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Private Notes
Square Enix has ripped off the mask to show just how cynical, just how exploitative, just how greedy the game industry is. As it embraces the Metaverse, the Blockchain, and NFTs, it promises a truly horrible future for gaming.
This is the culmination of everything the "AAA" industry has been working towards. The turning of digital goods into a mass market where the customer gets literally nothing in return for everything. Where gaming itself becomes a job, where the virtual world is just as corporatized and monetized as the real one.
Thank you, Square Enix, for nakedly admitting just how disgusting you are.
Konami is the publisher y'all just love to hate, and recently it's jumped aboard a bandwagon held in equal contempt by decent people everywhere - NFTs!
Yes, nobody could be surprised that one of gaming's most pathetically cynical publishers would go all crypto on us, so let's just tear into Konami once again, shall we?
Game Jolt's recent decision to ban so-called "p*rn games" leads your old pal James Stephanie Sterling to rant about the treatment of adult content and sex workers overall.
Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard in one of the biggest power moves this industry has ever seen. I guess we have to talk about that instead of anything I wanted to talk about. God's sake!
The shriveled corpse of Atari has inflicted a new blight upon the land - NFT loot boxes. They're NFTs (terrible) that behave like loot boxes (also terrible). God is dead.
Let's grit our teeth and have an excruciating time looking at this horrible blasphemy, shall we?
Galaga Wars+ is on Apple Arcade and it's absolutely atrocious.
A slapdash rerelease of a free-to-play scam, it exposes just how terrible such scams can be once the premium shortcuts are disabled and all you're left with is the malicious, aggressive grind.
It's proven very valuable. Let's look at it!
Yeah, another NFT episode, but I cannot overstate how thorough my disgust for them is, how dangerous they are, and how awful the game industry is being about them.
Horizon: Forbidden West has caused the usual crowd of nerdy whiners a real kerfuffle, because she doesn't look hot enough for their peeners to enjoy.
Elden Ring is finally out, and with it has come the same circular discourse about accessibility and difficulty. We're not playing this time.
Elden Ring has demonstrated that open worlds don't have to be the sprawling, vapid, alleged sandboxes that have dominated "AAA" games. After playing something so rich, the average open world just doesn't cut it anymore.
Babylon's Fall and Chocobo GP have both recently demonstrated Square Enix's commitment to being an awful videogame publisher. It's the culmination of years of poisoned thinking.
Elden Ring has been a ludicrous success, but has that success come at a heavy cost? It's hard to know, because anybody daring to criticize FromSoftware lately is at risk of unleashing hordes of angry fans upon themselves.
Gran Turismo 7 is yet another example of "AAA" grifting, and another prime subject for a video, which is why we're doing a video on it!
The Nintendo Switch just got Mappy-Land! This is a megaton news story!
NFTs were everywhere at the start of the year, but did you notice how quickly they've disappeared? I'm happy about that!
Yup, we got it real bad!
Sega couldn't help taking a simple idea like Sonic Origins and stuffing it up with all sorts of preorder nonsense!
As Nintendo, Sony, Activision, and others continue to screw over their workers, unionization is mounting, and the companies are scared.
I mean, it's not the entire reason, but it's still hilarious. Here's hoping the likes of Tomb Raider and Deus Ex are in better hands. Not hard, since Square Enix's hands are covered in poop!
Activision Blizzard recently crowed about a "diversity tool" that it claimed would avoid tokenism, even though it's nothing BUT tokenism. It did not, as the company doubtlessly hope, deflect all the bad publicity it's earned.
Bloober Team is rumored to be working on a new Silent Hill, possibly a Silent Hill 2 remake. Fans are upset. I believe that upset is understandable, because Bloober is a real problem.
Today's episode is about human rights - something Sony and EA seem to be afraid of standing up for. Cowards.
Can we really be shocked that Activision's Diablo spin-off is a microtransaction-stuffed con? God, that company is deeply corrupt and vile, huh?
Fallout 76 was horrible garbage, and it turns out it was managed by horrible garbage leadership! Hardly a surprise, but no less disgusting for how unshocking it us.
Great news, everyone! Activision Blizzard has investigated itself and found no evidence that it did anything wrong! You can totally trust an unbiased source like Activision Blizzard on the subject, right?
Ted Cruz is a horrible, horrible man. He also claims to be a gamer. Could the two be related? Surely not!
