Author: Hiro

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve provided a proper update to the goings on in the entertainment world, and this is the first one I’ve personally done for our fantastic fans since the beginning of the holiday season of 2024.

During our stream this last week (Jan 24), we had a discussion about an article done by ThatParkPlace.com, where the writer recounted a video game analyst’s report that developers are quietly hoping that Take Two Interactive will raise the price of GTA 6 to $100 plus to meet the demands of the market.

This particular topic is not new to our panel of hosts. While Soda somewhat is on the fence with the concept, Chieftain is all for the price bump.

To leave the conversation at that would be disingenuous to each of our standpoints, which, believe it or not, are more nuanced than a surface statement.

To really unpack this conversation, one must consider the production costs, the salaries, and the way everything is funded in the game dev sector. Additionally, one must consider the outside interference of the bean counters and numbers guys that only care about dollars in, and dollars out. I shouldn’t need to point out the release schedules, famous amount of crunch, or the disasters that were the releases of numerous high visibilities titles (Cyberpunk 2077, I’m looking at you). Almost with invariable certainty, I can say that such releases should have the blame placed squarely on the shoulders of the executives.

The Mariner, as well as myself, have taken, perhaps, the hardline stance, that we can just play our backlogs of games, and ignore the AAA (while glaring at Ubisoft for the abomination of AAAA) titles that choose to hike their prices up to or around $100. Preorders are certainly off the table, and DLCs are only in the cards for the games that earn the purchases. To note, I’m absolutely not against a total value of $100 or more. However, the game studios need to earn it. Stop releasing broken, buggy messes and calling them games. Stop releasing games with stories that the customer base doesn’t want. Stop attacking the fans and customers, as if they’re the problem, when it’s the studios and devs that are creating the issue.

In a few words: Earn it, and then maybe I will consider that price tag. I’m not completely blind to the changes in the markets, the prices of development, nor the salary requirements for survival. No, not at all. In fact, if the quality of effort and the diligence of the workers were at the same levels that they had been in previous years of gaming, I’d be more open to this idea. Unfortunately, though, seeing development budgets explode to very nearly the same size as a Hollywood movie, I’m less inclined to think the price tag of $100+ is justified. Not when you can easily point at the executives of major studios for mismanagement of funds.

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Other Topics Discussed on This Live…

• CI POLLS THE AUDIENCE!
• MURDER, DEATH, TEAMKILL! MURDER, DEATH, TEAMKILL!
• JAMES WOODS DOUBLE REVERSE UNO OF FATE
• EX-CDPR DIRECTOR OUTCLASSES CDPR
• JK CLOWNS THE CLOWNS
• NASFERATU SKARSGARD HOR-ROR!
• Q&A FOR THE CHIEF

It would seem that Alyssa Mercante can’t stop seeking attention as she races to the bottom of her career. Her position as the defacto editor-in-chief of Kotaku ended recently, to her claims of leaving willingly. Within an hour of that happening, the vast majority of her colleagues at Kotaku were laid off.

Most everybody that reported this speculated that she was laid off, but was told to resign, so she could save face. She followed the layoff tweet up with a statement that she is going to be writing for Rolling Stone. Rumor also has it that Mercante has started to publish her own articles through X and other crowdfunded subscriber services.

Amidst all of the controversy surrounding this insufferable troglodyte, none of the reports covered the fact that she misrepresented the events surrounding Sweet Baby, Inc. and Kabrutus, StellarBlade and a Farm Simulator developer, Smash JT and herself (obviously), and numerous other egregious violations of journalistic integrity.

To cap it all off with a nice figurative cherry on top, Alyssa Mercante also has absolutely no tact in how she smugly publicizes her contempt for those that disagree with her opinions. She, of course, finished off sharing her news about leaving Kotaku and joining Rolling Stone, by telling people who she disagreed with to “Kiss My Ass.”

Stay classy, Laggin’ Out Legion.

