There was a lot of drama for the UNLV Rebels football team last week. After a surprising and gutsy upset win over Kansas a couple weeks ago, in which transfer QB Matt Sluka accounted for almost all of the team's production on the game-winning drive, UNLV found itself in the Top-25 coaches' poll for the first time in team history. After decades of 2 or 4-win seasons, it seemed like the sky was finally the limit for the lowly UNLV Rebels. But then, after a bye week before going into conference play, that same QB, Matt Sluka, suddenly announced that he would be redshirting the rest of the season, with the intent of transferring in the offseason. The next day, reports surfaced that transfer running back Michael Allen was also redshirting with the intent to transfer. With just a few days before opening conference play against a fellow championship contender Fresno State, it suddenly looked like UNLV might be imploding.
It's still not entirely clear what happened between Matt Sluka and UNLV. There's a lot of "he said" / "they said", and neither party seems to have anything in writing that proves or corroborates their account of the situation. As best as I can tell from the myriad official statements, articles, and social media posts that I've read, it seems that the best explanation for what happened is that Matt Sluka (and his family and agent) got the impression from primary recruiter (and offensive coordinator) Brennan Marion that UNLV (or its boosters) would be paying Sluka over $100,000 in NIL ("Name, Image, and Likeness") payments. Whether Marion actuall promised that is not publicly known, and only the parties involved actually know what was said.
Matt Sluka is sitting out the rest of the season,
and transferring out of UNLV.
In any case, after a few weeks of winning games, Sluka apparently went to head coach Barry Odom to ask when that money would be paid. Odom apparently said that there would be no money, and Sluka said he wanted off the team.
UNLV and coach Odom insist that Sluka's demands violate the NCAA's rules regarding NIL payments (and state law), and that if Marion had made such a promise, then he did not have the authority to make such a promise.
As for Michael Allen, he insists that his transfer request has nothing to do with money, and that he simply isn't satisfied with his role on the team. Presumably, he expected to be the starting, workhorse running back, and is not happy in his role as a rotational back behind Jai'Den Thomas.
I was very nervous going into that Fresno State game. But at the same time, I was paradoxically relieved and excited. I hadn't been loving Matt Sluka's play, and I felt like UNLV's offense might be better off with a quarterback who can actually complete a pass downfield, which Sluka had struggled to do. Honestly, I was more concerned about Michael Allen leaving, because UNLV's Go-Go offense is contingent on having a deep bench of rotational running backs, and losing a productive running back seems like a more devastating loss than losing a mediocre running quarterback.
But I still couldn't help but wonder: had UNLV's coaches lied to Sluka and Allen in order to get them to transfer? Had they lied to or mislead other players and recruits? Was the entire team on the verge of mutiny? Would any future recruits be willing to sign with UNLV knowing that Odom and his staff might not be entirely honest when recruiting? Was UNLV's turn-around to success over before it had really begun?
Apparently not.
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Tags:Matt Sluka, Barry Odom, Brennan Marion, UNLV, football, college football, name and likeness, money, Hajj-Malik Williams, quarterback, Fresno State
Over the years, I have frequently recommended that people stop buying new games from AAA publishers at retail. Don't buy them at all, or if you do, wait for a sale, or buy it used. This is because the massive, international, conglomerate corporations that publish these games are sleazy, scummy, or outright evil.
They underpay their employees.
They abuse their employees with cultures of crunch.
They hang the Sword of Damacles over their employees heads with the perpetual threat of layoffs.
They report record profits to their shareholders and award billion dollar bonuses to executives on a Tuesday, and then lay off hundreds or thousands of workers on Wednesday because they "can't afford" to keep them.
Some publishers even have active cultures of sexual harassment and abuse of female employees, which their HR departments are happy to cover up or sweep under the rug.
They harass and ostracize transgender employees and hold their healthcare hostage.
They fight against unionization.
They overcharge for their products.
They sell un-regulated gambling to minors.
They sell half-baked or broken products at full price.
They cancel promising upcoming products with little-to-no rhyme or reason.
They want to take away the consumer's right to own the media that we buy.
