Useless gaming news & chatter

[schild]

Had nothing to do with AGDC.

This was definitely 2005. I had been out of college for a hot second.

[Hawkbit]

I have a 3DS Monster Hunter 4 Demo code if anyone wants.  PM me.  

Edit: Mods/longstanding members will get preference.

Gone!  Enjoy!

[Paelos]

I don't even look at GameFront or GameTrailers so I have no idea who got canned from there, but basically most of the editors from The Escapist got shitcanned along with MovieBob.

Reading a thread it does look like people are being let go for "budget reasons."

Looks like the Editor in Chief Greg Tito got shown the door. Guy under him got the job. Looks like the parent company is trying to stop the bleeding or squeeze out what they can from remaining staff. Which is always dumb unless you think those staff were pointless and useless. In that case, you'd hire their replacements. And he's the 5th editor in the time the site's been up, which is kind of funny.

I remember applying to the Escapist back when I had just started writing, but I had no real portfolio of content at the time. I'm sorta glad I didn't get it and went the sports way instead.

[Jeff Kelly]

I guess The Escapist, GameFront, and Game Trailers have laid people off today.

Also yes I am surprised that the last two still exist.

I knew that gametrailers existed because of their hilariously awful commercials that always played before comedy central streams. Let's just say that those commercials made it absolutely certain that I would nevr visit the site.

[Bunk]

Watched a trailer on the xbox last night for the new Fable game. Looks like a complete and utter disappointment, but there was one interesting thing in it:

Cross system multiplayer between Xbox1 and Windows 10.

[Jeff Kelly]

Escapist for me has the same problems that most "media sites" have (everything Gawker, Buzzfeed etc.) and that the AV club doesn't which is why I frequent the latter and not the former.

Bloat, advertorials, content management and website navigation devised by a habitual drunk with mental issues full of "this one easy trick doctors hate" crap (aka io9) where you won't be able to find the 'original content' even if you still cared and hadn't closed that particular browser window 5 minutes ago. They also suffer from 'I'll turn everything I write into a platform for my own opinion on stuff' and basically turned everything into op eds, regardless of content or type of content. If you do a review, do a review, don't make it about "the bazillion things I don't like about AAA gaming, now also in this  review'. They also break stuff by design to push people into watching ads/paying for 'subscriptions' that's why the Escapist still has a flash based video player even though no one uses it anymore, just so that they can 'sell' you on a HTML5 player by subscribing. In a 'we'll make your experience on this site a littly less shitty if you pay' us kind of deal.

Basically they are sites that claim to be about certain topics and use that pretense to give you mostly broken crap paid for by advertisers or they pretend to give you original content just so that they can tun it into their pesronal platform to talk about "issues in x". Not that this is per se bad if it comes in form of a column named "my problem with x" but becomes very annoying if it shows up in every video/review and content.

I'm not surprised that they have to lay of people. I'm more surprised that they still exist.

[Maven]

[Yegolev]

Looks like the parent company is trying to stop the bleeding or squeeze out what they can from remaining staff. Which is always dumb unless you think those staff were pointless and useless. In that case, you'd hire their replacements.

This is a trend in business now.  More with less is the ideal, but there is a definite drawback to the process.  Probably not in this case, though.

[Fabricated]

It's almost like gaming journalism is bad.

[Falconeer]

There's less and less jobs in all business and industries. And more and more humans. We are seriously doomed. We could use a virus that doesn't kill people but make everyone infertile forever.

[Phildo]

I've seen that movie.  It ends poorly.

[Falconeer]

There's a movie too? Watching a British 2 seasons weird show that turned out to be about this...

[Rasix]

There's a movie too? Watching a British 2 seasons weird show that turned out to be about this...

Children of Men.  No virus (not that I remember), but no babies.

[Phildo]

Rasix in one.

[Fordel]

Children of Men is a fantastic if depressing movie.

[Falconeer]

Just hit Steam Early Access. Looks cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZXwxvnjz6c

Fellow boardgamers, buy or not buy?

Got it.

[schild]

I will probably be buying it.

[Fabricated]

Kinda wanna buy Toxikk now that its out on Early Access.

But...Early Access.

[schild]

I'm still down for a 4pack if someone wants me to just send them my share.

I don't wanna distribute it, I'm lazy.

[Fabricated]

AOL Likely rolling up Joystiq.

[Lantyssa]

That is a humorous spin on it whether true or not.

[Falconeer]

Too early to tell, but we might have found a new game for rk47 to Radicalthon.  

[Falconeer]

Whoa! Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Remastered HD just released on Steam! Whoever missed it has no excuses now!

[Rasix]

I'm not sure I'm willing to put up with another David Cage plot.  I've heard this one really goes off the rails at the end.

[Falconeer]

Yet this is the best David Cage game ever, and a very good one in its own. One of the best story driven games I've ever played. EDIT: Saying this is the perfect way to set up expectations which will of course be failed horribly.

[Ard]

It goes extremely far off the rails, but I think that's why I enjoyed it so much.  I like weird games though, just not RK level weird 

[HaemishM]

The ending of Indigo Prophecy was pretty out there.

[Falconeer]

Which ending? 

[schild]

Neat, GOTY material already:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/312840/

[jakonovski]

Games industry is so exciting and innovative.

[Setanta]

Just hit Steam Early Access. Looks cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZXwxvnjz6c

Fellow boardgamers, buy or not buy?

Got it.

I did too - but there's a lot of angst about the Weasel Clan and the fact that only kickstarter backers can get it. I wouldn't mind if it was only skins but it's different stats for the clan plus some really neat looking characters. They should have taken a leaf from LoL and HotS and maybe made special borders/player icons  etc to denote that you were a backer/tester. Still they might extract themselves from it, apparently a lot of the backers are in favour of releasing the clan as DLC.

It really is a beautiful game.

[Falconeer]

Armello! 

I have been very active on the forums trying to tell the Developers what's not right about the game. It looks beautiful and plays well, but there's plenty design decisions that are weird and for the sake of simplicity -which is great- make the game too much RNG dependent or completely toothless. They keep saying there's less than half the cards in the game yet, and lots of things are being reconsidered and tweaked, which makes me hope. In all honesty, I already like it so much that I play more than I should for am Early Access, even versus the AI. But I feel that they have a true gem in their hands and I really hope they won't overlook the obvious issues and waste such a great opportunity.

All in all, I strongly recommend it, but I can't deny there's a feeling of blandness here and there (underwhelming dungeons, questionable hand size, Prestige Win being dominant, some cards being stupidly OP while some other being such a waste of time, RNG too much of a factor) that they better fix soon.

About the Bandit Clan heroes, I don't mind. I understand it was a silly Kickstarter promise and they can't take it back without coming off as liars and alienating those original backers. It's that simple, and the sooner we move on the better. There are going to be another 4 public heroes anyway, and I am sure plenty DLCs, so *shrug*

[Hawkbit]

About the Bandit Clan heroes, I don't mind.

It's a mistake to not sell it as DLC.  They will lose sales over that idea.  It's best to honor their KS promises to their users, but I have to imagine they're kicking themselves over it now. 

[Falconeer]

I totally agree with you.

[Kail]

Hey, remember when Sega used to make console games?  Well, they're not going to now. 

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/sega-cutting-300-jobs-as-it-prepares-for-digital-non-console-future/0144528
300 jobs cut, including everything from Sega of America's home office as far as I can see.  Sega's going to exclusively focus exclusively on mobile and online PC games.  Allegedly it's because Sonic Boom bombed (who could possibly have seen THAT coming).