This one was a personal topic for both myself and Chieftain, and apparently several fans as well.
Ultimately, the fans are sick of the content milking tendencies of studios these days. The new Destiny game is a mobile game, not even a full release, not even DLC, and the fans are angry about it.
Chief, and darn near every host, past and present, all said the same thing once the boss man himself finished his rant:
“Release a new game. This isn’t World of Warcraft, this isn’t an MMO, it’s a Squad Shooter. You can’t endlessly release DLCs, you must release something new and fresh.”
I, myself, am a Destiny fan…and I mean I played both Destiny and Destiny 2. I stopped after I finished the main game of 2, however, because I didn’t want to pay more money for DLC content that wasn’t a full game. It’s time to release the next leg of the story in a full feature product. New classes, new powers, new gear–and some old gear coming back as an easter egg isn’t a bad idea, just don’t reskin everything like COD or Battlefield–new characters. Let’s get our act together Bungie! Your studio is dang near gaming royalty, but your legacy is all but dead because you don’t listen to your fans. All the OGs have left or retired. The only way to reclaim that title, quite simply, is to listen to the fans and release something that they want. If you do, they will throw down their money in piles to taste something new. And good. It has to be good.
That said, what do you, the fans, think? Am I right? Am I wrong? Is releasing the same tired stuff for 15 years ok? (I’m looking at Skyrim and GTA5). Let us know in the comments below, what do you think!
I know, I know, Chieftain continues to say that this thing doesn’t matter because we’re American, and the corpos already have our private information. There is, however, more to this than meets the eye.
What Chieftain neglects to realize is that EU legislation tends to affect production and sales on a global scale, considering the EU will not allow sales of products that do not follow their guidelines. The effects of this can be seen in how they were attempting to compel Rumble to comply with the Online Safety Act a few years ago. OFCOM was attempting to tell Rumble to ban Russell Brand, due to the accusation allegations against him… which had been withdrawn last I’d heard.
Additionally, the whole ‘online harassment’ concept seems to be catching on from the EU, spreading to Australia and Canada, making it so social media posts can be prosecuted. I know that NOT ALL of their laws are coming this way, but it’s like a test bed before the laws get pushed to America.
The biggest concern from this Online Safety Act is the fact that every Public Official that is supporting this in the EU is using the lines “THINK OF THE KIDS!” and “IF YOU ARE AGAINST THIS BILL YOU ARE AGAINST PROTECTING CHILDREN.” Secretly, though, they are including in the bill massive provisions for governmental overreach. One example of such includes the creation of a special task force that monitors social media for individuals and posts that are anti-immigration in the UK.
How disgusting is that? “Just think of the children” while secretly pushing evil legislation. Of course, this is the UK. But what isn’t commonly known is KOPA in the USA, “Kids Online Protection Act.” Things are starting to push straight for the ID verification. YouTube just initiated it, Spotify just initiated it, and several others, including rumors that GTA6 was going to require ID verification. In fact, Xbox is already complying.
First and foremost: Who gets to be the arbiter of determining what is unsafe for children? Who gets to determine what is ok for grown adults to spend their money on? Who gets to parent my children, since, according to the UK, I’m not competent enough to make such an executive decision on my own as an adult?
These are reasons why the UK needs to eat crow, kick rocks, pound sand, and any other euphonism that can be stated in place of “Mind your own damn business.” I’m the parent of my children. Not some government that exists across the pond, or any government, for that matter.
Ok, we’ve had this topic on the live twice now, and I’ve decided to pick it up as an article, simply because we can’t get every single detail of this issue out in a few segments.
Before I dive into the main point of this recap, I’ll have to apologize in advance, as we did miss a particular topic we had intended to include this last week, and that is the controversy surrounding Krafton, Unknown Worlds, and Subnautica 2. Fortunately for us, the situation is continuing to change and shift, and there’s even more to cover in it this week, should the team deem it a worthy topic to cover.
Now on to the main event: Stop Killing Games, PirateSoftware, Thor being a basket case, and Ross Scott being a class act. Featuring cameos from PewDiePie, JackSepticEye, Notch, Asmongold, and quite a few more major names.
