The Gamesline Podcast has a full house this week! John’s been playing Digimon Story Time Stranger, Nikolas is exploring FNaF World, Lilith has tales to recount of Trails from Zero, Rimworld, and Guilty Gear Strive, and Rose has been enjoying a bounty of gaming including Silent Hill f, Hades 2, Silksong, Clover Pit, and Elden Ring Nightreign!

Plus, they discuss such news items as EA getting purchased, the enormous Game Pass price hike, Brazil banning loot boxes for minors, and ZA/UM’s union!

And they close off with a thoughtful listener question: When do you feel that you are finished with a game?

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @gamesline.net, John, Rose, Lilith, and Nikolas.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

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

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

Edited by Crystal and Produced by John

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 70: Science Hill Feminism appeared first on Gamesline.

The Gamesline crew is here to revive the most provocative podcast event of all time. We took your questions that are on the more…salacious side…and answered them in shocking detail!

Before that, we did talk about video games. John played Trails in the Sky 1st and liked it, and played Hotel Barcelona and thought it was terrible! Lorelai is playing the usual. Jackson’s here and he’s been on Sonic Racing, Shinobi, and Hades 2! Plus, Doug Bowser retiring, EA is going private, and they’re charging for people to watch the Capcom Cup?

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @gamesline.net, Lorelai, Jackson, and John.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

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

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

Edited and Produced by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 69: Sixty-Nine Revival appeared first on Gamesline.

@w0rble Is #TimRobinson the only #Emmy winner who can tre flip? #ithinkyoushouldleave ♬ original sound – Worble

For those not in the know, Tim Robinson is an avid skateboarder. He is one of the very few elite Emmy Award winners who can perform any skateboard tricks. There is a #rare sketch of his featuring pro wrestler, skateboarder and overall nutso stuntman Darby Allin where-in Tim notes that every single person on his skate team is a bad person in real life. With Tim’s well documented love of skateboarding, anyone even halfway interested in skate. is morally responsible to ask themselves the philosophically profound question of “how come in the part of the skate. trailer where they actually show gameplay, there wasn’t a full 3D model of Tim Robinson as the Richie Dandle character performing kickflips?”

This leads us, then, to a particularly dark conclusion that I don’t think any of us are willing to confront. Tim Robinson may not be playable in skate.. Please take a moment, I know this news might be troubling and hard to accept. You may need to sit yourself down, knowing that you can’t roam the open world of San Vansterdam as the man who brought you such incredible sketches as “Baby of the Year” and “Coffin Flop.” You will never get to live out the reality of putting him in a huge hotdog suit while you mutter “we’re all trying to find the guy who did this” quietly to yourself in a dimly lit room, trying to amuse yourself in your loneliest moments. You have been robbed by video game conglomerate EA and you didn’t even know they had taken anything from you.

Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. This is a call to action. Take to every social media platform you can access and let EA and the official skate. account know that we won’t stand for this injustice! Make your voices heard with the hashtag #IWantTimRobinsonInskate.! Tell them that you want to be able to slam into a curb and ragdoll Tim Robinson into the concrete and totally eat shit, causing injuries that the real life man may not survive from, that his in-game avatar will brush off handily before saying some line about needing to take a huge dump. Let EA know that you want Tim in the mo-cap studio capturing his most realistic kick flip possible. Call their customer support line and tell them your funniest I Think You Should Leave quote that you have memorized. They’ll get the message. They’ll understand. Today is the day we make our stand.

Today, we fight back.

The post Put Tim Robinson in skate., You Cowards appeared first on Gamesline.

Summer of Strikes

SAG-AFTRA has officially declared a strike. The labor union—which stands for Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists—comprises of a membership over over 100,000 film and television performers. In conjunction with the ongoing WGA (Writers Guild of America) strikes, these work stoppages are likely to upend and cancel a large portion of productions and any new releases in the film and television industry for an indefinite amount of time.

While only a few members of the games industry may be members of SAG and/or WGA, the issues at the heart of the the strikes affect and trickle down to all creative industries just the same, especially when it comes to the ongoing controversy around the uses of AI, entitlements to streaming and digital platform residuals, and overall better work conditions.

The strikes have defined specific limits to ensure participants and supporters do not cross the picket line, but those in pursuit of work may be able to find sources outside of the film and television industry. This however is not clearly defined, especially when the term limits of the Interactive Media Agreement have expired. The agreement provided members better benefits to remote work options, such as dubbing and voice acting—especially for projects outside the sphere of film and television like video games—in the midst of the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when live work was on halt.

