This honestly reads like an ad for the game. Nothing in this article explains why Elden Ring will reinvent the open world genre other than “it’s Dark Souls but bigger”.

What? Dark Souls was a huge hit, one of the most beloved games of its entire generation.

since dark souls, every fromsoftware game has sold multiple millions of copies during their opening weeks. these are not niche titles. they’re just more special on account of being good. 

This franchise went mainstream years ago.  If not with the first Dark Souls, then absolutely with Dark Souls 3.  The only game in the franchise I feel is niche is Demon’s Souls.

 I haven’t looked, but Dawn up there is co-founder of Conte Nast who publishes Ars Technica, among others. Dunno if she is involved or even if Ars is reporting on this dust up.  But seeing the publishers of web sites on boards of gaming companies, or other technical companies, that are grist for their ‘mills’ does…

I’m fairly certain that if Jim Spanfeller ended up mixed in this shady can of worms of dirtbag connections, Kotaku’d pretty much be forced into silence as well. So much for journalistic integrity and independence.

I'm sorry, but are you equating rich board members with conflicts of interest to reporters/writers who work for multiple companies during their careers? Are you stupid or just disingenuous?

LOL they just added it. I checked an article I’d read earlier and it’s now in there.

“CASEY WASSERMAN

You know what’s interesting? I have not seen ONE OUNCE of disclosure on either Polygon or The Verge about Casey Wasserman. Someone should really do something about that, only I refuse to comment on their articles on principle based on emails I had with the EOC of The Verge. (long story)

In every game with EXP share, I simply switch my team around any time my Pokemon get overpowered. If you have to start with a “new” team after every gym, it makes it a lot more interesting. It gives me the opportunity to try out way more unique Pokemon, but EXP share lets me do so without having to grind unnecessarily…

Not everything needs to be shipped but if “they always get coffee together” and “they only want to go on vacation if it can be together” is a stretch to read as a couple, I don’t know what to tell you

Oh my God, they we’re roommates.

*laughs in tagmo*

By your logic no one can report on anything because they don’t work for the entity. So, no one can report on the government unless they are themselves in government, no one can report on police brutality unless they are a cop, no one can report on corporate fraud unless they are employed by the company, etc etc.

ABK will now be Co-Headed by Mike Ybarra and a bowl of fruit.

I doubt it.  More like "We are gonna put you and Ybarra in charge.  Ybarra calls the shots.  All you need to do is get him coffee.  Look how much we respect women."

I would ask if Blizzard is okay, but as we know they are clearly not.

I’m guessing it’s because I was mocking the Kotaku team for writing a bunch of “HELLS YEAH POWER TO THE PEOPLE!” articles during the GameStop pump and dump before they turned around and wrote “well clearly this obvious scam was obvious!” postmortems.