Category: news

Aftermath Looks Back On One Year of Operation

Two whole days in a row of non-Youtube links? Who’d have thought it possible! Shame yesterday was on Nintendo-related things, the other over-frequent subject of our little blogmachine, but I guess you can’t have it all.

Aftermath is composed of just five webugees (original word plz steal) from various other bigcorp contentboxes, and is one of a whole wave of similar creator-owned outfits that also includes Second Wind, 404 Media and Defector. All seem to be doing pretty well… for now… but we’re hoping all the best for all of them, at least until they grow into Kotakus, Escapists or Washingtons Post of their own, and come to oppress an entirely new generation of writer. But that’s the future, and there’s still time to avoid it, at least according to my good friend, the Ghost of Collective Ownership Future.

Aftermath’s principals have an article up describing their experiences, and its variously enlightening and illuminating. Running a small business is a process rife with pitfalls, and when you’re just five people, most working part-time and not able to afford to just pay others to take care of the hard parts, it can be difficult, especially when at your last jobs you could just focus on doing the thing you’re good at, the thing you like doing. Another problem that being only five people creates is fragility. Not intending to jinx them at all, but if one of them were to suddenly pass away, could the remaining four keep the banner held aloft?

But they are doing it. It’s working! And they have plans to expand next year. If you want to follow them and help keep them afloat, they have a trial subscription going where you can read them for one month for just $1. And their monthly rate is just $7 anyway, $10 for commenting privileges and Discord access.

Reading the article, especially the bit about how sites like this tend to slowly bleed subscribers over time just as a fact of their existence, as life happens to their readers in the aggregate, but gain them in lumps as new features are introduced or bursts of publicity occur. It feels like we could all stand to recognize this, and remember these sites need subscribers to survive. Aftermath’s rates are quite reasonable I think, considering that the New York Times charges $25 a month for their output, and as a bonus Aftermath doesn’t even publish frequent transphobic op-eds from right-wing jerks. Huh!

A Note _For_ The Editor

@rodneylives, stalwart editor for the entirety of Set Side B’s existence is in a bad spot- stuck due to Hurricane Helene and suffering a bad car accident that thankfully saw no casualties but likely many other expenses. Myself and the other posters will do our best to fill in the while the editor recovers, but if you have a couple dollars we’d really appreciate it if you sent them his way in what is a really hard time. Here’s how you can do that:

Thanks, and stay safe out there everyone.

Annapurna Interactive’s Entire Staff Resigns

“We scour the Earth web for indie, retro, and niche gaming news so you don’t have to, drebnar!” – your faithful reporter

It’s been a while since I, your favorite amorphous neon-green alien, have presented my whimsical take on Earth gaming news. I’ve mostly settled into an editorial role, consuming, digesting and excreting the work of others in an un-credited and, I assure you, sanitary capacity. This, as opposed to doing so for the news posts of other websites, which was time consuming, space filling, and of dubious interest to readers. I’m a humble amoeboid and can admit when something isn’t working.

But this story, from PC Gamer but no doubt from plenty of others too, is huge! Everyone at popular and prolific publisher Annapurna Interactive walked out! They released tons of games! They published Kentucky Route Zero! They published Stray! And Donut County, Outer Wilds and Wattam! And a lot of other games too!

Annapurna Interactive publishes adorable and somewhat upsetting animal imperiling adventure game Stray.

The surface reason is dismay over abandoned plans by owner Megan Ellison to spin their company off from owners Annapurna Pictures. If there’s some deeper reason, I wouldn’t have any way to speculate. Annapurna Interactive was highly successful, president Nathan Gary was promoted from it to head their movie-making parent, and screenplays based on their games are in production, including an animated movie based on Stray.