This saga began with the Ubisoft game The Crew, a racing game that had gained a ridiculous amount of attention and traction during it’s lifetime. Ubisoft then prepared to launch the game The Crew 2. In preparation for it, they decided to sunset, and shutdown, The Crew. What they hadn’t accounted for was the fans of the game to absolutely and completely rebel against this decision, which was compounded by the actions that Ubisoft took.
I know what you’re thinking: “Wait, you mean that you’re placing the blame for this movement on Ubisoft? How can you be so sure?” I’ll tell you, dear reader, although it’s more than just Ubisoft, they lit the fuse. The fault lies at the feet of Corporate Software Developers.
Ubisoft decided to shutdown all of the servers for The Crew. They intentionally designed the game to always be online, to require check-ins with the game servers, and to not have any offline assets. Once the servers were offline, the game ceased functionality. “What about physical copies?” Oh, about that… The physical copies only contained the game demo. Pretty scummy, right? But wait… there’s more…
Ubisoft went into every user’s game catalog and removed The Crew from everybody’s game library, no matter the platform they purchased it on. Complete erasure of the game from modern gaming, complete game-kill.
Now, this was the catalyst, but not the entire situation. Over the last decade, actually the last two, one could say, online gaming has become more and more prevalent, and entertainment as a whole has shifted in delivery dynamics. Physical media has slowly been pushed to the wayside, and gradually entertainment companies have pushed for media to be hosted on the cloud as a digital download, or streaming to be utilized as a delivery method.
The reality, dear reader, is that Entertainment as an industry wants to become a subscription service, and Corporate Gaming wants you to pay them monthly instead of one time product purchases.
At any rate, this sparked Ross Scott’s call to action. The man sat down and articulated an entire proposal for legislation and petitioned to stop killing games. In this initiative, that you can read here, he details his proposal that should a company or corporation wish to sunset their product for any reason, that they need to have an action plan that they will lay out publicly to leave the game in some form of playable state. The product can then continue to be used after the company has stopped supporting it. He further outlines that this does not mean that the company must continue hosting said product at their expense, or that they must continue to update the product, only that they game can continue to function without their involvement once they sunset it.
One of the major draws of this initiative is the rather large movement out there that supports game archival and preservation, and the retro-gaming crowd. This is a growing market in recent years, and many have voiced their support of this initiative from the archival and retro perspectives.
Ross Scott has also pointed to several MMOs that have shut down over the last two decades, that still are out there and running, such as Ultima Online, Phantasy Star, City of Heroes, and even World of Warcraft private servers. This is an agreeable outcome, I would imagine, but we’ll get to the detractors next.
Even games from the 80s and 90s are still playable, but in the last 5 years, several have been taken completely offline, and rendered unplayable across the board. Not even 20 years ago, games like Halo 2 had multiplayer that did not rely on dedicated servers to function, but rather, relied on the player’s consoles to host the multiplayer sessions online. It would be reasonable for game devs to push a patch that would point the server functionality to the connection peers of multiplayer sessions like they did back in the early days of XBox Live. Multiplayer for each franchise does not need to die, just because the game devs decide they’re not making enough money.
The other noteworthy point of this, and one that had been previously voiced on the show, is that this is a European Union initiative, and not one that includes the US… yet… After all, what laws affect international businesses, will 99% of the time, also affect the business practices in the US. Shortly after a passage of a law in the EU, the US will follow up with something addressing it on their side. This matter is going to make big waves in gaming, no matter which way the chips fall.
Shortly after this initiative launched, there seemed to be little to no interest in the petition. It did, however, gain the attention of one somewhat notorious indie game developer, PirateSoftware AKA Thor. Pirate Software was founded by Jason Thor Hall, who also created a YouTube and Twitch Channel by the name of Pirate Software. He was once a Blizzard developer–though, his storied carrier was much less illustrious than he would have you think. From the words of other Blizz employees, he was rarely much more than an entry level Blizzard grunt. Thor often claims that he left the AAA gaming scene because he did not like the direction that AAA gaming was going. His resume implies that he didn’t have the skills to make it, and what got him his placements in the industry was tied more to his parental connections than to his own personal achievements.
