Meme - "Kotaku and Polygon: Modern audiences crave the kind of games we want
The modern audience:
DUSTBORN
67.45%. 44 In Game"
Dustborn - Wikipedia - "Eurogamer.pt reported the game appeared to launch poorly on Steam with a peak of 83 concurrent players"
Meme - "Cancel. We've learned how to CANCEL someone. CANCEL will allow us to isolate people from their friends and compatriots. In battle, this could be a useful tool against enemies."
Thread by @Grummz on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Dustborn used far more government money than has been previously reported. The Norwegian Film Institute funded the game for 14 million kroner, or nearly 1.4 Million USD. This is in addition to the 150,000 Euros from the Creative EU grant program. Dustborn is basically an antifa training game. You "bash the fash" across the "Divided States of America" by using vocal powers to call people racist. The game has 33 players currently on it's opening week. A thread. 🧵
The company, @RedThreadGames , looks to be funding multiple games through the use of these government grants. The games do not make money, as you can see from the Steam Charts below for their prior games Dreamfall Chapters and Draugen. Their existence seems to be dependent on repeated grants, wastes of taxpayer money that fund games that fail over and over. The company seems to be grifting off EU taxpayers money which are awarded, in part, on ESG criteria. (remember when people denied ESG grants for Indies existed and called everyone a conspiracy theorist?) The Norwegian Film Institute, focuses on productions where the percentage of women in key roles is a factor. Their latest project Svalbard, has received nearly 11 million Kroner so far ($1,050,138 USD) and 150,000 Euro more from the EU Creative Program. The rest of the funding is likely through their publisher, Quantic Dream @Quantic_Dream via their SpotLight publishing program. Quantic Dream provides @RedThreadGames with additional support, including narrative work, motion capture, photogrammetry and sound design, localization and more. This is likely provide for free in addition to whatever funding Quantic Dreams invests in Dustborn. In this way, Red Thread Games can continue to grift of taxpayer money and produce games while reducing many costs. Quantic Dreams was aquired by NetEase in 2022.
It is curious why @RedThreadGames continues to produce games, given that none of them have garnered enough users to pay for their production. It is also concerning that Dustborn has been crafted as a political agitprop tool backed by taxpayers who do not want this kind of disruption to their cultures or society. But it is clear the Red Thread Games does not care or depend on gamers sales for their continued existence or ability to product political propaganda games. Here is the Norwegian Film Institutes DEI Page."
Meme - Rock solid @ShitpostRock: "Yeah imagine running harassment campaigns against developers of a game"
Kotaku @Kotaku: "Hogwarts Legacy Lead Designer Used To Run Anti-Social Justice YouTube Channel"
Kotaku @Kotaku: "Dustborn Developers Condemn 'Tidal Wave Of Hate And Abuse' Directed At The Team"
It's "harassment" if it hurts the left wing agenda, but "accountability" if it helps it
A message from Dustborn developers : r/KotakuInAction - "So the devs don't believe in power of words when it's against them? Also their game characters constantly using hate speech, harassment and threats, the same things the devs claim to be so intolerant of."
"Not only that, they also encourage them to become bully the innocent if they don't follow their rule"
"Of course not, because any criticism is hate speech, duh. Don't you know how this works? Attack, berate, and push your "ideals" on people and when they finally respond, you play the victim and proclaim hate speech. It's oppression Olympics 101."
A message from Dustborn developers : r/KotakuInAction - "They had no heart or soul to pour into it to begin with. In a BBC interview, the creative director says he knows it's challenging to empathize with people who don't look like you. What the fuck, dude? That's not the default of the human condition. We can empathize with a literal toaster, easily. What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Keep in mind these are the same people who created a game where the "heroes" use "noble" speech-based superpowers like Bullying, Canceling, Blocking and Triggering, as well as a magic mind controlling Gameboy Advance looking thing, to literally control and manipulate their enemies. Of course these scumbags can't comprehend true empathy for anyone unlike themselves."
"Oh it gets worse. The final boss is a literal incarnation of objective fact. It appears as an immature little boy. They defeat it, and the main character monologues about the moral of the story that they suddenly realized because they can't write well enough to deliver that message without outright spelling it out. And that moral is: empathy Specifically that their magic word powers of manipulation require listening to people first, then they work better. Listening is italicized because I assume that's a reference to the way she gains new manipulation word powers by literally listening to and absorbing angry ghosts yelling about pizzagate before using those powers to make a medical professional stop questioning vaccine safety. So it's not even empathy for the sake of understanding, relating, and humanizing, it's empathy because it can be weaponized"
"That's the thing that blows my mind. These people that constantly blather about empathy and understanding made a game that forces the player to be the most virulent asshole imaginable, and the game clearly thinks the characters are right to do so."
