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Splash Damage
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Interested in video games, anime, and other geeky things and the culture of outrage surrounding them? In this podcast, husband-and-wife duo Scrivonaut and Norayla—and sometimes special guests—dive deep on controversies consuming the nerd sphere.
137 Episodes
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By all accounts, this should have been a big year for gaming, but recent releases such as Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ghost of Yotei, and Outer Worlds 2 are not selling as well as developers (and shareholders) perhaps hoped. We discuss why they might be underperforming along with Ubisoft’s potential pending destruction, a Eurogamer reviewer who admitted to regretting giving Dragon Age: The Veilguard such a high score, the Steam Machine and what that means for Xbox, and more!
CNN wrote a lengthy piece illustrating how the male gaze is returning, bringing with it the things human beings actually find attractive in media. We talk about this welcomed return to sanity along with Microsoft continuing to kill the Xbox brand by increasing console and Game Pass subscription costs, EA being sold to Saudis, and the weird social justice games indoctrinating children in Roblox.
Several game developers, including a prominent one behind Ghost of Yotei, mocked Charlie Kirk’s assassination. We discuss the irony of “anti”-fascists celebrating a political opponent being killed for his free speech along with Sweet Baby Inc.’s hilarious take on colonialism in cozy games, Metal Gear Solid Delta’s trigger warning, the failure of Relooted, and more.
In an amazing case of everyone involved with the train wreck that was Dragon Age: The Veilguard continuing to fail upwards, Bethesda has hired one of the lead writers of the game, presumably to work on Elder Scrolls VI. We discuss our eroding faith in the anticipated game along with Polygon calling Street Fighter 6 fans gooners, voice actor ProZD’s hypocrisy when it comes to “diversity” in casting, TeamKill Media’s ironic excuse for not putting their game on PC, Outer Worlds 2’s weak anti-capitalist message, and more!
It seems everyone from governments to giant companies to random grassroots groups are suddenly gunning for video game censorship. We discuss recent pushes made to quell what games people are able to buy along with Xbox and PlayStation shifting away from hardware, reviewers dinging great games for the sin of including attractive female characters, and Obsidian dropping the price of the upcoming Outer Worlds 2.
Wonderfilled Games created GiantLands, a game that proudly imagines a future with no white people. We discuss the open and blatant racism of the game along with insider rumors that diversity is being removed from games in response to Trump’s America, Ubisoft’s hilarious idea to make consumers destroy copies of their games once support for them ends, Polygon’s plea for trigger warnings in Death Stranding 2, news that video games sales are plummeting, and more!
Popular PlayStation 5 exclusive Stellar Blade just launched on PC, and it’s the best-performing PS exclusive ever released on PC, despite games journalists constantly (and hypocritically) trying to smear it. We discuss its success and journalists’ out-of-touch takes on the game along with its CEO’s based take on modding games, RuneScape’s canceled pride event, Jason Schreier’s ignorant reporting on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the wokeness of Brandon Sanderson’s new Wind and Truth book, and more.
Since Ubisoft won’t release official sales data for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, internet sleuths have put together their best guess, and it’s not good. We discuss the lackluster sales along with fan reactions to Ciri being the protagonist and a witcher in the upcoming Witcher IV, author Brandon Sanderson showing an example of how Hollywood purposefully butchers TV and movie versions of beloved IPs, Take Two’s removal of queer-focused efforts from its annual report, Nintendo’s removal of gender from Miis, and Debra Wilson voice acting as someone who actually doesn’t look like her for once.
A small studio of about thirty ex-Ubisoft developers have released an ambitious, critically and commercially acclaimed RPG called Clair Obscur: Expedition. Despite being made by such a small team, it’s blowing the woke, bloated AAA industry out of the water. We discuss how the video game industry at large should be embarrassed by this indie game’s success along with The Last of Us show’s plummeting ratings due to the golf club scene, the racist recasting of The Last Airbender characters for upcoming sequel movies, Nintendo proving how much they suck lately by suing the makers of Palworld, Polygon’s destruction, increasing Xbox prices, and more!
