RoomWithaMoose

@Serialsid If we have a new subgroup of people looking to be offended, then public sentiments have changed. I don't think this is a new thing at all, but I feel like you're just contradicting yourself here.

Reminiscing about pubic outrage from the 2000s, things are definitely different. R*'s Bully caused outage because people wrongly assumed it was literally GTA in a school. No one seemed to care about the same-sex romance options, which would likely be a boon today. Plus, the remnants of the Satanic Panic were still ongoing. I mean, just watch old South Park; they skewered plenty of ridiculous panics of the time.

@get2sammyb @Mac_steel Eh, we'll see. It looks way more like DMC to me. With a Souls-like camera and boss. And Black Myth-esque setting.

This doesn't look anything like God of War 3...

@Krlozgod Again, good PR isn't ignoring public relations.

@PuppetMaster Legitimate question: What kind of controversies do you have in your country?

@Serialsid Do you honestly think they saw record quarterly revenue because people were so impressed by Sweeney's assets and their wordplay?

They weren't the first clothing company to think of putting a sexy actor in their clothing and accompanying them with a cute pun or slogan. And they certainly wouldn't have seen that bump if there wasn't a social media publicity-storm about it.

I'm saying it's a s*** ad because I'm not assuming any of the aftermath that they owe that success to was on purpose. And, without that, it's just a basic ass commercial with no real intended audience — besides people that feel inadequate compared to Sweeney, I guess. I.e., the audience of all fashion/beauty advertisements...urm, sans the Sweeney.

Sidenote: I hate the whole, 'it wouldn't have been offensive 20 years ago' mentality. There have always been offensive things. Maybe this specific commercial wouldn't have sparked controversy (probably not, since there wasn't as significant of a white nationalist movement in the USA specifically 20 years ago). But something else seemingly as harmless could've. It's like, what are you even saying by saying that? That public sentiment has changed in 20 years? No s***. Whether contemporary sentiment is better or worse is a much deeper conversation, and just saying 'back in my day' is superficial nothingness.

@Serialsid So they saw a flash of success because their ad struck a cord with white nationalists?

I guess good for them and their s*** ad.

EDIT: To clarify, I would only call it a good ad if the intention was to evoke eugenics for the explicit purpose of stirring up social media drama and make their jeans partisan in an attempt to appeal to the 'dunk on the liberals' crowd. Because if that wasn't the intention, it was literally a s*** ad that got lucky and caught on due to being so poorly worded that it was interpreted as racist. And if that was the intention, the ad's not s***, but they are.

@Krlozgod Why wouldn't it be if people are misconstruing their production? If it wasn't their intent, they should clarify (and they both actually have. Whether or not it was good enough is a different discussion I don't really care enough about to have).

Good PR isn't just saying, 'f*** what the public thinks.'

@Krlozgod It probably was. I dunno. Hence my use of "maybe-ethnocentrism" and "ostensible metaphor."

Regardless of it being a likely overreaction, it still would've been very easy to sharply denounce the ideology in a timely manner. She did not, and that didn't do her any favors.

And, you know, regardless of the eugenics accusations, it really was not a good concept for an ad in the first place. Even assuming the innocent intent of: 'we got a hot lady and made a pun,' there's still a lot of negative ways people could've interpreted the ad. Which, in my eyes, just makes it a bad ad. This is really removed from any controversies, or anything like that. Just saying, looking at it as an ad that's supposed to sell people something, kinda a s*** ad.

I think there was a solid concept for a story here, even if the game didn't quite put it all together.

Hopefully this adaptation — uh...happens. Assuming it does happen, hopefully it really irons out the narrative and makes something less cartoonish and more nuanced.

@Jackthelad93 I mean...kinda.

While I think, yes, she is just an actress and shouldn't be held accountable for the inscrutable maybe-ethnocentrism of that ad. It's also worth noting that she lacked the foresight OR hindsight to properly dispel any personal association with eugenics. Which wouldn't have been that hard.

Personally, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt that she really didn't see the ostensible metaphor during shooting, and figured it was better not to engage with the social media spat after the fact. But she certainly didn't do herself any favors at any point.

Honestly, I haven't paid much attention to this game beyond the confused hype b**** gamers seem to have for it.

