That’s fair!

Not for nothing, but your Target must be fantastic because here in PR—which, granted, probably not the best counter-example—the only boardgames “like Gloomhave,” that you’re going to find at big retailers like that begin and end with Catan.

@Toyota Mazda inline rotor holder

@America: The Snyder Cut (great username btw)

I’ll be real for a sec: if the article kept its cynical tone while also expanding on either some of the reasons this could be a good business move, and/or how this might be business-as-usual wrt to how a growing number of videogame developers are going about licensing their IPs to boardgame developers/producers, I…

It really does seem that simple—write a “report” and then an “op-ed”—but, I guess there’s either things we don’t know that make doing so difficult for Kotaku—and I’m not being sarcastic, here; I genuinely understand there might be things I don’t “know” because I’m just a reader—or, like most comedians, they want to…

Call it controversial but I have to ask and will likely be ignored or put on blast for it. why is it necessary to blast the “male writers”?

Like, you can do snark and be funny about it? Ash manages it all the time. But, comparing an article by Ian, Brian, or Mike vs. Ethan and some of the other male writers on this site really just make it seem like a majority of them seriously... cannot ever be bothered to try being even-tempered or happy or “enjoy”…

Let me rephrase: niche as in, while business is technically booming, the market that this kind of game is going to enter—artisinal boardgames? Designer boardgames? I forget the exact wording—is largely still a field of and for collectors and hobbyists.

Can most of the male writers on this site not write articles that sound like you’re all fucking sneering at your keyboards when you have to talk about something/one/etc that you’re not exactly 100% fans of?

Fair enough, even if it’s still highly disappointing.

So, they can do this, but not restore the cut LGBT content in the first game?

/shrug

That’s the thing: this is an obvious movement toward saying or giving the impression they want more control—moral or otherwise—but, on the other hand, games and “normie” entertainment in Japan have never been fucking hornier in the history of the genres. The premier market for these things is creepy otaku, but instead…

My concern is that it’ll lead to an environment where, like, you’re only going to be able to produce “sanctioned” fan content if it fits some whatever the fuck guideline that also asks you to pay royalties to some entitity in order to not get sued into the ground or DMCA’d.

A statement that directly/indirectly—take your pick—supports current legislative and legal moves being undertaken across the Japanese entertainment industry to regulate how, where, when, and to what degree fans can profit off fanworks.

My worry is moreso that this is just a small step forward to normalize the end-goal of Japanese companies putting prohibitive restrictions on how people make money off fanworks—gross porn or not.

The issue I’m trying to get at is that guidelines like these, especially at a time when Japan is cracking down on how fans make money through fanworks and fandom, tie together in ways that don’t just—for me—make this about censorhsip or protecting an IP.

Okay, here’s gonna be my pat response: where were these guidelines and these statements about morality and protecting our IP and X/Y/Z when stuff like guro, loli and the shota genres became huge things in Japanese fandom? When incest and rape did as part of the larger culture driving hentai and other pornographic works…

I mean, in the case of Yoko Taro? Yeah, I’d believe it.