Let gaming's biggest douchebag explain to you how games aren't films, films aren't games, and David Cage will never be a moviemaker.
Atari isn't exactly the most respected name in the industry these days, but apparently it needs to infect everything it touches with its sour reputation. The Great Atari Ransack is underway, as the hollow shell of a publisher goes through its back catalog and ruins everything. Desperate, undignified, and thoroughly damaging, Atari's recent release trend deserves to be torn asunder.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has given us one of the most grotesque pre-order schemes in "AAA" history. Its "Augment Your Pre-order" plan is a blight on the industry, and the worst part is that it's just another development in a long and sad story.
I've got my umbrella primed for a torrent of boiled piss, as I'm about to suggest Hideo Kojima is less than perfect. How could you argue otherwise, though, when you see Quiet and unveil the "secret reason" for her total ballbag visual design? So join me as we explain why the whole Quiet thing in Metal Gear Solid V is total bollock-chunder! Afterwards, I plan to drink. Drink to forget.
Okay, who DIDN'T expect another Konami episode with the crap it's pulled this past week? Today, we discuss the company's sleazy PES shenanigans, the ridiculous DLC coming to Metal Gear Solid V, and explain why Konami sodding off out of "AAA" development forever wouldn't be a bad thing. My your blood quench the throat of the thirsting POG GOD.
Voice actors are doing what they do best and speaking up, uniting under the #PerformanceMatters group to demand better treatment in the game industry. Ideally, the game industry should treat EVERYONE way better than it does, but in this case, it should come as no surprise that I most definitely stand with the voice actors and support them. Performance does matter, even as the industry sickeningly pretends it doesn't.
As news of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate's microtransactions spreads, some folk roll their eyes at the usual pundits beating a dead horse and reiterating the same old outrage. This, friends, is how The Silence spreads. The Silence is what publishers want. They keep their mouths shut and wait for their audience to get bored of the latest scandal. It's an effective tactic, one that creates aggressive and infectious apathy. That apathy is then used to lash out at others who won't "get over it" and continue to talk about scandalous antics. So let's talk about that, and the power noise has when it transcends that silence. Also, Jim has never heard of Jimsaw.
It's been almost a year since Digital Homicide attempted to lock horns with Jim F'n Sterling Son, failing at every turn to produce a "gotcha" or demonstrate they were anything more than hacks. Following their latest series of stunts - stunts that involve erecting sockpuppet companies, spamming Steam, and leveling threats against yours truly over the phone, it's time to lay it out there once and for all. Digital Homicide, enjoy this, my anniversary gift to you.
Overkill has embodied its name when it comes to downloadable content for Payday 2, but its latest shenanigan is possibly the worst. After adding a microtransaction system to the game in an event that promised FREE updates, Payday 2 has become not just a source of community rage, but an exercise in corporate hypocrisy. This is a game I personally championed. I take its recent heel turn personally as well.
I used to love Kickstarter. Then I used to resent it. Then I started loving it again. I make liberal use of Kickstarter to back certain projects, and have been doing it for games a lot more lately. Some consider this tasteless, a potential conflict of interest. Some believe games media folk have no place contributing to crowdfunded games. So, here's why I do it.
Having played far too many of the cynical horror games that have cropped up over the past few years, your ol' pal Jim has noticed some awful trends. Those trends now get their comeuppance, as we look at the Golden Sins of horror games, the things that no spooky experience should ever do again. Also, Jimsaw plays his final card.
Fallout 4 does something very S.P.E.C.I.A.L with its relationships. It's not every day a "AAA" videogame gets something right, much less something that so personally resonates with your ol' pal Jim Sterling. So, let's talk about the companion system of Fallout 4, and the thing it allows that makes it one of the more surprisingly progressive things a big-budget mainstream game's ever done.
It is Jimdependence Day, the one-year anniversary of The Jimquisition going solo and becoming an indie endeavor. To celebrate, here's a whole extra episode! This is a special subject for me. When I last did a Jimquisition about Dynasty Warriors, it was scheduled to be the final video I did for The Escapist - except I'd become inexplicably popular after a terrible debut, and therefore it signified the beginning of a whole new chapter. Anyway, this is an episode defending one of the most critically maligned series of all time, Dynasty Warriors. Suck it down!
In recent years, communities like Reddit and NeoGAF have largely come to enjoy - or at least tolerate - the work of yours truly. This has been wonderful to see, that change in perception. I'm proud of it. Wasn't always that way, however. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 remains the most controversial review I've ever written, igniting a hellfire of outrage among those two communities, as well as other places - including Destructoid, where it was published. The way in which this outrage perpetuated was not through an understanding of the review, however, but through memes and a disingenuous carving away of nuance in order to present a simplified - and ultimately untrue - perspective of things. Today's episode has been a long time coming. I've planned it for years. I'm finally pulling the thorn out. Let's talk about Modern Warfare 3.
It's a rather special edition of The Jimquisition today, as I get to be part of the unveiling of YouTube's Copyright Protection Program. It's a new plan that will see YouTube stepping up its game and financially backing content creators who find their videos unfairly targeted by spurious copyright takedowns. As a long-term target of said takedowns, it's particularly pleasing to be part of the rollout, and to reveal how one underhanded developer, Moo Tech, tried and failed to censor me. It just got a little harder to be a cowardly, censoring timewaster.
The hot topic of the past week has been blacklisting, and it should come as no shock that your ol' pal Jim Sterling has more than a few words to say on the matter. Can companies be justified when they refuse to talk to a press outlet? Are press outlets justified to go public with these refusals? What gives blacklists power, and how to do we limit that power? Let's find some quasi-adequate answers to these questions!
Making money from the easily outraged may appear cynical and exploitative, but it actually isn't. With a convenient boogeyman, the right rhetoric, and a little bit of good ol' fashioned demagoguery, you'll be stacking cheddar courtesy of those who'll take any validation tossed their way. And the best part is how it isn't cynical. Not at all!
This generation has seen a number of big-budget games go multiplayer-only. This isn't a problem in theory, but the practice has left more than a little to be desired. With Titanfall, Evolve, Star Wars Battlefront and Rainbow Six Siege all dumping campaigns, The Jimquisition looks at why this is a problem, and why it shouldn't be. Also, you better goddamn believe we've got some #FucKonami news this week!
With Final Fantasy VII Remake abandoning the Active-Time Battle system for a more action-oriented approach, the time has come to discuss whether or not traditional JRPG battles really are "dated." Are they dated, or is it just something the industry decided one day? What exactly is wrong with Active-Time and turn-based combat systems? I, for one, can't say I see what makes them so distasteful.
The Jimquisition Awards are here again! This year, we've got not five, but SIX top-of-the-class games who all get a Game of the Year Award. The JQ Awards are given to games across the board, without regards for budget or status. All games are equal, all games deserve a shot... but only six of them can get what is literally the biggest honor in videogames!
So it's that time of the year again. The time to condense a year of bubbling shitclusters into a digestible list of ten thoroughbred shithorses. This year was a struggle, but not impossible. After much thought, deliberation, and howling desperately into the night, The Jimquisition brings to you... The Top Ten Shittiest Games of 2015!
This week, we look at the horrible ways in which publishers have mutilated Tetris over the past few years. A game so simple and codified, it should be impossible to screw up, this industry has nonetheless given it a damn good go.
Let's talk about virtual reality, yaaaay! With the Rift selling out at $599, there's been a lot of smack talked between those who pray at the altar of VR, and those who wish the whole thing would go away. Both these camps are talking shite. The Jimquisition knows what's up.... as ALWAYS.
Two years ago, The Jimquisition said Square Enix was planning to break its games into pieces. Here we are with a carved-up Final Fantasy VII remake and Hitman. So today, I go back to my sources and find out even more. Why is Square Enix doing this? What was the great panic at the end of the last generation that led to more episodic content? And why are there so many remastered rereleases? The Jimquisition has the answer.
There's nothing wrong with episodic games. Not on paper, anyway. There's plenty wrong with the current crop of entities eyeing episodic games up, however. Last week, some people assumed I thought episodic content was, itself, a problem. This is not the case. Let's look at what the actual problem is.
Good Old Games is joining the Early Access bandwagon with its Games In Development program. Unlike Early Access, however, GID looks like it won't be total crap. Let's look at what GOG is doing, and use it as excuse to dump all over Early Access again. Yes, that seems a fine idea!
It's 2016. If you can't get a PC version of your game running to a satisfactory degree by now, you're an absolute failure and you should just sod off. Truly, shit like the recent Tales of Symphonia nonsense has gotten far beyond a joke.
It's been a while since we had one of our delightful little Steam Stories, but the makers of Cat Simulator bring us a taught tale of failure and misrepresentation. Good thing too... it's been a real slow news week!
I swear this is NOT yet another episode about Steam Early Access! It's actually about Street Fighter V, and games of a similar ilk. It's just a really, really good title for the episode this week, as we talk about "AAA" games released in a deliberately unfurnished state with content promised later down the line. God damn, is Early AAAccess a great title, though.
The Jimquisition joins the throng of YouTube content makers asking a very simple question - where's the fair use? YouTube has been going into takedown overdrive this year, and there's a palpable fear among video makers as they wonder who's next. It's gotten beyond ridiculous.
Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 has become one of my favorite games, and that should make me happy. I mean, it does... but it's sort of depressing. When AAA games come out and give you everything you expect, it's a cause for celebration. That we DO celebrate when things do what they're supposed to is indicative of a problem. But seriously, I really love that game about flowers and corpses.
No Man's Sky is retailing for $59.99 and people have some angry concerns over the price tag. That folks are skeptical of the standard rate is good... but they're skeptical for the wrong reasons. Let us not think like "AAA" companies when it comes to indie games and their place in the world. If we're going to look at pricing models, let's not miss the forest for the trees.
Microsoft is pushing for dominance in PC gaming with its Universal Windows Platform, and it's not being entirely nice about it. After outcry from Tim Sweeney and Durante, your old pal Jim Sterling joins the voices decrying Windows' walled garden as a really, really bad idea. Shut up, Chip!
The Division was the last straw. After poking fun at Ubisoft's overuse of the word "iconic" for years, your old pal Jim Sterling has encountered the straw to break the camel's back. Someone get this company a thesaurus. Please.
The news that Star Fox Zero would feature an invincible mode encouraged an almost predictable onslaught of outrage from the Hardcore Gamers who are Hardcore. The idea of hand-holding and dumbing down has been a contentious topic for years, but if you scratch away the surface, there's another concern that just isn't hidden well enough. The concern of an exclusive little club not being so exclusive anymore.
Dark Souls III is out now in Japan, but the rest of the world has to wait until April 12... unless they get the full English version from Japan's Xbox Live store. It's a silly situation, and Dark Souls is not a series that benefits from staggered releases at all. Let's look at this whole bollocky shitstorm.
There's talk of a new Xbox and PlayStation on the horizon, but not brand new consoles - not quite, anyway. Incremental upgrades are the talk of the town, as consoles look set to take another leaf from PC gaming's book. Is the idea of an Xbox 1.5 or a PlayStation 4K a good one? Kinda... but not the way this industry will likely do 'em.
Git gud or go home! That's what a super hardcore Dark Souls fan will tell you. But is that fair? Dark Souls III, like all Dark Souls games, is being marketed on its difficulty, and the audience swallows that idea up. However, it's reductive and misguided as far as I'm concerned. And ain't no amount of hot wing contests will change that.
It's a savage episode this week as the champions of crunch are taken to task. Following a fairly appalling article from Alex St. John, The Jimquisition tears into the idea that forcing game devs to work long hours without compensation is somehow a good idea. It's not a good idea. In fact, it's total bollocks.
If you cannot stand to hear criticism of Nintendo games, you might want to skip this one. Consider that your content warning. This video does not even entertain the possibility that the controls for Star Fox Zero are anything other than total garbage trash.
The system doesn't work, so break it some more. That's the idea behind the Copyright Deadlock, a petty scheme that highlights the absurdity of YouTube's ContentID system. How can three corporations own a single video? Well, three apparently own THIS one. Konami, Nintendo, and Rhino all believe they own this episode. Two of them want to monetize it. How does that work? Let's find out!
Yes, we're talking about Dark Souls III again, but I can promise I'm not just giving it a big hard wank this time. We've actually got something to piss and moan about. Cheating is rampant in Lothric, and the folks at Namco and From are doing dick-all to deal with it properly. In fact, their response so far has done more harm than good.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered is only available as part of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's special edition bundles. This is, obviously, bullshit. It's also Call of Duty though... y'know?
Are we too nice to indie games? It's a question I've thought about for years since I first saw it posed. Seriously... I've had this topic saved up for three years when I first wrote about it. The game industry stopped being super bullshit juuuust long enough for me to finally squeak it in.
The new Doom is good. That's not really a secret anymore, it's basically scientific fact. id Software's surprising triumph is full of great details, but by far the crowning achievement is the way it portrays the player character. Let us celebrate the Doom Guy!
Overwatch's success is nothing short of remarkable, sparking a fanbase that was zealous long before the game was even released. This popularity has been manifested in fan art, cosplay, and... porn. Lots of porn. Porn that indicates a welcome resurgence of personality and artistry in the videogame industry... in its own dirty way.
Battlefield 1 has turned a lot of heads. Its announcement video is the most liked trailer on YouTube. Hell, even I'M interested in it. Electronic Arts executives, however, didn't want it to happen, which is sadly true of a lot of executives in this industry. People who know nothing, yet are paid to control everything. They're idiots, and we'll never know what potential future successes they killed in the womb.
Overwatch is one of my favorite games of the year, but I cannot in good faith consider awarding it the title of "best" game. My long-running policy of disqualifying premium games with microtransactions in them is consistently enforced, but it's pissed off a lot of Blizzard fans. As an attempt to bring understanding to such furious souls, I offer my full problem with Overwatch's fee-to-pay mechanics and the failure of its loot boxes in general.
One of the best things about E3 is going on Twitter and ripping the piss out of it. Been doing it for years. It's hilarious. Some people, however, take umbrage with such chicanery, and demand it be stopped.
