It’s a bit of a complicated situation and I wouldn’t go into much detail, but basically, they live in Italy, but one of their job is (work from home) in another country. They are taxed by the other country, then taxed by Italy as well.

After that, Italy fined them on some bullshit grounds and forced them to pay a ridiculous sum of money. Needless to say, they never attempted to skirt or evade taxes or anything. They worked their ass off and the country said “fuck you in particular” because Italy.

I specifically remember them telling me that, despite being half Italian, they wanted to live in Italy because they love the country and have friends and family here, but now they don’t know what to do. It’s heartbreaking seeing how our country treats its citizens, then our politicians going on TV and lamenting the fact that young people choose to go live elsewhere. Italy as a country doesn’t see you as a citizen to protect, it just wants to squeeze you dry and leave you for dead.

Italy is a joke. Our politicians call us lazy, the rich go on TV crying because they can’t find people willing to work for minimal (or below) wage, and then a young person manages to carve themselves a path outside of the ‘norm’, our state immediately shows up and curb stomps them.

I was talking with a colleague of mine the other day. They work two jobs to make a living. The state taxed them so much, they are paying more for the second job that they are gaining, basically working for free. Tax the poor, let the rich off the hook.

Fuck Italy.

Oh, I’m very sorry, it’s my fault. I misinterpreted your comment.

John Wick Hex has been sold as a completed product and will remain playable (for people who have already bought it, and people who track down a physical copy) even after the publisher pulls the plug. This is not planned obsolescence, their license for the movie rights has expired.

Stop Killing Games has NOTHING to do with this.

Is that the edgy vibes that you miss, or just generic childhood nostalgia?

Everyone has it, me included. I miss playing Tekken with my brother, and comparing our progress in Sacred, and generally speaking, nerding together. We are both adults and employed, and he’s got two kids as well, now. We barely have time for a brief phone call to check on each other over the weekend :(

The over-the-top edgy/“how do you do, fellow kids?” vibes of the early y2k years is definitely something that I don’t miss from that era.

I can somehow hear Linking Park in the distance while scrolling this post.

Japanese Drift Master seems interesting. I enjoy open world racing games ever since I fell in love with Test Drive Unlimited back in the days, but I can’t vibe with Forza Horizon because of the constant “Congratulations, you just drove 5 meters in this direction! Take this awesome car for free!” wherever you go. It completely robs me of the enjoyment of progressing through the game.

Wishlisted it, I’ll probably buy it as soon as I have some free time.

3 in the ideal situation, requires the user to have played like i dont remember, 10 different games.

Or watch a 30-minute recap.

I trust these people with every cell of my body.

This is wonderful advice! Thank you, John Xbox! I may be without a job, but I will keep on using your products like the mindless consumer I am, so that your paychecks will keep on growing.

God, this is so out of touch that it stops being funny and becomes genuinely uncanny. Like, are these people even real? Are they robots piloted by Skynet? Am I the only real person on the entire planet?

This is top quality journalism offered for free. We don’t deserve you.

Don Mattrick left Xbox in 2013. It was more than a decade ago. He may have ruined the XOne launch, but Spencer has had all the time and money in the world to rectify his mistakes and, so far, has only worsened them to the point that most doubt that a new Xbox will exist at all. Nintendo was on the brink of disaster after the Wii U, and managed to turn their fates around in half the time and with a fraction of the money. Why couldn’t Spencer?

In all these years, Spencer’s legacy has been of failed deals, shutting down/letting go multiple studios, and moronic attempts at building AAA and GAAS games on the back of seasonal contractors. We should stop blaming Mattrick for things that happened a decade after he left the company.

I swear this is not me doomering (I very much support this campaign and even signed it myself half a year ago), but I strongly suspect that at least a good chunk of those are fake. The issue is very hot in “terminally online” circles and those are the kind of people who don’t really think things through before acting.

I hope the number will keep on growing until the “legit” votes make up for the fake ones.

I’m pretty sure that, in this specific case, the delay was mandated by the game’s publisher, Sony. I doubt the Series S has anything to do with it.

Considering that it skipped the last showcase despite reportedly releasing next year, I don’t have high hopes for that one.

Wouldn’t be surprised if it was built on the backs of seasonal contractors. Seems like that’s the strategy they have chosen for their other big IPs as well (Forza Motorsport 8 and Halo Infinite).

It’s incredible that the clowns in charge of the gaming division and responsible for dragging it through the mud for all these years get to keep their job and will probably see an increase in their salaries as well, while the people that lost their jobs because of their incompetence will get nothing but a sad press release from Uncle Phil the HR department.

News of Everwild’s cancellation arrives amid more layoffs at Microsoft; the company is reportedly slashing nearly 9,000 jobs as part of new cuts at Microsoft.

Wow. It was rumored to be a big layoff, but 9,000 is way over any forecast. And this is what? The third so far since Covid? Is there anyone left working for them, at this point? Or is it all seasonal contractors?

EDIT: turns out that they gutted The Initiative (the supposedly AAAA studio that never released anything), cancelled Everwild, cut 50% of Turn10, 10% of King, and cancelled an unknown number of unannounced games, including one MMO title developed by the TES Online devs.
What a bloodbath. But hey, at least Phil is safe.

The problem at this point is not so much that they don’t have games - they have released plenty in the past few years and most have been received positively.

The problem is that they released those games too late, and by that point, the ship had already sailed. After a streak of disappointing years with the XOne, they needed strong titles to pair up with XSeries. Instead, they released jack shit for an entire year, and after that the disappointment just grew further with the likes of Halo Infinite, Starfield and the weird vampire game nobody asked for.

By that point, everyone already got themselves a PS5, a Switch, a gaming PC or a handheld device. Xbox needed to show their fans they believed in their mission and were capable of delivering strong titles on their platform, but everyone saw their releases and said “Meh”.

The strong titles eventually came, but by that point they had already decided to port them over to the competition to offset the cost, and everyone saw the writing was on the wall for the platform.

Spencer can go on stage spewing whatever bullshit he wants, but nobody outside of the most diehard Xbox fans believe that the platform has a future - and it’s very hard to convince people to invest on your platform when it’s not certain how many more years it will be supported, and whether your store will remain accessible or shut down a few years down the line.

Thank you for another post! Whenever the next one comes, I’ll be there to read it. Wish you the best!

Unfortunately, that’s not my area of expertise. I don’t follow streamers or YouTubers (Italian or international), nor do I have a close enough relationship with any of them that I’d be able to talk to them and convince them to mention this petition to their fans.

The one and only time some friends and I attempted to interact with a few local content creators (to publicize our free fan games we poured hundreds of hours into and NEVER attempted to monetize in any way), we either got ignored, insulted, or received vague answers that went nowhere. It soured me towards Italian content creators and vowed to never interact with them again.

It saddens me that my country (Italy) has such a low percentage of signatures. Most of us are either ignorant of anything happening outside of our borders, or straight up doomers who don’t believe anything can ever change for the better.

Big congrats to my fellow northern cousins. I was expecting Poland, who has a healthy videogame industry, to gather a good enough number of signatures, but 160% is wild! It’s refreshing seeing so many people joining the petition - It’s not even about videogames: this initiative will have huge repercussions on the lifespan of other, unrelated products and, in general terms, planned obsolescence.