Yeah, that conveniently anonymous post pretty much contradicts this financial report. He said Mafia III was a bomb that has sold less than a million units and it's already well exceeded that. His post also doesn't mention Rockstar when talking about Take-Two financials and ignores the well known fact that BioShock (Infinite in particular) was a trainwreck of a project that needed Rod Ferguson brought in to get it back on track. As good as the games Ken Levine helms tend to me, he's notorious for being Tim Schafer-esque in terms of managing time and money. It's amazing to me how much people will instantly listen and believe to some anonymous post with no ability to verify it.

Also, if you think them saying Mafia III is their fastest-selling game is an outright lie, you don't understand how strict laws on this kind of thing are. Lying about that kind of thing in a financial statement is an actual crime and one that can get them sued into the ground.

Not satisfied with making thousands of dollars a month on Patreon and producing nothing with it but being a professional victim, she's now running a Kickstarter. Her Patreon was supposed to fund all these game projects but somehow she needs another $60,000 to make it happen. I'm sure she'll pull a Brianna Wu and blame Internet harassment when it gets delayed, delayed and delayed some more and is a garbage game when and if it does come out.

Keep in mind that almost 3 years ago when the Polaris GAME_JAM thing happened, she started taking donations for Rebel Jam, which has still never happened, even though many game jams are organised in a matter of days. And no one in the press will hold her accountable for that or this. This person's a scammer. Fools and their money are soon parted.

panbient wrote on Oct 24, 2016, 15:37:

NKD wrote on Oct 24, 2016, 11:43:
If you think that they don't have legitimate complaints, you're straight up brain damaged. They are working under a contract that dates back to the mid 90s and needs some serious changes due to how things have changed since then, but the game companies don't want to budge an inch on anything.

*A lot of other very valid stuff*

While I agree with everything you've said and I sympathize with the VAs... there are still lots of other people in the industry (pretty much everyone) who also deserve some level of proper compensation and protection as well. And in the case of any actual junior developer I'd say those people need it before the VAs.

But, I mean, who am I kidding? These people get to work in the gaaAAAaaammmmeee Industry and if they don't like it they can go be a sucker at a square office with actual job security, and benefits, and HR departments, and paid vacations, but it'll cost you your soul man!!! You'll need to wear a dress shirt!!!!

There are others who are involved in making games that deserve better compensation as well. But they're not part of SAG-AFTRA. If that union tried to speak for them, the same people calling them greedy now would be calling them arrogant for speaking for others. If the programmers, artists and other people who are exploited in the games industry want better representation, then they should be trying to unionise themselves, or at least making the IGDA not a useless organisation.

I'll never understand the attitude that many in this thread and other places have of "Well, others might have it worse so that means you're assholes for demanding better!" Somewhere, someone always has it worse than you. That doesn't mean you're not allowed to expect more from companies that are making millions off you.

For a better explanation, listen to this one from Steve Blum. In particular, listen to the bit about how many publishers have paid literally millions to big-time Hollywood actors, who get to dictate their own terms, do far less work and have never been demonstrated to lead to greater sales.

Are there any games at all that you play or do is your involvement in this hobby finding reasons to boycott things? Cause if you think that there aren't right-wingers in just about any and all game developers, you're probably in for a shock.

Thanks Blue, you rock.

Verno wrote on Oct 6, 2016, 11:42:
Hopefully it sells better than the Mirror's Edge sequel did. Everyone said they wanted that and it landed like a wet fart in a crowded room.

As one of the people who wanted it and bought it day one, it's problem was mostly that it was a bad game that was basically unfinished.

Betanews has about as much credibility on anything Microsoft as Kotaku or Polygon does on anything gaming.

But hey, one of the most popular things here is misinformed anti-Windows 10 circle jerks so have fun. Not that MS didn't do a lot of garbage things (the amount the upgrade was forced was ridiculous and anti-consumer) but Windows 10 is also an excellent OS and the claims about it spying on you are both hilarious in their level of tin-foil hattiness and also immensely hypocritical given that every smartphone and social network do far worse and get a pass from everyone.

Beamer wrote on Sep 23, 2016, 15:47:
The most common complaint I see of her is "why isn't she showing this game, which doesn't have the trope?!" I mean, it answers the question - it doesn't have the trope! It's like if I watch a Youtube video about cats falling off of TVs and complained that it didn't feature any cats not falling off of TVs to demonstrate that not all cats fall of off TVs.

My complaint is her cherry picking and outright lies in order to suit her agenda. Look up the video where she used Hitman Absolution as an example. As someone who has finished that game, she straight up lied about it and the creator's intentions with the scene she uses.

