Not sure anyone here really cares but Joystiq is gone. It is, in my opinion, one of the best news sources when it comes to video games.

http://www.joystiq.com/2015/02/03/there-is-no-end/#continued

I would rather see Kotaku burn to the ground instead, I just can't stand that website...

In passing, I would like to mention the site http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/alpha.htm

It is one of the best websites for retro gaming on the Internet. It feels a lot like this site and these people go to astounding lengths when writing their articles. A look at pretty much any thread on their forum proves how knowledgable they are and this is basically an underground website for many professional industry journalists.

I find it funny when Googling this site too. You get as far as "Hardcore G" before Google stops giving you suggested results. No Google, not "Hardcore Gay porn", "Hardcore Gaming 101" please...

One of their most interesting articles/threads IMO:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tracing/tracing.htm

http://hg101.proboards.com/thread/9643/tracing-influence-stolen-images-games

Also I'm happy to say that I personally contributed to this article, along with many others, as stated at the beginning of the article...

The-Excel wrote:

A few weeks before this happened, they abandoned traditional review scores in favor of general recommendation/disrecommendations. Then out of nowhere, this happens. Spooky.

Yeah, fact is unfortunately it was bought by AOL and apparently they are restructuring (no surprise there). Joystiq is a victim of this restructuring.

Ironically there is a post by Kotaku about Joystiqs demise admitting it being its strongest and most respected rival.

What's the difference between Kotaku and Joystiq? In my opinion Joystiq has been consistently clever, funny and down to earth. Kotaku on the other hand is pretentious, heavy handed and are propagandists...

JoshWoodzy wrote:

Also, GameInformer has always been the Dollar General of video game publications. It's the epitome of mediocre/shitty.

Also considering its collaboration with GameStop. Just fuck GameStop. It is the last stop on my list when interested in purchasing a game. Last time I had to walk into one these stores was when Fire Elmblem came out. It was release week and apparently Nintendo underestimated the interest in this title. Bestbuy, Target, Frys and even Wallmart quickly burned through their copies. So I ended up having a copy held at a local GameStop.

But really, how many times do I have to tell you GameStop zombie employee that I don't want to reserve from a list of games you spout out, buy your discount cards or your Gameinformer subs before I can buy my Fire Emblem and just GTFO.

Several years ago I actually worked at GameStop. One of those McJobs while going through school and was an ASM. I basically managed the store and actively sabotaged GameStops policies on pestering customers to get "numbers", or reservations and subscriptions to Gameinformer, and guess what happened? We got more and more loyal customers coming in as it was basically run as a video game store should be run, as a mom and pop store that employed very passionate informative employees that can inform soccer moms on what to buy their kids for Christmas and at the same time play everything from MTG to Battleship with those loyal customers. It was tons of fun...

However this is not how GameStop wants their shops to be run. I have met several friends working at that store that I still have relations with but far more assholes. Specifically going to regional/district meetings to see the "top" reservation/subs/numbers managers showing up to these meetings sporting aviator sunglasses and Bluetooth headsets in a convertible thinking that they were rock stars. I mean really. You are the manager working at a video game chain store at the mall...

One of these fucks in this convertible I personally trained and ended up managing the store across the street at another GameStop. Technically he was my supiorer despite my training him and started to notice a disturbing pattern. He would insist I follow/approach African American customers in tne store and "watch" them. He consistently referred to them as Niggers. This pissed me off and he began to notice. I remember him saying the following to me "if you are not racist against Niggers, try being a cop for while and this might change your disposition."

He had been a cop previously who had been shot multiple times when pulling an African American over on a traffic violation and subsequently was forced into retirement from the police force. Sucks for him but honestly fuck him, I had/have no interest in being a racist nor a police officer. I had befriended some of these "niggers" and they were harmless. One kid just really liked Digimon and Pokemon games and he was like 12 years old and was no threat. Our store, matter of fact, despite having the lowest Revs/subs rate happened to be not only one of the most profitable but also had the lowest loss prevention rate in the district. But more about that later because funny thing happened shortly after this ex cop became GM of the store across the street and showed up to that meeting dressed and acting like a rockstar/douchebag. He ended up embezzling and stealing nearly 40,000 dollars worth of shit from the store he managed before quitting and got away with it with no criminal charges. This guy is a racist piece of shit and he did this being an ex cop.

