integration.
You can also see the number of times Bitcoin was declared dead by the media (LOL) and what you could have earned if you didn't listen to them! XD

Key properties of Bitcoin

Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoin created and they are issued in a predictable fashion per the inflation schedule. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown tells you how much time until the next drop in block rewards.
Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read and contribute to the source code yourself.
Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works. You can even run a node on a Raspberry Pi.
Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoin resides has the authority to move them.
Low fee scaling - Most wallets calculate on chain fees automatically but you can view fee estimates and mempool activity if you want to set your fee manually. On chain fees may rise occasionally due to network demand, however instant micropayments that do not require confirmations are happening via the Lightning Network, a second layer scaling solution currently rolling out on the Bitcoin mainnet.
Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
Pseudonymous - No need to expose personal information when purchasing with cash or transacting.
Secure - Blocks and transactions are cryptographically secured (using hashes and signatures) and can’t be brute forced or confiscated with proper key management such as hardware wallets.
Programmable - Individual units of bitcoin can be programmed to transfer based on certain criteria being met
Nearly instant - From a few seconds on the lightning network to a few minutes on-chain depending on need for confirmations. Transactions are irreversible by normal users after one confirmation and irreversible by anyone (including miners) after 6 confirmations.
Peer-to-peer - No intermediaries taking a cut, no need for trusted third parties.
Portable - Bitcoin are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can be transported by simply carrying a seed (a string of 12 to 24 words) on a device or by memorizing it for wallet recovery (while cool, memorizing is generally not recommended due to potential for forgetting the seed and the potential for insecure key generation by inexperienced users. Hardware wallets are the preferred method for most users for their ease of use and additional security).
Scalable - While the protocol is still being optimized for increased transaction capacity, blockchains do not scale very well, so most transaction volume is expected to occur on Layer 2 networks built on top of Bitcoin.
Divisible - Each bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimals, which means you don't have to worry about buying an entire bitcoin.
Designed Money - Bitcoin was created to fit all the fundamental properties of money better than gold or fiat

Where can I buy bitcoin?

Bitcoin.org and BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin (even just a few dollars worth) and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.

You can also purchase in cash with local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Bitwage.
Note: Bitcoin are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

Securing your bitcoin

With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoin OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoin for you.

If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, then you will need to create your own wallet and keep it secure. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor, Ledger or ColdCard is recommended.
If you cannot afford a hardware wallet there are many software wallet options to choose from depending on your use case. Mobile wallets like BlueWallet are generally more secure than desktop wallets. Beware of fake mobile wallets and check reviews from reputable Bitcoin websites. Avoid paper wallets or brain wallets.
If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Gemini or Unchained Capital but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk. There is a saying in the community, "Not your keys, not your coins" meaning if you don't store your coins in a wallet that you control the keys to then you do not really own your bitcoin as you have to ask permission from the third party in order to move them.

Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email!
2FA requires a second confirmation code or a physical security key to access your account making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
Avoid using your cell number for 2FA. Hackers have been using a technique called "SIM swapping" to impersonate users and steal bitcoin off exchanges.

Google Auth	Authy	OTP Auth	andOTP
Android	Android	N/A	Android
iOS	iOS	iOS	N/A

Physical security keys (FIDO U2F) offer stronger security than Google Auth / Authy and other TOTP-based apps, because the secret code never leaves the device and it uses bi-directional authentication so it prevents phishing. If you lose the device though, you could lose access to your account, so always use 2 or more security keys with a given account so you have backups. See Yubikey or Titan to purchase security keys.
Both Coinbase and Gemini support physical security keys.

Watch out for scams

As mentioned above, Bitcoin is decentralized, which by definition means there is no official website or Twitter handle or spokesperson or CEO. However, all money attracts thieves. This combination unfortunately results in scammers running official sounding names or pretending to be an authority on YouTube or social media. Many scammers throughout the years have claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin. Websites like bitcoin(dot)com and the r / btc subreddit are active scams. Almost all altcoins (shitcoins) are marketed heavily with big promises but are really just designed to separate you from your bitcoin. So be careful: any resource, including all linked in this document, may in the future turn evil. As they say in our community, "Don't trust, verify".

Avoid using ad-based search engines like Google or Yahoo: ads are shown based on how much the advertiser bids, and scammers can easily outbid legitimate providers for ad space, since immoral ways of earning money are far more lucrative than moral ways. Use DuckDuckGo instead, which has no ads, and never tracks you as well.
Ignore private messages offering services.
Never enter your seed words in a website of any kind. Hardware wallets will recover by displaying possible seed words on their own interface, never on a website.
Always check addresses on your hardware wallet before sending or receiving. Some malware has been known to replace addresses in your web browser or that you copy-and-paste.
Avoid clicking on links like that look like links, such as https://www.google.com/, without first hovering over it and actually checking where they go to. Just because a link is labelled with an HTTPS address does not mean it actually sends you to that address. It is trivial for someone to comment a link on Reddit that looks like it will send you to one website when it actually sends you to another, and you might not notice the difference until a scammer has gotten all your money, or you have downloaded and installed software that steals your money.