Thor would muddy the waters around #StopKillingGames, claiming that their Magnum Opus was to stop devs from producing live service games, and forcing them, through lawmaking, to never pull the plug on MMOs, and so on. He made a couple of hour long videos addressing the movement’s publications, reading them live. It is clear that Thor either 1) has poor reading comprehension, or 2) was intentionally presenting the information incorrectly to misdirect his fanbase into a different point of view.
Ross responded, breaking down each of Thor’s points and citing, with clear evidence and text citations from his own published petition, disproving each and every single point that Thor came up with to reject the initiative.
This prompted a very swift backlash against Pirate Software and Thor, causing both of his streaming channels to tank in subscribers and followers, averaging an overnight loss of 10k viewers, causing a total loss of over 100k in short order.
The back and forth between the two caught the attention of PewDiePie and JackSepticEye pretty early on. Both YouTube legends supported Stop Killing Games and Ross, which began the bull run to over a million signatures on the petition, less than a month and a half before the deadline.
Around this same time, Thor made claims that he was being harassed, doxed, and sent death threats. Every content creator involved in this back and forth, including Ross, has openly disavowed this behavior. Thor never provided receipts that I have seen. That said, he left his studio, Pirate Software, and I quote “I hope you get everything you asked for, but none of what you wanted” as a closing statement to the Stop Killing Games movement.
Additionally, several AAA game developers have made opposition statements (color me shocked) citing an undue increase in cost of development and strain should this initiative see success. But what this really means is that studios wouldn’t be able to turn the gaming industry into a subscription service, should the initiative see their desires met.
Most recently, YongYea covered this topic, supporting Ross’ initiative, as has Asmongold. Most everybody at this point knows that when Asmond speaks, the internet shakes in response. It doesn’t matter if it is a good take or a bad take, he’s just that big of a creator these days. Both of these men’s words drove the petition over the million signature mark, and it’s been sitting there for more than a week at over 1.3 million, enough padding to ensure that even if fake signatures are found and dismissed, the petition will be fine when presented to the EU lawmakers.
Now you may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned Notch yet… That’s because he only recently commented. He replied to the response of the AAA game devs:
“If buying a game isn’t owning the game, then pirating the game is not stealing.” He voiced this common phrase that has been out there since the CEO of Ubisoft made the boneheaded comment stating that gamers need to get used to not owning their games.
Notch didn’t stop there, though, and continued: “Gamers need to start hosting their own private game servers again, like we used to back in the day.”
I can’t say that I disagree. Notch has been pretty controversial since he sold off Minecraft, but you can’t deny the validity of these comments in this case.
Let us know what you think, Laggin’ Out Legion! Comment below, and voice your opinion.
Other Topics Discussed This Live…
HIRO: IT TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH, KOTAKU, NOBODY WILL MISS YOU
CONGRATULATIONS, KEITH DAVID!
HIRO REVIEWS JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH
CHEIFTAIN V INDIANA JONES
UNKNOWN WORLDS STUDIO MAKES A BONEHEAD MOVE (OR FIVE)
LAGGINOUT MINUTE: DREW STRUZAN RETIRES AND YOUTUBER CHALLENGES 69 YO DAD TO DARKSOULS!
I’m a bit late on this article, and I apologize for it. Moving on.
We started the stream off with a brief walk down memory lane, where Soda and Chieftain reveal some of the silly stuff that was a thing in their childhood (and my own, to a degree, ironically.) Soda lead the topic, talking about the lack of seatbelts in the reverse facing backseats in cars, playground equipment that would bake the skin off your arse if you slid down that slide in the noontime sun, and even drinking from the hose! Ultimately, Gen X survived some wild things, if Gen Alpha were to see it happen in this era.
The next topic we dove into was a revelation that Bungie had announced a crossover DLC of Destiny and Star Wars. Chieftain almost immediately launched into a rant on how this was an affront to both franchises. Frankly, I agree, and this announcement simply tells me that Bungie is desperate to try and stretch out the already expired lifespan of Destiny 2. All of us see the announcement for what it is. A shameless money grab.
Shortly after, we jumped into the following topic: HBO Failed to learn from the mistakes of Naughty Dog, copyright striking The Critical Drinker for his critical review of The Last of Us Season 2. This was some main villain stuff, for real. Neil Cuck-Man really congratulated HBO for nailing the death scene for Joel. The whole reason I never picked up this series was simply put, I knew exactly how the show would play out. Not really the finer details, but I knew the main plots already, considering I knew the game plot… I predicted that this season would start off with some blood soaked golf, and I was right. The ratings are flowing exactly how I expected as well, with the ‘every day viewer’ dropping out right after the death of their favorite main character. This show can’t be carried by the actors remaining. I’m calling time of death, dear readers.
