Here is the story.

Remember twenty years ago how everyone was rushing to sell to China and open factories there?

Who would sell to China if they can steal the IPs?

Who would still be using China to manufacture products?

I am watching companies like Nintendo very closely on this. Nintendo produces nearly half of its products in China. Nintendo has been trying to break into the China market. But with this law change, Nintendo is in big trouble. Their IPs are now allowed to be stolen from the production floor to their content.

Master Malstrom,

I was thinking about all the outrage that occurred when Nintendo announced that Mario Kart World would cost $80, and I realized that as bad as this move was, it’s even worse when you consider that the vast majority of people who bought Switch 2 bought the bundle which included the game. As a result, they only paid $50 for the game. So Nintendo took all this heat over the $80 price, with many people like myself vowing never to buy Switch 2, and yet almost no one actually paid $80 for the game. So what was the point? There was certainly no financial benefit. This has to be one of the dumbest moves Nintendo has ever made.

If Nintendo was going to insist on raising the prices of its games, it should have waited a year after the Switch 2 launch to do so. They would have sold a lot more Switch 2s, and while people would still have been upset over the price increase, they would have been more likely to swallow it if they already owned the console.

Have you ever met the girl who thinks she is prettier than what she actually is? This is how Nintendo feels about the value of their games. They think Nintendo software is the toast of the town, the greatest thing since sliced bread. Much of this is due to stupid fans building shrines to their childhood nostalgia and becoming manchildren about the games. Nintendo did not have this problem in the 1980s because video games were considered silly then. Nintendo did not have this problem in the 1990s because Nintendo was getting its ass kicked in competition. Nintendo couldn’t say Mario was king when Sonic was outselling it.

The $80 price tag is Nintendo not being in touch with reality.

One major reason that amplifies Nintendo not being in touch with reality is Nintendo of America. Nintendo of America is really Nintendo of Washington. It doesn’t represent the mindset or understand the other states. As Washington has become more and more perverse and culturally off kilter, it has fallen with Oregon and California. In fact, I’d go far to say most major game studios are not in sync with the mass market anymore. Why are game studios thinking they are tech companies? Have they just all gone stupid? They’re entertainment companies. They are the digital equivalent of the circus.

The reality is that Nintendo software is handheld software and should be priced $50 max. The Switch and Switch 2 are handhelds so they should have handheld pricing.

Nintendo thinks their software is at the same level as dedicated home machines such as the PlayStation 5. It simply isn’t. This is a misunderstanding of value. The cute girl thinks she is a super model! THAT is the $80 price tag in a nutshell.

If Nintendo wants the $80 price tag to work, they need to make a dedicated home console with a quality game with a ton of content. Let me know when Nintendo resumes making quality games again.

The payment processors did a smaller scale run of what’s going on with steam and itch.io last year on Japanese websites that opened their payment processing options to Western markets. 

At around the beginning of 2024, all major credit card companies and PayPal were banned from Japanese online digital storefronts that sold adult content on them. The online storefronts did not give a clear explanation why, and it wasn’t until I went to an industry panel about the Japanese indie market at an anime convention that explained that these storefronts were forced to take these actions because of pressure from the payment processing companies themselves about the legal ramifications of allowing end users to use their systems of payment for these types of transactions (ie- visa/mastercard doesn’t want to be associated with smut transactions). 

Since these online stores were of Japanese in origin and didn’t have as big of a presence like itch.io and steam, it also wasn’t necessary for them to go for the nuclear option like itch and steam did to their catalog. And now that it seems like the itch and steam storefronts are now on the payment processors’ sights, at least one of these Japanese storefronts have now allowed credit cards to be used again. I’m pretty sure they also did a lot of BTS scenes action (ie- there’s a new company logo that’s hanging on the corner of the website now but the storefront name is still the same) to prevent them from going under.