The thing I never really seem to see brought up in the discourse, though, is its design. Everyone's always doubting it's existence (for some reason...I dunno why gamers jump to 'game doesn't exist' so often these days...), or saying it's the second coming of gaming Jesus because you can swing around and fly. But, like, what's even the gameplay loop? To me, it's liable to be one of those classic cases where 'game look cool, so get hype,' only for the game to release and gamers realize there's nothing worthwhile to do with all the cool action design. It feels like a game about adding, not refining; one about the aesthetic of marketability, not finely crafted design.

And I continue to find it frustrating that the general gaming populous tends to miss that when looking at upcoming games. Any game can have cool s***. But a good game actually does interesting things with that cool s***. DOOM's shooting wouldn't be as iconic if it weren't within labyrinthian levels with strong enemy variety. The Witcher 3's world is memorable not because of its size, but rather the meticulous narrative detail contained within it. Breath of the Wild isn't a masterpiece because Link can go anywhere, it's a masterpiece because the world is synergistically open-ended to build a functional game wherein Link COULD go anywhere. Good games aren't good games because they have neat things in them. Good games are good games because they are well designed.

Crimson Dessert looks neat. But its visuals, ostensibly vast action expression, and sheer size do not make a worthwhile game. It makes a big game — which is often to a game's detriment, honestly. I don't know why people are convincing themselves it'll be one of the best games of the year when how it really plays remains fairly nebulous.

@somnambulance I really hope it's not too late for the Information Age to become one of compassion, conversation, and camaraderie.

But, for the most part, it feels like we're already in an Orwellian nightmare.

@DreadfulDragon Video game analysis is not at the same level of importance and urgency as medical care or home repair. So, in my opinion at least, there's no good reason to hold the former to the same standards of the latter two. This is more akin to demanding someone working at a museum know the exact history and discourse surrounding every painting they host. Ain't that deep.

"Amateurish and uninformed opinions" also isn't what you were concerned with before. You were concerned with deceit and corruption within the games journalism space. These are different things. You can say corruption is 'amateurish,' I guess. But, also...I wouldn't. And amateur, in this context, would more refer to a games journalist's direct connections within the games industry as well as their ability to write (an amateur review would simply be a poorly written one, to me). And, indeed, hypothetical corruption wouldn't be mutually exclusive (a review can be amateur and corrupt...'cause those are different things).

And besides all that, I didn't say simply wanting professional, ethical reviews is weirdo s***. That's fine, even if I don't agree with the necessity therein. That's why I said that if you really don't trust reviewers, then don't trust them and find different avenues to understand a game's quality. I am not asserting that you MUST trust all reviews. It's the demanding of professionalism — and especially indulging in a narrative of corrupt games journalists being paid off to positively score things — within a medium that's mostly trivial that's weirdo s***. Because it AIN'T. THAT. DEEP.

You should be demanding actual journalism that sways public opinion on real matters and political movements be moral and honest. No one should care nearly as much if some reviewer gives their 10th CoD game a 10/10.

@DreadfulDragon My guy, it ain't that serious.

There is no singular 'professional opinion' or 'player experience' to be at odds with one another. There is no notable, consistent disparity.

If you don't trust games journalists, then don't take their word for anything and just inform your opinions with gameplay analysis and personal preference — or just actually playing games. But trying to demand journalistic integrity from reviews of casual entertainment and discredit what are effectively opinion pieces on a conspiratorial basis is just...sorry — it's weirdo s***.

@Ultrasmiles Consider this: Maybe those non-fan reviews are useful for non-fans curious if something is worthwhile for a newcomer. There's a specific audience that finds no use in someone deeply entrenched in something impenetrable writing a review only people with expert vocabulary can understand. Certainly, there's a place for both newcomers and intermediates in the discourse.

Also consider: Maybe it doesn't actually matter if a reviewer likes/dislikes something in the first place.

@somnambulance "Learning to respectfully disagree and learn from opinions that may differ from your own IS the way."

Unfortunately, that simple virtue is too utopic for the toxic reality we live in. I dunno how the Information Age has destroyed peoples' ability to actually listen, but here we are.

@Cry_Zero You and me both, brother.

@TheFakulty On the upside, you directly supported a developer whose game you evidently thought was worth buying.

@ZeroSum I'd argue the problem is that anyone's assuming reviewers should always be right or specifically matched with games they would be more inclined to like.