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Other Topics Discussed on This Live…

• HOGWARTS LEGACY RIDES AGAIN
• MASS INEFFECT
• RUMORED REMAKE RISING
• NETFLIX STILL PLAYING THE DAREDEVIL
• UNIVERSAL DONKEY KONG LAND

Or at least, these conservative commentators want you to think that.

It would seem that we are witnessing the early stages of a 90s rerun. If some of our dear readers would recall from the late 80s and early 90s, an event that was lovingly called “The Satanic Panic,” it would seem we may have a sequel. Back then, several rock bands, table top game creators, and artists were called into congress to testify about their motivations in their art. Conservatives readily denounced such hobbies and artistic outlets as evil, and poison to the young.

Liz Wheeler was interviewed by Glenn Beck a few weeks ago, declaring male gamers to be “undatable.” Glenn Beck was quick to agree, and declare that he forbade his daughters from dating gamers and collectors of figurines. This particular view seems to be permeating the conservative commentary space. I refer our readers to the views held by Matt Walsh as well. He is very vocal about denouncing anime and video game violence.

A saying comes to mind when I see this narrative rear its ugly head repeatedly: “How many times do I have to teach you this lesson, old man?” I may be a gamer, a fan of anime, animation, and all things nerd… But I’m no criminal, I’m not a violent degenerate, nor am I weak. Yet these people, who have garnered the support of the gaming audiences, continue to parrot the old tired narratives that gaming breeds violence, weakness, and unsavory behaviors.

The proverbial gamer, however, is not without allies. There are some pretty prestigious gamers out there, such as Elon Musk himself, who has pointed out that gaming actually aids with focus, critical thinking, and memory recall.

These attacks by conservative pundits do not end with gamers, but also stems to collectors and hobbyists. Action figures, retro gaming collectors, and card game collectors. No hobby seems to be safe from this attack.

It only leaves us questioning: Do these people want the world dull and boring? Without creative outlets? There’s much to consider now that there has been a dynamic shift in power in our country, dear readers. All we want to do is play fun games and collect cool stuff from our childhood.

We’ll see where the chips fall in the coming years.

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• NINTENDO RUMORED TO BE TRIMMING THE FAT, DENIES IT
• SONY PUTS FIREWALK TO PASTURE
• BLACKOPS 6 DROPS, AND SO DOES CHIEFTAIN’S KD?
• WOTC MIGHT INTERVIEW CHIEFTAIN?
• WHY WAS BLADE REMOVED FROM THE LINEUP? (PART 2)
• DON’T GET USED TO MONEY, UBISOFT
• HASBRO… MOVING?
• THE UN WANTS JAPAN TO “BEHAVE”

Roughly a year ago, we reported on Deadspin’s epic miscalculation that resulted in a lawsuit.

In our report on the livestream, we talked about how Deadspin’s Carron Phillips wrote an article titled “The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress.” In said article, he displayed a clearly doctored photo of a young 9 year old KC fan wearing the team colors and headdress in support of his favorite football team. The photo was taken from an angle that only showed the black side of the boy’s face paint and the article proceeded to accuse the child of black face and cultural appropriation. Carron then continued to write about how the child was being taught racism, hatred, and bigotry by his parents. Within days of this article being released, the parents of the boy filed complaint against Deadspin and Carron Phillips, citing defamation and libel, requesting a retraction. Instead of retracting the article, the publication decided to change the title of the article, rather than retract or publish a correction.

A mere week after, the family filed a lawsuit against the offending media company, to which the company responded that the piece was opinion only.

Fast forward a year, and we finally hear an update in this situation. Not only did Deadspin get sold by their owners to another media company, but we hear a development in the case. In the case filings, we’ve found that the father lost his job, due to misguided harassment from the internet, as the family got doxxed by some malicious actors and found that the child was bullied at school.

In our experience, proving financial loss, as well as intentionally false statements in written form, equals defamation and libel in court. To nobody’s surprise, Deadspin filed to dismiss the lawsuit, however, the judge stated that the story “went beyond an expression of opinion” because it “flatly stated” what it saw the child’s “motivation” for painting his face as an “intent to disrespect and hate African Americans.” The judge also further highlighted how Phillips “devotes substantial time to describing H.A. (the 9 year old boy), and attributing negative racial motivation to him” and appears derogatory towards his parents by suggesting they taught their son racist values.