Shortly before he quit I got a phone call from this ass were he claimed two individuals had just stolen two PS2s and would likely be crossing the street to trade them in. Sure snough they showed up at the store.

At this point it is important to mention GameStops policies in this sort of situation. You are legally not allowed to accuse a customer of theft however obvious it may be. GameStop quite literally turns a blind eye to these transactions and doesn't want a lawsuit filed. They have certain "rules" when it comes to trade ins but they are far more interested in profiting in used goods as they only make like five bucks off of new games but make 40 plus on traded in games ect. It is in their interest to just get these PS2s traded back in, stolen or not, and they would still get a profit as they make a 0% on selling new systems.

So whatever, these guys show up to trade the systems in and I am on the phone with this asshole manager from across the street insisting them that I confront them about the systems being stolen from his store. Was an awkward experience but I mentioned this to them and got a knife pulled on me and my life threatened. Funny as I also noticed this manager was actually talking to me on the phone using the pay phone right outside the store and ran like a pussy as soon as he saw the knife. Less than month later he quit and it was quickly discovered he had stolen tens of thousands of dollars from GameStop.

GameStop profits from used games and despite the fact they no longer sell used DVDs they were not uncomfortable in taking in stolen merchandise. I have had to deal with these people aslo. Weekly a couple of redneck teenagers would show up with a shopping cart with in package, high priced boxed sets with Walmart price tags. It got annoying as we not only had to check our safe to see if we even had the cash on hand to pay them off but also were running out of space in our back room because of these people. We had like 100 copies of Band of Brothers and other shit stacking up, but their high on crack mother would provide the required ID and we just had to deal with it. I informed GameStop loss prevention about this and they could give a fuck. I even called the Wallmart from which some thousands of dollars worth of merchandise was stolen from (via the store number on the price tags), ironically they could care less.

At this time my manager was a lazy fuck that often came in hours late to work and would shortly thereafter disappear to go smoke pot. Often I would have to close the store to quickly run across to the Taco Bell having not eaten for hours.

Then there was Casey. What a piece of shit, he was an ex cell phone salesman and total scumbag. While he was manager there was some kid that worked at the store that was actively and obviously smoking pot. So as a "joke" Casey told this kid that there would be a random drug test taking place in less then a week. So this kid ends up in the hospital with water poisoning trying to clean out his system and nearly dies. Casey thought this was hilarious.

I remember witnessing this guy stealing money from like eight olds trading game boy games in. The GameStop POS system tells you how much each game is worth. However, if Casey was interested in a game he would manipulate the price. He took a game from that eight year old that the POS listed for like 12 dollars stating it was untradable by offering him a dollar.

I'm also quite familiar with GameStops POS systems. I worked for a company that was obtained by them way back when I was 15 or so years old. When it boots up if you type /dir in the DOS prompt you are immediately treated by a prompt stating that loss prevention has been informed and you are fucked. GameStop had used this same POS system for quite sometime and through my entire career with them. Said DOS prompt was simply a bullshit fear technique and I would do it multiple times a night while closing the store. There is an exception to this however, back in 2000ish they upgraded to a more modern day POS system, a Windows 2000/ME based one. Funny thing is you could control alt delete and stop the process that reported all transactions to corporate. Oops, somebody fucked up because hundreds of thousands of dollars suddenly started to disappear. On top of that is it really that hard to understand the need for a barcode on your trade in credit receipts? It is not hard to use Photoshop to turn a $34.40 into a $340.40 dollar one.

It is not only a stupid company but a corrupt one. Working there I have never been threatened so many times in my life.

One last story...

Some crackhead comes in hoping to trade in DVDs that were in fact not even released. It was clear he had stolen them either from his employer or whatever as DVDs usually get shipped earlier upon release. My friend Roger and myself were working that night and as it was impossible for the POS to even SCU these DVDs we told him sorry but no. In response, he pulls out a hacksaw and timidly asks"well then how much for this?". Am I about to get murdered by a crack head looking for his next fix or no? This was the daily life of a GameStop employee and perhaps still is.

