#oneaday Day 368: Punked

I decided to nab Cyberpunk 2077 from the Nintendo Switch 2's launch lineup. I haven't particularly followed the game since its original semi-disastrous launch several years back, but I figured the Switch 2 port would be a good way to jump in with zero expectations. I also wanted to support one of the few third-party developers releasing their game on an actual game card instead of a Game Key Card. Vote with your wallet, send a message and all that.

I'm pretty impressed so far. While the game doesn't run at 4K 60fps, I wasn't expecting it to; it does, however, run at what appears to be a perfectly stable 30fps in 1080p, and it also taught me that my TV apparently does have a 120Hz mode, because despite not actually running at 120fps, it switches to that mode when playing Cyberpunk.

I haven't played a lot of the game so far, but what I was hoping for was something with a similar sort of vibe to classic PC games like Deus Ex. While I don't think Cyberpunk 2077 goes quite as hard on the "immersive sim" side of things as some games like that, I've been enjoying what I've played so far. Playing a CD Projekt game from first-person is a fun novelty, and Night City seems like an interesting location to explore so far. They've also nailed that thing where they drop you into a setting and everyone is using what will initially be unfamiliar slang, but you soon pick up the lingo and feel like you're part of the world.

I haven't really decided what kind of character "my" V is going to be as yet. With games like this, I do often tend to gravitate towards stealthy and hacking-type abilities, but I appreciate there's a stat in this just called "cool", which involves doing cool things like taking down enemies using pistols and being street smart.

Thus far the combat seems to be all right. It's of the "point a gun at someone and numbers pop out of them" variety, but supposedly with the right combination of skills, weapons and good aim, you can do things like knock enemies down with a single headshot and suchlike. The close-up melee combat appears to be a bit cack, however, but no first-person game has ever really nailed this, and at least it's not quite Elder Scrolls levels of wafting blindly at an enemy right in front of you; there is at least a nominal sense of impact when your blows connect.

I think I'm out of what is essentially the tutorial missions now, so I'm going to spend a bit more time with it tonight and see how I get on. I still have several other games on the go so starting a brand new one is probably a terrible idea, but you know how it is. Shiny new toy, you want to try it out as much as you can. And, outside of Mario Kart World, this was probably the most interesting thing from the launch lineup.

So anyway. Cyberpunk 2077 thus far appears to be A Good. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 367: Acknowledge, Align, Assure

Customer service is something that you would think we'd have nailed at this point. So why is it that everyone dreads having to contact an organisation's support department? It is, of course, because we emphatically have not nailed it.

I'd like to tell you the saga of my Ikea chair. One of the legs broke on it a few weeks back, so I've been attempting to get it replaced under its guarantee — something which shouldn't be a problem. So I contacted the support department through their chat facility — there's no means of emailing them, and I do not like talking to people on the phone — and, after several minutes of attempting to make the stupid AI chatbot understand what it was I was enquiring about, I was transferred to someone that was supposedly a human being.

I explained to the person that the chair leg had broken, and that the problem was with the point where the leg attached to the chair's base. As such, I needed the base of the chair replacing rather than the leg itself.

It was at this point that I first ran into a phenomenon that I'm sure you've all encountered at some point in the recent past: the Acknowledge, Align, Assure approach to customer service. I first became aware of this when I worked at the Apple Store between 2007 and 2009, and it still appears to very much be standard practice when dealing with any large corporation today.

Here's how it works. You explain your complaint. The person you complain to then repeats your complaint back to you verbatim, which is them Acknowledging there is a problem. They then say something along the lines of "I'm sorry" or "I understand that this might be frustrating", which is them Aligning with your viewpoint, attempting to demonstrate that they empathise with your plight. They then tell you what they are going to do, and Assure you that everything is going to be all right.

This happened by the book in my first contact with Ikea's support agency. The person on the other end of the chat said that they were sorry my chair leg had broken, and that the problem was with the point where the leg attached to the chair's base, and that I needed the base of the chair replacing rather than the leg itself. They explained that they understood how frustrating this must be, and then told me that a replacement would be with me within 14 working days.

