Category Archives: archive blog

Blog: Console Bore – 09/09/20

As of writing this, Microsoft finally saw fit to confirm what might be the worst kept secret in the gaming industry, in announcing the existence of the Xbox Series S, the all digital and budget model of their next console. I could talk about how odd and wildly different from the upcoming Series X it looks, but instead I’d like to add to the cacophony of voices asking, “Should these boxes just be delayed?”

Honestly, I think they should be for a multitude of reasons. First, it’s 2020 and things are a fucking mess with a lot of folks (myself included) out of a job and unable to justify buying a $500+ video game machine. Things are tough out there with people not only possibly being unable to afford the thing, but supply chains being what they currently are might make for a difficult production and distribution pipeline. It’s like if Rolex was trying to pitch me on their newest line of expensive watches where normally I’d say “no thank you,” but trying to sell it to me in this economy is just fucking wild.

But maybe you’re Captain Moneybags, sitting upon your throne of gold coins and job offers with plenty of disposable income to throw around. First of all, how about throwing some of that cash my way, and secondly, what are you gonna play on these boxes anyway? Launch lineups are generally pretty forgettable, but this time around it’s downright miserable.

Sony has Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales coming day and date with the PS5, but that’s kind of it. Without a doubt both Microsoft and Sony will get some sports games, some sort of dancing game and an Assassin’s Creed, but that doesn’t seem worth the price of admission to me. Sure I’ll play Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and the Spider-Man game, but the first one I’ll be able to play on my PC or PS4, while the latter is more of an expansion pack that’s built on the same bones as its predecessor. That’s not a dig against these games but there’s nothing that’s jumped out and made me eager to buy a new console.

Then you look at Microsoft who basically just has third party stuff coming out with nothing else to show especially after Halo Infinite got delayed into next year. Like the PS5, they’ll get some sports games, some Ubisoft titles and the next Call of Duty, but they’ve got even less going on than Sony does. Sure they have Game Pass which will allow users to play a variety of stuff, but you can already play those games right now on your current generation of Xbox or a PC.

Maybe by the end of the month both companies will announce some super amazing games that I just have got to play on day one, but as of now there’s like one thing I want to play that’s exclusive in Spider-Man and that’s it. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a cool March release for these bad boys, or even just a full year delay. But it’s expensive to just store product in a warehouse for a year, and it’s unwise to do that with what will be rapidly aging technology. A delay could see a drop in price and a better lineup though, which is something I’m into but these companies certainly will not be.

Blog: Games-tember – 09/02/20

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I cannot believe that it’s already September. This year has simultaneously felt like it’s taken forever and vanished in the blink of an eye. I personally love the fall and can’t wait until this muggy, humid, miserable heat fucks right off for a few months. Along with that shift in weather however, the fall comes bearing oh so many highly anticipated video games along with new consoles that arguably should be delayed. But let’s focus on the games for now with this short list of my most anticipated games of September.

NBA 2K21 – 09/04/20

I wanna just get this one out of the way and get it over with. NBA 2K21 releases in a few days here and I’m all in for it. I don’t expect anything to change too dramatically in this latest entry, considering they never actually update the modes that I play. but in lieu of any real update to the modes I normally play, I end up buying every entry in the series just because I love basketball. NBA 2K21, like its predecessor, will be a game I end up dumping hundreds of hours into over the course of the year. For instance, I’ve put almost 700 hours into NBA 2K20, so I’d say that I can definitely get my moneys worth out of these games. I don’t expect it to be markedly better or worse than previous entries, I’m just a sucker when it comes to basketball games.

*Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 – Vicarious Visions*

TONY HAWK’S PRO SKATER 1+2 – 09/04/20

I genuinely don’t know if I even have dexterity to play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater anymore, but you can bet your ass that I’m going to try. Like a lot of people in my age group, the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series holds a special and borderline sacred place in my heart. I can still remember some of the mission specifics and optimal routes from certain levels in past games, and am especially eager to hear that classic soundtrack once more. Cause the only way to listen to Goldfinger’s “Superman” is during a two minute chunk where you’re trying to find a fucking secret tape. I look forward to revisiting these games for the first time in over a decade even if I’m destined to be terrible at them.

