I did a podcast on this issue that I just released.

It doesn't go too far into weeds on the nature of the dispute (some long videos are linked in the description that go into exhaustive detail about this) but it's more of an appeal to both sides to figure this out, as a hardcore Star Control fan and someone who actually did very much like Origins. I kind of take both Brad Wardell and Paul & Fred to task for what I see as their respective missteps in this.

RedEye9 wrote on Jan 1, 2019, 19:32:

Parallax Abstraction wrote on Jan 1, 2019, 17:57:
In the end, the courts will determine who is right. At least I have my copy of Origins in the mean time.

gog ain't pulled it yet
https://www.gog.com/game/star_control_origins

I thought it had been restored but according to Brad Wardell himself, it's still up because they just haven't responded to the complaint yet, due to the holiday. It will probably be down soon but yeah, if anyone wants to grab it, now's the time.

Wardell also said they're fast-tracking a direct buy option for the Stardock web site.

I'm posting an episode of my podcast tomorrow on this but after seeing some actual lawyers who know weigh in on it, the DMCA tactics being used here and the timings of them are dubious at best.

I think Brad Wardell has Elon Musk Syndrome, in that he really needs to shut up and stop commenting on legal matters when he is not a lawyer. He is doing so out of concerns for his employees at Stardock (who I understand, love working there) and obviously for the broadside this is causing his company but he should just state what happened, that it's being worked on and leave it at that.

That said, everything I've read and heard from actual knowledgeable people on this, say this reeks of Paul & Fred (who made my favourite game of all-time), using scummy legal methods to try to take down someone who bade a game based on "their baby" because they didn't acquire the rights themselves when Atari went bankrupt and just want revenge for that. I have played Star Control: Origins and aisde from the name (which Stardock owns) and gameplay mechanics (which can't be copyrighted), they are using none of the content that Paul & Fred actually own. Hell, Stardock offered to sell them the rights they bought from Atari at cost years ago and Paul & Fred declined. Wardell is also documented as having told them they had Stardock's blessing to make a new Star Control game with the rights they had but that they couldn't use the name, which Stardock fairly owned. Then right after the Origins beta began, they came out and announced their new project, using the Star Control name! So Stardock took action on that--as they have to or risk losing their trademark--and now we have this happening.

The whole thing reeks of bad faith on the part of Paul & Fred (two people I idolised back when I wanted to make games) but between Brad Wardell's online temperament and the fact that the games press has a massive hate-boner for him and Stardock because he was falsely accused of sexual assault a few years ago, of course many people are sticking up for them. These poor guys who make a fortune as the heads of one of Activision's biggest studios and yet refused a chance to buy their old IP for a song but find the money to pay lawyers to try to make Stardock's life difficult.

In the end, the courts will determine who is right. At least I have my copy of Origins in the mean time.

What, no PC Building Simulator in The Verge's list? Figured they'd appreciate the education.

Yeah, fair enough. Like, I get I misspelled his name and I wouldn't have all minded him pointing it out, even with some snark but the way he approached it was super unnecessary. I also somehow doubt he would have done that to someone who was a bigger content creator, which also burns me.

Personally, if you're going for a "rebel image", I much prefer Deveolver Digital's methods, though they (politely) told me they won't even talk to YouTubers with less than 50,000 subs, which is hilarious when you're a scrappy indie publisher and when I get easily get press codes from the likes of Paradox. But I digress.

MrRadicalEd wrote on Dec 11, 2018, 09:21:
This virtue signaling is getting old.

PewDiePie is a Death Note fan. Him liking Death Note videos does not equate to these weak links obviously meant to smear his name

The article does a poor job breaking down these "offenses" - and obviously reads like note being passed around in class.

In other words, status quo for The Verge and other Vox Media properties (said as someone with no love whatsoever for PewDiePie.)