Just to ensure that I wasn't about to be sent nothing but a chair leg in the post within 14 working days, I reiterated very carefully and clearly that the problem was with the chair's base, and that that was the part which needed replacing. I was told "don't worry" and that everything would be resolved within 14 working days.

At some point within the next 14 working days, I received a small package through the post from the Netherlands. Inside the package was a single chair leg.

Of course, I immediately contacted support again, and told them the situation. I was once again told how sorry the chat operator was that I had been sent a leg and not the whole chair base that I had asked for, and that they appreciated how frustrating this may be. I was told once again "don't worry" — those exact words — and assured that the base of the chair would be with me within 14 days, that it would be coming via DHL and that I would get a phone call the morning it would be arriving.

Another 14 working days passed. I received no further packages from the Netherlands, no phone call from DHL, and indeed no indication whatsoever that anything had been done at all. So today I got back on the chat and asked to know what on Earth was going on.

After telling me how sorry that they were that the chair on my leg was broken, and that I needed the base of my chair replacing, and that I had been sent nothing but an individual replacement leg of the chair and no indication that a new chair base was, in fact, on the way to me, and explaining how they understood how frustrating this was, they were about to assure me that everything was okay before I stopped them.

"Just please replace the entire chair if that's easier," I said.

They are coming on Wednesday to pick up the old chair and provide me with a new one. At least, that's what's supposed to be happening, anyway. We shall see whether or not that actually happens.

The thing with Acknowledge, Align, Assure is that it's one of those things that looks and sounds perfectly fine in theory and when you're training people, but in the real world it comes across as insincere and patronising. Surely, you'd think, who wouldn't want to feel like the person manning the support channels wasn't on your side? Having them say they understand how frustrating things are humanises them, surely, and thus that makes them more likely to be believed when they offer assurances that everything is, in fact, going to be all right when it emphatically is not.

I understand why it happens. It's because of corporate policy and procedure, and it is primarily there to protect both the company and the individual support agent. In theory, it prevents the support agent promising things the company will not be able to fulfil, and it ensures the support agent themselves is not held responsible as an individual if something goes wrong amid the process.

But it's completely and utterly dehumanising for everyone involved. There's a reason why people still like going to little, local mom-and-pop shops, and that's because that's where you get real customer service; that's where you get people being genuine, where you feel like they really want to help you and ensure that you walk away happy. Because while a single unhappy customer is a drop in the ocean for a huge corporation, for a small, local company it could be the difference between life and death.

Ikea, Apple and any number of other huge corporate entities obsessed with policy and procedure aren't going to change their ways any time soon, and I don't have any particularly comforting words about that. I guess the ideal answer is that we all make a commitment to shopping with small, local businesses rather than multinational corporations — but I think we all know that simply isn't possible for a lot of us, for one reason or another. It sucks, but it is the world we've inadvertently created for ourselves, so now we have to live with it.

I'm sorry that it sucks and that it's the world we've inadvertently created for ourselves, so now we have to live with it. This must be very frustrating. But please don't worry.

Because nothing is going to get any better, ever. Happy Monday!

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 366: Bardic Investigations

I have now watched roughly half of the complete run to date of Shakespeare and Hathaway: Private Investigators, and I'm still really enjoying it. It's low-effort TV but not in an "insulting to your intelligence" sort of way; more that it's quite gentle in terms of both it's dramatic and comedic aspects.

A good example of this is the fact that in the 21 episodes I've watched so far, there hasn't been a single fight scene, and action scenes in general are fairly limited. There's been a few car chases and a number of on-foot pursuits, too, but given the two protagonists are neither exactly in the prime of life, they mostly conclude with them outwitting their quarry rather than taking them down dramatically.

There's no swearing, either. I don't mind a bit of effing and jeffing at all — heaven knows I do it enough around here — but it is nice to watch a show that isn't being particularly tryhard about showing the "gritty" side of life.

In fact, as I noted in my first impressions, Shakespeare and Hathaway is mostly rather cartoonish, or perhaps more accurately, theatrical. Villains are unmistakably evil, with most of them practically twirling their figurative moustaches at every opportunity. Far from making the show cheesy and silly, though, this is one of many things that helps it to be so easily digestible and enjoyable without demanding too much of the viewer.