Because I apparently hate myself, I'm talking about gender-related stuff in videogames. So I'VE got a fun day lined up! Anyway, Link's not a girl, Zelda isn't playable, and Nintendo's reasons for this situation are total bollocks. And that's my problem. Not the situation. The bollocks.
Let's see if this topic can spark the same nuanced and interesting influx of fresh comments that the last one did. It's time to talk about the amount of violence shown at E3. Critics chat about it every year, and now the time has come to join the fray.
Mighty No. 9 is out after three years of waiting. The fans got what they expected... but not at all what they wanted. Time for a post-mortem then. Let's dissect this corpse and poke at the gooey bits inside.
Steam Greenlight was designed to let customers vote on the games that looked most appealing, that they most wanted to buy. It was a noble idea and an interesting way to allow indie games a chance at recognition. Unfortunately, the well has been poisoned and the idea perverted to allow all manner of unwanted shite onto Steam. There is one particular vector of infection that must be taken to task. It's a "publisher" that calls itself YOLO Army.
So that whole thing about CSGO Lotto? The Counter-Strike gambling controversy? Pro Syndicate, TmarTn, all that stuff? Yeah, I heard about that.
A year ago, we talked about how Evolve fell out of the "AAA" Bullshit Tree and hit every branch on the way down. Turtle Rock's multiplayer game of predator and prey prototyped the current trend of unfinished games that used DLC like crutches, and suffered as a result. Now it's back, completely free, and redesigned as Evolve Stage 2. And that's... interesting.
Pokemon Go is a mundane game and a poorly made, unfinished app. It may very well be the best Pokemon game ever made, too. Kind of. Sort of. A bit. Either way, I can't get over my fascination with the thing's bizarre creative success.
Discussing emulation as a games pundit can be risky business - it's a taboo subject, and you can't be seen to endorse it even slightly. However, the existence of emulation ought to be treated more importantly and taken seriously, especially when you consider how devalued a lot of older games can become. Also this week - highlights from Sonic's 25th anniversary shitshow, and some amusing #FucKonami News.
You are feeling thirsty. You are feeling hungry. You are feeling tired. You are bleeding. You are infected. You are dead. Welcome to survival games - the neediest, clingiest, increasingly dreariest games in town.
Overwatch is in the news again, with a loot-flavored event that has made even a lot of the game's defenders raise their eyebrows. Let's all just admit that no matter how much you might love Blizzard, it's still another fee-to-pay peddler at heart.
I'm pretty much done with talking about No Man's Sky ("do a Columbo, do a Columbo") - oh, one last thing....
Well here we are again. No Man's Sky isn't even cold yet and we've got Final Fantasy XV filling in with the unreal hype and ludicrous "fan" outrage. Yet more messengers have been shot as a delay news story became another example of what happens when hype culture rots people's brains away.
After tearing into rabid fans, compliant media, and hype culture, there is one final element to No Man's Sky that I need to tackle - its creator. I've spent time thinking about this one, digging through the archives, and weighing the arguments. Despite honestly wanting to move onto new subjects, I just had to ask... ... did Hello Games tell a naughty lie?
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is yet another victim of this industry's unchecked avarice. It's an ironic victim at that, given the series' themes. So, let's chat about the preorder bullshit and microshenanigans that inevitably dominated the game's post-launch discussions. Oh... oh Square Enix...
Sterling's little birdies are tweeting secrets again, this time bringing the delectable stories behind Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's cash-grab elements. How much warning did Eidos Montreal get about the microtransactions? Exactly why was Breach mode included? And what about the next Deus Ex game? The Jimquisition has naughty secrets to share.
Oh look, YouTube did something that upset everybody again. As videos are being flagged as inappropriate for monetization, all eyes are on YouTube's guidelines for "ad-friendly" content, as well as the crapshoot bots that unpredictably enforce them. Because, y'know, automated systems are great at determining context.
The PS4 version of Fallout 4 won't be getting mods. Same goes for Skyrim: Special Edition. Bethesda has revealed it was Sony's call, and that's no good. That's no good at all.
This episode is about Ark: Survival Evolved and its DLC controversy. That's all it's about. There's nothing else I want to talk about, and I definitely don't mention any other subject but this.
There's trouble brewin' at the ol' YouTube Place... again. Let's look at YouTube Heroes, a new way in which the video service aims to look like it's doing something useful, but really isn't.
If you see sinister political agendas where none actually exist, you might be a bit weird. If you see a game with a woman in it and instantly write it off as "SJW propaganda," you might have a problem with more than just propaganda.
Frank is back! Well, not really. Capcom's calling him Frank West, but fans of his war coverage ain't buying it. Dead Rising 4 is just one in a long line of games that discard voice actors like disposable cameras. Let's look at exactly why that's wrong.
Virtual reality has its cards on the table now. After waiting and seeing exactly how it would all pan out, it's time to deliver a verdict. The verdict being that virtual reality is a bit toss, if I'm being honest.
Battleborn might go down in history as one of the most routinely humiliated big-budget games ever. The wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong everything. Nothing went right for a game Gearbox once described as a "big bet." What really sucks is that it was a good bloody game!
After spending almost an entire day downloading Mafia III on the PS4, I'm compelled to reflect on how consoles are lying inferior machines that properly fucked up. A harsh reflection, perhaps, but a bloody true one. Their makers consider themselves in competition with PC, so they're asking for some harsh home truths.
Let's jump aboard the Nintendo Switch content train and hump it. Hump it until our genitals bleed! Seriously though, we're talking about Nintendo's marketing this week, and the importance of visual communication when selling a product. Also, #PerformanceMatters n' stuff!
As Bethesda proudly announces it will no longer provide review copies until the day before a game launches, The Jimquisition decides to deliver some hefty side-eyeing. This news came just as your very own Jim Sterling found out EA considers him a "wild card" who isn't to be trusted with high profile games like Battlefield 1. Game publishers have been steadily manipulating the review process for years, and when you consider how shitty the "AAA" game world's become... is it any bloody wonder?
The Jimquisition comes early and you didn't need to pre-order it! Let's look at why Resident Evil 4 was a classic, why its writing stood the test of time, and what it can tell us about REVII. ... all with a little help from Dr. Crane.
Last year, the legendary Jimsaw Killer unleashed a rampage of terror within his dirty garage. The garage was never the same. Long presumed dead, he's back for revenge... and microtransactions. Trapped in an underground bunker, Jimsaw's latest victim must saw off his fingers and use them to "buy" his freedom. Terror. Desperation. Mountain Dew. Boglins. Suffering? You haven't seen anything yet.
Titanfall 2 is brilliant, but it doesn't look like luck (or an audience) has been on its side. Let's look at why it all fell apart, and why this is a shitty thing in the wider scheme of things.
Five Nights At Freddy's is a mind-boggling success, but it wasn't always this way, and Scott Cawthon was not always a horror mastermind. Adversity and a hell of a lot of criticism got Five Nights creator Cawthon where he is today, and on the second annual Jimdependence Day, we examine how.
Oh, Ubisoft! Watch Dogs 2 had to patch out some "particularly explicit" genitalia, and that's a big ol' laugh. However, while one particular naughty bit is gone, others remain. Why is it okay for some, and not others? What's the difference? A spirited Jimquisition (one of my new favorites, actually), discusses our attitudes toward penises and vaginas.
Nintendo's manufactured scarcity is a commonly known deal, and it's just getting beyond ludicrous. The NES Classic is the latest farce, shipping to stores in pitiful numbers despite well-known demand. Basically, Nintendo's a fucked up toymaker thinking everything it makes is a goddamn Hatchimal, whatever the hell THAT is!
Almost 40% of Steam's entire library was published this year. A single year. It's time to once again give Valve a dressing down for its lack of standards, because why not? 'Tis the season!
Square Enix has a roadmap of significant post-launch updates to Final Fantasy XV, going so far as to pledge entire narrative additions. The idea of patching in more story is interesting, and in FFXV's case it's even admirable. There is a downside to it, however, one that we ought to be mindful of.
The Jimquisition Awards 2016 are here! Five games, five awards, no Schick Hydrobot! Let us look at the top five games of 2016 and get really, really pissy about them. Hooray!
Open world games are everywhere, and it's getting really stupid. You can tell they're happening just to follow a trend as well, since so few open world games manage to justify actually being open world. There are blatant clues found in many of these desolate sandboxes, and we're going to talk about them and why they're making videogames rubbish.
With Pokemon Snap finally arriving on the North American Wii U Virtual Console, it's time to get something off my incredible tits. Let's talk about Nintendo's terrible VC release structure.
The Nintendo Switch Presentation revealed more details about March's Wii U successor and... it was okay. The presentation was okay. However, it wouldn't be Nintendo without some frustrating, infuriating caveats, so let's see how they ballsed this one up, shall we?
Battleborn is not the only 2K Games release to have suffered indignity this generation. Evolve, more famous for its DLC model than anything it did as a game, was another multiplayer shooter that failed to do anything better than fail. The fate of Evolve serves as a cautionary tale to any would-be project banking on additional content to make its money. Audience goodwill is a finite resource, and when you push for excess at the expense of quality, you might just find out how finite it is.
What do Resident Evil 7 and Bravely Default have in common? Let The Jimquisition explain, as we celebrate the return of a good Resident Evil game!
GameStop, it's time to sit before The Jimquisition and listen to the charges brought before you. Lament, ye sinner, and may God have mercy 'pon your rotten soul. Also, your Circle of Life thing is broken bullshit, as is your whole working relationship with the game industry. Shove THAT in your circle.
Greenlight is finally dying after years of promises, to be replaced by... a thing. Steam Direct is Valve's latest attempt at finding a content-to-quality balance. What does your ol' pal Jim think? Let's find out!
Oh no, The Jimquisition is making itself a smarmy point again. Sick and tired of Nintendo's repeated attempts to steal from him, your old pal Jim Sterling explains why it's perfectly morally fine to rob the company blind.
I am the videogame critic they tried to sue for $10 million. I've kept relatively quiet for almost a year while a spurious and disgusting libel lawsuit was spuriously filed in an attempt to disrupt my life. Now I get to talk.
Welcome to the furmily, son! This is the story of Fur Fun, a rubbish Banjo-Kazooie ripoff that was bought by a YouTuber and turned into a hot shitting disaster. Let's look at Fur Fun, Dalasreview, and the copyright takedown strikes issued in their name.
A flashier title for this episode would've been "Bait & Switch" but I had to dispense with style for something that lays it all out there. While people are having fun licking Switch cards and Breathing the Wild, your pal Jim Sterling is dealing with another - yes ANOTHER - utter chancer. Let's see what the fun folks at STICLI Games did when they tried to accuse a critical video of trademark violation.
The first portion of this video is some performative yelling about weapon durability, specifically in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The second portion is about something less durable than any weapon in any game - the psyches of Zelda's most viciously defensive fans.
I realize this will reinforce the "Sony Shill" thing (which is ironic if you've known me long enough to remember when I was the "anti-Sony bias Nintendo shill"), but Horizon: Zero Dawn's success is worth talking about. The game's doing well, and while those who loyally defend plastic machinery might think otherwise, that's a good thing for everybody. Yes, even if you're putting all your stock in the Switch.
The Jimquisition takes time out from personal, embittered, GAF thread-locking drama topics and reheats a favorite kitchen dish - let's slow roast some asset flips for maximum flavor! From familiar zombies to a tragic arachnid with a great past and no future, we look at the most overused assets money can buy, and warn Steam Direct to look for the telltale signs of a bad, bad developer.
Your ol' pal Jim Sterling was at Valve HQ to talk about Steam's future, including Steam Direct, Curators, and what to do about certain fucknuts. Presented for your enjoyment is my assessment of the meeting and my thoughts toward the future of Steam and potential LACK of future certain fucknuts have.
Persona 5 should be reveling in its critical acclaim right now, but it's mired in a bit of bad press thanks to its publisher's attempt to control post-launch video content. An honest case of trying to protect an audience from spoilers, a ludicrous overreach from an out-of-touch company? Both? Both, obviously. Oh, Atlus. You really shouldn't have...
Oh Gearbox, will you ever learn? So the great minds running the Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition scene decided to compound its ludicrous MSRP by partnering with G2A. Yes that G2A, the notoriously scummy one that profits from fraud. How did that turn out, and what does it say of this industry that it happened in the first place? Let's find out together, you POG freaks!
Every game blog wants to make a name for itself, but that desire can sometimes be fulfilled in a most undesirable way. I mean, look what happened to Brash Games! It doesn't pay its writers, it revokes author credits when people leave, and its owner has over a decade of duplicitous, shady shit to answer for. A number of us pooled our resources and drew on many anonymous sources to blow this publication wide open and oh dear is there some grimy shit pooling in its guts.
How exactly do less scrupulous blogs get deals with casino websites to lace their articles with unsubtle advertisements? Who is pulling the strings, what sort of money changes hands, and what exactly are Casinos looking for when they ask for "SEO Juice?" The Jimquisition went deep to blow this mother.
Look, we all know about the NES Classic's discontinuation by now. That's not worth rehashing. Instead, let's heal these wounds and look at the ways in which Nintendo could show it truly was sorry. That's what Reggie said. He said they were sorry. The Jimquisition is ready to forgive... with conditions.
I'm sorry if you're tired of hearing about Brash Games or its owner, Paul Ryan (Not That One). Unfortunately, those who were recently part of his libelous, treacherous, potentially illegal manifesto don't have a choice. And now the Cleaner Is Come.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is fantastic, and everybody knows it. There's less of a consensus on its "Smart-Steering" option, an accessibility feature that some argue against because it's an accessibility feature.
Demos aren't exactly fashionable, and Prey not having one on PC is technically a non-issue. Or it would have been, had Arkane's reasoning not been so thoroughly and astoundingly wrong. At least when you think about it more than Arkane has. Bonus Content: Elite Gaming Wisdom with Duke Amiel Du H'ardcore.
As The Jimquisition gears up for change, we're reminded that some things stay the same - like spurious YouTube copyright threats. World of Tanks' very own Wargaming.net has been misusing words like "defamation" in order to try and scare its own community... and it's time for an expert to step in. Because this isn't about World of Tanks... this is about OUR shit being fucked with. Again.
