Adell

as always, Hard Drive is the only games journalism that matters

“This guy’s knocking at my door yelling about a cease and desist letter, and I’m thinking he looks a little familiar,” said Mike Barton, who goes by the handle CrispySocks online. “Suddenly it hits me: this dude is just a palette-swapped Joe Levine. Joe’s an attorney at Nintendo who’s served me a bunch of times. He got me for my Metroid fan game, my Zelda demake, and the Kirby slash fic I was trying to sell on the Kindle store. I’m telling you, if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought it was him. It’s definitely enough to fool your average copyright violator.”

Some of Barton’s followers speculated that the new lawyer may have been generated by artificial intelligence.

“Back in my day, if you wanted to rip off a legal professional, you had to do it manually,” said user BuffSmite91 on X (formerly Twitter). “You had to painstakingly drop out of law school, or watch a bunch of YouTube videos, or at least look stuff up on Wikipedia. I’m not saying that it’s right to benefit so directly from the fruits of others’ labor, but it was kind of tradition. ‘Faux-torney’ was basically its own genre, and at least they put some effort into it. Now these hacks can do it with the push of a button.”

- Pokemon but it's Minecraft and the Pokemon walk around with you and you can play with your friends

- Pokemon but with Guns

- Pokemon but it's a Horror

- Pokemon but it's Persona

- Pokemon but it's Open world (they literally made this one)

- Pokemon but it's D&D (they also already made this)

- Pokemon but it's an MMO

- Pokemon but Innovative and Fresh like damn

- Pokemon but it that feels like Yu-Gi-Oh! Season 0

I don't really know what I'm trying to say here other than I'm apparently completely out of touch with what the general populous wants...

I don't really care about the Pokemon company I certainly don't want to defend Gamefreak and I'm glad that people are having fun because I don't want to rain on a parade.

I'm just feeling some kinda way about the Pal-game's success that has me questioning a lot about the nature of artistic integrity and my own place in life as an artist...

Like wow Ark but reskinned with stolen assets can sell 6 million copies and break every record in less than a week, charging $40aud at early access... A game who's CEO represents everything that is scary in the world for artists atm.

But also like Nintendo fans sending death threats to Devs and rumor mills trying to convince themselves the devs used AI because of what the CEO said is also like super fucked?! Like ultimately it's a harmless parody game, but so many are also taking it really seriously and I just aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Media literacy is dead and I never want to hear a Gamer™ complain about the price of an indie game ever again

In the end it all comes down to an indie game getting popular - and the fact that no one can predict, or control what suddenly goes viral online. It is not much weirder than Among Us or Suika or Only Up blowing up (the one detail being the pricetag, but then again the game is also on GamePass and people have not only been happily gobbling up Starfield, a $70 pile of garbage, but also consistently trying to 'fix' it); it was picked up by some famous streamers at release, it had a lot of intentionally shocking trailers and mechanics, and banked a lot of moral controversy.

But since the gaming (and frankly, any media) landscape is entirely defined by something being popular, now the serious game journalists are being 'forced' to acknowledge a kusoge and review it, articles are being written about fictional animal abuse or asset reuse, and every other gamer has to have an opinion on whether it is or isn't ethical to support a company that might have made use of AI*

The most shocking aspect about Palworld in regards to artists is that its a stark reminder that making money is always a game of chance. Its a very, very loaded game of chance where the privileged few can stack cards in their favor, but its still a game of chance. Effort, 'quality', original ideas, or good intentions are all less relevant than getting popular overnight

* Although I admit to having a little fun poking at people who I know have FFXIV subscriptions whether they'll cancel it or keep supporting a company that has openly admitted to not only makes use of it, but will keep pushing in that direction

REmake 2 being added to PS+ Extra really is just me being rewarded once again for not buying games

I've been enjoying leisurely watching Woolie playing through ULTRAKILL for a couple of reasons. The first is he's losing his mind at any new weapon or mod, which is a joy to see, and is what ULTRAKILL deserves.

But the second (and second.half) is that he is very much not experient at playing FPS games and I always like when someone tries something new and does their best, but also the fact that he calls out people on the fact that he dislikes M+KB controls - correctly pointing out that keyboards are trash for movement - and that everyone got their preferences, styles and accessories they grew up/matured with and playing a FPS with a controller rather than M+KV is no less of a shame than playing a fighting game with a controller rather than a fight stick

First videos are from years ago, but he recently picked it up again