Akira Toriyama Has Passed Away

Confirmed by his production studio, Bird Studio, Akira Toriyama passed away on March 1 due to acute subdural hematoma. He had since been interred to rest in a private ceremony amongst close loved ones.

Toriyama’s influence on the world is unmistakable largely thanks to Dragon Ball, while he has also changed the trajectory of games in Japan with contributions to Dragon Quest. On top of his other projects such as Chrono Trigger and Dr. Slump, Toriyama’s iconic style and stories have often been cited as huge sources of inspiration in not just comics and games, but sweeping the feet of whole swathes of cultures and communities.

Close friend and One Piece creator, Eiichiro Oda, eulogized Toriyama, describing him like “a tree” that has taken root, establishing a legacy of “branches” that has and would continue to influence many. Shōnen Jump has published a compilation of numerous other statements from various industry figures, such as Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto and Dragon Quest co-creator Yuji Horii. Translations of their statements can be viewed here.

Among one of several of Toriyama’s final projects he had creative involvement in, the video game adaptation of his manga, Sand Land, is set to release this April.

What the Hell Is Happening With Warner Bros?

Corporations continue to stay corping, and Warner Bros. Discovery has been announcing a smattering series of wild decisions.

First off: CEO and President of the Global Streaming and Games division J.B. Perrette has made a statement boldly stating that he hopes to move the company away from the “volatile” AAA market, instead hoping to focus on the free-to-play and live service games space. Perette acknowledges that the WBD’s success is dependent on reliably working with well-established franchise IPs—although their recent Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League hasn’t met the publisher’s expectations.

WBD goes on to shut down Rooster Teeth, in a process and transition that current general manager Jordan Levin states may take several months. Rooster Teeth was a subsidiary of Warner Bros. since 2022.

Having its roots initially starting out as an independent production comedy group that also produced various series such as Red vs Blue and RWBY, Levin asserts that The Roost Podcast Network will remain in operation. Numerous alum from the original Rooster Teeth have since gone on to produce their own independently-run work. It is currently unclear what will happen to Rooster Teeth’s library of content after this shutdown.

WBD is also intending on retiring games from its Adult Swim label, which would officially pull them from all platforms and storefronts. A company representative told developers that they are not transferring ownership to developers due to “logistical and resource constraints.”

Calling WBD unscrupulous is an understatement: The film and television sectors of WBD has long been taking scrutiny for various other measures, mostly infamously for the nefarious scrapping of the unreleased film Batgirl, with similar actions more recently reflected in their intentionally just as criminal handling of Coyote vs. Acme.

Meanwhile, fans are just hopeful for MultiVersus‘ return, catching on that several of the game’s social media channels are reawakening with some activity.

*taps mic* testing, testing, 1, 2, 3

— MultiVersus (@multiversus) March 5, 2024

The Fallout Franchise Flourishes

Fallout’s TV series adaptation is officially real: The series is scheduled to premiere on Amazon Prime on April 11.

Conclusions to a Couple of Gaming Crimes

A judge has officially settled the terms between Nintendo and Tropic Haze, the developers behind the Switch Emulator yuzu. The defense must now pay Nintendo $2.4 million and cease all development and distribution of the emulator.

Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman who was traced to have leaked major classified documents on a Discord server agrees to accept a 16-year prison sentence. Teixeira has pleaded guilty to all six counts charged against him in exchange to not be charged with additional counts by the prosecution under the Espionage Act.

In other news…

Voice actress TARAKO has also been confirmed to have passed away. In games, she has played Monokuma in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony and various roles for the Super Robot Wars titles. She has performed for numerous characters in anime throughout her long career, most known for having held the role of the titular protagonist of Chibi Maruko-chan for over 35 years.

More games studios continue to announce they are shuttering: Deck Nine Games, developers who have contributed to Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, Life Is Strange: True Colors, and Telltale’s The Expanse have announced closures around the same time Sony has gone through a period of hundreds of layoffs last week. Eggnut Games, developer of Tails Noir has also made the difficult decision to close due to “persisting complications in funding.”