When you understand reviews are just the opinions of people paid to write opinions, and their intrinsic beliefs, as well as what they value in art/entertainment, doesn't discredit that opinion, then you can actually have interesting conversations about games and their perceived qualities. The whole 'good game/bad game' discourse is painfully myopic, limiting, and artistically illiterate.

@Ralizah Literally, that's all this would accomplish.

The gaming community needs to deemphasize the ethos of reviews, not add a new layer of reviews to misunderstand and flame over.

@KundaliniRising333 I mean, realistically, what would a reviewer review accomplish? If anyone questions their analytical ability and reasoning, that should be apparent from reading whatever review is in question. If they want to research further, they can read more of their reviews to get a better feel for them.

A review-review would presumably just score reviewers, which would lead to the same reductive discourse that Swen's calling out in the first place.

@DreadfulDragon Even watching TheOtherFrost's post Second Wind spat-piece where he accused them of exactly that, the most offensive 'gifts' he cited were review codes and paid trips to offices. Both of which sound like pretty normal exchanges between reviewer and publisher, and shouldn't illicit malpractice from the former.

I think there is a conversation to have about how much of games journalism is less journalism and more an extension of marketing. But that has little, if any, barring on actual reviews and the scores within.

I'd say the problem is more gamers rather than reviewers. The culture around hating on games and summarizing quality with a number is built upon the whims of the audience. Any review in isolation is harmless, and they've every right to be as negative or positive as they want. Any harmful, subsequent discourse takes a life of its own, often with little care or concern for the actual contents of the review that may have inspired it.

I'm general, it just ain't that deep. Gamers perpetuate the piousness of reviews and reduce the conversation to meaningless mathematics and petty grudges.

@Lysterao I think all Bethesda games are kinda mediocre. But Starfield's greatest sin was removing the sense of exploration their games always nailed. When I tried it, the combat and story were just 'whatever,' but when I got to explore a planet only to find literally f***ing nothing, I knew the game had nothing to offer me.

I didn't really think 2077 was that great either, from what I played — and that was after the majority of bug fixes. But at least its aesthetic isn't bland and its cinematics actually have production value. NASApunk is fine and all, but that doesn't mean Starfield effectively represents that genre.

@cainhurst94 Funny thing is, gamers are too busy s***talking the obvious suspects like CoD and Ubisoft to notice all the other annual IPs. SEGA's been at this for years; pretty sure Yakuza's been annual since at least 2020. And Sonic probably even earlier. Zelda has been annual for, like, a decade now. Dragon Quest is going annual. Pretty sure Final Fantasy is annual. Resi's pretty close; I think biannual on that one. If Horizon keeps selling, I'm sure it'll go annual soon

It's honestly super common. I would suggest playing the series at your place, not its. Doesn't really make much difference that way.

It's a flattering pic of the original remake, and an unflattering one of the new guy. I guarantee you the re-remake looks better the majority of the time, but the older lighting works great for scenes like this. That's pretty typical in an engine — and subsequent lighting — change. Wind Waker HD and The Last of Us Part I look better than the original 90% of the time; what we have here is Yakuza's 10%.

I did actually watch some footage of the demo after seeing this, and it looks fine. At night, it's gorgeous. And the daytime overexposure looks a lot better elsewhere. This is a good reason why they should have kept the original remake listed, though.

I guess I outta do that Blops7 defense thing I do.

Clears throat

This specific list doesn't actually show profits. Not that I'm saying this is absolutely the case, but this list isn't enough evidence to say Blops6 was more profitable; you can justly assume Blops7 just had better selling competition. For instance, Blops7 still outsold all of CoD's annual compatriots like Blops6 did. Unless Madden,etc. also saw a sharp decline in sales, you might assume they mostly line up with last year's records. And you can point to the recent story about sales in the US declining year-over-year as proof of just that. Expect, that was only physical, this is physical and digital. Conversely, it's entirely possible that Madden and the like sold about the same, but CoD managed to close some massive gap by losing sales. We just don't know, though, and that's the problem.

So all we have here is that BF, BL, NBA, and MH all sold better than CoD in the US. Either CoD fell off or all of those games 're moving on up — or both. But this list doesn't tell you which. Not a great way to measure actual profitability and associated success. And acting like #5 best-selling game in the US is a complete failure...seems kinda disingenuous, honestly.

