Tag: Gaming

Arcades, Lawsuits & Love Songs: Walter Day’s Legacy Hits a New Note

Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day is the follow up film to the iconic indie The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

🎮🎶 Arcade & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day — Release News, Review & Director’s Insight

The highly anticipated follow-up to The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is finally here. Arcade & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day will be available globally on TVOD and digital platforms beginning June 9, 2025. (Cinematic Red PR, 2025)

🎬 About the Film

Directed by Ed Cunningham (Undefeated, The King of Kong), this musical documentary is his feature film directorial debut. Arcade & Love Songs revisits beloved characters from The King of Kong, reconnecting with the real-life gamers who captivated audiences since their Slamdance debut.

The film follows 74-year-old Walter Day, the father of esports and iconic star of The King of Kong, as he navigates a lawsuit that threatens his legacy. At the same time, he embarks on a deeply personal journey: finally recording and performing the rock-opera love songs he’s carried in his heart since a devastating 1980s heartbreak—right at the height of the arcade boom.

The film premiered in U.S. theaters earlier this year through Monkey Wrench Films, capturing the same nostalgic magic that made The King of Kong one of Slamdance’s most celebrated documentaries.

Run time: 1 hr. 31 mins.

🎥 Credits

  • Director: Ed Cunningham
  • Producers: Jonathan Perkins, Seth Gordon (Baywatch, The King of Kong), Mike J. Nichols (Zappa)
  • Writers: Ed Cunningham, Mike J. Nichols, Paul Leach (The Woodsman)
  • Executive Producers: Ed Cunningham, Byron Ashley, Scott Jackson, Harrison Kordestani Kerry, Cathy Loveland, Paul Campoamor
  • Editor: Mike J. Nichols

👨‍🎤 Director’s Statement

The King of Kong premiered at Slamdance 2007 to a packed house of just the right type of audience. As the filmmakers, we could not have selected a better group of people to be the first to see something we had lived with for three years. The gamers, tech-types and doc lovers were all into it from frame one….The whispers, laughs and touching moments were all hitting…We knew the film could be seen as mocking people we had grown to love, doubt and admire and had worked tirelessly to present them truthfully and empathetically. And this audience got it. From that night forward, the original documentary has changed many people’s lives – for better and worse – so when Billy Mitchell called to tell me Walter Day was being sued based on things that happened in our movie, I began helping make sure he was properly defended…I felt a responsibility to document the conclusion to Walter’s journey and it was also a great opportunity because I love his music and want to help get out in the world.

– Ed Cunningham

⭐ Movie Review: Arcade & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day

Arcade & Love Songs is a tender, quirky, and unexpectedly profound documentary that shines a spotlight on a cultural pioneer. Walter Day, once the steady-handed referee of The King of Kong, becomes the heart and soul of this new film—revealing the music, memories, and emotions that shaped his life.

Ed Cunningham blends archival footage, heartfelt interviews, and theatrical musical sequences to create a vibrant portrait of resilience. Walter’s songs—strange, sincere, and oddly beautiful—are as much about heartbreak as they are about healing. Especially moving are the testimonials from younger gamers, who speak to how Day and the esports community shaped their sense of belonging.

This is more than a film about retro games—it’s about chasing your passions, no matter your age. Arcade & Love Songs is a love letter to the 8-bit generation, to late-blooming artists, and to anyone still holding onto the dream of finishing their song.

📅 Watch It

🗓 Release Date: June 9, 2025
🎟 Pre-order Now: Apple TV & Vimeo-on-Demand
📺 Available On: Apple, Amazon, Google Play, YouTube Movies, Fandango, Vimeo-on-Demand

Let your heart hit “Start.” Walter Day’s ballad is one worth listening to.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

*The author was contacted for a review of this film and received a screening link. The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to her.

