Ubisoft is Breaking Up
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/17/25 at 04:46 PM CT
After the last few years of rampant buyouts, mergers, and corporate acquisitions, it seems that Ubisoft – surprisingly – is the one Evil Publisher to buck the trend. The French mega-corporation announced this Summer that they would be splitting into two companies, with the new, currently-unnamed subsidiary – receiving an infusion of cash from none other than Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Arm, Tencent. The new subsidiary will be taking with it the IP ownership rights for some of Ubisoft’s biggest modern franchises: Specifically, ‘Assassin’s Creed,’ ‘Far Cry,’ and ‘Tom Clancy.’
It seems that Ubisoft’s hand may have been forced, after years of failed Live Service flops like “Skull & Bones” and Woke flops like “Assassin’s Creed Shadows,” the French megapublisher was on the brink, and strolling the metaphorical Corporate Red Light District wearing its birthday suit. Unfortunately for them, neither Microsoft’s Xbox Division – that paragon of …
No New Square-Enix Games for THREE YEARS!?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/10/25 at 04:40 PM CT
Square-Enix, the company that single-handedly boosted both the SNES and Original PlayStation to the heights of gaming godhood, has been in dire straits lately. It seems like all I ever get to write about regarding my two one-time favorite developer/publishers involves them doing something incredibly stupid or half-assed.
Unfortunately, this long-term pursuit of half-assedness has caught up with the former RPG powerhouse, to the point where the company has decided to pivot from a focus on ‘quantity to quality.’ That’s a hoary old chestnut in and of itself, but within the very same business presentation, made earlier this year, the company laid it out in black and white that they will be focused solely on re-releasing and re-making old games until after the third quarter of 2028.
So, if you ever thought what you needed in your life as an RPG fan is a chance to re-purchase slightly-prettied-up versions of games you probably already own on multiple vintage consoles (or …
Backlog: The Embiggening – August, 2025
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/31/25 at 02:16 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! It’s Bakc 2 Skwell time again for all the little illiterate TikTokers. As usual, just when their target audience no longer has as much free time to swallow Tide Pods, eat cups of raw cinnamon, or kick down random doors, the Games Industry suddenly drops a whole bunch of releases, ending the doldrums of the Summer Games Drought. But, as usual, those of us with taste and acumen are left with the task of determining whether the Drought is actually over, or if those droplets falling from the Heavens aren’t actually rain.
We’ve got lots of Shovel-Ready trash coming in August, with Licensed Swill including games based on the ‘90s-era ‘Goosebumps’ children’s horror novels, the ‘80s-era ‘Space Adventure Cobra’ anime (which is on RetroCrush ALL the time, and it too cringey to watch), the relatively recent anime ‘Demon Slayer,’ and the ‘80s-era ‘RoboCop’ movie (with the new ‘RoboCop’ game being a sequel to …
Microsoft Terminates Key XBONE Feature
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/27/25 at 06:11 PM CT
Remember the disastrous Xbox One (a.k.a., XBONE) reveal, where Microsoft’s representatives spent all of their time talking about how you could have all of your non-gaming content (a.k.a., ‘it’) in one place, with little concern for showing actual exclusive games one might wish to play on the ostensible game console that was the XBONE? That feature came to be known as Microsoft Movies and TV… and they’re officially shutting ‘it’ down.
This reminds me uncomfortably of Microsoft’s decision to kill-off Windows Media Center and the dedicated versions of their flagship OS that came with it. The MJ Crew was SERIOUSLY invested in the success of Windows Media Center, with both Nick and I going whole-hog into cord-cutting (though, being rural, I never had a cord to begin with) and placing Windows Media Center-powered Home Theater PCs at the beating heart of our media consumption experience. The key difference, of course, is the fact that Windows Media Center was really, …
Steam Forced into Inconsistent Adult Content Ban by Purse-String Holders
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/20/25 at 05:02 PM CT
The world seems to have an Adult Content problem – Primarily that 70% of adults want it, while the other 30% are prudish scolds who want it banned. And, unfortunately, thanks to the Horseshoe Theory of politics, there’s enough power behind the desire for bans that they tend to be enforced.
