The Stupid Gamer

Lorne Lanning, president and co-founder of Oddworld Inhabitants, appeared in a 2-part interview with EGM editors on their weekly podcast, EGM Live. This week the second part of the interview aired and it’s worth a listen. Lorne kind of goes off and starts claiming that there’s no link to Osama Bin Laden and 9/11 and claiming that conspiracies exist here and there; and that somehow this plays into the reason why his games have failed in recent years. The whole thing sounded like a guy that is looking for more excuses why his games have struggled to sell lately. Beyond the conspiracy theories you can hear him go off and whine about game types that are popular. Non-gamers, terrorists, Britney Spears fan club members, and more are all a part of Lorne’s ramblings.

Hey Lorne, Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath didn’t sell because EA didn’t promote it. End of story. Either make a good game worth playing sometime soon or shut your hole.

Here’s a direct link to the show: EGM Live

According to a Yahoo! news report, Ken Kutaragi, the father of the PlayStation, has officially called it quits. Ken Kutaragi is responsible for the PlayStation line and is a huge reason for expansion in the gaming industry in the past 10 years. Ken was always big on pushing the technological boundaries of gaming further; and some say that he might have been a little too ambitious with in that regard with the PS3. I think the gaming industry needs people like Ken, as crazy as he is.

Enjoy the retirement, Ken. Thanks for your contributions to the industry, and more importantly, for all of the blog fodder over the years.

Full Story here: Ken Kutaragi retires.

In response to some criticism and some less than stellar reviews, Mitch Gitelman, of the Shadowrun development team FASA, vented his frustrations on the Major Nelson podcast. When Major asked about the types of reviews that the game had been receiving, Mitch kinda lost his composure and started ranting like a fanboy. It’s pretty sad to hear, but I’d definitely recommend downloading the podcast for a few giggles. During his rant, Mitch mentioned that they did “background checks” on some of the reviewers of the game. He went on to express his disappointment in seeing a reviewer that typically did RPGs handling an FPS game. Background checks? Are you insane? So you don’t think that this reviewer knows anything about FPS games since he typically reviews RPGs? Quit being an assuming jerk. Your game isn’t up to par with the competition. Deal with it.

Here’s some news for you, Mitch. Your studio got axed because your product stinks. Your studio put out a multiplayer only game with 3 game modes (2 when you realize that a couple are the same thing) and a very small number of maps; all while charging a full $60. You go on to ask, “how many game types are in football?” Apples and oranges dude. You say that you don’t set pricing, but you can’t expect people just to be cool with the price point simply because it was out of your hands. Honestly, I’m surprised you made it this long in the industry if you can’t handle a bit of fair and honest feedback from the community. You guys took a respected IP, jumped the shark with it, and overcharged and under delivered. If anybody should be ranting, it’s the fans of the old Shadowrun name. For now, shut up and get back to message board viral marketing and shilling or something.

Game-Informer online is reporting that around 90% of the Nintendo of America sales and marketing staff will not be making the move with Nintendo out of Redmond when the comapny leaves for either New York or San Francisco. The three most notable names include Perrin Kaplan, George Harrison, and Beth Llewelyn.

I’ve met George and Perrin a couple of times and have worked with and interviewed Beth in the past. All three are great at their job and have been wonderful for Nintendo of America over the years. While I’m sure Nintendo will find competent replacements, it will be interesting to see if their personalities are missed by those of us that work with Nintendo PR.

George Harrison has been with Nintendo of America for the longest time and is Senior Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communication, Beth Llewelyn is Senior Director of Public Relations, and Perrin Kaplan is VP of Marketing & Corporate Affairs.

Source: Game-Informer Online

Uh oh. That’s sure to get the feathers ruffled. In an article at Next Generation, Peter Moore was quoted as saying:

“I’ve walked a mile in those shoes,” he says. “I’m digging up my tortured past here, but remember Dreamcast?” And there it is. PlayStation 3 is Dreamcast. How delicious is that?“

I don’t think it’s safe to say that the PS3 is anywhere near what the Dreamcast was. While the Dreamcast was a great system, it was ultimately the final failure for Sega in the hardware market. The PlayStation 3 will eventually rebound and do just fine. This WILL NOT be Sony’s last console. Even though the start has been turbulent and highly criticized by the press and gaming community, Sony’s brand strength is way too powerful for the slide to continue forever.

Sony will get it turned around…Peter is being a bit too giddy here about recent sales trends.

Jack Thompson loves sending out letters…let’s see how he likes receiving them. Here’s his contact info:

Jack Thompson, Attorney
1172 South Dixie Highway, Suite 111
Coral Gables, Florida 33146

Phone: 305-666-4366
Cell: 305-588-3005

Note: If you are going to contact Jack, don’t make us, the gaming community, look worse with your choice of words. Be sincere, be tactful, and limit yourself to one letter/email/phone call.

Ken Kutaragi, the father of the PlayStation, has resigned. After two wildly successful generations in the home console market, and a third in its infancy, Ken Kutaragi is deciding to step down as CEO of Sony’s game division. There is a lot of speculation whether or not Ken was forced out, due to the PlayStation 3’s poor performance at retail, but nothing has been confirmed. Ken will remain with Sony as an “honorary board member”.

