Words of Wisdom: Non-Simulated Thinking

Dependency on technology can be a death sentence.


Sometimes, quite literally so

On my brief reflection involving the words of wisdom I share today, I just wanted to advocate for everyone not to be too reliant on technology, lest ye be ruled by it. I was just reading an article about how general intelligence is down across the board, and it got me thinking that a big contributing factor may be a reliance on technology, which can help create a false sense of security and a pretense to feed into laziness, which is sure to help cultivate bad habits. I’m no luddite, and think tech is fundamental in enhancing our lives, but don’t forget your best resource will always be your brain, and always keep the “use it or lose it” mentality close to your heart, or you may fall prey to the failures so many others already have, which is losing the very thing that makes you…you. So consider my wisdom, and always think for yourself, don’t let algorithms control your life, and never stop questioning how you can continue to refine your ability to critically think more in your everyday.

Take care of yourself, and each other.

~Pashford

Spilled Tea: Switch 2, Warhammer, and AI…

…Oh my!

The Principle of Credulity is a philosophical axiom by Thomas Reid that suggest we have “a disposition to confide in the veracity of others, and believe what they tell us”.


Everyday on the internet leads me to believe this is very true

Today is all about about gossip and rumor here on ATE , as there seems to be quite an awful lot of it swirling around gaming news sources as of late, so what the hell? Let’s spill some tea. Before we begin, I just wanted to mention that throughout my day, I always have a hundred little conversations with myself that I think “hey, this would make an interesting aside for one of my ATE articles”. I think that share is possibly one of the first times I actually remembered to retain said kind of conversation, and we are all technically worse off for it. Not because the share was inane or valueless, mind you, but as a reminder of all the times I was unable to remember the rest of them. I really got to start carrying around a tape recorder ala Coop from Twin Peaks to record my thoughts, as every time you read a write up, it is only one of a very large number of permutations we both could have delighted in, had things just turned out differently.


Strange how it all works out

With multiversal shenanigans now in play as a relevant topic of interest, we shift our focus to a peculiar happening that timeextension brought to revelatory light, with a delightful little article going in-depth about how some Capcom staff were initially resistant to the whole idea of crossover fighters involving the Street Fighter crew from very early on. Apparently, due to the lack of sales of X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes in Japan, many at Capcom were silently hoping X-Men vs Street Fighter would die a quiet, quick death. This gave the team a lot of wiggle room to over deliver when the time came, and the break out success of the title would go on to eventually spawn the Marvel vs Capcom series, which has stood the test of popular time, as evidenced by the recent release of Marvel vs Capcom: Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics release.


As I always say: set lower expectations and then over deliver

Continuing on with the theme of what is old is new again, it looks as if Nintendo’s lawyer have finally caught wind of Palworld, an open-world multiplayer survival game, which has designs reminiscent of the big N’s own critically acclaimed Pokémon series, and are ready to mount a legal battle over copyright infringement claims. I’m surprised Nintendo’s legal ninjas took so much time getting around to this one, as this sucker has been making lots of noise since earlier this year, and is even an official release on multiple platforms, and not even a fan made dealie. Ultimately, time will tell if Nintendo wins out with the legal disputes involving the developers of the game Pocketpair, but Nintendo has historically been quite grumpy about this kind of thing for a long time now, and regularly geared towards legal actions in the course of their own history. They even took Blockbuster to task for copyright infringement over their manuals for Christ’s sake. I might love their games, but the Pokémon company has had a stick up their ass over petty frivolities for awhile now, so I hope this just blows up in their face.


How Chinpokomon flew under the radar all these years I
will never know

Staying on the topic of Nintendo, potential images of the follow up to the Switch have “leaked”, according to a number of rampant shares on the internet, which I surmised were all pulled from the same dodgy ass source on the internet that no one bothered to check the legitimacy of….or at least I thought as much, and then I read a piece from Eurogamer commenting on the whole affair. The article mentions how the models do seem to correspond with data that has leaked in the past about Nintendo’s next console, but they did come from a 3D modeler’s post on a Chinese social media website, who as since deleted the posts. Like most leaks: dubious at best, and what took someone possibly two hours to make is now going to be discussed for two weeks with endless pissing competitions involving the veracity of the claims themselves. No news from Nintendo on the matter (big surprise).


Everyone knows the Switch 2 is just going to be 16 Gamecubes
duct-taped together, what are we even speculating for?

