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ZombiePie

To each and every one of you reading this; be kind, earnest, and nice to those around you.

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ZombiePie

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#1 ZombiePie  Staff

Glad to see Paranormasight getting some love, I also have it in my top 10. It does some genuinely unique and cool stuff with the visual novel genre.

I like Square Enix supporting smaller, weirder projects like this, but I wish they wouldn't send them out to die with no fanfare (see The Centennial Case from last year).

Hey, thanks for the words of support! I thought the only other person to support my pro-VN agenda would be @mento and @bowl-of-lentils!

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ZombiePie

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#2 ZombiePie  Staff

MAYBE it was the second season revamp of Video Power? The first season was a variety show comedy program. The second season was a proper game show that revolved around video games. It doesn't exactly meet your timeline, but the show entered syndication and could have been airing reruns still.

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ZombiePie

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#3 ZombiePie  Staff

I am a massive mate addict now

I thought you were going to announce between this list culminating with close-ups of goblin feet and the atrocities @tolkoto committed on camera, that Giant Bomb was pivoting to cover physical and digital feet shots on a regular basis.

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#4 ZombiePie  Staff

Getting into Itch and indie RPGs has been a revelation. People have a gimmick or idea on what they want to get done in their game's story and usually in under twenty hours. Sure, you have to deal with some rough edges and Itch's search engine in particular is NOT GREAT, but you get so many more games that respect your time.

Also, to echo @chaser324, Rowling has done so much more than use her platform of privilege to espouse fringe viewpoints. She is genuinely hurting the social standing vulnerable people have in communities around the world. Based on what she has said, she genuinely believe that trans women really are NOT women and has repeatedly supported think tanks and advocacy groups that espouse and support those beliefs in the political arena. Supporting Harry Potter media is obviously your choice and the choice of any person, but as Chaser says, the complaints directed at Hogwarts Legacy and Harry Potter often come from a position of self-preservation and Rowling is not a victim even if she claims to be one.

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ZombiePie

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#5 ZombiePie  Staff

The whole idea that the N64 was this titan that was fighting back the competition is an entirely America and Australian narrative. Outside of those two regions, NO ONE GAVE A SHIT ABOUT THE N64!

The Sega Saturn outsold the N64 in Japan. It was completely a non-factor in its own home nation within six months. Nintendo's handheld division was all that prevented Sony from claiming a virtual monopoly on the game industry for two generations.

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#6 ZombiePie  Staff

@av_gamer said:

Don’t see why Twitch shouldn't have a Adult section. They pretty much have every thing else on their site. All they need is a paid subscription that is a decent price. Not cheap, but not too expensive. And a clear Adult's Only disclaimer.

Twitch really should just branch off its sexualized content into its own thing. Having the Twitch front page being a combination of gaming content and a softcore onlyfans alternative just really doesn't make sense. I get that sex sells and always will, and I don't have a fundamental problem with content like that existing, I just don't think it makes sense mixed in with a bunch of gaming content.

A lot of people have been asking about why Twitch doesn't just create its own platform for hosting adult-oriented streams when Amazon already sells sex toys and even adult films, and the difference is a bit complicated. First, PornHub ruined everyone's ability to make money on the internet on adult content, even individual adult sex workers and content providers, for everyone. After the site got caught hosting people engaging in sex trafficking and did nothing to stop such activities, it led to almost every single credit card issuer suspending the ability to use their credit cards for the purchase of digital pornography and they all re-assessed their programs for issuing credit to digital adult platforms. While PornHub was absolutely guilty, their incompetency led to a growing body of political pressure from right-wing elements that pressured credit card issuers and processors to react accordingly. Currently, MasterCard actually has the strongest anti-porn rules and others are slowly but surly following their suit.

This is part of the reason why OnlyFans almost needed to pivot to be non-pornographic. They literally could not find a single financial institution willing to issue them credit or to process their purchases. In some countries, it is down to just Visa because the political pressure is that strong.