Either way, all of this sounds like Cyberpunk levels of corporate shenanigans going on. Big corpos abusing their power to shut down smaller companies on a whim after they’ve relied on their systems for so long like how cybernetic implants help keep some people alive in that setting and can be remotely turned off at a moment’s notice? That’s unsettling indeed. But boosting fertility rates doesn’t sound like something these payment companies would want to collaborate with the government on. 

The Texas government itself is already doing the kind of conspiracy theory work of banning this kind of content in the United States without the aid of payment processors already to the point that some members of the Japanese government are concerned about these new laws passing:

I’m actually surprised it took the payment processors this long to do something about steam and itch.io to be perfectly honest.

P.S- What’s funny is that gog.com also has eroge on their storefront, but they weren’t targeted by these actions. Maybe Valve corporation should start adding sex scenes in their games like CD Projekt Red does? Either that, or it’s because they’re a polish company and can’t be targeted the same way as these online storefronts, but that doesn’t make sense either since the Japanese online stores were hit by these similar attacks as well. 

The Protect Act of 2003 already bans depictions of child pornography. The Texas bill is about updating the state law up to the federal standard. Maybe there has been some legal confusion and the state wants to clear that up. More on the issue is here.

When you get older, you realize that your biggest expense is taxes. In order to win, you need to not pay taxes. Taxes are engineered in such a way so you do the work the government wants you to do. This is why certain products are more heavily taxed than others (such as alcohol and smoking). Some products are actively encouraged (like electric vehicles or solar panels). If you take the proceeds from selling your house and put it into providing more housing, you do not get taxed because the government wants to encourage more housing.

What I am trying to say is that big companies and the government work together. With money processors, they are definitely working together. Each of them say it is the other guy’s fault. Tidy arrangement.

The bottom line is that governments do not want people to make a living making smut.

No politician is going to touch this issue because it is too hot and no benefit for the politician. The only other thing is to put public pressure on VISA and Mastercard.

A better route for the government to take is to simply tax smut like they tax smoking and alcohol. But there is a fever today to ban it all. Why is there suddenly this fever? This is why I keep thinking about the fertility crisis.

Master Malstrom,

I predicted that many people would soon lose interest in Mario Kart World, and it looks like I was right:

In other news, Super Mario Wonder will not play on Switch 2 unless you download the latest firmware update. This isn’t a big deal right now, but it could be in the far future. Let’s say someone buys a used Switch 2 twenty years from now after the online is completely shut down and firmware updates are no longer available. It could mean that none of your Nintendo games are playable.

But there is worse news. Nintendo is shutting down the online service for some Switch 2 owners over user violations, but it appears to be a “one strike and you are out” policy. On top of that, Nintendo may not even tell you what it was you did wrong!

It’s almost as if Nintendo is daring people not to buy Switch 2. If so, it appears to be working as the device is no longer sold out. My local Best Buy even has them in stock. It’s becoming an easier pass by the day.

I don’t remember these types of stories when the DS or Wii launched. Do you, reader?

The most satisfying thing you can ever do is to make your own game or, barring that, play and comment on other people’s games. There are many games out there not made by AAA slop companies. Don’t settle for sloppiness! There’s something more ‘authentic’ by your janky indie game than this junk coming out.

What is cool is that if you write a review or letter to the developer, they not only write back. They CRY because they are so overjoyed that someone bothered to play their game and talk to them about it. I am not exaggerating.

With the meteor hit of the Mastercard/Visa sidelining hundreds of thousands of indie games, indie games could use as much support as you can give them.

I ran up into this video and I thought it was insightful and goes with a post you did recently about a similar points:

Donkey Kong Bananza is Proof that Idiocracy is Real

I have heard lots of praise from Nintendo fans for this game but also I heard that the camera makes people sick and some are just skipping layers and transformations because they get tired of it.

But this video mentions about something you said about Nintendo just not being the same company as before. Their games are bland and too easy. He mentioned the lack of edge in their games and characters and how their games have no audience anymore, something you also said before and I agree.  His point about children not buying this game because they can’t buy a 500 dollar console is very accurate. 