In another moment of interesting hearsay, IGN reported about a bizarre happening involving recently released shooter 40,000: Space Marine 2, in a story that allegedly has the CEO of Saber, Matthew Karch, commenting on a Youtube video by user Asmongold about the quality of the title. The gist of the posit which was *allegedly* Karch, has the CEO going on about other devs “imposing morals on gamers”, reinforcing games should be about the design itself and not beating the brow of gamers with some kind of overt messaging muddying the waters. Putting aside for a second just how broad of a declaration that is to even confront, the comment hasn’t even been officially verified as the actual CEO, and a comment which could potentially be some kind of windup from a rando impersonating him, trying to create a fuss in the comments section on a Youtube video in a silly attempt at fanning the flames in the name of some obtuse culture war nonsense. I guess, regardless of whether or not it is actually the CEO of the company hanging out in a Youtube comment section (why would he?) giving praise to their own game (why wouldn’t they?), a good game is a good game regardless of messaging. Don’t worry about what other people are playing, do what you want.


To quote a modern day prophet

And finally, to wrap our daily tea spilling as we are nearing an empty pot, EA decided to remind people why they were voted worst company in the US two years in a row, by deciding to make generative AI as their main talking point in a recent investors day presentation, much to the surprise of no one who is use to EA’s bullshit. They went on to assure onlookers that AI is not a buzzword, and is a core element at the heart of their game development strategy. Read the room guys: with so many negative news stories coming out weekly about foot in mouth comments involving AI, to other very real impacts the practice of using AI has had on workers within the industry, you’d think EA would avoid saying the quiet part out-loud and just keep the fuck quiet about their internal machinations, just to save some face in the name of good PR alone.


A picture of EA’s new PR manager

Cheers for joining me in spilling some tea. Until our next party, then…

~Pashford

Russian Propaganda Targets Gamers Using AI Generated Content

What’s old is new again.


A hefty price tag for a Sony console about to launch? Why I Never!

Looks like there is more going on under the hood then initial reports suggested with the PS5 Pro, after watching the technical presentation Sony used to unveil the mid-gen refresh with the PS5 Pro, which is assuredly a good thing, as a seven hundred dollar price point for only an incremental upgrade for a new game console feels like a no from me, dog.


To channel the wisdom of a prophet from a bygone era

In other news, I had been meaning to share and comment on some other pressing news for a few days now, as the news itself is not necessarily a huge surprise to me, but a shocking reminder that this kind of stuff is still going on now, with both a gaming public and a regular public not quite as aware of the happenings as they ought to be. To that point, Wired reported on a massive disinformation campaign led by Russian operatives, using bot accounts, fake news, and AI generated propaganda to target and influence a number of affected groups, gamers included, to help sabotage the 2024 election:

“In late August 2023, Ilya Gambashidze was in a conference room at the office of Social Design Agency, a Russian IT company he founded that is based in Moscow, close to the world-renowned Moscow Conservatory. Gambashidze was relatively unknown in Russian politics at the time, but just a month earlier his name had appeared on a Council of the European Union’s list of Russian nationals subjected to sanctions for playing a central role in a sprawling disinformation campaign against Ukraine.

In the conference room, Gambashidze was laying out his plans for a new target: Along with his colleagues, he began drafting what would become known as the Good Old USA Project. The project was supposed to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in favor of former president Donald Trump, specifically targeting certain minorities, swing-state residents, and online gamers, among others, in a scheme that included a full-time team dedicated to the cause.

On Wednesday, Gambashidze and his company were named by the US Department of Justice among the architects of a disinformation campaign known as Doppelganger that has for the past two years been targeting Ukraine and, more recently, US elections. The Doppelganger campaign uses AI-generated content on dozens of fake websites designed to impersonate mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Post and Fox Business, using a network of fake social media accounts to disseminate pro-Russian narratives targeting audiences across the globe. Doppelganger is a Kremlin-aligned disinformation campaign that was first linked to the Kremlin in 2023 by the French government.“

Wild stuff, needless to say. The whole article is worth reading, as Wired does a good job of going over a lot of what the court documents reveal. As I said from the get go, if you’ve been following along the past decade or so, this stuff is actually pretty par for the course in the world of online bastard-like behavior and general troll wankery, though the implications of the bad actors in these scenarios are wide reaching and can’t be understated or dismissed out of hand. Gamers are a group of people who are considered politically marginalized to the point of being easily radicalized for political gain through manipulation via propaganda online, and spreading awareness of these insidious misinformation campaigns is key in helping to combat them.

