Ah, you could be right. I just read on the previous article that the preservation group said the seller backed out at the last minute, and that's why they were raising money. But perhaps that wasn't the start, and they were actually in the middle of the bidding war at the time. And like you said, that group and their story might just be unreliable in general.
Also, whether they're for-profit or non-profit doesn't really matter. A lot of non-profits run scams. Being non-profit doesn't mean that you can't pay yourself and other employees. So what they do is just take all the money, give it to themselves, and call it their "salary". And hey, no money left over, that means no "profit". They can also throw lavish parties, buy "company equipment", yadda yadda, as long as everything they spend goes back into the company itself. And personally, I don't see how making your company grow bigger while giving yourself a fat paycheck is somehow any different than what a for-profit company does. Not having cash reserves? So they might have to close the company if times get tough? Yeah, I'm sure they're worrying about that all the way from the mansion to the Ferrari.
@Daniel36 I feel the same way. At first I was really excited to hear about these old PC games coming to the west via Eggconsole. Like I absolutely love DQ4, so I probably would've bought this. Except why would I purchase a game if I can't actually play through it?
At least just throw on an easy machine translation. Sure it won't be great, but it'll at least be more usable than NOTHING. And nobody's going to be playing a 1987 game anyway expecting to find the work of Shakespeare.
I don't feel sorry for this person at all. He had all the chances in the world to donate it to the preservation group mentioned, but instead he backed out and tried to sell it to the highest bidder. And now it's being taken from him because it was all stolen goods in the first place. If anything I'm glad to see some greedy ***** get karma for once.
I mean, it's certainly a shame about the games though. If only he actually cared about getting them dumped, then he would've done so and at that point no police could ever take them away. Hope this is a lesson to everyone else who doesn't know how to share.
@KainXavier Yeah, I had read those before, and that article by John was exactly what I was thinking of when I said it should informative instead of divisive. Instead of attacking people for not knowing, he uses the opportunity to talk up historical games and events that younger audiences don't hear about often, and even provides lots of references they can use to find out more. I agree that it's very well done, and I like his work a lot in general.
For that first article, though it was indeed pretty aggessive, at least it was the actual topic of debate, and more newsworthy since the ignorant claim came from an actual big-name gaming journalist.
(I'd actually like to see gaming sites check each other more often. Many of them have devolved into "My word is god, don't you dare question me." Comments disabled, and all their peers just sit idle by and nod.)
This article though, just feels like a huge stretch. The base story was just devs talking about the influences used in their games. But that was all reframed into an attack piece because a deep dive into a Twitter thread found one unknown person who said something dumb. I don't think we really need to get up in arms about random hot takes.
I also want to say, this is like the exact opposite of most features on this site, which profess that it's important to understand influential games even if they weren't well-known in your own country. But here, these men do not understand a bunch of influential games that weren't popular in their country, but now this time we should be mocking anyone who dares question this knowledge hole. Really bizarre double-standard, and honestly I'm getting very wary of UK-centric news sites that can't rein in their bias (*coughEurogamercough)
Like this article could've easily been "Devs tell us about their backgrounds", and then added in "Because did you know, over in France..." Nice and informative, without trying to divide people.
What a bizarre article. It seems to be trying to foster a narrative of "Americans are so ignorant that their experience wasn't superior", but all it is showing is tons of Europeans getting high-and-mighty saying that THEIR experience was superior (and that Americans are soooo dumb). Especially that St1ka guy re-tweeted above, who goes full keyboard warrior responding to every single comment and going into deep denial mode about Nintendo systems having influential games.
And even better, these "outrage" threads are showing that usual hilarious ragebait result, where only like two people are "upset" about it, and then there are just hundreds of people being upset about this fictional army of other upset people. It's just blowing up a reply tweet from a random unimportant nobody, and everybody else is just getting off to how they are so much more superior to that guy and his non-existent massive followers.
And even the two people who are surprised by this don't even sound surprised that the guy didn't have a Nintendo system growing up, but moreso the fact that he allegedly STILL hasn't played games on Nintendo consoles. Which is indeed kind of weird, especially when your whole job is to understand game design. Like maybe take some time to study up on this? It's like, sure, maybe you didn't watch a lot of movies growing up, but once you become a film-maker, maybe you should go back and check out all those things you missed out on? Hell, that's why I like this site. Tell me all about those highly influential games that we in the west were ignorant about. I'm not sitting here like "Well I personally never played it, so it must've not been important at all!" And yet these voices are the exact ones this article is amplifying.
Also, from another interview, I see another team member of Expedition 33 talking about how he loved Paper Mario, and even told the guy above to try it out. So yeah, this game playing similar to some Nintendo stuff isn't a random coincidence. Some people on the team were indeed well aware of these games, even if the guy above wasn't.
Comments 56
Re: Sega Dev Kit Raid "A Preservation Disaster" For "Collectors, Archivists, And The Gaming Community"
Ah, you could be right. I just read on the previous article that the preservation group said the seller backed out at the last minute, and that's why they were raising money. But perhaps that wasn't the start, and they were actually in the middle of the bidding war at the time. And like you said, that group and their story might just be unreliable in general.
