Your friendly neighborhood analysists and gaming culture reviewers are back. Wow! It's been a long 15 months, hasn't it?! We were pleasantly surprised to see hundreds of readers still returning and giving us thousands of impressions. We love and appreciate every one of you who kept our site alive during our hiatus. First thing's first: We sincerely apologize for our absence. We admittedly haven't been motivated to cover much over the course of the last year and three months. For starters, there hasn't been a whole lot to discuss. We bet on Stadia surviving the whimsy of Google due to its growth, stability, rapidly growing list of titles, and convenience for traveling gamers. Google killed it anyway and it caused quite an uproar for a few months. Those who wanted Google out of gaming got their way, and the millions who actually enjoyed the platform, including us, had to eat crow. As expected of corporations, there were sleights against Nvidia and Microsoft hidden between the lines. The cost for performance with Azure was untenable, and Nvidia's inflated GPU prices didn't help matters. Google apparently wanted to see wider margins during a time when games needed more powerful components, so cloud gaming was handed over to Amazon, Sony, Nvidia, and Microsoft. We briefly addressed this on X [formerly Twitter] in a series of tweets that we've since deleted. You'll understand why we deleted them by the end of this entry. Because Microsoft owns Azure, it doesn't cost them extra to run a cloud gaming platform. It's all in-house. However, Google has to pay their asking price, which is awfully high. Since Microsoft has a cloud gaming service, this is actually a conflict of interest, anticompetitive, and a result of a culture embracing monopolistic practices regardless of the law. It's all about a favorite winning, not about what's actually best for the people and the industry. Listen, folks. We can't let a small group of people buy and control everything just because they have a lot of money. Why? Because that will leave nothing for anyone else, and since the owners get full control of whatever they own, it results in a loss of freedom and options. Take a look at your power bill. It climbs pretty high right? But do you know why? It's because of a lack of competition in your area. These are called local monopolies. Now, 30 - 40 years ago, the companies competed for service area. That means different companies could run power lines in the same territories. Because of that, customers had options and the companies were forced to compete. Nowadays, your provider owns everything in that area and you have no other options. It means they can charge you whatever they want, and you have to pay because you won't have any power otherwise. If you let that happen in gaming, you surrender all mobility in the space. That's true of every industry. These developments are heartbreaking, and we kind of lost our voices. It's not an excuse or even a backhanded apology; it's just an explanation of where our minds have been. What's there to talk about, you know? We can actually answer that question this time...with a segue to our sponsor.
Here's the straight dope: We're creating a multi-entry adult visual novel epic. Yes, an epic. There will be three sagas, each containing four major arcs. So, that character has no missed details.
Every object in the games will be rendered; no snapshots or illustrations. This is key because we will have the freedom to repose the characters, move objects around scenes, and get the angles right. Now, you're probably wondering if they'll be more typical visual novels that are loaded with stills. No. As the series progresses, we will use more animations and voice acting to give life to the titles. We would like to get into motion capture at some point, which isn't exactly cheap. More on that later. Over time, we plan to recruit models to cameo as characters in our games. This will allow you all to be more involved with the development process. How so? You'll get to vote for who we extend offers to! We want everyone to be a part of it. Depending on the responses we get, we may even do some spinoffs of your favorites. This is all just the tip of the iceberg. We have fighting games, FPS titles, and a MMORPG planned as well. Every release will be a step towards something even bigger. Back to visual novels. We want these games too be dynamic and immersive. We also want to offer convenience. So, we won't be exchanging text for voice acting. We'll instead do both. This way, you can listen to the story and focus on the scenes in front of you, or continue reading if you prefer. We even found some ways to give players more control of the environments. Naturally, this endeavor will be a bit pricey. That's why we need you. We've finally launched our Patreon, and we'd love for you to join us there. We have multiple tiers, and we post updates for those who want to follow along for free before diving in. We understand; no one wants to invest in something before they're sure it's going to happen. It's going to happen, and we'll be sharing every milestone. If you're not comfortable with hyperlinks, you can copy and paste this one: https://www.patreon.com/gamerspointe That's all for now. Please be sure to share. The more people our project is exposed to, the faster we can get the games to market. Thanks in advance, and happy holidays! Many people analyzing the GPU market are overlooking some important facts about economics.