I'm not saying all TV should be like that by any means, but in an age where I know multiple people who won't start watching a new series if there isn't an analysis podcast running alongside it, it is very nice to watch something that just knows what it is, and which delivers consistent, straightforward entertainment.

An easy recommendation, then, if only for the exchange "What's the first rule of stakeouts?" "…no farting?"

#oneaday Day 365: A year of this

Yes, it appears I have been doing this nonsense (again) for a whole year. And with it, I feel a curious sense of… well, not a lot at all, really. The world, both online and offline, has changed a great deal since the first time I did a daily blogging project, and the purpose of this blog has, by extension — and not necessarily deliberately — changed somewhat, too.

When I started doing #oneaday first time around, it was an attempt to be part of a community. The people who kicked off the "challenge", as it were, were people who I wanted to get to know a bit better, mostly from in and around the games press. Unfortunately, that never really happened, as most of them dropped out pretty early, and some of them actually got rather abusive towards the entire #oneaday project at various points. So that was unfortunate.

I persisted, though. There were other people who decided to get involved that I did enjoy reading the posts of. Several people who I got to know through their posts, and enjoyed interacting with through their comments sections. Out of all of them, I'm not sure any of them even still have their blogs that they started back in the 2010s — I know I've been looking for several of them, and they're just not there any more. I hope they're doing well; it saddens me a little to think that they'd take something they'd created and just cast it aside for one reason or another, but I also understand that today, you often can't be too careful about your "Internet footprint" lest something that seemed innocuous at the time ends up getting dug up to be used against you maliciously.

That's not all, though. There are also a number of people from the anime, manga and video game enthusiast communities who I got to know a few years after I stopped doing #oneaday on a regular basis, and most of them have abandoned their blogs, too. There are a few still knocking around, to be sure, but a lot of the ones I most enjoyed reading and chatting in the comments sections of are simply no longer online at all. Again, that's a real shame; I miss those people, and since our only real point of contact was our blogs, chances are I won't hear from them ever again.

I've spoken before elsewhere about how viewing figures for personal websites are in the absolute toilet these days. I'm lucky to break double figures in views on this site these days, whereas ten years ago I'd maybe get a couple of hundred. Not particularly impressive compared to a commercial site, no, but considering all I do here is waffle on about whatever pops into my head on a given day, I thought it was quite a noteworthy achievement. MoeGamer, as a site with a tighter focus, still gets a decent number of views per day, but most of them are confined to just a few pages and articles, many of which I wrote several years ago and thus successfully acquired the SEO juice for.

As I've also said before, this blog has never been "for" anyone other than myself. I write here because I enjoy writing, because I've always enjoyed keeping a journal, and because I find it a valuable means of expressing myself. The fact that hardly anyone is reading it any more is a shame, sure, but getting people to read this site has never been a priority. If it was, I'd be sharing posts every day on social media, and I just can't be arsed with that.

You see, a post "gaining traction", as Internet vernacular has it, is a bit of a double-edged sword. Yes, it's nice to see people reading your stuff, but it also means that you're likely to run into that particular type of person online who does nothing other than arbitrarily disagree with everything you write. In many instances, one gets the impression that they don't even particularly care what they're arguing about — just that they're arguing. And when something you post online gets viewing figures outside of the circles it normally moves in, you get an exponentially greater number of people like this. And it can be exhausting.

So that's why I'm not too bothered about no-one reading this except me. I derive value from this site from being able to look back at my entries from various different times, and see how I was dealing with particular situations. I enjoy looking back over this semi-permanent record of my own memories, both good and bad. And I feel like I occasionally learn something from reflecting on things that I wrote in the past — both things that I'm proud of, and things that I regret. All of those things helped make me the person I am today, and they're all here on this one site, as a complete reference guide to Pete.