New Jimquisition, Old Grudges. It's time for another of our grisly post-mortems, as we pick up the rusted scalpel and cut open Modern Warfare Remastered. Here's how Activision turned one of the most influential shooters of all time into the worst game of last year. Bonus Content: Oh, Ubisoft!
Few things piss off your humble Jim Sterling more than executive speak. Well, a lot of things do, but executive speak is fucking insulting anyway.
Steam Greenlight, while once a promising and perhaps even noble endeavor, became a shitting tip in a year. Greenlight, aka Greenblight, aka Memelight, a service that did not so much open the floodgates as pull them off the hinges and sell the bastards for scrap metal. Now it's gone, so let's give it the funeral it deserves!
Take-Two Interactive sent a cease-and-desist letter to popular modding tool Open IV. With reasons spurious and methods nasty, the jealous protectorate of GTA Online has overreached in its decision to attack mods.
The Jimquisition names its inaugural Winners & Losers of E3! What killed? What died? We celebrate and jeer what Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Bethesda, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft had to offer.
First and foremost, The Jimquisition went to Mississippi Comic-Con and I got roughed up by Jason Voorhees. Of lesser importance is our main story. Cross-platform play is being embraced by both Microsoft and Nintendo. As with mods, Sony's being a spoilsport again. As Minecraft and Rocket League let Xbox One and Switch players interact, PS4 folks once again get stuck with inferior products.
The past week and change has been chaotic in certain sectors of videogame YouTube. Copyright strikes, mental health issues, legal trouble and more erupted around the otherwise unassuming shooter, Starr Mazer DSP. And while anarchy ruled the roost, YouTube itself let it all happen.
This week, "The Phantom of River Oaks" brings you a classic Jimquisition with a fresh coat of paint. Let's step back into 2013 and hear the timeless story of rival pasta sauce families.
Let's not beat about the bush. Valve can fix Steam's nastiest problem, but it involves showing some authority. Valve may hate to put the boot down, but if you want to stop having Digital Homicides, Dentolas, or Fun Creators, you need to look at their behavior, not the games they're making. Bonus Content: Life Haxz with Jim Sterling
Unity has an image problem, but who is to blame? According to at least one developer, it's the media's fault. Fake news! But Unity, now linked heavily to some of the worst games in the world, really doesn't seem to care, that might be the real heart of the issue. Bonus Content: Oh, Ubisoft!
As a nice treat, we're going on a field trip today. Come with me to Hell, as we scour the underbelly of the PlayStation Store. The Power of PlayStation, it turns out, is a dark and foreboding power indeed. Bonus Content: Life Haxz with Jim Sterling
In the world of videogames, even spiders need to be sexy, because Heaven forbid even Shelob be allowed her ugliness. When Shadow of War isn't busy introducing loot boxes, it's redesigning spiders in a way that reinforces some unfortunate ideas.
Oh sorry, did you think we were NOT going to look at microtransactions coming to Shadow of War? Did you think the appearance of loot boxes for a single-player game would escape my Sauronesque eye? Did you really think I'd not take EVERY opportunity to bash something Warner Bros. has done? If you don't know me by now...
We Happy Few has slowly transformed since it first arrived on Early Access, but its latest metamorphosis was sudden and jarring - it's a "AAA" game now. Gearbox acquiring the title, and the effect it's had on the game, demonstrate that "AAA" is not so much about the funds or the studio, but about the culture. Now take your Joy, and appreciate that I'm Undertale canon. Bonus Content: Fuck Konami News
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is the latest Early Access darling, but like Ark and Darkest Dungeon, it's learning that such a status comes with caveats. Hot off the heels of its "Stream Sniping" ban wave, Battlegrounds' recent microtransaction indulgence raised eyebrows and pitchforks both. Also, loot boxes really are the worst. Bonus Content: Oh, Ubisoft!
Those paid mods that Bethesda said weren't paid mods turned out to be paid mods and also worse than paid mods. The Creation Club has gifted a bounty unto Fallout 4, and it looks like things are little too much like microtransactions and mods got welded together horrifically.
It was sincere and touching, and that's all it should've been, but the decision to charge for content honoring the late Mike Forgey altered the conversation. Alright then, let's get into this mess.
Tmartn and ProSyndicate were believed to have done naughty things, but they've been scientifically proven innocent thanks to FTC findings. That IS how it works. Oh, and just before we were ready to wrap, PewDiePie went ahead and did something shit. Again.
Sometimes, independent developers ask my advice on certain practices. I can only say what I like, but I'll say that for free. Here are the clearest cut ways to avoid being a wanker in the freemium market, as one dev was curious to know. I think this happens to be quite a fine episode. Speaking of wankers though, we also gotta talk about Randy.
You want a positive Jimquisition? You want praise? You don't want to hear about microtransactions for a week? Just so happens we had something prepped. The Jim giveth as much The Jim taketh, good friends. Let's look at Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and delight in the success that could prove a game changer.
Because of The Plague, your regularly scheduled Jimquisition is running late. However, we try to never miss a Monday, so enjoy a remaster! Games get focus tested out the arse, and it can dramatically impact how they're made or sold. The problem is, most focus tests are total bollocks.
This one has... been a long time coming. The unscripted part at the end has... been a long time coming. How long does YouTube itself have? Long enough, I reckon, to fuck up a hell of a lot more between now and whenever it gets what it deserves. Oh shit, I said fuck in the video description. I guess no sexual penis is going to want to vaginally advertise with my anus video now. What a load of LGBTQ areolas.
I'm often told that videogames have be a mess of greed-fueled bollocks because the $60 price tag never raised along with inflation. This is crap. It's a myth. Games stopped costing $60 a long time ago.
This week's episode is brought to you by Sterdust, a totally original wrestling persona that WE OWN. We OWN it, WWE! Anyway, in an industry of liars, even the good guys lie, and those lies can be good lies. But what happens when lies become so commonplace and acceptable? Well then the bad guys lie... and they can't understand why they're not the good guys.
Activision's patented idea of utilizing matchmaking to trick players into buying DLC is an unsettling one, but if you think that's as bad as it gets, you don't know videogames. Let's talk about Scientific Revenue, the service that demonstrates exactly what games want from you - they want to turn players into payers... and they proudly admit it. The predatory side of gaming has only just begun to show its fangs.
Visceral Games is closed, and Dead Space may be no more. During this spooky Halloween time, let's look back at the rise and sad fall of a wonderful series. You can't spell DEAD without EA, after all.
After EA murdered Visceral and "pivoted" its Star Wars game, there has been much talk of the death of single-player games. The Jimquisition explains just how long this debate has lasted, and why single-player is doing okay. Bonus Content: Oh, Ubisoft!
This is the year loot boxes came to gaming in a big way. Encouraged by Overwatch, "AAA" publishers went all-in on destroying their games in the name of easy money. And no, Blizzard, you're not special. You deserve as much blame as EA, Activision, Ubisoft, 2K Games, WB, and Microsoft. In fact, j'accuse!
Yours truly may have many negative things to say about Nintendo, but there's no denying the Switch has had a phenomenal year. Also, Sterdust returns, and has something to say to Pro Wrestling Ego.
Star Wars Battlefront II was a bit of a misstep, huh? EA is licking its wounds after the massive loot box backlash, but there's little time to heal. They got too greedy to fast, and now legislators are interested in games... and gambling.
We've had much of 2017 to see what Steam Direct has done for Steam. Since Steam Direct turned out to be a complete farce, it's safe to say it ain't done a lot. You need not take my word for it either. Also, Sterdust accepts a challenge from Pro Wrestling Ego.
Look, I enjoy Skyrim a hell of a lot. That's no secret. But there comes a time where every Skyrim has to admit, y'know, fuck it.
Any Valve-related game that isn't explicitly Half-Life 3 will ignite the Internet for days with insulted fury. To save time and souls, The Jimquisition argues for acceptance and an overdue execution for Half-Life 3.
The episode we all knew was coming. The Jimquisition at last smashes into the "It's Just Cosmetic" argument with a bulldozer. Many will defend certain types of microtransaction and loot box by claiming if they sell only cosmetic DLC, it's fine. Cosmetics "don't affect gameplay" and therefore anything goes. This is rubbish. Cosmetics absolutely impact gameplay, and to argue otherwise is to heap insult upon games as a medium.
This year, SIX games have been selected by your good ol' Jim Sterling as the finest clumps of interactive entertainment released this year. Big and small, weird and wonderful, Jim Sterling presents the irrefutably BESTEST EVER games of the year... EVER!
2017 had some absolute gems, but they were more than outnumbered by this year's horrors, stinkers, and utter flops. From those games mutilated to earn their publishers cash unabound, to those that simply had no talent behind them, there was much to choose from. The wine has been drunk, the thinking's been thought, and now we bring you 2017's absolute worst games...
On this constructively critical Jimquisition, we explain how using pre-bought videogame assets isn't inherently wrong, and how they've been put to good use. We also have a CASH CONTENT going on to reward anybody who can prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that talent is an asset.
Recently we were contacted by an independent game developer from Adelaide, South Australia. Last year this dev was the target of an outrageous news report. Outrageous for all the wrong reasons. The Jimquisition applied more research, editing, production value, and talent to this story than Nine News Adelaide ever did. Now a local TV news station gets to experience life on the other side of the camera.
Following allegations of a fully crap working environment at Quantic Dream, The Jimquisition looks at what's been said and done, and the response from he most often see at the Dream's helm. Extra Content: Fuck Konami
According to journalists, "angry YouTube videos" have demoralized employees of Electronic Arts and BioWare. So... let's talk about that anger, shall we?
Games cost a lot of money to make. You need to pay developers, you need to license engines, you need do a lot. Extra Credits pointed out all of these costs in a recent video, and I'm certainly not going the claim the expenses aren't expensive. But is it just me, or does the "AAA" videogame industry do a bit too much twisting and turning to make the cost of doing business out to be some unreasonable cross to bear?
There is a constant problem plaguing the game industry, if its spokespeople are to be believed. Games cost $60, and that price doesn't work anymore! Weirdly enough, The Jimquisition agrees with this assessment. "AAA" games should indeed not cost $60 anymore, and they most certainly have outgrown it.
Dynasty Warriors may be my favorite series - or at least it was - but Tecmo Koei has been taking the piss with it for years. Much of what's said here could have been said a long time ago, but Dynasty Warriors 9 was its last chance... and we all know how that went. Oh, and this isn't just about what they DID to Zhang He!
Once again the "AAA" industry thinks it has a golden goose, and once again it's primed to bang that goose until the eggs come out filled with nothing but decaying spunk.
The Yakuza series may not have gigantic open worlds, but they're bigger and better than any sprawling map found in your typical "AAA" game these days. Extra Content: Fuck Konami News.
Videogames, classic political scapegoat of the 1990s and early 2000s, is back in the spotlight as Trump's bewildered administration resurrects an old blame game. And a game is what it is. A rigged circus game designed only to entertain and placate the masses. The "violence in videogames" debate is a vapid waste of time, and the time wasters know it.
Let's talk about collector's editions, specifically the ones that aren't really collector's editions. You shouldn't be able to call a box of garbage an "edition" of anything, but welcome to the game industry, where Bethesda, EA, and Microsoft have been doing just that.
Everybody loves lists, especially people who say they don't. The Jimquisition this week roots through history's garbage to find the ten worst types of DLC in videogame history. At least until we think of ten more, then we can do another list. Lists are great!
Is Far Cry 5 good? I think so. The problem with Ubisoft games is you can't tell anymore, they're all the same. It's understandable when a sequel iterates on its predecessor, but Ubisoft is one publisher with MANY franchises all building off each other. It's making it hard to care, or at the very least view these games as anything other than fluff.
In 2017, the "AAA" game industry went all-in on loot boxes - microtransactions that emulate gambling to maximize ill-gotten gains. In 2018, new games aren't using them and old games are scrubbing them. Are they done in the mainstream business, or are companies just biding their time?
PUBG might have been a massive hit, but the behavior of the team behind it indicates it's a failure in one very important way.
One from the vaults! The classic 100% Objective Review for Final Fantasy XIII gets some new clothes.
Nowadays it seems "AAA" publishers are giving us fewer games, and consequently fewer options. That's because they are. In today's all-or-nothing industry, the "middle shelf" game, the kind of game that has a budget but isn't mega mainstream, is a dying art.
Wow, you really do pay Warner Bros. or otherwise watch a helpless child get strangled. That's pretty much the perfect symbol for modern games. Let's see what one of the worst entertainment companies in the world has done with Harry Potter this time.
There's plenty to talk about with God of War, and I'm going to do it. I'm also going to use Chill Dad Kratos' latest adventure to talk about console exclusive games.
Nintendo finally revealed its Switch Online plans and... they're not great. Worse than that, they make Nintendo look as clueless and weird as ever.
Green Man Gaming believes it can formulate an hourly price for its games, but this "Average Cost Per Hour" nonsense is... well, nonsense!
Of course. Why wouldn't there be? Ooookay, let's explain to people why rallying around this particularly absurd little product is a bad idea...
Dark Souls Remastered might bring a classic back to life, but it's not been a universal hit among fans. Let's look at what From Software could've and should've done with the Dark Souls re-release.
It's strange to me that previously accepted criticism can retroactively become censorship the moment something comes along that's deliberately tacky and edgy. Almost as if, to some people, free speech is really only about having the freedom to be a dick. Anyway, since Valve and YouTube can jettison responsibility for their platforms, so can I.
E3 2018 has shot its glitzy wad in our faces and we must pick through the mess to find winners and losers. And don't worry, we bring up Sony and the ongoing Fortnite nonsense. We bring it up hard.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is basically despicable and Activision Blizzard is the worst. At least until another publisher takes it place in the rotation.
Waluigi, YEAH YEAH YEAH! It's time to think about the sad life of the Good Purple Boy.
The Battle Pass is the new hotness in monetization thanks to Fortnite's popularization of it. Before "AAA" publishers can sink their fangs into the latest scheme, games like PUBG and Paladins have shown them how to do it.