By focusing on crypto mining, tech enthusiasts are overlooking something critical: lower demand for the crypto mining hardware isn't a big deal. For those who prefer to buy used, their prices naturally drop as miners flood that sub-market with cards. That much is obvious. However, counting it as the main driver behind new prices falling is unreasonable. The demand from other people is still quite high, so there's no real reason to reduce prices there in response to that demand. That's not what's happening. Crypto is only a buzzword, as brands continue to shift the blame onto crypto miners - even though the majority of them are only individuals looking for a little extra money. So, what's actually happening? Being conveniently ignored is the fact that production and GPU shipments reached a high right as prices started to fall. As markets stabilized when tariffs and trade embargoes in response to COVID fell apart, GPU shipments essentially spiked. Manufacturers ramped up production to catch up and flooded the market themselves. They also introduced new products that widened the range of components that are available. Literally more GPU's of various tiers are available. This caused production cuts to bring down the amount of units hitting the market so that it can stabilize. To prevent as many issues as possible and have a better guarantee of longevity, most buyers would still rather purchase new. This is actually what's happening here. To stabilize the market faster, scalpers were dealt critical blows after price gouging. Buying limits were imposed, so a huge chunk of the reseller market was simply dissolved. That makes it significantly more difficult for shops to justify high prices due to shortages. So, the new products being released are much less negatively impacted by scalpers intentionally shorting supply by purchasing as much as they can, holding them until buyers become desperate, then finally selling their stock for hugely inflated prices. To cut their losses, they drop their prices to near MSRP, which benefits them less than it benefits shops. To shut scalpers out of the market, shops hold sales and further reduce prices below MSRP to make it up in sales volume. MSRP is only the suggested retail price, which includes profit margins. When using this method, a shop willfully narrows its profit margin per unit in exchange for an overall larger long-term profit through a greater number of units sold. You can still see some incredibly stubborn scalpers hawking GPU's for prices that are several times the suggested retail price. Those parts don't sell, so they have to bring them down. These are the people who missed the prime scalping window trying to snag a sucker who didn't do his / her research, and using the sunk cost fallacy. They bought late to sell high, and they refuse to cooperate so they can cut their losses. Only this usually doesn't work because the financial damage has already been done. With more new GPU's available for sale, their stock is less valuable. We held these discussions and personally informed buyers since January 2020 that this is the solution. We were right. The very thing that everyone told our team wouldn't work is exactly what's working. Just saturate the market with variety, increase production and shipments, and crackdown on scalpers. Don't keep falling for the scam. The answer was obvious, they're carrying it out right now, and the responsible parties are denying all accountability for this mess. You're welcome. Thanks for reading. Until next time! This is what we mean when we refer to bad trends in the gaming and tech industries. Not only is mainstream media flat out spreading disinformation in order to help politicians and billionaires dominate the market, smaller networks are joining in to generate clicks and revenue. If ever you need to spot fake outrage, anti-consumerism, and persistent economic oppression of the masses, there's no clearer sign than companies like Kotaku jumping in. In case anyone forgot, Kotaku has been fading from relevance because of their Gamergate handiwork. You see how that panned out or them. But they haven't given up yet. They have to join in late to declare crypto the reason behind the GPU shortages - even though we already know that crypto wasn't responsible. Poor handling of the pandemic, low production, artificial shortages, backdoor deals with parties that otherwise had no access, and especially scalping were the culprits. We pointed all of this out, and it was obvious. But we won't go back into that. The point of this post is that Kotaku decided to chime in and try to make things worse while everything is actually getting better - for now. Crypto didn't fail or get banned, not all of the platforms made the change to KYC or proof of stake, GPU prices still fell as they do almost every year, companies are saving face by pretending that prices are trending down because miners aren't interested in GPU's anymore - when they have no way of actually knowing why most people are buying GPU's, tariffs expired, and scalping is being dealt with. Considering all of these facts, why is Kotaku sticking their nose where it doesn't belong? Answer: to cause new drama because they just can't help themselves. This company is so full of it that its made hardline mudslinging and straight up lying a business model. No, don't blame the rich people who actually created the problem! Blame the poor people who are trying to make extra money! If they weren't trying to survive, none of this would've happened! Don't you see?! GPU's are only for well-to-do people! Anyone with a GPU has to use it for the sole purpose that we outline, not for anything else! Yeah, sure. As if resisting said rich people isn't an option.
