Put it this way - Nintendo was founded to sell Hanafuda cards to the Yakuza, and only got worse after that:

https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2023/11/21/how-nintendo-misuses-copyright/?ref=sb_series

bm's first law: every time someone mentions a Discord server, remind them they are, in fact, not servers!
https://joinmatrix.org/guide/matrix-vs-discord/

(Remind everyone, including yourself.)

The ultimate truth of any community is that, every morning, we all collectively wake up and choose to make it. We can choose to make it differently just as easily. It's the *users* who make the *service*; it's the *players* who make the *game*; not the other way around.

What will you do to make Rivals 2?

Whether it's a video game or social media platform, announcing your preference does make a difference. The Mastodon migration of 2022 was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to study collective behaviour change in response to social influence - and again, as with network effects, I do believe it's not a stretch to draw a comparison to video games here:

https://fediversereport.com/study-on-the-twitter-migration

https://communities.springernature.com/posts/get-out-of-the-nest-drivers-of-social-influence-in-the-twitter-migration-to-mastodon

If you're thinking of giving Bluesky a shot, then post about Rivals as you would on any other platform. While you're at it, you could also follow the Bridgy Fed bot to share those posts with Mastodon users:

https://brologue.net/2024/05/14/fool-me-twice-we-dont-err-what-was-that-first-thing-you-said/

Talking about it on the public web is key. I'm prepared to use my platform to report on any brackets I go to; what's unclear, however, is where the bulk of Rivals 2 discussion will take place. Twitter grows more precarious by the day - the recent ToS updates have had users bolting for the exits once more, to Bluesky:

https://fixupx.com/shiinareii/status/1846672917582766246

https://fixupx.com/XEng/status/1846605254864888180