Donald Trump Retracts Lawsuit Barring Pokémon Company From Using Likeness in Muk Cards

Posted on December 16, 2020 by Zoe Grobman

WASHINGTON — Following a string of other legal concessions in the waning days of his term, President Donald Trump announced this morning that he would be withdrawing a decades-old lawsuit against the Pokémon Company which had previously prohibited them from printing cards featuring the toxic sludge Pokémon, Muk, due to its blatant similarity to his likeness.

“A long time ago this Pokeman [sic] Company made a HUGE mistake trying to steal my image for their Mook [sic] card,” Trump tweeted. “I rightfully stopped that 20 years ago, but as a gift to all of my Pokeman [sic] loving supporters, I have decided to allow what everyone agrees is the best Pokeman [sic] to be printed again. Enjoy the Mook [sic] cards, everyone! Big wins!”

However, when reached for comment, Pokémon Company President Tsunekazu Ishihara reported that no such lawsuit had ever been filed and that they had actually never been prevented from producing cards featuring the character Muk.

“As everyone is well aware, the Pokémon Muk is based on Henry Kissinger, not Mr. Trump,” said Mr. Ishihara, pointing to an elaborate cork board-and-yarn diagram outlining every Pokémon based on a person from popular culture. “See, there’s Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Uri Geller…many of these references were done out of admiration, and then some were done out of contempt. Mr. Trump is actually the basis for Garbodor, the trash bag Pokémon.”

The explanation by the Pokémon Company has not swayed the minds of Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters in the Q-Anon community, who quickly jumped to link this announcement to the rest of their sprawling worldview.

“God Emperor Trump has done it again with this false swipe at the elite Democratic Conspiracy,” noted 8chan user MoleChild1488 wrote. “Everyone knows that Pokémon is a ploy by Bill Gates to lure 10-year-olds to travel alone so that he can kidnap them and harvest them for adrenochrome, and this move will be super-effective in luring him out of hiding so that he can be caught and left in a box where he belongs. Gotta catch ‘em all! By which I mean the deep state pedophiles, of course.”

At press time, Trump had reportedly also granted forgiveness to Bandai and Toei Animation for stealing his likeness for the talking yellow turd Digimon called Sukamon.

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CD Projekt Red Hires Elon Musk to Oversee All Future Failed Launches

Posted on December 15, 2020 by Mark Roebuck

WARSAW — Following the tumultuous release of their long anticipated RPG CyberPunk 2077, CD Projekt Red has appointed entrepreneur and SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk to oversee all of their disastrous launches for the immediate future.

“Not only is Elon a passionate gamer with a history of managing large, highly anticipated projects,” said Marcin Iwiński, co-founder and CEO of CD Projekt Red. “But his absolute commitment to carrying himself confidently after taking a massive public embarrassment is the exact sort of project coordination we could use around here, like, right away, ideally.”

Musk, who’s unmanned rocket code named SN8 crashed and burned upon landing during a test flight last week, has verified that he feels he is the perfect candidate to manage future science fiction inspired projects that are destined to underdeliver on expectations.

“The CDPR guys get a lot of things right, there’s no doubt about it,” said Musk, after news broke that he’d been hired for a front facing role in the Polish company. “But, one mistake they just made is apologize and admit defeat, like when they admitted that they shipped CyberPunk out at an unacceptable level. You gotta spin that for your people. My recent test flight made it all the way up in the air before it came down and exploded. The old ones were disintegrating right away. That sounds like a win to me!”

Gamers and tech fans alike have met the news with mixed reactions, although most seem to agree on Musk’s aptitude for the role.

“Oh yeah, that makes sense,” said Lacey Gordon, who’d been in attendance for another of Musk’s defining gaffes last year. “I was at the Tesla Design Studio presentation when he chucked that fucking ball through the supposedly unbreakable window on the Cyber Truck. Not only did he not get laughed off of the stage, he finished the presentation in front of the broken window! Seems like the kind of guy that could brag about review scores while also having to apologize for the state of the game.”

As of press time, following Musk’s first day as a CD Projekt Red employee, the company’s Warsaw office inexplicably exploded.

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Elon Musk Announces He’s Raising His Son Without Pronouns or Friends

Posted on December 15, 2020 by Jeremy Kaplowitz

SAN FRANCISCO — Tesla, Inc. CEO Elon Musk announced today that he will be raising his son X Æ A-Xii without pronouns or friends in order to “own libs” online.