Also, whether they're for-profit or non-profit doesn't really matter. A lot of non-profits run scams. Being non-profit doesn't mean that you can't pay yourself and other employees. So what they do is just take all the money, give it to themselves, and call it their "salary". And hey, no money left over, that means no "profit". They can also throw lavish parties, buy "company equipment", yadda yadda, as long as everything they spend goes back into the company itself. And personally, I don't see how making your company grow bigger while giving yourself a fat paycheck is somehow any different than what a for-profit company does. Not having cash reserves? So they might have to close the company if times get tough? Yeah, I'm sure they're worrying about that all the way from the mansion to the Ferrari.
Re: Here Are The Next Two PC-88 Titles Getting EGGCONSOLE Reissues On Nintendo Switch
@Daniel36
I feel the same way. At first I was really excited to hear about these old PC games coming to the west via Eggconsole. Like I absolutely love DQ4, so I probably would've bought this. Except why would I purchase a game if I can't actually play through it?
At least just throw on an easy machine translation. Sure it won't be great, but it'll at least be more usable than NOTHING. And nobody's going to be playing a 1987 game anyway expecting to find the work of Shakespeare.
Re: Sega Dev Kit Raid "A Preservation Disaster" For "Collectors, Archivists, And The Gaming Community"
I don't feel sorry for this person at all. He had all the chances in the world to donate it to the preservation group mentioned, but instead he backed out and tried to sell it to the highest bidder. And now it's being taken from him because it was all stolen goods in the first place. If anything I'm glad to see some greedy ***** get karma for once.
I mean, it's certainly a shame about the games though. If only he actually cared about getting them dumped, then he would've done so and at that point no police could ever take them away. Hope this is a lesson to everyone else who doesn't know how to share.
Re: Random: "That's Wild" - The Fact That Two French Devs Didn't Play Nintendo As Kids Appears To Have Upset Some People
@KainXavier
Yeah, I had read those before, and that article by John was exactly what I was thinking of when I said it should informative instead of divisive. Instead of attacking people for not knowing, he uses the opportunity to talk up historical games and events that younger audiences don't hear about often, and even provides lots of references they can use to find out more. I agree that it's very well done, and I like his work a lot in general.
For that first article, though it was indeed pretty aggessive, at least it was the actual topic of debate, and more newsworthy since the ignorant claim came from an actual big-name gaming journalist.
(I'd actually like to see gaming sites check each other more often. Many of them have devolved into "My word is god, don't you dare question me." Comments disabled, and all their peers just sit idle by and nod.)
This article though, just feels like a huge stretch. The base story was just devs talking about the influences used in their games. But that was all reframed into an attack piece because a deep dive into a Twitter thread found one unknown person who said something dumb. I don't think we really need to get up in arms about random hot takes.
Re: Random: "That's Wild" - The Fact That Two French Devs Didn't Play Nintendo As Kids Appears To Have Upset Some People
I also want to say, this is like the exact opposite of most features on this site, which profess that it's important to understand influential games even if they weren't well-known in your own country. But here, these men do not understand a bunch of influential games that weren't popular in their country, but now this time we should be mocking anyone who dares question this knowledge hole. Really bizarre double-standard, and honestly I'm getting very wary of UK-centric news sites that can't rein in their bias (*coughEurogamercough)
Like this article could've easily been "Devs tell us about their backgrounds", and then added in "Because did you know, over in France..." Nice and informative, without trying to divide people.
Re: Random: "That's Wild" - The Fact That Two French Devs Didn't Play Nintendo As Kids Appears To Have Upset Some People
What a bizarre article. It seems to be trying to foster a narrative of "Americans are so ignorant that their experience wasn't superior", but all it is showing is tons of Europeans getting high-and-mighty saying that THEIR experience was superior (and that Americans are soooo dumb). Especially that St1ka guy re-tweeted above, who goes full keyboard warrior responding to every single comment and going into deep denial mode about Nintendo systems having influential games.
And even better, these "outrage" threads are showing that usual hilarious ragebait result, where only like two people are "upset" about it, and then there are just hundreds of people being upset about this fictional army of other upset people. It's just blowing up a reply tweet from a random unimportant nobody, and everybody else is just getting off to how they are so much more superior to that guy and his non-existent massive followers.
And even the two people who are surprised by this don't even sound surprised that the guy didn't have a Nintendo system growing up, but moreso the fact that he allegedly STILL hasn't played games on Nintendo consoles. Which is indeed kind of weird, especially when your whole job is to understand game design. Like maybe take some time to study up on this? It's like, sure, maybe you didn't watch a lot of movies growing up, but once you become a film-maker, maybe you should go back and check out all those things you missed out on? Hell, that's why I like this site. Tell me all about those highly influential games that we in the west were ignorant about. I'm not sitting here like "Well I personally never played it, so it must've not been important at all!" And yet these voices are the exact ones this article is amplifying.
Also, from another interview, I see another team member of Expedition 33 talking about how he loved Paper Mario, and even told the guy above to try it out. So yeah, this game playing similar to some Nintendo stuff isn't a random coincidence. Some people on the team were indeed well aware of these games, even if the guy above wasn't.