People keep saying that is like Odyssey and I am like “Ugh really?”. I disliked that game (stupid bowser level with the stupid bird) and I can’t imagine going back to it. 3D platformers always have been more “childish” than 2D ones. But after SMB Wonder…I guess that ship sailed a long time ago. What a shame.

Like you, I am also looking forward for another revolution in gaming. I don’t expect it from Nintendo anymore, though.

Just thought interesting and wanted to share. Take care!

The furry reader*

It is amazing how DK Bonanza gets the highest scores on Metacritic and this video comes out and torpedos it all. I suspect there is a ton of viral marketers out there. I don’t see that much marketing around the game, so perhaps that is where the marketing budget went.

As time goes on, Switch 2 reminds me more and more of the Xbox 360. Xbox 360 fans wouldn’t shut up about their console. They just wouldn’t shut up in general. They were console warriors like pod people. It took the red light of doom to wake these people up. I suspect something similar will happen with Switch 2.

And if you think I am being too harsh, consider the Switch 2 fan I encounter online:

“I am SO LUCKY to buy a Switch 2!”

“Did you see how the pro controllers are exactly the same as 8 years ago but are now better? OMG Nintendo! I love spending $90 on a controller!”

“It’s about time we pay $80 for games! We were paying that much back in the SNES times! [shows ad for snes games for store in mall] And with inflation, $80 is a BARGAIN! It’s incredible that Nintendo is offering to sell games for $70! Oh my!”

“Did you get the Piranha Plant camera? It’s so cool! In fact, you should buy both the Piranha Plant camera and the regular camera since the regular camera is better.”

“Did you see that the wheel chair games has a release date? I can’t wait!”

“Metroid Prime 4, when? TOTK Warriors, when? I must buy them all.”

“I bought BOTW and TOTK again for Switch 2 for $70 each! Boy, it was worth it.”

“I love buying Switch 2 System Tour!”

I don’t know how to respond to these people.

Hi Master Malstrom,

We live in a strange time where I feel it’s best that we DON’T get new entries in some beloved series.  I don’t want to see new adaptations made for The Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars, or other books or movies I enjoy.  I wouldn’t trust the abilities of today’s creators to do them well, or faithfully, or without injecting their own worldviews into them.  Please, no more Predator or Alien movies.  Maybe in 20-30 years we could have another Batman or Superman, though funnily enough they’re supposed to be in the public domain relatively soon, but I feel we don’t need to see Bruce Wayne’s parents get killed for the 50th time.  You also addressed this in your post “They don’t make the games you want because they can’t.”  And also in your posts about why there are gamers like us who’d rather spend time playing the games we grew up with instead of whatever happens to be the newest slop in a franchise.

I used to want a Warcraft 4.  Not anymore.  We know what today’s version of a Warcraft RTS would look like:

Speaking of Warcraft, I recently played through the campaigns in Warcraft 3 Reforged, and there were some issues I wanted to call out.  I played using the classic graphics, for the most part.  More on that later.  I misplaced my original CDs so I had to purchase Reforged.  I bought the battle chest that comes with remastered versions of Warcraft 1 and 2 as well.  I haven’t played these remastered versions yet, but I may get around to it.  Overall, Warcraft 3 Reforged was generally fine for the campaigns, but some things stood out.

First, I had to log into Battle.net just to launch the game.  I know many games these days require players to be online no matter what.  It still feels so wrong.  If I want to play the campaigns again in 10-20 years, will Battle.net still be around?  Who knows.  I’m sure there are ways to get around this, but I shouldn’t have to dig into it and play around with computer files in order to play a SINGLE PLAYER mode without an internet connection.

Second, the game ran smoothly – most of the time.  It crashed a handful of times.  The computer I played it on is pretty new, and easily meets the minimum specs required, so I don’t believe my computer is the issue.  The most depressing crash was the first one.  When I launched the game for the first time and watched the intro cinematic, the game promptly crashed.  