Everyone knows the Xbox One is a bit rubbish. Deep down, we all know it, and it's because Microsoft thinks too much like a publisher.
Time for one of our classic post-mortems. This time it's not about one game, but three games and the studio responsible for two of 'em. The Culling II abandoned everything to pursue literally the wrong thing, while Boss Key Productions' Lawbreakers and Radical Heights were just... wow.
Two years on, and No Man's Sky is finally living up to a significant portion of its promise. It's not the first game to get a "Megapatch" and it won't be the last. Games these days are thoroughly mutable, but that can be a bad thing as well as a good thing. Let's look at the things!
God of War recently made $131 million in digital revenue. Octopath Traveler is struggling to meet physical demand. These are just two in a long line of successful story-driven games. But please, game industry, tell me again how nobody wants 'em.
Nintendo is clamping down on emulation, causing sites like EmuParadise to cease doing business. The game industry hates emulation almost as much as contemporary piracy, so this is good news for executives. It's just a shame that, in a world without emulators, the industry doesn't care at all about archival, or offering a service that could begin to compete with what ROMs were doing.
A now former IGN editor was caught plagiarizing a review of Dead Cells and got canned for it. That's where the story should have ended. Instead, Filip Miucin couldn't help making it worse for himself, and encouraged the world to uncover an entire career built off the stolen work of other people. What a tit.
If this video were comprehensive, we'd be here all week. Instead, let Street Fighter from Street Fighter tell you how game companies have set about slicing fighting games apart to make more cash from an audience they've secured leverage over. From SoulCalibur VI to Mortal Kombat, everyone is here!
Oh, Ubisoft! Europe's EA equivalent has split The Division 2 across six special editions, a recurring habit of a company desperate to make all of the money in the world. But how does Ubisoft's promise of free updates mesh with DLC, season passes, and half a dozen special editions? Awkwardly, friends. Awkwardly.
2K Games has called premium currency and microtransactions an "unfortunate reality" in gaming. Overwatch and NBA 2K19 had to remove loot boxes in Belgium. EA refuses to remove loot boxes from FIFA. The "AAA" excuses and justifications are flying thick and fast, and 2K especially is showing its royal rump.
Nintendo is a ridiculous company that cannot simply do something simple. There's always a complication, a caveat, a catch. Even cloud saving, which every other platform has nailed, must be subject to Nintendo's arcane rulings. So, cloud saves will only work for SOME Nintendo Switch games, not ALL of them. The ones excluded are pretty heavy hitters too. Looks like another Nintendo Move to me!
It feels a little mean to post this, kicking a studio while it's down, but it's not like it's untrue. So here we go, with your ol' pal Jim Sterling's thoughts on the company Telltale Games became before it announced its bankruptcy. Telltale tried to do too much while not doing enough. Let's take a look at it!
With the sheer amount of cash flowing into games - and don't try to claim it isn't - there's no excuse for an industry that doesn't take better care of its workers. Unfair hours, low pay, and constant developer burnout is simply not justifiable. Not when other industries have had to deal with treating their employees well, and managed just fine. In the wake of Telltale, we need to discuss the rights and benefits that developers are long overdue.
Once again people with the money want to fiddle around with the Internet in a way that won't end well for the people with less money. The European Union Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, specifically Article 13 and Article 11, is vague, overreaching, and looks ripe for abuse. In a world where ContentID and copyright protection is already an outdated mess, this won't make anything better. Not for us, anyway.
The excuses people make for multibillion dollar publishers have to stop. They ignore so many ways in which the "AAA" game industry both makes money and takes shortcuts. From tax havens to worker mistreatment, from the avoidance of royalties to the sheer amount executives make in compensation, the game industry actually has it EASY while pretending it's got it hard. Let's look at all this.
As we approach the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar has found itself in controversial waters yet again. This time it's regarding crunch, and the now infamous "100 hour work week" interview. Yes, it's time to go back to the crunch!
The "AAA" game industry loves its lavish detail, from intricate gameplay systems to dazzling graphics. Can they go too far though? Absolutely they can. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 are impressive productions, but all that detail can get in the way of the entertainment. Let's look at which games go so far that they produce what I call "Holy Grail Fog."
When Toby Fox released Deltarune, everyone asked to keep quiet about it for 24 hours. Obviously that didn't happen. Elsewhere, Kotaku has a neverending source of leaked information for games like Assassin's Creed and Fallout. Let's not forget that time Randy Pitchford called an accurate report on Borderlands 2 "shoddy journalism." Most recently, Rockstar and Take-Two managed to get over a million quid from a website for leaking accurate Red Dead Redemption 2 information. Publishers believe the media's job is to help them. The media doesn't always do that when news needs reporting. Let's talk about it.
Diablo Immortal was announced to an audience that ranged from apathetic to furious, as a mobile Diablo game turned out to be exactly what Blizzcon attendees didn't want. Activision Blizzard couldn't have read its audience worse if it tried, and now we're in a perpetual backlash machine as angry fans and exasperated pundits go back and forth, tearing each other apart. In this breakdown of the situation, The Jimquisition gets to the very heart of the matter, and why the initial backlash is just fine n' dandy.
Bethesda has created some of the most enduring power fantasies of our time, and there's a good reason why The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a game that refuses to die. However, Bethesda isn't known for stable experiences, or welcome decisions, or not screwing up in massive ways. With Fallout 76 coming out and being rubbish, let's look back at some of the notorious goofs from a company that goofs hard and often. By no means a comprehensive list, but a fun one!
Ubisoft, by way of a PR rep, has defended loot boxes after people found them distasteful in Trials Rising. They hammered through both usual and unusual excuses, and did so in a way that truly offended my senses. AAA publishers are not just riding this gravy train into oblivion, they're actively lying and insulting our intelligence to justify it. And as problem gambling is on the rise, the game industry needs to start admitting fault... or fault will find them.
We've all heard the story. "AAA" game comes out, "AAA" game is a critical and commercial success, "AAA" game disappoints its publisher for failing to meet expectations. When you pull back and see just how often this dance is performed, it paints the picture of a panicked and desperate industry, a rotten swan kicking its decaying legs frantically across a poisoned swamp. Because that's what it is. The industry is a rotten swan.
The problem with piracy is the measures employed to combat it showcase utter contempt for the paying customers. This is something Ubisoft once directly acknowledged, before tanking the performance of Assassin's Creed Odyssey with a double layer of DRM. Denuvo, meanwhile, is embraced by the game industry despite a laundry list of problems and failures. Let's look at why Denuvo is rubbish.
Capcom has decided to embarrass Street Fighter V with ads, or "sponsored content" as they're calling it. Today, let's talk about that, give a brief history of product placement and ads in games, before having a bit of a whinge about the potential future of ad-support videogame garbage.
Shut up and listen, for it is time to give out awards! The Jimquisition Awards 2018 have arrived, with five winners to argue about. We have game awards! We have corporate sponsors! We have world premieres! Watch and wonder!
2018 was the long, long year, but finally we are at its end. At the End of Time, there is only one thing to do... look at the shittiest games of the year! Join Skeletor as we look at a year in which high profile stinkers ruled the roost. From Fallout 76 to Dynasty Warriors 9, we have some obvious - and not so obvious - games to look at.
The valiant knight Sir Jim Sterling has ventured into Hell to find his lost love, and takes some time to discuss the "Seven Deadly Sins" and their AAA Publisher Personifications. What publisher is the greediest? Which one is the most gluttonous? Honestly, most of them work for every category, but that wouldn’t make for much of a video.
Loot boxes remain a touchy issue in the game industry, especially now that prospect of regulation has become very real. The defenses, the lies, and the propaganda in support of them has ramped up quite a bit. The "AAA" industry is going along a rather expected path, hiding behind the concept of art to defend itself. If you regulate loot boxes, they argue, you're censoring art. David Jaffe has been going off on this very point, and his voice joins others in equating gambling with art. Either naively, or deliberately. Are they right? They are not.
Electronic Arts has handled the Star Wars license terribly. They've screwed things up in ways that are embarrassing to watch. Having only squirted out two Star Wars Battlefront games and made a mess of both, EA deserves to lose its exclusive hold over Star Wars games. EA also just deserves to lose in general.
Kingdom Hearts III is imminent, but we're not in the business of just letting you enjoy games around here. Let's talk about how awful Kingdom Hearts is. I mean... it's a good game. A great game. But it is also awful, stupid, and utter gibberish.
As Electronic Arts produces a spreadsheet to let customers when they can play Anthem, The Jimquisition takes a look at the concept of the confusopoly, where companies try to befuddle their customers on purpose. We also look at how they're exploiting FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out - in order to guarantee those confusing sales.
Videogame publishers are greedy, exploitative predators for which no amount of money will ever be enough. While we know and loathe this, it is also by design that they are the way they are. Layoffs, cutbacks, excessive monetization, it's all part of a system built on unsustainable, short-sighted growth. Now we're in the endgame, where we find out there IS no endgame. But let's start with Buzzfeed...
Activision Blizzard let go of nearly 800 employees for short term financial gain. At the same time, CEO Bobby Kotick boasted of record revenues for the company. The company's value has halved and profits are down, all while more money than ever flows through it. In any sensible world, Kotick would take the hit as leader of the publisher. He passed the buck. Executives hand their failures down because they know they can do so without consequence. There should be consequences. Fire Bobby Kotick.
Anthem is out after months of unenthusiastic quasi-anticipation, and it's all anybody's talking about. Or rather, it would be if it had been good. Instead, people are focused on everything surrounding Anthem. Controversies, speculations, debates, all of the circus around the game is more interesting than the game itself. So anyway, let's add our own Anthem hot take, shall we?
THQ Nordic held an AMA this week. THQ Nordic apologized for the AMA about an hour later. If you've not heard why, prepare yourself for a wild ride! This isn't the first apology a game publisher has had to make for social engagement gone horribly wrong. Why does it keep happening? Well, that "social" word may have something to do with it. Whether companies are employing edgelords, believe all publicity is good, or just plain dumb, we're going to have a very late-2010s discussion about it.
February was ridiculous. Anthem, Apex Legends, Metro Exodus, Far Cry New Dawn, and Crackdown 3 all going head to head, and all of them demanding a silly amount of time. The game industry is an uncoordinated mess of market saturation and nonexistent long-term planning. The industry wide adoption of "live services" with long content "roadmaps" is already at breaking point. Companies have their hands around their own necks and we're supposed to believe everything is normal. This ain't normal.
Steam seems incapable of helping itself. Off the back of yet another deeply unpleasant game controversy, and with Epic Games snapping its heels, Steam needs to change but remains staunchly averse to the idea. The association between Steam and utter trash has gotten so bad that politicians are starting to take notice. Meanwhile, Epic offers a generous revenue split, actual curation, and a dramatically reduced risk of appearing next to school shooting games. It's a deal I can't blame anyone for taking. Screw Steam.
Ubisoft would have you believe that The Division 2 makes no political statements while it exploits political imagery for marketing purposes. In another case of the game industry wanting it both ways, games claim to be apolitical but are more than happy to talk about governments, terrorists, and civil unrest. It's dishonest and it's craven. Even a game desperately trying to say nothing is, through such desperation, saying something. In fact, it's saying a lot.
So, let's talk about the Epic Store. Controversial, hated, and rich enough to power through its ongoing controversies. For now, at least. Epic's dive into PC game distribution has earned it the ire of many, and while it offers a better deal for developers than Steam, it's got to seriously address its end-user problems if it wants lasting success.
We've touched on roadmaps a little before, but let's take a good ol' look at the concept in more detail. In tech, roadmaps can form crucial paths for development. In games, roadmaps have become a crutch - a buzzterm used to clothe the lack of content when a game is sold. Roadmaps are the latest disguise for what's been happening in "AAA" games for years - software being pushed out in a half-baked state to make as much money immediately, with a plan to add value to the product being relegated to a distant secondary concern. We know where we're going, but we can't say where we've been.
Kotaku published an instant hit of game journalism, How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong. It's must-read material, shining a light on mismanagement and indecision. More importantly, it details the stress and the overwork that companies like BioWare continue to put their workers through. So-called "BioWare Magic" - the concept that games like Anthem come together in the final few months - isn't actual magic, it's actual abuse. We need to stop saying game development is magic, because believing in sorcery sure as hell didn't help Anthem or Mass Effect Andromeda. Also, no company should have stress casualties.
Okay... let's wade into this debate again. It's raged for years and has only gotten more poisonous in that time, but we're gonna step in anyway and try to talk about difficulty options. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the latest From Software game to spark a debate over difficulty and the merits of an easy mode. We're gonna talk about how weird the discussion is, and maybe get some elite wisdom from gaming aristocracy! Sigh... here goes...
Some games get all of daddy's love, and some simply don't. There's a clear hierarchy of games in the "AAA" industry, with some getting more publisher support than others. As BioWare continues to flounder in this rut of an industry, it's time to look at which studios are the drama nerds and which are the football jocks. Because this is a football town, not a place where drama gets the resources. Also, The Faculty.
Epic Games has not slowed down its sniping of PC games, acquiring an almost ridiculous number of exclusive releases. It threatens to starve the PC digital distribution market with remarkable aggression. At the same time, the company has been accused of abusing its own workers, with people coming forward to speak of horrendously coerced overtime. Epic is showing an ugly side lately, even as it provides a genuinely good deal to game studios. An under CAAApitalism, it's all perfectly allowable.
The Sonic The Hedgehog movie looks dire, and the CGI monstrosity masquerading as Sonic himself makes me sick. Genuinely. As Paramount now scrabbles at the last minute to redesign him following intense backlash, let's pick Sonic the Manhog to shreds and chat about Hollywood's artistic arrogance. Historically, moviemakers love to exploit nerdy licenses while simultaneously being ashamed of them. But history is in the past, and we're in a new era of accepted pop culture geekery. The world has evolved, but Hollywood's take on Sonic the Hedgehog is rooted in the past.
