This has been an absolutely fascinating foray into the mind of the court but also the gaming public.

Thing is - it’s the ACTUAL line. Yes, everyone who isn’t China looks at that and see’s it’s pretty absurd, especially towards the sovereignty of its neighbors. But that’s actually what’s been put forward.

I’d just accept that it’s essentially a different story with possibly a completely different emotional arc and move on with it.

I long ago learned that anything that’s in the transgressive bucket is just better to watch (if you’re into that sort of thing) and let critics sort themselves out because no matter how much you might like the critic, Ebert for example always got Lynch wrong..

I think the issue is the authors interpreted this prompt in an incredibly anti-American way. That is, rather than saying good and bad things about the country, this is the Black Mirror version where things were selected for their inflammatory or cynical value.

You could also make the case that Cyberpunk 2077 and its table top RPG are an outsiders, cynical take on the US. I noted this while playing where if I just wanted to write up Eastern European perception cliche’s of the US list, it felt like I was being pelted with them constantly.

It’s pretty simple for me anyway - the people who like him find his work compelling. It’s hard to have a conversation about it with people who define themselves by their dislike of Tarantino though, because his films don’t work IF you’re predisposed to not go along with the character journey. David Lynch and Kubrick…

I feel like the only way you could have made that game work is as Survival Horror.

Good for them.

What’s interesting to me is that this article and even your comment are arguing a point that Nadella didn’t make.

See, I would have thought that about appleate courts, but then I just really don’t know why the FTC was ok with this in the first place. Just on appearance it isn’t great.

I still think the judge should have recused just from a “for everyone else’s sanity” reason. I think by bringing it up pre-trial, the judge gave the parties ample warning/time to file their complaints.

Yea, but let’s also not forget that these are not small companies.

It’s also exceptionally hard to tease out the creator/character/purpose.

You can dogwhistle until you’re out of breath.

It’s cyclical though - Probably through the 60's-90's people would have considered this socially abhorrent. That’s not to say there was no violence during that time. The 2000's-2010's marked a bit of a shift in popular perception.

People expecting other people to take a hard side on this has been one of the more disappointing aspects of the whole thing.

No - the new characters were/could have been interesting. They can still probably do a number of things with them.

Basically this. Star Wars is kind of dead to me based on certain choices.

Ron took too long to bite the hand that feeds.