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When it was 2016, it was a very good year…for video games…

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It’s 2016 and it’s quarter one of the video game season which means there is gonna be a flood of releases within the next few months. 

 

Good evening (or day or whatever) Odd Tale veterans, first timers, and random people who found this article by chance. It’s 2016 and it’s quarter one of the video game season which means there is gonna be a flood of releases within the next few months. Well, I know that I don’t have your taste in games (or maybe I do) but I wanted to give you all my top games coming out in 2016.

Before I begin, I want to say that I’m not saying that these games are better than the games that I didn’t mention. What I am saying is that there are so many games coming out in 2016 but when I think about what excites me the most, I think of the ones I’ve listed. However, I know there are tons of games out there that should be commented on. These are games that I know others will like but I either don’t like the company that produces the game (Bethesda, you gave me the Fallout series and that’s it), games that others will most likely enjoy but I just can’t get into them (I don’t know what the deal is Zelda, but I just don’t feel that spark, sorry), or games that I know others enjoy but I just don’t know enough about. As many of you know, I don’t like to talk about games that I don’t know. To do something like that would be like making a Batman movie without knowing anything, let alone doing any research, about Batman (Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan, you should both be ashamed). I won’t pull a Nolan, so if there are games that I don’t mention that you’re looking forward to, sorry I didn’t cover it but keep checking in at Odd Tale Studios because either I or another one of Odd Tale’s many talented writers could very well have or will cover it.

 

And that fucker looks so proud of himself, too.

And that fucker looks so proud of himself, too.

 

Now then, before we begin the list, I want to say that the list is not in any particular order, number one and number twelve are equally exciting to me.

 

Number 1: Fire Emblem: Fates (February 19th)

 

fireemblem

 

If you’re a Fire Emblem fan, you probably freaked out when you heard about this game (I know that I did). The last Fire Emblem game, Awakening, was supposed to be the last one. Yet, the people loved Awakening so much that Intelligent Systems just couldn’t help but make another one.

The game isn’t much like other Fire Emblem games, however, because this time you’re the star. That’s right, for the first time, you’re no longer a footnote in the history of the kingdom. It’s all about you. You play a prince/princess divided by blood, loyalty, and war. When you were a child, your family, the Hoshido clan, was attacked by the Nohrian clan, the family that raised you. Fates is separated into three different titles, Conquest, Birthright, and Revelations. By choosing which edition to play, you are choosing between the family that raised you and the family that bore you.

In Conquest, the king of the Nohrians took you and raised you after winning the war. He and his clan are a group of evil tyrants. If you side with the Nohrians when the Hoshido attack, you will work at changing the family’s ways from the inside.

 

emblemscharacters

 

In Birthright, you have turned your back on those that raised you in order to join your birth family and overthrow the tyrants. You will learn about your family as you try to bring peace back to the land.

Revelations is the DLC edition of the game (released two weeks after the initial release). As the title suggests, this edition is going to open your eyes to some secrets that you weren’t privy to in either of the editions. Did the Hoshido do something horrible in order to keep the peace? Is the tyranny of the Hoshido all done because the King wants to keep his people safe? There’s no way to truly know until you delve into this intense game.

Oh, by the way, you turn into a fucking dragon! So, there’s that…

 

Number 2: Final Fantasy Explorers (January 26th)

 

explorers

 

Final Fantasy Explorers isn’t like your usual final fantasy game. If I could compare it to any of the past games of the franchise, I’d say it was like the child of Crystal Chronicles and Tactics.

It’s a free roaming game that revolves around crystals found on the island that you have found yourself on (as nearly all Final Fantasy games without a number usually are). You will use your customized character to complete quests, unlock new jobs, craft weapons, craft armor, create monster companions from the souls of your defeated, collect crystals, and find a way to get to the big crystal in the center of the island.

 

explorercrystal

 

That game has a few throwbacks to the Final Fantasies of old. Summon creatures like Ifrit and Ramuh are called Eidolons which only a few games called them (GFs, I will miss you). Some of the armor you can craft are so vintage and chic, like Sephiroth’s jacket. And, of course, you’ll see your fair share of Chocobo and Moogles.