They present this as a harassment campaign, when that wasn't true. Though the public was wrong to behave the way it did, Zoe Quinn made false allegations of emotional and physical abuse against Alec Holowka. That's what brought things to a head. He was cut from his own development team because of these allegations, the evidence was never released because it didn't exist, and he killed himself days later. It was originally said that Eron Gjoni wrote an inflammatory blog post about Zoe Quinn, and that his writing was a coordinated effort to get the latter harassed. There was no coordination between him and the public to harass her. He was blogging and wrote about his experience with her, and shared personal conversations along the way - and that was a trend that she herself would later contribute to, as with other people who were already making these posts about the people around them. This is a common online practice today, and has been for an awfully long time. What the harassers mentioned was consequential to their primary concern. The arguments positing highly questionable ethics in gaming journalism were true. It's not just gaming journalism either. The media is now commonly used to push false narratives, sell products, sell services, and to manipulate elections. Allegations made during quarrels is normal, especially when used to save face. The thing is: Alec had nothing to do with it. Gamergate was in full swing by 2019, however, Eron published the post in 2014. With that, tons of other unsubstantiated claims were made all over. Alec stood accused of a crime that he didn't commit, and abuse behavior that wasn't actually abusive. Hypersensitive people weaponized symptoms of his mental illnesses against him by dragging him on social media, blaming him for their personal problems. We found no evidence of Eileen Mary corroborating these claims. She was referring to his mental illnesses and how that was received by those around him. You can read the full statement here. That's not a confirmation of wrongdoing, that's a preface for SJW's, a big reveal that he was in fact a victim of abuse, and had mental illnesses. She did, however, confirm that he was trying to fix the latter. The public still going after Zoe at that time means that the concern wasn't the supposed infidelity or her being female. It was about backdoor deals between developers and journalists, censorship, and the entire community being held to account for the actions or accusations of a small subset of people. Some of the accusations were true, but most of them were taken at the accusers' word. The problem with that is that real people were being brought down for fictional crimes. So, the mainstream media is wrong. This started as a reaction to rapidly fading journalistic integrity. In the thick of it now...The public wasn't reacting to Zoe's supposed infidelity, the public was reacting to her relationship with journalists. She made a boring game, she was accused of a sexual interaction with a Kotaku journalist, and that was supposed to have led to a positive review that the work didn't deserve. It was about the game and the economics surrounding it. Eron only made matters worse, but the harassment actually started before that post was made, not afterward. That's the conflict. It wasn't about her being female at all, it was bout toxic journalism culture, fake corporate wokeism, a history of false allegations by Kotaku, and conflicts of interest between developers and reviewers. It was about ethics in the industry, and the narrative was twisted into this mess. But it seems true that Zoe did at some point date Nathan Grayson, who did work for Kotaku and already had friendly ties to her, after her game was released - and screenshots of Eron's conversation with her reveal that she did in fact have a sexual relationship with Nathan. It just had nothing to do with a game review. And tweet archives reveal involvement with Quinn as early as 2012, a year before Depression Quest launched. In truth, the public didn't target only Zoe. Reddit posts about Nathan Grayson and Kotaku as a whole can still be found with ease today. But when someone is trying to turn something into something that it's not, all of the other details magically disappear. Grayson got it just as bad, but the focus was only on what happened to Zoe. It wasn't at all sexism. And it's difficult to get these extremely important details across because search engines like Google lower the ranking of opposing views that explain everything. The public misunderstood the post made by Eron. He was actually exposing a manipulator and abuser. She displayed evident narcissistic behavior by punishing him with silence when he didn't behave as she expected him to [that being: he wasn't supposed to stand up for himself]. He never requested or instructed anyone to go after her, just a warning to avoid her in intimate scenarios. How does this all connect to Kotaku besides Nathan? Well, they ran to her defense by conducting and concluding the big internal investigation, suggesting that there was no previous personal relationship between the two. That's simply false, and the internet archive has records of favorable coverage that he gave Quinn since 2012. Here, here, and here. The last one was published just 10 days after GDC 2014, and before the relations were stated to have begun [April 2014]. No, he didn't disclose any form of relationship before then. He has a lengthy record of this sort of conduct. Kotaku! This guy worked for you! Covering for him is why no one likes you anymore! This is THE problem! The finaleThey also covered for Brandon Boyer and his conflicts of interest. It's not okay to create or protect a society of people who exchanges favors to increase the rate of success. It's also not okay to defend them. That's the point of all of this, and why we're going at Kotaku about crypto now. This company has no credibility, and it's rather disgusting to see them promoting more untrue things in order to pitch another false narrative. This is the pinnacle of shitty rich people circle jerking over industries of people who are very often targeted, censored, and systematically destroyed through legislation in order to keep the current elitist system in place. That's why all of this matters. Can we trust them? Answer: NO!!!