So yeah. I've been doing this daily for the second time, for a year. And I have no intention of stopping just yet. If you happen to be following along, thanks for being a member of an increasingly exclusive club. If you're new here, hi, if you have any questions chances are many of them have been answered at some point in the last three thousand posts. And if you're one of those lapsed bloggers I mentioned earlier, do say hi — it would be great to hear from some of you.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 364: I should probably play Undertale

I've never played Undertale. More impressively, I have somehow not been spoiled on Undertale as yet, but I'm feeling increasingly like I should probably play it. I do own a copy, after all, and now its follow-up Deltarune is out on Switch 2, I feel like the risk of inadvertently stumbling across spoilers in the wild is about to take a sudden spike back up.

I don't really have a good reason for not having played Undertale. It's not that I don't want to play it, it's just never been a particularly high priority for me. Part of that is down to the "reverse hype" thing, where so many people are playing it and making memes about it that I just want it to go away in order to appreciate it on its own merits. In fact, I think that's probably most of the reason I haven't played it as yet. Which is arguably a bit silly, because as I have seen with a number of other games in the past — Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Mario Kart World being the most recent ones — it's sometimes fun to feel like you're part of the "current" conversation.

I'm still in the process of weaning myself off the habit of only playing one game at a time. While it definitely pays to devote yourself to something lengthy like Xenoblade Chronicles X (which I'm closing in on 90 hours of) it also certainly doesn't hurt to play some other things in the meantime, too.

The way I've found most helpful of thinking about it is in terms of TV shows: back in the prime of serialised TV shows in the late '90s, you'd watch maybe five or six ongoing shows all at the same time and still be able to keep them all straight in your head, even with a gap of a week in between each episode. While that's not how most people enjoy TV shows today, it absolutely is still possible to watch and enjoy multiple TV shows simultaneously (well, not simultaneously, but you know what I mean) without feeling like you've "abandoned" one in favour of another. And the same should be — is — true for games, too.

Very few games have such an intense structure that they demand your undivided attention for hundreds of hours; in the case of Xenoblade Chronicles X, for example, the main story is split into discrete chapters, and in between each chapter there are a bunch of "side" missions (which are actually also very important to fleshing out the overall setting and narrative) that can be tackled a bit at a time. With that structure, it's easy to find a natural stopping point — on the micro level, after completing a single mission; on a more macro level, after completing a story chapter, or clearing up all the accessible missions between story chapters — and then go do something else for a bit.

So y'know what? This weekend I might just start Undertale. I believe it's not particularly long, either, so it might be a nice palate-cleanser, and then I can play Deltarune and be part of the conversation over that. Maybe.

In fact, I will make that a commitment. Tomorrow I will start Undertale. I have no real commitments for the weekend, so I'll sit down with it, give it some time and see what I think. As I say, I know pretty much nothing about it at all, so I am very interested to finally give it some time.

For now, though, bed. Or maybe a Mario Kart race or two before that…

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 363: It's Switch Twoursday

Come on, Nintendo, "Switch 2sday" was right there and you blew it. Sega had this shit sorted back in the '90s… although given the trajectory they took shortly afterwards, probably best not to take too many cues from them on the hardware front.

Anyway. Yes! It is the Nintendo Switch 2 launch day and I have been fortunate enough to get one on launch day. I ordered from Argos when pre-orders first went up, and I was half-expecting my order to be cancelled. But no! It arrived mid-afternoon today, so I went through the whole "transfer" process from my original Switch, and I've been happily enjoying Mario Kart World and Ridge Racer this evening.

I'm going to write something more substantial about both of those games over on MoeGamer at some point in the very near future, so I thought today I'd talk a little about my initial experiences with the Switch 2 in general.

Overall, my impressions have been very positive. Outside of the thing refusing to connect to my Wi-Fi on one side of my study (a problem that is by no means exclusive to the Switch 2), everything has gone pretty much as smoothly as you would ever want.

If you're upgrading from an original Switch, there's a straightforward transfer process you can run. This involves putting the two consoles physically close to one another, presumably so they can establish a direct wireless connection between one another, and then triggering the transfer process from both ends, perhaps with a login or two along the way depending on how you have your accounts set up. It even asked for the microSD card from the original Switch to transfer over captured screenshots and videos.