I’m sure there’s some deep story there behind literally everyone leaving the company. I’d presume the Pictures parent not wanting to lose access to such a useful source of projects, but the employees feeling betrayed by that? I can only speculate, in a way that gets more irresponsible the further I go, so I’m going to stop. Annapurna Interactive had a good, consistent track record of hits, and didn’t seem to alienate the studios publishing through them. That counts for a lot, from a publisher.

Keita Takahashi’s current project To A T

The walkout leaves a number of games currently in production in a state of ๐™ฟ๐š„๐™ฑ๐™ป๐™ธ๐š‚๐™ท๐™ธ๐™ฝ๐™ถ ๐™ป๐™ธ๐™ผ๐™ฑ๐™พ, including always-delightful Keita Takahashi’s upcoming To A T. Let’s hope everything works out for all involved.

Andrew Greenberg, RIP

I just got back from DragonCon, and I’m pretty amazed that I didn’t get the connection that the Andrew Greenberg there, who created the classic TTRPG Vampire: The Masquerade, shared a name with Andrew Greenberg, co-creator of Wizardry. And how much of a coincidence it is that the later Greenberg passed away during DragonCon this year, while the former one was there and presenting panels.

Of course this post is about the Wizardry Greenberg. His passing was reported by the other major Wizardry creator, Robert Woodhead, on his Facebook page. It is nice that Digital Eclipse’s wonderful remake of Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord made it out while he was still alive. The name of the evil wizard in that game, Werdna, is Andrew spelled backwards. (Spelling names backwards was a popular way to name fantasy characters in early CRPGs. Trebor, the Mad Overlord himself, is Robert, as in Robert Woodhead, reversed, and Yendor from Rogue is Rodney backwards.)

Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead. Image from Woodhead’s Facebook page

Youtube channel Tea Leaves has an obit video (6 minutes) that fills in some of the context:

Tombstones: Romhacking.net Calls It Quits, Game Informer Shuts Down

First:

It’s a grievous blow to the game editing community, but Nightcrawler, the maintainer of the 19-year-old hack repository and community site romhacking.net, is shutting its doors. The reasons why are the top news item on the site, probably the last new news item that will ever be posted there.

romhacking.net as it looked August 2, 2024, R.I.P.

They mention several reasons, but say a collection of users who had offered to take up the site for disingenuous reasons. The details were not mentioned, but they mentioned by way of comparison what happened to emulator author Near, creator of higan, and that can be easily taken as a bad sign.

However, Gideon Zhi on Bluesky offers a different take, that suggests comparison to Near is greatly inappropriate, and that Nightcrawler was severely burnt out and refused offers to help. I don’t know which is more accurate, but the details are offered suggest there may be something to his version of events. Gideon Zhi isn’t one, I think, to cover something like that up. Ah well, drama.

Maintaining a hugely popular website for 19 years is a huge drain on your time, energy and finances. It’s possible that ultimately Nightcrawler needed, or even just wanted, to retire, and that’s okay.

I’ve made frequent use of romhacking.net over the years, both in researching two romhack ebooks and the Romhack Thursday feature on this site. While what the maintainer of romhacking.net says in their news post, that there isn’t as much of a need of a centralized site for collecting and presenting romhacks as there was back in 2005, I still found their site extremely useful, and I think it served a vital role. I will greatly miss it, but I understand their wishing to move on. They took the step of uploading the whole site contents to the Internet Archive, which is a forward-thinking move that I applaud.

Will they ever return to updating the site? Anything is possible, but I expect not. Will another site arise to take its place? Who knows, there’s definitely demand for it. I wish Nightcrawler well in any event, and thank them for their service.

–

Second:

Kotaku reports that Game Informer, the oldest game magazine still in print in the US (dating back to 1991) is shutting down. It was originally a production of the classic game retailer FuncoLand, who would advertise, in turn, in classic 90s gaming magazines, and the publication changed ownership to GameStop when they bought FuncoLand out in 2000.

Game Informer’s site, as it looked August 2, 2024, R.I.P.