~Pashford

Peter Molyneux: Habitual Line Stepper

I’m always quite excited to write about video games and entertain you readers, as my pursuits within the realm of gaming are never ending.


A lot like this, but with more fun horse related content involved

Though sometimes, not quite as fun as one would hope. I was reading some news posted by Rock Paper Shotgun commenting on a Eurogamer piece involving interviewing a bunch of industry vets about where games are going to be in 25. A great article I thoroughly recommend, and one that RPS seemed to concur with me that it was of an informative and entertaining worth in their follow up news. As RPS pointed out, unsurprisingly, Peter Molyneux was not thinking before speaking once again.


Pictured: Peter Molyneux, in a rare moment of self-reflection

The quote in question is in reference to the capabilities of AI, and coming from Peter’s mouth, you’ve gotta have a hunch it comes laced with frenzy:

“AI is going to be a real game changer. There will come a time where AI will be used to create huge parts of a game – AI-generated characters, animations, dialogue, VO, there is so much that AI will be able to tackle.

“And finally, I think that AI will open the doors to everyone and allow anyone to make games. You will be able to, for example, create a game from one single prompt such as ‘Make a battle royale set on a pirate ship’ and your AI will go and do that for you.“

While I will only briefly point out as an aside Shinji Mikami in the Eurogamer piece mentions AI as well, he does so with the qualifying word daunting, so there is some respect towards the frightening nature of it’s application in the coming years, so he gets a pass in my book. Molyneux, on the other hand, once again proves his mouth works faster than his brain, as he didn’t stop to think about the horrific ramification AI in general will have on the gaming industry, and the already negative impact it currently has in our very real present day situation.


And here I am usually excited to bring up DOOM out of the blue

Among many issues with AI, for example, is that many including myself, have recently reported on the troubling strike going on with SAG-AFTRA about protecting voice actors against AI usage, involving rights for workers in a field where publishers and developers are increasingly opting to use generative AI for their games, cutting out the middle man and forgoing the need to pay creative talent and hard workers for their talent in a field they helped to create. If you dive even deeper into the issue, and focus on the thousands of layoffs that have occurred in the industry just this year, and games failing from moment one without massive numbers behind them, and it paints a grim picture for many workers struggling just to make ends meat in a competitive market, let alone one that can be dominated by the horror that is AI generated content.


Maybe the Resident Evil movie did have a point about what
was the real monster we should fear all those years ago

I will take this moment to point out the obvious: yes, Molyneux did not directly champion people losing their jobs or the industry being dominated by AI usage in his quote, but the complete lack of premeditated consideration with so many hot button issues surrounding what comes off as a misguided flippancy….uh just staggers me. An exec over at Amazon games division just got called out the other day for his thoughts on AI, and the whole topic is just steeped in negative rhetoric, why Molyneux wouldn’t stop for two god damn seconds and just think about the inherent issues with what he is promoting would…be totally uncharacteristic of him, so all of this tracks.


The man is a habitual line stepper. It is a known known.

Even if you put aside for a second (and with amazingly patient grace, I may add), the ever prevalent issue of workers being put in increasing jeopardy due to the implications of AI, and that’s even beyond the gaming industry, his comments are just so naively unrealistic and delusionally off point. I’m all for giving people they keys to the kingdom in terms of allowing them to create content for games or using better tools to do so, but you do need people with experience, and practice, and creativity, and skill, and dedication etc to make games that are worth a damn. Being able to “push a button” and a game of your preference is made is such a depressing thought for so many obvious reasons, it is absurdly unfathomable to me outside of the realm of finance why Molyneux would ever think this is a remotely reasonable and competent idea to share with anyone on the planet.


Old habits die hard: just ask Milo

I feel like there is a possibility in regards to a more creative deconstructionism involving these comments, and said idea is beginning to germinate within my mind of how Molyneux’s ideas and the reality of AI should likely be discussed at more length in the foreseeable future and beyond. Realistically speaking, we should have already been legislating on AI a decade ago, to put forth the idea we need to continue having more of a dialogue about the dangers inherent with it’s usage in the here and now is an emphatic understatement.

~Pashford