GAMING NEWS PART DEUX

Jimbob wrote:

We know how terrible the world is - can we at least look at this positive news?

Yeah sure (and it is nice to see!), but - not only that, I don't think.  Not only that and brushing over the other stuff.  Not unless we've got severe anxiety, or thinking about it genuinely triggers us for some reason.

Otherwise...  Yes bad things are happening all the time, but gaming is the main hobby for most of us, and this feels like the most significant terrible thing that's been revealed in all gaming to me.  Given that, I feel like we should all (apart from that subgroup mentioned above) at least think about what this means for us.  If that thought is "it's bad but I don't feel it's worth sacrificing my paid enjoyment when I can do so little, I'll just slag ActiBlizz games off as well" then that's fair enough.  I still think it's worth a think for us all - this above any other bad thing in gaming.

(And yes I'm aware that similar things likely go on elsewhere.  All we can do is focus on the ones that come to light I think.)

Buskalilly wrote:

Just burn the entire corporate system down. It exists to let rich old white men get away with doing whatever they want. That is literally the purpose for which companies, the stock market, the legal system, everything in Europe and America was designed. Videogames are made in that system so I'm sure even companies we don't know about have some shady shit going on.

Just buy Japanese games and Indies.

Also, partake in violent socialist revolution.

Found Jim Sterling's alt account.  (Seriously, this is basically the content of their Jimquisition this week, apart from the Japanese games/indies bit. All fury no funny.)

Buskalilly wrote:

He says, as if Japan weren't rife with sexual harrassment. Luckily, there just aren't many women in Japanese games companies to be getting harrassed in the first place . . .

I did have this second thought myself.  At least it sounds like Nintendo has more women involved in games recently?  (Granted more than zero doesn't mean much.)  


Anyway, it's not much, but there has been the odd chink of light.  Firstly a few ActiBlizz-related voices are coming out in support (apologies for linking to a bloke's tweet); and secondly a fair few outlets, granted all smaller ones, have agreed to stop covering ActiBlizz work.  A common thing I see, and feel, about this is 'what can we do really?' so it's nice to see some people who can do a bit more fronting up.

Funny that gamexplain are in on that when they recently were said to have been overworking and underpaying their staff. (Their coverage has always been shit anyway)

I wonder why outlets have been much quicker to do this with ActiBlizz than they were with Ubi?

You could argue the consequences of Actizard's actions have proven to be more serious than Ubi's and their response was shittier too but I'm not sure that should make them any less culpable really. Good to see outlets are refusing to cover them but I'm quite disappointed there isn't that many doing it, the most annoying part is that this is still very gamer-centric news and that the wider audience will still lap up everything they serve them whilst being totally oblivious to what's happening.

I've been thinking for a long time, if the Japan thing doesn't work out I'm just gonna get into corporate and/ or environmental terrorism.

Treesmurf wrote:

You could argue the consequences of Actizard's actions have proven to be more serious than Ubi's and their response was shittier too but I'm not sure that should make them any less culpable really. Good to see outlets are refusing to cover them but I'm quite disappointed there isn't that many doing it, the most annoying part is that this is still very gamer-centric news and that the wider audience will still lap up everything they serve them whilst being totally oblivious to what's happening.

Yep, is tad annoying as I've mentioned elsewhere I heard on the radio heard on the news SM64 selling for $1.5m and my Dad even seen it on the news, ohh how your old games might be worth a fortune, now any person will go my old game worth hundreds.

And as you say mainstream media not covered something far more serious, that all the millions who buy COD will still buy it.

Treesmurf wrote:

You could argue the consequences of Actizard's actions have proven to be more serious than Ubi's and their response was shittier too but I'm not sure that should make them any less culpable really.

I figured it was a combination between the worse outcomes (allegations of suicide directly linkable to the culture), the response, the fact that there's an actual court case, and the fact that ActiBlizz (Actizard is cooler-sounding and ActiBlizz shouldn't be cool) haven't made a song and dance of doing the bare minimum to placate people into going, 'THERE THEY DID SOMETHING CAN WE ENJOY OUR GAMES NOW' like Ubi did.

Okay let's have some good news for a change. But first some bad news because ActiBlizz doesn't want people to have nice things: they're calling in union-busters. Because they're scum.

Anyway, good news as promised:



He's no Grant Kirkhope, but I imagine he's quite a big name in games voices and right now trans people could do with all the help they can get.

Alanah Pearce uploaded a video going in more details about how boycotting the games affect people at studios etc in various ways, including bringing up tweets of people there.

Along with how we can support devs at these studios and charities that help.

Megaton Musashi, a new Level-5 game for Switch, got this nice looking new trailer. If the gameplay is fun then this is a buy for me.

https://youtu.be/22aNXdh0ynI

From what I've seen that's only coming to Japan, right? Like most of Level-5's stuff. Of course importing is an option.

I'll watch that later Mas, and I'm especially interested in the charities.

Yeah Level 5 don't have a western branch anymore, still a Nintendo could publish it for instance.

