devise22

@plan6: Yeah I don't really get the comparison at all. The only real thing they have in common is a level of overhype creating unrealistic expectations at launch? No Mans Sky wasn't particularly buggy at launch it's scope was just as such that it basically delivered in what we would now call Early Access. The game they sold everybody on is basically more or less a reality now after mountains of updates, many of which was free.

NMS wasn't buggy or broken on a previous generation of consoles though. Cyberpunk is. That is the larger concern here, it's not just a case of the content of Cyberpunk being underwhelming for some, the thing is broken and unplayable to the point that they had to issue an apology for it. I guess for me the other reason I find the comparison weird is because Cyberpunk is a big budget AAA open world RPG with Keannu Reeves and all this huge developer hype coming in. NMS was an indy studio that got hype for trying to do something that people thought was crazy at the time, but it didn't have like the financial backing or anything. In another universe NMS launches in Early Access with what it had at launch and nobody cares. Cyberpunk isn't an early access game misbranded it's an unfinished game on many platforms that's now being over marketed.

@tothenines: Regarding your side note. I don't think it's really a byproduct of media or fiction showcasing a good business role model. Long before it was popular to criticize corporations and capitalism there were plenty of misguided content trying to showcase the "good guy" CEO. It's not like the concept has never been shown before. It's honestly just disingenuous.

But I also think it's reductive to boil down some of the criticisms levied at big business tycoon types as simply saying they are "evil because they want profit." Most wouldn't throw shade at the young entrepreneur who puts himself first in the name of making a living. But when you go from that young person making a living to multi millionaire controlling how other people make their living the context for how your viewed rightfully changes. What it means to be ethical as a business absolutely changes in context compared to if your a small team of 5 versus an Ubisoft with hundreds of studios all answering to shareholders and other overlords.

It should be clear to note that the fact that these people wish to make money isn't inherently evil. The morals come into play when you contrast what these people are willing to do in the name of money, who they are willing to throw under the bus (devs, certain consumers etc) and most importantly how much resources they actually have. Just as an example to help make my point, look at crunch. It's an ethically challenging word, especially in this space. However a lone dev deciding to crunch to release their indy project to get food to not die has far different context than a CEO or management type forcing crunch as a culture to ship a product a few months earlier to satisfy a bunch of rich shareholders that don't need money to begin with. You see what I"m saying here?

Obviously just from seeing more racing devs consolidated under one house it's bad from a competitive and creative standpoint.

That said; I don't know. Would they stuff microtransactions in their things? Like I'm not here to defend EA, they deserve just criticism for their approach in the gaming sphere a lot. But since the Battlefront 2 fiasco EA has actually kept microtransactions out of a lot of their properties. The only games to still feature it so heavily and grossly has been the sports games. My fear is, that EA will see the racing sphere similarly and think they won't get backlash to having their "Ultimate Card" type systems in the game.

Personally the only real benefit I see to having multiple good in house racing style devs is for games that may be outside of their wheelhouse. So many games are trying to do a lot these days, and there is a plethora of those games that include trash driving in them. So I could see it being a plus to use people who know how to make racing/driving games from that perspective. It's a huge wait about the rest though. Likewise to the OP I also miss the days when there was more diversity in the racing space. But I don't know if this move in any way looks to open that transition up again.

Yeah I echo the sentiments in here arguing that this isn't really praise worthy. I don't like how we've started to compare the bad shit the big time publishers or big game releases are doing on some totem pole so that whomever handled their bad shit the best did it the best.

Games are shipping in a broken state en masse, and if the new norm for next gen games is to basically have the equivalent of trash PS4/XB1 ports, then it's just more evidence that the half step of the Pro and the upgraded Xbox in the middle of last gen was a huge mistake.

Like yes, it's nice to see them giving refunds on something they should of refunded. But I was hesistant about this on old platforms to begin with, once games like Control and other games that released well before the next set of consoles came out were having trouble on the base stuff it became obvious this was going to be a larger issue.

For me this just seems like a great opportunity to hammer home the point that AAA development is in a very bad state. The expectation of what you need to make to sell, the crunch, the scope, it's just not in a good place right now from a technical or consumer standpoint. It could just be me; but the way the AAA aspect of the industry has been going feels super unstable right now.

Anyway; just throw it onto the mountain of stuff about this games pre-launch and marketing that was a huge swing and a miss. You'd figure demoing how the game works on last gen consoles would of been a priority, but as many have said apparently all you need to do is apologize and offer refunds and it excuses knowingly shipping a product in an unshippable state.

@retris: Man, I don't know if I could disagree more. I love the overall vibe and energy of TH2, especially Angelico and his near rave concert guy entrance. But I've seen Jack Evans for much of his career and I just have such a hard time taking him seriously in the role they put him in. This shiteating heel who is acting tough and bullying the Young Bucks your new tag champs around. It just felt lame to me. TH2 as a whole have some good tag team moves but their pacing and match flow is awful. Jack Evans has a slower style than the modern indy crowd too now despite being a high flyer so a lot of his stop and start movements really interrupt match pacing if not done at the right time.

As for Dynamite. I am with the majority in liking it. Stings promo was amazing, him and them entirely leaning into the idea that this thing is just the spirit of WCW living on in the ideas of creative/talent across the board was great. Mostly because it's true as hell. Cassidy/MJF was probably MOTN for me even with all the run ins and shenanigans. Thought for a second with the Inner Circle rift going on during the night and them deciding to join at ringside that we may actually see Cassidy take the ring. I felt they did a decent job of selling the idea that it would work if either men won their.

