SotW (8/13-8/19) Madden being shit, BFV pre-orders low, and Spyro news

So I held off to post this til the morning to add any last points to one of the subjects at hand, so here we are. This week was a bit of a slow one again, but there is enough meat in the few subjects at hand I felt I could muster up a new SotW, so let's dig in. The first story, will be the best story here, and that's that Sypro got delayed. For those who are already asking "how is that good?" should already know what to expect then from these next couple of stories. But really, it's a good thing, because according to YongYea, a fairly popular YouTuber who I have a great amount of respect for, posted a video earlier in the week talking about how a dev from Toys For Bob reached out to him, and told him that they talked to Activision, and finally got them to push back the release date of the game. The game, as I reported a couple of weeks ago, was only going to have the first game on the physical copy of the discs, something many were kinda of pissed about. Rightly so. So it's unclear how much of our backlash had to do with it, and how long TFB had been pushing it themselves, but Activision finally decided to push back for a 11/13/18 release date, giving the devs 2 more months to finish up work, and to put the other two games on the disc as well. The dev at hand, relayed to Yong that the first two games were mainly done, and that crunching on the third game hand begun. Hopefully now, with the extra month and a half or so of time to work on the project, we will only get an even better product. If you want the full scoop, I'll leave a link below.

https://youtu.be/6SeUUfKkzZI

Next up, so Madden release August 10th, but it's safe to say, it's been a complete and utter disaster. Go look at any of the consumer generated reviews, and you'll quickly notice that something is amiss compared to the critic's own. While critics are out there giving 8's and 9's, users are just shitting all over it, claiming things like broken mechanics, screen tearing, and of course, the last couple of years worth of bugs. Last year, I SCREAMED from the heavens that I wouldn't buy a brand new Madden for several years, if ever again, because of the bullshit. MUT has completely consumed this, and has completely consumed all of the sports titles, even the ones that use to be really good like FIFA. UT now gives EA a whopping 800 million dollars a year according to one article written on Gameindustry.Biz that I'll post below. Where UT gets so many new things like tournaments, or celebrity rosters, Franchise mode, the mode as a kid I LOVED, gets dick, and it's full of bugs. Why? It's because it doesn't make the MONEY. Period. So there are two lessons to take away from this, first, until EA EVER, if ever, gets it's head out of it's ass, don't buy their titles right away, wait for people who are independent like AJS, Jim Sterling, YongYea, myself, and so many more, to review and give the good, the bad, and the ugly. Don't listen to the mainstream critics, because either they are woefully unaware of how shit some of this has become, or they are willfully, either way, there is NO way that Madden 19 is worth even an 8. The second lesson is, if any mainstream critics are reading this, we need YOU to tell people what really is going on. Like features being stripped, or bugs NOT going away. I only reach so many, YongYea only reaches so many, Angry freaking Joe only reaches so many, yet you reach so many more, and it's on you to let people KNOW. They see an 8 or a 9, and they think everything is okay, I should know, because I was one of those people just a few years ago. Now I know better, it's one of the main reasons I made this blog/site to TRY and bring it up more, but my audience is small and I know it. We need better mainstream journalism to get the word out that this shit is shit, and it's bleeding into other shit, like Battlefront. They even wanted to try and bleed it into Battlefield til we, as the consumer, put our foot down.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-03-01-eas-ultimate-team-now-worth-USD800-million-annually

Finally, staying on the EA train while we can, is Battlefield V. So this week, it was announced that BFV pre orders were down, and that apparently made so many people really happy. There were several YouTubers that took to the web to talk about Patrick Soderlund, and how he was leaving EA. They mentioned that Patrick must of gotten fired for this dumb comments on BFV, and the backlash the community gave when there was ONE woman in the bombastic first trailer we got. These YouTubers went on to be happy that the game is failing in grabbing pre orders, stating that it meant that gamers were voting with their wallets. Now PS making the comments he made, saying that if gamers were mad about women in BFV that they were "uneducated" and "Just didn't have to buy the game" or something to that effect, were misplaced in my eyes. Yeah, he was dumb for saying that, as when you are promoting the game, you don't usually try to dunk on a small group, as it looks like you don't care. There are people out there mad about ONE woman being in a fictional story about WW2, and all he did was give them ammunition, and make them the victim in all of this. After seeing most of these videos, and shaking my head at it all, Angry Joe actually made a video relaying several other points that I not only agree with, but was going to talk about myself, but I'll just link not only his original video, but his rebuttal of one of the YouTubers I'm talking about below. But there is something that they other YouTubers missed, that AJ hit on, EA didn't fire Patrick, in fact, they gave him a 20 million dollar bonus to stay on. You don't usually do that in June, than ask someone to leave in August, two months before you release said big game. It's unclear as to why Patrick really is leaving, maybe the harassment, maybe just burnt out, Hell, could be he's just ready to retire as he made 40 million dollars last year alone. The reality is, we have no clue. What's apparent though, it wasn't because of the "Women in BF" however, the internet is quickly riling up behind that cause, and it is because of these YouTubers. Even though most of them claim to not care, their audiences do, and it's evident in their individual comments sections below their videos. But let me put one last thing out there about said subject. A lot of people are saying that BFV is an SJW haven, and that politics don't belong in Video Games. Let be clear in the fact that if you really believe that, you are an idiot. Politics inhabits everything we enjoy, from games, to shows, to movies, because politics affect everyone's lives. From the people that make the game, to the people that enjoy it, politics are always going to be prevalent, and it's only going to continue. People complaining about politics in a WW2 game, which last time I checked, was extremely political in nature, are being thick headed. Are their games that don't have much in the "politics" department? Sure. However, those games tend to be much less deep as well. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, but that's just it, it's the exception, not the usual. So games like Doom: Eternal and Red Dead Redemption 2 are poor cases of "Anti-SJW" because being "Anti-SJW" is being political, and they just aren't. Well, at least not in the same way, so it's an Oranges and Apples comparison. So while I understand, and even support people not wanting to pre order a game, waiting til it comes out to pick it up, or to see what their favorite YouTuber or Streamer is saying about it, that's fine. Hell, that's smart, and I say more power to you, really I do. But in my honest opinion, if you were mad about the "uneducated" term slung out at the people making a big deal about ONE woman in BFV, than no matter what you try to say, you are mad about women being in a BF game. I might not have agreed with the comment, but in no way did I feel any kind of sting from it, because it wasn't lauded at me, or really most of the community, only the fringe bunch that you can clearly find in most of these YouTubers comments.

Angry Joe's first video -

https://youtu.be/f4IxlTXAz4I

Angry Joe's rebuttal -

https://youtu.be/O0yDB4xMe8I

So with that, I'll wrap this week up, this next week we have Gamescon, so maybe we will have more to talk about? Til than, I'll talk to you guys soon, have fun, and stay safe.