Common Bitcoin Myths

Often the same concerns arise about Bitcoin from newcomers. Questions such as:

Is Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme?
Will governments ban Bitcoin?
Will quantum computers break Bitcoin?

All of these questions have been answered many times by a variety of people. Here are some resources where you can see if your concern has been answered:

Where can I spend bitcoin?

Check out spendabit or bitcoin directory for millions of merchant options. Also you can spend bitcoin anywhere visa is accepted with bitcoin debit cards such as the CashApp card or Fold card. Some other useful site are listed below.

Store	Product
Bitrefill, Gyft	Gift cards for thousands of retailers worldwide including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
Spendabit, Overstock and The Bitcoin Directory	Retail shopping with millions of results
NewEgg and Dell	For all your electronics needs
Piixpay, Bitbill.eu, Bylls, Coins.ph, LivingRoomofSatoshi, Coinsfer, and more	Bill payment
Menufy and Takeaway	Takeout delivered to your door
Expedia, Cheapair, Destinia, Abitsky, SkyTours, the Travel category on Gyft and 9flats	For when you need to get away
Cryptostorm, Mullvad, and PIA	VPN services
Namecheap, Porkbun	Domain name registration
Stampnik	Discounted USPS Priority, Express, First-Class mail postage

Coinmap and AirBitz are helpful to find local businesses accepting bitcoin. A good resource for UK residents is at wheretospendbitcoins.co.uk.
There are also lots of charities which accept bitcoin donations.

Merchant Resources

There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;

1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.

If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;

BTCPay
Square cash
Stripe
Wyre
Blockonomics (direct to your wallet)

Can I mine bitcoin?

Mining bitcoin can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read the mining FAQ. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out.
If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node. You can view the global node distribution for a visual representation of the node network.

Earning bitcoin

Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoin by being paid to do a job.

Site	Description
WorkingForBitcoins, Bitwage, Cryptogrind, Coinality, Bitgigs, /Jobs4Bitcoins, BitforTip, Rein Project	Freelancing
Lolli	Earn bitcoin when you shop online!
OpenBazaar, Purse.io, Bitify, /Bitmarket	Marketplaces
/GirlsGoneBitcoin NSFW	Adult services
A-ads, Coinzilla.io	Advertising

You can also earn bitcoin by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoin for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoin).

Bitcoin-Related Projects

The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.

Project	Description
Lightning Network	Second layer scaling
Liquid, Rootstock and Drivechain	Sidechains
Hivemind	Prediction markets
Tierion and Factom	Records & Titles on the blockchain
BitMarkets, DropZone, Beaver and Open Bazaar	Decentralized markets
JoinMarket and Wasabi Wallet	CoinJoin implementation
Decentralized exhanges	Decentralized bitcoin exchanges
Keybase	Identity & Reputation management
Abra	Global P2P money transmitter network
Bitcore	Open source Bitcoin javascript library

Bitcoin Units

One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:

Unit	Symbol	Value	Info
bitcoin	BTC	1 bitcoin	one bitcoin is equal to 100 million satoshis
millibitcoin	mBTC	1,000 per bitcoin	used as default unit in recent Electrum wallet releases
bit	bit	1,000,000 per bitcoin	colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin (μBTC)
satoshi	sat	100,000,000 per bitcoin	smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor

For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $10000 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:

0.001 BTC
1 mBTC
1,000 bits
100k sats

For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki.
Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit.
Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval.
Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!

Abbreviation Index:

FAQs:

Now for the details.

Full List of Clients and Partners:

Blackberry Current Revenues:

Blackberry Analysis Regarding Infotainment and Google and Ford Deal:

Pretty Charts

The New BlackBerry Everyone is Talking About $BB

Facebook Settlement with BB

Blackberry New Partnerships

BB's Technical Page on QNX Security

Link
Very technical. But cool stuff.

Rumor: Blackberry Buyout? Here's why that's not happening:

Blackberry IVY + AWS Partnership:

Revenue, revenue, revenue...

Really, no competitors?