When it was finished (about 15-20 minutes later), all of my saves, settings and account details had been transferred over to the Switch 2, and the Switch 2 made a start on redownloading all the digital software I had on my original Switch. This was fine for my purposes, though those who have larger digital libraries may have run into issues, since the largest microSD Express card you can get for Switch 2 (and it will only take microSD Express, except for the aforementioned screenshot library transfer process) is 256GB. OG Switch, meanwhile, would happily take 512GB or more.

The auto-download thing was fine, but for some reason it did stop partway through and didn't resume. I assume this is because I started doing something that talked to online — that's what generally happened with downloads on the original Switch — but I would have expected it to start downloading again afterwards. This didn't happen. Not a huge issue, since I can easily manually redownload anything I want to put back on the system, because the icons for those pieces of software are there, but it would have been nice for that to be fully automated.

One of the biggest upgrades is to the eShop. No longer a slow, annoying mess to navigate, the Switch 2's eShop seems perfectly functional, and it already has some hentai shovelware games ready to go. So the curation issue isn't exactly solved, but the painful user experience side of things is, at least, fixed now.

I briefly fired up the new Gamecube app you get with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, and boy, those games sure do look lovely all HD-ified. I'm looking forward to having a play with Soul Calibur II and F-Zero GX in particular; I'm in no hurry to replay Wind Waker, meanwhile, since I played the Wii U version a few years back and while I enjoyed it, I also don't have much desire to play it again just yet.

Handheld, the screen looks lovely. While not OLED, it's bright, large and smooth. Games look great on it. I haven't tried any original Switch titles on it as yet, but Switch 2 stuff looked pin-sharp and super-slick. It's also a bit bigger than the original Switch, meaning it'll probably be more comfortable to play more complex games in handheld mode than the original Switch was. I will likely still keep it connected to the TV for the vast majority of the time, but I feel more inclined to play handheld with that lovely screen than I do the original Switch. No shade on those who primarily played OG Switch handheld; I just preferred the TV experience by quite a considerable margin.

Thus far, then, I'm happy with my purchase. I still have plenty of concerns about things like Game Key Cards, software prices and suchlike, but we'll see how things pan out long-term. I do find myself wondering if Nintendo will be able to capture the same lightning in a bottle that the original Switch was — historically speaking, they've tended to follow an astronomical success (Game Boy, SNES, Wii) with anything from middling-to-solid commercial performance (N64, Gamecube) to catastrophic failure (Virtual Boy, Wii U), so it will be interesting to see where Switch 2 falls on that spectrum… or if it will continue a run of good luck for the company.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter. I have one, I like it and I'm looking forward to playing with it some more. So I'm going to do just that before I head to bed. Mario Kart World calls me!

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 362: Switching to a new era

Switch 2 is officially out tomorrow. Some folks have been getting theirs today. Mine looks on track to arrive tomorrow, so I should be able to get some time in with Mario Kart World and Arcade Archives 2: Ridge Racer tomorrow evening. Doubtless I will have things to say about both of those.

Today I just wanted to offer a tip of the cap to the original Switch. It's not a "farewell", because the Switch 2 will (hopefully) allow me to continue to enjoy all the original Switch's games, and if not, well, I still have that original Switch.

I love the Switch. I actually don't use its main tentpole function of being a handheld all that much, but I do take advantage of its easily portable nature quite frequently. It's much easier to bundle a Switch case and dock into a suitcase than it is a PlayStation 5, after all, so when I travel, the Switch typically comes with me.

I've also amassed an enormous collection of Switch games — 405, to be exact, if my collection database is to be believed, plus a number of digital-only games. That's more than any other single system in my collection — PS2 comes close with 282, but Switch has definitely been the front-runner for a long time. I would often buy multiplatform games on Switch by preference, even if they weren't the "best" version in terms of graphics and performance; even though I didn't play the games handheld all that much, that aforementioned portability factor remains a great thing.

Plus there's the fact that the Switch plays host to a ton of games that I wanted to play! In particular, it took up the mantle from the PlayStation Vita in terms of anime-inspired RPGs and visual novels, and some clever publishers even found a means of getting full-on sexually explicit games onto a console for the first time. A Nintendo console, at that.

