like lightning from heaven
call of duty bullshit, sonicfox, lil nas x, jeff gerstmann, giant bomb
folks, ian’s video game cavalcade is a major part of my life now. i’m actively looking for stories again. i’m researching things. i’m taking notes. i’m reaching out to people for quotes and interviews. oh god, help me, i can’t turn it off. it’s in… my skin… i… i…
Ｉ ＡＭ ＢＥＣＯＭＥ ＮＥＷＳ．
In Call of Duty, ‘De-Escalation’ Means Threatening Civilians with Assault Rifles
i’m gonna try to keep this short because everything about the franchise exhausts me but, yes, call of duty did some stupid shit again.
a portion of the campaign in call of duty: modern warfare 2 (no, not that modern warfare 2, a new one, because why the fuck not, christ i’m already so tired) involves playing as a mexican special forces operative who crosses the united states border in pursuit of an iranian major with connections to both cartel and terrorist groups. pretty standard fare, i’d say.
the problems arise when you pass through a trailer park and come into contact with civilians. the residents are surprised by your presence, to say the least, and it’s up to you to make sure, for your protection and theirs, that they stay out of the line of fire. but call of duty: modern warfare 2 only gives you one way to do that: point your weapon at them.
the game refers to this as “de-escalating” the situation, a chilling parallel with america’s ongoing issues with police violence. sure, you’re not technically playing as a cop during the call of duty mission in question, but the limited (not to mention counter-productive) tactics made available to you by the developers should be all too recognizable for those who have interacted with united states law enforcement, especially during the last few years of almost constant protest against their brutality.
i’m not willing to give call of duty: modern warfare 2 studio infinity ward or publisher activision the benefit of the doubt here. this fucking sucks, and with the context of previous series gaffes like hiring iran-contra affair participant oliver north, whitewashing america’s responsibility for a very real war crime, and legitimizing far-right conspiracy theories in its marketing, seriously calls their motivations into question. this is a clear example of why you shouldn’t hire a cop to write your video game.
oh, you didn’t know about that? yeah, call of duty narrative director and modern warfare 2 head writer brian bloom “attended the sheriff’s academy and served as a reserve deputy with the orange county sheriff’s department from 1998 to 2006” according to his linkedin page. fun!
SonicFox Crashes Lil Nas X Concert in Fursuit
pop star lil nas x capped off the north american leg of his international long live montero tour with a stop in san francisco last sunday night. and wouldn’t you know it, pro fighting game player dominique “sonicfox” mclean was in attendance, fully decked out in their iconic blue fursuit (sonicfox is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns).
lil nas x was so starstruck—at his own concert, of all places—that he called out to sonicfox by name mid-set…
…and eventually invited them on stage in front of the sold-out bill graham civic auditorium crowd.
“nas is rounding the furries up, this is lit,” sonicfox tweeted before becoming part of the concert, saying afterwards that, “lil nas x is that dude and every cent traveling to here was worth it.” the six-time evo champ even got a hug and a special bag of long live montero-branded m&m’s out of the whole experience.
the two celebrities have maintained an acquaintance online for quite some time, no doubt bonding over being “pretty much everything a republican hates” (i.e. unapologetically queer). to the best of my knowledge, however, this is their first-ever in-person meeting, and i’m here for it.
later that evening, lil nas x commented on one of sonicfox’s excited tweets by asking them to come back on stage, to which they enthusiastically responded, “YOU LET ME KNOW WHENEVER YOU WANT ME BACK LMAOOO.”
maybe it’s time for sonicfox to become a permanent fixture in lil nas x’s stage show?
Jeff Gerstmann Says He Was Fired from Giant Bomb
former giant bomb editor-in-chief jeff gerstmann recently shared more details about his surprising departure from the website he founded, explaining that he was actually fired by giant bomb’s previous owners rather than leaving on his own terms as he had planned.
the off-the-cuff discussion came near the end of this week’s episode of the jeff gerstmann show after the titular personality was asked by a viewer if he’s faced any challenges maintaining continuity in the industry after moving from giant bomb to independent streaming. gerstmann said things have been pretty chill, likely owing to his decades of work in video games, before providing more details on the timeline of events leading up to his leaving and his mindset as he was heading out the door.
here’s what he had to say:
the thing that happened, in broad strokes, is that i got fired three weeks before i was going to quit. that's why a lot of this has been very murky for the last several months. at one point, i had an offer to go somewhere else, and then i was like, “i don't think that's gonna be the right move.” i was trying to find a reason to stay at my current position. at some point they just said, “yeah, how about instead you wrap it the fuck up.”
i was planning to get to the other side of the e3 stuff and be like, “okay cool, i'm gonna wrap it up. i'm gonna go do my own thing and not do this anymore because i don't want to do this here.” i don’t know what happened ahead of that, i don't know how this happenend in the order that it did. i was planning to go to summer games fest as a part of my old job. i was getting ready to start making appointments.
it was a very weird thing. there are aspects of that i will be angry about for a very long time. it was a bad fuckin’ fit. at the end of the day: just a bad fuckin’ fit. i gave it time to try to make it work and it didn’t. but like i said, this was all a few weeks before i was planning to just go anyway. it was a fucking crazy bit of timing. i still don't really know what happened.
gerstmann founded giant bomb in 2008 following a similarly high-profile termination from gamespot over a negative review of kane & lynch: dead men. many believed (and it was proven later) his sacking came as the result of pressure from kane & lynch publisher eidos interactive, who was pouring tons of advertising money into gamespot at the time. gerstmann was joined in the new venture by fellow gamespot editor ryan davis and, eventually, other colleagues like vinny caravella, brad shoemaker, and alex navarro, all of whom left gamestop in response to gerstmann’s firing.
since then, ownership of giant bomb has changed several times. it was most recently sold by venture capital-backed media conglomerate red ventures to fandom, the company responsible for hosting most of the community-curated, wiki-style fan sites scattered around the internet. giant bomb was still held by red ventures at the time of gerstmann’s departure, which means its leadership was responsible for his firing.
“the writing had been on the wall for some time that the things that i wanted to do with a video game publication were not going to happen there,” gerstmann added, ending the giant giant bomb bombs segment of his podcast.
giant bomb kicked off a major revamp in the weeks following gerstmann’s removal as editor-in-chief and still maintains a sizable staff under fandom, at least for the time being.
Good Stuff You Should Check Out Elsewhere
Hotline Miami’s ultra-violence has influenced games for a decade (Diego Nicolás Argüello, The Verge)
The Ring: Terror’s Realm retrospective (Cassidy, Bad Game Hall of Fame)
Video games face a tough choice: Realistic graphics or sustainability (Lewis Gordon, The Washington Post)
What’s it like being a Twitch streamer? (Rachelle D'nae and Gita Jackson, Slate)
Gundam: The Witch from Mercury channeled its anti-capitalist subtext into a single, incredible punch (James Whitbrook, Gizmodo)
Moment of Zen
hello? anyone still there? thank goodness! i’ve finally regained some control, but i can’t tell when that thing will be back. i feel like i’ll be fine until maybe… next friday or so? anyway, click some of the buttons below. maybe that’ll help. thanks!