For those of you asking, yes, I’ll be attending the SM2 and the MK1 panels at SDCC. I wholeheartedly support the strike and my fellow SAG-AFTRA and WGA members, but the interactive (video game) contract is not a subject of the strike… yet.

— Yuri Strikenthal (@YuriLowenthal) July 14, 2023

Some troupes like Critical Role are continuing their production schedule, despite having members of SAG-AFTRA in their cast such as Matthew Mercer. Many actual play productions do not involve the direct involvement of SAG and/or WGA. On the other hand, other creator-led companies like Dropout have currently halted new production in solidarity with the strike, but have already finished enough work that can pack in a schedule for another year. Several of their own recurring cast members, such as Siobhan Thompson, are member of the WGA.

Talent often crosses over many mediums, and the blurring of these lines is another point of contention in the midst of the strikes, especially pointing to the unnecessary distinctions that have divided animation talent from the rest of the film industry.

Regardless, people can monetarily support participants in the strikes through funds such as the Entertainment Community Fund, Groceries for Writers, and the official SAG-AFTRA Emergency Relief Fund.

A strike for UPS workers is potentially looming as well, which will potentially involve the participation of over 300,000 workers. The strike would potentially last about 10 days, and can potentially make a negative economic impact of over $7 billion.

In good news, Sega of America’s union election has ended in victory for the union, with the 91-26 vote cementing them as the largest multi-department gaming industry union.

The Microsoft Bidding Battle (Continued)

It’s beginning to look like Microsoft’s bid to buy Activision might go through. The US Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to block the sale was shot down by California Judge Jacqueline Corley, and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has extended their deadline for their review on the situation until August 29th. Microsoft has reportedly offered to sell aspects of their cloud gaming business in Europe, which was the major hang-up the CMA had with the sale.

The FTC is appealing the decision, but it will most likely not move further. There is also the fact that Corley’s son works for Microsoft. (Knowing how this country works, who is to say if anything will come out of that!)

Other Bad Behavior and Some Bye’s

Niantic, developers behind Pokemon GO, have been accused of hosting a “boy’s club” culture at the studio by former employees, according to a new lawsuit. The Jane Doe accuser in the lawsuit claims she was underpaid compared to men who she had a higher job title than.

Two voice actors who worked on Genshin Impact, Corina Boettger (Paimon) and Brandon Winckler (various voices), have reported on large amounts of pay owed to them from the game haven’t appeared.

Hoyoverse, creators of Genshin Impact, have replied, claiming the pay was in fact sent to the actors’ recording studio, Formosa Group, who was then supposed to pass the payment onto them. While Hoyoverse is saying they are looking into alternatives to compensate those with withheld pay, Winckler says he will no longer work on the game unless it becomes union work.

The person who was accused of swatting Ubisoft Montreal’s offices in 2020 has been identified and sentenced to three years of community service. Yanni Ouahioune was allegedly mad that he was banned around 80 times from Rainbow Six: Siege.

TinyBuild Games, publisher of titles such as the Hello Neighbor franchise, is under fire for claiming to use AI to find toxic and slacking employees at the studio. CEO Alex Nichiporchik has said that they aren’t using the technology in that way, but instead brought it up as an example of good and bad uses of AI, whatever that means.

The Borderlands movie, a film everyone totally wanted, has been in post-production hell for quite a while. Now, one of its writers, Craig Mazin, has replaced his writing credit with a pseudonym. This does not bode well for the quality of the film, which was test screened last year and did so poorly, that reshoots are still being done to this day. Mazin has recently made a name for himself with the Chernobyl mini-series, but he also put his name on Scary Movie 3 and 4. You be the judge here.

18+ developer Illusion, creator of games such as Koikatsu Party, VR Kanojo, and other, far more other infamous and controversial eroge games, is shutting down and ceasing sales on August 18th. No direct reason has been listed, but it’s been generally accepted that their games were very widely pirated, which led to low sales.

Microsoft’s in-house hype man Larry Hryb, also known by his gamertag “Major Nelson”, is leaving Microsoft after twenty years. Hryb was seemingly part of a recent wave of layoffs in the sales and support sector. His XBox podcast is supposedly only going on hiatus, and where he’ll be heading next is unknown.

New Games and New Mediums

EA Games has opened a new studio, Cliffhanger Games, to work on a new Black Panther title. Cliffhanger is made up of ex-Halo, Call of Duty, and God of War devs. This is a separate game from the Skydance Black Panther and Captain America game announced last year.