Conclusion:

This article was written with the feedback of ~300 highly engaged players from the different autochess reddit communities (TFT, DOTA Underlords, Chess Rush...), which participated in interviews and on a poll whose results are available here. They’re especially thanked by name at the end of the article.
In January 2019, Drodo Studio’s Dota Auto Chess mod became insanely popular. Many companies (including household names like Valve, Riot, Ubisoft and Blizzard) rushed to release their own versions.
It seemed like the beginning of something big like MOBA or Battle Royale. But it has been more than a year now and the hype seems to have vanished completely. As quickly as it rose, it went away…
This is the first on a series of articles where we will analyze the autochess genre. Here we will be exploring the genre’s history, its current market situation and its audience. And also, what are the core design issues that autochess suffers and that no one has been able to solve yet.
https://preview.redd.it/tc2c19k4ipg61.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=487539f51e104ee7d1aae1a6ded7447b1dee11ca
It really helps me if you check this article (or similar content) at my blog https://jb-dev.net/

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

This wasn’t the first time that a mod got the spotlight and ended up becoming the foundation of a genre. It happened in several major, industry-defining cases before (some of which are Team Shooters, MOBAs, Battle Royale…). But on some of these cases events unfolded differently. So we identify 3 distinctive eras related to the evolution of the industry:

1st Era (2000s): Assimilation

The company whose original software had been modded (or had a close enough game, like Valve) moved quickly to absorb the successful mods and turn them into even more successful products.
Since at that point creating a major game release was very complex (required an expensive development, publishing deals and an infrastructure to distribute the product), the deal was profitable for both sides. But it meant the dissolution of the identity of the original creator team, which became embedded in the bigger company culture.
https://preview.redd.it/abyi6d2jipg61.png?width=461&format=png&auto=webp&s=d4171bf9344a162e695a75a91d18eec8206b9123

Team Fortress (1999) was originally a Quake mod. And Counter-Strike (2000) started out as a fan-made mod on the Half Life engine. Both games (and creators) were quickly absorbed by Valve.

2nd Era (2010s): Integration

By this time, the previous era model still was going on… but the gaming industry had significatively grown a lot and it was also possible for smaller or even new companies to lure the original developers, and use the mod as a proof for commercial success in order to secure funding and develop it as a full title.
The main characteristic of this era is that the original developers were able to keep a bigger share of control and relevance, rather than being integrated as just another gear on a bigger machine, because the companies they joined built their own identity around that key product.
This was the case of Riot Games: They were able to raise enough money for the creation of their company through family and angel investors, and then hire some of the original creators of DOTA, and then created League of Legends.
https://preview.redd.it/vl6h2l7lipg61.png?width=763&format=png&auto=webp&s=414abb3da2b169966b7bf757a6116f86ef3748d2

Defense of the Ancients (DotA), the foundational title for the MOBA genre, appeared in 2003 as a fan-made custom scenario of Warcraft 3. Foreseeing commercial potential on a full game based on the concept, Riot games and Valve both battled for the Dota IP and the original developers, eventually releasing rival titles League of Legends and Dota2. Interestingly, Blizzard (owners of Warcraft 3) tried to replicate the success without the mod creators in Heroes of the Storm (2015), which hasn’t been as successful as the other two.

A similar case happened with battle royale, which also started in 2013 as a successful DayZ mod created by the modder nicknamed PlayerUnknown. Later, it was transformed into a full product through the acquisition of the developer by a korean company (which would later be renamed as the PUBG Corporation, again showing how the company grew around the game rather than assimilating it).
This case hints what would later happen with Auto Chess, since Fortnite wasn’t involved in any way with the original creators. They just copied the concept. Fortnite was a product stuck in a kind of development hell (had been 6 years in the works). As the game was getting close to the release, the developers became impressed by PUBG’s success, so they created a quick Battle Royale spin-off which became insanely popular and eventually ate the rest of the game.
https://preview.redd.it/zkdv4jjqipg61.png?width=808&format=png&auto=webp&s=0e7ad39e5db4d83b6b927587b59bf1c81fe0ef85

Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (2017), foundational title of the modern battle royale genre, is the successor of PlayerUnknown’s DayZ: Battle Royale, a popular mod for DayZ (which on itself is a mod of ArmA3, making it a mod of a mod lol). The success of PUBG inspired Fortnite (a title on the later stages of a troubled development at the time) to spin towards that genre, becoming PUBG‘s main competitor.

3rd Era (2020s): Fragmentation

In all the cases presented previously, the newborn genre ended up in the release of one or two titles which accumulated most of the business. But this hasn’t been the case here.
In Autochess, the newborn genre has been quickly fragmented into a big list of competitors. Some are standalone games (like DOTA Underlords or Autochess: Origins), but there’s also several service-model games which released their autochess mode as well (like Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds or TeamFight Tactics, which at the end of the day is a side-game mode of League of Legends).
This creates an interesting precedent, which I believe will define future cases where an innovative new game concept appears: The hot idea will be cloned very fast because today the main bottleneck in the industry is having an innovative design that generates player interest and engagement.
By 2020, it’s way easier to create and distribute a game, there are way more developers hungry for a hit than ever before, and a lot of service-model games with short development cycles always looking for something juicy for their next update… so new ideas becoming red oceans fast will be the norm.
For sure, this won’t affect the ability of small developers and modders to innovate, but it will affect their ability to leverage that to become successful on an independant level, before they get cloned.
https://preview.redd.it/51jbq4jwipg61.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=fdfcfeb82e73b48210c4d93386438268d6dcbe3b

Dota Auto Chess, was a Dota 2 mod which obtained massive popularity. After a failed acquisition from Valve (owners of Dota), the mod developers (Drodo Studios) went to create the mobile standalone Auto Chess: Origins, while still maintaining the PC version linked to Valve.
Meanwhile, Riot, Valve, Ubisoft and many other companies developed and released their own autobattlers at a record time, downgrading the genre creators to just another competitor.