@Oram77 The originals are free on Steam and can run on a potato. I haven't finished...any of them. But they're pretty good little Doom clones with neat enemy designs and a cool horror atmosphere. I'd suggest giving them a try if you have an opportunity.

Like that other guy, I'm likewise pretty off put from them using the Marathon name for this game that has nothing to do with Marathon, and would've much preferred a real reboot to the series. But also, no one knows what Marathon is or cares, so it really doesn't matter.

Haven't paid attention to this, as I generally don't care about generic looking multiplayer games.

But, let me get this straight, gamers were mad at it for being TGA's closer. Then convinced themselves it didn't exist because the developer's socials went dark for a month... God, gamers are stupid.

@Kriandis Tom's Guide is not an authority on Sony's financials.

Sony's a big corporation; not every spare dollar is going to be funneled into any one division. And not every dollar of profit is going to be reinvested into its infrastructure.

Believe me, Naughty Dog doesn't have to crunch for Intergalactic because Sony's TVs were too much of drain on capital. And it's development isn't going to go faster now that the TV division might be more profitable and less resource intensive.

EDIT: Admittedly, I did not read your article before posting — because I think anything they might've said was irrelevant. Now that I have read it, what part exactly corroborates your claim?

@Kriandis Business structure isn't that simple. Even if this deal is just a blanketed net positive for their TV division, I would expect that extra funding to go into other hardware departments before going to entertainment.

After all, PlayStation, movies, and TV are all already profitable. What would a fraction of extra funding do for those divisions? And would that even translate to the consumer?

@rjejr I mean, that's exactly it. They'll be a "marketing partner." They used to have some of the best engineering and quality in the industry, and are now being reduced to a recognizable name.

Sure, they're still technically in the TV business, but not really in a notable capacity. And it was a long time coming, but indeed the end of an era.

@Can-You-Believe-Sith I feel like the branding is half of the deal.

@Kriandis I'm fairly certain that's not at all what this means. I don't see how this would affect their entertainment side whatsoever.

@viktorcode I mean, you can just not sprint if you think it disrupts the flow of the game. I'm not super into this remake for a few reasons, but that's such a non-problem in my eyes.

@themightyant I mean, it depends on a few things. Not least of which being how you're defining "Gen-AI."

It's hard to draw a line when it comes to AI, especially considering it's used as this catch-all term right now (though I didn't read the patent myself, I'm fairly certain Sony's recent auto-play "AI" has nothing in common with genAI — don't see why it would need it). I just ask a few questions whenever this comes up:

• Will it eliminate jobs? (That's bad)
• Is it built upon the infrastructure of excessive, environmentally dangerous data centers currently being built (That bad)
• Is it being implemented in a way that reduces a project's human expression? (That bad)
• Does it actually, notably increase efficiency (One would hope, with the assumed costs)
• Does it steal human work that wasn't meant to be shared (That bad)

An implementation doesn't necessarily have to satisfy all these questions to be justified. But, right now — as tech bros are incessantly hyping up the technology with seemingly no concern for its consequences — I'd prefer if it did, and generally disapprove of all instances where it doesn't.

And, ya know, I get it. A few years ago, I was bothering other communities assuring them genAI was a net positive that had the potential to improve everyone's lives. I've leaned a few things since then, though, and feel less and less validated with those thoughts.

@Blaze215 I think the more effective solution to that problem is smaller, cheaper games.

genAI bad, AI tools good. This is a perfectly acceptable opinion to have. But we really should be detailing what AI tools we're referring to. Adobe has had plenty of automation tools for years now, tools one could consider AI in a sense. Are we talking about that stuff? Are we talking about throwing code into chatGPT to debug it? What are we talking about.

@Pat_trick So are you saying fears over a possible WW3 are entirely wrong or the claim is pointless due to its inevitability?

'Cause, ya know, I think we all get the inherent violence of man that's ever-ongoing and ostensibly unstoppable. You're not — and I don't mean to sound like an a** here — but you're not special for understanding that. We all understand that. And I feel very confident saying "We" in reference to literally everybody. We don't think there's been nothing but peace since WWII, nor that only just recently that peace has been perturbed.

If you truly understand human nature though, and the foolhardiness of the powers that be, I don't know why you'd draw the line at a possible WW3. Just because media can be sensationalist for profit and engagement, and there's been constant false alarms? You know, the moral of The Boy Who Cried Wolf wasn't that wolves don't exist. Not only was it about a boy that lied to the point of detriment, but also about a town that was so pacified by lies that they didn't react accordingly once a threat became real. If you know how terrible humanity can be, how fickle those in power are, and how futile peace really is, surly the thought of WW3 or a comparable conflict doesn't seem so farfetched.