Since then, GameStop has kept the magazine going as a house publication, at times distributing issues for free to customers. It seems the announcement was sudden, with management sending out a tweet about the publication’s closure while staff was being notified of the ending of their positions.

There are older game magazines in Japan, of course, and US game magazines lately have had things pretty tough with competition from the internet. It’s surprising that they’ve managed to keep going for this long.

MobyGames Offering “Pro” Membership

It’s a bit upsetting to see that MobyGames is going a bit more for-profit, and now offers a trail Pro membership account. Usually this kind of move means fewer features and a degraded experience for those not sending in their dimes. The trial rate is $5 a month, which seems both high ($60 a year?) and low (how much revenue will this bring in given the small number of people with a paying need for MobyGames information?).

MobyGames has long been a useful resource for game research and images, but was recently bought by Atari, which is not the same as the old Atari, although as time passes that distinction becomes slowly less relevant? The company calling itself Activision has slightly more continuity with the Activision that was founded by ex-Atari developers to sell VCS/2600 games, but very little of it remains I’m sure, and they passed through a phase where they had renamed themselves Mediagenic, which worked out badly. The CEO that pulled Activision out of their nosedive, as it turns out, is Bobby Kotlick. There’s a name that’s been in the news lately and on which I will not comment at this time!

So, it seems inescapable that Atari is behind this move by MobyGames, to try to get the site to pay for itself. I honestly don’t think there’s much of a market for these features unless they make the site downright painful to use for free users, and how many people are willing to pay for full MobyGames access? When people (myself included!) contributed to MobyGames all those years, did they know they were merely building up Value for later Purchase? Will this turn into yet another Gracenote situation? Does anyone now remember what Gracenote did?

Well, this is speculation on my part. Nothing necessarily means MobyGames will soon be ruined. But it is a pattern that’s happened many times before, so let us keep our eyes open. At the very least, it seems like a ripe opportunity for someone to create a new game cataloging site. Me? No no, it can’t be me, I’m sorry, my brain is too full of things, and I have this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side….

Second Wind and Fully Ramblomatic

So the dust has settled a bit, and now Nick Calendra, Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw and a number of other people from The Escapist’s video production department have left that company and started Second Wind, fully creator-owned. And Yahtzee has made his first episode of the replacement for the 16-year-old Zero Punctuation, using the name of his blog, Fully Ramblomatic. The episode covers Alan Wake II, and it’s exactly what you’d expect it to be: profane, insightful and full of obscure references, like using the head of H.P. Lovecraft as part of the “lake of mysterious occult wank” that Alan Wake has lept into.

It’s all still Ben Yahtzee, which isn’t entirely to my tastes, but other than a couple of missteps through the years he’s generally been a good egg, or so I’ve been given to understand. I’m on board with things that increases the viability of creator-controlled media at least, so I wish them well.

Escapist Collapse and Aftermath

“Hey, remember me?”

Just saw on Metafilter that The Escapist has fired Nick Calandra, who helped revive the site after they threw their lot in on the side of Gamergate during that whole fiasco. In summary, it took a huge amount of effort and good will on their part to recover, and that they did was largely because of Calandra, and long-time Escapist video maker Ben Croshaw, a.k.a. Yahtzee, the maker of the 16-year-running Zero Punctuation. Croshaw has left the site too, which is difficult for him because The Escapist owns the rights to ZP. I think he’ll probably bounce back from it, ZP is nothing without Crowshaw, seeing as how it’s inextricably tied up with his voice, editing, art style and sense of humor, all of that is a lot more recognizable than the name “Zero Punctuation,” and it’s all him, but it does mean having to start from scratch without a link from the old site, just hoping that his fanbase can locate him again.

(On Metafilter, people are mentioning that Croshaw was one of the voices both-sides-ing Gamergate, which is something I had not been aware of when I linked to him here in the past. I do think people are allowed to change, although I haven’t seen him say anything about it since. Mind you, his general style isn’t hugely appealing to me, so I probably still won’t be linking to him that much in the future.)