The 20th BAFTA Games Awards has officially announced their nominations list for this year. Baldur’s Gate 3 has secured about 10 nominations across several categories. The awards ceremony is taking place on April 11.

Following Sting’s official sendoff and retirement from wrestling, one of his sons goes on to reveal himself as having been running a Destiny YouTube channel for some time.

Fellow games journalists who used to work at Hard Drive have launched a new, independently-run publication called Palette Swap. The team hopes to focus on both serious writing and satire their Hard Drive alum is known for.

Mass Effect is getting a co-op board game. To be published by Modiphius, the game’s storyline is set to take place during the events of Mass Effect 3.

Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut is coming to PC on May 16.

Currently trending card game Balatro has been removed from some console storefronts due to strict anti-gambling restrictions in various regions. Publisher Playstack states that this is due to a ratings bump of the game stemming from the mistaken belief that the game contains or encourages actual gambling.

Following an unsurprising, tepid response, Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones has been seen already getting price cuts on storefronts.

But more baffingly, Overwatch 2 has an upcoming collaboration with Cowboy Bebop.

The post The Bulletin: Rest In Peace, Akira Toriyama appeared first on Gamesline.

“Why would you include things in a game only for them to go away?” I asked myself “What if I started playing later and I want to get the outfit?” I added, like a kid feeling the sinking realisation that the ticket trading economy at arcades might not be in his favour.  I was, of course, completely missing that evoking these fears is a big part of the draw that developers see in including limited-time events in the first place.

Much like being respected by my peers and responsible financial decisions however, my view on limited time events was seismically changed by my impromptu romance with Hoyoverse’s Genshin Impact. Before I knew it, I’d developed traditions and expectations around the many seasonal flavours that the game had gotten me accustomed to. I was genuinely disappointed when, during the game’s third winter, Albedo didn’t show up to be cryptic as shit and hand me a sword like a shady but better looking Santa Claus. And despite going through one of the worst summers of my life at the time, the second visit to the game’s summer islands was a genuinely nostalgic reprieve to me. It even managed to inject into me some summery vibes that I am usually completely incompatible with as one that detests both the heat and the sun.  

Initially, I thought about writing another gushing piece about how one of my favourite games had managed to get my hyper-individualistic, strange, and reclusive ass to go along with such normal things as seasonal celebrations. But, an eternal social outcast coming around to the holiday spirit when it’s presented in a friendly context and allowed to engage in their own time, while listening to obscure Japanese math rock, is hardly surprising or interesting. 

Part of the big hook of Genshin Impact is that the wonderful world of Teyvat is little more than an Earth coated in its own mythology. Whatever isn’t actually based in the real world is usually borrowed from the myths of the areas it’s drawn inspiration from.  That’s what makes it so appealing to history nerds like myself, and it’s what allows it to use its flavour text to make poignant statements about the real world, while allowing the more explicit storytelling to retain a veneer of lightheartedness and complete fictitiousness.

Given this, it’s also somewhat of a foregone conclusion that if you enjoy Genshin Impact’s core, you will likely enjoy the events. What makes the limited-time events enjoyable in Teyvat is what makes events enjoyable in the real world. It’s a change of pace, an opportunity to visit locales you don’t get to as often as you would like, and to participate in fun and silly activities with people you like for its own sake. And though they do occasionally fumble on the implementation, they are generally a complement to the aesthetic and theming of each area. With the Chinese area being almost entirely  defined by its world-famous new year’s celebration, and the Japanese area having celebrations based on traditional kabuki plays and cultural icons like the Rokkasen. 

But not every game is Genshin Impact and other titles wouldn’t benefit as much for such a simple approach to the idea. Games such as WoW that follow a similar approach of simply replicating real world holidays with a few new ones sprinkled in, Azaroth not being Earth in any kind of explicit or strongly allegorical way does take away some of that charm, and makes the whole idea feel a little bit more like an invasion of the real world into a virtual space, rather than an enrichment of the same. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does exist in a different aesthetic wavelength. Sort of like having the characters of star wars celebrate Halloween –and no I did not mention that other holiday because I didn’t want to load in negative connotations thank you very much. 

