It’s been three days since an ESPN report painted a picture of Michigan State University as a school unable or unwilling to punish sexual abusers or rapists through any kind of accountable system, particularly when the accused were part of the football and men’s basketball teams. The looming publication of that report sparked the resignation of athletic director Mark Hollis, but it’s already clear that any calls for football coach Mark Dantonio and basketball coach Tom Izzo to resign aren’t going to get any traction in East Lansing.

Both coaches spoke to the media over the weekend (Izzo twice), and both took defensive stances, saying that they had cooperated with law enforcement in the proper ways whenever there was a sexual assault investigation involving their players and offering vague (if any) words of support for victims of sexual abuse or assault.

Izzo first spoke on Friday, after a home win for his team over Wisconsin. In the ESPN report, his program is said to have allowed former player and then-undergrad assistant coach Travis Walton to remain a part of the team after punching a woman at a bar in 2010. (Walton pleaded not guilty to the assault charge and eventually pleaded down to a littering infraction, ESPN says. He went to play Europe after the 2009-2010 season.) Walton, along with two unidentified basketball players, was also named in a rape report later that year. Additionally, in 2010, another MSU student accused basketball players Adreian Payne and Keith Appling of raping her in their dorm room, but no charges were ever filed.

“I’m not going to answer any questions,” Izzo said on Friday. “I’m going to stick to worrying about the survivors. I tried saying what I could say last week, and I’m going to stick with the survivors and do my part in helping them heal.” Izzo did, however, confirm that he was “not going anywhere,” and wouldn’t resign.

Following a win against Maryland on Sunday, Izzo had another chance to more clearly address the contents of the report, but continued to be evasive. Izzo was asked multiple questions about Travis Walton by ESPN’s Tisha Thompson, including why Walton was allowed to continue with the team while his assault charges were pending.

“As I said before, we’ll cooperate with any investigation and always have. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it moving forward, and that’s all I’m going to say on it, that we did cooperate with everything,” Izzo said.

He was then asked why Walton left the program in 2010.

“To be honest with you, I don’t remember why he left,” Izzo said.

When asked if he had any regrets about the way he handled sexual assault within his program, Izzo again simply reiterated, “I’ve cooperated with every investigation—every one. And I’ll continue to cooperate with every investigation—every one.”

Mark Dantonio also gave a press conference on Friday night in which he said the reports of his mishandling of sexual assault allegations were “completely false.” ESPN reported that at least 16 Michigan State football players had been accused of sexual assault or violence against women since Dantonio took over as head coach, and their report mentioned that in one case, Dantonio allegedly dealt with a sexual assault accusation by having the player talk to his mother.

“Every incident reported in that article was documented either by police or the Michigan State Title IX office. I’ve always worked with the proper authorities when dealing with sexual assault,” Dantonio said on Friday.

His words, most confusingly, seem to conflict with something he said to media in June 2017 after several players were dismissed when they were charged with sexual assault or misconduct. At the time, Dantonio implied that his team had never had any problems with sexual assault.

“This is new ground for us,” he said in June. “We’ve been here 11 years—it has not happened previously.”

Both Izzo’s and Dantonio’s words sound like they were heavily influenced by conversations with lawyers. Because of that, at a time when the University is trying to change a culture that definitely enabled Larry Nassar to abuse over 100 women, and reportedly enabled over a dozen athletes to commit rape or otherwise assault women, two of the school’s most visible leaders come off as flat and uninspiring at best and in denial at worst. A basketball coach and a football coach are obviously not the two people we need to look to in a critical situation like this, but what Dantonio and Izzo say about MSU’s rape problem could go a long way toward influencing those who put school pride over justice. It’s unfortunate that all they’re doing is covering their asses.

Publisher Nexon, speaking in a recent earnings call, cites the massive success of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds for the poor performance of LawBreakers. But that admonition, as harsh as it is, might not mean much for players or the game itself, an analyst tells Glixel. 

