Scandalous Games

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Elford Stephens, and Andy Hunter. In part four of our look at Pokémon fan projects, we finally get into the controversy around Pokémon fan games and ROM hacks by looking at probably the two most famous/infamous unauthorized Pokémon games: Pokémon Uranium and Pokémon Prism, focusing on their development and their relationship to Pokémon fandom. 

Topics discussed include:  2016 was a great year so long as you're a Pokémon fan and don't read the news; Pokémon GO was kind of a big deal, despite being built on a bad game called Ingress; and why won't Nintendo let us play the early generation Pokémon games?  

For more on the Niantec lawsuit over Pokémon GO, see: James Bareham, "Niantic is tweaking Pokémon Go to settle a lawsuit with angry homeowners," The Verge, February 15, 2019, https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/15/18226604/niantic-pokemon-go-lawsuit-changes-settlement-private-property-pokestop-gym.

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. In part three of our look at Pokémon fan projects, here is the second part of this month's episode. This time, we take a closer look at the motivations behind fan projects and we get closer to the actual controversy behind this series and address whether Pokémon fan games and ROM hacks are legal. 

Topics discussed include:  Reasons people develop fan projects and the discourse surrounding them, a whole bunch of amateur takes on intellectual property law, that time John Carmack made a Super Mario Bros.  clone, and Andy Hunter's one-man show of Dracula: Dead and Loving It. 

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. In part two of our look at Pokémon fan projects, we shift from ROM hacks to fan games, Pokémon inspired games developed by fans that are built from the ground up, usually with third-party game engines. 

Topics discussed include:  Fascists don't like Pokémon, that time Pac-Man ate too many dots, the wild history of RPG Maker, the merits of video game buyback programs, Kevin's failed RPG, and whether there might be an NFT of Kate out there somewhere.

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. In this episode, we start a three part series on Pokémon, specifically fan-developed Pokémon projects, beginning with the history of Pokémon ROM hacks, original games made by fans that are built on commercially released Pokémon games.

Topics discussed include:  An introduction to Pokémon for video game newbies, fan-created Pokémon challenges, an amazing deep dive into the technical background of ROM hacking courtesy of Kate and Phil, that time 4chan made a Pokémon ROM hack, and what would a Scandalous Games Pokémon ROM hack look like? 

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

 Historian Kevin Impellizeri usually shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends. However, this month Phil Thomas takes the lead and teaches Kevin, Elford Stephens, and Andy Hunter about the (as of this recording) ongoing global computer chip shortage and why it has been so hard to get a next-gen game system (or a car or ballistic missiles or anything else you might need).

Topics discussed include:  A brief history of video game related chip shortages, the most important company you've never heard of,  how we are possibly a war/global pandemic/ecological disaster away from a digital dark age, and whether you'd be willing to jump on a box for a cell phone.

To learn more, check out: Chris Miller, Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology (New York: Scribner, 2022)
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Chip-War/Chris-Miller/9781982172008
Also, for more on Magnavox and the Odyssey,  check out the Video Game History Hour episode "Magnavox: The Great Voice": https://gamehistory.org/ep-94-magnavox-the-great-voice/.

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends...except this month we're doing something a little different with our very first syncable commentary track! 

Join Phil Thomas, Andy Hunter, Elford Stevens, and Kevin as we sit down and watch the 2003 video game flop The House of the Dead, directed by infamous maker of bad video game movies (and subject of a previous episode), Dr. Uwe Boll. 

To sync the movie, queue up the film to 00:00:10 and wait for the countdown. If you want to cut through the intro where Kevin offers some history behind the movie and get right to the commentary, head to 00:08:20 in the recording.

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. In this episode, we take a closer look at Destructive Creations, the team behind previous episode Hatred.  We examine the other controversy connected to Hatred, one that was connected to the beliefs of its creators, and how a team that claimed to make a statement against politics in gaming made some political games in the years to follow Hatred's release. 

Content warning: Discussions of racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, fascism, and Neo-Nazis.

Topics discussed include:  A brief history of Polish right-wing politics, Alan's conflict with his neighbors, and the guys guessing whether some gaming-related quotations came from Hatred or other games.

Kevin's sources on the role of right-wing politics in Poland:
Agnieszka Dudzinska and Michal Kotnarowski, “Imaginary Muslims: How the Polish Right Frames Islam,” Brookings, July 24, 2019: https://www.brookings.edu/research/imaginary-muslims-how-polands-populists-frame-islam/.
Farid Hafez, "Street-level and government-level Islamophobia in the Visegrád Four countries," Patterns of Prejudice 52, Iss. 5 (November 6, 2018): 436-447, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0031322X.2018.1498440.
Kornelia Kończal, “The Invention of the ‘Cursed Soldiers’ and Its Opponents,” East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 34, No. 1 (February 2020): 67-95, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0888325419865332;

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. In this episode, we look at Hatred, the 2015 PC game developed by Destructive Creations where you play out a mass shooting enacting by a guy whose name is not important (aka Alan). We dissect the controversy and how this was a game designed by trolls for trolls.

Topics discussed include:  How Destructive Creations basically trolled everybody--video game news sites, the ESRB, and GamerGate--to market their homage to Postal, a surprising number of Star Wars references, and how did Alan afford the weapons and ammo for his rampage?

For a detailed look at Hatred in the context of both the Postal series and GamerGate, check out,  Noah Caldwell-Gervais, "Postal, Hatred, and Weighing the Worth of Asshole Simulators," YouTube, https://youtu.be/kivtv6wabBk 

One small correction: at one point, Kevin said Grand Theft Auto V came out in 2014. It actually came out in 2013.

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Andy Hunter, and Ryan Weaver. This time around, we continue our look at the  relationship between crypto and gaming by taking a closer look at the mainstream games industry's brief but notable foray into NFTs.  We examine the crypto escapades of the likes of Atari, Konami, Square-Enix, and Ubisoft, how game makers tried to sell the idea of NFTs to their players, and the incredible backlash against them.

Topics discussed include:  The role of the Darkmoon Greatsword in the crypto scene, Peter Molyneux doesn't know history, the mystery of the missing Atari arcade NFTs,  and is there a way to make NFTs work in gaming?

To learn more about the chaotic world of anarcho-capitalists, shoddy cybersecurity, questionable legality, and hilarious crypto scams, check out David Gerrard, Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts (2017). https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/

For a detailed look at the convoluted history of the Atari brand, check out the They Create Worlds episode "The History of the Atari Brand:" http://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/the-history-of-the-atari-brand/ 

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. This time around, we dive into the world of cryptocurrency and its relationship to gaming. We examine the basics of blockchain technology, decentralized digital currencies, and NFTs as well as some of the hopes (and very, very real problems) with the current crypto scene. We use this to talk about "play-to-earn" (P2E) games, a genre where people can earn crypto by buying, selling, and trading NFTs.  

Topics discussed include: How a Magic: The Gathering  online exchange/Flash game homepage ended up losing millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin, how to make a ton of money selling a Metroid Dread receipt, and the rise and fall of Scandal Coin (TM).

To learn more about the chaotic world of anarcho-capitalists, shoddy cybersecurity, questionable legality, and hilarious crypto scams, check out David Gerrard, Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts (2017). https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/ 

Check out Phil's sweet NFT: https://nflallday.com/moments/666efe5d-7a4c-4a3a-9e91-50a63fe0429b

For More on the WATA Games Scandal: Karl Jobst, "Exposing FRAUD And DECEPTION In The Retro Video Game Market," YouTube, August 23, 2021, https://youtu.be/rvLFEh7V18A

Watch the Evolved Apes trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g63XqyYL8w0

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.