 March 8th, 2010 by Newbs -
This week’s Shameful Human is Fredrik Liliegrin, the former DICE CEO and co-founder who now heads up Antic Entertainment. He had a recent chat with Gaming Union in which he claimed the Wii was a “virus.”
Liliegren took the form of a wild-eyed prophet who has seen the future and knows the doom awaiting mankind when he announced “people have got to realize the Wii is a toy, not an entertainment focused product.” That’s funny, I always thought games were entertainment. Or is entertainment a higher form of art, something only reserved for the more refined palate of your 18-29 year-old Gears of War loving males?
Fredrik went on to say “this is not a games game machine.” Huh, I wonder what that means. Does the Wii not play critically acclaimed games software like Super Mario Galaxy, or does it merely provide amusing distractions for so-called “non gamers” looking to have a pretend game of tennis.
Liliegren followed up his rant with an attempt at some vigorous backpedaling a few days later on his blog, in which he basically said the same things over again. He claimed:
Given this design direction the Wii in my mind is more of a toy then a games machine, and I say millions of Wii Fit players agree with me! It’s a Toy that plays some pretty good video games, but the majority of users that has bought a Wii, I believe, would never consider buying a Xbox 360 or a PS3. Simply because I believe they would not be interested in that experience.
Again, Liliegren differentiates toys and games, with the implication that toys are something lesser. I suppose what he’s saying is that while the Wii may very well be a games machine, it is by no means “legitimate” in the same way the 360 and PS3 are, because while the public at large may buy a Wii, they would never pick up a 360 or PS3, where the “real” games are.
Liliegren joins legendary Shameful Humans like Capcom’s Antoine Seux, EA’s Alain Tascan and SEGA’s Constantine Hantzopoulos as a games industry insider bent on hating the Wii for no reason other than his own ignorance.
QJ.net, MCV
March 1st, 2010 by Newbs -
For years we’ve had to endure Jenny McCarthy’s ignorant rantings about how childhood vaccinations supposedly caused her son’s autism, despite a complete lack of scientific evidence, along with her insistence that chelation therapy actually did something to help him. Well, now Jenny’s theories have been thoroughly laid to rest, and that’s a great reason to make her Shameful Human of the Week.
It seems her son never actually had autism, but rather “a rare childhood neurological disorder” called Landau-Kleffner syndrome. LKS can cause speech impairment and neurological damage, but affected children have been known to regain their language abilities. That would explain why her son kept getting better, despite her fake science having long been proven bullshit.
Jenny’s backpedaling like crazy. She’s decided she just wants vaccines better researched, and not eliminated entirely, as she once pushed for. McCarthy claims that she will continue to be a voice for autism, although I would hope all of this finally ends the shred of credibility the mainstream press was giving her.
As a formal apology for making the world dumber, and for endangering the health of everyone by publicly promoting the boycott of vaccines, I’d like to see McCarthy free Jim Carrey and return him to reality.
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February 22nd, 2010 by Newbs -
Finding an image of Mike for this week’s Shameful Human was a difficult task, so you’ll just have to live with the little thumbnail to the right. At least there is joy in staring at that mysterious robot claw that seems to be reaching up at him, and imagining it is some unfortunate victim being held down by Hickey’s repressive boot.
Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey is still in denial that Nintendo has fully won this generation’s console war, and insists the company needs to enter panic mode in order to have a chance against its competitor’s knock-offs. Hickey recently stated:
We believe Nintendo needs to cut the price of their console from $200 to $150 immediately, as they should establish as meaningful of an installed base as possible before the Natal and Arc are introduced.
That’s funny, I thought Nintendo had already established a meaningful installed base when they sold as many consoles as their two competitors combined.
Hickey’s lunacy didn’t end by assuming he knew how to run the world’s most successful video game company, he’s also tricked himself into believing the “fad” of Nintendo’s dominance might soon be ending. He predicts:
We remain optimistic for near term PS3 and 360 market growth opportunities… We expect continued market weakness through ’10 for Nintendo related products, as the Wii cycle fades meaningfully and the DS platform faces considerable competition from Apple related mobile gaming devices.
I suppose Wii and DS sales may fade in the upcoming year, although that does tend to happen when video game systems begin to reach a certain saturation point. Note Hickey’s language, “market weakness” is simply a nonsensical way of talking about a company which outsold its competition at a nearly 2:1 margin just two months ago.
Why is it that analysts and so-called experts still insist on predicting Nintendo’s doom, even as the company’s victory march continues? None of them foresaw this walloping coming, maybe they want to will their original guesses into existence.
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February 15th, 2010 by Newbs -
Robert Pattinson is another one of those people who I’ve always known would have to be crowned a Shameful Human at some point; I was just looking for a good excuse. Lucky for me, Pattinson has done well to act like an absolute idiot this week.
In a drunken interview with Details magazine, Pattinson revealed what most of us already knew, he “really hate vaginas.” Indeed, Pattinson claims to be “allergic to vagina.” Pattinson barely survived a lengthy photo shoot in which he “had to” position himself between the legs of a hot female model, and apparently only handled the ordeal because he was hungover.
