Castle Magus

"Suprised Pikachu face" indeed, Woolie.

Anyway, like I already said the other day, gigantic megapublishers were one of the worst things to ever happen to the video game industry. The inevitable modern video game industry crash cannot come soon enough. It may already be underway.

(Just created a new "netease sucks" tag, too. I'm pretty sure I've posted NetEase-related things in the past, but I don't feel like bothering to backtag it at the moment. I'm definitely sure we'll be hearing more "netease sucks"-related news in the future, though.)

WB Games has been utter, absolute shit for years now.

I don't, and never did, give a flying fuck about MultiVersus, but I think this sucks just on general principle. And I always like to see a good dunk on modern video game industry bullshit, provided once again by Pat and Woolie here.

(Warning: They don't start talking about Bobby Kotick and Tiktok until almost 8 minutes into this. The other stuff before that is still pretty good if you like hearing two guy shitting on modern video game industry horseshit and/or AI horseshit, though.)

About the only """""good""""" thing I could say about Bobby Kotick potentially buying Tiktok is that at least that would be marginally better than Trumpublican Steve Mnuchin buying Tiktok? Probably? Maybe?

Speaking of Trump and Tiktok... well... Donald Trump, one of the ones who started all this "Tiktok is evil Chinese spying and should be banned" stuff, has suddenly flip-flopped and thinks that Tiktok is now pretty great actually? I mean, I don't fully know or care what Trump's stated reasons for suddenly not wanting to ban Tiktok are (some horseshit about wanting to punish Facebook for "cheating" in the 2020 election that he lost, even though he was obviously hunky-dory with Facebook "cheating" in the 2016 election that he "won"[1]). I don't give a single solitary shit, because whatever shart-noises that come out of Trump's lying face-anus don't actually matter (and never have and never will). You can rest assured, though, that it is not because Trump actually gives a flying fuck about Tiktok now, one way or the other; it's because it's the Democrats (oh, and a bunch of Republicans, too, but let's keep that on the DL, okay?) who apparently want to ban Tiktok now, and Trump's default political policy is "if the DemonRats want a thing, then that thing must be bad, so I will oppose it, even if what they're trying to do is the exact same very thing I was trying to do five minutes ago." (See also: border security.)

Oh, and also apparently some billionaire asshat with a stake in Tiktok gave Trump a fuck-ton of moneyhad a "meeting" with Trump, which rather conveniently coincided with Trump's sudden about face on banning Tiktok. Hmm, well golly gee willikers, I wonder if that had anything at all whatsoever to do with why Trump suddenly doesn't think Tiktok should be banned. *purses lips and taps index finger on chin and stares at ceiling thoughtfully*

Anyway, all that Trumpish dogshit aside... on the one hand, China pretty much bans every Internet thing not made by China, so turnabout would be fair play if China stuff is banned here. (Not that any of that matters, mind you, because VPNs exist.) On the other hand, I think the brouhaha over Tiktok is silly, regardless. Like Pat says, Tiktok spying is apparently only finger-waggle-worthy because it's China, whereas Facebook/Twitter/Google/etc. spying is totally fine because those are US companies. I don't personally use Tiktok and I will never knowingly and willingly use Tiktok, either way, so Tiktok being banned wouldn't directly affect me at all. But still... I just think the whole Tiktok tumult is mostly nothing more than dumb and pointless and annoying political theater.

[1] - And I still maintain that if there was any "cheating" done in either 2016 or 2020, then the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of it was done in favor of Trump, and that Trump's loss in 2020 was despite that, not because of it.

Full headline: "Indie developer makes his game free after Warner unceremoniously tells him they're 'retiring' it from Steam and the PlayStation Store"

More Glorious Digital Future horseshit, in other words.