On Autochess, the fragmentation and fast release pace came at the cost of innovation, though. These games feature few unique selling points compared to the original DOTA Autochess experience: TFT’s ‘anti-snowballing’ character selection rounds, Underlord’s bosses and fast-track mode….
And ultimately, they haven’t fixed the core issues of the original game, which separates it from a true hyper-successful product like MOBA.

MARKET STATUS

Because of the rain of clones, it’s hard to map all the autochess games on the market. It doesn’t help that some of them are available in both PC and Mobile (playable in PC, Mac, Android and iOS), and also they’re exclusive to different PC stores (Dota Underlords is only on Steam, TFT is on Riot’s LoL launcher, and Autochess Origins is only at the Epic Store…).
And if that wasn’t enough, the Auto Chess mod in DOTA2 is still very active and has no signs that it’s going to be dying soon. It’s still being regularly updated, and presumably still profitable: Some months ago they added a battle pass system, with its revenue shared between Valve and Drodo.
https://preview.redd.it/8w2lrid0jpg61.png?width=854&format=png&auto=webp&s=3697396edd8af2dff3f8e25cb2dd3829635506d0
What’s interesting is that none of the contenders has been able to become massively successful in terms of monetization, at least not in terms comparable to even a second or third tier MOBA. And while there are definitively different tiers of following among these titles (led by Riot Games’ TeamFight Tactics), it seems that none of them has been able to gather under its banner a significant amount of players, mobile downloads or Twitch Views…
Sources: AppAnnie (mobile metrics), TwitchMetrics (twitch)
So ultimately, we’re dividing the autochess market into 3 categories: Squires, Would-be Kings and Peasants.

Squires: Rather than standalone games, these are side-modes of already successful products. Under this category we would list the Battlegrounds mode in Hearthstone, or League of Legends’ TFT, and maybe even the original DOTA Autochess mod. While for sure they’ll have their own dedicated audience that only plays those modes, for most players it’s just a nice and fresh activity integrated within a broader game experience. The squires are the ones that have achieved the biggest success among the autochess genre because they don’t suffer as much backlash from the lack of gameplay depth inherent to the genre, which is harmful for the long term retention: Even if the mode eventually becomes a bit shallow, players have many other things to play, and thus are retained. As a consequence, these games can still monetize significatively by selling renewals of their Battle Passes every new season. Not enough to make them successful on the degree that was expected… but at least it’s something. Other than bringing an additional source of revenue, these modes were useful to their core games: They generated player interest by providing innovative gameplay. Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds was an amazing addition to the CCG genre, and made a lot of people come back to the game to discover the new mode and reengage.

https://preview.redd.it/1qhlvvd6jpg61.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=c56f59cc22cf8e0d0207abc424dca9e976c5685c

SQUIRE: The gameplay of TeamFight Tactics (slow tempo, no team coordination, decreased attention requirement…) makes it a nice relief mode to play between LOL matches, which is its purpose in the foreseeable future. If there ever was an intention to make it a standalone game, it vanished together with the player interest on autochess…

Would-be Kings: These are the other two top dogs of the category. They were supposed to rule… but that looking at the numbers they don’t really seem to have ever lifted off. Under this category we would list Auto Chess: Origins and DOTA Underlords. The problem is that their standalone approach means that they suffer the most of the design issues of the genre that we’ve presented in the last section of this article (i.e. flat complexity, lack of mastery depth, lack of progression and rotative meta…). That means that they lost a lot of population over time, and therefore their Battle Pass renewal isn’t as effective at generating revenue : (

https://preview.redd.it/p2n125v9jpg61.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=59aa81130d41566a336413dafc3e2317d80d3d24

DOTA Underlords is an extremely polished product in terms of graphics, character design and UX, and yet another proof that Valve devs really know how to do great games. Too bad they aren’t as good at releasing third installments.

THE AUDIENCE

We are of the belief that you can’t talk about a game and not talk about who plays it, and that players say more about a game than analyzing all its features and mechanics. So with this in mind we collected answers from ~300 autochess players (check the raw data here). After examining their responses, we’ve identified 3 main player profiles (the comments on each profile are literal):
https://preview.redd.it/satixy6cjpg61.png?width=934&format=png&auto=webp&s=80623e39c57f1252b3fc5d04db1d2a20b06928e2

Patricks, gamers looking for a competitive-but-idle experience that doesn’t require full attention and it’s easily reconcilable with their functional adult life.
Grizzlies, competitive players that struggle with fast paced games that demand a high actions per minute ratio and quick reflexes (like MOBAs or competitive shooters).
Warmasters, highly competitive players that enjoy more the area of strategy (setting up goals and planning how to achieve them) rather than tactics (skillful execution of actions and micromanagement).