From the gameplay that I was able to see, the game operates much like the old PSP Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy Zero. Using your L and R to access your abilities. Hacking and slashing through enemies and finding their loot down on the ground.

I’m really looking forward to this game and I can tell you I’m gonna be wrecking some quests until Fates comes out, and even then, some wreckings will occur.

 

Number 3: The Pokémon Releases

Pokémon is releasing three different games this year. I’ll say right off the bat; Pokémon Go is going to be covered another article.

Pokkén is coming out, which I’m super psyched for. Tekken meets Pokémon and if you’ve looked at any of the gameplay videos, this game is going to be amazing! Starring some pretty awesome Pokémon as fighters (Gengar ftw!) and some great Pokémon as item supports, Pokkén is shaping up to be one amazing game.

 

pokken

 

Finally, we have Pokémon, Great Detective Pikachu. Now, I’ve tried to figure out as much as I could but there hasn’t been much. Obviously, you’re going to be solving mysteries, if you couldn’t figure that out, good luck being a detective. From what I understand, you either play as a detective or you play as the detective’s Pikachu. You solve crimes throughout the region (most likely committed by Team Rocket) and all the while, you hear the inner monologue of Pikachu. Now, the most important piece of information that I could find is that there is a petition for the English version of the game’s Pikachu inner monologue to be voiced by Danny DeVito. Listen, readers, if you love me (and I know that you do), sign this petition. If not just for the comedic value, do it so you can say that you were a part of something great!

 

Number 4: Genei Ibun Roku #FE (And all other Atlus games) (Unknown Release)

 

genei

 

So, I will say that this game already came out in Japan, December 26th 2015. That being said, I did not go overboard into research because I really want this game to be a surprise; too often I can predict the direction of the story after a few gameplay videos.

Let me explain why this particular game is a huge one for me. I love all Atlus games. They’re the ones who make Persona but more importantly, Shin Megami Tensei.

 

shinm

 

Every one of their games ends up with the same philosophical issue: Do I destroy all demons, become the new messiah and live in a world of pure order, where no one can be who they were meant to be? Do I destroy God and share the world with demons and humans? Or lastly, do I destroy God and the demons and allow humanity to live without guidance for the first time? That’s a pretty big weight to bear on your shoulders for a videogame, right? It messes with me pretty bad each time.

Well, the reason this one is so special is because it’s a Shin Megami Tensie and Fire Emblem cross over game. I can’t even begin to explain how cool this is. I wanted to get a sneak peek at the story just to get the general gist of it but the guy I was watching on YouTube wasn’t translating the Japanese properly (seriously, he said something about hotdogs destroying playgrounds…pretty sure that wasn’t in there). I wish I could give you all more details about the epicness, but I don’t know enough. However, I do know that if you want to get in on some Shin Megami Tensie action, or maybe some Persona while you wait for this release, Persona 5 is coming out in quarter three and Shin Megami Tensie: Final will be released on February tenth.  

 

Number 5: Overwatch (Q1/Q2 release)

 

overwatch

 

So, this last one was a tough one to choose because I didn’t want to prioritize one game over the other. However, this game just blows me away. I’m usually not a Blizzard fan. I loved Warcraft battle chest, I loved Starcraft, but to me, Command and Conquer will always be better. I tried WoW for a bit and I just couldn’t really get into it. Nothing against Blizzard, I just don’t play their games. Overwatch is going to be different.

If you haven’t already watched the E3 trailer for this game, few things. First thing, you’re nuts and must live under a rock. Second thing, go and look this up immediately so that you can begin foaming at the mouth from the sheer awesomeness.

 

 

Overwatch is a MoBa (like Dota 2…not LoL…screw LoL) that looks better than any other MoBa I’ve seen. This is saying something because Dota 2 and Smite are freaking amazing. What’s different about it is that it’s also a first person shooter. But this isn’t some crappy CoD recycled piece of crap. This game has unique characters rocking some awesome abilities, personalities of their very own, and the coolest character designs that I’ve seen come from Blizzard in a long time. Don’t get me wrong, Lich King looked cool but he looked like every other undead/ice bad guy that I’ve seen.