I don't dislike her because of her arguments, I dislike the fact that she distorts her research and outright lies in order to be able to make the point she wants to make. It's the same kind of crap Michael Moore pulls. But at least Michael Moore didn't take a ton of crowdfunding and donations, only to never finish the project, even years after it was funded. She has still not delivered on all her originally planned episodes and Kickstarter rewards, even though she's now moved on to another project. And especially considering the production quality and hilariously bad research in her videos, it's insane that it's taken this long, given many YouTubers put out better videos on a daily basis. But getting work done means she can't collect tens of thousands of dollars giving woe is me speeches.

Nothing Pachter has to say is print-worthy.

Now that they've done SoftRAM, they should do SpinRite next. Steve Gibson's been hocking that garbage snake oil for 20+ years. I bought it back when I listened to SecurityNow and it has not once fixed a drive I've run it again but it's made several worse.

I've had a press build of this for a while that was limited but it was already pretty awesome. I'm hoping to do a video on the full game in the next couple days. It's a real shame this is Two Tribes' last game, they've got some real talent.

Dev wrote on Aug 28, 2016, 12:16:
Huh, I was going to try that mighty quest one someday. Oh well!

I always meant to as well. It kind of looked like a neat idea and some people like TB liked it and he's very critical of F2P games if they don't have a good business model. This one looked relatively fair and had a neat concept. Oh well.

Looks like Ubisoft's making a hasty exit from the free-to-play market.

Beamer wrote on Aug 26, 2016, 07:07:
If they insulted their audience, their audience wouldn't come back.

Ergo, it isn't their audience they're insulting. It's a small percentage of people that likely didn't even go to those sites to begin with.

Their audience isn't coming back. YouTube and Twitch are eating these sites' lunch and their traffic is dropping almost across the board. That's the part that's so crazy. They're bleeding the audience like crazy and yet they're doubling down on the things that are doing so. And believe me, I'm not pleased about this trend. YouTube and Twitch have their places but those segments both have major problems of their own. There needs to be a mix of both.

Beamer wrote on Aug 25, 2016, 07:19:

Parallax Abstraction wrote on Aug 24, 2016, 23:20:
I don't support Gamergate in the form it took but crap like this is why it's absolutely undeniable that corruption and cronyism are rampant in the games press. I didn't always agree with Austin Walker but I really thought he was above this kind of garbage.

I usually agree with your posts, but I tend to find people that complain about "corruption and cronyism" in the gaming press either don't understand how enthusiast media works or have unrealistic expectations.

Gaming press is enthusiast media. It's no different than Teen Beat or Fangoria. Every single bit of information it gets comes from PR and developer relationships, and there's no avoiding that because those are the only people with information to give.

The other day I saw people claiming corruption and cronyism because a game on Steam Greenlight, made by a small Russian team, wasn't getting coverage. It had no one doing PR, it had no word of mouth, and its devs don't go to conferences. That's how journalists find games to cover, though. These are small operations that don't pay well.

Again, they're basically Fangoria.

You're free to take that line if you want but as someone who has lived and breathed this medium and consumed countless amounts of coverage of it over the years, I very much disagree. Sure, there was corruption, cronyism and outright payola going on back in the day. So what? Because it happened in the past means it's OK now?

Something being an "enthusiast medium" doesn't give a free pass for those covering it to write positive coverage about their friends (and their hyper-niche products that would get ignored if they weren't friends), without basic disclosure. It doesn't give them the high ground to constantly insult their audience, calling them some of the worst things you can call a person, not because they acted horribly, but simply because they disagreed or asked questions. It doesn't give them the high ground to demand that creators censor themselves or be sanctioned for making a game they didn't politically disagree with. Don't like This Is the Police? Don't like the marketing for the new Deus Ex? That's absolutely your right and absolutely within your purvue to call out. What is not within your purvue is calling Eidos Montreal or WeAppy Studio racists and bigots because games should cover important social issues but only in the exact, hyper-narrow way you think they should and otherwise, the creators are evil. And it certainly doesn't give them the high ground to write fluff pieces about frauds like Zoe Quinn, painting her as this incredibly brave woman who stood up to "The Internet" and never mentioning the fact that she's been making thousands of dollars from her fans for years and done absolutely nothing with it. You don't get to call yourselves journalists when you do stuff like that and you sure as shit don't get to go insulting your audience for pointing it out and not expect pushback.

The incredible arrogance and narcissism in what can be called "games journalism" now astounds me. There are horrible people on the Internet but it's trivially easy to separate the passionate audience from the trolls. They didn't, they lumped us all together, declared an entire identity dead in one voice after arranging it in private forums (odd, I thought these people were supposed to be competing) because it was easy and generated outrage clicks. And they expected to be rewarded with more business for this and wonder why YouTube and Twitch (which I create in and which has so many, many problems of its own) are ruining them. That's not just unethical, it's just plain despicable.

