What the hell do we do with the Nintendo hack?
And how I learned to stop worrying and fly an airplane over Area 51.
[Hi, I’m Chris Plante, and you’re reading Postgame, a weekly newsletter collecting the best games, stories, and videos in the video game community into a fun, digestible package on Wednesday and Sunday mornings. Learn more on the Postgame About page.]
Welcome to the midweek miscellaneous link-dump. This week, we have stories about nuclear disarmament, illegal flights over North Korea, the moral quandary of a stolen Luigi, and much, much more!
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How should we feel about the Nintendo hack?
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Folks are still mining the massive Nintendo hack for hidden and forgotten doodads of video game history, including a scrapped Animal Crossing character and a canned ice hockey role-playing game for the original NES.
As the discoveries mount, archivists and preservationists wonder if the breach will negatively influence how Nintendo responds to future archival work.
From Andrew Webster at The Verge:
There could also be more practical implications for how Nintendo operates moving forward. The company does occasionally celebrate its history, like when it released the canceled Star Fox 2 on the SNES Classic (and later through Switch Online). But it’s also a company that fiercely protects its intellectual property, frequently shutting down infringing fan projects or YouTube videos. This leak could potentially lead to the company tightening up even more. “Real talk: this Nintendo leak is bad on so many levels,” tweeted Mike Mika, studio head at Digital Eclipse, a developer focused on authentic re-releases of classic games. “It hurts them, it hurts fans, and it turns the topic of preservation into a topic of security and tightening the grip on intellectual property regardless of its historical or educational value to history.”
Here’s a follow-up question for the universe: what do we do with all of this?
The Video Game History Foundation, the Strong National Museum of Play, and private collectors have done essential work storing and preserving video game relics, but I wonder what happens as these groups receive more financial support and cultural import. Will we see more local game museums akin to city art museums? Playspaces built in the fashion of sports stadiums? Or will game history skew in a different direction, something digital akin to the Internet Archive?
All of the above? None of the above? I’m eager to find out.
In other Nintendo news…
YouTube channel Beyond the Brick converted the new Lego Mario figurine into a Lego skin-suit figurine.
Changing topics: Which gaming companies may have funded human rights abuses in 2019?
Each year, US tech companies report to the SEC their potential ties to conflict minerals. And each year, Rebekah Valentine uncovers which game companies are and aren’t pursuing ethical sourcing of materials. We’re fortunate Valentine continues to follow this important story with such thorough reporting.
Effectively, these major tech companies are trying to distance themselves from the harsh reality that the minerals used to make their gaming consoles, accessories, phones, and other tech products might originate in places where armed conflict and human rights abuses are often tied to and supported by the mining, transport, and sale of those minerals. As we'll demonstrate in this report, some companies manage to be more diligent than others at doing their best to identify where these minerals originate and ensuring their supply chain is free of abuses. But ultimately, not a single company in this article is able to guarantee that its products are conflict-free.
People are already doing wonderful things in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
My colleague Charlie Hall listed his many criminal activities within the flight sim:
Landing on the pond out back of my house: Microsoft Flight Simulator models everything that Bing can see from space, so that means your home is probably in the game. My house has a pond behind it. It’s only about 75 yards long, and if I flare at just the right spot a block over, I can drop a water plane right in there. I’m still working on stopping before I hit the neighbor’s house. I’ll let you know how it goes.
And on YouTube, ObsidianAnt has recorded his flyovers of North Korea, Area 51, and Chernobyl (above).
Like I said on Sunday, this is a taste of the future.
I never thought I’d see nuclear disarmament (in a video game)
In a classic example of director Hideo Kojima's ambition and on-the-nose storytelling, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) mirrored the politics of Cold War nuclear deterrence inside its multiplayer mode with an opportunity for players to actually achieve virtual nuclear disarmament.
