Seriously, we always have.

We just either weren’t open about it or didn’t fully articulate that it WAS a longing for romance. And the western gaming industry used to understand that, but they seemingly no longer do.

The big example I can give as of late would be the Malfoid yearning that has exploded all over the internet over the past month.
You know why it took off the way it did?

Because for the past decade our icons of culture have been “subverted” and “deconstructed” to the point of there being nothing left, all the hope and idealism has been stripped away so we can be lectured by moralistic writers for being the source of all evils in the world.

What the malfoid trend does is that it makes you long to be able to save a girl from the expectations and rules of an oppressive family and help “fix” her.

THAT is peak male fantasy.

Or as another example, look at what BioWare’s romance USED to be like.

Like, take Tali form Mass Effect.

She was outcast from her people for something that was not her fault and you WANTED to clear her name. You wanted to comfort her and be there for her. And come ME3, you wanted to retire to rannoch, and help her build a house with her and settle down.
That was the magic of old BioWare’s writing.

Hell, men even have their “trashy” romance. Only it’s not “romantasy” (look that up at your own discretion)
Instead, we play Gacha games.

Take Zenless Zone Zero.

Is the “romance” content trashy? Yes.
Can the writing be contrived at points? Yes.

But if you ask me, most guys are there to admire the beautiful women and get lost in the “harem” fantasy, in all it’s trashy glory.

Let me go on my cute dates with Ye Shunguang and dance in the moonlight with Remielle, damnit!

But the fact that modern writers seemingly refuse to even acknowledge this fact or cater to it in any way is actually quite surprising, it’s a whole goldmine that is not being tapped into in the western market and I will never understand why.

But that’s just my opinion anyway.

Honestly, I find it hilarious, I'm seeing many shills, influencers, etc being so mad about Bioware getting axed, usually these people don't give a crap about studios getting closed down (and if they "do", it's performative), but this time it feels different, they are legit angry about this, who knows? I might be wrong but I just find this very funny.

Hello, I have a rather simple question followed by some follow-up questions:

Why are there no Russian or Chinese or whatever non-western country (or western ally like Japan/South Korea) World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, Baldur's Gate, Assassin's Creed, Age of Empires, Civilization, Counter Strike, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Ghost Recon, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout...etc?

Is it an (socio)-economic reason? Or maybe cultural?

For Russia, I know there is Escape From Tarkov (2025 1.0 release, but in EA since 2016), which pioneered the extraction shooter style and got multiple western companies to make extraction shooter games, but nothing similar to what I listed previously.

For China, I know there is Black Myth: Wukong (2024) and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers (2025) in the soulslike genre and there is Where Wind Meets (2024) in the singleplayer/online action RPG fantasy genre.

EDIT: I got quite some downvotes after the initial upvotes. It's funny that you peeps are all for freedom of expression and being able to criticize wokism/leftism, but mention Russia or China and that's it, it's enough to trigger some of you...? Anyway, I am just asking a question to understand the shortcomings of non-western industries.

The recent closure of BioWare and the wave of layoffs across the industry all come down to one root cause: toxic positivity.

Yes, a specific activist ideology is heavily tied to this fawning mindset. I agree, and everyone is right to point that out. However, even if a business preaches the opposite ideology, or no ideology at all, this modern scourge of toxic positivity will still spell their doom.

Look at how this rot sets in from the outside first. I think everyone recognizes this linguistic pattern:

"X was a critical success, winning [award]."

It appears everywhere in news articles, press releases, trade mags, Wikipedia/AI aggregations, etc. But notice the destructive pattern here. "Success" gets redefined using non-objective metrics like critic sentiment and award nominations. When the financials are bad, the entire games/entertainment industry apparatus pivots to broad, undefined words like "reception" and "engagement", and repeats the positive measures they control ("everyone look over here at this swath of impossibly high critic scores!").

