Little Things That Irk You: The Hateful 08

[fishbowlhead]

Brought to you by the people that caused the last recession, a nice get out of jail free card.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/the-great-escape-city-regulators-hit-by-furious-backlash-after-a-six-year-probe-into-the-near-collapse-of-hbos-lets-bankers-off-scot-free/ar-AA11kbiu?ocid=mmx&cvid=90b1386f58204f2aaf95f18473f6fdf4

[Asura]

Brought to you by the people that caused the last recession, a nice get out of jail free card.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/othe...95f18473f6fdf4

Why even investigate banking crimes anymore? No-one ever gets found guilty.

[fishbowlhead]

Why even investigate banking crimes anymore? No-one ever gets found guilty.

My business nearly collapsed because of this rescission, the entire industry collapsed overnight, it destroyed so many businesses and lives, heads should be literally rolling.

[Colin]

What is it your business does [MENTION=2561]fishbowlhead[/MENTION]? I don't think I've ever seen you say?

[fishbowlhead]

I don’t really mention it to be honest i like to keep it separate from these forums, Think I’ve only mentioned it once maybe in all the years I’ve been active here, anyway.

Fishing bait only at the time of that rescission, basically all the indie shops collapsed overnight as they were all up to their eyeballs in debt, overdraft’s, credit cards, loans, you name it. Well as you can imagine they all went poof and took all the money they owed me with them, think i was owed 300k going into that winter, came out the other side by end of feb having been paid about 30k, lovely.

So changed the entire business model, im a manufacturer that only sells direct through my website, eBay, Amazon, and other places now. I wont touch shops, wholesalers etc with a barge pole anymore.

I also manufacture bird food (suet pellets) and we also manufacturer floating koi pellets as well.

It’s quite a going concern theses days and a lot to it all.

[Anpanman]

Interesting, good luck with it FBH.

[Asura]

This is going to be a weird one, but an irk this week is how changeable people can be with certain media.

A month ago, there was a relatively large chunk of people online who, if asked, would say they wouldn't buy games by CDPR and weren't fans of them, because of the poor way they treat their staff and the way they released Cyberpunk knowing it was unfinished and that would be bad for the consumer.

But the anime recently dropped on Netflix and it's apparently good (it's made by Trigger) and I'm seeing tons of the same people absolutely raving about it and saying they're probably now going to buy the game.

This is the same as how around a year ago, there was a relatively large chunk of people online who, if asked, said they hated Riot Games because of their history of building a toxic culture, abusing their staff, and so on.

But then they dropped Arcane (which was, admittedly, fantastic) and suddenly that's amazing and promotes female empowerment and there are a million videos about how it tells a nuanced story with a largely female cast and how amazing that is.

These are all in the context of how a few years back, I had someone nudge me online when I mentioned Rurouni Kenshin, because the creator of that franchise was outed as a criminal, and I should feel bad for liking something made by someone like that (even if that was all many years before those facts came to light). Some of the same people would, a few years later, bend over backwards to justify why it's okay for them to buy and rave about Hogwarts Legacy (to be clear I'm not saying that's equivalent as no-one involved in that is a genuine criminal).

I dunno. Something about all this irks me.

I'm okay with people "forgiving" a creator, or a brand for something that's past. It'd be ridiculous to expect people to judge and sentence something like that, and stick to it forever. But I find that sometimes, it's just because that company releases something that they like. Riot's still got a massive staff abuse problem that hasn't been solved but Arcane's great, have you seen it?

That kind of thing.

[Neon Ignition]

The internet is the life source of hypocrites. It can essentially be taken that in 99/100 cases of seeing someone take a soapbox stance that they're ultimately FOS. Whether it's folding to the peer group pressure of the other voices in the room or simply a surface level judgement that falls apart as soon as the topic is out of mind, typically few of these stances bear out in the end. It's why, until recently as I've tried to cool off my focus on it, I found myself getting frustrated by Era so often. It's an incredibly typical example of echo chamber progressiveness that doesn't hold up to the hard light even a fraction of what its community thinks it does. Youtuber vids are rife with it too for more obvious reasons, they can bemoan what they like but for most the $$$ is what decides where their loyalties lie. If it were different to that then they'd have to speak more bluntly and direct on things that would end up threatening their gravy train of freebies and sub dollars, like Stephanie Sterling often does and has to fend of backlash for.

[Dogg Thang]

This is the same as how around a year ago, there was a relatively large chunk of people online who, if asked, said they hated Riot Games because of their history of building a toxic culture, abusing their staff, and so on.

But then they dropped Arcane (which was, admittedly, fantastic) and suddenly that's amazing and promotes female empowerment and there are a million videos about how it tells a nuanced story with a largely female cast and how amazing that is.

Yep. Amazing how quickly the controversy around Riot was forgotten when Arcane dropped.

[Lebowski]

This is going to be a weird one, but an irk this week is how changeable people can be with certain media.

A month ago, there was a relatively large chunk of people online who, if asked, would say they wouldn't buy games by CDPR and weren't fans of them, because of the poor way they treat their staff and the way they released Cyberpunk knowing it was unfinished and that would be bad for the consumer.