The word is that Calandra is taking Croshaw and possibly other people and may end up “doing a Defector,” start an independent site with the evicted/departing talent. Getting creators out from under the thumb of having to give up control in order to chase startup money is good, generally, and I wish them well on that.

“Aftermath” in the title doesn’t refer to the aftermath of the collapse of The Escapist, but to a separate thing that some people from Kotaku have started, for similar reasons to the Defector. In fact even moreso, since Kotaku is owned by the people who own Deadspin. Luke Plunkett, who I’ve linked to before, is among them.

Lately we’ve put Kent Drebnar’s news recap feature here on hold, on the grounds that it’s a lot of work for relatively little reader interest, but maybe we should revive it, with an emphasis on these new gaming outlets? It is a thought. Among the Aquatic Life Sizes of gaming journalism Set Side B weighs in at a mere Guppy, but supposedly any link helps increase Google ranking.

However, I am still concerned. There’s almost always something to be concerned about in this internet age, after all. My biggest worry about a proliferation of gaming sites is that many of them are going to go with hard paywalls. This is understandable, people gotta eat after all, but there are only so many dollars out there for these places to chase, and proportionately very few of them are in my pocket. I know that I feel strong qualms about linking to articles that most of my readers won’t be able to read.

Update: the name of the new venture is Second Wind. They already have a Patreon, a Youtube channel and a Twitch channel. They say they’ll be hosting a livestream today at Noon US Eastern with information on their plans. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that they will be successful! Here’s a link to the stream, for when it goes live.

Nintendo to Shut Down 3DS and WiiU Online Play in April

It’s been making the rounds, but I feel it’s worth echoing. When the DS and Wii online servers shut down, it was forced because Nintendo’s partner who maintained the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Servers decided they didn’t want to do that any more. This is Nintendo’s own decision here.

Screenshot from Nintendo Observer

The big game affected here is the first Splatoon, which still has, for now, free online play with the purchase of the game. Also affected will be Mario Kart 7 and Animal Crossing New Leaf for 3DS.

There will be some who will shrug over this, saying Nintendo shouldn’t be expected to run these services indefinitely. Sometimes they will shrug quite loudly. I am not one of them. I think online servers should be kept going for much longer than most companies run them. I think this should be considered part of the contract they entered into when they sold the game. It is true that 3DS and WiiU games had free online server access, that Nintendo’s multiplayer subscription service began with the Switch. But I still think the way I do, and I also think it’s foolish to think that, just because it’s a paid service, that Switch servers will be kept running for any longer than the 3DS and WiiU servers were.

My concern is an issue of software preservation. These kinds of games and services are in danger of being outright lost in their current form, like many MMORPGs, and iOS and Android games for previous versions of those OSes. I feel very strongly that this software should be remembered and made available for future generations. It’s true that there are efforts to reverse engineer these kinds of services, but there is no guarantee that they will be completely accurate, or even successful at all, especially if they rely on secret algorithms and information housed on the official servers.

Ah well. Get in those free splatmatches while you can. Their days are numbered.

News 2/16/23: Switch Online, Google Share Prices, MS v Sony, Toaplan

“We scour the Earth web for indie, retro, and niche gaming news so you don’t have to, drebnar!” – your faithful reporter

Welcome shlorbs and foobs to our mostly-weekly text-based internet news program! I hope you enjoyed our techno/bicycle horn fusion theme song! It’s the number one chart-topper on my homeworld, but admittedly my species doesn’t have ears. Images includes in this post are ultimately from Mobygames.

Emily Olson at NPR (swanky!): Google’s shares dropped by $100… (holds paper in front of eyes, reads twice to make sure I see it right)… billion after a disastrous AI demonstration. As a wise cartoon butler once said, “You people have too much money!” I guess we see where everyone’s looking for the next unsupportable tech bubble now that crypto’s in what I understand humans call “the crapper!” I never understood that saying personally. It isn’t the thing that craps!