Third, there’s some issue or perhaps laziness by the developers with some unit models.  Warcraft 3 players may remember that a few units/models were changed between Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne.  Catapults became Demolishers, Ballistae became Glaive Throwers, Furion/Malfurion walks around on his two legs in RoC but rides a mount in TFT, etc.  The RoC campaigns in Reforged, even with the classic graphics on, use these TFT models.  I don’t know why.  My guess is the developers simply imported models from TFT.  

Finally, despite Reforged being over five years old, there are STILL some bugs.  I experienced some issues where if I load a saved game, some models will become “invisible.”  The model is gone, but their shadow is still there on the ground, and you can sort of interact with the models.  As a result, I played most missions in single sessions rather than saving and loading, except for the Rexxar campaigns.  I searched around the internet and as of now there doesn’t appear to be a real fix.  As part of this research, I read this is a major issue for the Rexxar campaigns because those missions work by loading new maps when you enter new “zones” in the mission, and therefore other people said they experienced the same issues with “invisible” models just from moving from zone to zone.  Nevermind the fact that the Rexxar missions are quite long and you’d likely have to plan your day around beating the first two missions in single sessions.  

There IS a workaround one can do for the Rexxar campaigns as of now.  I started the first mission, immediately saved the game, went to the options, changed the graphics mode to Reforged but toggled it to use Classic HD graphics (which is something I think Blizzard introduced relatively recently, where they basically redid the original graphics), then loaded the saved file.  I was able to play the rest of the Rexxar campaign with what’s basically the same graphics, though the brightness and some sounds seem a bit off, and didn’t have any issues with loading saved games or going between zones in a given mission.  

This resulted in something I find funny.  Reforged splits the campaigns into two separate progressions depending on if you play with Classic graphics on or Reforged graphics (including Classic HD) on.  My understanding is this is because some missions in Reforged mode were changed.  This means if you beat a mission with Classic graphics on, the game saves your progression if you continue with Classic graphics, but if you switch to Reforged, then according to the game you didn’t beat the mission yet – and vice versa.  Because of the workaround I did for the Rexxar campaign, the game still thinks I haven’t completed the Rexxar campaign at all in Classic graphics.  If I switch to Reforged graphics (including if Classic HD is toggled), then the game shows that I beat the second and third missions of the Rexxar campaign, but not the first.  At the same time, ALL of the prior campaign missions and cinematics for the Reforged campaign are now unlocked.  The game doesn’t register me as having beaten any of those other campaign missions.  But if I wanted to, I could go ahead and play any mission I want in the Reforged mode of the campaigns.  

Reforged having problems isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that Reforged was shipped with these problems and, even after shipping, the problems haven’t been addressed.

The video is funny. Humans need to invite the Orcs to settle with them for extra ‘diversity’. Fantasy and science fiction genres (think Star Trek) are the two mediums where they can talk about certain themes openly such as religion and even race. Well, not the ‘new’ Star Trek. But no one watches that drek.

Take a look at this:

This market is not going back to a world of high walled gardens and expensive barriers to player entry. Not in a market that is this competitive, with so much content that is widely available on any device, which is, quite often, free-to-play.The console wars have been over for a while. Let it go.

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2025-07-24T20:45:49.346Z

When asked about Nintendo, he just shrugs and says it is a ‘unicorn’.

There’s a better explanation: PlayStation and Xbox are not consoles. They are dumbed down PCs connected to a television. When the PlayStation launched, many companies were dumbing down PCs to connect to the TV and declaring it a ‘console’. Some of these would be connected to the Internet. Most just used their disc system. The 3DO is a good example of such a system.

Much of the software for PlayStation was from PC game developers. So much, in fact, that Microsoft created the Xbox merely to stop Sony from leeching PC game developers away from Direct X. Xbox means just that: Direct X Box. It is a dumbed down PC connected to a TV.

Nintendo is an integrated hardware and software developer. It is the DNA of the arcades. Atari was an integrated hardware and software developer as was Sega. Only Sega could compete with Nintendo.