MARVEL’S AVENGERS – 09/04/20

I’ll be honest, I did not come away from the beta for Marvel’s Avengers with many positive things to say, but it’s just one of those things where I need to see how it turns out. I like the Avengers as heroes and would love nothing more than to play a good Avengers game that appropriately captures the feeling of working together as a super powered team. Do I think this game is going to capture that feeling or even be good? No, not one bit. But I would love to be pleasantly surprised and proven wrong. I’m definitely going to wait and see how people feel about it before I make a purchasing decision, but I’m still lured in by those big beefy lads and lasses in tights and fun costumes.

SPELUNKY 2 – 09/15/20

Look, I did not, do not, and probably never will understand why people enjoyed Spelunky so much, but I am curious to see how those people receive the long awaited sequel. Spelunky is often called one of the best games in a genre that I don’t enjoy (rogue-likes), so it’s not hard to understand why it was never for me, but I’d like to give it a shot and potentially see what all the fuss is about. Maybe Spelunky 2 will be the game that makes me a believer, or maybe it’ll be a big disappointment for all of the fans of the first game. I guess I’m mostly just trying to mentally prepare myself for when everyone I follow on Twitter starts posting nothing but videos and screenshots of how good they spelunked or whatever you actually do in that game.

BALDUR’S GATE III – 09/30/20

I’m pretty sure I’ve written 2 or 3 different articles about why I’m jazzed about a game that is historically part of a genre of games I usually hate. Like my previous features about Baldur’s Gate III posited, I just really like Dungeons & Dragons 5e and am eager for a way to get that fix on a more than weekly basis. I feel like I’ll also be more comfortable with this Baldur’s Gate III because I already understand the rules and mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons, so the learning curve won’t be as insurmountable. I never would have predicted that I’d be excited for a game like this, let alone consider it one of, if not my most anticipated game to come out this year. I have to temper my expectations however, because Baldur’s Gate III isn’t officially releasing this year, it’s just entering early access.

So that’s what’s on my radar for this month. Despite the large amount of delays that have cropped up this year, there’s still a lot to look forward to. But with the new consoles coming out within the next few months, September might be the last month big games can come out without being in the shadows of Microsoft or Sony’s shiny expensive boxes. Or maybe they’ll delay the consoles like they probably should, but that probably won’t happen.

Blog: Windows is the Worst Part of Game Pass – 08/26/20

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I want to get out ahead of this blog and say that I believe that Xbox Game Pass is a fantastic service that people should look into if they have the extra cash and a desire to play more games. That being said, the PC experience for the service isn’t great and I think that Windows is mostly to blame for that. This isn’t me complaining about the games or the value of the service itself, instead this focuses solely on how ironically miserable the PC launcher integrates with Windows.

To its credit, the Xbox app on PC is constantly being updated which is very reassuring but there are still so many things about the application that either don’t work or don’t integrate well with the rest of Windows for one reason or another.

Let’s start with achievements. One of the more endorphin-releasing things that the Xbox ecosystem has provided to us has to be the noise and animation that play out whenever you get an achievement. I don’t give a shit about the achievement itself, but it just feels nice to get them thanks to the way they’re presented. However you don’t get any of that on PC, or if you do I certainly haven’t found a way to enable it. There’s probably something I could to with my notification settings on Windows, but I fear that messing with those might invite every other app to send me notifications about their garbage.

But those are just achievements and their absence doesn’t actively prevent me from playing my games. Updates however, they’ll stop you dead in your tracks. There was a night that some friends and I wanted to play Halo together via Halo: The Master Chief Collection, something I’ve had installed on my computer since it was released on PC through the Xbox app at the end of last year.

I went to launch the game and join my friends but was stopped by a “version mismatch” error. It seemed that there was an update that just never happened for some reason which in all fairness isn’t a glitch exclusive to Game Pass. All I’d have to do would be to launch the Xbox app and update it, right? The app opened, I went to the Halo: The Master Chief Collection page where no notice of an update existed which made me assume that all I needed was to reboot the Game Pass app itself to clear things up.

After relaunching the application, I found that it kept getting locked up on a blank black screen right after the Xbox logo appeared. Not great, but I could probably go to the Windows Store app to check for updates, right? Turns out, the Windows Store app didn’t want to fetch my updates and instead felt like force-quitting whenever I clicked the downloads page. Maybe I can reinstall the Xbox app and it’ll finally work? Nope, the installer breaks every time I hit install ultimately requiring me to force quit the installer all together. This whole situation sucks.