I'd promise this is the last video I'm doing on Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, but I can't guarantee against His Royal Weirdness doing something else screwed up that merits more. Randy Pitchford's pattern of erratic behavior and continued aggression might have made him a successful YouTuber, but as a CEO of a corporation, as a man who personally goes out of his way to represent the brand, it's beyond untenable. From Colonial Marines to Borderlands 3, whenever there's a controversy involving Gearbox, Randy is almost always in the middle of it. It's time he just... stopped.
There's a culture of silence in the game industry, which pairs "nicely" with the unquestioning loyalty some companies expect from their workers. In the wake of Riot employees staging a walkout to protest suppressive forced arbitration, let's look at how abuse festers in an industry where the targets can't speak up.
When Game of Thrones was airing, every Monday morning made videogame websites look like HBO fansites. In the wake of the finale, game journalists couldn't wait to throw their hot takes up. Game journalism will gladly talk about non-game topics if the requisite "link juice" is in place. I've made jokes about it and upset people in doing so, but I want to seriously talk about it. Because I understand the reasons for it. It's why MTV isn't Music Television anymore, and why The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" is more relevant than ever.
In a special investigative Jimquisition, we collect horror stories from former Rockstar Games employees who worked under a brutal boot heel. Allegations of abuse, exploitation, and ritual indignity showcase how a company uses terror and anger to create some of the most critically acclaimed games of all time. In particular, former VP of Product Development, Jeronimo Barrera, lies at the center of some of the most vile (and bizarre) accusations. By all accounts, he's a horrible man who perpetuated Rockstar's culture of fear. This industry cannot keep going like this. This cannot continue.
Fallout 76 is a cautionary tale for an industry that exercises no caution whatsoever. A wake-up call for an industry that remains asleep at the wheel. Bethesda's broken, unfinished, poorly received foray into the "live service" arena has been a neverending carnival of humiliating nonsense. A fine example of what happens when you play to none of your strengths for the sake of ill-gotten gains. With a big iron on our hips, let's take a look at the embarrassing, baffling, and often funny mess that is Fallout 76!
E3 2019 has been and gone, so it's time for our annual awards of arbitrary recognition! Who did good, who came away sore? Let's find out! From hecklers to Final Fantasy to Bethesda being Bethesda, we got the lot here! We got the LOT!
For longer than I've been covering games, publishers have dreamed of an all-digital future where they have complete control of the market. The cloud, and hardware like Google Stadia, bring their dream closer than ever to reality. There are multiple issues to discuss here. Streaming gameplay is interesting, but let's face it - the potential for subscription fees is what really excites publishers. Through Stadia, companies can become more platform than publisher, and their "live services" can evolve into evermore lucrative models. Then there's game ownership, and archival, and how Stadia threatens both. Frankly, none of it looks too hopeful to me.
Aggressive monetization tactics have undoubtedly lowered the quality for many so-called "AAA" games. The shameless number of microtransactions and loot boxes have made them grinding and shallow "services" instead of complete videogames. When we talk about the impact microtransactions and loot boxes have on players, however, we often argue in abstract terms. Not today. Today we look at the human cost of predatory monetization - the impact that exploitative business models have on their vulnerable targets. To really hammer it home, we'll have to meet Torulf Jernström, a mobile studio CEO whose tactics for hunting "whales" - the prime targets of microtransactions - sound scarily like instructions for selling drugs. From "Hook Habit Hobby" to the "IKEA Effect," you're about to learn just how low this industry's tricks get. This industry has truly sold its soul. Strap in, because this gets horrible. And if I'm to be remembered for any single Jimquisition, I'd like it to be this one.
A recent article shared the woes and tragedies of Electric Arts' great struggle - the "perception" that the company is a villain. The problem is, it's not so much a perception as it is a matter of historical record. While media articles publish unquestioning propaganda from EA's executives, we juxtapose the one good thing it does - EA Originals - against the negative impact of its less savory behavior. Funnily enough, the scales don't even out on this one.
G2A has been humiliating itself recently. After years of ducking criticism, the grey market key reseller is finally unable to dismiss accusations, and its response has been hilariously sad. Let Sterling, the Super Heavyweight Supervillain, take you through G2A's shady practices and ridiculous deflections. Oh my... let the Star Eater show you.
The mainstream games industry is pushing harder and harder for social features to be an expected part of any major entertainment software release. According to EA CEO Andrew Wilson, social networking is just as important to games as it is to Facebook or Twitter. A bold claim, but one that's part of a concerted effort to normalize the push. Ultimately, however, it's a long con. "AAA" publishers want more social features because they make money, plain and simple. It's yet another way to rake in cash not just from whales, but from so-called "super whales" as well. Because no amount of money is ever enough.
Grand Theft Auto Online's Diamond Casino and Resort does away with any ounce of subtlety to bring literal gambling games to GTA. As loot boxes come under intense scrutiny after years of abuses, Rockstar's timing on this carries quite a lot of nerve. It also brings the whole in-game gambling debacle into sharp focus. If this is where games are headed next, I'm not sure I could pick any "AAA" game over a visit to an actual, literal, real-life casino. At least they don't take real money in exchange for no real payout.
When a publisher adds microtransactions weeks, sometimes months, after a game is released, it always feels inherently sneaky. This is especially true when it's blatantly obvious they were always going to be there. Crash Team Racing Nitro Re-Fueled is the latest game to smuggle microtransactions in after launch, as has been Activision's modus operandi lately. So why do it? Why not just launch with the predatory economy immediately? Well, there are major benefits to publishers who delay the microtransactions. From ratings to reviews to good old fashioned manipulation. Oh, and the ESA is a screwup!
In the wake of multiple mass shootings over a single weekend, politicians with vested interests in shifting the blame pulled their easiest, laziest trick - they blamed videogames. Donald Trump accused games of glorifying violence in a way that encourages domestic terrorists to go out and commit mass murder. The game industry was rightly offended. But it's all stupid nonsense, and it's designed to be stupid nonsense. The more we argue in circles about videogames, the less we talk about guns, or white nationalism, or whatever else might actually be causing the uniquely American problem of widespread mass murder.
The game industry is currently making a performance of tackling the loot box debacle, and a performance is what it is. The ESA announced that console makers will require the odds for in-game gambling purchases to be disclosed. They only did this after the FTC got involved, and they're only doing it to make a show for the government. While the ESA and game publishers pretend to be proactive, it's important to stress that the "AAA" game industry cannot be trusted to regulate itself. It had that chance, it's repeatedly blown that chance, and it won't ever take that chance seriously.
EDIT: Minor correction. For some reason I said "after" instead of "before" when talking about Metro Exodus going Epic exclusive. It went exclusive less than a month *before* launch. The conversation surrounding the Epic Games Store has officially gotten effing nasty. People are mad at Epic's behavior, but that anger is spilling into areas it really shouldn't, and legit criticism of Epic is getting lost in the noise. Ultimately, the problem with Epic Games is Epic Games. Well... that and the economics supporting Epic's business tactics. This is especially true knowing that Epic is enacting a double standard to pressure indie developers into taking its deal. Indie devs deserve some slack here, for all the hate they're getting. Dumping on them isn't helping. Let's bring the focus back to Epic and the playground Epic's cavorting in.
Political intrigue is baked into the lore of Dark Souls. Class struggle, propaganda, a ruling elite manipulating those of lower status into serving their needs. There's more going on than just hitting monsters with swords. Let's look at the political agenda of Dark Souls, the politics of its storyline, and the perpetuated cycles that keep its world of Lordran running. Also, let's talk about why Frampt is a jackass.
Let's talk about Gaming Disorder. A much ballyhooed classification by the World Health Organization, this official designation of gaming addiction is seen as unnecessary and alarmist in many gaming circles. Is it, however, a genuinely problematic classification, or a misunderstood one? We're going to find out together!
Been planning this one for a while, and recent allegations toward Starbound developer Chucklefish provided the right avenue. Young developers are often praised for their passion, and passion can be a wonderful thing. Chasing a vocation with gusto and energy is generally positive, but it can nonetheless be abused by more cynical wielders of power. The game industry is of course no stranger to exploitation, and you'll often find the word "passion" thrown around liberally. Be wary of this word, honeyed that it is, for it may very well be a trap.
It behooves first party publishers to provide top quality productions that make their consoles worth buying. Nintendo and Sony have both produced amazing games to sell us on the PS4 and Switch. Microsoft, however, is different. Microsoft has decided to act no better than a grasping third party "AAA" publisher. Even worse, it set the tone of a generation and contributed - perhaps more than any other company - to the nasty normalization of excessive monetization. It's Microsoft's fault that videogames are bad.
The Entertainment Software Association represents the "AAA" game industry's interests in the US, and that alone qualifies it for side-eyes. Its recent pitch for E3 2020, however, is stunning in its awfulness. So let's discuss the ESA and why the increasingly irrelevant E3 is set to become downright dreadful in the future.
Mario Kart Tour is total rubbish, which is par for the course when it comes to Nintendo's boring mobile games. Loot boxes, frustration, bad controls, Mario Kart Tour has it all. More crucially, its glorified Battle Pass nonsense, the Gold Pass, looks absolutely abysmal next to the recent launch of Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass. Nintendo doesn't really care about the mobile platform, but it's using the market to make tons of cash anyway.
Shall we talk about good games doing good things? Between Borderlands 3 and Code Vein, we have examples of cosmetic rewards and customization done right in the "AAA" space. With the catalog of Focus Home Interactive games, we have mid-tier games providing complete experiences that the market's been starved of. These are the titles totally humiliating the "AAA" industry.
Activision Blizzard has been mired in controversy since it punished professional Hearthstone player Blitzchung for his vocal support of Hong Kong. Seen as a move made to placate China, the decision to suspend and withhold money from Blitzchung was torn apart by critics. As Hong Kong protesters fight for their continued autonomy from China, and as corporations across America cuddle up to an authoritarian Beijing government for money, Blizzard claims its actions had nothing to do with its own political relationships. This is wrong. Even if Blizzard believes its decision was purely apolitical, it wasn't. Regardless of reason, the message is clear and the context is obvious. Blizzard chose tyranny, plain and simple.
Anthem. Oh, Anthem. BioWare's ill-fated attempt to jump aboard the "live service" bandwagon is yet another cautionary tale the "AAA" industry won't ever learn from. With an obscenely troubled development, a handful of failed promises, and a legacy of embarrassing headlines, Anthem will go down in history, but not for the reasons BioWare hoped. It certainly won't be spoke about with the same reverence as Bob Dylan... which is what BioWare actually expected.
Bethesda has spent so much goodwill these last few years it's practically bankrupt in the faith department. Fallout 76, as has been laboriously documented, is a cavalcade of humiliation and laughably bad corporate decisions. Then we have Obsidian coming along with The Outer Worlds, just after Bethesda launched an expensive - and broken - subscription service for Fallout 76. The Outer Worlds is pretty much everything 76 isn't, and more besides. Hell, it's the best Fallout game since Fallout 2, and it isn't even a Fallout game. Basically, we don't need Bethesda anymore. It has served its purpose - barely adequately - and we have something better now.
Fortnite recently introduced bots to its battle royaleBat ecosystem, a decision that certainly has some positive elements to it. It's also gotten people questioning their abilities and those of their opponents. These bots are not flagged as bots, instead posing as humans and mostly discernible through their odd behavior. It's led to some interesting paranoia. Meanwhile, Nintendo has been pulling the wool over players' eyes by using similar bots to essentially fake an online multiplayer mode. Even worse, they passively advertise the game's loot box economy. While the two games are quite different, and one is clearly more nefarious, both use bots for a very simple reason - engagement. The ultimate desire of modern entertainment, engagement rules all - and if players are engaged by an artificial sense of victory, so be it.
Blizzard went out of its way to make sure Blizzcon was marked by two major game announcements and sorrowful contrition. To anybody paying attention, it was really marked by insincerity and cowardice. The company is a big pile of toss, and no amount of Diablo 4 or Overwatch 2 will actually change that. These game announcements are wallpaper over the cracks in Blizzard's facade, and we ought not forget it.
Pokémon Sword & Shield may very well go down in history as the most controversial release in the series, chiefly because of Dexit - the culling of over half the series' roster. There's been a lot of ill will brewing over Sword & Shield for a number of reasons, but Game Freak's choice to cut hundreds of beloved Pokémon - including Ekans - has been firmly at the eye of the storm. Is the backlash reasonable, or are people being babies? Was there a winning scenario for Game Freak in this? Why did ALL my favorites get screwed? I am Dexit Jesus! Hear my sermon!
Subscriptions for games are not new, but in the era of the "live service" they look set to make a major comeback. With television, music, and physical goods all offering subscriptions, companies want an endlessly drip-fed stream of cash. The idea of in-game subscriptions that offer premium extras may very well become the new microtransactions - on top all the existing monetization techniques - and services like Fallout 1st or the Animal Crossing "Happy Helper" plan offer a glimpse at that potential future. It's not a great future, so I'm going to be pissy about it.
Waterworld was a very, very, very expensive movie to make, and it was a flop. A very, very, very big flop. Anyway, let's talk about Shenmue! Shenmue III is finally out, floating off the back of millions in crowdfunding, multiple publisher backers, and a wave of hype. Disproportionate hype, it would seem, given the game's market performance thus far. The thing is, Shenmue isn't all that popular, despite being so requested, and so critically acclaimed. What's more, it's always been very, very, very expensive to make... and a flop.
I don't like the word "consumer." Words have power, and even when two words mean the same thing, the history and implications attached can have a subtle effect on how we process them. In today's video, I explain some of the baggage carried by the word "consumer," and why I've phased out my own usage of the word in favor of others when describing the game-buying public. While some may consider this to be splitting hairs, I had a lot of fun explaining my stance in today's video, and I hope you find it interesting! With thanks to Conrad Zimmerman and Evil Uno... Join the Dark Order!
Videogame executives are getting very good at exploiting some peoples' aversion to political discussions, especially when it comes to covering their tracks and avoiding uncomfortable questions. Take Bobby Kotick, for example, CEO of Activision. His company has stepped into some political messes this year, but by presenting himself as apolitical, he's avoiding talking about any of it. What else does Bobby avoid answering for when we buy his snake oil about politics? Let's find out!
