Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 2)

[Potato]

I don't see any data at all about the total number of game journalists so this is entirely meaningless

what percentage of jobs were lost in the "industry" overall? 50%? 2%?

What percentage of those "job" losses were actually salaried positions vs freelance basement dwellers getting paid in free games?

[Bootsthecat]

Look at this one writer for that site's profile picture on Twitter.  

What the fuck is this Nick Jonas /Justin Bieber hybrid

He's got that trans smirk. Egg in training.

Is it because they all have bad teeth since the eggs don't like taking care of themselves? I assume yes

[Boredfrom]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/july-8-2026-wapo-graham-platner-ends-u-s-senate-campaign-in-maine.1572646/page-8#post-157721158

Yeah AOC seemingly has generational political instincts.

I think she wins the presidency in 2028. Calling it now. But perhaps that's for another thread..

Generational Political Instincts = Not supporting a guy with a Nazi tattoo.

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/thegamebusiness-confused-xbox-staff-living-in-fear-after-first-round-of-brutal-lay-offs.1573066/page-3#post-157719886

This industry is so fucked. What talent would even look at working in this industry. Shitty pay, shitty job insecurity, asshole fanbases, not unionized, crappy bonus pay structures etc

Love when they think the industry used to be different.

I don't get why nobody thinks about the Execs and the shareholders tho? They have to eat too and they are trying their best. I think we all need to consider the CEO's more, I wish they get more money from these cuts #prayers

You mean the people who literally supply your pay?

I will never be able to fathom how id was not extended the same courtesy to either spin off or pursue a buyer. Even if the properties associated with the studio remained with Microsoft, someone would have been interested in bringing them on board to work on something new. Or, like the Perfect Dark project that never happened, put their efforts towards a shooter franchise that could use a boost.

This guy should really look into what those "efforts" were.

[Potato]

I knew the "Soviet crimes" would sting

Maybe it was that whole part where the Nazis and the Soviets signed an agreement to invade and partition the country between them then carried out programs of ethnic cleansing, mass theft, mass rape and other war crimes leading to the total subjugation of the nation for half a century?

A bunch of Americans offended that someone Polish closely connects Nazi and Soviet war crimes, really can't make it up. Not to mention that modern day Russians are actually kind of cool with Nazis considering the Wagner group commander had Nazi tattoos
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230825-utkin-the-nazi-tattooed-commander-who-gave-wagner-its-name


Intersectionality remains a tough cookie to crack

The big "gotcha" these days from tankies seems to be claiming that the Soviets "won" WWII.

Like, they only participated in the Eastern front of a global war. The British were literally fighting alone on multiple fronts against the Germans, Italians and Japanese and then the Yanks decided to join in after a couple of years.

None of them seem to mention the only reason the Germans were able to take up such a strong position in Europe is because Stalin was a completely despicable piece of shit who agreed to carve up eastern Europe with his ally Hitler.

[Greatness Gone]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/asha-sharma-advising-us-federal-reserve.1573543/

A thread full of cis white males shitting on a powerful woman of color

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/july-8-2026-wapo-graham-platner-ends-u-s-senate-campaign-in-maine.1572646/page-8#post-157721158

Yeah AOC seemingly has generational political instincts.

I think she wins the presidency in 2028. Calling it now. But perhaps that's for another thread..

Generational political instincts from someone who has only won a single competitive election, and a primary election at that, in her life.

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[killamajig]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/welcome-new-members-introduce-yourself-here.119184/page-49#post-157712338

Hey everyone! I'm Alex, and I'm currently developing a game called Wordichi - Word Games & Word Puzzles. https://wordichi.com/

I wanted to use this forum to share my development progress and get feedback from real people instead of bots like on Reddit. 😄

I'm also looking forward to hanging out here once I have a bit more free time to chat with everyone!

self promotion...

[Potato]

news as a concept feels archaic, like it was to meet the needs of an unconnected world

"farmer hornbottom's house burned down? why that's a whole county over, there's no way I could've known this if not for this news paper which collects interesting local news for me, thank you journalists"

now, on twitter, farmer hornbottom will tell you himself, probably with video footage

we needed gaming news when stuff was announced at E3 and almost no one got to go to E3

now the companies just tell us what they want to tell us directly, why should they bother sending out info to journalists to disseminate? they can totally control the message themselves

and when it comes to game ratings, everyone knows there's no reason to trust any reviewer over an aggregate, or over people you KNOW play games you like because you can watch them do it on stream

Don't forget that most reviews back in the day were a couple hundred words maximum and a score. Now, everyone wants to write 3000 word essays, most of which is political agenda, and then inconvenient ads and pop-ups placed over the text.