"No way they said that 😂 majority of humans literally will empathise with an animal. That's why we all get incredibly pissed off when a dog gets killed in a film. Or go into an overload at being able to pat the dog in a Video game."
Left wingers keep boasting that they're all about empathy, but they're unable to emphatise with people who disagree with them (besides thinking people are unable to emphatise with people who don't look like them, which is why "Representation" is so important)
A message from the Dustborn devs to their community of 76 players. : r/CriticalDrinker - "There are more genders than there are dustbin players."
A message from the Dustborn devs to their community of 76 players. : r/CriticalDrinker - "Of course "hate speech" means any word that can directly or indirectly put their perpective into question, while it's perfectly fine to call everyone else bigots, racists, chuds, whateverthefuck."
"It’s the shield they all use. Always include a minority in your media that way you always have an out."
"It’s the classic tale of the boy who cried wolf. Hate speech, abuse, toxicity, and all that used to be serious stuff but now it’s all just a joke and nobody is going to take them seriously."
A message from the Dustborn devs to their community of 76 players. : r/CriticalDrinker - "The devs who shat out a tax payer funded, hate-filled "game" in which you bully, cancel and gaslight your enemies into submission have a zero tolerance policy for hate speech, harassment and threats of any kind. 🤡"
"They also locked replies. So much for wanting to engage with their players (all 40 of them) and welcoming feedback/criticism"
"Hate to break it you but they're alreasy engaging their audience (all 40 if them), The Modern Audience."
"A message from the Dustborn devs to their community of 76 players. : r/CriticalDrinker - "'hate and abuse' they all sound the same, bleating like mules for the nanny state to do something about people having opinions. here's a newsflash: most people should not be valued and empowered to share their stories, because their stories are shit"
"It's never a two-way street, They always feel entitled to scream at people until they're red in the face (metaphorically)."
Todd Phillips Turns on Fans in 'Joker 2' (Opinion) - "Flash forward five years, and the character is back for a scandalously unpopular sequel, except that this time, it feels like “Joker” hates us — or, more to the point, it’s as if Phillips turned on his original audience. (Turns out, fans are returning the favor. I spoke to a couple theater managers yesterday, and they reported a strange phenomenon: People are canceling their tickets, or simply not showing up, because of the bad reviews.) Ask yourself, who is the villain in “Joker: Folie à Deux”? Hint: It’s not Arthur Fleck. Instead of fearing Joaquin Phoenix’s character, it’s his fans we ought to be worried about — those who want him to reprise his role as the face-painted chaos-monger... Hollywood sequels typically do one of two things: Either they build on the film that came before, expanding the story into a full-blown saga (à la “The Dark Knight” or “The Godfather Part II”), or they repeat what worked about the original, recycling it bigger, louder and at much greater expense (à la Phillipps’ own “The Hangover Part II”). “Folie à Deux” does neither... The way my colleague Owen Gleiberman put it in his review, Phillips’ fatal mistake was listening to his critics — a fair reading, since the director told Vanity Fair that the last laugh in “The Hangover Part III” (a post-credits gag where the Wolf Pack groggily awakens after Zach Galifianakis’ wedding) is a “fuck you” to those who claimed this crew wouldn’t get black-out wasted more than once. Except, it seems self-evidence that in this case, Phillips doesn’t understand people’s issues with “Joker.” That means, if he adjusted anything with his critics in mind, then he’s made a movie for no one."
Paul Schrader stopped watching Joker 2 after 15 minutes because ‘that was enough’ - "Paul Schrader has offered a withering assessment of Joker: Folie à Deux, saying he walked out after around 10 or 15 minutes, bought something, came back for another 10 minutes and decided: “That was enough.” The First Reformed filmmaker, 78, is known for his outspoken views about films. He made his name as the screenwriter of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, which some critics identified as a significant influence on the original Joker. In conversation with playwright Jeremy O Harris for Interview Magazine, Schrader described the sequel as a “really bad musical.” Asked to elaborate, Schrader was dismissive of stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. “I don’t like either of those people,” he said. “I don’t like them as actors. I don’t like them as characters. I don’t like the whole thing. “I mean, those are people who, if they came to your house, you’d slip out the back door.” Joker: Folie à Deux, which like the first film was directed by The Hangover filmmaker Todd Phillips, has flopped at the box office. The original film grossed over $1bn at the box office when it was released in 2019, while its sequel appears to be struggling to recoup the $190m to £200m budget it cost to make. The film has made a reported $120m to date."