I will say though. It seems I may be alone in this take but I uh, well, uh. Let me just start by saying I think Don Callis cut a great manager promo, fantastic. I was absolutely on board with the idea of him trying to hilarious sell over Impact "And it's on Access TV!" haha like so irrelevant. It's a great bit. But then uh Kenny took the mic and man. Not since Seth Rollins have I immediately went "wait a second, this is what they are doing?" I didn't like it, I'm going to be honest. I like the idea of Kenney going for all the belts like they showed on Impact, I like the idea of him being this FAKE mega star. However I didn't get that vibe when Kenny took the mic. His demeanor, his timing, they were trying to WWE style Hollywood the fuck out of him.

As a fan of Kenny since the days of when he was an opener being hailed from Pokemon stadium, I just didn't buy it. He doesn't look, sound, talk, emote, move, the part in anyway. He's the nerdy megastar, it's why his silly satire terminator heel thing worked great in Japan. He parodies the silly shit HHH does. If you try to just make him HHH it doesn't work. That is what I saw, and to me that was just like...ugh. He doesn't pull that off remotely. From what I saw I would much rather Callis take the promo time for much of this thing, not unless they decide to keep evolving it.

@eroq: We really just need to get people more used to engaging critically with the things they like. It's okay to like and dislike aspects about a thing, and to have that be apart of the discourse around said thing. We'd probably have a lot less hype over games too if people would engage in more of this.

SethMode mentions it as well but it does really feel like a large group of people who grew up with the bad parts of the industry left it behind and then some decided to iron clad double down and make the toxic stuff and mix it into the culture of what gaming meant to them as a huge part of their identities.

@plan6: Totally. Big releases like this because of everything going on turn into these big events even for people who may not play the games. They turn a release into a weird hyper reflective and sensitive moment for gaming culture at the existing moment as the various sides all wind up get over involved.

It can be frustrating too because keeping up with the discourse even for those who may not want to play the game feels super relevant. The nuances alone in what make or break aspects of this game for various reviewers is relevant dialogue to the state of games, given the overall context and stature of a game this big. But obviously the caveat of engaging with so much of the good discourse is that there is a plethora of it that is as you said, insufferable.

I've long since been a fan of removing scores from games, and now I think more so than ever. People need to learn to treat this stuff as a discourse, not a giant big social media game of rallying behind your supporters to trash people who don't agree with your opinions. Good intentioned people get caught up frequently in toxic discourse because they are trying to help mute or push out the bottom feeders as someone mentioned above, while good intentioned criticisms can get mistakenly lumped into that category as a result too. It'd be much easier if the process and system itself was less inviting to quick note mob style reactionary takes. I think a lack of a formal review score would help with that, as people would be more encouraged to actually read a reviewers thoughts to get their take on the game. They may still find paragraphs and out of context boil things down, but they'd at least then be engaging with the discourse and it'd be a lot easier to spot the bad faith with less of the spam.

Yeah glad to have been able to catch up on the show earlier than usual this week. The Sting debut is silly, and wild and dumb and, and....it just leans into the "this is WCW" aspect of the show. But fuck it, if he manages someone, maybe has a few fun matches with some stables or something it could be fun.

Kenny winning and the Impact setup is just...."eh." The Kenny win was a fun match, I just don't know how great it will be going from one long face title reign to what is now likely to be one long heel title reign. I've also never been huge on Impact, so if this is a parternship or AEW is doing something more with them in large I'll wait and see. I like some of their tag division for sure, so it could work out well.

Pretty good show though overall, the battle royal was fun and setup a lot. Giving the tag match a big debut moment like that gave it more importance and also helped really elevate Team FTW (I hate the Team Taz name) as heels. The Bucks stuff is yikes though. Going from FTR and that great tag match to feuding TH2 is just not working for me. I've seen Jack Evans at various point in his career and, I just can't. Not with the way they present him. He's not a menacing bully or a heel at all. The Bucks to me are basically the HBK of Tag Teams. They show up around once a year to deliver an epic match and then are relatively okay to average for much of the rest of the year.

Great read Zombie, totally agree on a lot of the points made. Even as an old G4 viewer it was pretty easy to spot the rampant sexism that wasn't just huge in games at the time but platformed largely by G4 as a Network. Attack of the Show had it's moments but yeah Olivia Munn and several other ladies were pretty much just objects for the show to sexualize for several bits. It's rise came right as that Comic Con ardent Nerd Fandom era that was really coming up strong, and you could totally tell then and even more so now how hard the network leaned into that attitude.

It's rough because G4 for me was my introduction to the games industry more seriously. Thankfully I found their Feedback show which was far less of the toxic shit and more just Bombcast style earnest dialogue on games. Where I first discovered Klepek, and eventually found my way to GB. But even with fond memories of some G4 related things I'm totally right with you. You can't move on from the past without being earnest and transparent about it. Trying to sweep it under the rug, likely in an attempt to not "pick a side" when it comes to their audience base is super disappointing to see. Yes not everyone in every fandom is bad, but it's very clear a huge part of the old G4 ways is pretty much toxic gamer culture 101 right now. G4's lack of clarity on these type of stances will only fuel the vocal minority of those troll movements to push for shitty content. They'd be much better off to just accept their lumps and spotlight the problems from the old days. Taking this stance may alienate a few of the hardcore but it'll be much worth it in the long run.

Just wanted to pipe back in here to give Abby a shout out on what was an awesome read this morning for the newsletter, if none of ya'll are signed up to that I'd recommend it. The Business Dave Top 100 last edition was fire but in this weeks Abby did a more proper farewell (on top of the farewell stream) and yeah it was a much appreciated goodbye message to the community, thanks for that Abby!