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered shadow-dropped this week, and while it’s mostly faithful to the original 2006 game, it has been adjusted in some ways for “modern audiences.” We discuss these changes along with the announcement of the Nintendo Switch 2 and its expensive games, Sweet Baby Inc. being dropped by Sony, and Compulsion Games’ distaste for white men.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is out, and while Ubisoft keeps bragging about how many millions of people have played it, the truth is sales are down in Japan, and the game got fewer concurrent players than Dragon Age: The Veilguard. We discuss the game’s launch along with TheGamer’s hilarious article comparing Monster Hunter Wilds’ success to Veilguard’s failure, the Invincible graphic novel creator’s lack of artistic integrity, and more.
Randy Pitchford, CEO of the Borderlands franchise, couldn’t help but shoot himself in the foot by going on a tirade after a loyal fan criticized the direction of the upcoming Borderlands 4. We discuss his overreaction along with news that there’s maybe only two dozen full-time games journalists left, Monster Hunter Wilds knowing how to make attractive female characters, thoughts on Avowed, Overwatch 2’s desperate attempt to make their female heroes cute again, most Assassin’s Creed Shadows controversies, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s ongoing failure.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is out, and it includes several woke and out-of-place elements that never would have been included in the decidedly anti-woke original game from 2018. We discuss the 180-degree turn for the series along with BioWare downsizing and EA learning nothing since Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s failure, Ghost of Yotei’s impending horrible writing, the downplay of Yasuke in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the success of Lords of the Fallen after changing genders from body type A and B to male and female, and Forza Horizon 5 coming to PlayStation 5 in the spring.
The sales figures for Dragon Age: The Veilguard are out, and they show the game fell short of sales expectations by fifty percent. We discuss what this means for Bioware along with drama surrounding the upcoming Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Ubisoft’s change to the description of Yasuke from “samurai” to “warrior” in Japanese marketing for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Xbox censoring female characters in the Ninja Gaiden 2 Black trailer, CI Games removing wokeness from Lords of the Fallen based on fan feedback, and plenty more.
The developers of the upcoming Witcher 4 game admitted at least part of the story will focus on the struggles of being a woman in a medieval world. This isn’t necessarily a red flag, but when you consider other suspicious things about the game and CD Projekt Red, it’s a cause for concern for many fans. We discuss these warning signs along with Helldivers 2’s director’s advice to game makers to focus on making good games instead of contemporary political statements, polls that show gamers don’t care about inclusivity in games, and PC Gamer and other prominent voices that believe Ubisoft as a company is cooked.
Not a single American-made game was nominated for The Game Awards’ game of the year this year, proving how bleak the industry has gotten stateside. We discuss the annual awards show, including the controversial Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet trailer, along with the success of Marvel Rivals compared to Concord, Ubisoft possibly going bankrupt, the pending death of Xbox consoles, and Sony’s attempt to buy out FromSoftware’s parent company.
The art director of the upcoming RPG Avowed is in some hot water after basically admitting to discriminatory hiring practices against white men at Obsidian, the studio he works for. We discuss the hypocritical and blatant racism of such stances along with an IGN article about the burst of the blockbuster game bubble; Kotaku’s defense of Dragon Age: The Veilguard being “snubbed” from the Game Awards; Polygon’s atrocious and politically motivated list of the top 50 games of the year; and Elon Musk’s teasing of a desire to buy Hasbro and, thus, Dungeons & Dragons.
Merely two weeks after awarding Dragon Age: The Veilguard a 9 out of 10, IGN published a long critique of the game’s writing, worldbuilding, and roleplaying, which account for about 99% of what makes RPGs RPGs. We also discuss the game’s likely poor sales and Jason Schreier walking back a mocking tweet about the game’s critics along with news that Alyssa Mercante no longer works at Kotaku and Ubisoft’s hilarious takes on “creativity” when it comes to making Assassin’s Creed Shadows have a black protagonist.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is finally out in the wild, and it’s already stirring up cringe from its terrible writing and voice acting, stale character interactions, and incredibly preachy woke nonsense. We discuss its success (or lack thereof) so far, reviews, and examples of embarrassing moments along with Concord’s official permanent death, Thomas Mahler’s reaction to Alyssa Mercante’s insults, and research that shows women prefer playing as the sexy characters they love to hate.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been delayed to February, no doubt due to criticism against playable character Yasuke, a black samurai in a feudal Japan setting, and the announcement of Ghost of Yotei, a sequel to a game that actually did a historical Japanese setting justice. We discuss how the final game might look along with Ubisoft’s awful response to criticism along with Kotaku complaining about Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s character creator, Silent Hill 2’s manish-looking women, Moon Studios’ CEO’s based take on DEI, and more.
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