Obviously, the judge denied Deadspin’s motion to dismiss, and now the case moves on to discovery.

Laggin’ Out will continue to watch this story for updates as it moves to pretrial discovery.

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Other Topics Discussed on These Lives…

You can find this topic in the following video at around the 23 minute mark.

Laggin’ Out Entertainment offers apologies for missing a week of podcast recaps, but I promise, it’s for a good reason.

Last week, during our podcast, I offered a brief recap of what was going down between Pokemon and Palworld, and informed the other hosts, and our audience that Nintendo had finally found grounds to bring litigation against PocketPair.

Previously in this saga, Nintendo had openly stated that they were aware of the similarity between Palworld and Pokemon, and were investigating the situation. This tipped their hand in the ongoing feud, revealing that they already knew they would not win any copyright fights in this case, as intellectual property litigation only requires 33.33% alteration in designs to avoid said suits. In addition to this, Nintendo had ample warning that this game was being published, as much as three years in advance. The gaming juggernaut could easily have prevented this game from launching if they’d had a case in the first place.

Enough of the recap, though, as the situation has changed. Nintendo did a deep dive into some code, from what we’ve uncovered, and they changed their approach–deciding to attack the game in the form of game mechanics. They have decided to have a go at it from a patent violation standpoint. It seems the patent in question involves the aiming mechanics of throwing the capture ball or sphere at the target creature. I must admit, this seems to be a dubious attempt at best, and it would appear that the whole staff would agree…except for our resident Pokemon fan, The-HoneyBadgr. She certainly did not approve of the Pal designs in Palworld.

It was at this moment that I made a prediction. Well, really I cited a rumor that I’d heard: Another high roller was tossing their hat into the ring. Sony has joined the battle, teaming up with PocketPair. This was where the Podcast from 9/20 had ended on the topic. But as you’re aware, the story does not end here.

The topic made a comeback on 9/27, and low n’ behold, Sony announced that Palworld was available on PS5 in all regions except for Japan. I announced this during the Palworld segment, and this obviously confirms the rumor I cited the previous week.

This simply implies that Nintendo waited too long to bring this case, as now they’re going to war against a bigger giant with deeper pockets. Before now, I believed that Nintendo’s intent is to run PocketPair out of money, rather than actually win. This potential has dropped dramatically, now that PocketPair and Sony are working together.

This also leads to potentials for Anime and Manga being produced from Palworld, much like the IPs of Digimon, Pokemon, and Monster Rancher. My suggestion is that this may be Sony’s intent.

Laggin’ Out will continue to watch this situation, and provide updates as they occur.

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Other Topics Discussed on These Lives…

Stream Notes: 9/20/2024

• SQUARE ENIX PRESIDENT ADMITS UNDERPERFORMING OF FINAL FANTASY
• JOKER 2: NEVER SHOW YOUR JOKER FACE
• EU CONSUMER ORGANIZATION ACCUSES GAME DEVS OF BREAKING EU LAWS
• AM I RACIST?
• SPIDEY 4 DITCHING THE MULTIVERSE?
• THE HUMAN TORCH HAS AN ALIEN FLAME?
• MTG: MAKES A SET ABOUT VOODOO, CHUCKY HAS ARRIVED
• IS HARRY POTTER GOING TO BE RACE SWAPPED?
• WARHAMMER 40K LEAD DEV DENOUNCES OVERBLOWN MESSAGING OF EMBRACER GROUP

To see the livestream of the 9/20/2024 Podcast, please click the following link

Stream Notes: 9/27/2024

• NETFLIX LIVE-ACTION ONEPIECE HAS OFFICIALLY CAST NICO ROBIN FOR SEASON 2, IS SHE A COMMIE?
• KINGDOM HEARTS CREATOR COMMENTS ON ‘UGLY CHARACTERS’ IN VIDEO GAMES
• UBISOFT RUNNING IN FEAR
• SO SHOULD BIOWARE
• SQUARE EINIX NO LONGER A CLIENT OF SWEET BABY INC
• THE PENGUIN MIGHT BE OK, BUT WHERE’S BATMAN?
• NEW CYBERPUNK ANIME AT NETFLIX