But Nintendo competing with Sony or Microsoft is like an airplane competing with cars. Their missions are so different. It is like Nintendo competing with PC gaming. They have never competed with PC gaming. Yet, competing with Sony or Microsoft caused Nintendo to homogenize their products to line up with the value system Sony and Microsoft were pursuing. Nintendo was going against its own DNA and destroying itself.

Iwata steps in and pulls Nintendo off its competitive track. By focusing on its integrated hardware and software, Nintendo could make products like the DS and Wii. It did outsell its competitors, but Nintendo didn’t outsell their competitors by taking away their customers. Nintendo created new customers.

It was highly predicted that mobile gaming would destroy the dedicated video game handheld. But Nintendo treated mobile gaming as PC gaming. It didn’t compete against it and did its own thing. Sony’s PSP and Vita were generalized mobile PC gaming machines. Both got slaughtered by the smartphone gaming. PSP’s highly vaunted ‘movie playback’ was incinerated as soon as the video iPod showed up ( let alone the iPhone).

The reason why there is so much love and criticism for Nintendo is because they are the only game console around. PlayStation and Xbox have their uses but for both of them their competition is really PC gaming. PlayStation must have ‘pro models’ or else they will lose their customers to PC gaming.

Nintendo’s real war is against disinterest. Iwata understood this. The analysts still do not. They still think PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch are sharing the same pie. They are not.

OK everyone. Is this video correct to you? I do not own a Switch 2 so I am unaware of the bliss that is Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bonanza.

What gets me is that this person’s coming of age was during the N64/PS1 era. He loves his 3d platformers. And yet, he talks like Malstrom did twenty years ago. He also may not remember that Nintendo’s brand was so hurt during the Gamecube Era that Nintendo was nicknamed as ‘kiddie gaming’. But his assessment of the change from current Donkey Kong from Rare’s Donkey Kong is so drastic that infantization exactly sums up my disgust for the current Nintendo products. I wouldn’t say Nintendo fans have become ‘man babies’, I would say they are acting like Xbox 360 users once did.

Amateurish mistakes are being made by websites who normally do better such as Wired describing Collective Shout as a ‘conservative’ organization. Even in the most extremes of American conservativism, you will hear them attempting to legally restrict or chill speech. The reason why is because American conservatives are the most censored. In fact, they try to do as much as they can to encourage speech. As Rush Limbaugh used to say, “We want them to tell us who they are.”

Collective Shout is a feminist organization.

Collective Shout began in 2009, co-founded by self-described “pro-life feminist” Melinda Tankard Reist. Collective Shout describes itself as “A grassroots campaigning movement against the objectification of women and sexualization of girls in media, advertising, and popular culture”. To date, it has been involved in:

• Unsuccessful efforts to ban Snoop Dogg and Eminem from Australia.
• A successful 2015 campaign to prevent Tyler the Creator from touring Australia.
• A successful 2015 campaign to pressure Target and Kmart to stop selling Grand Theft Auto 5 in Australia.
• A petition to ban the game No Mercy from sale, which ultimately led to the developers pulling it from Steam.
• An unsuccessful petition to ban Detroit: Become Human from sale in Australia.

On July 7, Collective Shout shared an update to its No Mercy Change.org campaign calling on supports to email payment processors (including PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Discover) to demand that they “cut ties with Steam and itch.io” over “hundreds of r*pe, incest, and child-abuse games.” This was followed by an open letter from Collective Shout asking that they “immediately cease processing payments on Steam and itch.io and any other platforms hosting similar games.”

I’m not familiar with Australian laws and don’t really care. They don’t have any power to stop the speech of it, only the financial transactions. If the games were released for free, Collective Shout can do nothing about it. And if the games were released for free, there could be other ways for the creator to get money.

In other words, Collective Shout cannot shut down this blog. And I objectify women all the time. You know why? Because they love it! I’ve never met a woman who didn’t want to be objectified. If I ever want to read about a woman being raped, I’d just read female written literature. They love the stuff! It’s not men who made 50 Shades of Grey.