Jon Voight made headlines that we decided to cover, and apparently, he’s the source of the plans to save Hollywood through tariffs! Hollywood wants that governmental protection by forcing studios to pay more if they want to use workers outside of the US to produce our movies. It’s a sound plan, really. The conversation devolved into general conversations surrounding the tariffs, taxes, and so on, and didn’t stay centered around Hollywood and Voight, honestly, and I don’t think anybody would be surprised at the ADHD charged topic this had become.
And FINALLY, we discussed something of a recurring topic: Polygon being bought out, and then laying off 90% of their staff. This is a continuing sign of the collapse of the mainstream game’s media. Gaming Journalists are living on borrowed time, and the approach of the demise of their industry is on the express train here. Honestly, I called this a year or so ago, and I had said it would be Kotaku, but it seems I was off target, just a bit. I don’t know if I get to count this, but it’s absolutely a win for gamers. We don’t need or want the yellow journalism of these people.
What did you guys think of our thoughts in last week’s show?
Topics Discussed This Live…
LOE TOPICS:
GEN X SURVIVED SOME WILD STUFF – SODA N CHIEF’S MEMORY LANE
BUNGIE HITS THE PANIC BUTTON: DESTINY 2 X STAR WARS
HBO DID NOT LEARN FROM NAUGHTY DOG: COPYRIGHT ABUSE
JON VOIGHT PLANS TO SAVE HOLLYWOOD
POLYGON’S DOWNFALL: VALNET LAYS OFF 90% OF THE STAFF
I’m going to do something a little different this go around, please share your thoughts on whether or not this works for you, Legionnaires, in the comments below.
This past Friday, and for a few weeks running now, we’ve been running shorter entertainment news segments, and then ending the show off with some game time with the fans. Overall, we would like to continue this format going forward, as it provides us with some entertainment, rather than the dull drone of the wreckage of what has become of mainstream entertainment. It’s almost weekly, now, where we talk about some tone deaf or out of touch executive, actor, voice actor, or developer, that thinks they’re experiencing review bombing, toxic backlash, or “insert political affiliation” trolls that are sabotaging their efforts to make more money to line their pockets. So in an effort to shift the podcast to a more positive light, we’re trying something new, and we want you to join us on this “crusade” if you will.
Our show had a few topics that I’ll hit on briefly this past week, and I’ll end off with a more in-depth dive into one of them to add more perspective.
To start with, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion got a remaster, much to the delight of the fans. For once, it’s not another re-release of Skyrim, for the 15th freakin time. (Seriously, the dev team is starting to look like a one trick pony.)
To the stream’s delight, I shared a link provided by The Mariner, of a clip of a user playing Oblivion, and ‘glitch cutting’ to Skyrim’s intro in a satire X post, shown here:
I was enjoying the Oblivion remaster/remake but this bug keeps happening and its ruining the experience pic.twitter.com/Z6Oyn7bM1X
To the dev’s credit, the game seems to be largely bug free, and more or less, widely and well received. But this is where things went off the rails…. The devs made the decision to remove the “Male or Female” option from the character creator, replacing it with “Body Type 1 or 2” creating controversy that will be addressed later. This change is said to affect some quest outcomes that were based on the character’s gender. Interesting decision, no?
Later in the show, we discussed how the tariffs are affecting the gaming industry, more specifically board and table top gaming. I did a bit of verbal fencing with Chieftain on this topic, though, it was pretty clear we were both on the same side of the opinion, and the only real difference in what we were stating came down to the details of how tariffs work.
I brought up a specific about tariff issues, where, when production is filed for, and shipping is done, it matters what category you file your product under, as to how much of a tariff will have to be paid. Not all categories of tariffs with Chinese production are being taxed at 145%, and nor are they being taxed at 10%.
Chief brought up finer details about who is paying the tariffs, and when. And Soda alluded to how he didn’t think it mattered too much, because all of the people that import their production seem to be hiking up prices in response to the tariffs, whether they actually have to pay more or not. What do you think, Legionnaires?
