NuXCOM_90Percent
It really is wild to think about it. Kamala has only been the candidate for a bit under two months at this point. And so much of that was spent politely waiting for the DNC and housekeeping like picking a VP.
While I have strong reservations about photoshopping/deep faking/whatevering for political activism… just saying that it would be a real shame if social media were full of trump jacking off big hairy cocks onto his face.
In fairness, “gaijin” is any foreigner. And a lot of laws in Japan are very much based on warped Christian values (can’t imagine who they got that from…).
But yeah. One of my best friends is Japanese American and the way she sums it up is: You know you truly understand the culture of Japan if you realize why you only want to visit for a few weeks at a time.
With bonus points for anyone who can read quickly realizing why the general stance toward APA is “Only if you get a REALLY good deal”
Meh. I would rather trick people into showing their asses over the most trivial of things. Bonus points for actually pseudo-sourcing data.
And yeah. Just depressing that everyone becomes an 80s movie caricature the moment someone is criticizing THE VIDEO GAMEZ!!! Fuck labor if it gets us The Last Of Us 3, right?
He arguably can’t.
He and vance are on the ballot. So is RFK, funny enough. Which is why RFK is trying to get off the ballot in swing states. The reason Biden could tag Kamala in is that the DNC had not actually chosen a candidate yet.
My suspicion is that an exception would be made rather than run into the mess of leaving republicans unelectable in states. But it would still be a giant shitshow and not in a good way.
Doesn’t really change much.
You NEVER connect to sensitive resources via wifi. Different orgs and levels have different rules about whether a device capable of wifi can even be in the same room, but the key is to not connect it to the secure network. This is commonly referred to as “an airgap”. And if you are wondering how different ships can communicate with each other and The US? Don’t ask questions!
For less sensitive resources? YOLO that shit. But it is also incredibly trivial to set up a security model where users cannot connect to arbitrary networks.
So StinkyNet would, presumably, only be usable by personal devices. Which should have absolutely nothing sensitive on them to begin with. And if anything on any of the ship’s sensitive networks was even able to connect to StinkyNet then… the Navy done fucked up.
Which… might explain the rapid action to punish those who violated policy.
The point of a publisher is to have a whole company. It doesn’t matter if Game A sold because Game B sold. EA used to live on this where games like Mirror’s Edge could be “experimental” because The Sims and Madden made CoD money every year.
The problem is what we saw with stuff like (Let’s say it is “THQ”. My brain can’t remember the specific publisher I was thinking of and the name has probably been reused a dozen times by Embracer et al). Where they are over-leveraging themselves by wanting to make multiple AA or even AAA games and going under because critically acclaimed games just didn’t sell well enough.
But, again, that is not what has been happening for the past year or two (aside from Embracer which is a different kind of evil). It is not “Oh, you made bad games and we need to fire you to save the company”. It isn’t even “Profits are down all over”. It is “Well, we are actually doing great. But you finished your game and don’t have one immediately in the pipeline and the shareholders want to see bigger profits for Q3 so… get fucked?”
Which is why I once again cite fucking Phil Spencer talking about what a great game Hi-Fi Rush is the week Microsoft fucking canned Tango. That was not even “Look, everyone loved The Evil Within but didn’t buy it so…”. That was “Everyone loved Hi-Fi and it sold okay even with the Gamepass hit and our other games sold well but…”
But apparently you are in full bootstraps mode where you think like a CEO who wants to buy an extra porsche so…
So because a studio’s first game didn’t outperform the latest in a 30-ish year old franchise that came out to rave reviews, everyone should be fired? Keeping in mind that Kenzera Zau had an EXCELLENT showing in press events (sad game about losing a father from a popular actor) and basically every major outlet said “This is fine but nothing special. But I would love to see what they make next”.
That is exactly how so many of the major publishers got into this mess. It used to be that we could get something very much “this exists” like Sly Cooper and Infamous that eventually leads to a critical and sales darling like Ghost of Tsushima. Now? Infamous didn’t outsell GTA5? Hope you mother fuckers like soup lines.
Or Naughty Dog. I mean, Crash 1 is kind of a bad game with a LOT of jank. It wasn’t until Crash 2 (and especially 3) where they were actually fun to play. And that studio eventually became the folk who made Uncharted and The Last Of Us.
Yes, there are studios that have consistently underperformed for publishers that are struggling and, while it sucks… we get it. But most of what we have seen are major publishers/platform holders just wanting to juice up some Q3 numbers by doing mass firings or the giant mess that was Embracer where they just overspent and never let any studios finish making anything. And then you have bullshit like Phil Spencer having the gall to talk about how Microsoft needs to make more games like Hi-Fi Rush the week they fucking shut down the studio that made it.
But hey, you took ECON 101 so you obviously know better.
Quick query to chatgpt says that video games generated 187.7 billion USD in 2023 vs film which was 87.4.
And the vast majority of companies doing mass layoffs (like Microsoft) are still turning profits. They just want to turn larger profits or throw some labor on the sword to protect whoever thought it was a good idea to make Marathon of all IPs into an extraction shooter.
And the rest? It is studios like Strange Scaffold who are actually doing everything right (complete games at launch, no DLC, innovative gameplay, cool narrative and art style) but can’t secure any publisher funding and are basically constantly on the verge of ruin.
There are going to be massive knock on effects when the only major releases are the massive tentpole games and everything else is “janky indie games”. At which point we’ll have even more Gamers talking about how we should fire anyone who worked on The Last Of Us 3 and spend more money making those quirky B games like HiFi Rush.
But hey. Tell me more about how all these mass layoffs are actually a good thing.
