There are better ways to protect your IPs. When it comes to this kind of stuff, Nintendo is still very firmly living in early 1990s Japan. As a company, allowing fans to do the work you probably weren’t going to do yourself is free publicity and a great way to extend the shelf life of your IP. For example, if Nintendo…

I think one of the issues with the trolley conundrum is that it isn’t really applicable to the real world. Think of all the chaos that could potentially ensue if the car swerves in front of the truck. What’s at the bottom of the cliff? Someone’s home? There are so many variables that, even in a far, far, far future…

A lot of small east Asian countries and islands are turning into hubs for startups and developers because of the super cheap cost of living and the exchange rate. It’s less an extravagant vacation and more a working holiday. I guess there is something to be said, though, about the influx of semi-permanent tourists…

What bothers me more is that this is done on a volunteer basis. I recently responded to a call-to-action on a very popular YouTube channel to translate their videos into other languages. The wording was vague and only after I’d clicked the button to reply did I learn that there was no pay involved. This is a channel…

My squad mates would kill me for saying this, but I’ve played Rainbow Six Siege for hundreds of hours and realized I don’t like it anymore. I think it’s a fantastic game and I’m happy I put the time into it, but one day something snapped and I was suddenly no good at it anymore. I could no longer get myself into the…

Download Steam, then pay a couple of bucks for a couple of indie games. If you’re looking for something cerebral, try Gunpoint or maybe Faster than Light. If you’re looking for something scary, try Duskers or Darkwood. There are plenty of side scrollers if you’re into old school, nostalgic stuff. If you want something…

Even here in Japan, it’s kind of fallen off a cliff in terms of popularity recently and I can’t imagine it becoming a thing in the US either. It doesn’t help that the translation seems kind of bad (“Bony Spirits” and “Fleshy Souls” are awful, awful names), and a lot of the content seems just a tad too foreign to…

Fly a plane in Battlefield and you will know why third person is better in some situations. Also, Fallout was an objectively better game in turn-based isometric.

Not that I disagree with your point, but I wouldn’t call swimmers “physically overwhelming.”

How DARE someone expect writers to use words properly?

I feel like about half of this is good advice and half of this is wishful thinking and good genes. Agree with the no smoking, no drugs, sunscreen thing.

Then why does no one let me in to fancy people parties when I dress like Monopoly Spiderman, as I am wont to do?

Often, that’s the case, for sure. It infuriates me. There’s even a guy that wrote a book called, no joke, “Black Passenger, Yellow Cabs” (look it up on Amazon at your own peril).

Living in Japan, I can’t tell you the number of white men I’ve met who are dating or married to Japanese women and who are also deeply, deeply racist and sexist. I don’t think it’s a generational thing. When I ask people like this why they don’t see the disconnect between their views and the fact that they are a)…

Lip flapping is a huge problem when you’re translating anything from Japanese to English. Not because the languages are different, but because western consumers are much more particular about the lip synching being accurate to the sounds.

There are lots of facets to game sales in Japan. You’ve got small, multi-person apartments that aren’t exactly console friendly, but long commutes and great mobile phone coverage, which makes mobile gaming the current king in Japan. Monster Strike is doing terribly in foreign markets but it’s one of the highest…

I don’t think I am. I work in the Japanese games industry and Kojima is not exactly known as a particularly grounded guy around here.

Assuming that your consumers - the people you rely on for your income and wellbeing - like and appreciate something just because you do is narcissistic and misguided.

The assumption/insistence that your consumers will be equally as stoked about your temporary and superficial interest in a non-human character from an over 150 year-old novel isn’t narcissism?

So, like, being a dick is your thing?