It’s well-deserved confidence. The game alone would have been intriguing with just the sheer amount of choice that’s available, but the fact that it’s all excellently voiced is icing on the truly delicious cake. It’s one of those games that probably will only keep your attention for one or two full playthroughs, but those playthroughs will definitely be different for every person. If you want to give it a shot during the Summer Sale, you can finish at least the first part of a playthrough well under the refund time for Steam, in case it’s not your kind of game.
That’s kind of Ninja Theory’s thing. Heavenly Sword was boring to play, but had an interesting premise. Enslaved was literally planned to be a movie and had the gameplay added on after that. The only game of theirs that I can think of that had good gameplay was DmC: Devil May Cry, and the story was absolute garbage. I don’t know why anyone would pick up a game from them when their track record is so lopsided.
I genuinely enjoyed Arkham Knight, but those mandatory Batmobile sections are easily the most miserable part of the game. If we had those for an entire game, it might not be too bad, but most of the time you just end up using it to get from point A to point B. If you can put up with being stuck for a bit on those sections, you might enjoy it.
Its big issue is that it has to follow up on Arkham City. It’s not a bad game by any stretch, but it’s following up to one of the best superhero games out there. If you’re not invested in the story, there’s no harm in dropping it. Play something you’ll have fun with.
Co-ops have been shown to be less likely to fail than traditional businesses in their first ten years. The article argues that if Canada spent $1b on helping workers to purchase businesses from retiring entrepreneurs, it would drastically raise the wealth of the poorest citizens and allow for more stable businesses.
They didn’t cancel it after the second season, it’s even worse. They released the first half, announced the second half of the first season was coming and renewal for a second, then released the second half and canned the second season. We barely got a single season.
You can get past the black screen by deleting the config file in the game’s appdata. After that, it’ll launch, you’ll apply settings, and you’ll get stuck on the “Defrosting Helldiver” screen because you can’t access a server, and be stuck with a black screen the next time you launch. I’m having so much fun.
I want to second Graveyard Keeper. I’m 99% sure I didn’t automate it as well as it intended, but it’s a lot of fun. The removal of the hard sleeping hours of Stardew is the biggest plus of the game, aside from the setting.
One of California’s government’s departments brought forward a case in 2021 detailing that women had unequal pay, were sexually harassed, were subject to retaliation for reporting issues, and were also subject to discrimination if pregnant. Wikipedia article here.
Lawsuit also detailed that “frat boy culture” was prevalent and there was no meaningful penalty for sexual discrimination.
One woman had nude photos of herself shared, and as a result committed suicide during a company retreat.
Multiple other agencies have pursued Blizzard over this. The SEC has had Blizzard pay out $35 million for not having a proper reporting structure, and made a $18 million settlement pool. The pool has been criticized for being far too small.
Original lawsuit appears to still be continuing.
Hong Kong
A player in a Hearthstone tournament said “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!” He was immediately removed from the tournament, given a 1-year ban, and forfeited all winnings.
Two stream casters also had their contact cancelled.
Blizzard later stated that they would return the player’s winnings, reduce the ban to six months, change the streamers’ ban to six months, and would ban a team that supported the player’s action for six months, stating his actions violated a contract term that "offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages [Blizzard’s] image."
Blizzard has denied this has anything to do with their financial ties to Tencent.
The first two were lifted from the controversies section of Blizzard’s Wikipedia page, and they have more information in the linked pages and articles in those pages. For more information, I’d suggest reading there.
Personally, the way the sexual harassment has been handled has stopped me from touching their games. They’ve shown no remorse aside from being caught, they’ve been accused of shredding evidence during the investigation, and instead of addressing the issues, were instead upset that they weren’t approached privately before the public lawsuit. Instead of showing a willingness to reform, they appear to be entirely concerned with preventing financial damage.