I highly suggest checking out the gameplay videos, realizing how amazing it’s gonna be, and then get your ass to a GameStop to preorder it, immediately.

 

Mkay, folks. That’s all I’ve got time for today but I do want to remind you that next week I’ll be writing about Pokémon Go. That game is going to be the craziest thing ever if they get it right. Anyways, I hope I’ve peaked your interest in some new game genres for you. See you all next week!

 

Stop faking like you feel bad, Nolan. We all know you don't fucking feel bad.

Stop faking like you feel bad, Nolan. We all know you don’t fucking feel bad.

 

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The Icon Monthly

The Icon Monthly Nov 2022 | Monetizing the News

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I want to make money; it’s a relatable statement. But how we go about making that money is a bit murky. We all (Hopefully) want to make money ethically and without exploiting anyone. There seems to be more ways to monetize our passions than ever. If you’re an artist, you can start a Patreon, use the Youtube Partner Program or create an NFT project.

Depending on who you ask, there are issues with all those options. Making money from your passion isn’t easy, and that goes for me here at The Icon. So how do I ethically monetize this site?

Websites like Bloomberg and Forbes charge you a subscription to read their articles. Which I think is fair. They’re often detailing breaking news stories that took time and years of collecting sources to produce.

But the problem with that is it puts news out of reach of people who don’t have money. Not that a subscription to Forbes is expensive, but if you can barely afford dinner, then subbing to a news site isn’t a priority. But no matter your financial situation, we all need to stay informed.

Additionally, it’s tough to get people to read news articles. Half the time, you’re lucky if people read past the article’s title on social media. Most of the time, at least with my site, people read the title and immediately comment or just read what other people are commenting. The problem with this is that it can aid find misinformation spreading on the internet. Still, when you lock information behind a paywall, that limits the number of people getting that information.

It’s a struggle to get people to click on the article, and getting people to pay to read it is much more challenging. This means people turn to people in the comments and other secondhand accounts to get the information.

On a related note, have you ever played the game ” Telephone?” You get a group of friends and whisper a phrase to one of them, and they’re supposed to whisper it to other people, and once it gets to the last person, you see how much the phrase has changed. Usually, the phrase has changed somewhat. That’s because most people can’t recall exactly what was told in the time it takes to hear the phrase and then repeat it. So the more people the information goes through, the more human error is filtered in.

Same with information on the internet; when we get information secondhand, the person’s biases and interpretation get filtered in, and god forbid, they’re an idiot. If you’re blocked access to the sources of information, you’re denied the ability to scrutinize the data for yourself and to form your own opinion.

*Obama voice* Let me be clear. I don’t think anything is wrong with Forbes and Bloomberg charging money. Still, I believe it puts up a wall that could potentially facilitate spreading of fake news by limiting access to information from people.

For instance, recently, there was a dispute between Platinum Games and the former voice actress for Bayonetta, Hellena Taylor. Hellena claimed Platinum Games only offered to pay her $4000 to voice the title character in Bayonetta 3. However, Paul Schreier of Bloomberg discovered that that wasn’t exactly true through documents and various sources.

He tweeted his article and said Hellena Taylor’s claims were misleading, which some people in the comments said he needed to provide proof. He did. The evidence was in his article, but it seemed most of the comment section hadn’t read it. There were a few who did who tried to explain what was happening. The problem with this is that it’s that person’s interpretation. The others who didn’t read the article were losing out on the ability to scrutinize the information for themselves.

Again Bloomberg is great, and their prices are more than reasonable. But writing something and putting it on social media is 50% hoping people read past the title, 45% defending yourself against people who didn’t read past the title and begging them to do so, and 5% wondering why you even bothered.

