Splash Damage

Kotaku published an article last week not only defending proven abuser Amber Heard but comparing her experience to GamerGate, an eight-year-old push against unethical journalism. We discuss the lunacy of this piece along with Kotaku being jealous of virtual women, Bungie bungling a Juneteenth cosmetic, PCGamer’s hate boner for Elon Musk, Diablo Immortal’s predatory practices, the Xbox Games Showcase, and plenty more.

Kotaku writer Ian Walker got some flak recently when he falsely claimed in an article that the upcoming Street Fighter 6 would feature the series’ first black woman. We discuss Walker doubling and tripling down on this claim along with Xbox calling out Kotaku’s terrible take on Game Pass, a Halo co-creator criticizing the show, Marvel’s double standard on objectifying characters, Netflix telling woke employees to get lost, and more.

This week, Kotaku interviewed an indie developer about how it seems a popular movie copied a scene from his game. Little did this developer know that Kotaku, being Kotaku, would write the article in their typical garbage, race-baiting style, and he called Kotaku out for it. We discuss the whole story along with former Kotaku CEO Stephen Totilo finding out more embarrassing stuff about Activision Blizzard’s ridiculous diversity algorithm and how Twitter employees are basically all commies.

When you think of video games, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Definitely not the divisive social issue of abortion, right? Well, apparently, some game studios thought it wise to speak in support of Roe v. Wade while Kotaku and others embarrassed themselves with terrible takes on the subject. We talk about it all along with diversity checklists in video games, including Activision Blizzard’s hilarious new diversity-measuring algorithm; Kotaku gatekeeping Elon Musk over his Elden Ring build; Demon Slayer censorship; how terrible the Halo show is; Percy Jackson’s raceswapping; and more.

We’ve reached peak lunacy as Kotaku publishes an article equating game developers who refuse to leave Twitter after Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media giant to war heroes. We make fun of games journalists losing their minds over the change along with Gene Park being crucified by the games press for going on Colin Moriarty’s podcast, Frosk from G4 demonstrating what an objectifying hypocrite she is, interesting new rules for Magic: The Gathering tournaments, and more.

A few games journalists and activists cried about trans representation in Grand Theft Auto V, so Rockstar quietly censored their own game. We discuss this cowardly decision along with a Resident Evil 4 developer’s support of censorship, Twitch’s sexism against men, a woke Cards Against Humanity clone, and Lara Croft’s slow transition to becoming a man.

Game Rant published a bizarre article arguing that the tragedies Elden Ring characters endure are gender coded, or, in other words, women and men in the game suffer in different ways and somehow that’s a problem. We break this idea down and also discuss a popular easy mode mod for Elden Ring along with a New York Times article that claims the game is successful only due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Blizzard’s new diversity officer’s influence on games and the company’s reversal on its vaccine mandate, and plenty more.

Alan Wen of VG247 says Ghostwire: Tokyo is more authentic than Ghost of Tsushima or Sifu because Ghostwire was created by Japanese developers. We discuss this racist implications of this thought process along with Sam Maggs continuing to embarrass herself and the video game industry at large by taking credit for creations she had little to do with; Anita Sarkeesian trying to remain relevant a decade later; and, by their own admission, Disney’s queer agenda. Oh, and E3 is dead, in case you didn’t hear.

An upcoming series of adventures for Dungeons & Dragons is written entirely by black and brown folks, and Polygon just thinks that’s the greatest thing ever. We discuss why it’s racist to care so much about something as superficial as skin color along with Ash Parrish defending the new Halo TV show, Ars Technica’s article in defense of video game cheaters, and accusations of oppression against yet another video game developer.

The developer of Lost Ark has added less-revealing outfits to the game after complaints the female outfits are too sexy, but this hasn’t stopped GameDevelopment.com from demanding the game go farther and cater Lost Ark only to Western audiences. We discuss this puritanical argument along with GameSpot’s old article about bra sizes, Elden Ring’s tendency to not hold players’ hands, awful takes on race in Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV series, and more.