A few years ago, Valve made waves in the face of Sony Bowdlerizing and censoring fairly benign and inconsequential content in Japanese games by announcing that any and all uncensored content would be welcome on Steam… then almost immediately regretted that decision. After a couple rounds of back-and-forth, though, Steam ultimately ended up as a glorious Laissez-Faire marketplace where people who were open to Adult Content in their games could opt-in to see such things, and those who didn’t want to see such content – or who weren’t officially old enough to see it – could ignore it. And that seemed to be the perfect balance between insane levels of porn everywhere (like unfiltered …
“Stop Killing Games” Movement Shows Europe Still Ahead of U.S. in Consumer Rights
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/13/25 at 03:12 PM CT
Rights abuses by IP and copyright holders have been a recurring subject on this blog, largely because they are so flagrant and egregious in contemporary Industrial Gaming, and neither the Democrats nor Republicans that control the United States government and write all of the laws seem to want to do anything about it. Considering the last major piece of legislation Americans got was the horrendous Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was copied largely intact across foreign governments ranging from the U.K. to Japan, it felt like we as consumers were at the mercy of Corporate Persons who seemed determined to NEVER let us enjoy Intellectual Property on our own terms.
Since the formation of the European Union, however, the European Commission has been on the bleeding edge of pushing for individual rights. Sometimes these pushes veer into nonsensical and Woke directions, but most of the time, European regulations force multi-national corporations to stop doing objectively …
Square-Enix and the Concept of “Awareness”
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/06/25 at 01:36 PM CT
It’s no secret that “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” made a bit of a splash with its release earlier this year. It was also one of the games that made my list of titles to get excited about in 2025, primarily by virtue of being a story-rich, turn-based RPG with decent production values – the type of thing Squaresoft and Enix were renowned for in the Golden Age of ‘90s-era gaming, but which has largely fallen out of favor, with studios pushing more in the direction of Cinematic Sandboxes with copy-pasted Action-based combat instead.
Square-Enix has gone on the record stating that they are “aware” of the success of “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33,” and seem to be pondering a return to the style of game that made the original two component publishers into household names once upon a time.
And this is worrisome.
Square-Enix has been out-of-touch and on the back foot for well over a decade now. It seems that since shortly after the merger, the two-headed Ettin of a …
Backlog: The Embiggening – July, 2025
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/28/25 at 08:24 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! We are, once again, right smack in the middle of the Summer Games Drought, with only the miserable offerings of various non-E3 digital game showcases to keep us looking toward the future. It’s no wonder publishers are so hung-up on porting and remastering old games, when there’s next to nothing truly new to look forward to.
Of course, the Summer Games Drought doesn’t prevent shovelware from raining down upon us. We’ve got Licensed Swill coming based on the ancient ‘The Phantom’ superhero, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in “Tales of the Shire,” an OLD anime in “Hunter x Hunter x Nen x Impact,” and a newer anime in “Edens Zero.” In Swill that is 2 Cazual 2 Exist, Nintendo is christening the Switch 2 launch window with a ‘Mario Party’ game. Lastly, in Annualized Swill, EA is pooping out a ‘College Football’ game for 2026.
In new multi-platform releases, there are… a few titles, but nothing to get …
The Ghost of Consoles Future
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/21/25 at 09:37 PM CT
I saw a random video essay the other day that went into detail about how the PlayStation 5 feels like a console that doesn’t really exist, even though it was released 5 years ago. Yeah, FIVE years in, which, in the days of Moore’s Law and the rapid progress of microchip potency, would have been an entire hardware generation. Consoles like the NES, Sega Genesis, and even Sony’s first PlayStation had lifespans of about 5-6 years – maybe a tad longer – before their eminently-more-powerful successors would arrive on the scene. The video essay in question, produced by small-time YouTuber, Save Slot, suggests that, as the PlayStation 5 reaches the end of what would have been one of its predecessor’s lifespans… it really has nothing to show for itself.
I can’t help but agree, and foresee a similar problem in the Nintendo Switch 2’s future. Both the PlayStation 5 and the Switch 2 are platforms that, at launch, are basically glorified port machines, allowing Sony, and …
Without E3, Summer Game Hype Feels Dead
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/15/25 at 03:04 PM CT
It always used to be that around this time of year, E3 – the Electronic Entertainment Exposition – would dump an incredible amount of info about upcoming releases into the Games Journalism pipeline, drowning the public in cinematic trailers and giving special access to playable demos to trusted members of the press. Sadly, we don’t have much of any of that anymore – as neither E3 nor trusted members of the press exist in 2025.
This is the second year of E3’s official death, after two additional years of “temporary” cancellations and postponements, with promises of returning, “better than ever.” Originally created by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) as a trade show, E3 quickly became the pivot point upon which print journalism magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly balanced an entire year’s worth of coverage. When E3 was at its best, we saw the big platform holders competing for Gamers’ attention in a fierce marketplace of ideas, where dumb …
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