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Private Notes
I'd like to report a murder. Or maybe it's a mercy killing. Either way, when it comes to Square Enix and so-called "live services," there's a lot of death going around. God, Square Enix sucks.
Yes, we have to talk about Square Enix again. They shut down ANOTHER game after just 13 months, and their scummy president has doubled down on NFT and crypto horribleness. Also, I have a Godzilla pinball table.
I had a ton of requests to cover this one. While not strictly videogame related, the situation with Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons & Dragons is a perfect example of everything this show talks about. So let's talk about how Wizards and Hasbro tried to become some D&D landlords.
Marvel's Avengers is finally closing its doors after failing to make waves as one of Square Enix's many "live service" games. Let's look back over the broken promises, financial losses, and assorted failings of Crystal Dynamics' busted cash cow.
The tech industry is seeing massive layoffs, with Microsoft alone jettisoning 10,000 people in the face of slow growth. The key word there is "growth." Microsoft isn't losing money, but people are losing jobs because it ain't making money fast enough. This is supposed to be reasonable
It's high time the nonsensical lie corporations operate under was challenged openly.
This past week saw a whole pile of live services - including Rumbleverse - shut their doors. This follows Square Enix closing a whole bunch of similar games, and the overall trend of "games-as-a-service" falling apart.
Who called it? This girl called it!
J.K. Rowling is a transphobe who uses the success of Harry Potter to claim her vile views are justified. Hogwarts Legacy is a game that supports and benefits her, and as a trans person I really need to talk about that, the trolls rallying around it, and the "allies" who sold us out for the sake of a media product.
For most people, it'll always be "just a game." For those of us threatened by the vicious little monsters Rowling emboldens, it'll always be something more.
What? YES! We have hit another milestone in our historic plummet toward the gutter, and it's time for the moment you've all been waiting for, The Under 800,000 Subscriber Special!
With thanks to The Stupendium, Ashens, Lilith Walther, Simon Miller, Cypher of Tyr, Stacy Cay, Benji, Jonathan Holmes, and The FreaKshow for their kind contributions!
AI generated art is all the rage right now, but have you noticed it's been sold with the same techbro evangelicalism that tried to shove NFTs down our throats? I'm hardly surprised, as both of these grifts have the same endgame - cutting artists out of the commercialization of art.
Let's look at AI art, the people pushing it, and the moves to sell creativity without paying creators. With special guest editor NEON 35-2!
Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida has sparked a discussion over the term JRPG, and how it makes certain Japanese developers uncomfortable due to its history of negativity.
As someone currently on an RPG kick, I'm finding the debate pretty fascinating. As the corn in the basement cries, let's discuss the term JRPG!
Accessibility is all the rage these days, and that's a good thing. Well, unless you're a gatekeeping elitist, in which case you're feeling a different kind of rage.
Let's have a chat about how accessibility is good for everyone, and why a game like Final Fantasy XVI enforcing "gamer pride" is a little bit silly.
Whenever you use premade assets for your work, you run the risk of buying in good faith something that was sold in bad faith. This is what the makers of Bleak Faith: Forsaken found out recently.
It's the last day of the eShop's functionality on the 3DS and Wii U. With its closure, some truly great games will be lost forever. Bye Bye Boxboy!
Riiiiidge Racer! It's time for an extreeeeme episode, and you won't need to spend 599 US dollars to watch it! Make sure your body is ready, because it's time to talk about the cancellation of E3 2023 and look back at a show that brought the gaming cringe like no other! Fist bump!
Resident Evil 4 Remake just got itself some lovely new microtransactions, even though it launched a few weeks ago. This is bad. People are trying to argue it isn't, but it is.
Remember, there are NO good microtransactions. Let's look at what Capcom pulled and explain how this sucks.
American McGee tried to make a new Alice game, Alice: Asylum. However, despite having his name on the box, Electronic Arts owns the series, and they won't let him make it. Let's talk about licenses, intellectual property, and what I like to call "IP hoarding."
Nintendo clearly believes that a good defense is a vicious offense, and its methods of defending intellectual property lately are certainly offensive.
