Backlog: The Embiggening – May, 2024
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/28/24 at 02:30 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! April Showers bring May Flowers… but I’m not sure what April Tornados and April Hail bring… from the looks of things, they bring ports, shovelware, and yet another month of overall crappy game releases. Let’s dissect this dead frog!
The shovelware is moderately deep. I think we can get by with Wrong DeSanctis’ white boots instead of hip waders. In the Licensed Swill category, we have… ports. The Switch is getting the latest ‘Tintin’ game and ‘UFO Robot Grendizer’ game that recently hit other platforms. The PlayStation 5 is getting an old licensed ‘Dragon Ball Z’ game, while sharing another old licensed ‘Dragon Ball Z’ game with the Xbox SeX. The only all-new piece of Licensed Swill hitting all platforms is a new ‘My Little Pony’ game.
In the 2Caz2Liv category we have… two ‘NepNep’ games, one old and one new… and the new one now includes Management Sim elements instead of strictly …
Embracer Group is De-Grouping!
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/23/24 at 03:38 PM CT
In recent memory, it seemed that gaming consolidation was inevitable, as Big Corporations snatched up every smaller or Indie studio they could, building their IP portfolios while doing nothing with said IP. The consolidation phase of Late Stage Corporatist Gaming culminated with the multi-year process of Microsoft acquiring Activision-Blizzard-King for billions and billions of dollars, while off-stage in the shadows, the Swedish holding company, Embracer Group (of which a portion is owned not by Swedes, but by a Saudi Prince) quietly accumulated an obscenely large portfolio of gaming and gaming-adjacent things, including both tabletop game and comic book publishers.
Something is definitely happening in our current state of economic corruption, as it seems that Embracer Group has finally eaten its fill, and much like Mr. Creosote in the classic (and really EFF-ing gross) Monty Python sketch, can’t hold it all together anymore. On April 22, 2024, Embracer announced that they were …
From “AAAA” to “III”: Industrial Gaming is Joining Post-Modern Language Butchery
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/14/24 at 02:19 PM CT
Oh, what new Hell is this? Mere weeks after Yves Guillemot of Ubisoft caused MeltedJoystick’s CTO, Nick, to collapse in a fit of catatonia with his insistence on coining the term ‘Quadruple-A Game,’ we’re getting a look at the other side of the coin.
The ‘Triple-I Initiative” is a new, corporate-sponsored, pseudo-grass-roots showcase aiming to fill part of the hole left behind by the discontinuation of E3, focusing entirely on meme-able Indie games. Unfortunately, even a cursory glance at the list of titles revealed in the III Initiative’s first 45-minute sizzle trailer reveals very little of actual interest, as the showcase is primarily dominated by sequels to previous Indie meme-games, plus a couple of couple of Single-A budget titles coming from Industrial Gaming studios in existing IPs like Konami’s ‘Castlevania’ and Ubisoft’s ‘Prince of Persia.’
Ugh, this is NOT what games journalism needed. Yes, a curated collection of promising Indie titles …
Microsoft Releases “Product Inclusion Framework” at GDC… Yeah, It’s Woke
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/07/24 at 02:22 PM CT
Alack and alas, E3 has gone the way of the dodo, and in lieu of that week-long orgy of advertisements, announcements, and Industrial Gaming propaganda, it seems that Gaming as a whole has decided to make do with the Games Developer Conference instead. Previously a much more internalized networking activity for Industrial Gaming insiders than the public-facing display that was E3, closer scrutiny of the GDC was destined to reveal closely-held cards and out skeletons from their closets.
At GDC 2024, Microsoft revealed perhaps the most loathsome thing it could have. Far from Microsoft cleaning up Activision’s act after acquisition, it appears that the Diversity Space Tool that made headlines a couple years ago has metastasized after coming into contact with a set of ‘actionable resources’ Microsoft had kept under its hat since 2019.
The Product Inclusion Framework for Game Developers may sound friendly with its safe spaces, accessibility, and global representation. But we …
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