This is what Gamergate was always about, and it was very loudly stated repeatedly. This isn't a matter of political affiliation; this is a matter of rights violations, industry corruption, elitism, and demographical discrimination. All gamers = evil has now become all crypto enthusiasts = evil. That's not true, and all of us on both sides of that fence are only protecting ourselves from persecution. By and large, none of us did anything wrong; the elite did. They are NOT trustworthy. Just look at their track record. Why get involved with, and defend lies about, all of that? They didn't even need to make a statement at all. But what else could we expect? They have to defend their ilk from the consequences of their own actions. True evil exposed. Don't trust or listen to these assholes. Thanks for reading. Don't forget to like, share, and comment. Peace! Don't get comfortable just yet. The GPU struggles haven't officially come to an end, though there's been a notable decrease of tension. So far, we've been right about the relationship between GPU stock and crypto. Those calling for a ban didn't get it, and GPU prices still fell while crypto is doing as expected. Ethereum has still not yet switched to proof of stake, anti-scalping legislation appears to be headed for successful implementation, and production has gone up when people were finally allowed to return to work. We're not gloating anymore. The simple fact is that we were right about this the whole way.
This is actually surprisingly easy to understand and explain. When supply is low, demand goes up. Due to this, prices go up as well. At the end of the shortage, the prices for higher end items are expectedly higher than they would've been before. This is because more people are willing to pay higher prices for the latest and greatest. They're also making value determinations based on past products, however, the market was different at that time. It's an incomplete analysis. It's easy to confirm a bias by arguing over the fact that many newer GPU's are roughly priced the same as past generation units and barely perform any better. Some are even rated lower but perform better than expected. This turns out to be the case with the RX 6400. It's priced similarly to the RX 550, but it completely outperforms it. We can prove this. Below is the RX 550 vs the RX 570. The RX 570 completely decimates the RX 550. This competition isn't even close. Now, some will want to argue the amount of RAM is a factor in the video. That won't stick. Here is the RX 570 compared to the 4GB RX 550 in writing. That's got numbers and charts. So, we've set the tone in terms of value with that. Take a look at how the RX 6400 compares to the RX 570 below. Considering that the RX 6400 is the bottom of the current generation matching blows most of the time with the previous mid-ranger, we think that you're getting quite a bit of value at this price. Hell, the RX 6400 has even beaten the RX 570 in a few titles. That's impressive, objectively speaking. Bear in mind that the RX 550 ($160 - $190) is currently going for a higher price than the RX 6400 ($160 - $180). The RX 570 is going for much more ($345 - $460). These are new prices for the lower memory options. We don't get it. What's the problem with this card? It doesn't have EVERYTHING? So what? It's a budget card! This brings us to what's bothering us. The pricing on the budget end has gone up and remained stuck. The RX 550 is at least double its MSRP of $79. The GT 1030 launched at $79 as well, and it's now going for up to $279! That's more than three times the MSRP. The RX 460 started at $86 and is now selling for as much as $592! The GTX 1050 started at $140 and is currently as much as $554. See what we mean? And guess what else... Miners aren't using, and don't want, these cards! How would the crypto is the devil narrative explain that? It can't and won't. These facts are conveniently ignored by virtually everyone except us at Gamers Pointe. That's telling. It's all about narrative control and polarization. As mega corporations and politicians get some skin in the game, they pitch this anti-consumer garbage to steer the masses away from that market, which leaves us slaving away instead of being financially free enough to pursue what we're truly passionate about. Again, this shortage was manufactured for profit, and the fine that Nvidia just received is solid evidence of that. More of that in our next post. For now, we're going to wrap this one up. But what do you think? Is it time to push back yet, or no? We sure do, but who are we to make sense? We don't fall in line and jump on the hate train, so we guess we have no right to correct or complain.
Thanks for reading. Don't forget to like, comment, and share. Until next time!
Medal of Honor didn't have that problem. Players who didn't have access to adequately priced internet plans got to enjoy themselves with a game wherein ping was not always king. To expand on this revelation, millions simply could not purchase higher tier internet plans back then. The services were flat not available in many areas. To bring those services, the cities had to pay the companies for the expansion and the residents would have to pay premiums for the plans. Consequently, this left those millions paying inflated prices for slow broadband. And by slow, we mean 3 - 6 Mbps. If one was lucky, they'd have access to 12 Mbps. With a better overall online multiplayer experience insofar as connection handling, things seemed rather good for the franchise. Lots of people applauded the effort; lots of people called it boring and went back to Call of Duty. It is what it is. However, the game was successful enough to justify a follow-up title: Warfighter. This is when it all went to hell.