*Halo: The Master Chief Collection – 343 Industries*

After two days of frantic Googling, the suggestion to check for Windows updates was floated by me and seemed like the last option before reluctantly calling customer service. That actually did the trick. Now I did in fact check my automatic update settings and although they were enabled they just never happened, so thanks again Windows. That update fixed everything, but the fact that everything broke because I was running a version of Windows that was a few months old is insane.

But fine, whatever, I can play my damn games now. There is one last thing that drives me utterly mad with Game Pass though, and that’s how every single time I launch a game for the first time, this slow and laggy dialogue box pops up asking if I authorize the app to use my information. I appreciate that I’m being asked about this stuff, but it really seems redundant when I’m actively paying for this service. I’d honestly prefer some filters to select what I want to be notified about would be better than just throwing a pop-up at me for everything. Also, I don’t need two fucking emails to be sent to me about it when I hit accept on a new game.

A lot of this sounds like nitpicking which it most definitely is, but if the ultimate goal of Xbox Game Pass on PC is to bring the console experience to the PC, then it’s failing. The whole allure of a console is that everything is self contained and just works without much issue, but the fact that Game Pass feels haphazardly bolted onto the rest of Windows makes its integration far less seamless. I love Game Pass as a service but it’s just not fully there on PC yet, and Windows is mostly to blame.

Blog: I Wanna Rock – 08/19/20

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For one reason or another, I found myself really wanting to get behind the kit of a drum set again for the first time in years. Problem is, those are expensive, loud and take up a lot of space, a combination of elements that aren’t great for living in an apartment. So I decided to look into picking up a Rock Band 4 kit to fill that void at a reasonable price. After some research, I think it would genuinely be cheaper to buy a real drum set than the game itself.

It’s absolutely wild how out of control these listings are. On Amazon alone, the only full kit I could find is priced upwards of $1000. It’s even crazier when you remember that a decade ago we couldn’t walk through a GameStop without tripping over 17 plastic instruments that no one wanted. Yet here I am in 2020 staring at plastic guitars that start at $250.

I get that prices skyrocketed once Harmonix and Mad Catz stopped manufacturing the things, but the fact that the official Rock Band 4 website links to the previously mentioned $250 plastic guitar page on Amazon is bonkers. I understand that Rock Band 4 wasn’t exactly flying off the shelves when it launched back in 2015 and it made fiscal sense to stop producing them. I also understand that Mad Catz as a company literally went bankrupt because of dwindling sales over the years, but the Rock Band 4 instruments seemed like the final nail in the coffin.

I just wanna play the drums again, and the Rock Band drums were supposed to be a cheap alternative. I’m also pretty sure could interface with a PC as a midi controller in case I wanted to lay down actual drum beats for songs, which is a plus. I’d gladly have paid $150 or whatever the kit initially cost in 2015, but at this point it’s easier to just buy a real electronic drum set for a little more than to scour the depths of Craigslist for someone’s nasty, dust-covered and probably busted Rock Band 4 drum set.

Blog: Golf on Mars – 08/12/20

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Back in 2014, Captain Games released one of my favorite mobile games in Desert Golfing. It was a three dollar, procedurally generated 2D golf game that was fairly straightforward. There weren’t any tricks or additional depth to the game, it was just a really simple and well made infinite golf game that might occasionally screw you over with levels that were impossible to complete. It was addicting and calming in a way a lot of mobile games are not. Fast forward to July of 2020, and the sequel, Golf on Mars, was released and it quickly became an obsession of mine just like Desert Golfing did.

I don’t like golf very much as a sport, but I do enjoy it in video game form with 1996 Neo Geo classic Neo Turf Masters being one of my all time favorites. But I find most modern golf games to be a little more tedious and mechanics heavy than I usually enjoy. But Golf on Mars, like its predecessor, doesn’t try to be anything more than a fun way to kill a few minutes at a time. A ball appears, you drag your finger back and release to shoot and do your best to get it in the hole. There’s no par to contend with nor any reward for a hole-in-one, it is truly and endless meditative golf experience – or your version of hell if your really don’t like golf.

Golf on Mars doesn’t innovate too much, but adds in two integral features that will better prevent you from hitting a sudden dead-end in the way you could in Desert Golfing. The first is the ability to add spin to the ball. A small circle will appear that denotes if you’re spinning the ball clockwise or counterclockwise, which is controlled by dragging another finger across the screen while you’re pulled back for your shot. It’s simple and doesn’t really have too many practical applications for a lot of levels, but whenever I’d need to land on one of the many precarious platforms, I was glad it was there.