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/asha-sharma-advising-us-federal-reserve.1573543/

This is more or less symptomatic of why the collapsing American video game industry is part of a larger problem in the country.

Pictured, the collapsing American video game industry:


And the collapsing American video game industry employment:

[benji]

The big "gotcha" these days from tankies seems to be claiming that the Soviets "won" WWII.

Where did the material come from? And for free?

[Boredfrom]

Written essays can be fun. Is just that gamejournos idea of essays are regurgitating socio political opinions from Twitter.  

Even the actually funny gaming journos from 90’s and early 00’s were castrated or went soy.

[benji]

Can we just crash everything and get this over with? Jesus Christ. Rip the fucking bandage off. It's been pretty bad since the beginning of covid and even before then I felt like we were operating on borrowed time.

"Do you even realize what you're asking for?! It's going to hurt people"
People are hurting now and have been hurting for a long time. At least there's some hope of recovery.

Normal forum.

Also, someone posted the banned sawing off Florida gif in that thread.

[Boredfrom]

Can we just crash everything and get this over with? Jesus Christ. Rip the fucking bandage off. It's been pretty bad since the beginning of covid and even before then I felt like we were operating on borrowed time.

"Do you even realize what you're asking for?! It's going to hurt people"
People are hurting now and have been hurting for a long time. At least there's some hope of recovery.

Normal forum.

Also, someone posted the banned sawing off Florida gif in that thread.

Is funny when they think that stuff cannot get worse.

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/asha-sharma-advising-us-federal-reserve.1573543/

A thread full of cis white males shitting on a powerful woman of color

FACT CHECK:

Anyone who chooses to applaud her here for anything after this is just admitting they're a pathetic piece of shit who puts a brand over everything.

[HaughtyFrank]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/july-8-2026-wapo-graham-platner-ends-u-s-senate-campaign-in-maine.1572646/page-8#post-157721158

I think she wins the presidency in 2028. Calling it now. But perhaps that's for another thread..

Generational Political Instincts = Not supporting a guy with a Nazi tattoo.

American politics are amazing

[benji]

I honestly have no clue what they think a "crash" would even be.  The first video game "crash" could happen because a bunch of newly founded companies flooded the market with cheap garbage for a single platform that had only sold 15 million. The number of games that existed for the Atari 2600 quadrupled in a single year. And all of it had to be manufactured as inventory, the very thing Sony is openly refusing to do and they're mad about.

A bunch of money rushed in and rushed back out in a single year. It was not decades of consistent growth in every single metric that suddenly had a bad year.

And there was a super important thing that appeared on the market at the same time that sucked up the market for all the overly optimistic sales projections: the PC. The video game industry didn't crash, the Atari home console market did.

[Taco Bell Tower]

Apparently he's talking about H3H3, I had to go to her YouTube account to find out who she even is in that regard.

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

Ever since the MILF left Jeff he's been nothing but misogynistic as fuck 

[benji]

Also that thread is hilarious for how they're pretty much blaming Sharma because she's having to rule over the clean up from the previous regime setting billions on fire with nothing to show for it. She probably sucks too but the layoffs aren't her fault and aren't really her doing.

Those morons would apparently keep throwing billions into a hole to save Xbox XBOX from the further consequences of the sunk cost fallacy:

[Vertigo]

'BOYCOTTS DON'T WORK' is such a tired position.



Many do work. Will this one? There's only one way to find out.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/they-now-wait-for-this-storm-to-pass-%E2%80%94-ps5-owners-are-cancelling-playstation-plus-subscriptions-to-protest-but-it-wont-make-any-difference.1573054/post-157706896

I mean the Cyberpunk 2077 and of course the Hogwarts Legacy boycotts were mega 'successful', so much so that both games sold millions. Hogwarts over 30 million. It even had Reee mods playing secretly.

Mission accomplished.

A company that 97% of the forum worships and bootlicks regularly is really gonna feel that hit as Era's best delete their PS5 wishlist's whilst DL'ing the latest Sony first party game all in protest of course.

I can already see some of them justify buying games coming later this year as supporting the devs not Sony. 



If the users over there are serious they need to ban any Sony game OT's. Why are they advertising for them?