Let me be clear: I’m not suggesting that Pattinson is shameful for being gay. Absolutely not. It’s just that he’s spent an awful lot of time leading on an awful lot of confused young girls.
You might be thinking, okay, Pattinson is gay, well maybe now he can become a prominent gay rights activist. Actually, that won’t work, he’s not gay either. Add all of his gay followers to the list of victims he’s led on. It turns out that Pattinson only has eyes for his dog. In the depths of his bizarre interview, Pattinson unleashed this monster: “There might be something wrong with my emotional sight… The only emotional connection of relevance is with my dog. My relationship with my dog, it’s ridiculous.” Yikes.
[source]
February 8th, 2010 by Newbs -
This week’s Shameful Human works behind the protective veil of anonymity, he or she is whoever wrote the “Intro” story for Sonic the Hedgehog 4 on the game’s official site. The events of the early, slightly better, Sonic games is lovingly recapped by this person in a series awkwardly written, comma-abusing paragraphs. Allow me to begin by analyzing one such paragraph.
Their reunion is short lived however, as Eggman resurfaces and begins kidnapping Sonic friends again, in an effort to create more workers to finish his ultimate Weapon – The Death Egg! Teaming up with the newly met, Miles ‘Tails’ Prower, Sonic embarks on a new mission through West Side Island in an effort to free his friends and ensure Eggman does not obtain the 7 Chaos emeralds to fuel the Death Egg.
I see run-on sentences everywhere! It doesn’t help that the tone of the piece echoes that of your typical, confused, adolescent Sonic fan-fic writer, either. I want to focus in on one error in particular though, about half-way through this little chunk of mangled English. It’s the gem “Teaming up with the newly met, Miles ‘Tails’ Prower, Sonic embarks on a new mission…” You see, the problem is that when you insert a little aside mid-sentence like that, the sentence still has to make sense with the aside taken out. What the writer is implying is that Sonic is embarking on a new mission with his newly met self.
It would be giving SEGA too much credit to think that this entire butcher-job was done on purpose to parody the rough translations found in early video games. I have to single out whatever unqualified moron wrote this shit, or pasted the original Japanese into Babel Fish and used whatever was spit out, because it’s clear that person has incredible luck, and I deserve to be massively jealous of it. I want to murder the English language in a cushy writing job for a company that no longer cares and in which no one can be bothered to review my work.
[source]
February 1st, 2010 by Newbs -
Alert the internet: crazed Scientologist (allegedly) kills his business partner.
This week’s Shameful Human is Rex Fowler, he’s a Scientologist from Adams County, Colorado, and he’s been charged with murdering his former business partner, Thomas Ciancio. The two ended their working relationship in November when Ciancio quit over Fowler taking $200 000 of their company’s money without permission and giving it to what his arrest warrant affidavit describes as “a church or some type of charity.” Ciancio was killed when he returned to his former workplace to receive a severance payment of $9 900.
The case against Mr. Fowler appears solid. The murder weapon used was purchased by his son, who listed his address as 1413 L. Ron Hubbard Way, Los Angeles when it was bought. His wife, Janet Fowler, also attempted to cover up evidence in the case by trying to reclaim a mysterious briefcase belonging to her husband confiscated by police. She claimed “It is important to me, my church, and it is religious material and I want it now!”
Further demonstrating the total madness which Scientology followers suffer from, Janet Fowler told police “Even if you looked at it and read it, you would not understand anything in it… because it is way above a normal person and you would not know what it meant.” That sounds to me, an amateur Scientology critic, like the briefcase contained scripture intended only for those who had paid their way to a high level within the church.
Rex Fowler is most assuredly a Shameful Human, he took money from his business and used it to support the Church of Scientology without his partner’s permission, and is likely also a murderer. Still, I can’t help feel a little bad for the guy and his family. They have obviously been fully suckered into the church’s wacky belief system, and now must suffer the consequences of what their cult/religion has led them to do.
[source]
January 25th, 2010 by Newbs -
This week’s Shameful Human is none other than infamous film director Doctor Uwe “Raging” Boll. Although he has truly been a shameful human for many years now, due to his stunningly awful video game films, Dr. Boll earns the title this week for taking on games journalist micro-celebrity Chris Kohler of Wired.com in a flurry of wild emails.
Chris recently wrote of the US premiere of Boll’s long awaited Postal film, and apparently Uwe didn’t appreciate what the avid retro game collector had to say. Uwe Boll, who, considering his writing skills, ironically holds a doctorate in literature, had this to say in response:
chris
your review shows me only that you dont understand anything about movies and that you are a untalented wanna bee filmmaker with no balls and no understanding what POSTAL is. you dont see courage because you are nothing. and no go to your mum and fuck her… because she cooks for you now since 30 years ..so she deserves it.
people like you are the reason that independent movies have no chance anymore.
uwe boll
PS: POSTAL is R RATED . The MPAA understood the satire — you not — you dumb fuck
Following that initial outburst, a series of bizarre emails were traded between Kholer, Boll, and Boll’s publicist. Apparently, Boll has nothing better to do than fight the internet itself, but then again, his willingness to box a bunch of ill-prepared scrawny nerds several years ago who dared give his movies poor reviews already proved that.
