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Player Personality and Esports Engagement
Get PDFThis study explores the relationship between the big five factors of personality and esports engagement, comparing audiences in the U.S. and China. Using survey data, this research examines how personality traits like extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism influence behaviors such as real-life event attendance, dedication to esports, online community interactions, and spending habits in both countries. Results show that extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness are positively associated with different forms of engagement in both countries, while neuroticism has different results depending on the region. Cultural differences were observed in the relationship between spending patterns and high player engagement: U.S. players spent more on real-life events and streaming services, while Chinese players showed little interest in these items. Both the U.S. and Chinese players showed little interest in fandom merchandises. These findings highlight how personality and culture shape esports engagement and provide insights for targeted strategies in marketing, game design, and community development
The Contractarian Joint Venture
Get PDFIn 2015, a group of entrepreneurs pooled their money together for the purpose of investing in other businesses. The entrepreneurs could have undertaken this activity through a traditional venture capital firm, but they wanted to cut out the middle-man, reduce fees, and retain more control over their capital, so they chose to undertake their investing on their own. The group of entrepreneurs chose not to form an entity. Instead, they attempted to limit their business and liability risk by conducting their activity entirely via software. Unfortunately, the software contained a bug, and an insider siphoned off millions of dollars belonging to the fund. When affected investors started wondering who they could sue, some pointed out that by choosing not to form an entity, the would-be venture capital fund probably defaulted to a general partnership. Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission opined that the investment tool the entrepreneurs used to contribute funds to the venture via software were probably investment contracts and subject to securities laws.
The entrepreneurs called the venture capital fund “The DAO” because they intended it to be a model for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) that others would later create. Although it spectacularly imploded before it could ever make a single investment, The DAO does stand as a model of the liability and regulatory risks faced by nearly every DAO since: how to form an entity that limits personal owner liability but avoids triggering securities regulation. In an attempt to avoid classification of DAO-related tokens as a security and triggering the costly securities regulation regime, many DAOs end up creating general partnerships. The general partnership—the most ancient form of business entity—features several traps for the unwary: unintentional formation, personal liability for owners, and default fiduciary duty standards. Because of the liability risks posed by these partnership features, general partnership law generally adheres to a key premise: with this magnitude of risks looming, trust is paramount, and a person gets to choose their partners.
Occasionally, however, courts see disputes in scenarios that look a lot like a partnership and analogize to partnership law. Two emerging areas of business have recently ignited a debate as to when contracting parties act sufficiently like partners to analogize to partnership law, and whether, indeed, analogy is ever warranted at all: joint ventures and DAOs. This Article is the first to connect the two discussions, arguing that recent legal developments in Delaware joint venture law provides a new risk mitigation tool for DAOs facing liability and regulatory uncertainty. Specifically, this Article uncovers recent case law that enables the development of purely common law of contract joint venture entities. Such contractarian joint ventures, beholden to no state entity statute, can create a separate governance regime without statutorily imposed limitations.
