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1348 Ex Voto Flops Hard The Modern Audience Never Came
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The “Modern Audience” Never Came: 1348 Ex Voto Flops Hard

If you spent any time on gaming X/Twitter over the couple of months, you've probably seen the usual suspects like PC Gaymer and IGN hyping up 1348 Ex Voto as the next big medieval game.According to the team's marketing push, it had supposedly huge wishlist numbers, a passionate following, and a story crafted specifically for the mysterious “modern audience” that developers and journalists love to talk about.Then the game launched.Reality showed up fast and without mercy. According to our beloved charts tracked by SteamDB, the game barely managed a 427 player peak on Steam during its launch day.Again, that's four hundred. And twenty seven people. That is not a thriving medieval kingdom of players. That's probably closer to the headcount of a local bowling league or something. 1348 Ex Voto Player Numbers | SteamDB The funniest part though, in my humblest […]

A Tale of Two Game Demos When Wishlists Don't Match Reality Windrose vs Ex Voto
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A Tale of Two Game Demos: When Wishlists Don’t Match Reality

It was the best of games. It was the worst of games. This is a tale of two demos that launched the same week - both were holding onto impressive wishlist numbers. Both grabbed some headlines. Both had some buzz. Only one had players. In one corner you have 1348 Ex Voto, a medieval adventure that has you parading around Italy as a lesbian knight in a bowl cut, proudly announcing that it had crossed 100,000 wishlists on Steam before launch. A six-figure milestone. Impressive. Respectable. Very screenshot-worthy, right? In the other corner - you have Windrose, a pirate survival game that quietly blew past 1,000,000 wishlists and then proceeded to pull an overwhelming 22,000 concurrent players into its demo. Meanwhile, Ex Voto peaked at 122. Original Image: 1348 Ex Voto | X That's not a typo by the way...one […]

Aftermath Journalist Connections Just More of the Same
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Aftermath Isn’t New Games Media – It’s Rebranded Irrelevance

Every few years, games journalism announces its own rebirth. A new website or publication launches. Some generic mission statement promises readers independence. Subscriptions replace ads. Corporate influence is supposedly left behind. And we're told that this time will finally be different, more honest, more authentic, and more connected to the people who actually play games. And then you look at the bylines. Aftermath Collection of Recent Ideological Bylines Aftermath, the latest “independent” games media startup, is trying to position itself as some sort of "clean break" from the failures of legacy outlets like Kotaku, Polygon, Vice, and The Verge...but scratch the surface for about five seconds and you might find that a different picture starts to emerge. This is not a revolution. It's more like a reunion tour. Same rejected writers. Same cringeworthy worldviews. Same self-aggrandizing echo-chamber social circles. Same […]

Highguard Release When Free is Still Too Expensive
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Highguard Flops: When Free to Play is Still Too Expensive

There’s hype. Then there’s Highguard...the game that somehow closed out The Game Awards 2025 in the best reveal slot only to deliver one of the most unhyped receptions in recent gaming memory. What could have been a triumphant showcase for basically any other game became a collective eyeroll, meme fodder, and (hilariously) a “Concord 2: Electric Boogaloo” moment for the already oversaturated hero shooter genre. But let’s start with the basics: Highguard is yet another free-to-play hero shooter born from a questionable team with credits on games like Titanfall and Apex Legends, landing what they really really wanted to be the industry’s “next big thing” moment,  only to be greeted with blank stares and memes questioning why this game was even the finale. I mean, you had a new Mega Man game announcement...and if you showed Mega Man Dual Override in Highguard's spot […]

Why Game Rant Tried to Rewrite Hogwarts Legacy Boycott History
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Why Game Rant Tried to Rewrite the “Boycott” of Hogwarts Legacy

Game Rant’s Hogwarts Legacy 2 Take Got Ratioed Game Rant decided to light itself on fire this week after posting on Twitter, the post getting immediately bodied with a Community Note correcting it: If Hogwarts Legacy 2 wants to avoid the same boycotts its predecessor faced, the sequel cannot take the same approach that the original did. https://t.co/LJIMjUHhW8 pic.twitter.com/Wf1PTKreNa— Game Rant (@GameRant) October 12, 2025 In other words, the so-called “boycott” Game Rant referenced was about as effective as trying to cancel oxygen. Hogwarts Legacy wasn’t just successful - it dominated, becoming the best-selling game of 2023 worldwide and one of the biggest single-player launches in gaming history.Even hilariously eliciting a Hogwarts Legacy fluff piece from Game Rant themselves at the time! So why is a major gaming publication trying to actively rewrite history? The answer’s actually pretty simple. It’s the same reason when […]