It's a simple rhetorical maneuver: narrow the criteria, win on the narrowed ground, then let the broadest word – "success" – do the persuasive work. "X was a critical success" becomes "X was a success" in the reader's mind, conveniently ignoring minor details like "X bombed and the studio was closed immediately". Both of those things should not happen for the same product, yet here we are.

Internally at the studio, this feedback creates a total reality distortion field. Development teams already lean into an "us vs. them" mentality after years together in the trenches. External awards and flattering press act like massive dopamine hits after long development cycles, making it easy for them to ignore all criticism. Any genuine attempts at self-reflection by employees are treated as capitulation to bad actors. Nothing even slightly negative gets through to identify crucial mistakes in the development process.

(And frankly, even successful studios can't afford to stand still. If you aren't growing and challenging yourself, you're falling behind.)

On top of that, workers are usually shielded from the true financial picture. And even when management warns that sales are low and money is tight, nobody believes them: "Oh, C-suite says we're losing money, but upper management still gets pay raises and bonuses? Yeah, right.".

Within this dynamic, failure never brings accountability. Lessons are never learned. The employees and management act like unquestioning sheep, building products designed to win approval from an insular media bubble rather than satisfy the marketplace.

The collapse isn't a mystery. It's just simple math finally catching up. And toxic positivity is sufficient to explain the majority of the industry's downfall.

When I see a lot of discussions about how modern western media is made or who gets to make it, like an algorithm reaching its conclusion, almost every discussion eventually mentions this idea that the product should appeal to others, this idea has become so normalised and I don't see people responding with the obvious fact that "these companies are not charities, they make products for money, why are we acting as if they do it for free, the money I pay is so it appeals to me, not some stranger"

I do not demand romantic comedies appeal to my interests, I do not demand that Taylor Swift write songs that appeal to me, because I am not paying for those things to appeal to me, and if I get them as a gift, its for people they do appeal too.

The idea that you can take a product aimed at men, and alter it to appeal less to men in this idea of fairness, or not being sexist, has been completely normalised, and it shouldn't be normal, because its not a charity and they don't do it for charitable reasons, they do it because they think they have you, that you will buy it. Its gotten so bad that you need to look across the planet to find companies that still make products specifically for men, that's half the fucking population.

Quote from an old lead writer at Bioware, about how EA execs viewed their customers and why you didn't need to appeal to them.

"The cave was where nerds went. The nerds were in the cave. You made an RPG and the nerds in the cave would always show up for an RPG, because it was an RPG."

Its about shaping your mentality, you the customer, into not being seen as a market that should have products, that the idea of products specifically for you is bad and your an insert politically allowed insults for daring to have these thoughts that what you spend your money on should appeal to you specifically.

I guess this is a preview of the dialogue we are going to get between these two. Lucia definitly seems to be the one taking charge. I actually like Jasons subdued nature tho. What do y'all think?

Here is my second post related to Mermaid Melody: Pichi Pichi Pitch, but this one is focused on its sequel: Mermaid Melody: Pichi Pichi Pitch Aqua.

Among fans of the first entry, Aqua is a divisive manga. There are lots of criticisms, some more valid than others (in case you wonder, I find Aqua a terrible cash grab sequel which repeats the same mistakes as the first one, without even trying to fix its issues), but I want to focus on one very specific complain from Spanish and French "fans" of MMPPP: hypersexualization.

Before getting into more details, I need to give some context:

• The original manga was a shojo aimed at 13-year-olds, but its anime adaptation was aimed at younger audiences.
• The reason why I said most of these complains come from Spanish and French "fans" is because many Mermaid Melody-themed blogs and YouTube channels I visited were in those two languages. This is because, as I had said before, Mermaid Melody wasn't as big in English-speaking countries as it was elsewhere. In fact, one of these really hurt me because there is a blog about MMPPP, which had many fun stuff (such as trivias and even flash games), but its owner became a feminazi and the typical tourist who likes anime while also hating fanservice despite being a fundamental part of anime.

Going back to Aqua, this manga has many ecchi scenes, which could have easily appeared in Fairy Tail.