To see the livestream of the 9/27/2024 Podcast, please click the following link

So this particular topic was slated for this past Friday’s show, but we never got around to it, amongst all of the hijinks and hilarity we had with King Science. This has been a pretty prominent topic amongst the YouTube Commentator sphere.

As the story flows, it would seem that one of the longest term Star Wars creators on YouTube decided to join in a harassment campaign against Star Wars Theory, Geeks + Gamers, RK Outpost, and Nerdrotic. The attempt was published on X (formerly Twitter), articulating a scathing accusation that these channels orchestrated a several year long harassment campaign against several other Star Wars Creators and actors alike, alleging bigotry and racism. The “letter of concern” in question was retweeted numerous times, tagging @TeamYouTube, in an attempt to request that YouTube demonetize or terminate their channels.

The call to action by these Disney shills did not go unanswered, however, as Geeks + Gamers, and then shortly after Star Wars Theory, responded. Geeks + Gamers’ reply was very direct, countering every single allegation that was levied at them by Star Wars Explained.

Specifically, the allegations they cited accused Geeks + Gamers of online harassment against Kelly Marie Tran, eventually leading to her quitting all social media. Jeremy on G+G soundly refuted these claims with very clear evidence. He showed the very video that was referenced in the targeted deplatforming attempt. In said video, Jeremy clearly stated that he believed Kelly Marie Tran was a very sweet woman, and a very good actress. He also stated that she deserved a better role than what was given her in the Rose Tico character.

Star Wars Theory’s response to the accusations in more than one video proved to be much more damaging to Star Wars Explained than anything the other channels could provide. His reply included details and chats logs with various other Star Wars creators, as well as his attackers, that painted a pretty bleak picture of what was happening. Star Wars Theory has shown Star Wars Explained to be incredibly jealous of Theory’s meteoric rise. It was proven in many of his points and logs that these people behind Explained are very catty.

Not long after Explained tried to get YouTube to deplatform these heavy hitters, YouTube replied to the coordinated effort with a reply, basically stating “Hey, we looked into this, and no violations of policy have occurred.” This triggered the shills, and their response was absolutely terrible. Many of them began to give the most unhinged tweets, vitriol, and hatred. Some went as far as to issue death threats against YouTube executives.

One of the channel runners of Explained even came out after the YouTube response and backtracked hard, claiming that she didn’t start a harassment campaign. Obviously, the evidence was against her, and several other YouTubers came out clearly stating that Explained broke YouTube ToS themselves.

Unfortunately, YouTube hasn’t taken action against those that participated in this coordinated harassment campaign. There is still time, though, as this story is continuing to develop.

We at Laggin’ Out NEVER condone hate or harassment. Do not attempt to contact any of these people. We are only reporting on this topic because we think paying attention to the YouTube ecosystem is very important. We care about fandoms, and debates on lore and best characters are the bread and butter of fandoms. This, however, is out of pocket.

If there’s any further development, we’ll be sure to update our fans as we can.

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Other Topics Discussed on This Live…

• Concord Shuts down just 13 days after release!
• Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League killed Rocksteady Games?
  • Layoffs hit Dev after $200mil loss
• Ubisoft Stocks tank after numbers reveal of Star Wars: Outlaws.
  • Outlaws Tracking 55% lower than Jedi Survivor
• Rings of Failure
  • rings of power loses 50% of its audience
• Capcom Changing Challenge Collection
• Idiots are among us
  • The dangers of TikTok trends

To see the Live stream, check out the following link.

Laggin’ Out as a company, has long discussed the merits, potential, and possibilities of A.I. We’ve made no secrets of our opinions and criticisms, as well as the positive criticisms we have for A.I. as a technology.