What these profiles have in common, other than being hardcore gamers and having a big interest in competitive games, is the fact that they enjoy the lack of micromanagement, and the demand of reflexes and dexterity of autochess.
This is quite interesting, considering that the genre foundation is so close to MOBAs, which are extremely demanding on those aspects. Overall it seems that they belong to audiences below the MOBA umbrella which are currently being alienated by the bulk of ‘younger and dexterity focused’ players.
And when it comes to platforms, it seems that even though the barrier between the classic gaming platforms and mobile is progressively disappearing, the genre is still mainly focused on PC: Out of the ~300 players that answered, 50% said that they play exclusively on PC, 25% played primarily on Mobile, and the remaining 25% played in both.
https://preview.redd.it/a25azxggjpg61.png?width=962&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc3677e4203abb44d5b60cc2b55e01f4fe839f74

Players said that they enjoy the focus of the game in planification, as opposed to the focus on execution and performance of MOBAs. And when asked about their main points of frustration, they pointed out 2 main topics: 1.- The strong luck factor that has a strong impact on making you win or lose regardless on how well you played. 2.- The fact that the game eventually becomes shallow and repetitive, fueled by the fact updates were unexciting and not rotating the meta.

Surprised by the fact that players mention randomness as a factor of both enjoyment and frustration? Don’t be! Competitive players tend to have a love-and-hate relationship with luck, because they tend to consider that external factors outside of skills (money spent, better draw…) stole their well deserved victory.
And it’s even more frustrating in autochess, because there’s a strong snowball effect: Players that obtain a big advantage early on in the game become hard to catch later on. Which means that a few bad or good draws early on can decide the rest of the match.
There hasn’t been a single feature more criticised in Magic: The Gathering than the randomness of drawing mana. And yet, luck it’s part of what makes MTG stand out compared to other CCGs: For experienced players, it introduces uncertainty and the need to take risks and gamble, like they’d do in poker. And for rookies, it allows beating someone that has better skills and has a better deck, if Lady Luck is on their side. Won’t happen often, but it will feel awesome when it does. Like a friend likes to say: The best feeling in MTG is to draw a mana when you really need it. And the worst? To draw it when you didn’t.
This goes to say that in autochess, perhaps the power of luck needs to be reviewed, but it would be a bad decision to completely remove luck from the equation.

DESIGN CHALLENGES

In this awesome DoF article, Giovanni Ducati already pointed out the two main problems that the games in this genre need to solve to achieve real success: Bad long term retention and low monetization.
To these issues we would add a third one, which is bad marketability: Contrary to their big brothers League of Legends and DOTA2, these games haven’t been able to achieve high organic downloads (at least not to be able to generate significant revenue through soft monetization mechanics). What’s even worse is that all these games, their themes and target audience are quite close to RPG and Strategy, which are genres with some of the highest CPIs on the market. So they need top-of-the-class retention and monetization to get a high enough LTV to scale up.
But why do these games fail at keeping players entertained for a long time? And why don’t they monetize enough? Here’s what we think:

Flat Complexity & Progression

You have some games out there which have a strong entry barrier due to being quite complicated to grasp. But for those that can deal with the numbers and stats, the depth will keep them entertained for months and years. This is the case in most RPGs and 4X strategy games. And then you have hypercasual games, which are simple and plug and play. So they generate a great early engagement, but are too shallow to keep users hooked for a long time.
As a genre, Autochess games are in the middle ground: they have a high entry barrier, but also lack the complexity to keep players engaged for a long time…
As a general rule, games with long retention tend to follow Bushnell’s Law of being easy to learn and difficult to master. They achieve that by having what we call an unfolding experience: They appear simpler at the beginning (not necessarily easy), but require thousands of hours of practice to master.
An example of this are games that level lock most of the game complexity, so the player understands and masters only a set starter mechanics. And then, progressively unlock new modes and demand more specialized builds and gameplay, repeating the cycle several times to keep the game always interesting while attempting to avoid being overwhelming.
https://preview.redd.it/e9f8s8tkjpg61.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=825c85b7c479b3bf05fc43ac668cbd1eddf17c97

In World of Warcraft, character depth is huge. But this complexity is unfolded progressively, forcing the player to spend time mastering each skill and activity as they level up, before moving further.

Another approach to the same idea are competitive games focused on mechanical ability, dexterity or micromanagement. Like CS:GO or Rocket League. They may unlock all the mechanics from the beginning, but a newbie player will only be able to focus and manage some of them, and then progressively discover and master the rest in an organic way.
https://preview.redd.it/42cbth8njpg61.png?width=951&format=png&auto=webp&s=241cd59b4468cabf2d0d24e1a4e3a703b74ada51

Rocket League hides its complexity by matchmaking early players with others of a similar skill. This makes beginner players viable even if they grasp only the basic mechanics. But, as they climb further, they’ll face rivals that take those basic skills for granted and the player will need to master more challenging techniques to keep up.