Since its release in August 2017, LawBreakers, the newest game from Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski, has had a tough time finding a large, dedicated fan base. Just two months after its release, the game’s concurrent player count dropped to only 10. At the time of writing, according to Steam Charts, only 29 were playing. For comparison, Battlegrounds recently broke its own concurrent record, topping out at 3,106,358 simultaneous players. Since its March 2017 release, the game’s sold more than 30 million copies. 

“Our results in North America in the third quarter were below our outlook, mainly due to the sales from
LawBreakers being below our expectations. LawBreakers is a unique FPS developed for core users,” Nexon said in its call. “We
had very high expectations for its launch; however, the timing of its launch turned out to be unfortunate,
specifically the blockbuster PC online game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds came out right about the
same time, making the market environment very tough for first-person shooters in general and for
LawBreakers.”

It’s worth pointing out, though the publisher says the game came out “right about” the same time as each other, there was a five month separation between the release of Battlegrounds and LawBreakers. 

“In [quarter three], in other expenses, impairment loss is included,” Nexon chief financial adviser Shiro Uemura said. “And out of the total number, LawBreakers-related impairment loss actually accounts for the majority of that amount. And also, regarding impairment loss for LawBreakers, this is everything, so we will not be accruing any other impairment loss pertaining to LawBreakers in the future.”

“It means nothing regarding support for the game or relationship with Boss Key and gamers shouldn’t care,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pratcher told Glixel this morning over email. “Nexon has a responsibility to its shareholders to accurately reflect the value of assets on its balance sheet. Lawbreakers had a value that was too high, and the company took an impairment charge to reflect the appropriate value. It doesn’t mean they are unsupportive or angry.”

Due to the performance of LawBreakers, Nexon says it suffered “higher-than-planned expenses due to impairment
losses on prepaid royalties related to LawBreakers and incentive bonus expenses related to strong
business performance.” However adds these were offset thanks to the performances of Dungeon&Fighter and
MapleStory2 in China, and FIFA Online 3, FIFA Online 3 M, and AxE in Korea. 

As PCGamesN points out: “Nexon didn’t say exactly how much money they lost on Lawbreakers, but said it ‘accounts for the majority’ of their Q3 expenses, which totaled roughly $32.6 million.”

“Impairment charges arise when an asset no longer has the value carried on the books,” Patcher says. “For example, If a building is on the books at $100,000 and it burns to the ground without insurance, the value is impaired by $100,000 and must be charged off.

“In the case of LawBreakers, the write down appears to be the unamortized balance that Nexon spent on the game. In other words, if the game cost Nexon $50 million to develop and the company had expensed $20 million since the game’s launch, there would be $30 million remaining on the books that has as yet to be amortized. Game development costs are typically amortized based upon an estimate of units that will be sold. If the game cost $50 million and Nexon expected it to sell 10 million units, it would amortize $5 for each unit sold until it was able to charge the entire $50 million in expenses against its income. A write down for impairment means that Nexon no longer has confidence that the game will sell as many units, and has decided to charge off the remaining unamortized balance.”

“Let’s pretend the building is on the books at $100,000 and that its roof is torn off in a hurricane,” Patcher adds. If the cost to repair the roof is $100,000, the company may decide to rebuild, but would write off the asset as impaired. It doesn’t mean that the asset is abandoned, but rather means its value was impaired by the hurricane. In the case of Lawbreakers, the initial value was high, and disappointing sales led Nexon to determine that its remaining value was lower than is shown on their books, nothing more than that.

“They may decide to abandon the game, but you can’t conclude that from taking an impairment charge.”

We’ve reached out to Boss Key about the future of the game and its support and will update the story should we hear back. 

The man arrested in connection with the Wichita case, Tyler R. Barriss, 25, was a known swatter. He was sentenced to two years in a California jail for phoning in false bomb threats in 2015 to the ABC Studios in Glendale, prompting an evacuation and a search with police dogs. He was released from jail in August, after serving another sentence for violating a protection order.

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Mr. Finch’s mother, Lisa Finch, said in an interview on Sunday that both the officer who fired the shot and the swatter who lied to police should be charged with murder for her son’s death.

“I think the whole city government should be held accountable,” Ms. Finch said. “Don’t they do training for swat incidences?”