There is much to say about A.I. There are those that are hellbent on seeing A.I. be defanged, dismantled, or otherwise hamstrung in the creative industries, and understandably so. Procreate is one such business.

According to Tech Crunch, Procreate released a statement against generative A.I. In their statement, Procreate, the iPad design app, states that generative A.I. is removing the human element out of things, and alleges that the technology is founded on theft. The app developers have also made a commitment to never use A.I. in any way.

The official statement can be found here.

While the statement is bold, and commendable, one cannot halt the forward march of technological advancement. One cannot help but think that this statement will eventually come back and bite them.

To avoid the use of A.I. will, in many cases, stunt growth in a population that has embraced it. However, the reliance on A.I. will cause people to stunt in their development in other ways. Most of us agree that there is merit to both opinions in this case.

That isn’t to say that there is a right answer or a wrong one in this topic. A.I. is going to take its place in peoples’ bag of technological tools whether the world wants it or not.

Chieftain seems to agree that A.I. is a powerful tool, and has made a point of learning more about A.I. in his chosen industry despite his dislike of it.

Soda says “A.I. sucks, but we all need to learn to live with it and work with it, sadly.”

For the most part, many believe there is a place for A.I. in the creative arts industries…but as a tool, not a source of income, or a means to steal intellectual property.

What do you, the Laggin’ Out Legion, think about A.I? Let us know in the comments

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Other Topics Discussed on This Live…

• Black Myth: Wu Kong breaks Most Concurrent Players on Steam
• Disney Backs off of Arbitration stance over Wrongful Death Lawsuit through Disney+
• The Acolyte has been cancelled
• Hiro’s Hard Drive: Star Wars Outlaws PC Specs leaked!
• H2M Mod shutdown by Activision, and Mod Devs go into hiding. Possiblility that Activisions sent out their Ninjas
• In Memorium: Atsuko Tanaka passes at 61 Legendary Voice Actress for Ghost in the Shell and Bayonetta
• Borderlands 4 announcement trailer
• PreOrders for Dragon Age: The Veilguard open on October 31

To see the Live stream, check out the following link. The Procreate topic begins around the 2 hour 10 minute mark.

Or did they?

That Park Place published an article that states Ubisoft buttered up YouTubers and influencers to promote Star Wars Outlaws. Within their article they mention an investigation into Ubisoft’s marketing campaign, which alleges that they were attempting to gain favorable reviews in exchange for Disneyland trips and boat tours prior to granting access to the 4 hour review copy of the game.

The article was published on August 5, 2024 and outlines a bunch of rather common practices by studios for what has been long dubbed “the access media.” We at Laggin’ Out Entertainment have been well aware of this for many years, and to see this called out publicly and through an actual active investigation is a real treat, for sure. However, that’s not exactly what this topic is about. This is about something that StarWarsTheory posted eight days ago (at the time of this writing) in a video on YouTube.

In said video, StarWarsTheory posed a question that seemed to be asked of him, ad nauseum. “Why didn’t Ubisoft ask StarWarsTheory to play the game, and give an honest review on the game?”

He quickly cleared the air, and revealed that Ubisoft DID approach him. That wasn’t all, though. The offer came with strings attached. StarWarsTheory was very candid about their offer, requiring that he only said positive things, and he named his price to them.

According to StarWarsTheory, he specifically told Ubisoft he would gladly review their game, for an “exorbitant amount of money,” and he would not agree to any binding terms that would require him to redact anything from his review. Nor any terms that would bind him to any other agreement with Ubisoft. He continued to say that he would only be brutally honest about the game and what his opinion was.

At the end of the day, Ubisoft never got back to him. It would be easy to form the opinion that Ubisoft realized they weren’t going to be able to buy StarWarsTheory’s support, and just ghosted him.

StarWarsTheory has made it clear that no matter what deal he takes, he would never not be honest about a game review, movie review, or show review. And yes, it is clear that Ubisoft allegedly made an attempt to bribe StarWarsTheory. Would it be considered bribery, in a legal sense? No, not exactly. But the business practice of treating the “Access Media” to some nice perks before giving them access to review copies is certainly of dubious morality.