Looks like a relatively big budget title to me. I think Nintendo and Level-5 will want it to get outside Japan.

Seen COD Vanguard has no signs of Activision anywhere, it's presented by Call of Duty now.

I suppose that's a sign that the brand is becoming toxic, which is a good thing...?

I finally got around to watching the Alanah Pearce video.  Brief summary of her arguments for those who haven't:
- Boycotting the games affects devs on the ground too, because it hits their bonuses, and the love for their jobs that got them through the awful conditions takes a hit;
- That doesn't mean keep buying the games if you can't reconcile that with your moral stance (hat-tip to Smurf on the Discord, fighting the good fight);
- Do keep calling out what's been done, but do positive tweets as well (i.e. standing with the devs);
- Donate to charities who help;
- Don't let sexism happen in your workplace, wherever you work;
- If you have the money, buy stocks in games companies and deal in them ethically.

Which I guess I can buy.  I can't help feeling like boycotting the games is going to affect people at the top more, because it's all in bonuses and the bigger fish get disproportionately bigger bonuses compared to sales.  However I can get that donating to charities and speaking out are less ambiguously good ways of supporting the cause.  (I don't have the money to buy stocks and I can't imagine most other people here do either.)  Only slight issue with donating to charities is, she's dropped a list of six I think, and I don't know which one(s) to support!

I think there's a micro and a macro side to the whole mess.  The micro side is that if you boycott games then everybody in the studio loses out (although again, see above bonus point).  The macro side is that if stocks in the company drop for whatever reason, including declining sales, that's going to make the behaviour as a whole feel less acceptable to the market.  I use 'acceptable' here, incidentally, as applied to the money-hungry minds of old white men, not for the majority of us for whom none of this is acceptable.

Think boycotting the game does affect the people at the top more but as the tweets she highlighted someone that did work hard on the game likely wants people to play and enjoy it, then to see all these must be hard knowing people might not see that hard work.

Now it does seem the Activision side of things is solely on COD which I'd be passing on anyway, that only thing that I can think off is Overwatch 2 from Blizzard that remotely has my attention.

Few more on Ubisoft side but lots of ways could play those without giving a lot of money to them.

Away from the likes of Activision, we had an Xbox Showcase last night was more like the Inside Xboxes they used to do or a bad Nintendo Treehouse that not a lot happened.

One of the things that did happen was XCloud has been confirmed to becoming to Xbox Consoles this Holiday Season which I think is a great thing as game developers can move on and focus on the Series systems, however Xbox One owners can still play those games.

Now I can see draw backs like poor internet connections and the library is only going to be what's on XCloud so no Call of Duty. After this announcement, we had the Twitter discourse from various "fandoms".

I think it's a positive and been a supporter of cloud gaming in general and this I see this holiday I can't get that Series console, but I can still play the Series X version of Halo Infinite ohh yeah you could play the native Xbox One version, so maybe not a great example umm Flight Sim then without having to get the new system along with few other benefits such hey you want to play Quake Multiplayer well I can jump right in without needing to download it, no one is left behind and if in the future are only Xbox Series XRi games can still play them.

I do see negatives as well such as the poor internet, was brought up elsewhere about lack of physical Psychonauts 2 that video game preservation if all digital and all going behind a subscription model instead which for now I do like with Game Pass, but that could all change.

The Game Awards was last night. I didn't watch it and catching up I couldn't figure out if Nintendo had shown anything. Usually they reveal something at this event. Was there nothing?

Edit - A Hisuan Pokemon and some MH Rise DLC updates. Ok

There were 3 sizzle trailers from Nintendo - an Indie World one for some better known upcoming indies, a year in review style one of games that released this year, and a look ahead to 2022 which I don't think was anything new (unless that's where the pokemon was spotted?)

MH Rise Sunbreak got a teaser trailer, typically didn't show much but it's going to be good. Also he isn't Nintendo anymore, but Reggie presented one of the awards which was fun.

neil wrote:

Was there nothing?

Pretty much!

The only thing I know is that "PC" won Best gaming hardware of all time.

This year's Best Things to Read award goes to: Letters and Numbers.

I think that was a different award show? But yeah, PC isn’t really even hardware, more a loose spec for hardware. Stupid award

Yeah it was Golden Joysticks for 50 years of gaming they did best hardware which PC topped which is understandable, and Dark Souls won best game of all-time.

PC? Which era though? May as well say the microchip, or electricity.

Upon further inspection, the winners of the "Hardware of the Year" award were Xbox in 2002, the GBA SP in 2003 and 2004, a graphics card in 2020 and the PS5 in 2021. It's an award that pops up when a system needs promoting, although the GBA SP should win by default considering it won it twice.

GBA SP > PC. You heard it here first.

I don't really PC game but basically been around for all of the 50 years, and on paper really the best hardware as basically plays everything, I just prefer console gaming.

The other four system's in the Top 5 were three PlayStations and the SNES which seemed the oddest as it's a UK based award show (I know anyone can vote around the world).