Those of you who have attention spans will probably find a lot to like about this, if you're into Half-Life. They don't talk to Valve because Valve straight up ignored their repeated requests but there's a ton of great history here from people in the know. I'm not the biggest fan of Danny O'Dwyer but the guy can craft a damn fine documentary.

Really want to stream and cover this. Shame Dave Oshry, who runs publisher New Blood Interactive, is a total shitbag. I accidentally misspelled his name when requesting preview code a while back and he proceeded to post the e-mail on Twitter and have a bunch of his fanboys hurl garbage at me for it. He uses this image to portray his company as "punk rock" and bucking the system where really, it's just his cover for being an asshole. There's few companies I refuse to support just because someone there's a dick but this guy bases his whole organisation around it. Not someone I'm giving my money to.

PHJF wrote on Nov 28, 2018, 09:36:

wrlwnd wrote on Nov 27, 2018, 23:31:
Reviews on steam don't look too good.

That's a shame. Was hoping it would be as good as the other two.

Considering it was made by some second-rate studio who bought up the IP for peanuts, there was never any expectation this would be a particularly good game.

It was made by Gunfire Games, which is comprised mostly of staff from Vigil Games, the original Darksiders developers.

A friend of mine is a HUGE Darksiders fan and has beaten the first two games multiple times. He says he's enjoying this one quite a bit so far but they definitely did change a lot. But he also doesn't like a lot of what they added in the second game, much of which was at the old THQ's insistence because "people like those open world games."

dubfanatic wrote on Nov 19, 2018, 17:46:

RedEye9 wrote on Nov 19, 2018, 11:12:
Could it be that the demand for $1k+ phones is diminishing?

It's getting increasingly difficult to justify buying a new smartphone every year or two when the improvements are so small and/or gimmicky. At this point, the main driver for smartphone upgrades seems to be degradation of the battery.

Yep. I had a OnePlus 3T that I just upgraded to a 6T but only because I bought a comprehensive extended warranty on the 3T and the battery was wearing early and the Bluetooth was acting weird. OnePlus didn't have any 3Ts left so I got my purchase refunded to cover the warranty and bought a 6T. If the battery and BT issues weren't there, I'd still be happily using my 3T. It ran perfectly otherwise and is slated to get Android P at some point. If it was out of warranty, I could have bought a replacement OEM battery from OnePlus for $50 and had them install it for me or taken it somewhere.

The 6T is gorgeous and I love it but if the upgrade hadn't been 90% subsidised, I wouldn't even have considered it. Mobile gaming is 90% garbage, I don't watch movies on the go and most of the pictures I take are of my dog and cat. It's basically an e-mail, Twitter, web and podcast device for me.

Most of my nerdy friends are on phones that are even older and if they do upgrade, it's usually not to a flagship model but a mid-line one cause they're like "All the flagship stuff is a waste of money." Phones are becoming commodities, just like computers. The days of selling out $1,000+ devices for months on old are long over.

VaranDragon wrote on Nov 16, 2018, 10:54:

Creston wrote on Nov 16, 2018, 10:41:
I will give him kudos for supporting his devs, apparently out of his own pocket. That's quality.

I would think that would actually be, you know, the law? Those people who worked for him should actually thank him for paying them a salary? Oh geez thanks boss for paying me, I mean you really didn't have to.

When the company has gone under, he actually doesn't have to. They worked for the company, not for him and when the company's out of money, that's where his obligation ends. While it's sad that a millionaire owner paying people who his bad decisions screwed over out of his own pocket is the exception and not the rule, credit where it's due.

That said, when the studio folded, a lot of employees found out about it from him on Twitter, in the announcement that he made almost entirely about him instead of his staff. And even in this response, he's self-aggrandizing about paying the staff from his own pocket. Good on you for doing that but you're getting some online hate on a platform full of it and where you frankly, actively encourage it. But you're still a millionaire, living in a mansion with a Lamborghini in the garage, while at least some of your former employees are probably struggling to pay bills right now. Please don't act like your bruised ego is the most important thing here.