But the anime recently dropped on Netflix and it's apparently good (it's made by Trigger) and I'm seeing tons of the same people absolutely raving about it and saying they're probably now going to buy the game.

This is the same as how around a year ago, there was a relatively large chunk of people online who, if asked, said they hated Riot Games because of their history of building a toxic culture, abusing their staff, and so on.

But then they dropped Arcane (which was, admittedly, fantastic) and suddenly that's amazing and promotes female empowerment and there are a million videos about how it tells a nuanced story with a largely female cast and how amazing that is.

These are all in the context of how a few years back, I had someone nudge me online when I mentioned Rurouni Kenshin, because the creator of that franchise was outed as a criminal, and I should feel bad for liking something made by someone like that (even if that was all many years before those facts came to light). Some of the same people would, a few years later, bend over backwards to justify why it's okay for them to buy and rave about Hogwarts Legacy (to be clear I'm not saying that's equivalent as no-one involved in that is a genuine criminal).

I dunno. Something about all this irks me.

I'm okay with people "forgiving" a creator, or a brand for something that's past. It'd be ridiculous to expect people to judge and sentence something like that, and stick to it forever. But I find that sometimes, it's just because that company releases something that they like. Riot's still got a massive staff abuse problem that hasn't been solved but Arcane's great, have you seen it?

That kind of thing.

Cyberpunk Like No Mans Sky launched to waves of negativity and like no mans sky they have updated and updated the game they haven't gained the same publicity or public forgiveness that NMS got and maybe that's because they haven't delivered fully on the initial vision of the game. Its gone from broken disaster to what sounds like a seven out of ten game with two years additional work isn't quite an amazing redemption or success story that games sites can write about when a. Bad game is now a mediocre game

https://www.polygon.com/reviews/23014759/cyberpunk-2077-patch-1-5-review-ps5-xbox-series-x

They tried though unlike Say EA's Anthem that strung along its player-base from day one showing a completely bull**** demo of the game at E3 that had no resemblance to the finished product. After launching a barren unfinished game they then spent two years promising updates knowing full well that the skeleton staff working on it wouldn't be able to deliver on any of their promises. rather than release what they did then quietly killed it off two years later delivering none of the promised features from the year one roadmap.

[Asura]

Cyberpunk Like No Mans Sky launched to waves of negativity-

That's all true, and EA are definitely streets ahead in this regard. But it's more the abuse of their staff; irrespective of how the game works out. Given, comparing CDPR to Riot is a bit of a wobbly comparison, as CDPR haven't (to my knowledge) had similar reports of things like sexual harrassment.

It's a combination of all these things. I'm still a bit bugged by the whole thing with No Man's Sky, because I feel it's an industrial-scale version of asking for forgiveness instead of permission; but I can at least say that their main issue, that the game was released unfinished, has been addressed now. I can't say that with CDPR.

[Golgo]

All parties worked a massive and knowing con on their punters, mis-selling a product in order to defraud money out of them 'now' and enrich themselves hugely. The question of the extent to which they may or may not have improved the products afterwards is irrelevant. It's like accepting payment for immediately delivery of ten of something and giving the customer seven of it after a few years. Where's the 'redemption' in that?

[Asura]

It's like accepting payment for immediately delivery of ten of something and giving the customer seven of it after a few years. Where's the 'redemption' in that?

Are you talking about NMS? Because from my perspective, in this analogy, they promised 10, delivered 6, and later on sent enough so everyone has 12. The final game is way better than the impression I got from the pre-launch hype. I still think it's screwed up and it bugs me they're being rewarded for it, but that's why I said above, it's all relative. There are plenty of games which were overhyped, oversold, and then didn't deliver.

[Lebowski]

All parties worked a massive and knowing con on their punters, mis-selling a product in order to defraud money out of them 'now' and enrich themselves hugely. The question of the extent to which they may or may not have improved the products afterwards is irrelevant. It's like accepting payment for immediately delivery of ten of something and giving the customer seven of it after a few years. Where's the 'redemption' in that?

It's this culture of day one patching that is to be blamed, you can send off a game to be be pressed and still work on it for another month, i don't think any developer wants to release a bad game but some bite off more than they can chew by cramming in to much into the last month of production.

[Asura]

Yep. Amazing how quickly the controversy around Riot was forgotten when Arcane dropped.

The other part of this, too, is a bit more, well, insidious.

It's because when the Riot controversy was riding high, it was everywhere, and I'm sure many of the people commenting, criticising etc. weren't the target demographic for League of Legends, and probably didn't play it. Now of course, they're allowed to have an opinion; to say otherwise would be ridiculous. But LoL has a pretty toxic fanbase which is infamous for throwing out the misogynistic slurs at the drop of a hat.

But I'd argue that Arcane had a slightly different demographic to LoL, what with its focus on strongly written female characters. It had a progressive outlook. And there were a lot of commenters who suddenly forgot about hating Riot.

Not because Riot made something good. It was because Riot made something that catered to them.

Presently the more socially conscious, progressive side of the gaming sphere has a beef with Ubisoft. But if they published something tomorrow that appealed to a progressive mindset - would they clean up? I'd like to say "no".

But Arcane and this Cyberpunk anime make me wonder if the answer is "yes".