League of Legends and Overwatch are actually a combination of both: The game first introduces the player to a small selection of heroes which progressively gets expanded, while at the same time having an insane mastery depth that requires a high APM and reflexes, team coordination and thousands of hours of practice.
Contrary to any of those examples, Autochess games throw everything at you from the beginning: Character Skills, Synergies, Unit Upgrade, Gold Management, Items… It’s a lot to swallow. And there’s not even enough time to read what each thing does before the timer runs out. This creates a complex, overwhelming first impression that drives many players out.
But that’s quantity, not depth. Once you’ve gone through that traumatic starting phase, you’ve grasped all the mechanics and you know which team builds are dominating on the meta, it’s just a matter of making it happen by taking the right decisions and adapting to a few key draws.
Eventually, unless luck is really against you, your skills won’t be challenged and you won’t have new mechanics to master. At that point, winning will be based more on the knowledge of the content database and luck rather than your planning and strategic ability. And that’s boring.
So ultimately, these games are hard to grasp for a newbie, but also lack the ability to keep players interested for a very long time since they eventually run out of new features and mechanics to discover and master.

Unexciting Updates, Lack of Collection

On top of that, autochess games seem to have a hard time adding content which reawakens player interest and makes churned ones come back.
https://preview.redd.it/52umfcvqjpg61.png?width=796&format=png&auto=webp&s=dd8095e71d025886d3c0313187ead49587459453

The DAU that we would expect on a long term retention game: A decreasing trend of players until reaching a stagnation stage. At that point, a big update (or new season) is required to attract and reengage users back with new content. This is the model we would see on Fortnite or Hearthstone, but it’s not what we see in most autochesses.

On this topic, perhaps the one that has put the most effort is Riot’s TFT. Each season update, the game releases a new series of heroes, synergies, items and rebalances, as well as a big bunch of cosmetics. This generates a short lived boost on revenue (due primarily to players buying the pass) and downloads, but ultimately nothing that really moves the needle in a relevant way.
‘Why seasonal updates don’t work?‘, you may be asking. Part of the reason is that TFT, as well as every major contender do not include elements of content progression or collection. Instead, they all stick to the roguelike approach of the original mod: Players have access to the same set of units, and build their inventory exclusively during the match.
While at first this seems a good idea, since it keeps the game fair in a similar way to MOBAs, it’s oblivious to the fact that new units do not offer the same amount of gameplay depth as in League of Legends. In LoL, a new unit means weeks or even months of practice until mastering timing, range and usage of the skills, how they interact with every other champion, etc… In comparison, in TFT the new content can be fully explored in just a bunch of matches, both because the new content doesn’t offer that much depth to start with and because it’s available from the moment the player gets the update.
By lacking content progression and collection, autochesses miss the opportunity to create long term objectives after an update, more innovative mechanics and less repetitiveness. As a consequence, they have it really hard to hype players on updates.

Big ‘Snowball Effect’

In game design, the snowball effect refers to the situation where obtaining an advantage or dominance generates further conditions that almost invariably means winning the match. As you can guess, on competitive games this effect can generate a bad experience, especially when the divergence starts early on: The player that obtained the early advantage will keep on increasing the advantage and curbstomp the rest.
For example, this can happen on a Civilization game if a player gets ahead of the rest acquiring key resource territories, and uses them to achieve a greater progress in tech and income at a faster pace than the rest. Or in League of Legends if a team scores a bunch of early kills and levels up, becoming more able at scoring even more kills…
https://preview.redd.it/s07v5umtjpg61.png?width=620&format=png&auto=webp&s=ae14e6101c2c35da175150251bf592d0598fb76c

In this match of Age of Empires 2, the red player (Aztecs) managed to decimate the blue player (Turks) military units early on. Since without an army it was impossible for the blue player to secure enough resources to perform a comeback, for the next 2 hours the blue player was in a pointless, hopeless match. Kudos for not abandoning, though!