Athough not overshadowing its American chapter’s union victory, Sega has greenlit a new “blockchain-based game” in one of their successful franchises. No word on specifics on what IP that specifically is, but with how popular the blockchain is now, we’re sure it’ll crash and burn.

Final Fantasy XVI is being adapted for stage as a musical. The stage show will be held by the Takarazuka Revue company, who is famous for having women perform every role.

Limited Run Games hosted their own E3-style showcase again this year, and they announced a variety of new titles as well as new ports of old games. Highlights include the Zelda CDi-styled Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore, a title in the style of Mischief Makers called Double Shake, a finished version of the previously cancelled Shantae GBA game, and new ports of Clock Tower and Tomba.

The lowlight was the apparent porting of the first three Gex games. It is, unfortunately, tail time. The full showcase can be watched below:

The post The Bulletin: Hot Strike Summer appeared first on Gamesline.

Humble Bundle launched a fund to aid the victims of the recent earthquake disasters in Turkey and Syria. The bundle includes a mixture of both tabletop and video games, alongside comics. It also features some work by Turkish creators.

To help support Turkiye-Syria earthquake relief efforts, we’ve joined forces with our industry friends for a bundle of games & books to lend aid to the people of the region.

100% of proceeds will go to @DirectRelief, @IMC_worldwide, and @SaveTheChildren.https://t.co/unv9sLdRCE pic.twitter.com/SA1nmjio0b

— Humble Bundle (@humble) March 1, 2023

Elden Ring will be getting its first expansion, “Shadow of the Erdtree”, hinted to be possibly taking place before the main events of the game. The expansion is currently still in development and developer FromSoftware’s announcement has not elaborated on much more beyond a shiny piece of new concept art that has Elden Ring players rabidly speculating. Elden Ring has sold about 20 million copies since its initial release.

God of War Ragnarök finds itself sweeping claim on many nomination categories in this year’s BAFTA Games Awards. The other games nominated include Cult of the Lamb, Stray, Olliolli World, and A Plague Tale: Requiem.

Blumhouse Productions is reportedly in talks of doing a Dead by Daylight movie adaptation. Blumhouse is known for producing primarily horror films, such as the Paranormal Activity franchise, The Purge, Get Out, and M3GAN.

The FTC officially rejects Sony’s motion to quash the Microsoft-Activision merger. Microsoft maintains that its merger would not impact competition in the industry, and has allowed the subpoenaing of Sony to gain access to internal documents to review during the initial lawsuit. Microsoft has been meanwhile maintaining leverage by conducting deals with other companies, ensuring that games like their Call of Duty franchise are to remain unaffected on their respective platforms and storefronts. Just last week, Nintendo has negotiated with the company to now allow Xbox games on Nintendo consoles.

But once again, Activision Blizzard is possibly in trouble for what the Communication Workers of America (CWA) has set forth in filing as an unfair labor practice in the recent, unprecedented firing of two QA workers. The employees in question had to undergo a series of disciplinary meetings that resulted in their termination, due to what management testifies as their use of “strong language” in response to Activision’s recent attempts to bring workers back to an in-person schedule, the CWA reports.

Meanwhile, Electronic Arts abruptly laid off more than 200 QA testers for Apex Legends. Workers allege the sudden move was retaliatory against slowly growing unionization efforts.

The Wolf Among Us 2 has been delayed and will not foresee a 2023 release. According to Telltale Games, the team had wanted to avoid burnout, and the game’s development is also now taking a pivot to using the Unreal 5 system. No new release date has been given.  The original Telltale Games was forced to shutter back in 2018, assigning their assets to LCG Entertainment, who has since been working under their name.

Babylon’s Fall has officially ended service this week. The co-op RPG developed by PlatinumGames was unfortunately considered a commercial failure, and has barely lasted half a year in service.

Hot off the presses and on top of Forspoken developer Luminous Productions being disbanded to merge with the company, Yosuke Matsuda will no longer be President of Square Enix. He will be succeeded by Takashi Kiryu, rising from his position as the Chief Strategy Officer. Matsuda was President of the company since 2013.

And finally, enemy of the site Yuji Naka has come around to fully admit that he has indeed, committed crimes. He has acknowledged he was fully aware of unreleased information that enabled him to engage in insider trading. Yuji Naka was one of three former Square Enix employees who were arrested and indicted for insider trading around the tail end of last year in 2022. Naka spared no breath in getting arrested a second time, not that long after for the same offenses.

The post The Bulletin: Fool Me Once appeared first on Gamesline.