→ Continue reading Shameful Human of the Week: Uwe “Raging” Boll
January 18th, 2010 by Newbs -
Pat Robertson, the controversial voice for Christian conservatives whose name I will forever confuse with Robert Pattinson’s is this week’s Shameful Human.
Robertson claimed on his program The 700 Club last week that Haiti’s recent earthquake, which has caused the deaths of tens of thousands, was the result of a deal made with the Devil to secure the nation’s independence from the French.
You see, the catalyst of the Haitian slave revolt of 1791 was a Voodoo ceremony in which animals were sacrificed, and as we all know, for Robertson-style Christians, the religions of others are a quick stroll from Devil worship.
Interestingly, Robertson neglected the historical context of his claim that I have provided, which probably left his viewers scrambling to fill in the holes for themselves. Like maybe he’s saying that those pesky black people should have known their place and stayed the slaves of the great Christian white man. For Robertson, I guess it’s better to be the slave of a Christian than free and without Christianity.
Robertson followed up his insane claim with the statement “they need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God,” expressing his hope to capitalize on tragedy by spreading his particular brand of wingnut to the people of Haiti.
Even if Robertson did not intend there to be any racist subtext in his remarks, he still implied that all of this suffering is actually the fault (no pun intended) of the victims of this natural disaster, rather than the shifting of tectonic plates. That is a remarkable, even stunningly ignorant misrepresentation of reality which can only serve to further harm Haitians.
[source]
January 11th, 2010 by Newbs -
Another week, another Wii hater. This week’s Shameful Human is Antoine Seux, director general for Capcom France, who, just like EA’s Alain Tascan and SEGA’s Constantine Hantzopoulos, hates the Wii.
Seux told French blog Gamekult that “the customer of [the Wii] has turned into something [of a] much broader audience. It is a disappointment… for us, Capcom, the future is the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.” Seux also complained of the weak sales of Darkside Chronicles as compared to Resident Evil 4 on Wii.
Mr. Seux is really going to do this to me? He’s going to make me go on this goddamn 3rd party Wii rant again? Well, alright. Here it is Mr. Seux: RE4 sold because it was already known to be a great game, and the audience was excited to see it made even better with Wii controls. Darkside Chronicles didn’t sell because it was a follow-up to Umbrella Chronicles which had a lukewarm reception from those who played it and only sold because the Wii hadn’t been flooded with rail-shooters yet.
Do you seriously not get how this works, Tony? You make a good game, and people will buy it. They are not interested in your various Capcom “tests,” they want proper, mainline entries in your biggest franchises with real effort put into their development. RE5 would have surely sold spectacularly on Wii, considering how well RE4 did and how well liked it was, but you didn’t make it for Wii. You made it for your buddies 360 and PS3. AAA caliber remakes of RE2 and RE3 using the control scheme of Resident Evil 4 Wii would probably also do extremely well.
Instead of whining about the Wii audience getting too “broad,” perhaps Mr. Seux and Capcom should consider making quality games for that broad audience instead of shitting out half-assed spin-offs.
[source]
January 4th, 2010 by Newbs -
The Shameful Human this week is Constantine Hantzopoulos, definitely not pictured to the right. You try finding reasonably large pictures of video game industry personnel. He’s a studio director at SEGA, and another industry insider taking up arms against the guiltless Wii.
Hantzopoulos recently spoke to the Wii hating gang over at 1UP.com, on their 4 Guys 1UP podcast, where he spewed your typical ignorant Wii hater’s spew.
But that begets the question, are we going to do more mature titles for the Wii? And it’s like, probably not. Look at Dead Space. We were stunned. That was my litmus test. Basically, it’s like, okay, you got EA, who can put all the marketing muscle behind this, an established franchise that scored quite well on 360 and PS3. They should be able to actually hit this out of the park, right? We get numbers, real numbers aside from NPD, and I’m like, ‘Woah.’
‘Woah’ is right. Maybe this guy really is Keanu Reeves. Before forming this ridiculous opinion, Hantzopoulos should have considered the facts: EA didn’t do shit to market Dead Space Extraction, the first Dead Space game did not sell very well, the first Dead Space game was not on Wii and is therefore not established on that system.
How about this, Mr. Hantzopoulos, try putting some effort into both the development and marketing of a so called “mature” Wii game, the kind of effort you in the industry love to throw at the PS3 and 360 all the time, and then tell me whether or not you want to make any more such games for the system. People like you appear to be a bunch of bigots desperately trying to justify your ignorant hate for a successful Nintendo console. The 16-bit wars were a long time ago, let it go.
[source]
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