From getting people fired to tossing them in prison to keeping them chained in debt forever, Nintendo's sending a clear message - mess with us, and we ruin your life.
While I've often joked about hating videogames, there are many who claim my feelings are all too sincere, and those claims have increased since I returned to writing game reviews. Of course, I love many games, but here's the rub - the ones I love are the wrong videogames.
Inspired by an amusing interaction I had in the wake of my Dead Island 2 review, I got to thinking about what is really meant when a critic is accused of hating the very medium they criticize. It's led to some interesting new perspectives on people who complain about game reviews.
Kotaku is under fire from half the Internet for publishing a story on the leaked details for Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo blacklisted them ages ago, they owe the company nothing, and what they did wasn't actually bad.
Obviously, going to bat for them is going to get me in trouble with the Performative Outrage Gang. I'm just gonna go hide and play with my Manta Force.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, The Last of Us Part 1, Redfall, there are so many games lately that have had terrible PC ports. Why? Is it even a sudden problem, or just the culmination of one that's always been around? Will Redfall ever not be terrible? How much Manta Force stuff does Steph have?
Overwatch fans have had their hearts broken once again, as Activision Blizzard recently announced it was ceasing development on features promised since 2019. That is crappy. That is frustrating. That is pure Activision!
They came, they saw, they reviewed. In the wake of a deserved 7/10 for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, I look at the "fun" thoughts Zelda's fans have shared with me.
Of particular note is the old "you didn't finish the game" accusation. If only zealous fans realized what a horrible defense of a videogame that truly was.
Last week's video annoyed fans of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Last week's video was slapped with an age restriction that basically censored it. Last week's video earned this censorship for featuring Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam.
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick once lamented how hard his dating life was because people kept photoshopping him as the Devil. We think it's good that people know not to date him. He's a terrible man.
If you're thinking about dating Bobby Kotick, please watch this!
Street Fighter 6 is one of the most important fighting games ever. Its approach to accessibility is remarkable to the point where someone whose memory disorder locked them out of an entire genre has become an obsessive player. It's that significant.
Also it's making elitist gatekeepers cry, and it features Best Gladiator Girl Marisa. I love it!
Final Fantasy XVI is miserable. Everybody is a vicious hateful scumbag, everything is governed by a vicious hateful system, and the international pasttime is vicious hatred. Apparently we're supposed to wanna save this world.
Is a game worth playing if it doesn't get good until you've played thirty hours of it? Inspired by Final Fantasy discourse, I tackle this thorny issue with the grace and balance you've come to expect!
Niantic, the fiendish peddlers of Pokémon GO, had some huge layoffs recently. They also have a bunch of failed ideas, a game they've exploited into the dirt, and a real contempt for disabled players.
It's just a simple video about a videogame, like any other videogame video. Totally not about Zenimax and Bethesda being horrible to an employee. Not at all.
Exoprimal has been written off by many as another "live service" humper of bandwagons, an also-ran that exists to make a quick buck. It's hard to blame them, because that is exactly the kind of trash Exoprimal pretends to be.
It's actually a rather brilliant bit of fun, and more unique than it appears. Capcom's dinosaur shooter is, however, indicative of a problem we're facing in mainstream gaming - the homogenization of structuring and marketing that makes games look identical even if they aren't.
Nintendo has a real problem with asset flips and shovelware on the Switch's eShop. From the scourge of AAA Clock to the horrifically bad output of Pix Arts, there's a lot of slime to cut through if you want to browse, and Nintendo's doing less than nothing about it. So much for the seal of approval!
The Last Hope: Dead Zone Survival, that terrible asset flip masquerading as plagiarism of The Last of Us, has been removed from the Nintendo Switch eShop amid copyright claims from Sony. Firstly, LOL! Secondly, grrrrrr!
So, there's a reason I'm kind of annoyed at it, and it's that an accusation of copyright infringement is almost a compliment to a game this lazy and deceptive. Let's talk about why.
Larian Studios absolutely scored gold with Baldur's Gate 3. An incredible game, its qualities are nigh untouchable... and that's the thorny issue. It's being called the new industry standard, but there's some debate over whether such a standard is even attainable by most developers.
