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Dividendgame

From ex-Pontiffs and ex-mouseketeers to ex-dividend...

Despite only having dull old Sir Jony Ive as their creative lead rather than, say, Lana del Rey, Apple seems to be doing OK. Rather too OK, arguably, having accumulated a cash pile so large that it is almost impossible to think what it could possibly spend it on, except possibly to buy Cascadia and turn the forests of Washington State into a gigantic, Endor-like Apple store.

Cue a revolt by fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, who argues that Apple's cash reserves would be better distributed to its hard-working shareholders than left to moulder. CFO Peter Oppenheimer has made the contrasting point that, since $94 billion of Apple's $137 billion reserves is currently offshore, repatriating it would involve paying significant taxes, thus shrinking the pot of dividend cash for no reason (well, no reason beyond funding public works, anyway). Einhorn sees the whole situation as symptomatic of the cash-hoarding legacy of Steve Jobs, who had the excuse of having seen Apple through times when its cash position was genuinely parlous, and argues that its current dividend structure - which will see shareholders receive $2.65 per share on the 14th February - is inadequate.

The financial concerns of wealthy people arguing about where their wealth should be located aside, this push-me-pull-youing is really about philosophy. Apple has traditionally been a growth stock. Growth stocks are like attractive young people - they are bought cars, and if they respond by offering to pay for a round of drinks their generosity is celebrated. Their shareholders are expected to see value in the retention of capital to power expansion, and not ask for dividends.

Becoming a dividend stock, then, is part of the ageing process. You are still handsome - in a distinguished way - but people just don't see you as sexy or dangerous. It's an acknowledgement that your boundless ambition now has bounds, and you don't need all the money you have been salting away to reach them. Paying a slightly larger dividend won't hurt Apple's long-term business viability. They are in no immediate danger of extinction, and they are hardly a takeover target. However, it is an admission that they do not have anything hidden up their sleeve that might need $100 billion to get rolling. Embracing dividends is like swapping your sports car for a people carrier. It means you can shuttle your kids' soccer team to practice. It makes a lot more sense in terms of where you are in your life. But it just isn't the same. It's the difference between Steve Jobs' black turtleneck and Larry Ellison's turtleneck and sports coat.

Apple fought hard for that kind of security. And it is a sign of the times that Microsoft, which has traditionally had a smaller version of the same problem- there simply not being enough acquisitions or hires available to soak up the cash on their margin-rich software business - is now the one making risky, high-wire hardware plays, while Apple is dropping capacity bumps to the iPad. Some sort of compromise, it seems, will be reached, but this is really about whether the enfant terrible of personal computing should be coloring its grey hairs as much as anything else.

Fighting is Magic

And finally - the phenomenon of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has been explored here before. Intended for a core audience of young girls, this cartoon series and toy line (or, if you are makers Hasbro, toy line and attendant cartoon series) has acquired a significant and phenomenally creative periphery audience of young men and women (mostly men) who have expressed their devotion through art, fiction, music and video game mods, among other media.

John de Lancie and Tara Strong (the voice of Lollipop Chainsaw) explain the whole thing.

As an interesting sidenote, one reason it is possible to create such perfect copies of the cartoon is that it is made in Flash - that is, the tools used by the animators are the same as the tools being used by the fanimators.

Hasbro found itself, then, with the pleasant headache of managing a well-heeled subculture dedicated to consumption and buzz-marketing their brand. Its broadly hands-off approach has won significant praise. But Jeremiahs among the bronies have pointed to a growing tension in the relationship, in particular after Lauren Faust, the showrunner of the first season and generally seen as the creative soul of the enterprise, left the team creating the TV show.

One such edge case was Fighting is Magic, a fan-made 2D beat-em-up in the style of Street Fighter using the cast of Friendship is Magic.

Hoof the toughest fighter? I'm sorry.

Arguably a victim of its own success, Fighting is Magic was selected as a featured game, although still in development, at EVO, the fighting game eSports convention. This may have been the direct cause of the cease and desist notification its creators, Mane6, received last week, leading to the suspension of the project while Mane 6 seek to negotiate with Hasbro.

Opinion in the fan community seems roughly divided between those who see this as an unfortunate but reasonable consequence of the game's growing profile - what can be forgiven if limited to niche fandom may be problematic on a wider stage - and point out that a game in which a group of characters whose entire brand is based around the magic of friendship kick the stuffing out of each other was always going to be treading into dangerous territory. Others see this is as the beginning of the end for the relatively easy ride pony fandom has had from the license holder, and look fearfully at the vast corpus of fan works which may be endangered.

Lauren Faust, meanwhile, has offered to create a new set of characters for the game's developers, an exceptionally classy move which leaves the possibility of the core game, at least, surviving, although the labour involved in redrawing and rebalancing a new set of characters and attacks is far from casual.

 My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic  has become a fascinating petri dish for relations between IP holders and creative fans - although the media is quick to focus on some of the less all-ages expressions of a minority of fans. Mainly, however, this provides an excuse to post the Skyrim mod which turns all the dragons into the shy yellow pegasus Fluttershy. Yay!

Fus r - oh dear!

So, in conclusion, we live in a world without logic, the news stories of which seem custom-designed to try the patience of any sane human being. And those are my first world problems. How about yours?