Fixes, Flops, and Fakeness
Nintendo starts fixing JoyCons instead of making excuses
The Nintendo Switch has been selling like hotcakes, causing the company to double production to keep up with demand. Zelda has been a phenomenal success already (based on glowing review scores and high attach rates for the Switch), and things are looking good for Nintendo — except the troublesome hardware issues with the JoyCon controllers. People have been complaining that the left one in particular tends to desynchronize with the console, making it impossible to control the game until it connects again.
Faith in Nintendo will be restored by this game
Until now, Nintendo has given us some abysmal excuses for what the issue could be, telling players to avoid… well, just look at the list:
Blaming metal objects, aquariums, and wireless speakers for a faulty controller was rubbing customers the wrong way, needless to say. Laptops, microwaves, cordless phones… I know Japanese people are stereotyped as being neat freaks, but what kind of sterile environment does Nintendo expect kids to play in? That’s why it’s good news that Nintendo is finally offering to fix the defective hardware. The solution is, apparently, to insert a little piece of black foam inside the controller at a particular spot to insulate it from interference. According to Nintendo, the manufacturing process wasn’t perfected, and new JoyCons won’t have this problem. Sending the JoyCon to be repaired apparently doesn’t take long and should correct the issue, meaning that those affected should be able to get back to enjoying Breath of The Wild soon.
Mass Effect: Andromeda is a Nazi colonialist fantasy that Nazis hate because its too gay
As we all know by now, the majority of Americans are actually members of the Nazi party and probably love Hitler. We know this because they mock perfectly great movies like the all-female Ghostbusters reboot (the trailer for which received the most downvotes of any YouTube video ever) and dare to snub super-progressive presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton. Nowadays, whenever something liberal and progressive fails, it’s because of bigotry and the loathesome “Alt-Right” have sabotaged it with their magic ability to stop free people from supporting what they love, not because we’ve all become smart enough to see through the sloppy, agenda-driven crap being fed to us by huge corporations and corrupt institutions.
That’s why Mass Effect: Andromeda is such a funny case. Mass Effect is a beloved franchise, enjoyed by millions of nerdy sci-fi white guys over the past decade, even though it included options to play as women and have homosexual relationships. You’d think this would put it in the “progressive” camp, and prove that gamers don’t really judge games by their conformity to Heinrich Himmler’s ideologies. Mass Effect has always followed the Star Trek style of promoting inter-species harmony, letting the protagonist become friends with and even bang aliens like it was no big deal. Complaints thus far have revolved around disappointing endings, not identity politics. But it’s 2017 now, which means nothing can escape the vortex of the culture war.
According to some progressives, Mass Effect is not progressive enough. It’s problematic because it is “colonial” — promoting the idea that it’s okay to travel to foreign places and propagate your own species to ensure your civilization’s survival. You’re not allowed to joke about the hardships involved in fictional intergalactic colonizing either:
That’s from Dia Lacia over at Mic, who writes a lengthy diatribe against Christopher Columbus, and by extension, the protagonists of the Mass Effect series. We’re supposed to feel bad about the horrors of the Age of Exploration hundreds of years ago, and allow this guilt to affect our purchasing decisions today. Maybe we can reverse history if we don’t play things we like!
This rejection from progressives is doubly unfortunate for Andromeda, because it’s now also the victim of the old GamerGate–oops, I mean “Alt-Right”–conspiracy to “bully” it for not catering to their whims enough. The weapon of choice for these haters? Mocking the animations, which they say aren’t good enough:
If you missed the memo, the former #1 YouTuber in the world, PewDiePie, is officially a Nazi by now too. But if it were just a matter of animation quality, it wouldn’t really be about racism and sexism, would it? No! That’s why secretly, all of this mockery ties into resentment towards one of the lead developers, who has been openly racist against white people! Plus, BioWare made the mistake of hiring inexperienced “SJW” writers as part of the staff, resulting in sophomoric flirting scenes and awkward dialogue. Jim Sterling has done us a service by pointing out that the game is being “meta bombed” by bigots who can’t handle the progressiveness of the game, however. So maybe we should all defend it from being “bullied”! (Yes, you can bully commercial products and hurt their feelings.)
There are a hilarious number of flaws with Andromeda, from the menus to the aggravating amount of fluff questing trying to pad out the gameplay, but instead of seeing the widespread backlash against it as a rejection of the industry’s low standards, the culture warriors are framing this as a battle between backwards bigots and sensitive saints. In this new paradigm, it seems that being lazy and openly provoking the fanbase is almost a bizarre insurance policy against criticism: piss off the right people and you can dismiss every legitimate complaint as a “bullying” attack. Who does this ultimately save face for? I don’t know. You’d think the raw numbers would speak for themselves in the end…
JonTron is removed from Yooka Laylee for being RACIST
This one is pretty cut and dry. YouTube personality and former GameGrump Jon Jafari has been labeled a racist recently because he dared to point out negative statistical facts about different cultures, immigration, etc. The leftwing smear squads have put him on their shit list, and the stigma they’ve drummed up has successfully pressured the Yooka Laylee developer to cut his voice out of their game. The characters in the game speak in gibberish, but they still need people to provide these voices, so they offered it to a bunch of minor celebrities in a bid to drum up interest on social media. Now that JonTron has joined the dark side with haters like PewDiePie, he’s not welcomed in the entertainment world.
You either attack, or you’re attacked. You can almost hear the panic of Playtonic executives, desperate to avoid the tsunami of bad press if they had dared to go against the Cultural Marxist crowd.