I'm not just talking about lewd games, though. Tons of great Japanese games came — are still coming — to the original Switch, and there are loads on my shelves that I haven't gotten to just yet. The thriving limited-print scene, which I know is divisive, has been particularly strong on Switch for those who want packaged versions of indie games — and best of all for collectors, most of those releases are truly complete on cart in terms of DLC and patches.

Sure, Switch has had its annoyances, most notably Joy-Con drift. I also had a drifting stick on my Pro Controller for a bit, but taking it apart and putting it back together again fixed that and it's been absolutely fine since. The eShop has long been a bit cack, though, both in terms of speed and the amount of AI-generated slop it's been subject to. Early reports would seem to indicate that Switch 2's eShop has taken care of the former issue, and the latter is something more endemic to the entire digital distribution scene, not a Nintendo-exclusive thing by any means.

I think Switch 2 is going to be a lot of fun. I also think it's going to see a few teething troubles, with the most notable being the Game Key Card situation. There are a lot of games that people want to play that are being released on these stupid things, and that concerns me. I do not want the Switch 2 to be a platform that forces me to go all-digital because I like collecting games. My quiet hope is that the early Game Key Card releases are such a flop that the publishers cheaping out by using them rather than proper cartridges will abandon them, Nintendo will quietly retire the practice before long and these games will get reissues on a proper cartridge. But I guess we'll have to wait and see on that. It feels like it might be unlikely, but stranger things have happened.

Anyway, I am looking forward to playing Mario Kart World and Ridge Racer tomorrow, and I, of course, still have to finish off Xenoblade Chronicles X — pity that one doesn't appear to have a "Switch 2 version" upgrade, as it could really benefit from the additional oomph! — so the future, for now, looks bright and enjoyable. And, tomorrow, there will be much racing!

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 361: Hotel Echo Lima Papa

I don't really need help. I just couldn't think of a heading that I hadn't already used to say that yes, it is monthly hotel visit time again, as I am down to go into The Office for miscellaneous shenanigans tomorrow. Excitingly, we have a new office now, albeit in the same building, and I have no idea where it is, so that will be fun to sort out tomorrow morning.

Annoyingly, the lift at the hotel I normally stay at is broken again (or possibly still broken from last time) so I had to trudge up the stairs with case in tow to get to my room, reminding me quite how unfit I really am. I'm not dead, though, which 8s good, and due to there being no single rooms available for this stay, I'm actually in a double room tonight, so lots of room to sprawl.

Even better, the room has a bath, so I had a nice bath earlier, and I didn't flood the room this time so I could actually enjoy it. So I'll let the hotel off for the fact its lift hasn't been working on my last two visits.

It's a horrible lift anyway. One of those pokey little ones that's basically the size of a cupboard, and claims to be able to house four people but can barely contain one, particularly if the occupant is a larger individual like me. But, still, when it works, it does mean you don't have to climb the stairs, so I've never been too mad at it.

Anyway, I'm off to relax a bit before sleep. I don't really know what's going on tomorrow, but hopefully it shouldn't be too stressful. Then there's the long drive home. Joy.

That's something for Tomorrow Pete to worry about though. For now, Tonight Pete is going to enjoy the last days of the Nintendo Switch ahead of the follow-up arriving on Thursday!

#oneaday Day 360: Lacking in inspiration

After rather longer browsing through the "Random Post" option than I would like, I am no closer to determining what I might want to write about today. So, as ever in scenarios like this, I am just going to start typing and see what comes out. It might be coherent, it might be nonsense; it might be meaningful, it might just be a summary of what happened today. I don't know yet because I haven't written it yet; the only rule is that I'm not going to stop typing to think. No, think, always type.

I published my video on Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer yesterday. It's done… all right, but this further cements my complete lack of understanding of what "works" on YouTube. Sometimes I'll post something that I feel is completely throwaway and it'll do very good numbers (obscenely good in the case of something like my Super Woden GP 2 video from a while back), then at other times I'll post something that actually had some meaning to me, and it'll struggle to break a hundred views. I think the most galling instance of this happening was back when I covered The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, a thoroughly interesting game by SWERY65 that really got me thinking and learning some things. It was, in many ways, a very personal video, and it did absolute bobbins performance-wise. But I'm still glad I did it.