Next up on the topic parkour, we discussed a bit about how Body Type 1 and Body Type 2 in gaming is being massively derided in gaming now. In the last five or so years, this trend has been catching traction. Now that the over all social climate has been getting sick of the lectures, and people are tired of the politicking, it seems to have died off, with most devs are shifting away from that.
News research revealed to us that there was some fan backlash against Pocket Pair, in Palworld, Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD Remake, and of course, most recent, Oblivion.
The Lead developer of Lords of the Fallen and Lords of the Fallen 2 put an X poll out there to see if players would prefer Body Type 1 and 2, or Male and Female for character creator options. Overwhelmingly, Male and Female won. The climate is shifting away from the “Political Correct” languages, it seems. Later, he asked if game characters should be conventionally attractive or not, and of course, conventionally attractive won. It would seem he continues to ask questions of the public that are addressing the more controversial aspects of development in games and entertainment these last five to ten years, and seeking out the answers to what the general public wants.
Over all, the hosts, myself included, believe that entertainment and game development should go the path that appeals to the most people that will buy your product, and if you make an unpopular decision that costs you, don’t blame the fans, don’t call it toxic troll backlash. Take the L, and do better next time!
And now finally, the main event that I chose to write about today, folks, the Wheel of Time Topic!
I can speak for myself, when I say this topic would normally excite me, and I would be clamoring for more details on it. I would even venture to say that one of our other staff, Tyrundeth, would agree. However, there are signs and concerns that make me believe that this project is doomed to fail.
The Wheel of Time is slated to be developed as an open world RPG by IWOT studios, lead by Craig Alexander, lead dev for the likes of The Lord of the Rings Online. The studio has publicly stated that they intend to build out an expansive and open world that reflects the world described in the books, with different cultures and kingdoms included. They highlight that they do not intend to create a one to one adaptation story of the books, and aim to create stories in eras outside of the timeline covered by the long standing series.
If you don’t recognize that studio, then perhaps that’s because they recently rebranded from Red Eagle Studios. The very studio that crowdfunded buying the license rights to the game development of The Wheel of Time, and then sitting on them for a decade or more with no progress to show for it. This is where my concern begins, and my skepticism takes hold. Normally, when a dev team states they wont be adapting the established story, it implies something going sideways, and quickly.
I had a lot to say about this, and strong opinions, but that’s mostly because I’m a massive fan of The Wheel of Time. The blueprints to success exist already, why not just… I don’t know…use the answers to the test that are already there? But we all know how Entertainment Leaders all have egos, and want to develop their own successful things.
What do you guys think? Comment below, and let us know!
This past week we began to use a new format for presentation of our podcast. Please comment and let us know how you feel about these changes, we love feedback from our fans!
On to the recap of topics! This particular topic has been on my mind recently, as this seems to be a pretty unique bit of news out there in the entertainment world.
Adi Shankar has been a known quantity for a few years now, considering his writing portfolio, between Castlevania and a few other franchises. His prowess with the pen is certainly admirable, but he suffers from a deep seeded spiteful streak against organized religion, specifically Christianity, race commentary, and American politics. He of course denies this vehemently when people levy that criticism against his works.
This holds true with his latest work, Devil May Cry, however, the situation, in my perspective, isn’t so clear cut. When it comes to stories from the Devil May Cry franchise, there’s a lot of social commentary that rides along in the background, and that commentary is very difficult to pull out when it comes to people that are not established fans of the series.
In fact, in Devil May Cry 2, there’s a whole set of cutscenes where a government of the DMC world decided to invade Hell, and start to try and cut down demons. In the animated series that Shankar wrote, it was, in fact, American forces invading Hell, with the excuse of blaming Russia for the incursion. Over the top and ridiculous is the name of the game, in that, and it seems like a backhanded comment from the writers. Add to this, the story in the animation seems to identify that demon-kind is simply an alternate evolution of humanity that populated an alternate dimensional space, seeming to add to the commentary on immigration, as well as adding another franchise to the list of creating ‘relatable, misunderstood villains.’ This is a concept that I’ve grown tired of. Some storytelling simply requires a villain to be evil, and not for any other reason than to be so.