There are dozens of incredible indie games coming out every day that none of these sites talk about. You know how I know? Because I get review codes and press kits for them on a daily basis. I'm a nobody on YouTube (I don't even have 1,000 subs) but these developers practically beg me to cover their games (many of which are really great) because the big sites ignore them, instead devoting time and energy to calling Eidos Montreal racists or fluffing up pretentious drivel like Sunset or profiling someone who made one non-game and hasn't made anything since in years. These aren't games that have no marketing and no one behind them. It's PR agencies giving me these codes, rarely is it the devs themselves. I try to cover all this stuff because I want devs to think they can trust me with review codes but they shouldn't have to come to YouTube nobodies to get exposure. They should be getting it from the big sites but talking about actual, real, good games isn't as lucrative as constantly insulting your audience, writing about your friends and declaring an industry evil without a shred of proof.

If anything "enthusiast press" should be better than the mainstream because they should know how to serve their niche audience the best. The games press is 100% backwards on that right now. And they wonder why they're dying. Good riddance.

As I said, I do not support GamerGate in its current form. I could go on and on and on about the problems it's always had or how what it's turned into is pretty disgusting in many ways. However, especially at the beginning, it was also grossly misrepresented and a lot of that is why it continues and has morphed into what it is now.

Wow, Austin Walker's VICE Gaming is basically becoming exactly what I thought it would. That's a shame.

Forget since Gamergate, Quinn has done literally nothing since releasing Depression Quest (which was not only bad but a very bad tool to use to self-diagnose depression), aside from making thousands of dollars a month on Patreon just to complain online and scream harassment when anyone contradicts her.

Right after the Polaris GAME_JAM mess, she said she was going to start Rebel Jam as a response. Game jam's are usually organised in a matter of days but it's been almost two and a half years and all it has to show for itself is a placeholder web site. She also ran a harassment campaign against The Fine Young Capitalists, a feminist focused game jam who was competing with her's. They've released a game, meanwhile Camp's Not Dead, the game she was supposed to be working on, is nowhere in sight and now she's apparently working on another one?

She got a bunch of money from Feminist Frequency and the official backing of Twitter to start Crash Override Network, which launched months late, refuses to show any of the supposedly good work it's done and oh yeah, one of its counsellors was recently caught sexually harassing a bunch of the female victims he was charged with helping. Several members of the organisation were also shown to have banded together to attempt a dox of someone they disagreed with online. You know, the exact kind of thing they're given money to prevent.

She has made tens of thousands of dollars to do basically nothing but whine on the Internet. Nearly every project she has said she would do, she hasn't done and not only has not a single member of the gaming press asked why, they continue to write fluff pieces like this, holding her up as some sort of paragon of indie game development, while people who work their asses off to produce actual, real content without thousands a month from e-begging, basically get ignored.

I don't support Gamergate in the form it took but crap like this is why it's absolutely undeniable that corruption and cronyism are rampant in the games press. I didn't always agree with Austin Walker but I really thought he was above this kind of garbage.

CJ_Parker wrote on Aug 24, 2016, 10:50:
Awesome

I'm just picturing being handed a binder of CJ_Parker's post history with every new CPU purchase. Worst bundle ever.

Beamer wrote on Aug 22, 2016, 23:14:
I think you mean "usually reads the headline and makes some sort of extreme comment based on his misunderstanding that would be easily avoided if he read even the first paragraph."

And then bails out of the thread after his drive-by snark.

You'd probably be surprised how many would still recognise the THQ name and many of those probably don't even know it failed.

The weird part is thq.com still points to THQ's old site from just before they went bankrupt. Weird to go through the process of buying a brand and renaming yourself with it and still leave the web site like that.

HoSpanky wrote on Jul 26, 2016, 10:06:
"Now they're doing it to Steam"...has steam been broken or gimped in any way with win10? Or is this speculation? I haven't noticed anything change in regards to functionality.

I've been running 10 since launch and Steam is fine in it. In addition to that, Phil Spencer has already said Microsoft has no plans to cripple external game software this way (Hell, he's said that Microsoft's UWP games will also be sold on Steam) and that it would be suicide for their OS strategy to do so. Steam is a near monopoly on PC and Microsoft knows it. There are a LOT of Windows users out there who only are because of gaming (I'm not one of those people but I know that's the case) and if they cripple the most popular way to play games, they'll lose those people to Linux or gods forfend, Mac.

If he's going to talk about people restricting things to walled gardens, maybe he should allow people to play Epic games on platforms other than this shit Epic Games Launcher. Oh right, do as he says, not as he does.

This comment was edited on Jul 26, 2016, 10:41.

I'm hoping to stream some of this in a bit. A friend of mine has been talking it up for a while but I wasn't paying much attention to it. Then I suddenly got an unsolicited review code the other day. Some have said this is like Dwarf Fortress in space which kind of terrifies me but I'm eager to check it out.