I Can't Believe It's Not Twitter

As you may have heard, Twitter is imploding. The impulsive actions of a petulant rich manchild have led to what could be the end or at least the gradual deterioration of my favorite social media website, one that has been a huge benefit to me both personally and professionally despite its many flaws. If Twitter does disappear, it will be missed. There’s no other place on the internet where you can simultaneously learn that there’s an earthquake in San Francisco and get called ableist because you said you like chocolate truffles. Given the lack of viable alternatives — Mastodon is confusing and I don’t know what Cohost is — maybe it’s time to get back into good old fashioned blogging.

Over the years, a few people have suggested that I go independent and start a paid newsletter for scoops and stories. I have no plans to do that (I like my day job!) but I do feel like this is a good place to promote my work and other work I’ve enjoyed. So I’m going to play around with using Substack as a semi-regular platform to share thoughts and links, especially if Twitter goes kaput for real.

Also: I’m working on a new nonfiction book. I’m very, very excited about it (I think it will be my best book by far), and I’m hoping to announce it at some point in 2023 RIGHT HERE IN THIS NEWSLETTER. So be sure to like and subscribe.

Things I did recently

• A few weeks ago, voice actor Hellena Taylor went mega-viral with a series of videos claiming that she received a lowball offer to continue playing the character Bayonetta for the third game in the series. She called for fans to boycott Bayonetta 3, but some reporting revealed that her claims were more than a little misleading. Later, she encouraged people to donate money to, among other things, a fund for putting up anti-abortion billboards in Kentucky. Instead of buying Bayonetta 3, help yell at people on the highway!

• More recently, my colleague Ping and I broke the news* that Blizzard and Netease are ending their longrunning partnership, putting an end to games like World of Warcraft in China. This is sad news for Chinese video game fans and wild news for the industry at large. One of the main reasons Activision and previous Blizzard parent company Vivendi Games merged in the first place, way back in 2007, was because Activision boss Bobby Kotick believed that Blizzard could broaden his reach in China and other Asian countries. (*Well, OK, Blizzard put out a press release as our scoop was in the final stages of publishing. Sad trombone.)

• I finished God of War Ragnarok. In general I really enjoyed it, although I thought the final sequence was underwhelming. Brilliant combat, sharp writing, very good use of a talking head.

• On this week’s Triple Click podcast, we talked Ragnarok and the joy of video game side quests, from Baldur’s Gate 2 to Skyrim to Assassin’s Creed Origins.

• I’ve been playing the hell out of Tactics Ogre Reborn, which rules! Very good game to keep your brain occupied while feeding a baby late at night.

Things I liked recently

• If you’re playing God of War Ragnarok, you may have noticed green hearts scrawled on a few rocks and walls. Here’s programmer Sam Handrick telling the heartbreaking story of why they exist.

• Also on God of War, I really enjoyed this interview with Richard Schiff, aka Toby Ziegler, who steals every scene he’s in as the god Odin.

  • Schiff: “The idea had never crossed my mind. My manager called while I was driving in my car with my son and so I put him on speakerphone and he goes ‘I’ve got this interesting offer to do a video game.’ And my son’s head perks up. And then my manager says ‘It’s ‘God of War,’ at which point my son’s head hit the roof and he just started going, ‘Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it.’ I ask, ‘What is it?’ and he goes, ‘Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it.’”

• My colleagues at Bloomberg have been killing it with Twitter reporting, as have reporters like The Verge’s Alex Heath, the New York Times’s crew, and Platformer’s Casey Newton and Zoe Schiffer. I cannot wait for the books/documentaries/narrative podcasts/elaborate neoTwitter threads about this saga.

• This Ringer article by Rodger Sherman was incredibly relatable. “The answer was nobody: The Jets were on their bye week. And then it hit me: a twinge of … disappointment. I was sad that I wouldn’t be able to watch the Jets play. Oh crap, I realized. I care about the Jets again.”