Episode 410: Shady Nintendo

This week’s episode features Paul guest-hosting, joining Jonah and Scott. The only real drama comes when Paul defends Nintendo’s shady policy of deleting levels without any warning.

This week’s news items include:

  • Nintendo is deleting people’s Mario Maker stages without telling them why
  • Vivendi’s takeover of Ubisoft looms
  • Square Enix announces upcoming Hitman game will be going fully episodic
  • Former game developer accused of being a spy released from Iranian prison

Question of the Week: “What is your favorite mobile/social game?”

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Episode 429: Colored ControllersEpisode 429: Colored Controllers

We’re still running the contest for the E3 loot, which includes a T-shirt, a Loot Crate, some Civilization 6 swag and a Kobe Bryant gold coin with a DLC code on it.

The podcast also follows up on some of the hardware that was seen at E3, including PDP controllers and the HTC Vive VR headset. Then there’s Brexit…

The news also includes:

  • TIGA calls for government to reassure UK games industry
  • Mario Maker fans have built a better community website than Nintendo
  • Nintendo’s upcoming NX console may use cartridges instead of discs
  • Gears of War 4 on Xbox One will push performance using DirectX 12, PC to have 4K and unlocked FPS

Just let us know what excited you at E3 2016 to win the loot swag.

Episode 656: Gooey EpisodeEpisode 656: Gooey Episode

This week includes a Gaming Flashback about the sticky puzzle game World of Goo, which was one of the first games released without DLC — which is one of the main themes running through this podcast: videogame obsolescence. The guys also discuss James Gunn’s work on Lollipop Chainsaw and speedrun cheating.

The news for the week includes:

  • Ubisoft to pull online from older games, which also takes away your DLC
  • Sucker Punch has “no plans to revisit” its Sly Cooper or InFamous games
  • Squad’s 50v50 tactical FPS action has moved over 3 million copies
  • Fable reboot gets a new narrative lead

All this and Listener Feedback.

Star Wars Galaxies Shutdown BacklashStar Wars Galaxies Shutdown Backlash

Despite the announced shutdown of Star Wars: Galaxies and the approaching new Star Wars-based MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, loyal subscribers don’t want Galaxies to end. They’ve begun a petition to try to convince Sony to let the MMO live on as a free-to-play MMO.

The petition asks Sony to convert the game to a ‘freemium’, microtransaction-based MMO, and that Sony consolidate players onto a smaller number of servers and facilitate character transfer to reduce operational costs in order to keep the game running. The petition has already gotten thousands signatures in a few days.

One of the petition leaders posted:

We are not your typical gamers.

We are not a commodity.

But if you look at the recent decision by Lucasarts to shut down Star Wars Galaxies, you might be inclined to think we are both of those things. Lucasarts thinks that we are a non-perishable commodity that can be shoved into a shipping crate and moved down the road to their next project. That is not the case. Not even close.

We are a vibrant community. We have seen our ups and downs, but we are only stronger because of it. We have endured all manner of broken promises and misleading “improvements” to this game, and throughout all of it, we have continued to build our community, and show support and loyalty to this great game. But we didn’t do it because of a game. We did it because of our community here.

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