Meme - Chef Frank @BallerNine9: "Batman spent years fighting and attempting to rehabilitate Joker, but even the world's greatest detective failed to realize that all he had to do was rape him for him to completely drop the act"
Meme - If I had a nickel every time Lady Gaga starred in a sequel to a highly successful experimental R-Rated movie and it bombed, I would have 3 nickels, but its weird that it happened thrice! #Joker #JokerFolleADeux #JokerFolieADeaux #joker2 #sincityadametokillfor #machetekills"
alexander @grandesrockwell: "straight c*s men already blaming gaga for joker movie being ass, im gonna k word in front of everyone in the fucking theatre"
Joker 2 Failure Proves ‘Toxic Fandom’ is Real After Fans Ripped Brie Larson’s Marvels to Shreds: ‘You know who they gonna try to blame is Lady Gaga’ - "Folie a Deux‘s failure at the box office has a lot of fans wondering where the cancel crowd is given that they are on their heels and ever eager to cover the flops that come out of big studios. However, this crowd seems to have disappeared, perhaps because the film in question did not have a female lead, or did not concern the agenda that they wish to peddle to their audiences. The Rise of Skywalker, The Marvels, Captain Marvel, The Acolyte, and The Rings of Power are no doubt bad products that the respective studios should have refined, or at least thought twice about before putting them out. However, the flack that these franchise films have received is nowhere close to the quiet and somber criticism of films Argyle, Joker: Folie a Deux, and Fall Guy or The Crow."
"Toxic" fans are responsible for bad movies
This article is stupid. The people behind Joker 2 didn't explicitly come out and bash fans (leaving their critique in the work), so it's natural that fans are not as upset. And the other films didn't bash fans too
kaeden 🔮✨ on X - "This is doing worse than The Marvels but you won't be see the industry pondering the idea if white male leads should get their own projects or not"
Way to miss the point. Clearly, bad writing has nothing to do with it, as everything is about identity. Not surprising, when you need to uphold the narrative
Meme - ""Ruined my sequel to own the chuds" Starter pack
*Joker 2, Spider-Man 2, The Last Jedi, The Matrix Resurrections*"
Meme - *Two Guys on a Bus*
"Western devs prioritizing political correctness. Eastern devs making games for players to have fun"
Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show embraces trademark sexiness —and looks better for it - "They’re bringing sexy back. Because no one really wanted it to go away... Celestial bodies like Tyra Banks, Gigi Hadid, Mayowa Nicholas, Barbara Palvin, Behati Prinsloo, Jasmine Tookes, and Adriana Lima. The splashy additions are plus sized mannequins Paloma Elesser and Ashley Graham who said she agreed to walk because the brand is planning on adding larger sizes... They added former French first Lady Carla Bruni, still a babe at 56. Yes for all the handwringing, all the lectures on body positivity and corporate self-flagellation, it’s back to hot supermodels strutting down the runway in skimpy, sparkly bras and underwear – not meant for mere mortals. The yearly lingerie show was put on ice due to poor ratings and a bad stench from inside corporate headquarters, which was reeling from #Metoo tumult and associations with Jeffrey Epstein. Their downfall was accelerated by Ed Razek, who was the show’s architect, telling Vogue in 2018 that they shouldn’t have “transsexuals” walk “because the show is a fantasy.” Rezak was subsequently browbeaten by trans models and forced to capitulate. “I apologize. To be clear, we would absolutely cast a transgender model for the show,” he then resigned in 2019. The once dominant brand giant put themselves in a cultural purgatory and tried to rebrand in 2021 as a vehicle for female empowerment. They formed the very official sounding, VS Collective, a group of seven women, many non-models, tasked with replacing the titillating with driving “positive change.” Or in the case of member Megan Rapinoe, to lead the shame campaign from within. In a New York Times piece to unveil their new initiative, Rapinoe called the company, “patriarchal, sexist, viewing not just what it meant to be sexy, but what the clothes were trying to accomplish through a male lens and through what men desired. And it was very much marketed toward younger women.”... Now the brand’s admitting their original formula was successful for a reason. Both men and women appreciate the female form. After all, the embrace of pre #metoo sensuality didn’t go away, it just moved to OnlyFans, Instagram or, as was the case last spring, SNL when Sydney Sweeney and her breasts hosted. And now we can stop pretending a company selling umentionables is meant to be a moral arbiter. Sometimes a push up bra is just a push up bra."