And as much as we hate tactics like clickbait, if it didn’t work, sites wouldn’t do it. We’ve all done it, given in curiosity, and clicked on a clickbait article. However, I think clickbait is a toxic practice and breaks the trust you’re trying to build with your readers.

With all this said, I wanted to devise a way to monetize  The Icon while avoiding some of the pitfalls mentioned above. And remember, we’re not as big as Forbes or Bloomberg ( yet), so our founding needs aren’t as vast.

We will try to avoid pay walling content and instead offer optional ways to help fund us.

We’ll have to build trust with our audience, and that means giving them the information they need without clickbait and without adding a bunch of padding to the article. This means some articles might be short, or some information doesn’t need to be articles at all and will instead be a Twitter post. Posts will have critical information immediately at the beginning of the article. We want to keep you all moving forward, so we don’t want you scrolling for necessary information. We want you to get the information you need and decide if you want to keep going.

We’ll employ ads, but we’ll keep them from being intrusive, and additional funding options will be optional for those who enjoy our content and want to support us.

It’s easy to say all of this now. But creating something and making money from it has a slew of struggles, some I’ve spoken about and some I’m unaware of. So, we’ll see.

 

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Video Games

Dealing with the Grief of Losing an Online Friend

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There’s still a bit of stigma about meeting people online. I remember people speaking in hushed voices as they said, “We met online,” when asked how they met their spouse. Not me, though. I don’t care what people think. #rebel.

But I have felt the awkward looks and questions when I’ve told them I met my fiancee on an online dating site. We’ve been together for seven years but yes, Karen, raise your eyebrow in surprise as I tell you we met online.

But those things were never the most challenging part about meeting people online. The hardest part was the distance. Sometimes we have online friends across the country; heck, some of us have friends across the world. So I thought distance and realizing someone you played with hadn’t logged in years was the worst part. But as I’ve gotten older, I realized something that’s even harder. And that losing a friend.

Recently a friend of mine passed away. We played Destiny 2 together. He and a group of us have saved the universe from the Cabal, raided for hours, suffered in Crucible, and he came to the rescue when I was stuck on that damn elevator in the corrupted strike.

But what’s more, we talked, shared life stories, and checked up on each other, and now he’s gone. His wife called us to let us know that he had passed because he spoke about us, and she knew he would want us to know. We impacted his life enough that his wife, whom we had never spoken to, knew who we were and reached out. That would make me feel special if  I wasn’t so despondent about it.

But the problem with meeting people online is that you can’t just walk into the funeral when your friend has caught a bad case of death. Even if you do have the money, a lot of families aren’t going to think to invite Jason’s friend “NoobPWNr69.”  Not many people are lucky enough to find out their friend has passed away. Many of us have to see they haven’t logged on in years and wonder what they’re up to. We imagine that life probably just got too busy. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. And sometimes you don’t find out until long after the person has passed.

But where does that leave us? The people they leave behind. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they had o go up and die, they leave us to deal with it. As if my therapist didn’t have enough to deal with.

I hate funerals; they’re kind of depressing; however, I think they’re essential in helping us get closure. So when online friends pass, we must find our own way to honor them.

Apparently, Online funerals are a thing. There’s an entire article on What’s your grief that details how to deal with the loss of a friend. In addition, they have some great suggestions that I plan on implementing.

One website suggests having an online memorial. Maybe a web page you and the rest of his online friends can leave comments on. I liked this idea because it gives you something to go back to and look at.

A New York Times article talks about how grief isn’t a problem to be solved but rather something to be lived through. The article even talks about ways to gently and appropriately reach out to your friend’s family.

But the main thing you should know when dealing with grief is that it’s okay. It’s okay that you missed them, and it’s okay to hurt. Friendships formed online are just as real and as special as the bounds you form in “real life,” and anyone who tells you any different probably never lost a friend they stayed up with until 3 am saving the galaxy.

One thing this ordeal has taught me is that losing an online friend has all sorts of difficulties, but I also discovered that there are all sorts of resources online to help. I’ve even linked some below.

