The gaming world is no stranger to its fair share of absolute, unadulterated nonsense and as a service to the connoisseurs of everything weird and wonderful among you, we’ve compiled a condensed list of the best bunk and piffle from the past week.
Twitter Bans Elite Dangerous Player Because of Poem About Killing Aliens
Twitter is the go to place for millions of serial ranters, trolls, and axe grinders the world over. To deal with a deluge of abuse on a daily basis, the social media giant has understandably had to employ AI to help weed out contents that violates the T&Cs. The AI is somewhat cut and dry in how it vets tweets as illustrated with this frankly absurd banning. Tim Wellens, a devoted Elite Dangerous player was banned from the platform for a humorous poem about killing in-game aliens known as thargoids. Twitter AI picked up the killing part as a death threat and promptly brought down the gavel.
Trihex Says A Naughty Word
Other than being a mid-level streamer, Trihex is the face behind the infamous Trihard emote on Twitch. You’ll invariably have come across his visage if you’ve frequented the colorful world of Twitch chat. This weekend his channel was swiftly banned by the powers that be over at Twitch HQ for uttering a homophobic slur. He apologized, but it all feels a little hypocritical coming from a guy who has voiced his much warranted dismay at being the target of racial abuse. Surely, a victim of such odious comportment should know better than to take part in it.
Empires Apart Goes Free-To-Play, But Not Really
Flailing nostalgia-infused RTS a la Age of Empires 2, Empires Apart, has self-orchestrated another devastating blow to its relentless spiral into obsolescence by going free-to-play. There’s a caveat. There’s always a caveat. Players only get access to one civilization out of the six available, the Byzantines. Should they wish to play with say the Chinese, French, or Mongols, they’ll have to fork out cash in the usual micro-transactional fashion. No in-game currency or progression allow access to the extra civs. Money or nothing. Empires Apart is a great game, with some truly polished mechanics taking what was great about the 1990s RTS boom and improving on it, but with this latest move, developer DestinyBit has really shot itself in the foot.
Footage of Amazon’s MMO Leaks On PornHub
From Kanye West to seriously NSFW Bowsette fetishes by way of Fallout 4 leaks, PornHub is, well, a hub for the weird and wonderful beyond its pornographic roots. In keeping with this, over two hours of footage from Amazon’s upcoming MMO dubbed New World was available on the site for a few short hours last week before Amazon wielded its mighty influence and issued a speedy take down. Uploading sensitive leaks to PornHub makes sense if you think about it. Who would look there in the first place? More importantly, what the hell was the person who came across it searching for when they found the leak
Japanese Government Arcade Consumption Tax Hike
Arcades are big business in Japan and the ubiquitous 100 yen remains the go to coinage for a go on the truly wonderful array of digital oddities available across the archipelago. In a move to make more silver for their coffers, the Japanese government has had the brilliant idea of increasing consumption tax on arcade machines, meaning prices will mount to around 108 yen. This completely throws out the established 100 yen cost tradition to a straight up inconvenient 108 yen. Even if arcade establishments round up to 110 yen, the consequences are potentially disastrous as gamers frantically search for 10 yen coins, which are basically worth near to nothing so not the type of tender one is eager to haul around. The only other option is for arcades to take the hit and restrict costs to 100 yen, which is sure to mess up the finances of an already struggling industry.