Now, ordinarily I would've ranted about that here for a bit[1], except that I only just found out now, for the first time, via comments under the above PC Gamer article, that apparently WB is shutting down Rooster Teeth, too. Which I guess means RWBY is very likely dead as shit and will never be finished, or so I can only assume.[2] Oh well. Kind of glad now I never bothered to catch back up with it after I watched the first few seasonsvolumes several years ago. *shrug + weary sigh*

(Kind of surprised that I didn't already have a "warner bros sucks" tag before now. Huh. Well, guess I have to go and back tag some posts noweventually whenever I feel like getting around to it. [Which, I am pretty certain, is a thing that only I even remotely care about. *shrug*])

[1] - Even though Small Radios Big Televisions is not a game I'd ever heard of prior to this post and in which I have very little interest in playing even if it is free[3], it's the general principle of the matter that a video game publisher can just arbitrarily decide to "retire" a video game, apparently because they just don't want to bother with paying someone to process royalties to its creator anymore or whatever dumbfuckery, that abstractly pisses me off.

[2] - And despite the fact that I'm seeing vague rumors from randos online that RWBY really isn't dead, because of reasons, I'm not going to believe any of it until I actually see concrete news that the next seasonsvolumes of RWBY really are complete and available to watch (even if that "availability" is only via Crunchyroll or whatever, which basically makes it not "available" to me, as I'm not paying for fucking Crunchyroll just to watch RWBY).

[3] - That said, it's only 158 MB, so I went ahead and downloaded it, regardless, so maybe I actually will try it someday, assuming I even remember later that I downloaded it. *shrug*[4]

[4] - Yeah, this is one of those posts. ¬_¬

This is all academic to me because I had no interest in this game to start with, but if I had, the infestation of it with Denuvo would have killed my interest utterly dead. But then, the main reason I had no interest in it in the first place is because of fucking course it was going to be infected with Denuvo. It's a Warner Bros. game released within the past 5 years or so. Like, no fucking shit the Denuvo contamination was going to be there.

On a related note, along with the above, this other headline here was the one that I saw in my Google News App today that got me to add the topic of "Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League" to my "show less like this" list[1]: "Suicide Squad devs say despite being a live-service game it'll respect players' time because 'We all love playing games, but we also have lives'"

Any game that is a "live service" game is pretty much just as dead to me as any game that is poisoned with Denuvo, and this game happens to be both of those things. (Why the fuck an always online "live service" game even needs Denuvo at all is beyond me, but whatever.) But then, even aside from all of that stuff, everything else I've heard about this game (even just today alone) has given me the impression that the game is utter dogshit, so even if it weren't a "live service" game or a game polluted by Denuvo, I would've had next to no interest in it. Only because of the legacy of Rocksteady and the Arkham games (up to Arkham Knight anyway, but even that one had an incredibly shitty launch on PC initially) would I have even given this game more than a glance, but even that isn't enough for me to care about all of this rancid horseshit.

This game is a textbook example (among many similar examples) of why I think the modern video game industry is nigh worthless and in dire need of crashing again like it's 1983.

[1] - I would've said "ignore list," but there is no "ignore list" in Google News App. Telling Google News App that you don't want to see a particular topic anymore is only the merest of suggestions, at best.

(Disclaimer: only a very small part of the above video is about the disgusting DLC prices. I couldn't have cared less about the "lack of lobbies is weird" thing or the "new game should have just committed to 2v2" thing.)

Yeah, and this is why I haven't cared about Mortal Kombat since MK9 (aka Mortal Kombat) which came out in 2011, 12 years ago. Well, that and the fact that most of the games since then have been contaminated with the Denuvo malware on release, with MK12 (aka Mortal Kombat 1) being no exception to that. Modern day Mortal Kombat is a textbook example of everything wrong with the modern video game industry. (Not that Capcom/Street Fighter or any other fighting game devs/series is any less guilty of this horseshit these days.)

The only interaction I've had with the Mortal Kombat series since 2011 has been to occasionally watch Youtube compilations of the various games' story mode cutscenes, which typically (thankfully) leave out the fighting game bits in between, and I figure the same will be true of MK12's story mode, as well, whenever such compilations become available.

Fuck Denuvo and fuck Hogwarts Legacy for being infected with that malware. And now, I'm off to remove it from my Steam wishlist.

Yeah, well, they shouldn't have had that shit infesting their game in the first place. While a good start, removing that dumbfuckery isn't enough to make me want to immediately buy the game, but at least now I can maybe at least begin to consider buying it at some point, which wouldn't have been the case while it was still infected with Denuvo. The game still sounds like a broken roach motel, though, so I still won't be buying it any time soon.

