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I've been following the gaming industry rather closely lately, and there are many things happening. Bungie ditched Activision, BF5 launched with almost no promo and no fanfare, which then proceeded to get smashed to pieces because of the SJW bullshit. It's now full of cheaters and support is lacking. Blizzard, another company which is involved with Activision, paid its staff to leave. Blizzard can't split from Activision as they're a merged entity but it seems that some of those within have decided enough is enough too and will probably start up a new company free of the shackles of Activision. As a die hard Blizzard fan, this makes me happy. Loot boxes have been banned in Belgium, Holland has made the RNG element of loot boxes illegal and two states in Murica (Washington and Hawaii) are reviewing them too, EA lost their lawsuit quite spectacularly which resulted in the removal of loot boxes and the whole Ultimate Team gimmick in Belgium at least with hopefully more countries to follow. Australia is also weighing in on the matter. As someone said in an article I read, this is merely the beginning. The wheels of legislation turn slowly but once its claws start taking hold, we're going to see the whole loot box scene collapse overnight. Black Ops 4's black market only showed its face once the reviews were all in and settled, showing that Activision knows that gamers hate that shit, so they've shown their hand and are probably milking their games for all they can at the moment. On Black Ops 4 you can buy a red dot reticle for a dollar. Yes, a dollar for a red dot, in a game which you've already paid $60 for and will have to pay for all the DLCs as well. Another one of CoD's amazing moves was in WW2 you could only open crates in the social space which meant everyone could see it. Why? So that little Jonny can go running to mommy and ask her for $5 for a loot box. There literally is no other reason, and it's become part of this movement which is slowly forming against this kind of bullshit. (I can't find a source for this atm, saw it in a vid) Looking further back we have more incidents like the Battlefront 2 debacle in which EA managed to piss off two of the most passionate fan clubs in the world: gamers and Star Wars fans. It got to the point where Disney got involved and told EA to wind their neck in (Disney being a whole different bag of evil but that's a thread for another day). Destiny 2's reliance on Eververse when it first released again showed Activision's true face, yet another instance where gamers saw straight through the cloth and got pissed off. Bungie has now parted ways with Activision and naturally the internet is full of theories and bullshit but I personally think that they just got fed up with being squeezed for everything they had and had enough cash to be in the position to tell Activision to fuck off. Over the last few years there's certainly a trend developing towards people getting fed up with microtransactions and loot boxes. Some games do it right, like Fortnite which is free and doesn't restrict anything from the game by not having a season pass or spending any money, yet shows you exactly what you'll earn by buying the season pass. Overwatch treads a fine line for me, in that the limited time events encourage people to buy loot boxes otherwise they'll miss out permanently but then this is a game which gives all its DLC away for free. You can also earn the loot boxes through normal gameplay so it's not all bad. As a whole I think the writing is on the wall. We've hit a turning point in gaming history and crossed a line which can no longer be uncrossed and the big guns know it. It's for this reason we have £20 skins. Not because these devs or publishers think it's worth £20, but because they know their days are numbered and need to eke out every penny they can before their little game collapses like a house of cards. I think what we're seeing with triple A titles at the moment isn't "'let's make a game and make some good money, and fuck all the gamers" like we have seen for the last decade or so, but rather "shit, the're waking up, stop investing anything, make a few shiny bits and charge extra for them, we're getting fucked anyway so we may as well squeeze what we can out of the ones that are still asleep on the way down". For me it's not even the amounts, it's not even the half assed launches, the lack of support or their absolutely spectacular inability to manage damage control, it's the sheer blatantness of it all. The lies, the deceit, the incessant bullshit and straight faces. To gamers, to shareholders, to anyone who looks at them, they just don't give a shit and it's really starting to show. I just hope these guys have enough of a nest egg saved up for when this shit really goes mental, or their kids will be eating loot boxes for Christmas. This channel is pretty good. The guy waffles on a lot and repeats himself in all his vids but this one is worth a watch if you haven't see any of his stuff yet.

EA have buckled https://www.vg247.com/2019/01/29/ea-removes-fifa-loot-boxes-in-belgium/

Good on em. Well played Belgium

I’ll be posting a quad video that has a reference camera of Phil and myself, the capture software, motion builder and unreal engine. So you’ll be able to see how it all works. This video won’t be ready for a while. 🤙

Let's cut the bullshit here: It's Destiny with fancy lighting effects and jumpy shit. That's all it is. Bioware know their number's been pulled and unless they blow the shareholders out the water they're fucked, so they've opted to play it safe by doing stuff we've all seen before in one game or another.I can't see myself buying it, or Division 2 for that matter, for no other reason than I'm just fed up with the AAA scene lately. As @crispymorganmentioned elsewhere, it's shareholders first, gamers second. If you look at the bigger picture in gaming, there's a massive shift happening under the surface and the next couple of years is going to be a massacre for EA, Activision and all the other big guns. For too long all they've focussed on is getting more money out of gamers and let the quality slide. Add to this the SJW bullshit (BF5, perfect example) and you're just getting loads of pissed off, angry gamers who are finally saying enough is enough. I downloaded Broforce the other day and it really hit the nail on the head that you don't need to be spending huge chunks of cash to have fun, it really is a £4 game which is immense to play for an hour and put down again. The banning of loot boxes in Belgium and now Holland (with a few states in Murica following suit, Hawaii and another one, can't remember which) marks the start of the end of this predatory bullshit and I for one can't fucking wait to see these publishers fail their shareholders. Enough of the greed, let's have some quality shit again eh?