“People online get mad heated whenever I post memes about pronouns, it’s super cringe 100,” said the 49-year-old billionaire. “That’s why I’m going to epically own them all by raising X Æ A-Xii entirely without any pronouns at all! Whenever I want to refer to X Æ A-Xii, I’ll just say X Æ A-Xii in full. The cringe Twitter nerds are gonna flip and it’s gonna be hilarious! And they’re like ‘oh but then X Æ A-Xii won’t have any friends because X Æ A-Xii’s dad will be insufferable to be around.’ Yeah well that’s just a double own because all friends do is hold you back from being an entrepreneur. I’ve never had them my whole life and look how I turned out.”

Despite having a massive online following, the response to Musk’s announcement has been mixed.

“Oh my GOD, Elon Musk is the absolute meme lord!!!!” said one Twitter user. “I wish Elon was MY dad because my parents fricking SUCK”

“the amount of time you have made the most bottom of the barrel jokes about using someone’s pronouns, you could have just said they/them a thousand times,” said another Twitter user.

“Elon please answer your phone,” said a third Twitter user. “This is John from the Tesla Board of Directors. Every time you post something, our stock shoots down. We cannot get a hold of you!!!”

At press time, Musk could not be reached to comment because he was busy responding to every picture of him with Ghislaine Maxwell to call the poster a pedophile.

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Report: This Article Can Run DOOM

Posted on December 14, 2020 by Jon Ruggiero

NEW YORK — Reddit users on the popular r/itrunsdoom were reportedly surprised to learn that an article on video game news website Hard Drive titled Report: This Article Can Run DOOM does, in fact, run the acclaimed 1993 first person shooter DOOM.

Reddit user u/DumGei wrote in a post on December 13, 2020 that he got DOOM to run on a Hard Drive article, and posted a link to this space you find yourself now.

“It’s a surprisingly simple process to make an article and embed the javascript version of the game,” u/DumGei explained of his programming breakthrough. “I don’t know why no one thought to do this before. It’s really not even one of the crazier ones when you think about it.”

The user went on to say that he enjoys reading Hard Drive pieces, “especially anything having to do with Waluigi’s massive hog.” This level of enjoyment inspired him to insert a playable version of DOOM into the base of this article, after somehow convincing the website’s editors to let him publish it, for him to revisit both his favorite website and video game at the same time.

Editor’s Note: This Article Most Likely Cannot Run DOOM on Mobile Devices.

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CD Projekt Red Clarifies That Any Racist Content Found in Cyberpunk Is Probably Just a Glitch

Posted on December 14, 2020 by Jeremy Kaplowitz

WARSAW — CD Projekt Red has confirmed that anything racist that players may find in their game Cyberpunk 2077 is probably just one of its countless glitches and definitely wasn’t put in there on purpose.

“Hoo boy, there sure are a lot of game-breaking glitches in the release of our game,” said Cyberpunk 2077 director Adam Badowski. “NPCs saying lines at the wrong time, characters falling through the floor of buildings, winning bets on fights giving you no money, and uh… really just anything that you find in the game that could be construed as racist or offensive in any way. Those are all glitches, for sure.”

“It’s crazy because you spend so much time trying to make sure that every little thing in the game works and then, ugh! You find out that, like, some really fucked up dialogue about crime statistics that’s maybe a dog whistle for a white supremacist talking point,” Badowski added. “And that’s… just a random text generator or something. That was supposed to be, you know, just a fun fact about dolphins or something. These damn glitches!”

Cyberpunk 2077 players have experienced a multitude of glitches, according to thousands of social media posts from those playing the game since it released last week.

“It really sucks to pay $60 for a AAA game and find out it barely functions,” said one viral Reddit post on the subject. “I’m playing on PS5 and the graphics are insanely bad. It looks like I’m playing on an Xbox 360. Plus, my character keeps doing this really weird glitch where he defends police officers and helps them on missions. What the fuck was up with that? It’s just totally game-ruining and I wish they spent a little more time working out the kinks.”

As of press time, after coming under fire for trying to blame any offensive content in Cyberpunk, Badowski clarified that he must have “glitched out” and actually meant to post a screenshot of an apology he wrote in his Notes app.