CJ_Parker wrote on Oct 5, 2018, 15:17:
I would generally take a different view. Would Overload ever have happened without Descent Underground's successful Kickstarter? Where were the original creators of Descent before that?
They had more than a decade to snag the license and crank out sequel after sequel but they didn't. You want to blame WingMan & co. for that? Dafuq?

The original creators of Descent were running Volition and Reactor Zero. Mike Kulas left Volition when it was clear the writing was on the wall for THQ and got the band back together to form Revival Productions. Of course they didn't secure the Descent brand beforehand, they were doing other things and weren't going to spend a pile of their own money on an IP they couldn't do anything with at the time.

Unimpressed as I am with Underground at this point, I don't take the line that they stole the IP, name or anyone's money. If anything, this project seems just more mismanaged to me than any kind of scam. But Overload didn't get the Descent name because the Revival Productions team were lazy, it was just the timing of it. And they've said to me directly that while it would have been nice to have the original name, they don't think lacking it has done much harm to Overload one way or the other.

After the excellent Overload (which was made by actual Descent devs) was Kickstarted, developed and released in the time this thing has been in testing and still remains more or less a mess, I'm not supremely confident. Always love more 6DOF stuff but I've had press access to this for a long time and yeah, it's got a LONG way to go and Overload has set a high bar.

ooVee was the publisher than was away with the original Spintires IP. The developer of the game went to work for Saber Interactive and they're the ones putting out the MudRunner games with Focus.

The first MudRunner had a bunch of new content and features like Steam Workshop support that the developer wanted to put in the original game and couldn't because of ooVee but that said, it didn't improve a ton and did feel more like an update. I'm hoping this comes with a ton of all-new content, as well as some engine enhancements.

Beamer wrote on Aug 15, 2018, 11:26:

Parallax Abstraction wrote on Aug 15, 2018, 11:16:

Fact-check links from Wikipedia

Well, this is off to a good start.

How frequently do you think Wikipedia is wrong, relative to literally any other site?
Can you cite an article that's currently incorrect?

I don't have time to go digging up one for you right now but there have been many I've seen over the years, particularly ones on current events or hot political topics, that often have constant edit wars going on.

There's a reason the majority of educational institutions will not accept Wikipedia as a valid source on academic papers.

Fact-check links from Wikipedia

Well, this is off to a good start.

I don't know how VG 24/7 is still a thing. It's a bad site full of generally weak writers who most of the time, just regurgitate press releases. I don't know anyone who reads them. And now they're actively shunning advertisers over a tweet that was at worst, in poor taste. I don't think anyone will even notice when they go away.

Ozmodan wrote on Jul 10, 2018, 19:55:

Verno wrote on Jul 10, 2018, 10:54:

“The whole thing was highly unprofessional,” she continued. “There was zero reason for him to be there. He wanted to vent his anger, and he had the power to command a woman to stand there while he took his feelings out on her, so he did. Then he walked out, [the manager] got my stuff from my desk and the HR person asked for my key card.”

Wow, this moron just plays the gender victimhood card at every opportunity. Unreal.

Yes, you pissed off customers on social media for no reason and he "mansplained" that you were fired for being a fucking idiot. Let us rise up against male oppression!

Who is the moron in this thread, not her! The number of asshats that play these games is phenominal and she unfortunately ran into a major asshat. She was completely right, management folded. Looks like the asshats are in charge at Arenanet. Fat change I will ever buy one of their games again!

I can't tell if you're trolling or are just that monumentally ignorant of the actual facts of this situation.

If there is any chance of an article's comments being anything less than an echo chamber, Polygon will tend to just disable them.

Person with long history of toxicity continues to believe it's everyone else's fault. Shocker. I guarantee you this incident alone isn't what got her fired and that she was probably talked to about her public behaviour multiple times before.