Any thread on Sony needs a disclaimer at the front and at the bottom reminding everyone what Sony is going to take from us. 

Anything else is just plain cowardice from the mod team.

[benji]

Can we just crash everything and get this over with? Jesus Christ. Rip the fucking bandage off. It's been pretty bad since the beginning of covid and even before then I felt like we were operating on borrowed time.

"Do you even realize what you're asking for?! It's going to hurt people"
People are hurting now and have been hurting for a long time. At least there's some hope of recovery.

Is funny when they think that stuff cannot get worse.

Look, we simply have Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, EA and Ubisoft go bankrupt, then we clean out the suits, restart the companies without any executives and with fully unionized workers and move forward with a sustainable video game industry full of $500 million AAA projects with all the dev time they need and no crunch.

[Boredfrom]

She probably sucks too but the layoffs aren't her fault and aren't really her doing.

I wish she didn’t gutted Id to irrelevance.  

That is on her, specially since they still plan to use IdTech.

[NekoFever]

I honestly have no clue what they think a "crash" would even be.  The first video game "crash" could happen because a bunch of newly founded companies flooded the market with cheap garbage for a single platform that had only sold 15 million. The number of games that existed for the Atari 2600 quadrupled in a single year. And all of it had to be manufactured as inventory, the very thing Sony is openly refusing to do and they're mad about.

A bunch of money rushed in and rushed back out in a single year. It was not decades of consistent growth in every single metric that suddenly had a bad year.

And there was a super important thing that appeared on the market at the same time that sucked up the market for all the overly optimistic sales projections: the PC. The video game industry didn't crash, the Atari home console market did.

Borne out by the fact that the market only crashed in North America, while it carried on basically unaffected in territories where nobody cared about Atari like Europe (8-bit micros) and Japan (Famicom). 1983 is considered part of a golden age for the industry here in the UK.

[benji]

We also need to remember because it's hard to do with video games being such a stable part of our lives that much of the US conventional wisdom was that video game consoles and video games more broadly were a fad. Not a new media industry that would, by many measures, surpass Hollywood. A bunch of those companies flooded the market to make money and get out before the fad ended.

Many of those games were rather infamously created in just a few weeks and the programmers (who did everything) paid almost nothing. These weren't mature businesses or even ones that were projecting to do it into merely the later 1980's let alone for generation after generation.

[Potato]

Theory Update (with some digressions):
https://www.resetera.com/threads/til-mark-wahlberg-committed-multiple-violent-hate-crimes-in-his-past.1567711/page-2#post-157389286

He's donated millions of dollars and his foundation has raised and distributed over 20 million dollars for inner city kids.

As I stated in a previous post, idk if he's rehabilitated. But I know he at least appears to be doing good.

He's doing good on that front, but I'm not sure what a children's charity is doing to actually combat racism and hate crimes which is what he was guilty of perpetuating. This is my point about rehabilitation and restitution; I don't think people fundamentally understand what that entails and will default to believing a vague "charity" as the ultimate trap card that wipes one's slate clean no matter what they've done or whether or not the charitable giving is even relevant to the harm committed.

As far as I can find, he's only said it'd be nice to actually apologize to one of the victims, Johnny Trinh; while it seems this apology was never rendered in person, which is odd for a fucking multimillionaire, Trinh did ultimately forgive him of his own accord. However, some years after that, Wahlberg applied for a pardon to get his entire criminal slate wiped clean for fear he'd be denied a concessionaire license in California which can hinge on the criminal background of the applicant. Nothing has ever been mentioned about his specific Black victims, nor has he genuinely made amends with either the Black or Vietnamese communities, but hey, at least he feels good going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning. Also note that the aforementioned pardon would've ultimately been for a 45 day sentence when he was supposed to be jailed for three months for hate crimes.

What an upstanding guy!

https://www.resetera.com/threads/media-is-disposable-at-this-point-and-i-dont-really-care-about-owning-it-anymore.1568728/page-2#post-157454248

If you are consuming media in the attempt to keep up with the times, you will inevitably be overwhelmed because- even before the explosion in access to "content" through streaming and social media and the resulting degradation of the monoculture- there was already more media in existence than you could ever experience in a single lifetime. You will never keep up and need to drop the pretense that it's possible to keep up. On the other hand, if you are engaging with media to actually enrich your life, and do not care about trends unless those trends genuinely align with your interests, then you will drop a lot of the stress and worry about this. It truly isn't that serious; experience whatever you want to experience on your own time. Yes, going back to something you've experienced before takes away time from something new that you could experience, but who gives a shit? You were never going to get to it all anyway, and you don't seem to really value much of the stuff you consume anyway because that's all you're doing- consuming.

