Once again I'm late to the WRUP. I actually just completely spaced it yesterday, no excuses. I was busy as is usual on a Saturday but not so busy I couldn't get one posted early in the morning. I'm not sure how much prison time I deserve. I suppose it'll be up to a jury of my peers. For now though, let's get to it.
This whole thing with EK is pretty unfortunate. There's been talk of EK not paying out on contracts and profits from the US office being taken by the Slovenian main office. The Slovenian office and US office relations are deeper though, with the Slovenians remarking about the US branch being "lazy idiots". It's pretty abusive sounding stuff all around and of course that doesn't help get outstanding bills paid or keep morale up in a financial crisis like the one EK as a whole is experiencing. GamersNexus has so far done one part of an investigative piece about what's going on, highlighting issues that seem to involve a lot of infighting and hand waving and well beyond. JayzTwoCents has a video talking about his personal experiences with EK over the past years that he's dealt with them - payments being months late, communication being far from transparent etc. None of it sounds good in the very least. Even going as far as EK declaring itself not having liquid assets, but still getting a spot at Computex this year and sending out invites for reviewers. Probably, this is an attempt to drum up an influx of business and therefore a quick cash injection, but it's going to have to be a lot to cover even the booth cost let alone having anything left to pay employees, contractors, suppliers, bills and so on. I recommend watching the videos in the links above if you're interested in much more info than I've given here. I'm not exactly the most privy or really qualified to properly detail the goings on for this. The best I can do is refer you all to what I've seen.
I will say though that I have been involved in a company crash like this on a much smaller level and I hung in there even when payroll started to get questionable. Even when it looked as bad as it was, things did seem redeemable. I should have jumped ship then and in my opinion the employees going through this should jump ship now. They owe EK nothing and they're unlikely to get what EK owes them before being locked out permanently. We'll have to wait and see how things continue, but it's not looking good for EK in the long run.
What games shall occupy our weekends?
Greywolfe: i'm finally tackling the story of marvel's midnight suns, now that my main character is level 25. and there's some serious nonsense in the story missions. [villains that shrug off your attacks and have multiple life pools. kill them once and then they come to life again.] this stuff is hot garbage and i wish it would go away. i haven't picked up metroid: zero mission in a couple of days, because that end boss fight was excruciatingly stupid. [multiple things hitting you with no safe spot to stand, coupled with you not being able to kill them coupled with the boss enemy spitting bolts of difficult to dodge garbage] the thing about that game is that i was actually rather liking it - it had a slow, thoughtful explorative bent - until just right near the end where it rewarded you with an awful boss fight and then a "post-game" segment where they took away ALL of your gear for no good reason. [other than "here be more plot, enjoy."] another thing i absolutely wish developers wouldn't do. just TRUST YOUR ENDING. IT'S FINE. [we had this self-same problem with guardians of the galaxy a few years back. the internet absolutely sees one thing in that game, i see another. [and i hate it.]]
AJ: I recently acquired a custom reproduction of Super Fantasy Zone for the Sega Genesis, so I'll probably play that a bit. I also saw that Grind Stormer, another Toaplan game I've been wanting to check out, has just dropped onto GOG, so I may check that out as well.
Scrooloose: Still more Helldiving for me and I'm traveling yet further into the Forbidden West.