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Single D&D Session Gives New Player Confidence to Buy $50 Worth of Accessories

Posted on December 13, 2020 by Owen Crowlie

ATLANTA — New Dungeons and Dragons enthusiast Clarissa Elliotte reportedly bought $50 worth of accessories after playing her first session of the tabletop roleplaying game.

“Now that I’m a D&D player, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to go all in on a few sets of cool dice,” Elliotte said to friends in their discord chat approximately fifteen minutes after their first session completed. “I gotta make sure I have the player handbook ready at all times and I hate wasting paper by printing a PDF, so I’ll make sure to grab that. Plus, I feel such a strong connection to my character, I just feel like I have to buy a little model for her. And I know I’m not the DM, but you never know when a white board battle grid will come in handy!”

Elliotte’s friends and fellow party members expressed concern over her spending habits, according to those familiar with the situation.

“I would never want to gatekeep one of my friends, but let’s be real; there’s a pretty good chance we’ll never play another session of this game,” said the group’s DM Maria Ward. “I don’t say this to be mean or to judge Clarissa. I say this as someone who has several figures of several D&D characters that turned out to just be one shots because everyone got busy all of the sudden. D&D has been a very costly adventure for me, but at least all my figures can be friends on my bookshelf.”

As of press time, Elliotte was reportedly immune to criticism because she was busy changing all of her social media icons to images from the game Hades after playing her first round of it.

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Groundbreaking RPG Gives Player Moral Conundrum With Dozens of Ways to Say ‘Yes’

Posted on December 13, 2020 by Just Lunning

EDMONTON, Alberta — Developer Bioware has announced that their latest Mass Effect game will be the deepest dive into moral dilemmas yet, featuring more ways to say yes than any game previously released in the franchise.

“Rather than making entirely divergent storylines, we wanted to add weight to the narrative that was already present.” said BioWare Story Editor Ryan Cormier. “For example, when Shepard is asked to dance, you can respond with options like ‘Yes please,’ ‘I suppose I could dance,’ and ‘me gusta bailar.’ It’s impossible for Shepard to avoid dancing in this scenario.”

Cormier and others claim that each variation on the same answer shows a different side of Shepard.”

“Perhaps one player’s Shepard loves to dance, but has to hide it,” said lead designer Crystal McCord. “Another person’s Shepard might love to dance, but has to hide it, and is learning Spanish on the side. There are thousands of possibilities.”

This is but one example that was provided of the many different ways that the same affirmative response could effect in game relationships.

“At one point, Shepard is asked if he dislikes a squadmate,” McCord continued. “In the current build, Shepard has to respond ‘Yes.’ However, the player can add a lengthy tail to it, creating more of a ‘Yeeeesss?.’ This implies Shepard might’ve formed his opinion from peer pressure rather than actual disdain, and is grappling with the ramifications of that behavior in this moment.”

Preliminary game testers have praised the title’s newfound integration of customizable conversation options.

“By giving my Shepard dozens of technically identical answers, it really put my actions into perspective ,” exclaimed game tester Ted Schwartz. “I was torn at one point. It was so hard to decide if I wanted my Shepard to say ‘I’d love to do a genocide’ or ‘Yeah, I guess genocide seems like the way to go here.’ Of course I chose the latter. My Shepard knows that it’s needed, but he’s not having fun with it.”

BioWare has yet to announce a release date for the title, but has confirmed that it will agree with any and all cross promotional campaigns it is pitched to promote the game.

Why My Shitty Dead-End Office Job Means No Video Game Developer Should Complain Ever

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Jeremy Kaplowitz

As video games become an even larger part of our culture, the conversation over overtime work, employee crunch, and unions are getting more and more heated. Should video game developers work upwards of 100 hours a week? Are our standards for AAA games becoming too high? Should fans be upset when release dates inevitably get pushed back?

Ultimately all of these questions are answered with one very simple truth: my current office job sucks shit and, as a result, no one should even think about complaining.

When it comes to discussions about how hard it is being a video game developer, I always find myself thinking about my own awful job as a data entry clerk for a shipping company. Every single day that I go to work, I fucking hate myself. I hate my boss, I hate my co-workers, and I hate the work I do with every fiber of my being. I often work very late and I get terrible benefits, despite the many hours I put into my job. So that’s the bar for me that I use to judge everybody else’s job.