Autochess games have a huge snowball effect, due to the following reasons:

Resources lead to victories, victories lead to resources As you know, in autochess each player builds a team based on successive battles. Better battle performance will grant more gold, which is the resource used to buy units, perform shop rolls, etc… Similar to the cases we’ve already explained, this means that players that achieve early dominance will be able to to obtain more gold, use it to get better units and get more victories and gold, therefore increasing their team power faster than the rest. ‘But players can be lucky or unlucky, generating a factor that compensates for the advantage of having more resources early on‘, you may be considering. Unfortunately, this is a flawed logic, because of 2 main reasons: (1) Having more resources means more adaptability: The dominant players will be able to leverage on them to re-adapt their team, therefore outperforming the rest on a randomness-driven scenario. (2) Resources allow to buy more rolls, which diminishes the deviation generated by each individual roll.

https://preview.redd.it/srshcyzxjpg61.png?width=620&format=png&auto=webp&s=cc0313c25ed95c78b7277a7a95b6cecb4d2270b4

TeamFight Tactics attempts to decrease the snowball effect by introducing Carousels: rounds where all players pick a character from a list, and where the players that are losing (i.e. have less health) get to choose first. While this decreases the issue, it doesn’t really solve it… It just makes that smart players aim to lose on purpose at the beginning so they can get the better pick and generate the snowball slightly later on.

Luck factor. The previous point goes into maintaining and increasing dominance once it has been achieved early on, but another source of frustration is that luck is a huge factor in achieving early dominance. This means that your strategic skills and smarts can be completely invalidated by a couple of bad rolls at the beginning of the match. And there’s nothing that competitive players hate more than having their match stolen by factors outside the pure clash of abilities.

As an antithesis, Poker also has resource management, and luck factor determines the victory (on a specific round). But unlike Autochess, resources can’t override luck, and early victories don’t affect the later chance of winning.

Excessive Match Length

Compared to PC, on mobile is much harder to keep the player focused for a long period of time on a single session. And having a very long minimum session kind of goes against the premise of being able to play anywhere which is a primary strength of mobile as a gaming platform. This is a problem for autochess games since a single match can last for 30-45 minutes of synchronous, nonstop gameplay.
https://preview.redd.it/eh020bi1kpg61.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=5e98aefdec1c79141d7fe13d02acfadb13e789b7

The knockout mode in Dota Underlords aims to make the game more accessible by skipping the slow beginning of the match (you start with a pre-setup army), and by simplifying the health and fusion systems. This shortens the matches to ~15 minutes, which is still too long for mobile, but better than 30. The problem is that it also increases the snowball effect, since the match has less turns to allow comebacks, and makes any mistake (or a bad roll) way more punishing.

‘Isn’t the solution just make the match shorter?’, you’re probably wondering. Unfortunately, there are several reasons that make this more challenging to the core design than what it seems:

Because in autochess the player builds its team from scratch, at the beginning of each match there are several turns to setup team foundations. Removing these early decisions severely decreases the teambuilding possibilities, decreasing overall depth.
Also, each setup phase between clashes requires a minimum time to think and perform the actions. In the last turns of a match, the game can become quite demanding on thinking and input speed.
Matches require a minimum amount of turns to compensate the weight of a single lucky/unlucky roll over the chances to win. Because the possible units for teambuilding appear on random rolls, the less turns there are the more luck factor the game will suffer, and as a consequence the less important the player’s strategic skills will be.
And if there are few turns, there are also less chances for comebacks. Because it means that players will have less setup phases to adapt and catch a player that has obtained an early advantage.
Finally, since the match involves 8 players, it requires a minimum of turns so that they all can fight between each other… Nevertheless, I don’t consider this a critical issue because Dota has been able to change this specific point on the knockout mode without sacrificing too much in terms of depth.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The history of the autochess genre serves as an example of the risks of design endogamy: The devsphere rushed to clone Auto Chess, and before a year all the major contenders were in the board. But that speed came at a cost: None of these projects has brought the concept much further than its original conception, and in doing so they haven’t solved any of the core issues.
https://preview.redd.it/jptzdrj8kpg61.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f3fb34eb46b610e6ee355ba47782c804cb74186

The folks at Riot games developed the TeamFight Tactics in less than 5 months. This allowed them to release while the hype was still at its peak… but it also meant it added just a couple of improvements, and it’s otherwise very similar to the original Auto Chess mod.

After seeing all these projects fail to meet the big expectations that were placed on them, the question is if perhaps the best approach was to avoid rushing, and instead tackle the genre with a title that is not a clone, but rather a more groomed, accessible and innovative successor of the original idea.
In our next article on this series will make an attempt to see how such a game could be, rethinking the spirit and fresh design ideas of autochess to solve the issues mentioned above. (May take a while though, I want to focus on smaller articles for a couple of months…)
Meanwhile, if you want to read more about this genre, we suggest you these awesome articles from the folks at DoF: Why Auto-Chess can’t monetize – and how to fix that and How Riot can turn TFT into a billion dollar game

