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 …
Backlog: The Embiggening – April, 2024
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/31/24 at 03:23 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! It turns out that Christopher would have seen his shadow if he wasn’t staring so intently at his phone, so we’ve been saddled with 6 more weeks of Wintry weather. April is upon us, and I still have to keep my furnace turned on at night… so… thanks, Global Warming?
Sadly, videogame releases have become far more predictable than the weather in recent years. Let me don my Carnac-style turban as I look through this list of crappy games that has been buried under Funk and Wagnal’s porch in a mayonnaise jar since NOON TODAY: Crap, old stuff, a handful of stuff I don’t care about, and maybe one or two titles I’m interested in… like it’s been every month for years.
The direct-to-dumpster stuff in the Shovelware category is fairly light in April. There’s a new ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ game, “Wrath of the Mutants”… which really isn’t ‘new,’ but it is a port of an arcade machine to home consoles …
Larian Studios to Part Ways with Hasbro-Wizards and D&D
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/24/24 at 01:49 PM CT
Back in those halcyon days before the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting global socio-political fallout, the Crew at MeltedJoystick was super-excited about our new favorite RPG studio being tapped by Wizards of the Coast and parent company Hasbro to create the next big Dungeons & Dragons cRPG… and the fact that it was going to be a sequel in the beloved ‘Baldur’s Gate’ series. What we didn’t know at the time, however, was the fact that Hasbro-Wizards didn’t actually call upon Larian to work on last year’s Magnum Opus and undisputed Game of the Year/Decade/Generation winner, “Baldur’s Gate 3,” but that the Scandinavian Indie studio actually begged, pleaded, and paid for the rights of their own volition (and dramatized the process in a satiric video).
In recent news, Larian has announced that they are not going to be making any DLC or expansions for “Baldur’s Gate 3,” nor do they plan to make “Baldur’s Gate 4.” Even more tragically, Larian has signaled …
Nintendo Continues to Play Emulation Whack-a-Mole
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/17/24 at 02:38 PM CT
A couple weeks ago, Nintendo made one of its heavy-handed legal moves, in which it sued the developers of the Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu, so hard that they took down their website and purged their Github. It’s unsurprising that The Big N was triggered by the existence of Yuzu, considering how hard their fanboys ‘spurged-out when a Yuzu icon appeared in an official Steam Deck promotional video from Valve. And, as we all know, Nintendo has a long, bleak history of clamping down on anyone enjoying their past library of titles without doing things THEIR WAY.
Of course, Nintendo is a flailing giant trying to swat at fleas. They may crush one flea so thoroughly that it is erased from existence… but that does nothing to the thousands of other fleas in the swarm.
Thus, it should come as no surprise that another team of emulation developers has already taken up the torch dropped by the Yuzu team. The provocatively-named Suyu emulator will pick up right where Yuzu left off, …
He’s Everywhere VIII!: Indie Edition
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/10/24 at 03:37 PM CT
It’s that time of year, again! The coming of March means that localized paranormal phenomenon, Chris, is another year older and another year more inscrutable. Last year, I dug back into Game Freak’s world of pocketable monsters to reveal that there are indeed more of them that look, act, or otherwise invoke the abstract concept of “Chris-ness” than I initially realized.
This year, in honor of the recent developments in “Name, Image, and Likeness” law surrounding college athletes, I decided to take a look at all the small-time Indie games that Chris could definitely sue for stealing his unique… err… appeal?
10. “The Binding of Isaac”"When I first saw Chris playing this abomination (in a non-fullscreen window… with a mouse), I asked him if he had done the art design for it. Chris’ levels of depravity and love of the gruesome are at least on par with this game’s developer, if not greater, and every time I (accidentally) see some new horror from Isaac’s …
Review Round-Up: Winter 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/03/24 at 01:50 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
I actually had a pretty good Winter quarter, with plenty of 4.5 scores to hand out. Two of those high-scoring titles were my Backlog Ablution titles, which just leaves me with one more to review to complete my end of the challenge for 2024.
“Catmaze” – 4.5/5
“The Alliance Alive” – 2/5
“Super Mario Bros. Wonder” – 4.5/5
“Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart” – 4.5/5
“Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands” – 3.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Chris actually finished one of the big, sprawling Sandboxes he was playing simultaneously! And he remembered to drop off a review for a coop title we finished together the previous quarter. But…
“Rage 2” – 4.5/5
“MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries” – 4/5
Nick’s Reviews:
… Holy Crap! Not only did Nick successfully clear his Backlog Ablutions for the first time (and …
Google’s Gemini AI is Woke and Regurgitates DEI Manuals When Questioned
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/25/24 at 02:12 PM CT
After last year, seeing all forms of media, from movies, to TV, to comics, to tabletop RPGs feeling the sting of Getting Woke and Going Broke, it seemed like we had reached the peak of insanity and were prepared to start coming down the other side. Normies and Free Thinkers alike had become so fed up with the constant Woke messaging coming from all angles and the Cultural Vandalism of some of the most beloved IPs in the history of Pop Culture, that they simply stopped buying. Some Corporate Executives, like Disney’s Bob Eiger, even went so far as acknowledging the problem publicly.
Unfortunately, this is Cultural Marxism we’re dealing with, here, and if there’s one thing Marxists seem to thrive on, it’s being the underdog, and being forced to play the Long Game. As an aside, I find it intellectually incongruous for the people who push DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and Wokeness to align themselves with Marxism at all, considering that Karl Marx, himself, was a …
Backlog: The Embiggening – March, 2024
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/18/24 at 04:08 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Spring is here, and I have personally confirmed that MeltedJoystick’s in-house small, furry creature did NOT, in fact, see his shadow… probably because his eyes were glued to his phone. So let’s all look forward to yet another terrible docket of videogame releases so we can spend time outside without worrying about missing out on anything!
We’ve got a moderate amount of shovelware coming in March. Not a ton, but still too much for me. We’ve got Licensed Swill in the form of a new game based on the “PJ Masks” kid’s show, a new “South Park” game that is diverging from the turn-based RPG model that was actually pretty decent, and another “House Flipper” game. In the Super Cazual Swill category, we’ve got a port of “Lawn Mowing Simulator” hitting the Switch and an abomination of a Party game called “Atari (Delenda Est) Mania,” which you’d have to truly be manic to consider buying. Lastly, in the …
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