First off, Iron Galaxy Studios has announced that Rumbleverse will be shuttering its servers at the end of the month. The melee-based wrestling-inspired battle royale was truly a shakeup to the system between its multiple beta tests that took into consideration the player requests and the inclusion of various moves and items, including a whole keyblade. There was much fun to be had, and in a final offering back to its community the Rumbleverse battle pass is free to everyone with all items unlocked as of what the game had planned. Head over to Grapital City while you still can, but still keep some hope in your heart as Iron Galaxy might have future plans for this series in whatever form it may have.

On the trend of virtual closings happening this week, Knockout City announces that it will shut its servers down on June 6th.  The dodgeball battle royale game saw similar excitement in its initial beta and, while disheartening to see, the game will be seeing some form of postmortem existence in the form of a private hosted server version of the game available for download on Windows PCs later this year. And if you thought EA related shutdowns would end there, Apex Legends Mobile and Battlefield Mobile will be shutting down this year. EA CEO Andrew cited multiple reasons for the shutdown from issues of immersion with the screen size to the inability of retaining casual audiences in a way that would feel justifiable given the teamwork mechanics inherent to each. There might be a chance for both mobile shooters to make a return, but for now you can expect Apex Legends Mobile to shut its servers down on May 1st at 4PM PST.

In brighter news, The Sims 4 releases an update that allows for more trans inclusive looks. Among inclusions like shapewear and hearing aids, this update also includes the usage of binders and inclusion of top surgery scars as a means to reflect the trans members of the player base in an effort to push diversity and inclusion.

But in more bummer news, EA and Respawn canceled a single-player game in the Apex/Titanfall universe this week. Follow up news has reported this wasn’t Titanfall 3, but all the same gamers are bummed at the fact that we can’t just get more of the product multiple people would enjoy.

The post The Bulletin: Sunrise, Sunset appeared first on Gamesline.

In other goodbyes, BlazBlue creator Toshimichi Mori leaves Arc System Works. He has been with the studio for almost 20 years, and has extended his gratitude in a full farewell statement he posted on Twitter.

G2 Esports’ co-founder Carlos Rodríguez has resigned from his position following the reveal of his association with controversial personality, Andrew Tate. G2 Esports is a large esports organization based in Germany. Tate has been the ire of criticism due to his very public displays of misogyny, on top of ongoingly facing allegations of misconduct.

Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim is pulling Blade Runner: Black Lotus and Shenmue: The Animation from its official programming lineup and HBO Max. The series will still be available on Crunchyroll, but a representative further adds on that Shenmue will not see a second series despite it’s relative success.

Ubisoft’s pirate game, Skull & Bones, has been delayed again. The game was first teased back at E3 2017.

Remember E3? The green light has been turned on for E3 2023, which will be happening in Los Angeles, CA and will be open to the public in June of that year. The show will be returning as an in-person event at Los Angeles Convention Center. ReedPop acquired the show last year.

Netflix announced an anime adaptation of Onimusha. Studio Sublimination is credited for its production and key staff members include Takashi Miike in the Chief Director role.

A copy of Pokémon FireRed has sold for over $3,000 at an auction. WataGames gave this particular copy a high condition rating of 9.6 on their scale.

New Pokémon drop! Behold, the Wiglett. Pokémon Scarlet & Violet is still due for a release this fall.

Seth Kearsley, an animator who was behind a potential, animated Kingdom Hearts series that was pitched to Disney is looking to digitize his VHS copy of animatic. The pilot was previously considered lost media due to only evidence of its storyboards having been preserved.

HBO’s serial adaptation of The Last of Us officially now has a teaser. Much to our chagrin, Neil Druckmann is still decently involved with the show’s production and has written for some episodes. Bruce Straley’s involvement with the first game is also interestingly absent from the teaser.

A reveal trailer for Wild Hearts, Electronic Arts and Koei Tecmo’s own answer to Monster Hunter, has been released.

And in other trailer drops, Overwatch 2 also now has an official launch trailer. Yeah.

The post The Bulletin: Flops and Farewells appeared first on Gamesline.

Employees at WIRED are asking readers to not click on or support any pages from the publication on July 12 and 13, Amazon Prime Day, to support a walkout. After more than a year of bargaining, Conde Nast management still hasn’t negotiated a fair contract with the shop.

Rockstar Games is shelving the idea of remastering some of its past titles such as GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption. Speculation suggests this decision is made due to the poor response to the GTA Trilogy.

According to trademark documentation, the status of the Intellivision Amico is now up in the air. Initial findings have discovered that the trademark for the system seemingly abandoned, but it has been refilled as of a couple of days ago.