Return to Monkey Island has a lot of fans excited, hooray! It also has plenty of others who are angry, because of course it does. It wouldn't be videogames without some utter rage.
Diablo Immortal is grotesque, but it's making over $1 million a day. Does that vindicate it? Oh my no... its success only serves to damn it.
Excessive monetization isn't just for videogames! Let's see how another industry is taking horrible cues from game publishers as BMW starts charging for car seat heaters!
Final Fantasy VII NFTs? Square Enix didn't so much miss the point of that game as deliberately laugh in its face!
Multiversus might be a geeky dream for crossover-loving consumers, but the whole thing is a really unsettling corporate flex when you actually stop and think about it.
Continuing on from what we were saying about Warner Bros. and Multiversus, the recent news about Batgirl and other axed projects demonstrate the company's lack of appreciation for media.
EA has ducked government intervention in the UK, and intends to use predatory loot boxes in FIFA perpetually. In December, I'll be in Beijing, opening up new pork markets!
The creator of Domina sure is unhinged. Using patch notes to publish wacky manifestos denouncing Covid precautions, trans people, and wacking off, as well as sharing wild conspiracy theories. Also he got banned from his own forum.
Last episode we talked about the unhinged developer of Domina. He didn't appreciate that. His response was a hallmark of self-owning meltdowns, leading to yet another incredible L for the right wring crackpot.
Is Cult of the Lamb a scam at "only" 17 hours? I mean, let's be honest, we're not here to seriously discuss an assertion that ludicrous... are we?
The Last of Us Part I has the worst graphics of all time. I have decided this using EVIDENCE and LOGIC! You won't believe Naughty Dog's SHOCKING BETRAYAL!
Grand Theft Auto 6 won't be out for quite some time, but the takes are already exhausting. A recent leak showing off loads of early footage has certainly demonstrated that things are gonna get real bad.
Dunkey announced his own game publishing company, Bigmode, and the response was... not universally calm. So let's talk about that. And Vampire Survivors. And baffling outrage.
Google Stadia is finally dead. I mean, it's been dead from the start, but Google finally did what Google does best, and put a bullet in the brain of another terminal failure. LOL!
Overwatch 2 is a free-to-play monstrosity, and it's hardly surprising. The years between the original Overwatch and its sequel saw Blizzard go from gaming darling to one of its most loathed villans. If only someone saw that coming.
Bayonetta 3 is at the center of a controversy that exploded over the weekend, with voice actor Hellena Taylor revealing why she won't return to perform the iconic character.
So then, let's talk about voice actors and compensation. A topic that is just as infuriating now as it was fourteen years ago!
Hellena Taylor's story simply will not end, as she's gone from hero to villain so quickly we've barely had time to breathe. In what SHOULD be the last video on the Bayonetta 3 saga, let's see how Taylor definitively tanked all her sympathy.
Spoiler: being an anti-abortion TERF didn't help her case!
When journalist Laura Kate Dale got offered a copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, she received some extra fun - the chance to consensually plagiarize articles written by the game's marketing team! Huh!
Let's talk about THAT unethical nonsense, shall we?
So much for what I wanted to talk about. Gotta talk about more scumbags in the videogame workplace. This time, a story about Doom Eternal, a stressed composer, and a bitter feud with an executive producer.
Yuji Naka, co-creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, got arrested for insider trading at Square Enix. Oh what a wicked web! Let's use it as an excuse to dump on some corpo scum!
The terrible topic of easy modes in Dark Souls rears its vile head once more. It's not my fault, though! I've learned that the topic is so touchy, you can't even joke about it. Not without some ludicrous consequences.
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet is a bad game with terrible performance and a litany of broken bugs. That's not stopped it from selling 10 million copies in three days and enjoying massive amounts of praise. Yet when Cyberpunk 2077 had an identically rocky launch, the story was very different...
Microsoft feels pretty sorry for itself lately, and it wants you to sympathize. As Phil Spencer chats nonsense regarding $70 games and Sony's reaction to the planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard, let's revel in the self pity.
It's that time again! Time for The Jimquisition Awards, where we pick five games that exemplify something good about an industry we spent most of the year dumping all over. We're doing proper ones this year, too.
The main question is this... will I dare to put Vampire Survivors on the list?
It's the final episode of 2022, and you know what that means. Time to look at the worst, the pits, the dregs, the sh*ttiest games of the year! From Babylon's Fall to Gotham Knights to Diablo Immortal, we go in deep and come out hard. Let's get sh*tty!
