GYGO: Lawsuits, Takedowns, and Through It All the NFT

Hello and welcome to GYGO! I’m Kael, your local space peace advocate, and I’ve spent this week replaying Mass Effect. Turns out as much as I disliked the space marine archetype in 2007, I’m even less into it now in 2021. Why isn’t it enough to travel the galaxy lifting heavy objects with my mind and occasionally kissing an alien? Why must we shoot (and also commit like, multiple war crimes while asserting strangely human-centric space colonialism)? Anyway, while not reflecting on violence and the state in space, I was collecting this week’s hottest gaming news. Enjoy!

GameStop Continues Sketchy Investment Trend

GameStop created an ERC-721 standard token on the Ethereum blockchain this week. I have no idea what that technically means, but apparently it’s used to create NFTs. The company published a new webpage announcing that they were hiring for an NFT-based project. Details on what this project is are slim, but I can guarantee it will make me feel very tired.

Cyberpunk 2077 Sees Leadership Change Amidst Lawsuits

CD Projekt Red’s studio head, Adam Badowski, is stepping down as Cyberpunk 2077’s director. Replacing him will be former creative director Gabriel Amatangelo. This coincides with CDPR’s move toward producing multiple AAA titles at once.

Meanwhile, some of the lawsuits CDPR encountered following Cyberpunk 2077’s release have merged. Details are still hazy, but so far we know that four class-action lawsuits from American investors of Cyberpunk 2077 have joined together. The suits are expected to be formally submitted toward the end of June, which will provide more information about the dollar amounts the investors are seeking.

Twitch Takes Down Creators’ Content (Again)

There was another wave of Twitch DMCA takedowns recently. Twitch’s response (besides taking down creators’ videos) was to send out an email this week blaming automated tools used by the music industry. They recommended that creators temporarily unpublish all of their video-on-demand content and review the videos for copyrighted music.

In other news…

Infinity Ward announced this week that in the last 12 months they’ve banned over 350,000 Call of Duty players due to racist names or toxic behavior. The bans span four Call of Duty titles and are supported by new filters to catch bigoted names and chat before they go live.

Pigeon dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend was delisted from PlayStation, Android, and IOS storefronts at the end of last month. The game’s creator, Moa, stated that the pull was a result of expiring publishing agreements with the platforms. The game continues to be available on PC through Steam.

Pokémon Legends Arceus, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, and Pokémon Shining Pearl all opened for preorder this week.

I’m out of news so here’s a cool looking JRPG themed splash barrier to protect your shopkeeper from COVID-19.