Special Thanks to…

These articles wouldn’t have been possible with the collaboration of ~300 members of the reddit communities of the different auto chess games who provided us with feedback and data. You folks have been incredible solving all our doubts. One thing that this genre has is some of the most awesome players around.
So big kudos for Brxm1, Erfinder Steve, Xinth, Zofia the Fierce, STRK1911, LontongSinga22, bezacho, hete, NeroVingian, marling2305, NOVA9INE , asidcabeJ, Eidallor, Rhai, Lozarian, bwdm, Toxic, Ruala, Papa Shango, MrMkay, Dread0, L7, kilmerluiz, Amikals, Sworith, Tankull, B., hete, Bour, Denzel, DeCeddy, Diaa, hamoudaxp, Benjamin “ManiaK” Depinois, Katunopolis, DanTheMan, MikelKDAplayer, 0nid, Tobocto, Tiny Rick, phuwin, Alcibiades, triceps, d20diceman, shadebedlam, stinky binky, Tutu, Myuura, suds, Kapo, Hearthstoned, Engagex, Pietrovosky, Daydreamer, Doctor Heckle, Ignis, ShawnE, NastierNate, LeCJ, Nene Thomas, Chris, trinitus_minibus, Nah, Kaubenjunge1337, Mudhutter, Asurakap, Nicky V, shinsplintshurts, bobknows27, Willem (Larry David Official on Steam), Jonathan, Dinomit24, Monstertaco, GangGreen69, Veshral Amadeus Salieri (…lol!), Kuscomem, Cmacu, Pioplu, Dilemily, qulhuae, Ilmo, MarvMind, facu1ty, crayzieap, Saint Expedite, Lobbyse, Lukino , tomes, Blitzy24, Mcmooserton, magicmerl, i4got2putsumpantzon, radicalminusone, Pipoxo, Kharambit, Bricklebrah, Rbagderp, Merforga, Superzuhong, Mo2gon, MoS.Tetu, MeBigBwainy, Zokus, CoyoteSandstorm, Stehnis, Noctis, Fkdn, Ray, Fairs1912, Fairs1912, Krakowski, HolyKrapp, Damadud, Pentium, Mach, Mudak, CaptSteffo, jwsw1990, Omaivapanda, Inquisitor Binks, Jack, yggdranix, GoodLuckM8, Centy, Prabuddha (aka Walla), dtan, Philosokitteh, Doms, ZEDD, Calloween, Synsane, Kaluma, GordonTremeshko , Djouni, DOGE, haveitall, ANIM4SSO, Task Manager, Submersed, BAKE, Viniv, La Tortuga Zorroberto, BixLe, Rafabeen, Blzane, bdlck666, FatCockNinja86, R.U.Sty, Yopsif, blesk, Quaest0r, FanOfTaylor, StaunchDruid, Rushkoski and everyone else that took some minutes to help us out on the article.

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Blackberry -- A Dormant Giant

Abbreviation Index:

FAQs:

Now for the details.

Full List of Clients and Partners:

Blackberry Current Revenues:

Blackberry Analysis Regarding Infotainment and Google and Ford Deal:

Pretty Charts

Facebook Settlement with BB

Blackberry New Partnerships

BB's Technical Page on QNX Security

Rumor: Blackberry Buyout? Here's why that's not happening:

Blackberry IVY + AWS Partnership:

Revenue, revenue, revenue...

Really, no competitors?

Conclusion:

Call of Duty: Mobile - February 5th Community Update & Public Test Build

Blackberry -- A Dormant Giant

Abbreviation Index:

FAQs:

Now for the details.

Full List of Clients and Partners:

Blackberry Current Revenues:

Blackberry Analysis Regarding Infotainment and Google and Ford Deal:

Pretty Charts

Facebook Settlement with BB

Blackberry New Partnerships

BB's Technical Page on QNX Security

Rumor: Blackberry Buyout? Here's why that's not happening:

Blackberry IVY + AWS Partnership:

Revenue, revenue, revenue...

Really, no competitors?

Conclusion:

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Bitcoin Newcomers FAQ - Please read!

Welcome to the /Bitcoin Sticky FAQ

Key properties of Bitcoin

Where can I buy bitcoin?

Securing your bitcoin

Watch out for scams

Common Bitcoin Myths

Where can I spend bitcoin?

Merchant Resources

Can I mine bitcoin?

Earning bitcoin

Bitcoin-Related Projects

Bitcoin Units

Blackberry -- A Dormant Giant

Abbreviation Index:

FAQs:

Now for the details.

Full List of Clients and Partners:

Blackberry Current Revenues:

Blackberry Analysis Regarding Infotainment and Google and Ford Deal:

Pretty Charts

Facebook Settlement with BB

Blackberry New Partnerships

BB's Technical Page on QNX Security

Rumor: Blackberry Buyout? Here's why that's not happening:

Blackberry IVY + AWS Partnership:

Revenue, revenue, revenue...

Really, no competitors?

Conclusion:

Autochess: Market Status and Design Analysis [effort post]

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

1st Era (2000s): Assimilation

2nd Era (2010s): Integration

3rd Era (2020s): Fragmentation

MARKET STATUS

THE AUDIENCE

DESIGN CHALLENGES

Flat Complexity & Progression

Unexciting Updates, Lack of Collection

Big ‘Snowball Effect’

Excessive Match Length

FINAL THOUGHTS

Special Thanks to…