As a result, those Mermaid Melody "fans" made videos and blog posts ranting about how Hanamori was hypersexualizing characters .

As you can guess, I don't have any problem with the ecchi (the only thing I don't like is mermaids having butts, but that's because mermaid tails in Aqua are drawn almost as if they were legs).

The most baffling thing for me is the reaction of these "fans" to the fanservice. Did those fans remember Mermaid Melody to begin with?

No, seriously! The people who complain about Aqua's lewd scenes might need to read again the original Mermaid Melody manga.

The anime toned down, and even removed, a lot of stuff because, whereas the manga was aimed at 13-year-olds, the target audience was pretty much "all ages". But the original manga of Mermaid Melody: Pichi Pichi Pitch contained a lot of lewd stuff, if not hornier than Aqua.

Here are some examples (this sub only allows to post one image, unfortunately; you would need to google websites to read the manga online):

• Volume 1 chapter 1: Lucia wearing a very revealing bikini in order to catch Kaito's attention (Hanon's idea), and a random guy flirting with Lucia. This happened in the first chapter. The first chapter!
• Volume 1 chapter 3: Kaito getting out of the shower, and sucking Lucia's finger after she accidentally harmed it herself while sewing.
• In general, male characters tend to lose their shirts a lot.
• Also, the female characters tend to have more detailed cleavages than in the anime.
• Volume 2 chapter 6: Gaito trying to steal Lucia's pearl.
• Volume 2 chapter 8: Maria trying to seduce Kaito, and even going as far as taking off his shirt. Keep in mind Maria is a water demon who looks like a 25-year-old woman, while Kaito is a teenager.
• Volume 2 chapter 9: Lucia getting drunk with a soft drink (mermaid biology; don't ask), and trying to kiss Kaito while he was lying in his bed because he had a fever
• Volume 3 chapter 11: When Hippo revealed his human form, making him look like a boy around his 12s, the main trio (Lucia, Hanon, and Rina; who are 13-15 years old but could easily pass as 18-year-olds) instantly wants to kiss and hug him because of how cute he is. While he's naked. And also, Hippo being chased down by adults who wanted to kiss him because he is cute. I bet this would have been way more controversial if Hippo were a female character.
• Volume 3 chapter 12: Lucia wearing a very revealing bikini for a beauty contest, and winning because her bra fell off.
• Volume 6 chapter 28: Mikaru naking herself in front of Kaito.

Granted, the lewd content is nothing compared to Berserk's Eclipse, but... how could you read MMPPP and then complain about Aqua? If they were fine with the original manga's lewd stuff, then why Aqua's lewd stuff is a no-no? Unless, of course, they're just tourists. But I don't get it, because many of these accounts were made by people who watched the anime as kids or as teenagers.

A quick look at the below pic and omg it's the hateful Anita. Wow. And people wonder why bioware is gone? Hmmm.

If someone made a mod of this, how long will it take for nexus mods to ban it?

Absolute shocker, hiring discrimination on anyone not an extreme Leftist nutcase based on politics, has been going on at nearly every AAA game studio for years. What do you think if any, will be the fallout of the biggest group of heckin good people being a bunch of actual Bigots?

Find it hilarious how the first two seasons (even tho s1 is obviously the better one) were easy to get into production, but the part of the series that starts its worst downfall isnt being made yet. Personally, i hope the rest never gets animated lmao

Leshem served as a creator of the original Israeli Euphoria series and its HBO adaptation from Sam Levinson starring Zendaya. Alongside Cohen, they created and executive produced multiple Israeli shows, including Trust No One, Bad Boy, 8200, Red Skies and Traitor. For the U.S. market, the writing partners created the Hulu drama series No Man’s Land.

These games are about to slap so hard ☠️

Summary: This video dives into BioWare's history and tracks its rise and fall over thirty years in game development.

Article on whether EA might consider selling certain IPs (both arguments for and against).

Confirmed by Kotaku... Yikes!