My Kathy Rain 2 video isn't exactly "personal" in the same way, but I did enjoy the game enough to want to share it with others, because it was a very good point-and-click adventure, and I hope it does well. But at the time of typing this, it hasn't broken a hundred views yet, and I feel like it's been tough to get people to pay attention to it on socials also.

There are times when this happens where I find myself wondering if I should bother keeping on with things like MoeGamer and my YouTube channel. They're both "work" in a sense, and I could probably have a lot more time to myself to enjoy things if I ditched both of them and just lived my life to enjoy myself.

But the trouble is, I really enjoy doing both of them, and neither of them have ever been about viewing figures. Sure, the occasional payout I get from YouTube is a nice little bit of pocket money (and nothing more) but I don't really do either videos or articles for the sake of making Number Go Up. I do them primarily as means of expressing myself about things that I am enthusiastic about, and to share that enthusiasm with others — particularly people I consider to be close friends.

Now, I've found out to my cost and frustration that there are some people I considered to be close friends who don't give a shit, and have never even tried to give a shit when I shared things with them. So I've just stopped trying with them, and instead I just concentrate on doing these things for my own enjoyment, and perhaps to share with people that I know will appreciate them.

Sure, it might be nice to be able to do YouTube as a living, but would it really? Would it really be nice to have one's income completely beholden to the fickle fates of The Algorithm and the massive variation one can see in viewing figures from one video to the next? Probably not. So that is not — and never has been, really — an angle that I'm pursuing.

Best thing is just to keep these things as hobbies, and if certain people happen to stumble across them and enjoy them, great. If not, at least I have something I can look at myself and be satisfied with — and be content in the knowledge that generative AI hasn't come anywhere near those things I've created, either.

Anyway, I have spent enough time randomly pondering absolute nonsense this evening, so I think it's time to go and unwind with some video games. I think some Castlevania: Lords of Shadow might be in order; I've been playing that a bit for the last week and really enjoying it. Patrick Stewart!

So that's what I'm off to do now. And all my self-imposed commitments are already taken care of well before midnight, too. Look at me, I'm growing.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 359: Commenter policy

I've had a few right weirdoes in the comments section of MoeGamer of late, and they are a prime example of why I adopt a fairly strict moderation policy: anyone who hasn't commented before has to have their first comment approved before any of their comments will appear on the site. If I don't approve that initial comment, the words they hammered into their crusty keyboard will not appear on the site.

I think by far the strangest so far was the one who started off talking about nostalgia, but then started banging on about the "globalist agenda" and how modern video games were all basically in service to this. By "globalist agenda", by the way, this person absolutely meant "the Jews", and as such their comment didn't get anywhere even a little bit close to being published on my site. I did mock it a bit on social media, though.

Today I had a guy who got really uppity about me writing about the Game Boy game The Sword of Hope and thinking that it was actually quite worthwhile and interesting. He absolutely could not fathom the idea of someone from well after a creative work had been published not judging it by the standards of its time. He also almost immediately started banging on about "censorship" due to the combination of my anti-spam filter and my aforementioned comments policy, so he did not get let through either.

I have a fairly flawless sense these days of when someone is going to be a pain in the arse in the comments. There's just a certain way that some people come across in text that lets you know they're a dickhead and probably a racist, and thus I have absolutely no hesitation in banishing them to the shadow realm when they happen to stagger into my comments section.

I do the same on YouTube; for all its faults, YouTube has one of the absolute best moderation tools in existence, which is the "Hide User From Channel" option. For the unfamiliar, what this does is effectively "shadowbanning" the commenter from your channel, so their comments don't appear under your videos and you don't get notifications about them… but to their eyes, they're still able to comment as normal. There's a perverse satisfaction in doing this, because you know some of these absolute cretins will be typing out long, obnoxious diatribes about whatever has offended their delicate sensibilities this week, and no-one will ever see them. Again, I have zero hesitation in doing this; if someone bursts into the comments section and the first thing they do is act like a twat, they're going straight in the sin bin.

Life is too short to deal with dickheads on the Internet. Of course, we'd all rather they didn't exist at all, but at least there are plenty of tools with which we can frustrate and repel them. Make good use of them; it's worth the effort.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.