Award time at last! The Game Awards may have its industry recognition, production values, exclusive announcements, and viewers, but The Jimquisition Awards have a "woosh" sound effect. Clearly we're winning. Anyway, it's time to name the five best games that I played this year. Let's hand out some JGOTYAs!
2019 is rapidly nearing its bitter end, so it's time once more to smear grime on ourselves, lament loudly, and welcome Skeletor for our annual look at the shittiest games of the year! From Anthem to Contra: Rogue Corps, there's been a lot of trash to sift through, but we've nailed it down. The most deficient, most insulting, most miserable games of the year! Let's look at the worst of the worst.
Before we force ourselves to face the reality that is 2020, I want to take one last look over the previous decade. More than that, I want to think about what influence means. Today's video column isn't a comprehensive retrospective so much as a thought process, going over some of the biggest names in the past decade of games and seeing what impact, if any, they had on the industry. All that considered, I do come to a conclusion and I do name the game I believe had the most influence in the 2010s. Is it The Witcher 3? Fortnite? Dark Souls? It... sure is something.
Cats, starring Taylor Swift and Idris Elba as horrible nightmares, is a fine example of how movies are starting to resemble videogames in terms of how they're treated post-launch. It was basically patched after it went to theaters, replaced with a new version that changed effects and performance timing. Combined with what Marvel has been doing with films such as Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, the concept of post-launch content for movies running at theaters is getting very game-flavored. The jokes about films getting patches and DLC have all been made, but there's a serious point to be considered, especially when it's predominantly fandom-centric movies getting constantly fiddled with.
As a term, "Metroidvania" has existed for almost twenty years, used to describe a certain sub-type of action game. A game like Metroid. Or Castlevania. Y'know, a Metroidvania. Some critics really don't like the term. They think it's aesthetically unpleasant, obscure, and inaccessible. They don't think the term should be referencing two other games, and that doing so makes it useless for anyone who hasn't heard of Metroid. Or Castlevania. Should the term be abolished? Should we work on a replacement, since few critics have? Is this an accessibility issue? I guess this video will address those questions. Maybe. Probably.
Pokémon Sword & Shield shifted over 16 million units worldwide despite a significant amount of pre-release controversy. Angry older fans may have promised a boycott, but the game's success has rendered much of the backlash over "Dexit" rather toothless. This is because Gamer Boycotts don't really work, and the concept has been so thoroughly discredited after years of failed attempts that it invites mockery and overshadows any legitimate complaints or grievances. From Modern Warfare 2 to The Wind Waker, whenever The Gamers(tm) decide not to buy something, that thing gets bought. A lot. So let's not use the rather poisonous "B" word, eh?
Credit. When people work on something, it's only right to expect those people get credit. Unfortunately, the videogame industry is a wasteland of sleaze, and companies seem to think credit is optional. XSEED caused a fuss last year by claiming it was policy not to credit workers who have left the company, even if their work is part of the game. While the studio's tone deaf nonsense turned heads, it's far from the only company that doesn't give proper acknowledgement. Withholding credit is another example of how the game industry mistreats people simply because it can get away with it. It's unfair leverage to make an unrepresented workforce compliant. Crediting standards need to be enforced, because non-negotiable enforcement is all the game industry seems to respect.
Blizzard Entertainment President J. Allen Brack is a man who knows he doesn't have to apologize, and that's why he's never done it. Sure, you may feel like you've heard him apologize, and he may even say sorry. He doesn't actually apologize though, and after several issues with Blizzard and its behavior, the hallmarks of the Brack Apology - the Brackology - have become clear. His routine is transparent, but it never needs to be anything else, because he knows full well he doesn't have to apologize. Not for Blitzchung, not for Warcraft 3: Reforged, not even for how Blizzard damaged the careers of an entire league of pro Heroes of the Storm players. The Brackology is never sorry, but it is always insulting.
Influencers are like proper celebrities now, so we have to listen to everything they say. Ninja is an influencer, and he has plenty to say. Recently the Mixer Man caused a fuss by extolling the virtues of anger and deriding the notion that a videogame is "just a game." This sparked up the age old Hardcore Gamer debates, and I've got bugger all else to do this week, so let's talk about competition, attitudes, and Cucumber Succulence!
Did you know a new Terminator film came out? If you pay attention to the "AAA" videogame market, you'd know. You couldn't help but know. Terminator: Dark Fate has been placing its product all over the game industry, treating a number of high profile games like stops on a press tour. The result is T-800s everywhere. Gears 5, Mortal Kombat 11, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, all three have been plagued by little metal skeletons. More importantly, these Dark Fate promotions turn players into billboards, and those players pay for the privilege. Let's talk about Dark Fate, product placement, and how companies are doubling down on their marketing promotions and expecting people to pay to become living digital commercials.
We're all dying from flu here at Jimquisition Headquarters. It's not coronavirus! Anyway, let's talk about remakes, their critical acclaim, and what their success says about the industry. With Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and Final Fantasy VII Remake on the horizon, it's a good time for nostalgic reimaginings. And why wouldn't it be? They're more exciting than the new stuff!
It's a subject we couldn't get away with not discussing. Coronavirus. The global pandemic that's reached a scale beyond previous outbreaks. The reason your dad bought all that toilet paper. A real kick to our species' ass. GDC and E3 got canceled, WWE is hosting events in empty venues, and pretty much everybody has been impacted by the virus in some way, shape, or form. So let's talk about how it's touched the game industry, and then we can just go OFF on American healthcare and cAAApitalism, because why not?
GameStop has finally closed its doors during the recent health crisis, despite remaining adamant it would continue to expose its workers and customers to risk. It's among several videogame retailers that have fought to stay open and ignore sensible quarantine advice. Their staff have been frustrated and scared, but the CEOs don't care. The CEOs aren't the ones expected to handle used games without hand sanitizer. EB Games, GameXChange, CEX, and GAME UK have been doing the same, flying under the radar as GameStop took all the heat. They're all as bad as each other. These are companies so desperate to stay in business, they'd risk causing sickness and even death to keep the doors open.
Laugh and the world laughs with you? Not entirely true, apparently. In my career, I've been told to be more positive, to produce happier content, to smile more. I've been told I need to publish videos about great indie games or do more optimistic Jimquisitions. I need to be less negative. I need to stop depressing people. I need to stop dumping on Bethesda. And yet, the actual results of posting positive content paint a far different picture than the rhetoric in comment sections, and while we can put some blame on YouTube itself, a simple fact is that most of you adore the misery.
Boosters are a common form of microtransaction across the videogame landscape. XP Boosters are easily the most common, but currency boosters and other forms progress speeders are out there as well. They're pretty insidious, as we can easily see with Resident Evil: Resistance, Call of Duty, and the hundreds of other games using them. Aside from the usual manipulation involved with microtransactions, boosters exert a level of control that keeps players hooked to a game so they can maximize their investments. And screw loot boxes being in a Resident Evil game, by the way.
Spoilers are a touchy subject. They have been for decades, and the explosion of mainstream "nerd" culture has only made it touchier. People don't want movies, books, shows, or games ruined for them by learning big shocks, twists, and plot points ahead of time. This is fair, and when something like Final Fantasy VII Remake happens, it opens the question - is the statute of limitations on spoilers altered when something's remade? Even for something as famous as Final Fantasy VII? On top of that, we must look at spoiler culture as a whole, our obsession with the notion of spoilers, and who our fear of them really benefits (spoiler, it's corporations).
Final Fantasy VII Remake is looking set to be one of the most controversial releases of the year - funny, considering fans thought it was a slam dunk. Unfortunately for those fans, FFVII Remake is something... unique. A subversive take on a beloved RPG, Square Enix's weird retelling of Final Fantasy VII is either cleverly written or deceptively advertised depending on who you ask. Maybe it's both. When is something ingeniously unexpected, and when is it just false advertising? As we discuss Final Fantasy VII Remake, Aliens: Colonial Marines, BioShock Infinite, and even The Last Jedi, we're going to sort this all out. Or not. I might be lying.
If you're watching this video because you sent Jim Sterling an email and got a link to this in response, you'll want to watch and understand why I have very little regard for your sponsorship offer. I am inundated with emails from companies trying to get me to do paid promotion for them. Whether it's simple sponsorships or full-on advertorials, PR companies seem intent on trying to get me to do something I very famously DON'T do. It's insulting, and indicative of a marketing firm that's bad at being a marketing firm. If your research is so utterly flawed that you'd think MY audience is a "good fit" for your Magic the Gathering commercial, you're officially bad at your job. Now go away.
No one single developer deserves to have their game leaked, and it should not happen to them. Some companies deserve the undermining and embarrassment that leaks bring, however. Naughty Dog is still reeling from a massive content leak for The Last of Us Part II, a leak that gave away pretty much the whole story and showed off a bunch of gameplay not intended for public witnessing. At first it was thought the leak came from within, revenge by an angry developer who was sick of Naughty Dog's working practices, but that is allegedly false. In the wake of discussion over the leak's source, however, one important point has been drowned out - those aforementioned working practices. Naughty Dog isn't just a company riddled with crunch. It's a leading example. And it deserves to be shamed.
Konami is Konami, and Konami is the worst. This was first argued years ago and it's only gotten more true. So true, in fact, that Konami barely qualifies as a game publisher anymore. It makes casino toys and dabbles in gaming. Really, Konami should just go far, far away and let Capcom take over. Capcom should have Silent Hill, Castlevania, Metal Gear Solid, and Frogger. It would do better with them, and it already has experience making the kind of games that Konami's long-neglected library would thrive as. Give Silent Hill to the team that revitalized Resident Evil. Give Castlevania to the Devil May Cry developers. Capcom should have all Konami's stuff.
Over 50,000 people signed a petition begging Electronic Arts to let them give money... to Electronic Arts. Star Wars Battlefront 2 received its final major update recently, and fans have taken that to mean the game is dead, even though it's still being supported with fixes and regularly scheduled events. The game will be playable for some time to come, but fans are begging for premium content to "save" it. There's a steady implication that games stop being worth playing the moment they stop getting new content, that a game lasts as long as its virtual currency does, that games need constant updates and that we must plead and pledge money to get them. What rot. Begging publishers for their predatory attention is not what I'd call a positive activity.
The year before a console launch is incredible because you can lie about anything you like. I'm assuming it's okay for everyone to do it, because the game industry does it every generation! The PS5 and Xbox Series X (XSX?) are due out this year, and the tone has been set for another half a decade of total bollocks. It's fine though, because it's Liar's Year. You can say what you want, and nobody can call you out!
What happens when a medium that communicates largely through violent content becomes obsessed with realism? Traumatic experiences for developers is what happens. As "AAA" studios achieve evermore believable violence, the artists creating these games are pressured to study the real thing. For years, developers have been poring over authentic imagery involving hangings, stabbings, slaughter and death. They do this without any psychological guidance or structural care. Rarely are they even warned what they're in for. And as companies like Naughty Dog try to make us feel like we're actually murdering somebody, the question must be asked... who the hell even wants that?
It's Pride month and people are in the streets, not so much to celebrate identity as to protest police brutality and systemic oppression. Things are not okay in America, and people have had enough. They're making their voices heard. Thankfully, THE BRANDS are looking out for everyone by pretending to care about anyone but themselves. With Pride and Black Lives Matter protests coinciding, corporations are working overtime to bring insincere platitudes to the people. Their words are empty in a world where the very thing allowing injustice is the same thing these companies champion and exploit for profit on a daily basis.
Activision is very generous, and there is nothing cynical about its charitable donations. If you think otherwise, you're probably some sort of unAmerican monster. Let's not consider the company's unwarranted financial subsidies, tax dodging, and contributions to the very socioeconomic system that makes most charities grimly necessary. Let's not think about Bobby Kotick's vast wealth, or how billionaires use philanthropy to maintain their unchecked power. So long as you don't think about anything, Activision is very generous, and there is nothing cynical about its charitable donations.
The Last of Us 2 is finally out, and while I won't say Naughty Dog's murder party is one of the most overrated games of all time, I will declare that its achievements have been... overstated. A lot. Among absurd comparisons to movies and overall contentious discourse, we have the game's very own director using a situation to try and show up a journalist who only recently exposed Naughty Dog's poor treatment of its staff. So let's talk about that time The Last of Us Part II was compared to Schindler's List, and the absurdly bad faith fallout that certain industry leaders tried to stir up.
The game industry is rotten from within and without. Nakedly, openly abusive of its staff as a matter of course, the stuff it actively hides and covers for consists of more personal, and more horrifying abuse. Today's episode isn't funny. It's angry. It's frank. It's not a video I enjoyed making, or enjoy publishing. But it's the grim epitome of what we talk about here.
Oh... yippee.. I get to talk about this now. Hooray? Because the world of videogames can't stop drowning in gasoline for one hot minute, we've got to talk about the "Gamers" who spend less time playing games than they do finding people to attack and threaten online. Do they even play games, or is this their whole life? Either way, a gaggle of idiots is currently harassing voice actor Laura Bailey for something she didn't do. She literally didn't do it, her character did, and she's getting the blame. Why are they going after her? Why are they so incredibly pathetic? Why do people who claim not to hate women behave exactly like people who hate women? And what have "AAA" publishers done to curb the hate in their own communities? Sigh... let's talk about it.
Come for the sarcasm, stay for the particularly spicy speech at the end. Either way, it's time to consume our favorite videogame products! The past few months have been rough both in and out of gaming, and I've come to understand that my weekly dose of pessimism is Literally The Actual Problem. The time has come to compartmentalize, make excuses, and ignore the game industry's rot. It's not like we want to think about Ubisoft's abuse when it has a bevy of hot new products to sell us! Ubisoft doesn't want us to think of it either.