If you take away one thing from this article other than I’m a snarky bitch that deals with his grief with humor, I hope it’s that it’s okay that you’re hurting and you don’t have to do it alone.

With that said, we at The Icon give losing a friend – infinity out of 5. Don’t recommend

 

Grieving an Online Friend: 8 things you should know

New York Times:  How to Grieve for Online Friends You Had Never Met in Person

This is a post by the CDC about dealing with grief during COVID. I feel many steps would be suitable for losing an online friend.

Send me a message. I can relate.

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Video Games

The Icon Monthly Oct 1st 2022 | Burnout in Video Games

Discussion about experiencing and overcoming burnout in video games.The Icon Monthly is a monthly letter from Editors that sest the tone for the month to come.

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In the mid-2000’s Xplay did a bit where they said Adam Sessler was leaving to do his own show called “Meet the Sess” with the tagline: “The fun Stops Here.” But, of course, Adam wasn’t going, and there was no show. It was a part of a bit which basic concept could be boiled down to “What if shows about video games were more like shows you’d see on CNN and Fox News?”

Ironically, over a decade later, I feel that’s precisely what many video game content creators, including myself, have done. Created content about video games that’s full of anger, contempt, and devoid of fun. But unlike Meet the Sess, this isn’t an April Fools Joke; there is no punchline.

I feel like so many of us wanted video games to be taken more seriously that we overcompensated and swung the pendulum in the other direction. Please make no mistake; I know how messed up the video game industry is. Rampant labor disputes, sexual harassment, corporate greed, and that’s not even mentioning issues of the games themselves, such as stagnation of content, an overabundance of microtransactions, and major corporations buying every studio they can.

These issues shouldn’t be ignored, and I think they need to be focused on more. I think looking at the industry through rose-colored glasses and not talking about serious issues is a problem in the community.

But for me, there needs to be a balance. So we have room to talk about serious issues that face the community while remembering that video games are meant to be fun.

Everything doesn’t need to be so serious all the time. Yes, talking about crunch in the industry needs to be handled with care, but that same type of tone doesn’t need to be carried over to, let’s say, a review of Pokemon Snap.

I believe video games can capture the feeling of whimsy better than any other art form. Yet, I noticed all my content, whether it be video or article, was handled with an air of deadly seriousness.

Eventually, I went over a year without posting. Then it hit me. I  fell victim to something you always hear about in the news but never think it’ll happen to you. Burnout.

And not just with video games but with technology too. Yes, these industries have their issues, but there are bright spots too. Bright spots I lost the ability to see.

But I’m not here to blame this on a toxic industry or communities. As a journalist, my job is to tell stories from all over the community, good and bad. I also have to remember just how big the video game industry is. Some indie companies are taking strides to fix the problems that a lot of the bigger companies have cultivated. There’s innovation and creativity abound out there. There are good people and fun to be had in the big industry and in indie games.

I think that’s the point of video games, to spread joy, and in turn, I want to try to spread joy by talking about it. So I want to talk about and discuss the bad things while also leaving room for the good.

After all, even something like politics that has implications that affect all of our lives has shows like The Dailey Show and the Colbert Report.

I want to take a lighter tone and focus more on the positivity in the community, even if I have to search for it. But the bright side, I don’t think I’ll need to search for it hard.

Ironically now that I’m leaving my burnout, I realized I just burned out I was and for how long.

It even showed in our logo.

Just words,  not that different from CNN or Fox News. I wasn’t happy talking about games, and it showed.

With all that said, where do I go from here? I’m now taking precautions to keep myself from burning out. I’m not going to try to emulate some misguided idea of what talking about video games should be because teenage me was so desperate to have video games taken seriously.

Instead, I’m going to be ok taking breaks from talking about video games and taking time actually to play them and, if I’m lucky, actually enjoy them.

Video Games and technology are still fun; even though I lost sight of that for a while, I want to focus myself and The Icon on that in the future.

And to anyone experiencing burnout, please remember it’s ok to take breaks; if you’re able to, you should. Hopefully, with time maybe your joy can find you again too.

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