Amazon could technically fight back considering they are too big to fail or not issue credit or accept payments from. That still would not change the fact that it would be a fight they may or may not want to have and it definitely would not stop some of the biggest names in credit processing from being selective about what divisions of Amazon they would work with.

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#7 ZombiePie  Staff

@ben_h:

Must make line go up by not paying employees and charging them more for everything! It'll work, I promise!

Is Netflix even sustainable yet? Or are they gonna cut their animation division some more and throw another 100 million at a movie that reviews worse than Jupiter Ascending?

So, the idea that Netflix isn't profitable doesn't entirely hold water anymore. Apparently, the ad-tier subscription plan was a complete game changer and their password crackdown actually worked. After everyone predicted that their subscriber growth would plummet or decline in response to their new rules regarding password sharing, the opposite actually happened and they exceeded growth targets. Also, streaming now is their only business plan, and unlike Disney, Paramount, and Discovery, they have honed it to a science to where it does indeed generate profits and a sustainable business model. What was not sustainable was them signing big labels and industry names that required millions upon millions. Even then, Netflix realized quickly that if they release movies to theaters, even if they don't break even on the big screen, they should treat it as an early dessert before they launch it on streaming.

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#8 ZombiePie  Staff
Eat your heart out Disney and Comcast?
Eat your heart out Disney and Comcast?

As first reported by Axios, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav had lunch with Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish and the topic at the heart of their lunch is the viability of the two companies merging. Multiple sources told Axios that the talks went on for several hours and the meal took place at Paramount's HQ in Times Square. Reportedly, one of the topics involved a merger or at least strategic partnership between Paramount+ and Max in hopes of creating a streaming platform that better rivaled Disney+ and Netflix. Axios reports that Warner Bros. Discover (i.e., WBD) has hired its banking team to explore the financials of the deal and that it is not clear if WBD is interested in just Paramount Global or its parent company National Amusements. That said, they did say in regards to the latter of those two points that a source tells them that "both options are on the table."

While the talks are definitely in the early phases and not at all guaranteed to result in another monolithic media empire, it does seem like both parties are willing to move forward. That said, The New York Times raised a handful of reasons why a merger might not transpire or happen. First, Warner Bros. Discovery has $40 billion in debt and only about $5 billion in positive free cash flow, the money a company has after deducting capital expenditures from its cash flow and often distributes to creditors and securities holders. Paramount, on the other hand, has been consistently reporting a negative cash flow and has a gross debt of $15 billion. If these two merged, they would create an empire founded on a mountain of debt and would likely trigger massive spin-offs and sell-offs to lower that debt burden.

Also, it is unlikely this deal will happen any time soon as WBD is under a Reverse Morris Trust lock-up until April 8th 2024 due to WarnerMedia's spin-off of AT&T into a separate company. Until that date, any attempted mergers or acquisitions would incur massive fees and taxes through the IRS. This is also ignoring the fact that the FTC under the Biden administration and under the leadership of Lina M. Khan has taken a much more aggressive stance on what it defines as an anti-trust violation.

Finally, while Disney fans love to complain about Robert Iger, David Zaslav actually seems like the true worst CEO in entertainment. Lest we not forget that he said cancelling films and scrapping television and movie projects to get tax write-offs "took courage" on his part. He also credits himself as being a figurehead in ending the Writer's Strike and his interview on the matter included these tidbits:

“The writers, the actors, were saying, ‘look at this guy, he’s getting paid tens of millions of dollars a year and we’re over here.’ How do you deal with that personally? And how do you think about that?” asked Sorkin.

“My focus was we need to settle this strike. This is really hurting people. Every day that we were on strike, that people weren’t working was a bad day,” replied Zaslav.

“I did fight, and Bob Iger. There was a bunch of us” trying to end it, he added of the strikes.

