Adell

I dislike 2 out of 3 Tonys

I'll be stuck home for a few days, so a little gaming corner: I've been losing my life to Final Profit since buying it on the last day of the Steam sale. What a game.

Its a shopkeeping game with an engrossing, addicting loop, but the real deal to me is that its less of a mindless grinder and more of a deliberate showcase of the corruption of capitalism.

The protagonist is an ousted queen that vouches to defend her kingdom from the approaching Bureau of Business by playing their own game, establishing her shop and vying to be a Lord of Business, unwittingly - and sometimes wittingly - ruining lives on her way.

One aspect that catches my attention is that the game doesn't try to pretend there is a "good" way to be a capitalist. Even your "Generous" choices are still taking advantage of people, of the situation you find yourself in, pushing addiction, exploiting weaknesses, blackmailing and cheating your way out of debt and into growing your fortune - and growing the Bureau's fortune, of course. No matter who is playing the game of capital, they're the ones in charge, and they're the ones making the rules and the profit.

Although there's a few "wink wink get it" type of jokes that I'm not particularly fond of - the 4th wall breaks, or the Loot Box/Battlepass items - overall its still an amazing surprise, and that's from someone who already knew what type of mood the game had.

(article transcribed below)

Jen Glennon, who took over as editor in chief of Kotaku in October, resigned Thursday. In a resignation letter seen by Aftermath, Glennon says that she made this choice due to the management team’s recent decision to deprioritize news in favor of guides.

Glennon is the second editor in chief of Kotaku since Stephen Totilo’s departure in 2021, following Patricia Hernandez, who was fired in August 2023. (Aftermath co-founder Riley MacLeod functioned as interim editor in chief prior to Hernandez's hiring.)

“After careful consideration, I have concluded that the current management structure and decision-making processes at G/O Media are not aligned with my values and goals for Kotaku,” Glennon wrote in her letter of resignation, which was addressed to G/O Media executives Jim Spanfeller and Lea Goldman.

“I firmly believe that the decision to ‘invert’ Kotaku's editorial strategy to deprioritize news in favor of guides is fundamentally misguided given the current infrastructure of the site,” Glennon wrote. “[This decision is] directly contradicted by months of traffic data, and shows an astonishing disregard for the livelihoods of the remaining writers and editors who work here.”

Glennon also announced her resignation on Twitter, writing, “I've resigned from Kotaku and Jim Spanfeller is an herb.”

According to a source close to the situation, Kotaku's staff will be expected to create 50 guides a week at the site. Currently, Kotaku’s homepage features a prominent “game tips and guides” module at the top of the page, in a space that was previously reserved for major stories and breaking news. Staff members have criticized the homepage redesign on social media, noting that Kotaku’s major source of traffic is not guides.

Aftermath reached out to G/O Media for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Since Great Hill Partners’ acquisition of the sites, then known as Gizmodo Media, in 2019, the overall portfolio has seen a decline in traffic as well as an exodus of editorial leadership and staff—the co-founders of Aftermath included. Most recently, Spanfeller announced the sale of Deadspin and the layoff of all staff working there. In November, Paste bought former G/O Media site Jezebel, following the site’s closure and a full layoff of its staff. In March 2023, former G/O site Lifehacker was sold to Ziff Davis.

Well. Sounds like that's really going to be the end of Kotaku as we know it. 50 guides a week and no news, just like every Gamer™ wishes