Backlog: The Embiggening – November, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/29/23 at 12:39 AM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! November is the Month of Gratitude, hosting the United States’ version of the Thanksgiving holiday, in which people look back at the previous year (or more) and take the time to reflect upon what they’re truly grateful for. In my case, those things are the other members of the MJ Crew, my fur babies (Barkley and Mao), and my forward-thinking, dearly-departed parents.
What I am NOT grateful for, however, is the absolute STATE of the Games Industry, where every month is flooded with trash releases, trash ports, censorship, and ideological bickering to the point that I’d like to watch the entire thing burn to the ground. Let the handful of people and businesses who are in it because they value it instead of trying to wring value from it rebuild from the ground up, and give us release schedules filled with a smaller number of meaningful titles that will all garner attention instead of drowning us in crap and seeing which …
Vaguely Related Review: DragonLance Destinies Vol. 2 “Dragons of Fate”
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/15/23 at 02:26 PM CT
Last year, I was incredibly excited about the fact that a new trilogy of DragonLance novels by the setting’s original creators, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, was being launched outside of the purview of the increasingly-tragic Wizards of the Coast. Sadly, the first volume of the DragonLance Destinies trilogy left me quite disappointed, as even without the heavy-handed oversight of WotC (rhymes with “Nazi”), Weis and Hickman appeared to be taking the beloved 1980’s High Fantasy franchise in a more Woke direction.
I was so disappointed with “Dragons of Deceit” that I very nearly gave up on the trilogy. But with the August I already had going for me in 2023, I figured the pain and suffering of another volume like “Dragons of Deceit” couldn’t faze me. To my surprise and delight, though, not only is volume 2 of the trilogy, “Dragons of Fate,” a much more polished product than its immediate predecessor, it’s also a good novel in its own right.
First of all, …
Wizards of the Coast is Censoring Things… AGAIN!
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/08/23 at 07:02 PM CT
Sometimes the immortal Corporate Persons whose lobbying makes the world such a shitty place to live seem to have memories far shorter than their lifespans. Just 10 months ago, at the beginning of 2023, Wizards of the Coast – the subsidiary of Hasbro and devourer of the late TSR which currently controls the Dungeons & Dragons Intellectual Property – got itself into deep dookie by attempting to change all the rules by which third-parties could create official content for the… “World’s Most Popular Role-Playing Game” in the name of control, greed, and censorship, not necessarily in that order. Naturally, those of us who have been paying attention even slightly saw Wizards’ early 2023 debacle as the fulfilment of a variety of promises/threats they made in the name of promoting Woke Ideology.
Sadly, Corporate Persons really seem to have a collective learning disability to go along with their goldfish-caliber long-term memories. Thus, it comes as no surprise that – …
Backlog: The Embiggening – October, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/02/23 at 04:25 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! The month of horror is upon us once again… and I have a strong suspicion that the game release schedule will be the most dreadful, terrifying abomination the world will see this month (come on, Putin, Xi… prove me wrong!).
After years of relative dormancy, shovelware really came roaring back onto the scene last month, and it’s EVEN WORSE for October! While in September, ports (etc.) were so numerous, the browser tabs wouldn’t all fit on one screen, in October that’s how bad the shovelware is.
We’ve got a butt-load of Licensed Swill coming in October, plus I threw in the Atari (delenda est) published re-whatever of “Haunted House,” since it clearly exists solely due to the presence of Halloween this month. But, yeah, we’ve got games based on Disney, Dreamworks, ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Barbie,’ ‘Spongebob,’ ‘Hot Wheels,’ ‘King Kong,’ ‘Robin Hood,’ ‘Papa Troll,’ ‘Inspector Gadget’ (How is …
Epic Games is Full of Debt
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/01/23 at 03:05 PM CT
Remember when we all got excited about a new digital storefront being run by Epic Games joining the fray on PC? Remember how disappointed we were in the Epic Store not having basic features for YEARS after launch? Remember how nearly anyone you asked about their use of the Epic Store simply said, “I claim the free games every week, but don’t actually buy anything”?
Yeah, all of that has come home to roost, with Epic Games announcing layoffs this week totaling roughly 16% of the company’s staff. Apparently, at Epic, “we’ve been spending more money than we earn.” Is this really a surprise?
The Epic Store proclaimed that it would capture a significant portion of the PC gaming market by offering more generous revenue splits with developers than entrenched competitors like Valve’s Steam or CD Projekt’s GOG. Epic further sweetened the pot by throwing money at studios/publishers who would agree to a temporary exclusivity deal, wherein they would sell a game(s) ONLY …
View Archive
