Hello, everyone! Happy Tuesday! This website has a royalty free photo of a Taco Tuesday gift basket that felt like a thing to use.
How are you? It’s been an odd week for me, but hopefully the worst of it’s over. That sounds mysterious or that I’m hinting at something, but really it’s just family stuff and getting older. I’d say nothing to write home about, but it’s literally happening to someone who lives in the “home” I’d write to, so they’re already aware. I think you get it. I’m still typing anyway. Who needs AI when your brain can blank out and just type sentences that barely make sense? Like this one. Or this one. Or this one.
So America’s World Cup team lost to Belgium after the president put his finger on the scales to bring our number one player back from suspension. I would’ve loved our team to do well, but I’m kinda glad they lost after the U.S. government tried to cheat in their favor. It sucks that a surprisingly decent run is now marred by “you cheated and you couldn’t even win.” But I kinda think it would’ve sucked way, way, way more to win and have a giant asterisk next to their names for all eternity. Better to be an embarrassing footnote in history than an eternal scandal hated by everybody. At least, that’s what my grandma’s tombstone says.
It is kinda funny that the Belgian team make fun of Trump’s little double-jerk-off dance.
So Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married at Madison Square Garden, a facility that’s best known for nosebleed seats that make you feel like you’re going to fall to your death and indoor street food that costs three Michelin star prices. I respect that it has built in security and space for 1,000 guests, most of which are rich and famous people, but what an odd place to get married. I’m not upset about it as some people are, because I never expected a billionaire international superstar to book a mid-sized house that’s been converted into a wedding space. And while having 1,000 rich people on an island is a fun way to start a new Hunger Games, I’m not sure we’d have really thought that it was a more normal people option. Anyway, congratulations to all who were involved and everyone who lied about going since there are NDAs so who’s gonna know?
Side note, we should all get married in Madison Square Garden like the Moonies. Imagine how intimidating that is for every person you invite. Then again, I don’t have many close friends, so I’m not sure a space that sits tens of thousands is going to be great when I’ve got, like, three people I played Magic: The Gathering with in 2013. Weddings really teach you who’s got friends and who doesn’t and hooooo boy, do I not have a lot of friends who’d be willing to come to a wedding. Anyway, we should all do a big mass wedding at Madison Square Garden so everyone thinks we’ve got a cult going.
Sony announced that PlayStation games won’t come on physical discs starting in 2028, which is sad and makes archiving games harder and makes ironically buying really bad video games for an Edinburgh Fringe show more difficult. It’s clearly a business decision, I get that. Most sales are digital. People like getting a game instantly rather than waiting for it in the mail, and as game sizes balloon and often require day-one patches, it gets harder and harder to justify putting it on a disc. For them. For me, owning the physical copy of the game makes it feel more real. Hell, some of my most prized possessions are physical copies of games I’ve worked on. Having that go away for developers and workers and creatives is a real bummer. But making games less accessible for fans - that is, harder to trade, impossible to sell, even more impossible to suddenly find ten years from now at a retro game show.
Xbox fired thousands of people, including friends of mine. This just happened and I don’t want to pour salt in any wounds, but it’s kind of wild that the biggest corporations on Earth keep buying up other entertainment companies, put an immense amount of debt and pressure on them, don’t get the return they want since those companies never made that return to begin with, and then strip it for parts so they can sell all the copper wiring. This has happened in games, movies, TV, book publishing, you name it. I’m not sure if it’s happened in music because I know a lot less about that industry but I’m gonna make a wild guess that “yes” is the answer. But, hey! At least we get a choice between a console where you don’t own the games and a console where the people who make the games don’t get health insurance anymore.
I should note that business decisions are not the fault of the individual developers, so it sucks that people at first party studios are getting shit on for this. I’m guessing approximately zero of the actual people making the games are thrilled for mass layoffs or losing physical versions of their products.
That’s all I got for now! I’ve got to get back to work.
I hope your weeks are good. Maybe I’ll try to post more. I say that all the time. I don’t. But I’m thinking about it!
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