Matthew Gault described the system at Vice:
In Phantom Pain, players build a freelance military force in the middle of the ocean. Players who take their base online can compete with other players for resources and prestige. Going online comes with rewards, but opens your base up to raids from other players. Unless you build a nuke. Only a player with a nuke can raid a base with a nuke, but the offended players can always launch their nuke and destroy your base.
Around the game’s release, fans uncovered the file for a special cut-scene that they assumed would play should the entire playerbase of one console achieve total nuclear disarmament. Last week, the game’s PlayStation 3 community managed to do just that. Even considering the game’s diminutive playerbase this many years after its release, I’m still shocked so many people would work together for a common goal. A little spot of sunshine.
Another little spot of sunshine: the time I murdered every character in a Metal Gear Solid town only to read the mission details and learn my target was a sheep.
If you haven’t checked on Call of Duty in a while…
I have two quick thoughts.
1.) Activision still releases a traditional Call of Duty each fall (including the long reported Black Ops Cold War this fall) but I do wonder if/when the battle royale spin-off Warzone will become the publisher’s top priority. From a Motley Fool article in May:
“The launch of Warzone really took the franchise to new highs," executives said in a conference call with investors while revealing 60 million players had engaged with the game since its March 10 launch.
2.) For folks new to Warzone, the action takes place in a big open world that gradually evolves across huge downloadable updates called “seasons.” For example: in previous seasons of Warzone, a massive sports stadium was inaccessible. This season, the roof of the stadium has been blown open revealing an entirely new combat zone.
The evolution of battle royale game maps reminds me of playground video game rumors — but real. Fans become obsessed with some piece of the world, then the game’s designers rapidly build that speculation into the game. Or as designers master this relatively new genre, they intentionally build mysterious spaces, knowing the landmarks will peak player curiosity, inspiring conversations on social media that double as free advertisement.
2020 is an awkward time to announce Xbox Game Pass on smartphones
Microsoft announced that 100 Xbox games will soon be playable on Android mobile devices via Game Pass Ultimate. This would be great news for me if I planned on ever leaving my house. But for now, I’m sort of stuck playing Xbox games on my Xbox.
This timing isn’t Microsoft’s fault, obviously, and I still think this feature will be a hit if only for kids who want to play more games when their siblings or parents are using the TV. That said, wow this commercial is surreal within the framing of 2020.
In the rapid-fire clips, we see individuals playing Game Pass on smartphones on roofs and in cafes, but hardly anybody else is around. Serious 28 Days Later vibes. Compare the video with Nintendo’s reveal of the Nintendo Switch, in which people trade their lonely rooms for rooftop parties, basketball courts, and a stadium full of screaming fans. Memories.
Small detail: Some of the footage in the Game Pass trailer looks like it was shot on a smartphone. I imagine making a commercial like this during the pandemic induces endless migraines. Credit to the production team for pulling this off.
I don’t understand 5D Chess, but I read every tweet
At ChessBase, Arne Kaehler wrote a brief synopsis of the new steam game that spreads a game of chess across space, time, and multiverses.
5D chess tries to avoid most of those paradoxes by shaping multiverses which branch into different timelines, rather than looping back and forth.
Instead of playing on one board, we can push our pieces from the present to the past and vice-versa, thus making several moves on all those different timeline-boards we have created.
A video game about crabs with knives
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
This isn’t even the developer’s first game about fighting crustaceans. In 2015, the studio released NEO AQUARIUM - The King of Crustaceans.
Fight Crab is available on PC.
Ephemera
Eurogamer covered Quest and I’m overjoyed
I have been obsessed with Eurogamer for over a decade. I never thought I’d see one of my projects get a write-up, let alone a critique so warm and glowing. Here’s Robert Purchese on Quest.
IRL sports are so much weirder than video game sports
In baseball, we have an impossible double play:
In football, we have linebackers getting basted like Easter hams by Purell-misting doorways:
In basketball, we have Zoom fans:
And in teqball, we have teqball:
That’s a wrap.
See y’all Sunday morning
Please wear a mask!
But what do you think?
Send links, tips, comments, questions, games, and teqball GIFs to @plante.