As an acknowledgement of their “Let Me Solo Her” Elden Ring exploits, Bandai Namco has sent the player, who goes by @TsuboiKlein on Twitter, a massive gift box set, including an engraved sword.

A Nintendo fan spent over $40,000 in stock just to ask a top executive a question. He simply wanted to ask if there will ever be more F-Zero games.

An FC in Final Fantasy XIV tried to advertise a special, internal summer event featuring a link to their Discord server through a series of billboards. A couple of these boards have been spotted in Texas, and there are rumors that they are also supposed to go up in California. The billboards faced scrutiny due to its copyright infringing, misleading association with Square Enix and the depiction of datamined content which violates the game’s terms.

After a major patch to the game that introduced the Data Centre Travel feature, which allows players to visit other worlds, a few players of Balmung tried to wall off newcomers from coming in to their world. These fears are likely precipitated by the recent billboard incident.

On top of several rearrangements going on internally, Gamestop is undergoing several rounds of layoffs.

After a few years of hiatus, E3 is set to return in 2023 through the assistance of a partnership with Reedpop. Although the specifics of what this relationship entails is still not clear, the upcoming show is expected to include both digital showcases and in-person specific events.

And finally…

Yuji Naka is still off his shits.

The post The Bulletin: Rest In Peace, Kazuki Takahashi appeared first on Gamesline.

An upcoming itch.io bundle is seeking titles to raise funds for the National Organization for Women and the Center for Reproductive Rights in light of the recent overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision by the US Supreme Court. Submissions are currently open. Another bundle, officially partnered with itch.io, is also open for submissions.

Reaching out to and supporting local, on-the-ground, abortion funds is also an efficient way to help, especially in areas where it is needed most.

Various game developers have resounded their own statements in wake of the decision, with varying degrees of both implicity and directness. Bungie intends on covering the travel fees of employees who need to seek services outside of their based location. Other companies like Certain Affinity and Microsoft have also expressed the same intentions as well.

Quebec has officially adopted Bill 96, a new piece of legislation that seeks to tighten rules in order to reinforce French as the official language in workplaces and government offices. The bill is xenophobic and discriminatory, and will shut out many prospective employees from jobs, such as many games developers entering the industry, all while the province is already dealing with a huge labor shortage.

Duolingo’s CEO has also asserted that they are more than willing to move company headquarters from Pennsylvania if local state legislation changes. Although abortion currently can still be legally performed in Pennsylvania, it does not have secure laws in place protecting it compared to its neighboring states in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Head of Xbox Games Studios Matt Booty asserts that there is no crunching at Bethesda. The statement is in response to a comprehensive report by Kotaku that chronicles Fallout 76’s messy development.

Mojang can now block and ban players in private and personal Minecraft servers upon moderator review. These changes are reflected in Minecraft’s latest update.

Blizzard can’t help but keep continuing to acquire other companies to support its own IP.

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard workers have released a series of demands, asking leadership be held accountable for the issues of sex and gender discrimination that have occurred at the company. The Worker Committee Against Sex & Gender Discrimination is also made up of a former employees.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has officially approved of Microsoft’s acquisition of the company. Microsoft has since signed a labor neutrality agreement vowing to recognize the union shop’s rights once the acquisition is complete.

Niantic has canceled several upcoming projects and laid off more than 80 employees. The studio has sadly failed to deliver on the same success they had since Pokémon Go. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite had shut down in January this year.

A weird, crypto-incorporated spinoff of itch.io called w3itch.io called has launched. Or at least is attempting to. The site was quickly scrutinized, and what was most concerning about the project is that it directly ripped off actual listings and projects on itch.io without the creators’ knowledge, on top of listing other game titles that already exist on other platforms.

A Persona 5 Joker and Crow shipping fan zine recently came under heat when one of its moderators was found to have been embezzling its funds. About 27.6k CAD was stolen from the project and allegedly a huge portion of it were specifically spent on gacha rolling in Genshin Impact. The moderator in question has been completely removed from the team.

The previous tensions that were occurring between Gianni Matragrano and John St. John have been resolved.

There was apparently going to be an Epic Donald game.

NieR Automata: The End of YorHa Edition is announced for October 6 on the Switch.

Doom RPG, recently highlighted by Stop Skeletons From Fighting, has been ported to PC!

And finally…

The next Skate game is still in the works.

The post The Bulletin: Yes, Abortion Is Healthcare appeared first on Gamesline.

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