The topic of religion in the DMC universe, though, is something far simpler, and in this case, I cannot lay malice at Shankar’s feet… not entirely, at least. DMC was written years ago, by a Japanese developer during a time in his life that he knew almost no English, and when he created the game, he chose to use virtually no dialog for it’s narration. Add to that the fact that the game was originally meant to be a sequel to Resident Evil. In this first game, he used a lot of Christian iconography as part of the game’s designs. In later releases, he fleshed out the back story using actual narration as his own grasp of the English language grew. The story included an organized religion, using similar iconography to Christianity, that worshipped one of the Greater Demons of the game’s lore, Sparda. In the lore behind that religious group there was deep seeded corruption, where many religious leaders would betray humanity to be granted a small measure of demonic power from other evil demons, or for other various reasons. So this religious corruption is an existing concept. This fact does not exonerate Adi Shakar, however, as you can look at most of his works and see this particular theme woven into virtually every single work he has his hands in.
As I said, this particular news has some interesting facts, and they tie together in an interesting way, but ultimately, it is on the fans to decide whether they feel Shakar is just openly bashing things he opposes. Or is he remaining true to the lore? Don’t forget though, Laggin’ Out Legion, two things can be true at the same time, and this is more my stance than anything else. I’ll leave you folks to decide on your own what you think! Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Other Topics Discussed on This Live…
GINA CARANO WINS BIGLY
SEND US VIDEOS TO REACT TO
IT’S HARLEY DAVID, SON!
STREAMERS AND WRITERS WANTED
AETHEON-WEBTOONS ADAPTATIONS!
CHIEFTAIN ADHD CORDER: PORN STAR OR WRESTLER, GUESS WHICH
This year, on April 1st, PocketPair announced the official coming release of their Pal-based dating sim. Most people reacted with the same doubt that I did, until everybody took a closer look.
There is, in fact, a Steam listing for the game. There is a ToS measure that states the game must be a real game, must have regular updates and maintenance for it to remain valid and be listed. This absolutely does imply that the game will be a real thing.
This came accompanied by a generic, confused, and cringing reaction from the general masses, opening up the company to the internet’s rules that had already been rampaging across the Web. Of course, this proves, once again, that no matter the content, the denizens of the internet will find a way to turn it into porn. In this case, however, it lends further to those with kink tendencies… and as another of our fans commented during the show, furry tendencies.
All around, my thoughts are that this is going to be a troll game. They’ll publish it, it may be an hour or three of gameplay, but it wont be serious, it wont be taken serious, and it will just be thrown out for like $5-$10, and PocketPair will rake in the green for the value of a joke.
What do you think, Laggin’ Out Legion? Comment your thoughts below, please! We’d like to hear from you.
Other Topics Discussed on This Live…
RIP Val Kilmer
Rick and Morty’s new season announcement
Spiderman 4 with Tom Holland
John Wick 5 announcement
Black OP 6 Cross Play Complaints
New Elden Ring DLC? No, new game! (laggin out min)
This last show, this particular topic REALLY stuck in my craw. I’ve always had a soft spot for Peter Parker’s Spidey for quite a while.
We all know that Soda has a hate boner for Spider-Man, and to nobody’s surprise, he trolled everybody, and did everything in his ever-loving power to derail the conversation. But…on to the meat of this topic!
There was a recent statement by the current executive editor of Marvel, Tom Breevort, and it truly reflected some anti-money perspectives of the state of the industry.
In this interview, Breevort voiced his dismissiveness of the idea that Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson needed to be a couple. It’s clear that the Ultimate Spider-Man run of the comics is outselling, out performing, and out-doing the main storyline of Spiderman; it’s clear to long-time fans why that is, too.
In the current main storyline of The Amazing Spider-Man, the marriage between MJ and Peter was nullified by a deal with the devil, and she ended up marrying some wild self-insert of the writer that was an absolute insult to the titular Web-Head, firmly friend-zoning him to ‘brother’ status with the iconic red head. Meanwhile, in The Ultimate Spider-Man storyline, they ran a short term story arc called “One More Day,” where Peter and MJ are married, have a child, and reflects where the pair would be in their relationship, had the storyline with them being together had continued on, rather than being rebooted, and then ret-conned. The Ultimate run has far outperformed the Amazing run, and Breevort has seemed to take it personally, and taken to insulting the fanbase, and dismissing them as a vocal minority.