The other is the ability to skip levels. Sometimes the procedural generation will spit out levels that you literally cannot finish. Maybe the hole is on a platform too high or far away, or an obstacle fell over and covered the hole. Whatever it is, after 25 strokes the game pops up a button that allows you to skip the level. It might not seem like a big innovation, but it truly sucked in Desert Golfing to be on hole 5000 or something, and suddenly be face to face with an impossible challenge that would make the game unplayable. I wish you could just hit that button from the start considering I never need 25 strokes to realize a hole is functionally busted, but it is what it is.

Otherwise, Golf on Mars is just a really solid time waster. It isn’t a game of depth or something that requires much attention, but it’s a great game to pull out when you’ve got nothing else to do. I think everyone who has a passing interest in arcade styled golf games should give it a shot, but I’m not here to tell you how to spend your money. All I know is that I’m on level 2100, and I’m still opening up the app almost daily in the hopes I’ll see a UFO or something.

Blog: Blasted Borderlands – 08/05/20

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A few days ago I was gifted a copy of Borderlands 3, the latest entry in a long running loot driven shooter series I’ve always been lukewarm on at the best of times. There are a lot of reasons that I didn’t rush out to purchase the game when it released last year, but a friend of mine displayed his overwhelming generosity by purchasing me a copy in our latest attempt at finding a game that we could play together. At the time of writing this we haven’t actually been able to synchronize our schedules and play together, but I have put a little bit of time into Borderlands 3 regardless.

I initially didn’t intend to ever play this game considering that the idea of supporting Gearbox Software CEO and magician, Randy Pitchford, a colossal tool that’s no stranger to controversy, was just not something I felt comfortable with. But despite my feelings about the man at the top, I know there are genuinely good people who work on these games that wish their boss would just shut up and stop stealing focus away from the product they’ve worked on for years.

The first thing I ended up doing in Borderlands 3 was turning the volume down to the point where I don’t have to hear any of the dialogue. I’ve never thought the narrative in Borderlands games were anything worth a damn, but I know some people would disagree. The real reason I silenced the game however, is solely because I generally find these games deeply unfunny. Sure there are a few jokes that land, but for the most part I just find a lot of the dialogue to be grating. Often times the humor tries trade on this concept of everything be over the top and wacky in a way that just feels desperate. Like they’re begging you to chuckle at something to the point where literal shit is flying out of toilets when you open them, something I’m sure someone finds deeply funny.

From the little bits of story I’ve reluctantly picked up during my playtime, it seems like the whole plot revolves around two twins who are post-apocalyptic Twitch streamers, which is one hell of a premise to bank on. I’m genuinely terrified of how many times I’ll hear a phrase like, “and don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe, or else I’ll blow your brains out.” I’d love to be proven wrong, but the series doesn’t exactly have a great track record in that regard.

But once you mute the dialogue and just follow the quest markers towards the next group of things to shoot, Borderlands 3 is a mechanically sound and fun experience. In my opinion, the Borderlands franchise has never excelled at much outside of being a really fun cooperative game that gives you a lot of ways to dispatch your enemies. The variety of powers, guns and grenades at your disposal are seemingly infinite, and you’ll get so many of them that you’ll find yourself drowning in what I imagine a Second Amendment themed wet dream might look like.

Ultimately I can’t really see myself playing much of Borderlands 3 on my own, but when I’m finally able to sync up with my pals I’m sure I’ll have a much better time. From what I’ve played, Borderlands 3 isn’t a bad game by any metric, it just doesn’t seem like something I would want to experience on my own. I’d rather talk to my friends and make actually funny jokes over what I can only assume are the in-game characters making old meme references. And I don’t need a game to do that for me when I can do it just fine by myself.

Blog: A New Fable – 07/29/20

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A few days ago Microsoft went ahead and revealed a ton of information about upcoming games as well as announcing a few new ones. They showed off Halo Infinite, a new Forza game, Jack Black singing through a trailer of Psychonauts 2, and plenty more for their upcoming new console, which were all fine announcements. But the one that I’m most excited for is the new Fable game that was confirmed to be in development.

For those who don’t know, the Fable franchise is one of ups and downs, with people ardently praising and condemning various entries in the series. To me, it follows the same trajectory as the Mass Effect series where the first one was good, the second was the best, and the third had some neat ideas but didn’t really make good on the promise of its predecessors. I can hear the sound of a friend of mine texting me in violent disagreement, but that’s okay because they’re wrong.

