I’m glad God of War won too, if only because the game has never and will never reach into my wallet while playing.

Five minutes into the future:

Man, I almost feel bad for Bethesda at this point. (Almost.)

You’re not wrong. I’ve liked their handling of games like Wolfenstein, Doom and Dishonored, where they’re publisher not developer, so I’ve always seen them as the least bad of the AAA parasites. But they still suck.

I love how this appears at the bottom of the story. Well-played, Luke. Well-played.

Bethesda had been generating a lot of good will with its stated commitment to single-player games. To see them screw this up so royally, in so many ways, is painful. Never trust the AAA game industry, folks. They’ll always find a way.

Counterpoint: All the AAA titles that don’t have loot boxes.

“It’s not a problem for me, so how could it possibly be a problem?”

Very cool! I found a convincing Yennefer and Triss duo at NYCC this year.

Has Yandy made a Sexy Witcher costume yet? Maybe we can send one to Mr. Cavill before shooting begins.

No doubt, but if your karaoke service doesn’t have Bohemian Rhapsody yet, maybe it’s time to re-think your release date.

There’s nothing like karaoke with a crowd of people who sing along, dance with you and root for you no matter how terrible you are. If there’s one thing I miss about my pre-fatherhood days, it’s midnight karaoke in Brooklyn. I had karaoke at my wedding, for christ’s sake.

This idea isn’t bad.

Despite all this, I’m deeply uncomfortable about buying this game now. I’d like to see if Rockstar takes measures to fix this before opening my wallet. Other than that, what’s the right thing ethically, buy the game and ensure their bonuses, or send a message and try to change things in the future?

So, creative endeavors like putting black bars on the cut scenes require inhumane working conditions, and if you don’t like it, get another job? Cool.

If I had seen this story eight minutes ago, I’d have been the first to this joke! Tarnation!

I hope Twitter and Facebook are next.

“Did I say 100-hour weeks? I meant we treat all of our employees fairly and in no way violate labor laws and none of them like their families anyway.  Here are 50 affidavits from our employees that were in no way signed under threat of termination. Glad that’s cleared up.”

I think Kotaku and Polygon are better than most at addressing this stuff, even if they don’t come to the same conclusions I do. There’s still an instinct to let the developers speak, mostly in PR-jargon, defending their practices, but the forum is here, and Kotaku’s not ignoring the issue. Kotaku gave no quarter to…

If AAA “dies,” so be it. No one’s going hungry in the Ubisoft boardroom because  people don’t want to pay more than $60.