The other dominant flavour of time-limited events is the promotional tie-in. This is how I first ran into the idea in a tangible way (video games aren’t actually tangible but you know what I mean) with the Devil May Cry outfits in Monster Hunter: World. The idea is quite simple really, two things you really like in the best of cases, or a thing you like and a thing you hate in the worst of them, briefly come together in the forms of outfits, playable characters, special consumables or other goodies. Examples of this are as plentiful as they are variable in quality: Ranging From the Yo-kai Watch and Final Fantasy XIV collaboration, to Cup Noodles and Final Fantasy XV, Hatsune Miku in Fall Guys, and Asuka Langley Shikinami in Honkai Impact 3^rd.

If you look at games from a more product-like approach as opposed to my pansy artistic lens it could be argued this is the true and original form of the limited time event, taking inspiration from the likes of limited-edition Coke cans and movie-inspired popcorn flavours. And they even share a lineage within video games themselves, as crossovers have been the basis of venerable series such as Super Smash Bros. and Super Robot Wars, as well as a tradition within series like Street Fighter and Soul Calibur.

In the best of cases these, just like the holiday themed events, are a short bit of light-hearted fun that can unite fanbases and introduce new people to both of the participant series. The fact that they often introduce continuity issues and can violate some rules of the setting, timeline, and characterisation of the participating stories often makes rotating them out a sensible option to retain a sense of cohesion within the game at hand. Taking after TV crossovers and non-canonical anime movies, they are best enjoyed as a bit of fun for dyed-in-the-wool fans, but unessential for the casual, and often prejudicial to the work at large should you take them too seriously. 

In all of these situations, I still think it’s quite —to use an academic term— sucky, if event-themed rewards and goodies are impossible to attain going forward. It’s especially atrocious if event plotlines or gameplay mechanics are removed entirely to never be seen again. Though this is a problem with all aspects of ongoing games, in a virtual world with no scarcity or shelf space to worry about, there is little excuse to not make these events return during the appropriate season, or at specific times of the year dedicated for event reruns. And titles like Honkai: Star Rail show how easy it is to allow you to simply access events from a menu when you so choose.

Though the permanent loss of any of these events would be a great fault, at least with tie-in events there is an argument to be made that many games would be made less effective and overall worse in their storytelling were the events freely accessible all the time alongside the normal story. Plus brand management being what it is, and contracts of collaboration being so complicated often cause keeping these around to be unfeasible from a legal standpoint.

The final variant of limited time events are those that by their very construction would be detrimental as a permanent fixture. These can be anything from XP bonuses which would mess up progression; to the addition of game modes that the developers have no intention of keeping for a brief time, like the spontaneous inclusion of Grifball in older Halo titles; and anything else you can come up with. These often tend to be pretty insubstantial and for the most part function as a way for hardcore players to get some extra goodies and catch-up mechanics for more casual players, or a way to have casual fun within the game’s mechanics without committing to long-term maintenance and balance. Though it can sound cynical, they can actually make a gaming experience a lot more fun. Not all player-retention strategies are macabre. 

When I first started playing Dead by Daylight somewhat actively, it was undergoing its fifth anniversary celebrations and as a result, I got stocked on a bunch of diverse perks for all the killers I wanted to try right away. Consumables that would have taken me weeks or months to get at my low level were in plentiful supply, which allowed me to play the game with a lot more freedom than I otherwise would have. 

Due to how light on substance these events can be, there are often no requests to keep them around, and no pain is felt once they disappear. Though it does avoid the bad feelings associated with more engaging limited time events, they also rarely tend to be that curated or memorable to begin with.

Like all art, the best way to make a limited-time event is by asking yourself how the format of your work enhances the experience. In this case, what sort of experiences can your games deliver that would be improved by being tied to a temporal component? 

Shaking up the status quo of your title for a while only to bring it back once the timer expires is a simple solution. Small, mould-breaking changes and additions that won’t upset anyone due to being temporary are an easy and intuitive response. If you don’t want to see Yo-kai in your Eorzea, fret not because soon enough they’ll largely disappear from the world again. 