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Other Topics Discussed on This Live…

• Hi-Fi Rush Lives
  • Hi-Fi Rush is purchased by a new dev team, Krafton (PUBG Devs)
• Disney: The Good the Bad the Ugly
  • Deadpool x Wolverine is over $1B
  • D23 (Disney World/Park change announcements) Spoiler: They’re not going well
  • Man Sues Disney over allergy mishap. Disney Files to dismiss over D+ ToS agreement
• Rippaverse animation Universe teaser? (new animation trailer)
• The Matrix 25th Anniversary, Matrix coming to theaters again!
• Pokemon Voice Actress dies (Misty and Jesse VA passes away)
• Susan Wojcicki (Former YouTube CEO) passes away
• RIP Borderlands ($16 mil opening weekend, misses $50 mil predictions)
• Batman first appearance comic found in garage sale. Graded at 0.5, worth $10K
• Umbrella Academy finale…. is bad?
• Russian chess champ turned assassin? (Russian chess champ attempts to poison his challenger?)

To see the Live stream, check out the following link. The Ubisoft topic begins around the 1 hour 34 minute mark.

See our companion piece about X vs GARM that goes hand in hand with this topic.

Google has, once again, been busted practicing anti-competitive ways–and has, once again, been brought before the courts.

This should come as no surprise, in light of the most recent developments in A.I., and what Google has perpetrated with their A.I. summaries on their search page.  This act alone has broken the website ecosystem and tanked ad revenue by, in some cases, 80% to 90%.  That decision and design choice now prevents the average Googler from leaving search and visiting a website, therefore allowing Google to pocket excess ad revenue, and not pay out to website holders.

On its face, this may seem very benign. In light of the sheer magnitude of dollars spent, however, on exclusivity contracts for search, default search deals, and other various details brought up by the DOJ, it’s clear that Google has been suffocating competition that they didn’t want.  Alternatively, they would just outright purchase the businesses before it could realize its full potential.

When one considers the lack of competitors for search, the fact that there are little to no competitors on existing phone platforms, and it is very difficult to find competitors on desktop, the DOJ makes a near ironclad case.

Despite Google’s protest about being a quality product, the judges ruled that Google is in fact acting monopolistically, while dismissing some other secondary claims simultaneously.

This ruling can lead to a mountain of monumental changes within the InterWebz.  Will Google get broken up, much like Bell did back in the 80s?  This change led to Bell South, Bell North, and AT&T once upon a time.  Could something like this come to Google’s table?  Will they just be fined, with no changes?  Justice in Corporate Law seems a bit mediocre, if not lacking, in recent years so that is quite a feasible occurrence.

All in all, the truth will likely be in the middle.  Google could be forced to include options for the default built-in search engine on Android, as well as the default video platform options, as well as a hefty fine.  Whatever happens, Laggin’ Out will be watching this situation as it develops, as well, to bring updates as they occur.

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Other Topics Discussed on This Live…

• NEW TECH AND X SUING GARM AND ADVERTISING CABALS
• MANGA STUDIOS TRANSITION TO A.I. TRANSLATIONS
  • Citing activist localizers pushing inaccurate translations
• LARIAN RELEASES STATISTICS ON MOST KISSED CHARACTER IN BALDUR’S GATE
  • Watch the stream to find out who it is (like we don’t know)
• BUNGIE LEADS LEAVE THE COMPANY
  • What is this doing to Destiny 2
• HASBRO COPYRIGHT STRIKING YOUTUBE CREATORS
  • For showing the newly released PHB?
• TEAM FOLON (Fallout London Devs) NEWS AND UPDATES
  • Working rapidly to release hotfix to address crash issues
• GAMEINFORMER SHUTDOWN BY GAMESTOP
• THE INDIECUP HAS NOMINATIONS!
  • Starship Simulator is one of them

To see the Live stream, check out the following link. The Google vs DOJ topic begins around the 36 minute mark.