Upcoming new animated sci-fi thriller: Max Beyond

Max Beyond will be available for digital download starting April 23, 2024. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

In today’s movie news, I have some exciting news about a new action thriller that will be available as a digital download in the US next month. It’s an animated sci-fi movie called Max Beyond. Gamers should take notice of this movie because there will be a spin off video game coming next year and this movie serves as an introduction to the backstory and characters to the game that is currently in production. (HaZimation, 2024)

The Max Beyond game immerses the players into the same world, action and obstacles as seen in the movie, but taking a fresh approach of this being a co-op based game, where both characters have to help each other to restore reality and escape the facility known as Axion, with the engaging game mechanics and alternative timelines.

HaZimation is excited to share that their animated action-thriller Max Beyond will be available on US Digital Platforms from April 23, 2024.

Max Beyond tells the story of Max, a young boy held captive in a research facility. Using his ability to create rifts in the fabric of spacetime across parallel universes, he searches for the reality in which his brother Leon, a former-marine, manages to rescue him. With attempt after attempt ending in Leon’s death, the strain starts to take its toll on both brothers. When Max discovers his captors are using his power against him, he realizes he must stop focusing on how the story ends and rewrite the story from the beginning.

The cast includes BAFTA-award winning actor Jane Perry, Dave Fennoy, and Cade Tropeano. Motion capture performances from Ace Ruele and Alex Kong.

Max Beyond is directed, co-written and co-produced by Hasraf ‘HaZ’ Dulull, co-written by Stavros Pamballis, and co-produced by Paula Crickard.

“What if you had the ability to reset dimensions to find the right moment that will save your brother, but the more you do it, the weaker you get? Strap in for Max Beyond, a tour de force rollercoaster ride of big & intense action, with edge of the seat thrills and emotionally charged characters as the story pulls the audiences into the mind-bending multi-universe.” – Writer/director Hasraf ‘HaZ’ Dulull

The film’s executive producers are Yariv Lerner, Amy Gardner, and Jason Potter. The music score is by Miroshot, a band known for their experiential music featured in SXSW 2022.

Run Time: 92 Minutes

Max Beyond utilizes the latest ground-breaking Realtime animation technology called Unreal Engine, the same engine tech used to power video games like Fortnite. Using this approach has also enabled HaZimation to take a Transmedia view to expand the story and universe of Max Beyond into a video game (Consoles + PC).

Making it as a streamer

Black flat screen computer monitor on wooden desk. Photo: Roberto Nickson/Pexels.

While it used to be something on the outskirts of the culture, now streaming is a hugely popular thing to do. Not only that, it can even be very lucrative, with many people making quite a lot of money this way. You can approach streaming in so many different ways – gaming is a particularly popular genre – and it’s something that you can bring your creativity to easily in order to make the most of it. Here are some tips that you may want to consider if you are trying to make it as a streamer.

Find Your Niche

First of all, you should think about finding a niche that you can get into. While you might already know the genre of streaming you want to try, you’ll ideally want to get more specific than that and land on a particular type of streaming. So rather than just gaming, are you going to be playing certain kinds of games, or talking about particular topics within gaming? These are the kinds of things you need to be asking yourself if you want to make it as a streamer. It will help you to make much more of your experience and get a lot more out of it.

Behind the scenes of a female content creator. Photo: Ivan Samkov/Pexels

Develop An Audience

It can take time to build an audience with anything, and that’s no different when it comes to streaming. But if you want to make sure that you are developing an audience as well as you can, there are quite a lot of ways in which you can do this, and it’s something that you are definitely going to want to think about. Mostly it’s a case of just doing your thing and seeing who follows, but you might also find that some practical marketing can help too, especially if you want to start making money from it.

Monetize It

Speaking of which, you’ll have to figure out what you can do to monetize the streaming that you are considering. This is something that can be quite simple to achieve, but there are a lot of potential ways to do it and you’ll have to make sure that you are aware of what approach is best for you. As well as that, you’ll need to put the systems in place to accept money. Knowing how to accept credit cards as an adult entertainer is going to help a lot, and it’s worth looking into as soon as possible.

Keep Going

Ultimately, with this kind of thing you really then just need to persist. If you can do that, and keep going, you are going to find that it helps you to make it as a streamer much more effectively, and it’s amazing how much that can help. So make sure that you are keeping at it no matter how hard it seems to get. If you can do that, you’ll find that you end up in a situation where you are really able to make it work for you.

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