Liam Doolan at Nintendo Life tells us that the game lineup on the Japanese version of the new Game Boy game collection on Nintendo Switch Online is different than the Western lineup. Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare replaces video mahjongg player Yakuman. Interestingly the article tells us that Japan-only classic For The Frog The Bell Tolls is coming eventually, although it doesn’t say if it’ll see U.S. release, let alone if it’ll come out on my planet, drebnar!

I’ll admit, Kirby’s Dream Land is pretty nice.
Just look at the smile on that bomb-throwing Poppy Bros. Sr. That’s not the look of a sane person.

Also, Andrew Webster of The Verge says that the addition of the Game Boy games make Nintendo Switch Online the ultimate retro subscription. I mean it’s pretty good, but how was it that Gameboy titles were what pushed it over the line?

Matt Bassil of Wargamer brings us the surprising news that Bank of America thinks that Hasbro is harming its business by over-monetizing Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. When a bank thinks you’re too money-grubbing you might want to sit down with some hot tea and reflect on your life.

Kotaku. Luke Plunkett. Sony claims before court that Microsoft’s request for documentation goes so far that it’s “obvious” harassment. I mean I am at a point in my blobular life that I don’t see anyone representing a corporation as saying a single syllable that isn’t mathematically calculated to four decimal places to improve their balance sheet, so who the hell knows if it’s true. Maybe it is? I am staying neutral in this fight. Acids and bases hurt my cell wall.

Metroid Prime

Oli Welsh of Polygon really likes the HD remake of Metroid Prime that Nintendo put on sale a few days ago, noting that it includes the pointing interface improvements introduced with the Wii rerelease.

Will Shanklin of Engadget tells us that a “Minecraft mad scientist” has recreated The Legend of Zelda in Minecraft, and in true mad scientist fashion is holding the work hostage, refusing to release it unless a video demonstrating it hits 5,000 Youtube likes. The article said it was at 500 likes; at our own press time it was up to 4.5K, so by the time you read this it should have enough. I will pass it along to Editorial as possible blog fodder (“blodder”) for Set Side B!

Ron Amadeo brings us the news that with the switch to monthly updates of Android 14, Google will begin just blocking apps on it made for versions of Android before 6. The reason given is security, but bah to that, old software and its preservation simply isn’t a priority for megacompanies like Google. Does anyone remember the days when it seemed like they might be a different kind of tech company? Me neither.

Nicole Clark at Polygon says Okami is the best Zelda-like. Sal Romano at Gematsu reveals that M2 is planning a collection of Toaplan shooters, including the infamous Zero Wing, the game whose U.S. translation brought us the “All Your Base” meme a 100 billion years ago. And Justin Carter at Game Developer reveals that Double Fine has made a documentary about the making of Psychonauts 2. Drebs out!

Nintendo Direct 2/8/23

Thursdays here at the moment are the domain of Edit the Frog, so we put off our overview of the Nintendo Direct until today.

While most sites have already regurgitated the news into your waiting beaks, this time we’re recounting the release dates chronologically, so you’ll know what order to expect everything. Specific games of possible interest to a hazy mirage that I imagine to be our readers are in bold:

FEBRUARY
8th: Nintendo Switch Online Gameboy & GBA Support, Fire Emblem Engage Expansion Pass, Metroid Prime Remastered
15th: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Expansion Pass DLC volume 3
22nd: Metroid Prime Remastered on cartridge
24th: Octopath Traveler II, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe

MARCH
6th: Dead Cells Return to Castlevania DLC
17th: Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon
20th: Spring begins. Releases for Spring: Splatoon 3 Expansion Pass, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC Wave 4,

APRIL
11th: Tron: Identity
21st: Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp
27th: Omega Strike