If you're just taking a "Take local action! Make a difference where you can!" stance, that's great. But our worries don't reduce that. If you're saying WW3 will never happen, never say never.

@1970sGamer I don't super-understand the logic here. Are we saying that when/how we die doesn't matter because dying is an inevitability?

When looking at things from an existential cosmic perspective, I generally agree. The entire human race can go extinct tomorrow for all the universe cares. But the thing is, you don't live at a cosmic scope, you live at an individual scope. You can't just say the circumstances of the smaller scope doesn't matter in a cosmic sense, so the individual has zero agency. Because it kinda works both ways: the cosmic perspective is mostly irrelevant to the individual, and the individual perspective is mostly irrelevant to the cosmos. It's the exact same logic with micro vs. macro: the microscopic entities that make up your person are ignorant to that person because the macro does little to change their circumstance. Knowing your universal insignificance does nothing to make your life better or happier, nor the lives of any of the compatriot entities to your scope of existence. So why should it directly dictate your outlook?

...What's this article about again? Boiling plates, or something?

@Pat_trick Nah, fam. If you're truly convinced there are enough safeguards in place to prevent massive global conflict, you don't pay attention to ongoing strife between nations.

Though your other reply instead implies you ARE aware of the ongoing strife, but have normalized it. I question why you would handwave people dying — both hypothetically and in reality — yet seem to consider "alarmist media" a big enough problem to cite is as the source of our individual pessimism.

Consider that we're not the unreasonable ones here. Maybe we just aren't generalizing all human suffering to the point of numbness, and pay attention to specific happenings to infer we're teetering closer and closer to catastrophe.

@Pat_trick Open your eyes.

We're not under the same immediate existential threat of the Missile Crisis, sure. But to downplay contemporary tensions — which get worse by the year — is to bury your head in the sand.

It's not like either of the actual World Wars started with the threat of mutual annihilation, either. The players have been falling into place for years now. The tension's high enough; all it might take is one bad day.

@themightyant Yes, we should compare the Wii U to the PS4 and the Virtual Boy to the PSone. An inability to learn anything from those comparisons is a failure of imagination, not the comparisons inherently.

@themightyant

• Can't compare currently competing game consoles because one is a home/handheld hybrid.

'Kay.

• Can't compare two competing handheld consoles because one was more successful than the other.

...Wot?

Can we compare the PS5 to previous PlayStations in Japan? Is that fair? In that comparison, we can clearly see Sony completely lost its stranglehold on its home country. A stranglehold so strong that the only competing home console from the last 30+ years to outsell the modest-at-best sales of the PS5 was the worldwide phenomenon Wii. Regardless of how we got here (I know you're already thinking of saying we can't compare the PS5 to previous PlayStations because the home console market has shrunk there. We just can't compare anything to anything), that's still the PlayStation brand losing A LOT of strength in Japan. That happening wasn't an inevitability.

I don't know why I keep checking this thread out of curiosity. It's getting increasingly more exhausting to read through every time. My guy SMJ didn't even bring up the Xbox or the Vita, and now people are telling them their comparisons are unfair and they always defend Microsoft.

@DennisReynolds You know what, you prolly right. I do think, in the current 'better dead than 30fps' gaming climate, they would be much more inclined to hit 60 than they have been in the past. And I'm sure they have the manpower and time to make that happen.

But they could just as easily say "nah," and release it however they want. That would also give them a great reason to "remaster" GTAVI in 3 years on PS6 with an accompanying PC release.

@GamingGod Well, hope to see you next week when you'll have another opportunity to point out the Xbox's abysmal Japanese sales regardless of whatever context or perspective is presented by the article and/or commenters.

@PuppetMaster Doesn't explaining why the 3DS sold better than the Vita in Japan just...strengthen SMJ's claim that it did, in fact, sell notably better in Japan?

What's the point of saying all this?

@Naughtyottsel92 @GamingGod Really feels like you guys are flailing about trying to counter anything @SMJ says that can be construed as even mildly anti-PlayStation instead of simply acknowledging their point.

They never even said anything overtly defensive of Xbox.