This is another heavy episode containing discussion of abuse. A few weeks ago, I was distraught, devastated, and overwhelmingly saddened by the accounts of misconduct in the game industry. Now I am angry. I am very angry, and very disgusted, and I've saved a lot of pent up rage for Ubisoft, a company that went above and beyond in its protection of predatory men and systemic exploitation. The publisher used this past week to BURY the story under a mountain of previews, trailers, and announcements, which the press dutifully lapped up. As the publisher has successfully drowned out the abuse allegations with sheer noise, it's time we started shouting back. Ubisoft spent years protecting mental and physical abusers, and CEO Yves Guillemot should never be allowed to forget that.
Nintendo fans are prone to becoming upset very quickly, and I believe it my professional impartial duty to say that their distress is entirely their fault. An industry fueled by perpetual hype is a problem in and of itself, but some fanatics need very little prompting to set themselves up for major disappointment. In fact, some of them need literally nothing. So, while we take a brief break from all the abject horrors of the game industry, let's poke fun at Nintendo fans, and fanaticism overall, because it will be fun.
For years, Ubisoft performed a progressive lie, broadcasting its "wokeness" while abusive predatory executives claimed women can't sell. Today's video looks at that hypocrisy, the hypocrisy that Ubisoft has indulged in for perhaps its entire existence. A public pantomime of inclusivity, and a private culture of hate, harassment, and outright assault.
I'm often asked how one can continue enjoying videogames published by exploitative, harmful corporations. In truth, there is no "ethical" way to do it, not if you're trying to avoid giving money to scumbags, but I'll help you try to feel better about it! Really though, a lot of the dilemma involved in buying a game from Ubisoft or Activision can be solved with one simple attribute - patience. Unless of course, you plan to do one thing I have no intention of condoning. Unless Mulan is involved.
Aeon Must Die! looks like a terrific game, and I always like to pay attention when Focus Home Interactive publishes something. Attention is something this game has a lot of, and not in a good way. Limestone Games, the studio behind the game, has been accused by former staff members of crunch, exploitation, abusive behavior and outright crimes. This blew up before Sony's recent State of Play event, but has been forgotten about already by an ever-momentous news cycle. We here at The Jimquisition, rather than forgot, spoke with the ex-Limestone team to find out more. So here we are!
Naughty, cheeky Microsoft has purchased smelly, old, dirty, old Bethesda. Obviously, it's got Bethesda's parent company Zenimax as well. Zenimax is a toilet. There's plenty to talk about here, from Zenimax and Bethesda's history as corporate bullies to the benefits Microsoft will see as we enter a new generation and the Xbox Series faces off against the PS5. Also, we are under the sea!
We've talked a lot about crunch and other forms of industry abuse this year. We've raked multiple companies over the coals for their unethical and often exploitative behavior. We will keep doing that. What do we do, however, when this nasty behavior is perpetuated by one of the "good" ones? What if, say, CD Projekt RED was accused of overworking staff in hostile conditions? Well, according to those excited for Cyberpunk 2077, we should just look the other way.
Marvel's Avengers has only been out for a matter of weeks and it's already going the way of Battleborn, or Evolve, or Anthem, or indeed any other failed "live" game. The comparisons to Anthem are most apt - a cynically motivated loot-based "AAA" disaster with an embarrassing dip in player numbers soon after launch. It turns out not even the Marvel name can keep players attached to a sinking ship. Can we finally admit the "live service" gold rush has been like every gold rush? Can we just admit that the few success stories do not outweigh the mountain of failure surrounding them?
Sega has been enjoying its 60th anniversary, and while it's had a celebratory weekend of fun content, the occasion is not without controversy. Specifically, the release of a Golden Axe prototype from the early 2010s has been criticized by former developers. The demo was made with aggressively brutal crunch involved, as well as the kind of poor management we've come to expect from such stories. Sega made this all worse by calling the demo Golden Axed and telling everyone it was janky and messy. Understandably, those who broke themselves on this thing haven't been thrilled. So, let's talk about how publisher feel so entitled to dismissively benefit from the workloads they dump on their staff.
The ancient debate over content creation and copyright has flared up again, this time with a wannabe Stadia director claiming Twitch streamers should pay a fee to broadcast gameplay. It was part of a larger claim that recent DMCA takedowns of Twitch videos are deserved, because apparently it's good when record labels have content scrubbed from the Internet over alleged music rights violations that nobody's been informed about. Should be fun to tear into that ridiculous assertion, so let's do that. Happy Halloween, etcetera!
Yes, it's time to talk about Cyberpunk 2077 again. The game just got an incredibly short delay, and the threatening response from so-called "fans" has been pathetic and alarming. It's weird that people who claim to love the company and its games were so quick to harass and threaten to kill the people who work there. The protection CDPR's branding gets from people is so far removed from the contempt shown to CDPR's talent. In any case, this exhausting news cycle of a game doesn't need a three week delay. Let's give it the time it needs extend development by three years.
I've been told my videos are too political and that I should just stick to games. Usually, I ignore such strange criticisms, but after one of the most grueling weeks in American politics, maybe we should try it. Let's give the totally apolitical what they want, and do an episode of the Jimquisition completely devoid of such contentious ideas or biases. It can totally be done. Probably. Maybe.
The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are finally out in the wild. Well, that's only theoretically true. They're officially out, but finding an available one has become a trial. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series have had bungled preorders and a terrible launch rollout. Doesn't matter to them, but what about the rest of us poor saps? And what does a game critic do when they're all out of Demon's Souls? Let's find out!
After a long and arduous journey, I have acquired a PlayStation 5 home entertainment console and I did it all on my own. It's time we celebrated how better I am than everyone else. Also, I suppose we could talk about the PlayStation 5, right? Talk about what it does, and looks like, and how ridiculous large it is. So let's do that as well!
Even though it never surprises me, it always disappoints me to see games media pundits fall over themselves to repeat corporate propaganda in defense of corporate garbage. The arrival of the PS5 and Xbox Series X has been used as an excuse to finally raise game prices... after years of using fixed game prices as an excuse to fill their games with predatory monetization. I wonder how they'll justify their microtransactions now! At any rate, the obligatory chorus of apologists are backing up the decision with one heck of an argument. The exact same argument they've been using to justify publisher nastiness for years and years and years.
Ever since I first started criticizing the business practices of mainstream videogame publishers, people have been quick to remind me that it doesn't matter what I think, people will buy games anyway. The facts are the facts, and I can't dispute the truth that publishers enjoy success regardless of how they treat their staff and their audience. They will continue to make money, even as the industry faces scandal after scandal, and publicly sneers at all accountability. I'm told that all this is proof that the publishers are right. They set out to make money, they made money, and that justifies all the exploitation and abuse. But they're wrong. Money isn't a validation. It's only a motive.
Cyberpunk 2077 is finally out, which means people are unhappy, because that's how videogames work. We know the routine with massively hyped "AAA" videogames by now. Before the game is even out, it accrues a mass of fans who've already decided to love it and will attack anyone who disagrees. Then the reviews come out, and all hell breaks loose. Between a stagnant games media, permissive industry, and violently zealous fans, videogame discussion is well and truly broken. As broken as Cyberpunk 2077, which - after all the controversy and hassle - launched as a complete bug fest!
Hey, did you hear about Cyberpunk? The game of the year, except the versions that are total junk! It's a singin' Jimquisition this week as we take a look at the unbelievably humiliating week CD Projekt RED has endured since the incompetent release of Cyberpunk 2077. It's been quite an ordeal. From bugs to takedowns to international appeasement, CDPR has managed to do to its credibility in a matter of days what most publishers take years to accomplish.
It's that miserable time of the year once again. 2020 has been a hellscape of dread and confusion, but there is one thing you can always rely upon - the annual rundown of the crappiest nonsense games can offer. From Marvel's Avengers to the horrendous XIII Remake, we look at the ten games embodying this awful year with their awful awfulness. You might be surprised at some of the picks. You might not. Anyway, VIDEOGAMES!
With 2020 now safely in the rear view, we can all start dreading 2021 and its inevitable horrors. First, let's take one positive break and look back at the games of 2020 that won our hearts. Could Fall Guys make the cut? The Last of Us Part 2? Animal Crossing? Who knows? Well, I know. So will you if you watched The Jimquisition Awards of 2020!
Everything is completely normal.
New year, new me, and an all-new Jimquisition for you to stuff down your stinkin' gullets! This week, we've packed four stories into one hot video, and I am very pleased with how an anthological Jimquisition turned out. In today's blistering offering, we talk about the latest Cyberpunk 2077 chicanery, Grand Theft Auto IV, that new Star Wars game, and POGS! POGS POGS POGS! POGGERS!
Another normal one today! We chat about Euro Truck Simulator vaccinating itself against controversy, we say goodbye to the FCC chairman that nobody liked, and we discuss Activision making money thanks to a global pandemic. Now I am going to brace for impact. No reason. Also, Floridus Snake.
So there's really only one thing to talk about this week, and that's the whole mess that happened with GameStop and Wall Street. It's pretty much a perfect look at the wider problems we regularly discuss. When the ultra wealthy find their positions challenged, they have little problem demonstrating that the free market is only free to them, and that all their shaming lectures about how you should invest are total garbage. The whole system is a bunch of made up nonsense, designed purely to ensure the elite stay elite at everybody else's expense.
Patenting game mechanics is bad. It's bad. It's simply bad. So is Google Stadia, and we're going to talk about both Google's failings and Warner Bros. Interactive's patent hoarding. Google ceases Stadia game development, Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis System becomes WB's sole dominion, AND we get to take a look at what I've been doing in Monster Hunter lately. It's what you all tuned in for. Love you.
People who use bots to buy up game consoles and resell them for a ridiculous markup are apparently sad that people hate them. This is funny, because they deserve to be hated. Let's take a look at the way these opportunists portray themselves, and have some fun discussing why they're wrong, and why their view of what they do is completely pathetic.
We have three big ol' subjects for you today! After unlocking the secrets of Frog Purse, of course. After that, let's talk about Google being horrible to its Stadia developers. As well as that, we'll talk about the responses to Nintendo Direct and Blizzconline. We wrap things up with the one you know is coming - the utter offensive nonsense spewing out of the dishonest mouths of Six Days in Fallujah's developers.
Anthem has finally been put out of its misery. BioWare's Anthem will go down in history as a mighty example of how to fail at jumping on a bandwagon. Its development was rushed and poorly planned, its release was mediocre, and its subsequent slow death was almost pitiful. And what's worse, all of it was predictable. Despite its high profile nature, Anthem's story isn't new. The industry is littered with the corpses of games that tried to hop on the gravy train but fell and broke their face on the tracks. Nobody in the "AAA" market ever wants to learn though. So it is that Anthem joins such high profile disasters as Evolve and Battleborn and so many more. Just another "live service" wannabe, soon to be joined by Marvel's Avengers. Nobody learns. The dirge plays on.
On today's Jimquisition, we look at the latest nonsense from the world of live services, as Marvel's Avengers is set to be more of a grind for no reason. On top of that, we've got a discussion on The Sinking City and legal issues surrounding both developer and publisher. What a great video!
This week, we take ourselves a look at NFTs, and how one game developer is using an already shady concept to insult videogame artists. Then there's the case of the unfortunately named #EAGate, and FIFA's latest scumbaggery. You want some more? Okay, well we've also got a response to the claim Pokémon Go has "fun presents" instead of loot boxes. Ha ha ha.
With his weirdly mysterious PlayStation exclusives, Gilson B. Pontes is a legend among aficionados of terrible videogames. Sadly, it turns out he's just another bad dev with no tolerance for criticism. After publishing a video on Gilson's latest mess, I received a copyright takedown strike. And another. And another. It soon became clear that Gilson, in retaliation for me saying his awful games are awful, was trying to kill my channel. Obviously, he failed, but he came close. YouTube, for its part, tried to play no part. Not until the lawyers were threatened. It's only thanks to my platform and resources that this channel is still here. So let's talk about this whole sorry display. Also, Gilson is a fraud.
In our top segment today, Gilson B. Pontes tries to strike again. While he continues to fail, YouTube apparently allows perjury to occur again and again and again without consequence. Also, we share GameStop's solemn words, and tear into billionaire scumball Bobby Kotick. Fun!
Sony has basically given incentive for us to pirate every PlayStation game under the sun. With their decision to axe the storefronts of three systems and consign thousands of digital games to oblivion, the company has fully telegraphed its regard for entertainment software. Whether it's PSP, PS Vita, or PS3, you might as well just download everything. At least one Sony executive would agree with you - the one so blinkered he can't even understand why you'd PLAY old games, let alone buy them. It is morally okay to pirate all the PlayStation games you like. Sony basically loves it.
The age-old debate about easy modes has reared its ugly head again, this time due to conflicts in the streaming world. Should streamers get to play games on easier difficulties? Yes, obviously, but let's validate our own opinions in a video! Also, Google Stadia gets a hot non-exclusive, and CaseyExplosion is here to recommend an indie game!
How does one critique a game that they literally cannot access, even after buying it? Even if other people can get into the thing, should the critic not share their absurd experience? How forgiving does one need to be for the sake of a "AAA" videogame? Outriders, developed by People Can Fly and published by Square Enix, is unplayable. Apparently I'm lying when I say this, but it's the truth. Be it co-op or solo, I cannot start the game, and have been almost entirely unable to since it's launch. It's so bad I need to seek a refund, much to the chagrin of people who are mad because of facts that I cannot change.
Remember that LEGO Mario with the electric eyes? Do you know this child's toy gets firmware updates? Do you know this child's toy got an update that sold products directly to kids? While it's mostly being presented as cute, the idea of a toy calling for its brother as part of an underhanded sales pitch is just... it's just... well it's not bloody cute! Also, hello, I am back from doing my first wrestling match since 2019! How did that amazing battle go? Find out!
The sheer amount of money hoarded by videogame executives is astounding, especially when you're constantly told that videogames are too expensive to make. Bobby Kotick just "halved" his pay, but is still in line to make hundreds of millions of dollars on top of the billions he has, and CD Projekt RED's five board members just gave themselves enough money to cover over 800 people. The way in which this money is accumulated is often corrupt in and of itself. Meanwhile, employees are abused and underpaid. Videogames cut more corners and add more predatory economies. We're told there's not enough money, but the truth is there's MORE than enough. It's just constantly sucked out of the industry by parasites.