In later comments in the interview, Tom’s language changes, slightly, reflecting “We decided,” and “Our stance,” instead of personalizing the responses with “Me, My, I,” etc. This, in my opinion, is indicative of, maybe a Disney curated response, or mandate. I’m theorizing that maybe Disney and Marvel have added some stats to Spidey’s character bible. Considering that Spider-Man is a fan favorite of the younger/kid demographic, would it be too much of a stretch to think that maybe an executive decision was made that Peter had to remain single, in perpetuity, to continue to evoke the younger stigma of Spidey? I propose that Disney decided the ‘family friendly’ image must be pushed through Marvel’s single most popular super hero. No love interests, high school/early college age forever, and so forth.
What do you think, Legion? Am I hitting the mark? Or do you think that, perhaps, Tom and Disney, just haven’t learned their lesson? Let us know below!
This news hit the mainstream pretty hard and fast. The wild thing is, however, that the mainstream is trying to spin this particular news in a dishonest way. Shocking, I know.
NetEase laid off a dev team that was based out of Seattle that worked on the R&D portion of the game, such as levels, maps and the foundational mechanics of the game. As it is understood at the moment, it’s pretty standard for the R&D team to be let go once they complete their contractual obligations, which they had.
This is an unfortunate reality in the gaming industry. The mainstream media, however, seems to be attempting to twist the narrative to make it appear that layoffs are occurring despite the game’s success. This is a factual statement, BUT the team’s obligations had been accomplished, and once one finishes a contract, does that not mean the position closes?
Further, the dev team was only a team of six, and the director of the team was absolutely not the studio director of NetEase, like was implied.
This just goes to show that the mainstream game’s media have an absolute contempt for gamers and the industry for some reason that I fail to understand more and more every year. Once upon a time, Game’s Journalism was an industry FOR gamers, and BY gamers. Nowadays, it seems to just be a stepping stone into political journalism. Even the journalism industry has been quoted claiming that there are only 24 games journalists working in the industry anymore. I say good, let them go under. The gamers don’t need journalists, and neither does the gaming industry. The industry can still hear our voices without them in this era. They need only look to social media and YouTube to see what we think of their work. With a bit more time, I think they’re going to listen harder; after all, they should start listening more when we close our wallets.
Other Topics Discussed on This Live…
WARGAMING STEELS OUR ATTENTION
BACK TO THE FUTURE: BOB GALE ANNOUNCES A NEW GAME (AND SOME WE DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT)
LAGGIN OUT THINK BREAK: WHAT WAS YOUR WORST GAMING MISTAKE?
In the recent years, Warner Bros has been doing its best impression of the Borg and Disney. Really, this was attributed to the AT&T acquisition some years ago, though.
Amidst all of this, one of the casualties of the assimilation was Rooster Teeth, through a combined purchase for other intellectual property, and not intentionally. Warner and AT&T had no idea what to do with the two decade old brand.
Unfortunately, this led to multiple poor decisions by Rooster Teeth executives, long since divested of the original founder leadership. Rumors abound of their unwillingness to comply with their new corporate leadership, leading to them being pushed out, one by one.
Last year, unfortunately, Rooster Teeth got shut down by Warner Bros after a long and rather drawn out decline under corporate leadership. There are plenty of details and reasons that can be brought to the table over this subject, but that topic would invite all number of angry fans involving their favorite RT productions (Looking at you RWBY).
However, by some stroke of good fortune, one year later, Chieftain’s old Alma Mater of Rooster Teeth lives again, as a studio under the umbrella of Box Canyon Productions! Owned by RT founder Burnie Burns, he decided to buy back his old studio, and bring it back to its roots. Unfortunately, most of the intellectual property was divested before the shutdown, so RWBY is not a part of their production anymore.
Chieftain had some small comments to make about Rooster Teeth, during this topic, and a lot of it was fairly harsh, but warranted. As I hear tell, though, such sentiments are common amongst the work environments of animation and production studios.
Will Rooster Teeth’s revival be epic, or will it flop? We ask the Laggin’ Out Legion this question. Comment below, if you have any predictions one way or the other!