Personally, I think Ken was pressured to resign before being fired. He’ll probably spend the rest of his days at Sony working on completely useless projects and being used once in a while to recruit developers. The guy is definitely well set financially for the rest of his life, but I’m sure he’s going to have a tough time watching the PlayStation brand live on while he’s basically on the sidelines.

Source: Yahoo! News

This comes via GameAlmighty.com (thanks for the heads up email). Here’s the letter everybody’s favorite attorney mailed off:

Chief Wendell Flinchum

Virginia Tech Police Department

Blacksburg, Virginia Via Fax and e-mail

 

Dear Chief Flinchum:

The news story in yesterday’s Washington Post proves correct my prediction to your Department Monday that Cho, whose identity was not even know to me at the time, would be a video gamer trained to do what he calmly did on a violent shooter video game.

I went on the Fox News Channel Monday and even identified the game, Counterstrike, obsessively played by Cho, which was also used by Robert Steinhaeuser to author what is now the second worst school shooting in world history in Erfurt, Germany, which he also concluded by killing himself. These are not coincidences; these are patterns.

Further corroboration that this is “life imitating art,” or more accurately “death imitating toxic entertainment” is what is now coming to light as to Cho’s copycatting of a certain violent movie as well. This is generally the case: movie + shooter games = massacre.

I have seen it all before in the Paducah school shootings, where I represented the families of the victims of Michael Carneal, a teen gamer who trained on Doom and was inspired by the Hollywood movie The Basketball Diaries. A Yale psychiatrist said so.

I went on NBC’s Today Show and predicted Columbine one week before it happened, identifying the above two specific move and game entertainment products that Klebold and Harris were also obsessed with.

If your Department really wants to get to the bottom of this, you need to talk to me now. Talk also to my dear friend, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who was singled out by President Clinton as “the one man America should listen to as to why Columbine happened.” Grossman’s book, On Killing, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He and I have addressed national television audiences, state and federal governments, and law enforcement officers about the direct causal nexus between what happened on Monday and violent entertainment consumed by young people, who are then consumed by it.

Personal regards, Jack Thompson

Wow. See GameAlmighty.com’s full writeup on the piece here: Clickity 

I’d comment, but I’m sick of talking about Jack Thompson. I’m not tired of posting about him, however, because it’s great material for scoring hits and possible ad clicks. Expect more JT posts, less JT talk.

In the wake of the Virginia Tech University shootings, that worm Jack Thompson has crawled his way onto television once more to lay the blame on videogames. Newsflash Jack, teens play games. Just because some (not even all) of these shooting spree nutcases happened to play games, it doesn’t mean you can pin the reason for their insanity on Grand Theft Auto or, the ever popular scapegoat of yesteryear, Doom.

Here is a list of other things that teens do, including those that lost their mind and turned into killers:

• Wear clothing
• Drive cars
• Eat food on a daily basis (this includes drink)
• Attend school
• Breath air of varying levels of pollution
• Have parents
• Know people

How is Jack so sure that it’s the games that are turning these kids into killers? Weren’t there some campus shootings before violent games? Maybe we should focus in on the food issue. I guarantee if we stop allowing teens to eat food that they’ll stop their rampaging within a month or two and it will be a permanent fix.

I don’t mean to make light of a tragic situation, but it sorta pisses me off that this slimeball can get on the news to start pushing his personal agenda even before the victims have been properly identified, their families notified, and the real reasons for the tragedy have surfaced. If the guy really cared about people on an individual level, he’d show some respect by offering some condolences and waiting for families to properly grieve before getting political. Good show Jack, good show.

Typically I don’t like to call anybody out, especially a fellow industry member, but I have to share my complete and total disdain for 1up/EGM’s Seanbaby. I know the guy has been around for years and he has his fans and followers, but it seems like every article, podcast, or feature he is a part of is a degenerate piece of trash. This week’s EGM Live featured Seanbaby as their “special guest” and it immediately became a worthless production. Instead of the thoughtful and insightful opinions on current news and events in the gaming industry that we normally get, we ended up with a bunch of fu**s, sh**s, sex jokes, obnoxious noises, and sophomoric humor.

I know that videogames aren’t the most serious subject, but I still think the industry deserves a level of respect that Seanbaby is incapable of having. All throughout the podcast you could almost see the other EGM editors cringing as they forced laughter to avoid awkward silence or to bite back offensive reactions. On my end, I simply waited and hoped he’d bail out sometime soon so the show could go on without him. The frequent use of profanity, offensive words (like retard), and innuendo only highlights the guy’s complete lack of clever thought. The act grew old after a few EGM articles, it’s time that Ziff Davis (or whoever owns EGM/1up these days) realizes that and cuts the guy loose.

Basically he’s the equivalent of that kid in the 2nd grade that learned four letter words first. Sure, the first time you see or hear the guy’s shtick it’s mildly humorous; but when it’s repeated and recycled well beyond its novelty stage, it grates on the nerves. He’s not funny, not cute, and ultimately not worth paying attention to.