New Fable – Microsoft

Fable was always this cheeky action-RPG that always seemed like it was a sequel away from really nailing whatever it was going for. What it was going for no one can be quite sure of, but Fable always felt like a series with ambitions of much grander elements than were feasible at the time. Everyone likes to angrily point to the creator of Fable, Peter Molyneux, and chide him for his constant over promising and under delivering when it came to the franchise, but in hindsight it often sounded like the technology just wasn’t there to make good on his vision.

But it doesn’t matter what Molyneux says anymore because he’s no longer involved with the franchise and hasn’t been for several years. Instead, this new Fable is being developed by the people behind the Forza Horizon series, Playground Games. I don’t think anyone has any idea how this new Fable will turn out with the developers of a racing franchise calling the shots, but the Forza Horizon games have all been received really well in the past which makes me hopeful that they’ll do right by revitalizing the Fable series.

*Fable II – Image Credit: Giantbomb.com*

I don’t really have much in the way of expectations for the next Fable game, but I would hope it does a few things differently than its predecessors. There’s only a handful of specific elements I’d like to see this new game to incorporate, but overall I’d like to see a vast departure from the formula of the old Fable games. That isn’t because I don’t like those games, I just think those games only worked at that time in history and trying to recapture that again would feel uninspired and outdated.

Aside from general modernization, I think it should be a true open-world game with one big contiguous map. In the past, Fable had big areas to explore that were separated by loading screens, so having a cohesive world would be a nice change that would make the world feel more whole than it ever did before. I also think we’re at a point where Fable needs a good character creator in it. I don’t want to be a generic boy who chases chickens and either gets a halo or a pair of horns on his head. I want to be in control of my character and their appearance and not just turn into some weird demigod.

*Fable III – Image Credit: Giantbomb.com*

It would also be nice to see the game make good on some of the more esoteric promises that Molyneux made back in the day. A lot of what I recall him pitching was the idea that all of your choices and actions had reactions and consequences. Maybe they weren’t immediate, maybe they were, but nothing you did was done in a vacuum and that’s where I think that’s something a new Fable can do to differentiate itself from other RPGs. The series was always supposed to be this very customized and reactive experience, but it never manifested that way. But with the Xbox Series X, the power of modern PCs, and the strides in open-world game design, having a world react to you in the way Molyneux once envisioned seems more possible today than ever before.

Speculating about Fable right now feels pretty pointless at this time though. All we saw was a tone setting CG trailer that was very cheeky and that’s it. Who can say what the game actually turns out to be or when it’ll even come out? My bet is that it’s a 2022 game at the earliest, but I’d love to be wrong about that and get my hands on it earlier. Now that Microsoft is bringing Fable back and EA is bringing Skate back, I’d like to know what the fuck is going on at Ubisoft and why Splinter Cell hasn’t come back yet.

Blog: Crashing Castles – 07/22/20

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For the past few weeks now, my partner and I have been looking for something to play together that could momentarily distract us from the misery that is 2020. They had some preferences as to what kind of game they wanted to play, but we both agreed that we wanted something cooperative that we could progress through together. After a few suggestions, we ultimately landed on 2008’s Castle Crashers, a game which is still very much worth playing 12 years later.

Being that we both own Nintendo Switches, our choices of games weren’t exactly limited considering the vast amount of options available on the platform. Up till now, we’d been bouncing between several of the classic NES and SNES games that were included with the online subscription like Dr. Mario and Panel De Pon, along with full priced games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons. But we needed something fresh, fun and accessible.

Turns out, Castle Crashers is still an extraordinary game that managed to meet both of our needs. It also has revealed to me that my partner is a gold hoarder in video games, and will prioritize collecting money over defeating enemies or aiding me in combat. It’s fine. It’s definitely not something I poke fun at them for doing every single time or anything.

It’s also a great game to play while talking on the phone because it doesn’t really require you to focus too intently on, so that’s been nice. I personally wanted to pick up Diablo III with them considering I’d heard tremendous things about the console versions of the game, but it’s still a full priced game which was a bit too steep for us. Also, it certainly had more going on in it than Castle Crashers, which might have ended up being a little too complex for what we were looking for.