The list goes on... [More]
860f709e-321c-4ad2-9fc6-ec6ece4e056d|2|4.5
Tags:Microsoft, Tango Gameworks, Arkane, Alpha Dog, Roundhouse Games, Bethesda, Sony, Japan Studios, retail, corporate culture, corporation, Activision, Blizzard, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Konami, Annapurna Interactive, From Software, Electronic Arts, EA Sports, Japan Studio, eBay, Hi-Fi Rush
Big, fat disclaimer, right up front: I have not played Helldivers 2. I haven't played it on PS5. I haven't played it on PC. So I don't really have a horse in this race either way. But since I do have an interest in corporations trying to pull sleazy bullshit, I've been casually trying to keep up with what's been going on with Helldivers 2, and want to weigh in with my own thoughts (for whatever they're worth).
Honestly, I think that both Sony and also the PC Hellidvers 2 players come out of this looking like assholes, and I have very mixed feelings over the whole thing.
On the one hand, Sony requiring a PSN account for online play of a PC game post-launch gives off strong bait-and-switch vibes. It's especially bad considering that the game was sold in regions that do not have access to PSN. So what the heck were those players supposed to do? Sony selling the game in those regions, knowing full well that it won't be playable a few months after launch, absolutely deserves anger and a middle finger. And those players should absolutely be outraged and demand refunds. Those players are the only actors in this particular instance who are completely in the right, and deserve everyone else's un-conditional sympathy and support.
And yes, Sony knew full well that they would be changing the game post-launch to require a PSN account. It was clearly posted for months prior to the game's release. Everybody knew this was happening long before the game launched. It should not have been a surprise to anybody. And yet Steam still sold it in those regions, and all these players bought it anyway. Caveat emptor.
Helldivers 2 on Steam required a PSN account to play.
I feel that PC players should have every right to be annoyed that Sony would require a PSN account in order to play the game. If you don't own a PlayStation, then you shouldn't need a PSN account to play a PC game, especially a PC game that was fully playable without a PSN account for months after launch. This is a matter of principle.
Like, if I were to have a stroke and suddenly start thinking that Elder Scrolls VI might actually be good at launch, and I decide to buy it on the PS5 (or PS6 or PS7 or whatever the hell generation of console it may eventually release on), then I would be annoyed if Microsoft asked me to create a new XBox account in order to play a game on my PlayStation. I wouldn't want to do it, and if I can get away without having to do it, without significantly damaging the gameplay experience, then I won't do it. But if it's required, then I'll bite the bullet and create the bloody XBox account. After all, it's Microsoft's game, and they have every right to require an account as a condition for releasing the game on a PlayStation console to begin with. And it's not like they're asking me to pay for the account, or to install some stupid launcher or DRM that is going to run in the background and spy on me or grind my system's performance to a halt.
So yeah, I sympathize with the PC players of Helldivers 2. But jeez, does this minor inconvenience really warrant the scorched Earth approach that PC players took? They boycotted the game, asked for refunds, and review-bombed it on Steam. If all this protest were being done in solidarity with the aforementioned people who bought the game in places where Sony does not provide PSN access, that would be one thing. But so much of what I see looks like angry PC players who just don't want to have to sign up for a PSN account. This, despite the fact that many other PC games on Steam require 3rd-party accounts in order to play, whether it's a Microsoft account, an EA Origin account, Ubisoft account, 2K account, and so forth. Almost every publisher has their own account that they want gamers to use when playing their games. Granted, very few games require such an account in order to play, but they almost all have them. I'm pretty sure I needed to create an Ubisoft account to play the awful Skull and Bones demo.
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I recently played an indie sci-fi game on the PS5 titled Deliver Us The Moon. It was alright. I rather liked the story, and most of the methods that the game uses to deliver that story. It's very similar to Tacoma in terms of how it tells its story, but with a greater emphasis on player-driven problem-solving and puzzles. It's biggest problem, however, is the surprisingly poor performance and frequent technical problems. Even on the PS5, this borderline walking sim was barely able to keep a steady framerate, and I experienced multiple hard crashes.