The seasons, meant to pass by definition, bringing specific celebrations and activities with them just makes sense. There is a reason why every culture on earth has seasonal celebrations and why it was one of the first things we thought to include into our video games once we could actually spend meaningful amounts of time in virtual worlds. 

Working in time as a limitation seems like the other immediate answer. Giving players a limited amount of time to reach an objective as a collective or allocating specific time slots during which the missions of an event can be undertaken to give appropriate pacing.  However, this approach would double down on all the downsides of a time-limited event as a gamble on the potential for a more powerful experience, and I just don’t think most developers would want to risk it going wrong. 

Pokemon Sun and Moon actually tried making time a mechanic for its events, albeit with very low stakes, by implementing “global missions”. However, the first two ended in failure and saw plenty of headlines calling attention to that. A little bit more research taught me that they were eventually tuned and from the third global mission onwards they were all a success, but I still find it a difficult gamble for a developer to take. If nothing else it shows that pulling it off requires a lot of finesse and careful consideration of players’ behaviour. 

The impermanence of events also makes them colour the experience in a way that other kinds of activities simply don’t. While there are those wild souls that will ignore anything but the options that catch their interest, most of us will see ourselves drawn to the little icons with a clock ticking down and at least allow it to inform our use of time in-game even if it’s not an active pursuit. And there is something kind of sad and annoying about allowing these hectic time-constraints to become ever more present in a medium that used to run almost completely on the consumer’s clock and not the provider’s.

I also do worry, like always, about events becoming an accepted patch to failures of a game at launch. While Genshin Impact’s story can be understood perfectly without all the events that are lost, the reality is that more than a few members of the cast remain ancillary additions without the characterisation provided by events. Which just makes it feel inelegant and more rough around the edges than it really should when that creative work has already been done and released. What is more, getting accustomed to a lack of permanency in our games does open the gate to more developers simply locking away entire pieces of their game once they decide the time has come like Bungie has with Destiny. Which has left us in a ridiculous reality where content that people have actually paid for before is just not around anymore on the whims of the developers.

But I would like to temper my criticisms somewhat. Games-preservation is important. I believe that wholeheartedly. And though I felt tempted to write sentences like “it is inexcusable when events can’t be replayed” the reality of the matter is that, though important, they are still just games. While my beloved Genshin Impact has a bad habit of making incredibly important elements of the setting only available in time-limited events, it remains a coherent experience without them. And though preserving our cherished memories and making gaming history available to all remains a meaningful endeavour, there is not that much that is actually lost when you aren’t able to partake in time-limited events long gone. 

While we have a voice and a way to make developers hear us, we should keep asking for ways to preserve these experiences if they are valuable to us. But just like spending an entire season in the hospital, or skipping out on Halloween during a year when you didn’t feel up to it, life continues on unimpeded without them. Games, like holidays, and like the colours of leaves in autumn, can make our lives a lot more enjoyable even if they aren’t permanent. Let’s not forget that even our very earth won’t be around forever. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun while it lasts.

The post The Number Won’t Stop Ticking Down! – Limited Time Events in Games appeared first on Gamesline.

We’ve recovered from all of our Game of the Year shenanigans which means it’s time for another episode of the Video Game Choo Choo Podcast. This week, Scott is joined by Franny and Maverick to talk about all those behind the scenes GOTY shenanigans and everything else in gaming this week. Scott’s been dooming out in My House dot wad and Resident Evil 4 while Maverick played a bunch of Like a Dragon: Ishin and Ridge Racer Type 4. Meanwhile, Franny’s been digging into Season, Destiny 2: Lightfall, and A Space for the Unbound. In the news, we touch on Tax Heaven 3000, the visual novel that did your taxes, A dark and mature Ninja Turtles game being on the way, the Gollum Game coming in May, Counterstrike 2 being a real thing, and the Super Mario Brothers movie doing a collaboration with Lush.

As always, you can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @FKAsocks, @mavsplaniamania, and @arealgoldmouth.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at videogamechoochoo.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via iTunes, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

The post VGCC Episode 431: Racing the Dragon appeared first on Gamesline.