There were big promises to defeat Call of Duty. Out with the old gameplay and in with fun killstreaks, new maps, a plethora of skins that suited different playstyles, more diverse weapons, outlines for marked opponents, blah, blah, blah. It didn't work. Why? Because the code was garbage. Thousands reported broken PS3's after playing the game. One of our team was affected. How can one produce a game so bad that it ruins the console that it's to be played on?! How did they miss that?! Easy. They didn't care. It launches, the content is there, and shrug if it costs the player hundreds of dollars in damages. That's exactly what it did. More, it barely ran like a finished game at all. Issue after issue was reported and they hardly did a thing to fix it. EA stayed the course with the utmost stubbornness and watched us writhe. No support. Period. But that's not the big slap in the face. The added insult to injury was the angry outbursts by execs who thought us spoiled and totally lacking in appreciation of their work. Who would appreciate being cheated out of a $60 game?! Who would celebrate having their $400 - $500 console destroyed by said game?! Who's going to cheer for a game that hardly works and would receive not a lick of support?! They nixed the franchise to punish the players for a game that the players didn't even break! See below. Oh, it's not over! Here's more!Now for the power flex. He did exactly what he said he would do. Not only did EA have allies helping to censor him, he never got the refund that he was entitled to. That's right; he had to eat the loss. Suffice it to say, these are very questionable ethics in the gaming industry. This also shows a major problem with gaming channels not standing up for their community. Very many would rather build hype and take the money than do what's right. Seeing the forest for the trees, EA decided to release another entry into the franchise in December 2020. It didn't sell well. Hell, there was hardly any marketing for the title and, honestly, almost no one was checking for it. With what they did to Battlefield, fans of EA are getting fed up, and reviving Medal of Honor once again won't bail them out. Two months later, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond was on sale on Steam. It continued that every other month until March of this year. Here's the proof. No one's falling for this; just look at that view count! A brief background...The World War era was Medal of Honor's bread and butter. It's what made the games so rich and fun. But even a return to the glory days can't revive this series. You see, these titles were released between 1999 and 2007. That is an awfully long time ago by modern standards. They went from yearly releases, waiting three whole years, and jumped straight to modern era combat. That's not a good transition. Medal of Honor [reboot] was released in 2010. Fans of the long-time franchise rejoiced. Warfighter was released in 2012, and fans were dismayed. EA then withheld the title for eight long years, killing virtually all connection to the audience. The company that introduced Medal of Honor, DreamWorks Interactive, was launched in 1995. In 2000, it was purchased by EA, kicking off a long tradition of the publisher eliminating competition by buying and dissolving the brands. It was renamed as EA Los Angeles shortly after the acquisition, then renamed Danger Close games in 2010. The studio was closed in 2013 after the monumental failure of Warfighter, and only some of the staff were moved to DICE LA. Battlefield started in 2002 with Battlefield 1942, produced by EA DICE. Medal of Honor initially competed with Battlefield successfully, and EA didn't like that. Had they not gotten to make use of their monopolistic practices, we'd still have a beloved franchise that remains popular today. Goodbye, old friend...There you have it. That's what happened to Medal of Honor. Sad, isn't it? Sadder still is that we gamers have no allies in an industry so rife with corruption. Many lawyers acknowledge that customers have valid complaints worthy of litigation, but they've spent decades serving tech companies in such a way as to completely remove them from accountability. Tech companies, especially game studios, have some of the best protection on Earth. It's nearly impossible to sue them, even with class action, and the overwhelming majority of attorneys WILL NOT take the case regardless of how strong it is and how many were negatively affected. This is why there will be no justice for Tor, who had all of his games arbitrarily invalidated by Ubisoft just because he took a six month long break from gaming. He lost hundreds of dollars and he won't be compensated for it.
We're entering the fray to change that. Not only do we outright believe that it's time to go back outside and play again, we're planning to make video games as well. We won't shield ourselves from consequences. When we fail, we'll fail as a community, and we'll dust ourselves off and try again. At least our company will represent our audience with maximum integrity. We want you to love our games, and we want to inspire you all to make your own. We understand the need to decentralize gaming as a whole. No small group should sit atop the whole and rule unopposed. We all deserve a shot at artistic expression and success. With that, we bid farewell to a beloved friend. We continue to reach out to phantoms made manifest by modern evils, clinging to false hope and your salvation, as we gape at shadows of the past. Forever shall you be sorely missed. Rest in peace, Medal of Honor. May we see you again on the other side. Thanks for reading. Take care. |
Categories
All
Archives
February 2024
|