That being said, I still recommend it for gamers who happen to be fans of hard science fiction, because our options in that particular sub-genre are fairly limited. We have butt-loads of fantasy sci-fi games about space marines shooting aliens or robots, or about dog-fighting in outer space. You know, you're Mass Effects, Halos, Dead Spaces, StarCrafts, Colony Wars, and so on (remember Colony Wars? Man that would be an excellent candidate for a reboot on modern consoles, especially if it includes full VR support!). These are the games that are "sci-fi" in the same way that Star Wars or Transformers or pretty much any comic book movie are "sci-fi" movies.
But as far as the video game equivalents of harder sci-fi movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Arrival or Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the well is considerably drier, and most of what we do have is relegated to smaller indie titles. Don't get me wrong, we have some great options! Games like Soma and Outer Wilds are some of my favorite games ever.
So when I see a hard sci-fi game like Deliver Us The Moon pop up on a gaming storefront, I try to make an effort to play it. There's plenty of total flops in this sub-genre, but there's also some real gems. And I think that if Deliver Us The Moon could have its performance stabilized, it might qualify as one of those gems. But this video isn't a review of Deliver Us The Moon. I have a full written review on my personal blog at www.MegaBearsFan.net, if you want to read it. Instead, I want take a few minutes to dive into one particular aspect of the story and premise of Deliver Us The Moon that just kind of grinds my gears. It's a problem that I've seen repeated multiple games and movies that try to address this particular socio-political topic, and I worry that it might be doing more harm than good to the public's perception of this issue.
A big issue that I have with Deliver Us The Moon is its near-future depiction of apocalyptic climate change.
This essay was released early to Patrons in video format.
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Tags:climate change, science-denial, carbon dioxide, greenhouse gas, desertification, regulation, Deliver Us The Moon, The Day After Tomorrow, oil, tobacco, acid rain, ozone layer, potholer54, Peter Hadfield, Health In Harmony
Last year, when the PS5 released, I didn't bother trying to pre-order one or buy one after release. I just wasn't very interested in the machine that first year, as there weren't that many games for it. Sure, I was curious to see what the Demon's Souls remake wold be like, considering that is one of my favorite games ever. And I would gladly have played the Miles Morales Spider-Man game. But neither of these (nor the two combined) were enough to sell me on a $500 console. I love Demon's Souls, and was sad when the servers were finally shut down, but not enough to shell out $600 to be able to keep playing it.
I'm sorry Sony, but you really needed more than just a remake of a 10-year old game from 2 console generations ago, and a single sequel to a popular game from a few years ago, to sell me on the new machine. Maybe if Silent Hills hadn't been cancelled, and ended up being a PS5-exclusive launch title, or if Death Stranding or Ghost of Tsushima had been PS5-exclusive launch titles, then I would have been more eager to procure a console.
Everything else that I was interested in was a multi-platform release. I bought Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam (then never played it because the launch condition was so atrocious), and ended up playing Control (for free) via PlayStation Plus. So what the heck did I actually need a PS5 for?
The only 2 games on PS5 worth playing are not worth buying a new console.
I also didn't feel like going through the trouble of trying to claim the limited pre-order supply of PS5s. I thought for sure that in 6 months or so, PS5s would be sitting on the shelves of just about every Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, and Gamestop, just collecting dust. After all, people were losing their jobs and health insurance left and right due to business closures and city lockdowns being imposed due to a global health pandemic. Surely people wouldn't have enough disposable income to justify new $500 consoles, right?
Well, apparently, I completely mis-judged the situation. Losing their jobs and being unable to even look for new jobs (due to the aforementioned business closures and lockdowns) meant that people spent what little disposable money they did have (as well as the eventual government stimulus checks) on home entertainment products like video games. The video game business (along with online shopping, streaming television services, home delivery services, and video conferencing services) was one of the few industries that boomed during the pandemic, and much to my surprise, the PS5 and XBox Series X | S became the fastest-selling video game consoles in history, despite the supply shortages.
I will honestly say that I did not see that coming. Though I do have to wonder if those sales figures would be so inflated if not for scalpers buying up all the stock with automated bots.
Now it's December of 2021 (holiday season), the PS5 has been available for well over a year, and I'm starting to want one, but can't find one. What's changed? Why do I want a console now, when I didn't want one last year? [More]
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