Ms. Finch said her son, who worked at a fast-food restaurant, had been using his phone in the living room on Thursday evening when he heard noises outside and went to investigate.

“He was looking to protect this place,” Ms. Finch said. “He took such good care of family.”

But unbeknown to Mr. Finch, Wichita police officers were staking out the home thinking there was a hostage situation underway. Body-camera footage released by the department shows Mr. Finch appearing in the doorway, officers yelling commands from a distance and, moments later, the pop of a single gunshot fired by a seven-year veteran of the Wichita police force.

“My son would have not opened the door had he known there were cops out there,” Ms. Finch said. “Not one time did they announce themselves. Not one time.”

Chief Livingston said Mr. Finch, who was unarmed and apparently not the intended target of the online prank, did not immediately comply with officers’ commands and moved his hands to his waistline, leading one officer to fear he had drawn a weapon.

State and local authorities are investigating the shooting, but police officers are seldom charged for on-duty shootings.

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The law allows the police to use deadly force when an officer reasonably believes, given the information at the time he pulls the trigger, that his life or someone else’s life is in imminent danger. The Wichita officers had been told, wrongly, that they were encountering an armed hostage-taker who had already killed one person and was threatening to burn the house down.

“Nine-one-one is based on the premise of believing the caller: When you call for help, you’re going to get help,” Chief Livingston said. The prank call, he added, “only heightened the awareness of the officers and, we think, led to this deadly encounter.”

It remained unclear on Sunday what charges Mr. Barriss, who was being held without bail in California, might face for his alleged role in the incident. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department listed his charge level as a felony, but spokesmen for the Wichita and Los Angeles police departments declined to detail the charges against him.

Swattings can be difficult to investigate. The perpetrators often operate in dark corners of the web, hiding their identities and sowing mayhem across state lines and even national borders. In past nonfatal swattings, suspects have been charged and convicted in federal court with crimes such as conspiracy to provide false information, which can lead to up to five years in federal prison, and false information and hoaxes, which has a maximum sentence of life in prison if a death results.

A bill introduced in Congress in 2017 by Representative Katherine Clark, Democrat of Massachusetts, would specifically outlaw interstate swatting and impose a maximum sentence of life in prison for fatal instances.

Swatting is rare in Kansas — Chief Livingston said he was not aware of another instance in Wichita, the state’s largest city — and it was not clear what state laws might also apply.

Jean Phillips, a clinical professor of law at the University of Kansas, said she was “sort of perplexed, at least under Kansas law, as to what would happen.” If prosecutors pursue a second-degree murder case against a swatter in state court, she said, the charge could be undermined if the officer’s decision to shoot is deemed lawful.

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“I assume that the state is going to try to go after something that’s more than a year or two in prison or probation, because they do have a death,” said Ms. Phillips, a criminal defense lawyer in Kansas for more than 25 years. “I’m not sure how they’re going to get there.”

As Mr. Barriss spent the weekend awaiting extradition proceedings in California, a process that could take days or weeks, a digital trail of what led to the deadly encounter on Thursday began to crystallize.

Several video game players and online news outlets posted screenshots and tweets that they said showed an argument about a petty wager over an online round of the game “Call of Duty.” The screenshots suggested that one person threatened to orchestrate the swatting of an opposing player, and that the opposing gamer egged him on and sent a random address in Wichita that he falsely claimed was his own.

Soon thereafter, a distraught-sounding man called the security desk at Wichita City Hall and gave that address — the Finch family home — to report the fake hostage situation, according to an audio recording of the 911 call released by the police department.

Hours after the shooting, a man claiming to be the swatter called into a popular YouTube program on gaming and online culture, and was interviewed by the host, Daniel Keem, known as Keemstar.

The man claiming responsibility did not give his name, but his voice sounded similar to the one in the 911 recording. After the arrest was announced, Mr. Keem said that he believed the person he spoke with was Mr. Barriss.

Mr. Keem’s interviewee sounded ambivalent about his complicity in Mr. Finch’s death.

“Yeah, the call was made by me,” the man said. “But as far as the whole incident, you could point the finger at numerous people. You could point the finger at the cop who killed someone.”

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