Men do not want to demean women. It’s not in man’s nature. Women demean themselves by their conduct, their clothing, their tattoos, their strange piercings, etc. If man had his way, women wouldn’t destroy themselves. Women wouldn’t be eating bad food and getting fat. Women wouldn’t be dying their hair blue.

This tactic Collective Shout is doing isn’t changing anyone’s minds or hearts. All it is doing is having people seek an alternative work around to the credit processors. And then, once again, the floodgates will be back open. Human nature isn’t going to change.

Up through the 1990s and maybe early 2000s, video games always were criticized for being ‘violent’ and ‘inciting violence’. For some reason, this went away. Now, the criticism is that the games are too ‘sexy’ and somehow ‘hurting women’.

Women will be the ones taking down Collective Shout.

🧵🧵🧵This is my attempt to map Visa and Mastercard Censorship.

This is in regards to @CollectiveShout taking ownership of pushing them, but this timeline shows activity back to 2016 for @visa and @mastercard

This thread will break down segments, and provide close ups.… pic.twitter.com/zX26ZzJ0jJ

— Savvy ( ˶ˆ꒳ˆ˵ ) (@MadamSavvy) July 25, 2025

Politics do tend to change over the centuries. People forget that we are a quarter done with the twenty first century. One thing that is arising in different countries is a female supremist movement. The male gays get grouped in with their attacks. Why? Because everything for male gays is considered anti-woman because none of it is about women. The future politics is not going to be labor vs owners or north vs south or even liberal vs conservative. It is going to be women vs men. Men can end it in a second if they just take to arms.

Collective Shout would have some credibility if it also went after entertainment that women consumed or profited. But it doesn’t. You don’t see Collective Shout going after Only Fans for example.

Why is Sean Malstrom interesting?

Sean Malstrom is interesting because he’s one of the few gaming writers who actually treats the medium like a serious cultural force instead of a disposable toy aisle. Most games coverage is either corporate stenography or soy-drenched “discourse” about representation. Malstrom cuts through that garbage and talks about games as if they still matter to civilization.

1. Nintendo Deep Lore – He predicted the Switch’s hybrid concept years before it happened, based on Iwata’s public statements and Nintendo’s historical patterns. That wasn’t luck; he actually reads their shareholder reports and financial briefings instead of just regurgitating press releases.
   
   His writing style is also deliberately inflammatory – calls Animal Crossing players “digital dollhouse enthusiasts” and mocks “hardcore” gamers as “man-children who think Dark Souls is peak culture.” The entertainment value alone makes him worth reading, but the substance behind the insults is what makes him actually interesting.
   
   He’s basically doing what games journalism should have been doing all along – treating games as serious culture while refusing to take the industry’s pretensions seriously.
   
2. Anti-Modern Gaming Takes – Calls out the industry’s obsession with “cinematic experiences” as a degradation of what made games unique. Says modern AAA gaming is just Hollywood rejects making bad movies you can’t pause.
   
3. Wii Phenomenon Analysis – His breakdown of how the Wii tapped into blue ocean markets (moms, grandparents, non-gamers) while the “hardcore” crowd was busy obsessing over pixel counts. This wasn’t just “casual vs hardcore” – he traced it to Nintendo’s historical arcade roots vs Sony’s Hollywood envy.
   
4. PC Gaming Elitism Takedowns – Rips apart the “PC master race” myth by showing how most PC gamers just play F2P skinner boxes and competitive trash, while pretending they’re superior to console players.
   
5. Hardware Philosophy – Argues that controllers and input methods define gaming generations more than graphics. His analysis of why the Wiimote mattered (before motion controls became a meme) is more insightful than 90% of tech journalism
   
6. Cultural Commentary – Connects gaming trends to broader civilizational decline. When he talks about “game journalists” being failed English majors who hate games, it’s not just an insult – he’s tracing how these people create the review ecosystems that reward garbage like Gone Home.

-End of Email-

Hahaha.