Bluebird Hewitt

Completed Red Dead 2 (story at least) on Friday and got RE2 (as well as Spiderman) for my birthday, so RE2 is up next.

Ironically, I've just watched that (all 50 minutes of it). Praises the graphics, flight moments and general gameplay but rips into everything else. I wasn't really that interested in Anthem anyway, but after apparently being in development for six years, that's bad.

Well, looks like Anthem is getting a tad bit of a kicking. Even IGN give it a 6.5 and they usually wank over many of EA's games.

Was thinking the same thing. I basically read no cameras or you're going to get fucked (and not in the good way).

Yeah, my reply (regarding staffing) was me waking up, looking at the post and not thinking 100%.

Not to sound like a dick but that looks like a contradiction there. If there is a chance that they could go bankrupt when we leave, why are they hiring new staff (ie. adding to costs)? As for the small businesses (and in general for that matter), it will depend on how they adapt to market changes. If you don't adapt, you get left behind and struggle (you only need to look at the recent bigger retail stores to see that).

Black Mamba for me.

I might start a flame war here but is the 'developers don't get paid well and work crazy hours' more of an American thing (ie. pure capitalistic greed and everyone else gets fucked) or in general? I only ask as the vast majority of the time this issue comes up, it tends to be EA or Activision in the headlines more often than anyone else (I know about Red Dead 2 in case anyone mentions it).

What an utter mess this has become. Just over a month and a half before the leave date and the two biggest parties are in complete turmoil, knifing and shitting on each other at any given chance. I bet Owen 'The Opportunist' Smith will try his luck again at some point, especially after mentioning about people leaving Labour last week.

Yeah, I'm not much further ahead of you moon wise. It was very good and maybe I'll get back to it one day, but not for a while. I have BotW as well but have not got round to playing it unfortunately. Same with Mario vs. Rabbids.

I've only played one game and was doing ok until I got my screen raised by a third and went out shortly after that. Finished 25th. It's pretty much the original multiplayer concept (get the other player to the top before you) but on a much larger scale. You can point to who you want to receive the extra lines (all opponents are on your screen at the same time) and that's about it really.

I have a horrible feeling that if Anthem flops, I may have to get the EA company death meme out again.

Still on Red Dead 2, but I downloaded and gave Tetris 99 a quick go. To put simply, it's you vs. 98 others in Tetris battle royale.

The first part in bold I can understand to a point as creating, developing, testing and releasing a game is effectively a 'project' as such and when said game has gone gold, that's pretty much said 'project' launched and other than possible DLC or new content, it's pretty much redundant. What does seem odd is that there may not be a lot of developers being laid off, but if they're expanding the annual release team, why not at least offer them those roles? The second part however is just baffling, looks very short sighted and just screams greed. Is getting rid of an esports team and support staff really going to do that much more for revenue when you've just made record revenue in the first place? Wouldn't you need the marketing consultants (unless temporary) to actually market your game above the competition? It all just seems nothing more than a 'money at all cost and fuck everyone else' exercise really.

Bobby 'The Cunt' Kotick: Congratulations everyone. We've just recorded the best ever results in the history of our company, making $7.5bn in 2018, up from $7bn in 2017. Employees: That's amazing. Bobby 'The Cunt' Kotick: Unfortunately, we did not realise our true potential during this period, so I'm going to increase the development team of our money making wankathons like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, whilst giving myself a big fuck off bonus. Employees: What about us? Bobby 'The Cunt' Kotick: I'm laying around 770 of you off. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47226157 https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/1999-11-30-activision-blizzard-confirms-it-will-lay-off-approximately-8-percent-of-staff Congrats everyone. We did this by continually buying their money making shite, microtransactions, loot boxes and all.

Cheers both. Might give it a download, though admittedly I'd rather play solo than teams.

Have seen a couple of videos and it looks pretty decent. Is it free a pa Fortnite or do you need to pay for it?

Which area was that in? My sister works for Black Horse and while it doesn't sound quite as bad as what you mentioned, some of those things above she mentioned to me before.

@Cannabis, @Happy Blueand anyone else that has an Xbox One. https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203984/microsoft-xbox-one-startup-problems-xbox-live

EA finally buckles and removes Fifa Points from FUT. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-01-29-ea-buckles-in-belgium-stops-selling-fifa-points-following-loot-box-gambling-pressure

I haven't got it yet. Red Dead 2 has been eating my time up so far. I'll probably get it around my birthday.

Excellent work EA. Up to your usual standards. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-01-25-all-ea-games-affected-as-publishers-server-network-struggles-amid-anthem-beta-launch

Yep. Shared it earlier with mates.

Fancy a smiley face reticle that was in previous games? That's £1.79 please https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-01-22-activision-is-selling-a-call-of-duty-black-ops-4-smiley-face-reticle-for-1-79 Greedy cuntstains.

Never played it but heard it's meant to be very good. In fact, one of the best games of its year.