5. Essays on Empathy

Essays on Empathy is a collection of several short games from Deconstructeam; all examining a different and unique narrative experience. Each game varies in story, gameplay design, style and presentation, but they all delve into the human experience as the core that holds everything together. Quite literally exploring the complexity of empathy and the forms that can take. 

I don’t want to spoil too much, as all of these games are very brief and pretty wonderful, but one of my favorites is a game about an injured hitman working in a flower shop. It uses the language of flowers as a pseudo choice system, and depending on what arrangement you choose for any given situation, the outcomes could lead to healing or misery, and that goes for the hitman’s own narrative conclusion as well. 

I think Essays on Empathy flew in a little under the radar, but it’s an incredibly worthwhile contribution to video games and what kinds of stories and emotions the medium can effectively tell.

4. Destiny 2

Okay, let me elaborate. 2021 for Destiny 2 was originally supposed to be much more dense but *gestures vaguely to everywhere and everything* held it back a bit. Still, last year’s series of seasonal content was a really engaging, interesting, and emotional build-up to this year’s expansion, Witch Queen. Last year in particular is where I think Bungie has hit its stride in coalescing a lot of the greater narrative beats in Destiny lore into a dramatic turning point. 

Some things in Destiny 2 are still disappointing and frustrating, like the vaulting system (bewildering) and the New Light Experience (somehow kind of a turn-off for new players,) but improvements also persist. Last year we saw the aforementioned seasonal story and activities, the return of the Vault of Glass raid, some charming Bungie 30th anniversary content, the introduction of cross-play, and other quality of life tweaks. 

While still a bit of a give and take situation, my own enjoyment of Destiny 2 last year stood in stark contrast to my enjoyment of it in its early years. It’s fun, and interesting, and it has helped some of my friends and I keep in touch and have more of those gaming bonding moments during a pretty alienating time, which is always invaluable to me. 

3. Death’s Door

Death’s Door was a delight. I thought it might be one I play a little of, then put it down and never think about it again, but it stuck with me. It’s a charming and funny take on grim reapers – and the corporate structure that conducts them – as crows balancing paper-pushing and field work. Just like I always imagined. The combat is challenging and stylish, the music is dynamic and catchy, and there are so many cartoonish and interesting characters. 

Overall it’s sublime and moody, cute and scary, and it’s a lot of fun to play. I have so many nice things to say about Death’s Door that I’m going to keep it short and sweet by saying amidst a year of really good games, it takes the third spot in my own personal list of bests. 

2. Inscryption

I was a latecomer to Inscryption, and I’m disappointed that I waited so long. Inscryption is hard to describe beyond being trapped in a cabin and forced to play this creepy guy’s deranged card game. It’s a deck-building game. It’s psychological horror. It’s surrealism and aesthetic-blending goodness. There’s a heavy theme of sacrifice, more obviously due to the fact that it functions as a rogue-like and more subtly woven into the overall narrative of the game, and the chaos of its many other elements never seems out of your reach. While it’s fast-paced and snappy, the endlessness of your fate leaves you a ton of room to explore tactics, take risks, and make the heavier sacrifices to see if they pay off – and I really appreciate that. 

One of my favorite things about Inscryption is that it often leaves you at the mercy of luck. I may draw my weakest cards, but that helplessness created new opportunities for me to survive. Sometimes, my decision to play aggressive and headstrong was punished, as one boss’s second round bashed my winners to bits and forced me to reconsider how I value and utilize all the cards in my desk. It’s frustrating, but challenging. Not the type of game I typically get sucked into so quickly, but this time every element fell into place perfectly executed.

1. Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

What can I say about Disco Elysium? A lot, apparently! I don’t know yet if it will always be my absolute #1 game of all time, but I can confidently say it will remain in my top five for the rest of my life. Top five of any media. If it has a million fans I am one of them, if it has ten fans I am one of them, if it has no fans that means I am dead, etc and onward. What I have not already said about it amounts to this: Disco Elysium was a genuine groundbreaker when it was released in 2019, and The Final Cut polished the hell out of it. From the writing, to the art, to the music, to the belatedly-added full suite of voice acting, every person involved in the making of it are the brightest stars hand picked out of the night sky. 

