Useless gaming news & chatter

[Hawkbit]

That's fine. I'll take the "action movie for young people aged 15 to 25" over 12 volumes of history lessons about a fictional world. Both options are filled with a bunch of overindulgent wankery but at least I can make it through the movies.

Pulp fantasy stories and movies already exist in droves; go to the young adult section of your local bookstore to see that in action.  However, the segment of fantasy that consists of 12 volumes of history lessons about a fictional world is actually very small in comparison, especially with one so admired. 

I'm a neckbearded fan of Tolkien and I don't like the fact that liberties have been taken with the IP.  I realize there's not much I can do at this point except as Christopher says "to turn my head away".  It still irks me, though. 

[Simond]

"Fun" times at Funcom: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-29-funcom-offices-raided-by-economic-crimes-unit

MMO developer accused of breaching Securities Trading Act for The Secret World

Employees at Funcom's offices in Oslo, Norway were sent home today under orders from the Økokrim economic crime unit.

According to a report from the Norwegian news site E24, officers from The National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime - a.k.a. Økokrim - were waiting at Funcom's offices this morning.

Witnesses report that the Økokrim officers seized enough documents from the company to fill several boxes. Employees were sent home just before midday, though neither Funcom's management nor the Økokrim representatives would comment on the reasons for the raid.

Funcom's stock ceased trading on the Oslo stock exchange this morning. Representatives from the exchange told E24 that it was waiting on more information before further action could be taken.

In a report from the Norwegian site News In English, the Økokrim has charged Funcom with breaching the Securities Trading Act regarding information disclosed to the market about its ambitious MMO project, The Secret World. The period in which the false or misleading disclosures were made runs from August 2011 to its launch in July 2012, and the two months that followed. There are also questions over how Funcom shared sensitive information during that time.

GamesIndustry International has also made contact with Funcom to press the matter.

In July 2012, three months before the end of the period under investigation and just prior to the launch of The Secret World, Trond Arne Aas stepped down as CEO of Funcom, taking on an advisory role and ceding his place on the board.

The Secret World experienced a difficult launch, meeting a mixture of tepid reviews and waning interest in the subscription MMO model among consumers. Shortly after, the company laid off an undisclosed number of staff in the name of reducing costs. Those costs became abundantly clear in the Q2 financial report that followed at the end of August, which showed a loss of $49 million - compared to a $3 million profit in the prior year quarter.

"The Company still considers it likely that sales for the 12 months period following launch of the game will be less than half of what was presented in the Conan-like scenario in Q1 presentation," the company said at the time.

Funcom dropped The Secret World's subscription model before the end of the year, but its impact reverberated for months afterwards. In January last year, the company closed the Beijing studio that had provided art and animation for the game, and drastically reduced the headcount at the Montreal studio it had opened less than four years before.

[Ingmar]

Am I the only one who is going to comment on the name Ratbag?  Ratbag the Meat Hoarder.  It appears they've outsourced their orc-naming work to offshore kindergartners.

That's actually not so bad, IMO, though it might have been spit out by a random generator. If you split all the orc names up into syllables you could end up with Ratbag from Shagrat and Gorbag (both 'real' ones).

[Xuri]

"Fun" times at Funcom: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-29-funcom-offices-raided-by-economic-crimes-unit

I am shocked, I'm sure. 

[Falconeer]

Were you still there at the time, Xuri? Give us the gossip, cmon.

[Xuri]

I probably should not. What I can say though, is that this one time, [redacted] totally [censored] when the [redacted] over the [redacted], [redacted] [redacted] even before [redacted]! Imagine my surprise, when [redacted], [redacted] and [redacted] proceeded to [censored] right in the middle of the [redacted]! On a WEDNESDAY! o_O 

[Fordel]

On a WEDNESDAY? YOU LIE!

[Sky]

Swedeway does not have Wednesday. False.

[Stormwaltz]

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.

http://www.insertcoinclothing.com/blog/2014/01/theres-a-saint-in-all-of-us/

[Sky]

Where's my purple and gold suit?

[Moaner]

Apparently people sending Sony broken consoles filled with bugs is something that actually happens.  The instructions in my coffin box clearly state that I should not ship or pack any discs, controllers, cables/cords, or insect infested consoles.   

Unfortunately Assassin's Creed is stuck in the fucking thing, which I'm assuming means I'll never get it back.

[Yegolev]

Nintendo returned the disc that was stuck in the Wii they repaired, so it's possible.

[Hawkbit]

Apparently people sending Sony broken consoles filled with bugs is something that actually happens.  The instructions in my coffin box clearly state that I should not ship or pack any discs, controllers, cables/cords, or insect infested consoles.   

Yup.  I used to work on notebook computers in the mid-90s.  One day got a service repair in which the user spilled wine into their notebook.  Everything looked good until we took the keypad off and tiny roaches exploded into our clean room.  Two days a whole service department shut down to kill them all. 

People are disgusting creatures. 

[Ard]

Unfortunately Assassin's Creed is stuck in the fucking thing, which I'm assuming means I'll never get it back.

Sony will ship back the game.  There should be something in the forms to fill out that asks you for the name of the game stuck in it, if there was one, or at least that was the case when I had a ps3 die on me.  The game came back in a sleeve along with the replacement console.

