Considering I would have never heard of this otherwise, yeah I think it's the Streisand Effect at work. But what a bizarre thing to want scrubbed from the Internet. Like it's not a particularly hard-hitting question and the CEO clearly had a prepared, corporate-speak answer ready. It feels like something that wouldn't have attracted any attention if they hadn't called attention to it. So, classic Streisand Effect I guess.
Clicked for a game announcement. Got a political manifesto about art and culture. Not disappointed. Definitely interested to see how this develops.
Ridiculous, but depressingly unsurprising.
Glad to see the campaign still going strong. Almost being past the minimum threshold requirement for seven countries is impressive. Hopefully it can reach one million signatures, even if I'm a little skeptical about the EU taking this seriously and passing a decent law. Still, anything that keeps the topic on peoples minds is a good thing.
I have a lot of nostalgia for The Force Unleashed, but even playing it back then I remember thinking the combat was kind of rough. I can only imagine how dated the gameplay must feel for someone picking it up for the first time these days. The idea of being this unstoppable Force-user was cool, but from what I remember the game struggled to live up to that promise. Like pulling down the Star Destroyer. It was everywhere in the marketing to show just how powerful you were going to be, but in the game itself it was just this tedious section that dragged on longer than it needed to. At least that's how I remember it.
Yeah, the art style definitely feels like a holdover from the live-service days. I could see them having to work with whatever assets were left after that version of the game was scrapped and just having to make it work.
Still a relatively small number, but its good to see the unionization trend expanding beyond QA testers.
Feels like forever since I heard Ken Levine ramble on about narrative LEGOs and game design. It's an interesting concept and hopefully the game lives up to expectations. I'm still cautious that it might all end up being pre-release hype, but he certainly seems passionate about the idea and I'm certainly curious to see what narrative LEGOs actually looks like in execution.
At least they're being upfront. And given their stated desire to move on from BG3, it makes sense that they want to put out something simpler but workable instead of something complicated that might need long-term support.
It's been an interesting trend to watch, but at the same time I'm not sure how great it is for video games. Hollywood celebrities aren't cheap and the more stars you stud your cast with the more that is going to eat up your budget. Everyone already complains about the cost of AAA development and casting Hollywood actors isn't going to bring those costs down. Not to mention the impact on voice actors, who aren't having the same luck breaking into Hollywood. Still, it's going to be interesting to see just how much the lines between the two industries blur as time goes on. From the tone of the article it still feels like people are treating this like a novelty, but at least we've moved on from the days when people were baffled at the idea of serious actors starring in a video game.
Television. Can't remember the last time I turned my TV on to actually watch TV. It's mostly for streaming, but even that's getting harder to keep up with. It just feels like there are too many services and shows to keep track of. If I sit down and watch a show then I really need to want to watch it. More and more I've been listening to podcasts or treating Youtube videos like podcasts. It lets me multitask in a way that sitting down and trying to watch something just doesn't.
Doing things and not spiraling is about all we can do at this point. I suppose it depends on the things you care about or want to prioritize The massive cuts to government spending Trump has talked about are inevitably going to impact services like Social Security and Medicare so mutual aid resources are going to be important for a lot of people:
Mutual Aid Hub-Resources Food Not Bombs FAQ
If you're concerned about what will happen in places like Gaza and Ukraine there are charities that are helping those affected by those conflicts:
Charity Navigator Gaza UNITED24-Offical Ukranian Fundraising Platform
Finally, if you are not in a position to donate money then there are ongoing election efforts that need volunteers. At this point that's mostly ballot curing, helping voters sort out issues with their absentee or mail in ballot. Some of these ongoing elections are incredibly tight and making sure those ballots are accepted could make a difference, especially in low profile races:
Mobilize.us Ballot Curing