Ghost of Yotei Phantom Sales and Manufactured Hype
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Ghost of Yotei: Phantom Sales and the Manufactured Hype

When Ghost of Yotei launched, Suckerpunch and Sony’s marketing machine kicked into overdrive - gaming media proudly claimed that the game sold 1.3 million copies on day one, just barely edging out Ghost of Tsushima’s first-day numbers.On paper, that sounds impressive. But when you start digging into the numbers...something doesn’t quite add up. This isn’t about conspiracy theories or wild speculation. The facts themselves are suspicious enough to raise eyebrows. Between the supposed “insider” tweet that started the fire, the exaggerated praise from certain journalists, and the eerily consistent talking points across major outlets, it all feels like another case of what I like to call the Manufactured Hype Virus. The Phantom Sales Begin The story starts with a tweet from an account named Millie A (@millieamand). The post claimed, “Hearing, 1.3 million sold on first day for Yotei. Ever so slightly ahead of […]

What Does Gaming and Internews USAIDS Have in Common?
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Wings, Landfall, SBI, and the UN: Games Meet Global Influence

Alright, buckle up. This one’s a wild ride through indie games, global institutions, and some seriously eyebrow-raising overlaps. If you’ve been following Gothic Therapy on YouTube, you already know the scoop: Take Us North (the "empathetic", socially conscious game about migration) wasn’t always just Take Us North.While being showcased at the United Nations, it went by the codename American Dream. And yeah, that little detail suddenly makes the web of connections around this game look a lot messier. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5se6mRtHWTsVideo: Take Us North Exposed! Sweet Baby Inc, Wings & The United Nations! | Gothic Therapy The Indie Puzzle: SBI, Wings Interactive & Landfall Games Here’s what’s already out there: Sweet Baby Inc., Wings Interactive, and Landfall Games are entangled in a crazy network that’s as cozy as a family reunion. Here’s the funderful breakdown for anyone not familiar with the landscape:Landfall Games – […]

The Rise of Fear and Anime Activism
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Lost in Translation: The Rise of Using Fear and Anime Activism

Caution: Ideology Ahead! How Activists Have Invaded Your Anime You know what I want when I go looking up anime conventions? A list of dates, times, and maybe a map so I don’t end up in the wrong ballroom with a bunch of sweaty Pokémon card traders. You know what I don't want? A fear-mongering disclaimer straight out of a freshman sociology seminar warning me not to come to America because *gasp* the “current political climate” is just too scary! Liberal Activists Using Fear in Anime That’s exactly what greets you on certain convention-listing sites like AnimeCons and FanCons, which decided that before you even look up a schedule, you first need a lecture about how unsafe the U.S. is. Image: Anime Convention Sites Warn Against U.S. Travel | FanCons | AnimeCons Their disclaimer points readers to a MSN roundup of […]

Tales of the Shire and Sweet Baby Inc Fails
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Tales of the Shire and 9 Other Sweet Baby Inc. Flops to Avoid

Tales of the Shire Trips Over Its Own Hairy Feet and 9 Other Sweet Baby Inc. Flops If you’ve been anywhere near gaming news this week, you’ve probably heard the soft thud of Tales of the Shire hitting the market - and then promptly falling into the compost heap behind Mordor. What was supposed to be a cozy, heartwarming Hobbit life sim has turned into yet another cautionary tale in the saga of Sweet Baby Inc. (SBI) involvement in modern gaming. PSA Reminder: Sweet Baby Inc. For the uninitiated, Sweet Baby Inc. is a Canadian "narrative consultancy" led by Kim Belair that claims to want to help studios tell better stories through inorganic heaps of diversity, equity, and inclusion...hard pass. But to gamers who haven't been sipping on the leftist propaganda Kool-Aid, their influence has become a scarlet letter: you […]

Mortal Kombat 2 Dead on Arrival Woke Trash
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Mortal Kombat 2 Is Doomed: How Wokeness Killed the Franchise

Once upon a time (not that long ago), Mortal Kombat 1 (2023) looked like it had a chance to reinvent the franchise in all the right ways. A full reboot. A clean slate. A chance to create a new golden age of fighting games that could compete with Street Fighter, Tekken, and whatever else the FGC is clinging to. But what did we get instead? A fatality...and not the fun kind. Image: NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros Nuking the Fun out of Mortal Kombat | ReportAFK A franchise face-plant into a pit of DEI checklists, sterilized character designs, and creatively bankrupt “reimaginings.” And now, with Mortal Kombat 2 looming on the horizon, it’s looking less like a triumphant sequel and more like a bloated corpse twitching on the mat. Still twitching, sure...but stone cold dead all the same. Did Sweet Baby […]

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