TLDR: just don't go to GameStop and fuck Gameinformer...

Edit: also would like to mention that at one point GameStop wanted each store or team to come up with a nickname for themselves. Most stores chose nicknames like "The Metal Gear Solids" and other bullshit names. The name I suggested to the DM was Gamestapo, for some reason that didn't fly. =)

lordsathien wrote:

Muppet, your stories reminded me of a shirt I received several years ago.

For real unbelievable...

I need one of those shirts and wear it as a suit of armor next time I might have to walk into a GameStop again.

Also, I would like to mention GameStop frequently hires attractive women as they tend to get more reservations/subs/numbers out of a largely male customer base. In the same way suckers walk into a Hooters or a strip club unaware that they are being manipulated.

One girl I worked with back at GameStop was an admittedly incredibly hot asian girl(I will confess I have a weak spot for asian girls) but she grew more and more tiresome over time as most incredibly attractive women have in common IMO. She would constantly brag about how she was going to transfer to Berkley after she finished juinor college on her rich parents dime in hopes of becoming a lawyer. She ended up getting fired after I noticed that she switched out a PSP in the safe that was returned for having too many dead pixels( a common problem with this system in the early days) and had stolen an N-Gage. I confronted her and she was fired after a talk with loss prevention. What confuses me the most is why she would steal an N-Gage (the "Taco Phone" that required you to remove the battery to switch games and was embarrassing bad in its design). My fear is she might actually be a lawyer now...

Then one day my manager hired two sexy Russian twin sisters to work at the store. Having lived in Eastern Europe I am quite aware that nine out of ten girls in this region of the world are nine out of tens. Also living in this area of the world has caused me to have a great dislike for Russians in general. Not trying to say all Russians are dickheads but my experience with them has been bad. They seem to be a country full of bitter, xenophobic and highly nationalistic assholes with a giant chip on their shoulders (Putin being an extreme example of this). If you ever go to Russia, here is some advice, don't smile at anyone, it pisses them off. Also this might have something to do with me getting in a bar fight in Helsinki with Russian Neo-Nazis (ironic... Russian and Nazis? Both facists so maybe no...?). Anyways, I was immediately annoyed with these two airhead Russian twins and they did not last long.

I am quite aware that this might offend any Russians that are here on the forums although I am not aware of any. Whatever, you breed sexy women, but given my experience are still assholes. Stop helping China, North Korea, Iran ect. And stop fucking with the Ukranians.

@om*d wrote:

I actually have quite a few friends who are Russian and most of them are very nice people. A couple of them are of the mindset that "Russia is the best country and the world and can do no wrong." I then ask them why they live in the US if that is what they believe and they say nothing. Those same ones also despise Ukrainians for not becoming a part of Russia. It has a lot to do with the Russian belief that Kiev should be a part of Russia due to Kievan Rus being the predecessor to the Modern countries of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Also, in my experience Russians really like to smile, but only in very specific circumstances. And their humor is very weird to our Western standards.

I agree, not all Russians are bad people I just have had some really bad experiences with them personally and professionally (Hackers).

I had a close friend named Serge in high school that was fresh off the boat and he was cool as hell. Strange though because he was quite paranoid being a new citizen in the United States. He would tell me stories about his school experiences in Russia. Similar to how we had to do fire drills and shit in high school, he would go through cold war era drills that involved learning to use gas masks in fear that the US would use chemical warfare against Russian school children. Apparently the cold war didn't end in Russia in 1989 as it did with the rest of the world because this was like in 1997.

In middle school my best friend was Russian, Danny was his name. We had some good times together and both of us had early access to the internet (1993, the BBS days). It was surprisingly easy to get into government and telecom networks back then and just fuck shit up. Then AOL came out and we had our fun with booters and botnets. However, he developed a crush on my sister and when she didn't respond to his advances he called her a bitch right in front of me and my brother and got beat the fuck up. However, Boys will be boys and that stuff just happens and we still remand friends until we went to different high schools.

Still friends with Serge to this day but Danny is off the grid. None of my mutual friends knows his whereabouts or what happened to him.