It pulled me completely in with some of the best writing I’ve ever read, and put me through an absolute circus of emotions. I found myself as invested in the characters and their complexities as I was with my own choices and reactions as Harry, with more care given to the greater thread of my relationships to everyone else than I’ve experienced in any other role playing game. I laughed, I cried, I nodded sagely along. This is it for me – this is the peak.

The post Franny’s Top 5 Games Of 2021 appeared first on Gamesline.

This is in part a function of my upbringing. Many years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, Final Fantasy VI was the longest video game I’d ever played. And just like with many games that would follow, I remember feeling somewhat sad that I had to move on once it was over. What had become an after-school routine was now just another CD on the shelf.

In the intervening years, the way video games are made has changed drastically, and if you so desire, you can opt to never put down your favourite game. With the wide availability of the internet, and the rise in popularity of the MMO and the multiplayer shooter, basically any game with an online component offers a plethora of daily log-in rewards, tasks, and small progression bars for you to keep chipping away for 30 to 90 minutes every day.

In the before times, the closest analogues to such a thing would be Fighting Games or online RTSs, where the motivation to play such games daily was the inherent variance of a head-to-head match, and the only repercussion to taking a break was halting your own improvement at the game. If you left and came back for a few months, only muscle memory and perhaps a couple bits of game knowledge would be lost, and you would be quite aware of what you’d missed.

These days, it is not unusual to come back to a game only to find all your gear is mediocre now, there are plenty of new systems you need to familiarise yourself with if you want to be a serious threat to anyone again, and all the newer drops are so far ahead of yours that they are almost fundamentally incompatible.

And yet, over the last couple of years I have found myself quite enamoured with the daily log-in systems of games, in particular Genshin Impact. It took the world shutting down, and going through so many personal struggles that there were days where I just couldn’t get out of bed, but I finally understood the appeal.

At the time of writing, Genshin Impact is still going through the process of completing the archipelago nation of Inazuma by slowly unlocking subsequent islands with every update. And as of the time of writing, I am an entire patch behind on exploring these islands, despite having played the game pretty much every day of the current update.

Engaging meaningfully with things takes emotional effort. Even a slow, turn-based JRPG expects you to at least digest its mechanics, and in some cases, sit through hours-long story segments that you are, hopefully, emotionally invested in. And sometimes you’re just not up to that.

Every long-term romance eventually reaches the phase where, alongside dinner dates and thoughtful romantic gestures, you also just want to stay in bed together, each reading a separate book and occasionally caressing each other’s hands, because barring some very particular people, most of us don’t have what it takes to be intense about the same subject day after day. So too, must every long-term romance with a video game wind down a little if it’s going to last.

I would never argue Genshin Impact’s daily and weekly activities are particularly good, in fact, all things considered, they are probably subpar, but they manage to at least retain the core of what makes the game so appealing in bite sized chunks. Even when you’re done exploring the available landmasses and have done all major quests, it is fun to just hop around a lovely meadow or a howling mountain, thwart a couple evil mages’ plan, collect some fruits, gather the wood you need to make a new sofa, and move on with your day.

Routines are powerful ways of giving some structure to your life. Playing a video game isn’t exactly a productive addition to any day, but all work and no play makes Walker a dull boy. When I was lacking the energy to even explore in Genshin Impact, it was still a nice reprieve to know I could always log in and run around for 20 minutes to try and forget about my problems.

There is a comfort to the reliability of booting up a game you love and know inside out only to do a half-dozen easy tasks, ticking a few boxes and levelling up a piece of gear by an insignificant amount. It is nice to know that there are 30 minutes of diversions waiting for you when you just need to take a break from work, or simply don’t want to think about anything else. It may sound a bit pitiful, but it is at least “something to do.”