Let's talk about how amazing Baldur's Gate 3 is, and the contentiousness around its potential status as the bar to meet for game development.
Is "save scumming" the best way to play an RPG? Is it a valuable and valid tool, or a dishonorable insult to a videogame's intended experience? Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium, Bras, and Boglins may have the answer...
Bridget is trans, Baldur's Gate 3 is gay, and you can't mod marginalized people out of existence. You're gonna have to get used to it, or suck it. There will be no reasonable debate.
Starfield is a Bethesda game, and despite what the reviews claim, it is NOT polished. While we make fun of how buggy it is, we also discuss encumbrance as a game mechanic... because it's terrible.
Woke SJW Liberal Wokeism Woke Woke Woke! A rational and logical look at the horror that is pronouns in a videogame's drop-down menu!
Unity's "Runtime Fee," a rather grotesque scheme where it plans to charge fees for game installations, has been met with a rather predictable backlash. Let's join in!
Videogames are increasingly trying to get you to preorder or purchase expensive deluxe editions in exchange for "early access" to a game several days before its official launch date. This latest trend is a sure sign that, as publishers desperately try to keep squeezing blood from the same shriveled stone, they're running out of aggressive monetization schemes.
Epic Games laid off over 800 people because management decided to gamble on Metaverse Magic Beans. Capcom's boss thinks game prices are too low. What do these two things have in common? They're examples of how industry leaders are irresponsible with their money and pass the consequences onto anybody but themselves.
Also, a special friend returns to The Jimquisition...
The game industry layoffs are really bad, but according to testimony gathered for The Jimquisition, it's far worse than they look. It's all thanks for the nasty tactics companies employ to obscure layoffs behind other forms of job termination.
The saga is over and the misery begins! Microsoft just bought Activision in the biggest buyout in game industry history. I am disgusted. Let's discuss why it's horrid!
Sonic the Hedgehog is notorious for having a library of absolutely terrible games. The worst part is, whenever they run the risk of having something good on their hands, they throw it in the trash! That's what we're talking about today - why Sonic has so many bad games, and why Sega needs to stop going back to the drawing board.
Stray Souls is an absolutely terrible horror game. With its baffling bugs, nonsensical writing, A.I. art, suppression of criticism, and hateful director, it truly is one of the worst games of the year. Oh what spooky Halloween fun!
Konami is Konami, and Konami is the worst. Once again plundering a beloved franchise in the grossest way possible, the company has inflicted Silent Hill: Ascension onto the world - a monetized cutscene that takes microtransactions to a new and sickening low. It's really, really bad.
Skull Island: Rise of Kong has quickly become a legend of bad videogame lore. Astoundingly unfinished garbage, it's giving even that dreadful Gollum game a run for its money. In a year of abysmal videogames, many of which inspired Solemn JPEG apology graphics, let's start wondering if game quality needs some sort of standard enforcement.
Hogwarts: Legacy received no nominations at The Game Advertisements and the terminally foolish are crying foul. It's not a conspiracy, though. It's not an award show going "woke" and it ain't about the transphobia of Rowling. It's just that The Wizard Game isn't very good.
A bruised and battered Stephanie had to throw this week's original script in the bin, so enjoy this bit of complaining about the notorious Ten Dollar Fatality that Mortal Kombat 1 tried to swindle everybody with.
Digital media is fragile - perhaps the most fragile media format we have, considering how tightly controlled and whimsically removed it is thanks to corporate interests. As PlayStation users just got told they're losing tons of Discovery content they paid for, we have to examine the utter scam of digital ownership.
Another year, another broadcast of The Game Advertisements. The cycle continues. Things don't change. A Hideo Kojima game.
It's that joyous time again! The only awards that matter until next week, The Jimquisition Awards, have returned to give us 2023's best games, as judged by Stephanie Sterling, and her opinion is all that matters.
2023 is almost over, and it has been an absolute triumph of a year for terrible videogames. From Gollum to Redfall, so many slices of software slimed their way onto shelves. From Kong to The Walking Dead, so much has been the absolute worst. Let's meet Skeletor once again and do this salty thing.