I dunno; this just seems like another knock-on effect of capitalism which fundamentally boils down everything into a commodity whose purpose is to be exchanged and consumed.

 This seems pretty anti-art/artist.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/should-the-left-big-tent-left-embrace-patriotism-more.1571869/page-3#post-157662931

In the best of circumstances, the United States should have never even been brought to exist in the first place. It was always a white supremacist, settler colonial empire- breaking away from the European mainland because they couldn't conquer and pillage on their terms- and it is intent on maintaining that project even at the destruction of the Global South's autonomy and the ecology of our planet.

"Patriotism" towards the continuance of white supremacy, settler colonialism, and imperialism is a folly if you are meaningfully leftist. The values of the Founding Fathers that are so enticing to people still on the bandwagon were not in reference to anyone except white male capitalists and fundamentally cannot be rendered to "all" unless you actually transform the society such that what we think of the United States doesn't meaningfully exist anymore.

If you care about the good of humanity and the planet, this shit is not salvageable with mere reform and rebranding.

nods*

People put on the shocked Pikachu face when they're told America has been slowly doing the same thing to the global south that Israel has been doing quickly in Gaza. That America was among the very last countries to stop supporting apartheid South Africa. A quick glance at the conversations around "blow back" and the uncomfortable truth that Jeremiah Wright was correct on this subject should sober people up quickly. Patriotism here necessarily becomes head-buried-in-sand meme. It's why I say it only functions to obfuscate critical truths.

Absolutely not. Patriotism and nationalism eventually lead to fascism. As Arthur Schopenhauer so beautifully said:

"The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority."

What we need to do is use populism to win over voters. That's precisely what Mamdani has done. Populism isn't an inherently negative thing. Find out what the voters care about, focus on that, pander a bit and deliver. The economy affects everyone. No one cares about the flag and their nation, if they are barely hanging on and can't get through the month. Similarly, in a more pragmatic view, we can't push leftward and pass leftwing legislation and progressive sociopolitical ideals if people are worried about their finances. I wish more people would be against fascism on principle, but we've seen too often that if people are suffering from their economic status they couldn't care less about fighting back against political oppression.

TL;DR: Patriotism and nationalism - hard no. Populism - yes.

Wait until this guy finds out about the form of politics the fascists prioritized.  

When I think "patriotism" I think of the founding fathers, the birth of the nation, the vision for a system of government, our core guiding beliefs as a nation, etc. Those things are the underpinning glue that holds our states together and gets us to cooperate with one another.

If you know the history of this country, why would you think any of those things you listed underneath the umbrella of patriotism invokes cooperation with each other?

Culture changes anyway.

When has the United States materially stopped being a white-supremacist settler-colonial empire?

I'm obviously refering to regular people who make culture happen, not the monsterous apparatus that has been rotten from the beginning. It is they who affect change.

Culture is an inherent byproduct of the economic and subsequently political sphere, the "monsterous apparatus" as you aptly call it. How culture is built and maintained is directly affected by how people are able (or unable) to access the living space and material needs they need to survive any given society and the struggles and contradictions borne from that environment, and currently our access to our material needs and the environment we exist in is fully controlled by an authoritarian cabal of imperialists.

Not in disagreement at all, it's of course all interwoven. There are limits though, and we already see them becoming more clearly. Empirestijl have an end date, fortunately. I just hope something better, something more just will take its place.

The only way something better is going to come along is if people commit themselves to a long-term project to make it so. I don't see the seeds of such an endeavor being borne from a conversation though on how we can reclaim American patriotism from the right. (Hell, I don't know how you get into a conversation about that with an appeal to a "big tent" left; you are begging for muddied politics and self-sabotage.)

It's difficult to be optimistic, especially when you're aware of all the terrible things, the injustice, the corruption and lies. But I do think that love of life and of the neighbor will be chosen over death in the end.

Part of my hope lies in the fact that all of the terrible things within this country and the terrible things this country have wrought upon the rest of the world pretty much have a singular source. What you need then is a synthesized theory and critique and subsequently a movement to build from that theory and critique.

Maybe if a country isn't a settler colonial state like USA, I could see patriotism being a thing from the left. But Americans have no leg to stand on. Unless if part of that patriotism political campaign is giving Native Americans their land back and reparations.

