Pixel Horse 🐎 @dickmandrake@elekk.xyz

Over 2,000 employees at Activision Blizzard have signed an open letter criticising their management's response to the DFEH lawsuit: https://kotaku.com/over-1-000-activision-blizzard-employees-sign-letter-co-1847364340

Furthermore, a walkout strike is taking place tomorrow (July 28) and a list of demands has been published: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-07-27-activision-blizzard-employees-threaten-to-strike

This week's Jimquisition is utterly incandescent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7SoLyWjwJw

I've been playing a bunch of The Settlers III recently, which I haven't played for more than two decades. It's a RTS from 1998 where the gimmick is that most of your units are autonomous and walk around performing tasks where needed. (Think Tropico meets Age of Empires.) Your job is to place buildings to create an efficient production chain so that you can build up a massive army and conquer the world. For example, grain is ground into flour, which is baked into bread, which is eaten by iron miners to produce iron, which gets smelted into bars, which get fashioned into weapons for your soldiers.

Unfortunately, the simplistic combat leaves much to be desired since it mostly consists of throwing hundreds of soldiers at your opponent, with other units like Priests and Catapults being too slow and ineffectual. There's not much strategy beyond having far more troops or flanking the enemy to split their army.

Overall, it's engaging enough to sink hours into but the slow pacing and heavy micromanagement can be a bit much. Lots of sitting back and watching your people going back and forth, which can be relaxing but requires patience.

The best thing about Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (PS1) is that there's a level called "Shoutin' Lava Lava Lava"

AAAAAB (All AAA Are Bastards)

Kotaku has published an exposé on Ubisoft Singapore, described by one former dev as "one of the worst Ubisoft studios in terms of culture": https://kotaku.com/the-messy-stalled-reckoning-at-an-assassins-creed-co-d-1847336158

Abridged summary: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-07-22-report-details-toxic-culture-sexual-harassment-and-racial-pay-disparity-at-ubisoft-singapore

World of Warcraft players are revolting against Activision Blizzard, attending in-game protests and raising donations to Black Girls Code: https://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-warcraft-protests/

Space Jam 2 epitomises the commodification and homogenisation of popular culture under a handful of media conglomerates, where upon all artistic meaning and integrity is stripped out in favour of brand recognition. It doesn't even have a theme tune that slaps.

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for perpetuating a "frat boy" workplace culture of constant sexual harassment. Senior management turned a blind eye to complaints and in one case, it lead to an employee taking her own life: https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/22/22588215/activision-blizzard-lawsuit-sexual-harassment-discrimination-pay

Don't forget that you can rebook your second COVID vaccination to an earlier date considering the minimum wait between jabs was recently reduced to 8 weeks. You can check available times nearby before cancelling and rebooking your appointment, which is fairly stress-free. I managed to reduce my waiting time by nearly a month this way: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/book-coronavirus-vaccination/

French union Solidaires Informatique has filed a collective lawsuit against high-ranking Ubisoft executives for "putting in place, maintaining and strengthening a system where sexual harassment is tolerated because it is more profitable for the company to keep harassers in place than to protect its employees." https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-07-16-french-union-files-collective-lawsuit-against-ubisoft

"Sludge Life is a game that encourages us to rediscover that spirit of transgression through play and, in doing so, can bring into focus how a playful approach to our urban environments can create an encounter with the very serious politics around it." https://www.getobject.net/post/reigniting-the-transgressive-urge-in-sludge-life

While Valve tries jumping on the Switch bandwagon, Epic continues giving away random free games. This week it's Obduction: https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/obduction #freegame

GOG is currently giving away Syberia I & II for the next three days: https://www.gog.com/game/syberia_i_ii #freegame

This week, Epic are giving away Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead (construction puzzler with funny ragdolls) and Ironcast (steampunk bejewelled) https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/bridge-constructor-the-walking-dead https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/ironcast #freegames

In light of the football later today, here's the FMV intro for the UEFA Euro 2000 video game in which DJ Paul Oakenfold uses his decks to transform some footballers into low-poly PS1-era models: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izsV1gGY8ew