Meme - *Busty original Lara Croft*
*Flat-chested Lara Croft on Netflix*
Batman: "WHERE ARE THEY?"
'Tomb Raider: The Legend Of Lara Croft' Fails To Chart On Netflix's Top 10 List
Grummz on X - "SBI is ALIVE, but desperate and trying to drum up business. SBI writer Amy-Leigh Shaw posted to the #ukgamesindustry slack group, offering to speak to anyone who wanted to know how narrative at Sweet Baby Inc. works. I looked up every single reply. They are mostly all writers and voice actors looking for jobs as most have recently left studio positions while some are trying to break in. Sources have told me that some game studios are aware of their activist infestation and have been working to prune them. My advice: Don't team up with SBI unless you want your studio closed or hit with massive layoffs like Flintlock's a44 and so many other studios they touched!"
LearningTheLaw on X - "Sweet Baby DEI(Bandai Namco) Unknown Awakening 9 has officially been released, and player data is now available. With a whopping 3 players worldwide, this might be the biggest Sweet Baby flop ever. They can't stop breaking records!"
Former Sweet Baby Inc. Client Square Enix Takes a $350 Million Hit in Value as Stock Plummets - "Square Enix shareholders received a rude awakening Monday as the video game company behind Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts saw a 10-point dip in the Japanese market. This equates to a market capitalization loss that measures in the hundreds of millions... While there’s no definitive list of Sweet Baby Inc‘s influence on Square, many point to censorship actions taken by the company in recent years, like restricting the size of Tifa’s chest in Final Fantasy VII, as proof of the narrative firm’s involvement. Sweet Baby Inc. wasn’t the only narrative design firm Square worked with. It also contracted Black Girl Gamers to work on noted flop Forspoken."
Sweet Baby Inc. Employee Admits Goal Is "Burning The Games Industry To The Ground" - "A Sweet Baby Inc. employee named Camerin Wild, who claims to be non-binary, admitted that his goal is “burning the games industry to the ground.” In a presentation titled “How to Get Away With Murder Subverting Genre Expectations” at The Game Developers of Color Expo discovered by YouTuber Kirsche, Wild introduces himself saying he is a “narrative designer and sensitivity reader with a company called Sweet Baby Inc.” Wild, who according to Moby Games worked on Tales of Kenzera: Zau, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Alan Wake II, The Crew: Motorfest, Kingdom EIghties, and God of War: Ragnarök, then declared “the stories we tell each other are way more than entertainment. They are how we create debate and preserve our collective values and beliefs. And we can and should make better more expansive, more representational content.”... In one ironic moment during the presentation, Wild did share a nugget of truth, “Ultimately, if you’re telling a story that misses its audience, that doesn’t ring true, or fails to cut in the right direction the problem isn’t that it’s just insensitive. The problem is it’s bad.” However, he then points to Django Unchained being an example of this. While explaining his point of view, Wild stated, “So a context free version of art is supposed to make people uncomfortable. As an autuer Quentin Tarantino feels like someone who grasps after edginess when they don’t really have any human tragedy to explore the depths of. They don’t understand that growth comes from trauma, sure, but it also comes from joy.” “He holds a no pain no gain mentality that I think is unshakably rooted in white supremacist patriarchal values,” Wild asserted. The presentation then turns into a takedown of Tarantino"
Sweet Baby Inc. Employee Admits Goal Is "Burning The Games Industry To The Ground" : r/KotakuInAction - "To stop people who are unconfortable hearing that not every story is theirs to own"
"As always, the lack of self awareness is on another level"
Meme -"9. EDITORS' CHOICE. Amazing. Dragon Age: The Veilguard refreshes and reinvigorates this storied... Leana Hafer. Reviewed on PC"
"Leana Hafer. Freelance Writer. Indie Developer. she/they"
Meme - "*Bioware*
>have a formula for a game that your niche audience enjoys
>slowly change it to appeal to a "wider audience"
>it's shit and your core fanbase now hates you
>some small studio picks up your game formula
>they make the biggest game of the year while your studio is facing layoffs
It's like some divine justice."