 

You know it's an option to use the symbols, images, and aesthetics of patriotism and not implement nationalist policies?

It's an option to use any symbol for your cause and not implement congruent policies, but that has nothing to do with the appropriateness of the symbols to that cause in the first place. What, should we try to reclaim the Confederate Flag but still preach against anti-Black racism?

What historical flag could you possibly hoist then?  

https://www.resetera.com/threads/increase-in-racism-during-world-cup-reflects-%E2%80%98growing-pattern-of-abuse%E2%80%99.1573108/page-2#post-157711732

What Americans think of racism and even the concept of race in general was literally borne in Europe and solidified into law by Europeans (and yes, I include the white South Americans into that designation too; the Indigenous weren't speaking Spanish and Portuguese.) This is a no brainer and it's something I've been trying to remind people of for the past couple of years as they seriously thought they got an out from being recognized as the colonizer countries they are simply because Trump got elected again. Now that some of your citizens wanted to openly pop off over some fucking football, now people can't hide behind the veneer of being more "civilized" and "educated" and now wanna be like "yeah, the racism over here is pretty bad."

You weren't fooling anyone. Work on your shit.

 This isn't remotely true. (And aren't these people always claiming the Nazi's got all their ideas from American racism?)

https://www.resetera.com/threads/july-8-2026-wapo-graham-platner-ends-u-s-senate-campaign-in-maine.1572646/page-8#post-157719124

Oh, is it okay on Era to not support this guy now? I was offline for a week and a half or so, apparently he managed to do something *more* disqualifying than just be a lying Nazi POS?

He assaulted at least two white women, which is the second worst thing you can do in the world next to preying on children. We know this because a few of the remaining diehards are saying they don't believe the allegations because they're beyond the pale, when previously they were able to completely overlook the lives he destroyed in the Middle East.

She hates her only forum so much.

Nepenthe: Marky Mark assaulted someone at 15. Condemn him. 

Also Nepenthe: This rapper dealt drugs to black children and got shot 15 times. OMG slay qween.

[Potato]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/july-8-2026-wapo-graham-platner-ends-u-s-senate-campaign-in-maine.1572646/page-8#post-157721158

Yeah AOC seemingly has generational political instincts.

I think she wins the presidency in 2028. Calling it now. But perhaps that's for another thread..

OMG the democrats are probably the only political party stupid enough to put her up as a candidate. They're also stupid enough to wonder what happened when they inevitably get trounced by whatever mediocre douchebag the Republicans roll out.

[Jonsey]

Apparently Jeff says he never dated a milf or is mom is maga

[Potato]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/thegamebusiness-confused-xbox-staff-living-in-fear-after-first-round-of-brutal-lay-offs.1573066/page-3#post-157719886

This industry is so fucked. What talent would even look at working in this industry. Shitty pay, shitty job insecurity, asshole fanbases, not unionized, crappy bonus pay structures etc

Love when they think the industry used to be different.

I don't get why nobody thinks about the Execs and the shareholders tho? They have to eat too and they are trying their best. I think we all need to consider the CEO's more, I wish they get more money from these cuts #prayers

You mean the people who literally supply your pay?

I will never be able to fathom how id was not extended the same courtesy to either spin off or pursue a buyer. Even if the properties associated with the studio remained with Microsoft, someone would have been interested in bringing them on board to work on something new. Or, like the Perfect Dark project that never happened, put their efforts towards a shooter franchise that could use a boost.

This guy should really look into what those "efforts" were.

Again, what value do they think these studios have outside of their IP?

Especially given most of these studios have struggled to put out any products at all for an entire generation and haven't put out any major hits in a long time that would justify the budget required to keep them running. 

In addition, almost all of the people who made these legacy studios great have left and aren't coming back.

[HaughtyFrank]

Maybe if a country isn't a settler colonial state like USA, I could see patriotism being a thing from the left. But Americans have no leg to stand on. Unless if part of that patriotism political campaign is giving Native Americans their land back and reparations.

 

Technically the US is a post colonial state 

[Boredfrom]

Maybe if a country isn't a settler colonial state like USA, I could see patriotism being a thing from the left. But Americans have no leg to stand on. Unless if part of that patriotism political campaign is giving Native Americans their land back and reparations.

 

Technically the US is a post colonial state 

Ask the indigenous population how they are treated in Latin America.