Ultimately, this Article argues that under certain circumstances recognizing a purely contractarian joint venture may better uphold the policy aims that underly business entity statutes than general partnership law. Indeed, this Article aims to open a dialogue as to whether a purely contractarian joint venture might advance other important policy objectives as well. In particular, using open-source software development communities in the cryptocurrency space as a case study, this Article uncovers the far reaching and important impacts that recognition of a purely contractual joint venture could have for technology policy and innovation, suggests areas for legal reform, and unveils a new tool for the business lawyer toolbox
Hilltopics: Volume 20, Issue 2
Get PDFPoetry and Art:
Art by Anastasiya Shyvilka
Fear by Manha Ahmad
Breathe by Gabriela Barrientos
Experiences:
The Sun of Southern France: A Semester Abroad in Aix-en-Provence by Anastasiya Shyvilka
Beyond the Hilltop: Why SMU Students Should Study Abroad by Kernell Slack
Remembering the Kalavryta Massacre by Alexandra Lahiri
Analysis:
Communication Analysis: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie Monologue by Megan Watson
LOFI by Capri Woss
The Rise 37 Years in the Making A Retrospective on SMU’s Death Penalty by Ryan Musho
Energy Insights from an SMU Alumna A Reflection on New Ideas about Sustainability by Alejandra Torres
In Dreams: A Retrospective of David Lynch by Maxwell Roberts
Opinions:
Women in Politics: Recognizing the Societal Barriers Women Face in the Political Landscape, and How Susie Wiles Overcame Them by Brooke Bjerke
Oscars Snubs: Winners, Losers, and the Predictable Academy by Logan Arebalo
Doctor Who? The Era of Self-Diagnosis by Kitty Eid
Satire:
Ed Ellis Hates White Belts by Kori Nelson
Code to Racism By Dasani Figuero
The Theology of Water and Spirit: A Radical Reclamation to Forge a Path from Fear to Faith
Get PDFIn this dissertation, I am in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the disconnect that African American women, and perhaps people of African descent in the Western Hemisphere in particular, have encountered in the realm of aquatics, to find out how to forge a path from fear to faith in the realm of water and spirit for millions of women of the African diaspora - first and foremost. This work is inclusive of all others who are also disconnected from the aquatic realm, in order to create and curate a new field of practical theology - Aquatic Practical Theology – water and spirit linkage to divine design in creation for humankind. This can serve as a viable pathway to liberation, life, and worship, overcoming generations of traumatic aquatic events and preventing drowning deaths due to fear of water. Living on a planet of approximately seventy percent water, in approximately seventy percent water embodiment, aquatics form the majority of our environment and constitution. Understanding how this informs our relationship with water and spirit will serve to unlock and break the stronghold that the fear of water, which pervades and permeates the majority of minority communities, and has done so for too long
What’s in a Name? Policing, Juliet.
Get PDF“Child welfare” and “child protection” are misnomers. These terms do not accurately depict the investigatory nature of the system purported to help families, or at the very least, save endangered children. Contrary to public opinion, the “child welfare system” comprises of state actors who police parents and children. It is the naming of this system that convinces the public that these agencies are excised from the category of law enforcement, persuading many that the agencies engage in social work and not police work. Calling the system what it really is—family policing—is a step toward achieving justice for families adversely impacted by the system
The Fault of Our Forms: Fatness and Race in 20th and 21st-Century American Literature and Culture
No full textAlthough much of the world currently understands fat bodies as objectively undesirable and unhealthy, and even a threat to the overall health of civilization, this dissertation shows that this view is frequently complicated and contested in contemporary American cultural production. I argue that twentieth- and twenty-first-century American authors and filmmakers including Toni Morrison and Oscar Zeta Acosta complicate and transform racializing narratives of fatness that render the fat body sick, ugly, alien, and prematurely dead. In doing so, these artists (de)construct the ways that dominant narratives of fatness inflect and even help to constitute conceptions of race, as well as those of gender, sexuality, and national belonging
Collegiate Athletes’ Name, Image, and Likeness as a Constitutionally Protected Interest
Get PDFCourts have long held that collegiate athletes’ athletics participation does not constitute a liberty or property interest afforded constitutional due process protection. Thus, universities, athletics departments, and coaches generally have not had to provide much process when suspending athletes from their teams for disciplinary reasons, for example.
Recently, however, college athletics’ primary governing entity—the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA)—altered its longstanding rules to permit athletes to accept remuneration from third parties for the use of their names, images, and likenesses. This newfound ability has significantly benefited athletes in college athletics’ transformative name, image, and likeness (NIL) era.
This Article examines the effect of collegiate athletes’ ability to accept NIL compensation on their due process rights. More specifically, it addresses the question whether the NCAA’s shift armed athletes with the added and unanticipated benefit of due process safeguards in instances where universities or athletics departments seek to withhold them from athletics participation for disciplinary reasons. To do so, this Article explores the following: (1) the current regulatory status of NIL in college athletics; (2) a 2024 District Court decision classifying an athlete’s ability to earn NIL compensation during athletics participation as a constitutionally protected interest and how it overlooks key components of relevant authorities; and (3) the decision’s numerous and significant ramifications for athletes, athletics departments, and universities
