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...

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For years, my favorite ice cream shop in Las Vegas has been a little 50's themed shop called Nielsens Frozen Custard. Unfortunately, Nielsens shop was located in Henderson, on the southeastern side of the Las Vegas valley. I, on the hand, live in Summerlin, on the northwestern side of the valley. My favorite ice cream shop, thus, has always been located across town. Heck, it's technically in another town altogether. I would usually treat myself to a stop at Nielsens whenever I happened to be in or around Henderson, which has not been very often. I've long wanted Nielsen to open another location in Summerlin.

Well, today, that wish was granted. Nielsens had the grand opening of its second Las Vegas location today, in the food court of the Red Rock Resort on Charleston and 2-15. My favorite ice cream shop finally has a location on my side of town!

Apparently, I'm not the only one who loves Nielsens and has been eagerly awaiting the opening of a west-side location. The line stretched all the way across the Red Rock food court almost to the movie theater. It took 45 minutes to get through the line, and order my custard. I expected there to be a line, but I didn't expect it to be like a Disneyland ride line. Looks like lots of people were looking forward to eating some frozen custard, so hopefully this location will be very successful.

The line for Nielsens' Red Rock grand opening stretched across the entire food court.

While Nielsens does serve regular ice cream, its specialty (and my personal recommendation) is the frozen custard "concrete". It's a thick ice cream dessert served in a cup, but eaten with a spoon. Kind of like a Dairy Queen Blizzard or Wendy's Frosty, but better.

Frozen custard is a bit different than traditional ice cream. Custard contains egg yolks. This gives the frozen custard a thicker and creamier consistency than true soft serve ice cream, as well as being able to be produced in a manner that minimizes the amount of air and ice crystals that end up in the dessert. The egg yolks also increase the melting point of the frozen custard by a few degrees. This allows it to be stored and served at slightly warmer temperatures, and also means that it doesn't melt quite as quickly, especially if consumed indoors. Lastly, the slightly warmer serving temperature means that frozen custard may be a little bit less likely to trigger brain freeze when consumed. Though, actual results may vary.

[More]

An interesting and sickening piece of political video gaming news came out last week. I had meant to write about it at the time, but got bogged down with some personal and family obligations. Nevertheless, I wanted to throw in my two cents.

Activision / Blizzard has apparently banned a professional Hearthstone player, living in Hong Kong (a semi-sovereign city-state in China), from participating in professional e-sports. The reason that Activision / Blizzard banned Ng Wai Chung (who goes by the username Blitzchung) is because he made statements in support of a decades-long protest movement in Hong Kong that supports independent democracy. The authoritarian communist Chinese government has been battling pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong for decades, and apparently video game publishers (among many other American corporations) are starting to act as shills for China's policies of repression and censorship.

Heck, Activision even went one step further, and rescinded the prize money that Blitzchung had already won! They also stated that they are canceling professional relationships with the Taiwanese reporters who were interviewing Blitzchung when he made the comment. Taiwan, by the way, also has a lengthy history of Chinese repression.

Blitzchung made his comments as a part of an official Twitch stream, and Activision claims that his statements violated tournament rules that prohibit any speech that would:

"... brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image."

Apparently, speaking out against Chinese government repression and tyranny counts as "damaging the image of Blizzard". But Blitzchung isn't an employee or agent of Activision / Blizzard, and his statements had nothing to do with Activision / Blizzard as a business. Blitzchung's comments weren't hate speech, they weren't inciting riots or violence, nor was the statement itself anything that is actually offensive (to anyone other than the Chinese government). Would Blizzard have reacted similarly had a tournament player said "Trump, 2020" or "LGBTQ rights" or anything that could be seen as similarly divisive? If they had, they'd be equally as wrong to do so.

Activision / Blizzard's reaction is disgusting and reprehensible. I'm sure they want to increase their market penetration in China, and having players of their games who live under that repressive Chinese government speaking out against the repressive Chinese government probably doesn't make Activision / Blizzard look good in the eyes of the Chinese government. But so what?! By not taking a stance in favor of free speech, Activision / Blizzard is enabling and condoning a tyranny that would squash the very free markets in which Activision / Blizzard operates and earns its vast amounts of wealth.

...

[More]
Diablo III

Recently came across Toronto-based software engineer Alex Curelea's blog, in which he describes the psychology behind why Diablo III may not be as satisfying as Diablo II was. It was a good read, and very quick too.

In the analysis, he compares Diablo fans to monkeys who are rewarded with flavored juice when they pull a lever after a specific sequence of shapes is displayed on screen. Eventually, the monkeys begin to associate the reward with the sequence of shapes, and the reward center of their brain becomes stimulated when the sequence appears, rather than when the actual reward is given later.

[More]

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Welcome to Mega Bears Fan's blog, and thanks for visiting! This blog is mostly dedicated to game reviews, strategies, and analysis of my favorite games. I also talk about my other interests, like football, science and technology, movies, and so on. Feel free to read more about the blog.

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