If you just give them this space uncontested, you’re just giving them exactly what they want, and buying their narrative that they’re relevant.

Every positively-spun article Kotaku writers have written about this game have felt like an addict defensively scrambling to justify their actions. The lack of self-awareness is... not something I expected. All of them are missing the forest for the trees.

This. The fear that predatory monetisation practices will take over the market isn’t unwarranted, because the big publishers have proven time and again that they will push as far as they can, and only pushback will stop them.

Yeah. I never got the sense that Gertsmann’s contrarianism came from being an asshole. Dude is hella knowledgeable about video games, and has been in the industry since the 90s.

At some point, you’ve seen everything and hype just isn’t enough anymore.

I mean who wouldn’t be cynical like he is when you’ve been in the industry for as long as he did? And been burned by it?

“As games coverage changed” really just makes me think of his Halo Infinite review. It was as much a review of the game Halo Infinite as it was Jeff musing on what the purpose of game reviews were in this day and age. Interesting read, honestly.

If Kotaku can zombie on indefinitely after losing pretty much everyone, giantbomb will probably do the same.

He made it clear he was mostly sticking around due to the personal investment in the site over the years and hoping to shepherd it into new areas as games coverage changed, but that may have just become untenable. He just had his second kid and kids change everything. Nothing resets your priorities like a new tiny…

You’re right that that was similar to Musk fanboys today, and the brainless idolization of him was probably even more rampant. I vividly remember Bill Burr on Conan O’Brien, talking about how you knew Steve Jobs didn’t invent anything himself and going on about how he tried to maintain that illusion. The audience got…

Children have innocence.

No doubt I’d suck. But at least I’d suck while not being an attention whore on Twitter.

There’s a NYT article they published recently about Musk’s online personality. In short, the piece speculates that Musk is like almost everyone else on Twitter, ie miserable on the internet, looking for some validation, not finding any, and complaining about how things aren’t the way he wants them to be. He just…

I literally had this exact conversation about JK Rowling who, apparnetly, is still on her TERF bullshit on twitter getting into arguments with people who barely have any followers. It’s so baffling that we’re watching extremely wealthy people lose their fucking minds when they can easily just go “wait—I’m rich!”

I’m…

Musk has the emotional maturity of a teenager.  This is frankly REALLY common among rich people who were born rich, as Musk was.  They never connect with the real world in any appreciable sense and so they never develop the social skills to navigate it.

Famous Asshole: “Hey, look at this funny thing I found, 95 million followers.”

He always looks like he’s struggling to keep his face from sliding clean off his skull.

Imagine being that rich and that thirsty for attention. 

Eh, it’s an adaptation. This particular change is something I’m ok with, because it lessens her Messiah status, and that fantasy trope is really over done. 

I am here to get you started up.