MAY
12th: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

JUNE
Some time in June: Harmony: Fall of Reverie
1st: Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection
2nd: We Love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie (what is it with the word “reverie” this month?)
21st: Summer begins. Releases for Summer: New Samba de Amigo, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster

JULY
21st: Pikmin 4
28th: Disney Illusion Island

AUGUST
29th: Sea of Stars

Some time in 2023: Fashion Dreamer, Decapolice, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam




News 2/2/2022: Konami, Link to the Past, Listicles

“We scour the Earth web for indie, retro, and niche gaming news so you don’t have to, drebnar!” – your faithful reporter

My cell walls are feeling kind of rigid at the moment due to a computer issue that caused me to lose the first draft of this post. All of my witty remarks, lost to the electronic void. You missed out on my entertaining usage of the phrase “odoriferous blorpy.” Truly we are in the worst timeline. It’s all left me feeling kind of cranky, let’s get through it quickly this week.

Ted Litchfield at PC Gamer on a RuneScape player playing a minigame for eight years and turn turning in all his progress at once. RuneScape is an early MMORPG that began in 2001.

Several things to do with Konami, a once-great publisher that’s become pretty hidebound lately:

Dustin Bailey at GamesRadar: fans are working on a PC remake of Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest. I’m sure this won’t get obliterated by legal threats. They should have gone with the cheeky route taken by The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest. The article mentions that its creators consider the fact that many townsfolk lie to you to be a problem, instead of awesome as it really is.

Charles Harte at Gamespot organ Game Informer says Dead Cells’ upcoming Castlevania-themed DLC is really big.

Also from Charles Harte, Konami is shutting down their recently-released game CRIMESIGHT, not just removing it from the Steam store but even making it unplayable. Great way to reward people giving you money, K. It’s not even a year old yet!:

Tyler Wilde, also from PC Gamer, on a $2,000 game on Steam and what it’s about. Summarized: it costs $2,000 but is short enough that people can finish it within the return period, and it amounts to a screed against women. Blech!

Dean Howell at Neowin: a fan-made decompilation of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past can now be compiled for Windows and (presumably if your device is jailbroken) Switch.

Christ Moyse at Destructoid tells us that Taito’s classic The New Zealand Story is coming to the Arcade Archives series. Gandalf could not be reached at press time for comment.

Two listicles:

Zoey Handley at Destructoid on the 10 best NES soundtracks. The list is Bucky O’Hare, Kirby’s Adventure, Castlevania 3 (Japanese version), Contra, Dr. Mario, Super Mario Bros. 2, Mega Man 2, Castlevania II, Journey to Silius, and… Silver Surfer?

Gavin Lane and the NintendoLife staff on the 50 best SNES games. The list is compiled algorithmically from reader scores, and can change even after publication. At this time, the top ten are, starting from $10: Donkey Kong Country 2, Earthbound, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV, Super Mario RPG, Yoshi’s Island, Final Fantasy III, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Mario World on top.

Tom Phillips at EuroGamer mentions that the original developers of Goldeneye 007, recently rereleased after 25 years on Switch and Xbox platforms, were a bit miffed that they weren’t asked to participate in the festivities. At the time most of its developers were completely new to the game industry, and they’ve been generally snubbed by its publishers in talking about the new versions. Does feel pretty shabby, Nintendo and Microsoft!

Andrew Liezewski at Gizmodo talks about the graphics in an upcoming Mario 64 hack made by Kaze Emanuar. I’ve followed Kaze’s hacking videos quite a bit (I think one’s been posted on Set Side B before), and the optimizations they’ve made to Mario 64’s engine are amazing, not only eliminating lag but great increasing its frame rate and making it look better to boot.

And, at Kotaku, Isaiah Colbert reports on various things being done to celebrate Final Fantasy VII’s 26th birthday, including official recognition in Japan of “Final Fantasy VII day” and a crossover with Power Wash Simulator. Maybe they can do something about cleaning out all the grunge from Midgar, that city could use a bath.