The "Please Stop" segment seemed like some of the guys didn't want to offend friends in the industry or something. We all know it's not the devs fault, no need to belabor that point, Jeff especially. Like, okay, you're not a dev and you don't know that side of the business so you don't want to speak to it. Fine. But you're a consumer right? You know how bad that end of it sucks. I could have let that logic lay but then at another point Jeff said something like "This is something so inherent to video games that we're not going to change anything by calling it out" which is hilarious considering people will call devs out for the littlest thing these days. In addition, Jeff's the one that's been waving that "these are our awards, fuck what everyone else thinks/likes" flag, so why the change of heart when it comes to something that affects 100% of gamers?
As for the reviews stuff, I actually like this. It's so actively anti-consumer, it might be the thing that finally forces gamers to own their fucking wallets and eventually kill preorder culture. Granted, that's absolutely not what publishers want to happen, but you know the whole point of this is to pull the wool over people's eyes and eventually enough publishers are going to abuse it and burn people enough that the consumer might finally wise up and stop worrying about being part of the zeitgeist and just wait for a game to be un-fucked. FFXV is a perfect example. A lot of people love that game but it's got issues and by the time they add all the stuff they're talking about that will make the game better, it'll cost half of what it did at launch. Why buy it at $60 if your reward is an unfinished game? I'll wait until it's $20-30 and it's been patched half a dozen times to fix all the bullshit it shipped with.
@spamshadow: Virginia was interesting to me. As a game, I think it's a failure. It was linear to a point that it really gained nothing by being interactive. That said, the rest of it was kind of fascinating and the story was intriguing. The basic plot was pretty boiler plate but the later events where the story kind of splits between two "what if" scenarios was novel although parts are also inscrutable on a Lynchian level. The fact that the two "lead" characters are black women really is of little consequence to the story or events however so that felt like a missed opportunity. About the only time it even felt relevant is in the scenario where you see your advancement at the FBI and it seems to be you constantly informing on and undermining other people of color at the FBI for your white boss. It's a worthwhile experience by my estimation, but one I think I could have got just as much out of watching a Let's Play as playing it.
@sysyphus: Yeah that's essentially where I'm at right now but nobody is bothered with actually making that connection, just implying that it's there. As far as I can tell it's guilt by association, an extremely loose and vague association at that. "He gave money to this group that sprung out of a subreddit and some people on that subreddit are alt-right and some of the alt-right is into white supremacy" somehow is tantamount to actually supporting white supremacy. Kind of baffling. Then again, you point any of that out and the response seems to be "Oh boo-hoo for the rich white billionaire" which is a baffling non sequitur in it's own right.
So weird to see The Witness charting so well with the GB staff. I feel like it was quickly forgotten when it came out around here. Good list though, Drew. Because of you I intend to make FFVI my first FF (although I'm going to play it on my phone probably).
I'm really liking Stardew Valley myself as well but I agree with what Jeff said on the deliberation podcast about the days. The time restrictions really suck. At the very least time could have passed slower or something. I like the birthdays and the events and the seasons so I wouldn't want to give all that up, but it almost forces the min/max mindset on you and I really resent that. At least in Dead Rising it gives you a sense of urgency. In Stardew it just gives me a constant state of anxiety that I'm either wasting time doing something inefficiently or I've been so efficient that I have time to kill before a shop opens or a person is available to talk to, but still not enough time to do anything in between.
Also the problem becomes after a while that most things are just a total waste of time. Late game fishing is a total waste of time because farming and mining are MUCH more lucrative, but eventually that becomes just mining because 80-90% of farming can be automated once you get the Iridium sprinklers. Hell, I waste probably 5x as much time walking around my farm or going to different boxes than actually farming.
Oh, and the ability to save at some point other than the end of the day would be nice. There's been times where I need to cut it short but the day is only maybe half over so I could either waste half a day and just go to bed at 1:00pm or, more often than not, just quit without saving and have to start the day over again next time I get on. I really don't see the reason to not have saving anywhere.
AFAIK to this day the only thing that Nimble America has ever done was the Hillary billboard, which was perhaps in poor taste but nothing about it was white nationalist. The charge against Luckey is that he gave money to a group that either sprung out of or organized itself on a subreddit where white nationalists (allegedly) also congregate and organize. That puts Luckey at least like 3 degrees of separation away from financially supporting white nationalism or white supremacy and even then the ties are tenuous at best, as made apparent even in the text above with the various qualifiers. I think the backlash he got, deserved or not, still qualifies for the category and all but really in all the evidence presented, the white supremacy connection is extremely tenuous, so it was kind of baffling to hear the crew hang the nomination, and then the win, squarely on it. Then again the last I had heard about any of this was back in September so maybe something new has come to light that I'm unaware of.
As for the rest of it, I know the crew really hate the idea and terminology of "IP" but honestly I really think "Best New IP" is much more befitting the category and nominations than "Best Debut". Honestly until they got to Overwatch and Inside I thought "Best Debut" referred to a studio's debut, which makes more sense tbh. Anyway, category name aside, OW was a shoe-in for that so I'm not surprised. I'm predicting it as GOTY for GB and most gaming outlets. Personally TF2 and OW aren't my cup of tea but I'm in the minority there. Good to see Witcher 3 get it's dues from GB, however belated they are. Had to roll my eyes a little at Jeff pushing Mario Maker that hard a year later, but hey, dude likes the game. What else is there to say? Haven't played it but Super Hot seems like a logical choice for the style award.
The way it was always explained to me was that the shitty New Jersey drivers were former New Yorkers that moved to New Jersey and had no idea how to behave on roads like normal people and that native New Jerseyans were largely decent drivers.
Oh yeah and the
stuff was funny too. Maybe it's just me, but I always felt an orgy required at least 5 people because otherwise it's just a threesome or just two groups of people having sex in the same room. You need an odd number.
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