The issue is people are dumb. No-one I know or ever seen has said they like loot boxes or ever come up with a succesful arguement for why they’re good. Every discussion is around this games loot boxes are terrible, this other game does it better for whatever reason. Like battlefront loot boxes were terrible and OW do them better. So what? that’s like saying crabs is better the chlamydia - you still want neither. It is simple marketing, if no-one bought them then they wouldn’t be in the game. So if no-one likes them why is anyone buying them!? The only reason I’ve come up with is people are dumb. The same applies to F2P games - look how much games like Candy Crush or Clash of Clans made/make by people playing a ‘free’ game.

What did you have for breakfast Crispy...Philosopher Hoops?

Good, microtransactions need to die. The theory behind them is decent enough, pay a couple of quid, get something interesting, but as is always the case with these companies, the shareholders go first and fuck the gamers, so we see bullshit like £20 skins (skins for fucks sakes!) in Anthem. If Anthem was free, then fair enough, but it's a fuck-off expensive triple A title which will no doubt come with loads of DLCs and other bullshit. This predatory attitude towards gamers to squeeze us for everything they can and skate by on the absolute minimum in terms of quality needs to go, enough is enough.

Neil's dance is one of my favourite film moments of evAr. Rachel / Bottle: I agree with the Cripspeeeeeee, giz a video showing us how it actually works as well. You guys look rather dashing in your fancy dress

Posting some nice content from Kotton and here's some basics to understand some of the things he refers to. 1. There's currently half a dozen maps to jump in, and you can play them live or practice them with AI only. 2. On average you have 45 minutes in each map before you need to find the extraction point 3. If you die you lose all the gear you brought in 4. If you don't extract in the time limit, you are classed as MIA and lose all the gear you brought in 5. You can loot in each map and there are 6 traders between games with whom you can buy and sell new gear/weapons 6. There's also an online flea market for players to trade between each other (using in game currency) 7. Some players go in with a knife or hatchet only, to just loot shit and escape, they are known as hatchlings (we all do it at some point) 8. You can play (though it has a cool down period) as a member of the AI Scavenger faction but this doesn't boost your stats 9. You do have a 'gamma' container which has a few slots and where the gear contained will not disappear should 3 or 4 happen 10. You can insure your gear, and have it returned to you but if another player finds your dead body and loots it in game, no insurance recovery is possible. 11. Usually you get dropped in a map with a dozen other players (at separate locations unless you've formed a squad) with AI Scavs spawning shortly after and at regular intervals. 12. The traders give you missions to do. I might record me doing my latest one. I have to go to the Customs map, go to a truck in a particular part of the map (that so happens to have loads of AI Scavs patrolling), pick up a gold watch from inside the truck cabin and extract with it. For this |i will receive experience points, money and an AK74U or some variety of AK, I forgot. The game is anal about weapon detail. That'll do for now @Diddums eh

Well said. It'll take a lot for me to spunk any money on a AAA title nowadays. Burned far too many times.

Let's not pretend this isn't a destiny/titanfall mashup. It's a destiny/titanfall mashup. That doesn't mean it a) can't be good and b) can't coexist. I'm taking the stance that a game must be good for it to be purchased. NO PREORDERS. Those days are gone. If a game in its current form is good enough to buy, then great. I'm not waiting for expansion xyz to make it how it should have been.

I can't believe I'm getting caught on Anthem's side of the fence, especially after feeling I tend to defend Destiny's existence against this game. Just because my opinion is that it won't be as good as Destiny will ever be, doesn't mean we can't give it a good try. The core of what most people dont like so far about Anthem is It's EA It may have expensive microtransactions It's EA Looks a little bland It's EA Comparing it to Destiny EA - Well, EA might be a crock of shit in some instances but that doesn't mean they will do an injustice to this game. Microtransactions - we dont know what the final score will be bit we have to give them some credit for saying no loot boxes ever will be sold and it'll only ever be cosmetic crap that is sold. I'm fine with that currently, need more hard facts on this before we screw it over. Comparisons - Stop comparing this game to Destiny in the way we do. It's not like Destiny. The only part I see is that it's a looted shooter, that's it. Both Destiny and Anthem can exist. Blandness - Yeah, the colours of the world are always a subjective point. However for the shots sometimes we've seen on streams, they aren't doing the game justice. I've seen some screenshots that the game is beautiful in some aspects. I shouldn't stop all this negativity about Anthem when I know underlyingly this is the best thing that could happen to Destiny as people will stop moaning about Bungie and start realising what we've had and still have in Destiny is a unique world that is already developed tons of content that is ultimately fun to play.

I'm not dumb your dumb No im not Yes you are Shut up

Hilariously so. Loving it [emoji1] Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Nice post Dave 👍

Until people stop buying the shit it will never, ever go away.

can you do a video of the silly suit thing and the wireframe capture. Genuinely interested in the process.

I mostly agree with you,just busting your balls. I hate how how games are now built on micro transactions. If it’s purely cosmetic items I’m fine with it.

🤣🤣🤣 I like games that aren't built on pure greed or a just soulless open world games plastered on a shallow live service. I come from an era where we didn't pay £1 for a red dot or £5 for a red gun or £10 for a brown suit or £20 for a helmet or £50 for a rare card or £100 for a legendary pixel. It's 2019 and there are billions of dollars in the AAA gaming industry yet we are getting more mediocre games and weak brands than ever that are built on nothing but greed and below-par quality. There's no reason why we shouldn't be getting quality games like God of War and RDR2 on the monthly in this era yet instead we're still getting the same old guff we got back in 2014 but with even more horrendous business practices. Forgive me for being a bit dismayed but games like Fallout 76 and Diablo Immortal just don't pander to my standards these days😎

Is there any games you like at all? James would you bitch about a blow job?

The delay sucks, but a bad release would also suck. Good move on them, as the game was fun as Hell the handful of times I got to play it.