Repetition is what makes Gamer Discourse go round, and I should know - this very show has been accused of repetition since inception. It's not like the accusation is untrue. However, is Gamer Discourse ever original? Aren't we just rehashing about five arguments over and over? I know one thing - the arguments have more cycles than Returnal.
Join James Stephanie Sterling and Beanie Tuesday for a special celebration of a momentous milestone.
Millennials are blamed for the death of many things. This is because people love to talk nonsense. Millennials didn't kill anything, they just can't afford to support the things that need money to thrive. Like themselves. There is, however, one thing millennials did mercilessly throttle. Fun. Pure, old fashioned fun. As they fight for Pokémon cards and PS5s, let's look at the death of innocent enjoyments.
Electronic Arts wants you to give it all of your money as its business model shifts more and more to microtransactions and gambling. It's not above being positively vile in this endeavor. EA is doing all it can to funnel its FIFA players toward one single mode - FIFA Ultimate Team, the mode that runs on loot boxes. I think we can safely call the company's reckless and predatory behavior evil now.
Pride is never short of corporate exploitation, and every year companies compete to see who can put their foot in it the hardest. This year, Warner Bros. offered players the chance to beat up Poison Ivy for prizes in Injustice 2. The problem with this is that Ivy is one of the very few canonically queer characters in mainstream comics. If you don't SEE what the problem is, you might be in line for a job at WB!
Scott Cawthon, creator of Five Nights at Freddy's, has been giving money to some of the worst people in America. While he's free to do so, I'm free to say he absolutely sucks for it. Some have argued that contributing to the very worst Republicans around is harmless, because it's his money and he can what he wants. But when you're directly funding hateful, spiteful people who have coordinated attacks on LGBTQIA+ communities... you suck.
E3 happened, and it was a particularly mediocre one this year. Let's face it though, even when it's at its best, E3 isn't really that important or vital. It's always been guff, and always will be guff. Rather than subject myself to the hype and lies this year, I decided to innovate a new E3 coverage style that involves watching as little E3 as possible. It was a very good idea.
As Activision CEO Bobby Kotick pockets an absurd $155 million for no good reason, let's look at the company being bad, and doing bad things, like a bad company. No further criticism needed, right? Well...
There are mounting reports that Electronic Arts is about to announce some sort of Dead Space remake, with the leading suggestion being a reimagining of the original game. As someone who loves Dead Space, I should be happy about this news, but my apathy is palpable. I am not interested in EA's Dead Space, not after EA drove the series into the dirt and killed the original studio. This isn't Dead Space. This is EA's Dead Space, and even if it's good, I want nothing to do with the company's opportunism.
Nintendo announced the Switch OLED to a chorus of angry boos this past week, even though technically Nintendo didn't do anything wrong. It promised no upgrades, hyped no announcements. That didn't matter after weeks of rumors though. So let's talk about the Switch OLED, the hype that was built up around it, and how Nintendo fans trolled themselves again.
An alleged crypto mining farm turned to out to be an alleged FIFA Coin mining farm, highlighting the ridiculousness of EA's sprawling microtransaction economy. As players "skip the grind" in less legal ways, Electronic Arts continues a years-long struggle against the FIFA black market. It's a struggle EA deserves.
Nothing fun or funny to say this week. Just anger and sadness over an industry that remains truly screwed up and rotten to the core. Activision, Ubisoft, Insomniac, "AAA" powerhouses and small indie outfits. It's rotten.
Pokémon Unite is sick. Aimed at children, this flimsy MOBA seeks to exploit anybody it can get its talons on with excessive monetization, including a battle pass, loot boxes, and active pay-to-win mechanics. It is also, sadly, the natural conclusion of the track Nintendo's been on, as well as the mindset with which Pokémon was released back in the mid-90s. God though... it's really despicable.
Activision Blizzard has been running damage control ever since stories of the company's abusive work culture exploded. Blizzard president J. Allen Brack is out, and hand-wringing contrition is in. Be aware that Activision is only looking out for itself, and simply wants us to forget this ever happened. However, while Bobby Kotick and his unethically enriched executives remain in charge, nothing meaningful will change. The remorseless profiteers who oversaw all this are still entrenched.
Sometimes, feedback can be just plain weird, especially when that feedback takes the form of angry protests against covering industry abuse.
A most highly requested episode, we take a look over the recent kerfuffle involving Wargaming and its tumultuous community. World of Warships, like many free-to-play games, has only gotten more shameless with time, and its latest stunt involving loot boxes was seen as a bridge too far. There's been a community contributor walkout, and that's good to see, because loot boxes are filth. So anyway, let's look at all that!
Ever heard of Hate Raids? You're lucky if you haven't. Hate Raids are targeted attacks on Twitch TV aimed at marginalized streamers where masses of people spam the chat with hate speech. Lately, the Hate Raids have gone automated and it's resulted in anyone who isn't a cishet white guy getting drowned in utter vileness, yours truly included. So let's look at that, and Twitch's stunning inactivity on the matter. With contributions from Pleasantly Twstd and Cypher of Tyr!
Steam refunds have been a source of low-key controversy over the years since their institution, especially when it comes to smaller indie games. One such game is Summer of '58, which kicked off the old refund debate yet again. Games on Steam can be returned within two hours of purchase, and Summer of '58 is about 90 minutes long. You can guess what happened. So once again let's dive into this issue, and see if we can't find something useful to say.
John Gibson, former CEO of Tripwire Interactive, is a lover of horrible things, especially fascistic oppression of other peoples' bodily rights. His statement in support of Texas' recent horrific abortion ban was abhorrent and was quickly received as such. Also, both Gibson's beliefs and the beliefs espoused by his nu metal Christian band demonstrate the hypocrisy of self-styled freedom lovers. So let's chat about that mess!
Let's please PLEASE not start calling them "AAAA" games. Having to debase ourselves and go along with "AAA" was bad enough!
Microtransactions are an accessibility issue! Apex Legends and FIFA can get praise for considering disability, but until they stop actively exploiting those with invisible disabilities, they deserve scorn in abundance. Also, we're joined by special guest Laura Kate Dale!
eFootball 2022 is an impressively bad new direction for the formerly beloved Pro Evolution Soccer series. Konami has once again provided the world with something truly terrible to make delighted fun of. More than that, however, it's yet another example of how so-called "AAA" publishers continue to screw up their precious "live service" games by rushing undercooked trash to market. Oh, Konami, whatever will we do with you?
Twitch is becoming more and more of a circus lately, and the latest performance easily tops them all! The entire site leaked. The whole thing. Utter disaster. Let's poke at it a bit.
Kotaku got itself told off by the gaming community for allegedly encouraging piracy. This is because it wrote about Metroid Dread being emulated in 4K, a news story that is news. Meanwhile, Nintendo has made a great case for emulation by offering a premium subscription service that offers access to a selection of easily obtainable ROMs. The value just isn't there. So, let's talk about emulation, Nintendo, and why companies need to better rather than expect us to pretend downloadable alternatives to their own storefronts don't exist.
God of War is coming to PC, and wouldn't you know it, zealous PlayStation fans are up in arms! They see betrayal, contempt, and even hate, almost as if they put far too much emotional stock in a corporation. That stake, and the assumption that someone "deserves" exclusivity in return for their loyalty, interests me. Plus it's just funny to see overenthusiastic fans lose their minds.
It doesn't take much to get the defenders of Scott Cawthon to take their masks off and reveal the frothing hatred underneath. Enjoy this little recap of what those who stan for the creator of Five Nights at Freddy's had to say this past week. It's quite horrible, folks!
NFTs are the latest craze, and they're horrible. A stain on the art world, a total scam, and environmentally damaging. Naturally, videogame publishers are huge fans! As NFTs are embraced by the vile likes of Ubisoft, EA, and Square Enix, enjoy this video where I go absolutely OFF on them. I swear way more than normal, because NFTs truly are disgusting.
The Grand Theft Auto Trilogy, otherwise known hilariously as Grand Theft Auto Definitive Edition, is terrible. A disaster. A most amusing circus. Having been thoroughly review bombed, mocked on social media, and revealed to be a bug-laden mess, Rockstar's latest release has managed turned the days since launch into a real ride. Let's take that ride right now. Strap yourselves in!
The CEO of Activision Blizzard has been outed as a truly vile creep. Yes, somehow more so than before. Oh dear.
When Ubisoft's horrific history of abuse was exposed last year, it stunned me how quickly games media moved on when it came time to review the latest Assassin's Creed guff. Some argue game reviews and coverage of game releases are no place for reminders that said games are published by monsters. I argue they absolutely are, and that it's ridiculous how quickly some of us want to forget.
Activision Blizzard isn't going to let a massive scandal over its work culture get in the way of some good old fashioned layoffs, and it won't let human decency get in the way of making those layoffs cruel as possible.
DigiPen Institute of Technology is an incredibly influential establishment in the games industry. A college respected enough to land its students jobs on sheer reputation, DigiPen is highly regarded. It also teaches students to accept being overworked and crunched to breaking point. The Jimquisition has spoken with a number of DigiPen students who report feelings of mistreatment and dissatisfaction with the unprofessional and abusive way Digipen prepared them for a life in the game industry. It's a telling reflection of the industry's prevailing attitudes.
Awards are meaningless. Videogames don't deserve applause. It is, however, the end of the year, and that means trophies must be given whether we played deserving titles or not. Join me, then, as your old pal James Stephanie Sterling lists a number of games they didn't completely hate this year. They're all at least adequate. Well, one of them's actively bad. Awards are meaningless.
The year is wrapping up, and that means the grisly business must be undertaken yet again. Ten horrible, horrible games that contributed only misery to the industry are here for your nasty edification. From the expected to the obscure, drink in the filth as we once again scour the depths. It's garbage day!
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!
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.
Grand Theft Auto VI is the most exciting Grand Theft Auto VI since Grand Theft Auto VI! Join us for a very special video in which we break down, analyze, react, and desperately mine as much content as we can from Grand Theft Auto VI, the hot new game from Grand Theft Auto VI!
2024 is now grimly underway, and we have our traditional annual statement/threat from Square Enix, promising yet more terrible futures that we do not want. Let's mock and hate Square Enix's horrid plans to exploit A.I. and other tech fads while asking why they're not creaming their jeans about NFTs anymore!
The shameless race to the bottom with so-called Artificial Intelligence is only just getting started, and I have to thank to the fad's biggest advocates for being so inherently shady that arguing against them is practically Easy Mode. Let's talk about shady behavior, SAG-AFTRA, Mario, and why A.I. continues to be trouble.
Ubisoft, one of the most garbage trash things ever, thinks we should "get comfortable" with not owning games as it tries to push subscriptions onto us. Trouble is, we've seen where not owning our other media has gotten us - a horrible and confusing digital dystopia.
Love Live! School Idol Festival 2 Miracle Live had its release date and its cancellation announced in the same statement, marking a new level of absurdity in gaming. The media landscape is in freefall and, funny as this is, it's really quite concerning.
Silent Hill: The Short Message is a really rubbish bit of trauma tourism that feels like a bad Bloober game despite not being a Bloober game. It's another bit of miserable nonsense squirted out by a Konami that doesn't give a stuff. Let's hate it together!
Ubisoft thinks its new pirate game, yet another open world "live service" - deserves to charge $70 because it's a "Quadruple-A" game. I mean, for crying out loud! Let's absolutely have fun tearing this nonsense down!
The F*ck Konami News just hasn't stopped rolling, as the publisher fails impressively once again. Perhaps. This seems to be a joint effort, as Bloober Team's Silent Hill 2 remake got an ill-advised "combat" trailer, and fingers are being pointed over how bad it looks. FUN!
There is a new Crazy Taxi, and Sega promises it will be "AAA" as if that's some sort of selling point. They should be comparing its scope and quality to a game like Pacific Drive, because real ambition will beat "AAA" ambition every time.
As Crash Team Rumble shuts its doors and another "live service" shrivels to death in less than a year, one has to wonder how deliberate the number of sudden shutdowns are. One thing is for sure - no matter how many of them are guaranteed to fail, publishers keep launching the bloody things.
A.I. advocates love to pretend they're real artists, and claims of plagiarism are little more than appropriative attempts to steal a sense of validity. Let's look at how these hacks justify themselves and see how little techbros understand the concept of hard work.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is one of the most remarkable videogames of all time, for better or worse. An absolute trip in every sense of the word, it's fascinating and baffling and funny and strange, and its rehabilitation of one of Final Fantasy VII's more maligned characters really says it all.
It couldn't be about any other subject this week. Capcom has taken the absolute urine with Dragon's Dogma 2, its 21 in-app purchases including such egregious paywalled features as fast travel. Given how the game hasn't changed since 2012, this is damn disgraceful. And it's what Capcom's been getting away with for a long time.
Dragon's Dogma, Rise of Ronin, backtracking, microtransactions, controversial tweets, and comparisons to Symphony of the Night. This video has it all!
Life Is Strange has been called an "SJW game" by chuds around the world, but maybe they'll start appreciating it now developer Deck Nine has come under fire for an IGN Report detailing abuse, bigotry, and harassment. Either way, as the company hides behind diversity to dodge the allegations, we can take a look at what real virtue signalling looks like!
Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra thinks big budget games should offer players the ability to add a tip on top of already spending $70. For a number of reasons it's dumb to add tipping to big corporate games, but when it's been suggested by a literal corporate leader, the whole proposal seems more sinister than stupid.
Helldivers 2, Sker Ritual, and (hilariously) Suicide Squad, have all been borderline (or totally) unplayable at crucial moments thanks to their online failings. The Outlast Trials could've stood to do better, too. It's clear online-focused games are struggling to maintain themselves lately, and the fact they have NOTHING to offer players beyond their broken features is a real problem.
Taken from The Jimquisition episode "Of Course You Realize, This Means Wargaming." Paying tribute to the iconic (real iconic, not Ubisoft iconic) Drill Queen and "Born Depressed."
It's Halloween, and it's time to make a killing. Put the BLOOD in BLOOD MONEY as we show you how to not just slay, but get paid doing so.