[Rendakor]

Apparently people sending Sony broken consoles filled with bugs is something that actually happens.  The instructions in my coffin box clearly state that I should not ship or pack any discs, controllers, cables/cords, or insect infested consoles.   

Unfortunately Assassin's Creed is stuck in the fucking thing, which I'm assuming means I'll never get it back.

Infestation was one of the few reasons we could absolutely refuse a trade-in when I worked at Gamestop, and I'm sad to say people brought in infested systems on more than one occasion. One time a coworker fucked up and took one in, and we had roaches in our backroom for a week after throwing the 360 away.

[Quinton]

Always on computing devices are nice and warm.  Can make them very appealing to various pests.

[Moaner]

I had no idea, I guess that's one benefit of living somewhere with a cold climate.  I was 35 by the time I saw my first cockroach.  I actually looked at the forms carefully and there is indeed a place to indicate that a disc is stuck in the console, so I'm hoping I will get my game back.  If everything goes as planned, I'll be pretty happy with Sony's customer service.

[Ingmar]

Well at least I finally have the answer to 'is there anything grosser to open up than a smoker's computer'. A smoker's computer with roaches.

[Mithas]

Well at least I finally have the answer to 'is there anything grosser to open up than a smoker's computer'. A smoker's computer with roaches.

Back in my early college days I worked at Best Buy. It was in a city that is surrounded by farmland. By far the worst thing that I have ever experienced was the computer used to run a farm's milking machines. It was literally splattered with cow feces. It was fine until you turned it on and then you can imagine the smell.

[apocrypha]

I worked in a microbiology lab for a couple of years and had to spend a lot of time in an incubator room - an entire room kept at a constant 37^oC and used for growing bacterial cultures.

There were several PCs in there attached to various bits of lab equipment and the kind of disgusting, probably highly dangerous stuff that used to grow on them were unbelievable. The IT department of the university point blank refused to service them in any way so it was left to people like me - lab workers with some knowledge of both IT and safe handling of unknown, infectious organisms.

I don't miss that job One. Tiny. Bit.

[HaemishM]

Bug fixes? Fuck that, we've got DLC to sell.

The devs of the notoriously buggy as fuck Batman: Arkham Origins have flat out stated that they won't be patching anymore bugs so their dev teams can focus on DLC creation. Unless the bug is a "progression blocker" do not ever think it'll get fixed.

And that is the only reason I need to say FUCK THESE GUYS and never buy this game even on fucking Steam sale. Taint tickling ball lickers.

[Paelos]

I had to look up who published that game. Looks like Warner Brothers Interactive. They just made the "Never buy from" list!

[Falconeer]

This game seems cool, and got half of its Kickstarter money (75k) in, well, two hours I think.

Darkest Dungeon.

[Paelos]

I read Roguelike and immediately blacked out.

[Ingmar]

I perked up when I saw 'roguelike' then perked right back down when I saw 2D sidescrolling.

[Paelos]

To be fair, if 2D sidescrolling came before roguelike i'd have blacked out then too.

[Falconeer]

A friend of mine recently is going insane over all the cheap bundles of games and I usually tell him that they have to be scams, or they just suck. Until he showed me this. I don't get it. It's like free games, while they are actually up on Steam or Desura for real money, including one (Aerena) still in early access alpha but totally worth the 1$ admission price.

What's the deal with these? They have to be legal, so what's the story? That once you are selling a digital product it's better to make 0.01$ out of it than nothing at all? And that basically that when we normally buy on Steam you are kind of overpaying? I am admitedly confused...

[Kail]

I can't speak for the other bundles you mention, but the one you linked is for charity (some girl with neuroblastoma).  So it's probably a combination of the devs (which look like indie studios from what I recognized) not caring about profits if it's for a good cause, and being able to write off the game sales as "charitable donations" at tax time (though I'm not sure about this bit, not an accountant).

[Trippy]

Internet assholes and trolls have broken TotalBiscuit

tl;dr TotalBiscuit no longer enjoys playing the games he makes videos for because of all the comments Internet assholes and trolls leave

[jakonovski]

The first worldest of problems.

[Ironwood]

Internet assholes and trolls have broken TotalBiscuit

tl;dr TotalBiscuit no longer enjoys playing the games he makes videos for because of all the comments Internet assholes and trolls leave

It's all very Flappy Bird.

[apocrypha]

Someone tries to make a living out of their hobby and then finds their hobby isn't as much fun as it used to be?

Say it ain't so. 

[trias_e]

Twitch is trying to beat Pokemon.

http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon

Watch 10,000+ people individually input button presses.  Despair at the horror.  Marvel at things somehow actually moving forward.  

The 30 second twitch stream delay really doesn't help matters.

[Trippy]

That's pretty amazing they've gotten that far.

[Velorath]

Giantbomb took a look at the South Park RPG from Obisidian and it looks surprisingly good. I hadn't really followed this game much since I watch maybe one episode of South Park a year at most and all the footage I had seen before pretty much just looked like an episode of South Park with no gameplay really being shown. It seems like it actually has some solid RPGness to it though, which I guess shouldn't be shocking since it's Obsidian even though they don't have exactly have a perfect track record. Actually looking forward to this now although unfortunately Dark Souls II and Infamous: Second Son both come out next month as well.