It is important to strike a balance between daily gratification and simply giving the player reasons to work every day, however. One of my earliest encounters with this concept was Halo: Reach, which constantly straddled the line between fun challenges and busywork. Where the daily challenges would go from “land 15 headshots today” to “kill 3 enemies with a single sticky grenade”. Or in other words, a challenge entirely dependent on your own skill to a challenge entirely dependent on the enemy’s behaviour after you stick them with a grenade.

When Reach’s challenges were used well they did a great job at getting my friends and I to try different game modes and not get funneled exclusively into whatever specific match-type we were fascinated with at the time. But when they were at their worst, they could very well make you waste an afternoon playing a game mode you didn’t really like only for the purposes of adding funds to your flaming-helmet savings.

Daily challenges also offer an opportunity to familiarise yourself with the game in ways that only ongoing games allow. From the fastest route to get to a place, to the best sniper perch in a given map, and even the silly little oversights in the design of the challenges themselves like whether or not does killing an enemy on the brink of death with the grenade toss itself, and not the explosion, counts as “killing an enemy with a grenade”. They are a more accessible way of reaching deep game knowledge, without having to develop the extreme tolerance for repetition required to reach the same mastery in single-player or head-to-head games.

This is not to say that daily challenges are exactly a good thing, having their roots in Skinner Box-like mechanisms designed to create a feedback loop that continues to bring you back to the game. They are put into games less as a source of comfort for recurrent players, and more as a tool for the ominous corporate goal of “player retention”, which is an entirely different metric from whether the players are enjoying the time they’re being retained for or how much.

Nevertheless, a ploy to keep you engaged can only actually do so by offering things that would be attractive to you, and I now understand how people can fall in love with games that feature these systems not in spite of, but indeed because of them. A game that you love, offering daily easy comfort is, on occasion, much more meaningful that a game you don’t care about promising the possibility of a heart-rending story.

Whilst we should always be wary of companies exploiting our basest instincts for their profits, there is no denying that revisiting an old favourite for a sliver of time every day is a comfort rarely afforded by single player titles. And in the toughest of times, who are we to eschew a little easy comfort?

The post Daily Login Systems and Emotional Comfort appeared first on Gamesline.

As always, you can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @horngal, @mavsplaniamania, and @chorbySP

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at videogamechoochoo.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via iTunes, hipcast, direct download, or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 375: Among Us Sussy Mobile appeared first on Gamesline.

As always, you can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, and @horngal

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at videogamechoochoo.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via iTunes, hipcast, direct download, or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 371: NetEasing the Tension appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s a big news week with Jack-O coming to Guilty Gear Strive, a surprisingly good Quake remaster, the 973,426th rerelease of Skyrim, now for the new generation, and Halo Infinite not getting it’s co-op campaign and forge mode until after launch. The team also goes over the Pokémon Presents presentation as well as the new Fortnite game mode that is totally just Among Us; right down to it’s map layout.

As always, you can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, @Solairehazard and @Horngal.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at videogamechoochoo.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via iTunes, hipcast, direct download, or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 369: A Classroom of Catgirls appeared first on Gamesline.

We also dig deep into the Apple vs. Epic courtroom saga, Humble Bundle walking back their slider removal, new games like Lost Judgement and Nintendo’s Game Builder Garage, E3 still being a thing that exists, Discord coming to Playstation, and of course we reminisce about the good old days of Giant Bomb after Brad, Vinny, and Alex all announced their departures. We close it all our with your questions about Pokémon, misleading adds and more.

As always you can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, @SolaireHazard, @horngal, and @CurryDraco

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at videogamechoochoo.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via iTunes, Hipcast, direct download, or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 357: NieRly Unspeakable Games appeared first on Gamesline.

John’s been digging into the new Smash Ultimate character while Spencer’s been digging hard into Destiny 2 and Genshin Impact. Rose goes deep into Neptunia Virtual Stars, Eternal Return: Black Survival, and the House in Fata Morgana sequel.

As always you can support us on our patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, @SolaireHazard, and @horngal

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at videogamechoochoo.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via iTunes, Hipcast, Direct Download or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 348: The Destiny of Virtual Stars appeared first on Gamesline.