My reaction is mostly “...you didn’t have something like this already set up internally?” This seems like it’d be a pretty obvious thing to create and maintain for testing purposes, ya know?

I think its mostly just a blip, honestly.

Except he’s going all-in on the Metaverse crap that isn’t working and everyone knows it, sandbagging the parts of the company that actually make a profit.

I think its more accurate to say that it’s not about Musk only.

To be fair to the quoted review, I think its meant to be tongue-in-cheek, taking a jab at real-world policing instead of being actual criticism of the game.

Here’s one article that actually read the BoA report instead of just regurgitating the headline, and found some serious issues with the methodology: https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2022/11/should-you-be-worried-about-the-bank-of-america-stock-forecast-for-hasbro/

You mean, the report that was focused on how terrible it was that WotC wasn’t catering to the secondary market, didn’t realize that search results for “Pokemon” wouldn’t be constrained to just the card game, and in a long report on MTG didn’t say a single word about Arena?

You don’t need to make customers pay money to be your beta testers for that. You... do betas. Focus groups. Shit that every single other game developer does on a regular basis in order to get fresh feedback from potential players.

If only they’d had revenue from a previous title that probably brought in revenue in the 9, maybe even 10 digits all-told, that they could use to hire a proper QA department instead of offloading that work onto paying customers.

...I’m just amazed that the Hollywood Sign survived the Faro Plague so intact.

The only benefit I see to consumers is that it allows for funding of games that aren’t able to secure proper funding from investors or past sales.

Its exploitative by pressuring customers to buy into an incomplete game for fear of not knowing what their friends or the news sites are talking about with it.

......................okay, on that point, I’ll admit to being a complete fucking idiot >_<.

I know, right? How dare anyone have an opinion that isn’t enthusiastic praise, we’re supposed to be undyingly sycophantic here!

Ugh, Early Access.

It’s ghastly that people are losing their jobs literally weeks before the winter holidays. But even from a cold business standpoint, it seems odd to lay off staff right before one of the biggest industry events of the year. Covering The Game Awards is already a Herculean task. I imagine that it’s much harder shortly…

It’d be very self-indulgent.

Eh, if you’re presenting, you might want to dress up a bit. A fuckton of people are going to be seeing you, might as well look your best.

First, it is an awards show. This is the sort of thing where you probably should dress up a bit if you’re expecting to be on-stage, joke of an awards show as it might be.

<points at the last paragraph with a glower>