Zaslav was compensated in 2021 with $247 million worth of stock options. His compensation package in 2022 was $39 million.

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ZombiePie

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#9 ZombiePie  Staff

Giant Baba absolutely needs to be on the Japan Mt. Rushmore of wrestling. The man might not have been a great technical wrestler for much of the back-half of his career, but he a was massive figurehead in promoting and popularizing wrestling in Japan and one of the most universally loved figures in the entire country.

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ZombiePie

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#10  Edited By ZombiePie  Staff

On December 13th, 2023 Twitch heralded a massive change to its content policy for streamers. Moving forward, if properly tagged, the platform would allow for "artistic nudity" in its Art tab and streaming category. In its initial statement about its policy regarding artistic nudity, Twitch vice president of customer trust Angela Hession stated "We have received consistent feedback from streamers... that it can be difficult to know how their content will be interpreted." The original policy stated:

Previously prohibited but now Allowed With Label:

  • Content that ‘deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic region,’ even when fully clothed. Streamers found it difficult to determine what was prohibited and what was allowed and often evaluating whether or not a stream violated this portion of the policy was subjective. In addition, the former Sexually Suggestive Content policy was out of line with industry standards and resulted in female-presenting streamers being disproportionately penalized.
  • Fictionalized (drawn, animated, or sculpted) fully exposed female-presenting breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender. There is a thriving artist community on Twitch, and this policy was overly punitive and did not reflect the impact of the content.
  • Body writing on female-presenting breasts and/or buttocks regardless of gender. The Twitch Attire Policy already allows body art on breasts and buttocks, so this change makes these policies consistent.
  • Erotic dances that involve disrobing or disrobing gestures, such as strip teases.

So, it sounded like a victory for adult content creators and those in the adult art community, which was kind of cool to see. And then, in pure Twitch fashion, its leadership announced this policy change, did not properly equip its moderation and safety teams with the tools to enforce this change, and the entire art portal got inundated with porn. Obviously, for those with half a brain, artistic nudity is not softcore porn or hardcore pornography, but Twitch simply did not respond quick enough after making this announcement to enforce that point of differentiation. As a result, and possibly due to other factors, Twitch completely walked their artistic nudity policy. Twitch announced on December 15th, 2023, about two days after the initial announcement about the policy change:

First, we want to make clear that some streamers, in response to this update, created content that was in violation of our new policy. We’ve worked quickly to remove that content and issue channel enforcements.

However, there also was a great deal of new content that was allowed under the updated policy. Much of the content created has been met with community concern. These are concerns we share. Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change. Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge–AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography.

So, effective today, we are rolling back the artistic nudity changes. Moving forward, depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium. This restriction does not apply to Mature-rated games. You can find emote-specific standards for nudity and sexual content in the Emote Guidelines. We aren’t making other changes to the updated Sexual Content Policy.

Honestly, Twitch not even bothering to find a way to filter or moderate those that wanted to follow their initially announced "artistic nudity" policy versus that wanted to use the TOS change to make porn is a bummer. However, there's likely another reason why they walked all of this back. Twitch's leadership for what feels like the past five years have repeatedly shot from the hip when trying the waters with new policy changes. Every time they have tried to rock the boat even slightly, they have been met with backlash, which results in them needing to change things either all the way back to something entirely different.

Also, I bet the issue with Twitch is that advertisers and their owner, Amazon, put their foot down after the TOS announcement and can almost guarantee Twitch's management did not pass it by them even the slightest bit. Repeatedly, it seems like the Twitch leadership doesn't actually talk to their ad and streaming partners or Amazon overlords before trying new policy changes.

Personally, despite what all of the toxic bad actors on the internet might tell you, I think there's way more distressing content that requires a huge public outcry than nude boobs or depictions of genitalia on Twitch. But if Twitch wanted to go that route, they likely would need to create an entirely different platform and I would also hazard to guess that there's no way Amazon wants to go that route.