I still love Castle Crashers 12 years later, and am glad I get to introduce it to my partner for the first time. I don’t know if they’re as ecstatic about it as I am, but we keep playing it together, so they must enjoy something about it. Maybe it’s the art or the satisfying combat, but I think we mostly just end up fawning over the cute animal companions you get. They’re pretty freaking adorable.

Blog: A Waiting Week – 07/15/20

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You might have noticed that things have been a little light around here in the past week in terms of new content, but I assure you that it’s mostly due to unfortunate timing and there’s a slight bit of apathy on my part if I’m being perfectly honest.

This week sees a few of my most anticipated releases of the year which is very exciting for me, but as of this being posted only one of them has come out. The three games in question are Ooblets, a mix between farming styled life simulation games and Pokemon which releases today, Paper Mario: The Origami King and Ghost of Tsushima which are both dropping on Friday.

All three of these games are pretty big blips on my radar and the wait for them has felt fairly excruciating since I’ve run out of things to do in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Unfortunately I won’t be able to give my thoughts about any of these games until next week at the earliest, but I assure you that they’re coming.

The other problem that I’ve run into is just general apathy for everything, including my own hobbies. I’m sure everyone has felt the crushing anxiety of the world weighing down on them lately, and I’m no different. It’s been really hard to muster any enthusiasm for anything in the past few months, and finding joy in playing and writing about video games has gotten harder and harder.

I’m hoping that these games spark something in me that can ignite my fire once more because I truly love what I do. It’s just a hard time in general, and I’ve felt like my hobbies aren’t bringing me the satisfaction that they once did. It mirrors my relationship with Netflix, where I have nearly infinite choices of things to watch but I’d rather just watch the entirety of The Office again.

I don’t know how everyone else is dealing with this situation, but I know that I’m having a harder and harder time as days go on. I honestly miss working and being able to decompress with my hobbies when I come home. But now that I’ve got endless access to the things that i like doing, I find myself doing nothing at all more often than not.

Blog: Price Adjustment – 07/08/20

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Recently the folks over at Take-Two Interactive came out and announced that the upcoming NBA 2k21 will cost $70 on next generation machines like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, while current generation editions will remain at $60. The two reactions I’ve encountered most have been people grousing at this price adjustment, and those who think a price hike has been long overdo. For the most part I find myself agreeing with the latter sentiment in general, but sincerely believe that NBA 2k21 should not be the game to usher in this new price tag without making massive changes to the formula that the 2K series has recently followed.

There are a ton of reasons why I don’t think NBA 2k21 can justify this new price tag, but chief among them has to be their pretty disgusting monetization practices they’ve exhibited in the past few years. I wrote all about their gross business practices alongside the overall state of the game itself a while ago, and I just cannot conceive of a world where NBA 2k21 ditches any of those micro-transactions because they got ten extra dollars upfront.

Maybe you’re like me however, and don’t engage with any of the modes that hit you up for money, surely the higher price tag is something you can live with? I suppose you could justify that approach, but as someone who exclusively plays the franchise modes in these games I can 100% tell you that you aren’t getting anything new. The franchise modes in the past few iterations have been pretty identical, offering little to nothing in terms of new features or even UI design.

The hopeful, starry-eyed version of myself that exists somewhere inside of me thinks, “well at least developers will be getting more money for their work,” which they %110 deserve, but I don’t believe they’ll see a single cent of this revenue. With the ballooning cost of game development it makes sense that games would increase in price, but not one particle of my being believes that this money will make its way to the people who are crunching for hours to make James Harden’s beard look fluffier.

Games have remained at the $60 price point for the past two generations now and definitely need to increase in price. But when you read stories about how Take-Two Interactive made a third of their revenue in three months thanks to micro-transactions, but then turns around and says that the increased price is to account for the rising costs of features like “3D audio” and 8K textures, it’s a little hard to swallow that pill.

The economics of the video game industry are complicated and I don’t claim to understand them fully, but unless this extra money is being fed directly into the development budgets or even better, into the pockets of employees, then I can’t help but feel like this is Take-Two deciding that from now on, their games will bring in at least ten more dollars per sale and not actually raising prices as a response to high development costs.

Gaming is an expensive hobby, and it’s only getting less accessible when you account for the projected high cost of the upcoming consoles and online service fees. Especially now, when a lot of people are out of work and might not have extra cash to throw around, announcing your price adjustment is an absolutely tone-deaf and utterly wild thing to do. Another wild thing to do is to not honor Vince Carter, the only NBA player to play across 4 decades, and put him on one of the 4 different versions of the game.