(Pre-post edit) Oh, wait, never mind. Apparently, they've already re-contaminated their game with the malware again, because they apparently removed it "by mistake" (when the real mistake was having it in there to start with). How utterly asinine. Oh well, back to not even considering buying it, I guess. (/Pre-post edit)

So I looked at the publisher sale on Steam for WB. (Not going to be linking to any of this shit, by the way.)

Looked at Mortal Kombat 11 and was surprised that the Denuvo marker on the store page was no longer there, which corresponded with the forums saying that it had been removed. Didn't buy it, regardless, because I just can't bring myself to care, even at the current "lower than normal but still not low enough for me to waste money on it" sale price. I mean, I never got around to buying Mortal Kombat X, either, even though I don't remember at this point if it ever even had Denuvo in the first place, so... *shrug*

Looked at Injustice 2 and was not surprised to see that the Denuvo marker was still on the store page, but somewhat surprised that this contrasted with the forums claiming that Denuvo had been removed from it. I will, in this case at least, take the pub/dev at its word, assume Denuvo is still in the game given the tag on the store page, and as such will continue to not buy it. Not that I would have bought it anyway since, same as with MK11, I just can't bring myself to give a shit.

Looked at Middle-earth: Shadow of War, saw Denuvo thing on the store page still, didn't even bother to check the forums, and just closed out of the whole thing, because I just didn't have any more fucks to give about this shit, for the time being, aside from making this post about it. To be fair, of these three games, Shadow of War is one that I'd be most likely to potentially buy at some point, if I could be sure that the Denuvo badware finally had been removed, but even so, that likelihood is still pretty fucking low at this point, regardless.

I've combed through my Steam Wishlist and deleted every game that Steam claims contains Denuvo.

Here is the list of games that I have removed from my Steam Wishlist (in the order they had been on the list [EDIT 3] Also reformatted into a proper unordered list now. [/EDIT 3]):

• Dragon Quest XI
• Rise of the Tomb Raider (EDIT 3) Not sure about this one or the one below, because supposedly the Denuvo has been removed [to be replaced with the just as terrible "Epic Online Services" or whatever the fuck], but the Steam store page still shows the Denuvo warning for both, so I'm still not going to strikethrough these yet. (/EDIT 3)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (EDIT 3) See line above. (/EDIT 3)
• Nier Automata
• Tales of Berseria
• Far Cry Primal
• Far Cry 5
• Monster Hunter World (Not sure why this one was still on there, since I knew it had Denuvo long ago. [EDIT 2] Oh, and hey, they finally took the malware out of it. [/EDIT 2])
• Star Ocean - The Last Hope
• Injustice 2
• Mortal Kombat 11
• Final Fantasy XV
• Jurassic World Evolution (EDIT 3) See also the sequel. (/EDIT 3)
• Valkyria Chronicles 4 (Not sure why this one was still on there, since I knew it had Denuvo long ago.)
• Borderlands 3
• Resident Evil 3
• Marvel's Avengers
• Death Stranding (EDIT 3) Though I've since had other problems with this game, even if they did wise up and remove the malware. Just to note, this is the first game on this list that I've bought since the strikethrough was added, even though I still can't play it, for the above-mentioned reasons. (/EDIT 3)
• Drone Swarm

(EDIT) I will go back occasionally and put a strikethrough on the games on this list that I've noticed have removed the malware. That said, it's still not very likely that I'll ever buy any of these games, regardless. At most, I may re-add them to my wishlist and maybe buy them if I ever see them on some ridiculous <$10 sale, possibly. (/EDIT)

Most of those are like, meh, whatever... but a few of those were games I had been really looking forward to, so it stung a bit to have to remove them.

This list does not include games that I had already previously removed or had never added in the first place (or, rather, had added only very briefly before immediately removing again).

This also doesn't (yet) include any potential games that contain/will contain Denuvo but for which the developer/publisher are hoping to hide that fact by not listing it on the Steam page.