The thing is, I don’t even get to do anything worthwhile at my job. Video game developers are living the life. They spend their days and their nights making video games and they sometimes get paid a bunch of money to do it! So if their bosses abuse them, big deal — so do mine. Just the other day, my boss called me a “fuckstick” in front of the entire team because I accidentally printed 400 flyers on pink paper instead of white. How was I supposed to know that was important? I am not a fuckstick. To me, the only people who deserve to be called a fuckstick, is anyone who complains about having a worse job than me.

At the end of the day, my job is worse than everyone else’s job on the planet. And that’s why I don’t think anyone should have a better job. Because if I have to do it, then so should you. Except for cops, of course, who I think everyone should be a little bit nicer to.

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Gamer Who Bought Entire Trilogy on Sale Quits Halfway Through First Game

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Saad Khan

DES PLAINES, Ill. — Local gamer James Johnson, who recently purchased the Assassin’s Creed: Ezio Trilogy collection, has reportedly quit halfway through the first entry, and has no plans to resume his playthrough.

“I haven’t ‘quit’ playing it entirely,” said Johnson, hovering his cursor over the “Load Game” option in Assassin’s Creed II, the first game in the series to feature protagonist Ezio Auditore da Firenze, but hesitating to actually select it. “It’s more of a sabbatical. I started out determined to get 100% completion on all three games, so maybe I just went a bit too hard. But I’ll be fine after a little break. I just need to cleanse my palate with different types of games.”

Johnson was eight hours into Assassin’s Creed II when he abruptly stopped playing several months ago. When asked why he purchased the entire trilogy up front if he couldn’t realistically complete it, he claimed it was the only rational decision.

“It was ten bucks a pop, anyone else would’ve done the same,” he said. “And I’ve wanted to get into Assassin’s Creed for a while anyway, so I was just like, let’s do it. Let’s finally become part of the culture and find out how much of a baller Ezio is. I mean, come on, you fight the pope at the end of ACII. The pope! And then there are two more games after that? No question. Sign me up.”

Johnson couldn’t produce a clear answer when asked how long he expects his break to last. He became noticeably more confrontational as questioning persisted, pulling up his Steam profile.

“I mean, look, I’ve still got all of the games installed,” he insisted, aggressively. “I’ll get around to them when I have time, but I’m still playing them. What are you, the backlog police?”

At press time, Johnson reportedly took advantage of another franchise sale to purchase all remaining entries in the Assassin’s Creed series. His Steam profile shows that he has yet to launch any of them.

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Guy Who Didn’t Have $60 All Year Thinks Genshin Impact Was Snubbed at Game Awards

Posted on December 11, 2020 by Mark Roebuck

ARLINGTON, Va. — A gamer who was furloughed from his job earlier this year and has therefore had minimal recreational spending money claims that Genshin Impact, the action-RPG that was released for free on iOS, Android, and PS4 earlier this year, deserved far more recognition from this year’s Game Awards.

“I didn’t have the cash to pick up Last of Us 2, Doom Eternal, Animal Crossing, or even fucking Hades for god’s sake,” said Roderick Pierce who was one of over 20 million employees that lost their jobs earlier this year as the COVID-19 pandemic first hit the United States. “But Genshin gave me hundreds of hours of free content that I can play on my phone, so I was able to enjoy it even after I sold my PlayStation 4 to cover the water bill in July. Just an incredible title, and a real gift for the fans of the genre, as well as anyone that was largely left to fend for themselves this year.”

Representatives from the Game Awards defended last night’s ceremony, which saw Genshin Impact lose both awards it was nominated for; Best Mobile Game and Best RPG.

“What can I say? It was a packed year,” said Geoff Keighley, longtime executive producer and host of the broadcast. “Genshin did a lot of things right, but at the end of the day we felt it was too derivative of Breath of the Wild to really be included amongst a list of the year’s absolute best games. So this guy got a check for twelve hundred dollars and is complaining about not being able to afford video games? Maybe he should be a little smarter with his money.”

When told of his comments, Pierce disagreed with Keighley’s assessment of the game’s relevance.

“Yeah, it was a lot like Breath of the Wild, in that it was the only game I was able to play in 2020,” he said. “But other than that, Genshin gives you over 20 playable characters to pick from, and I never had to explain to my wife that Breath of the Wild wasn’t some anime porn thing when she saw me playing. They’re totally different games, don’t be absurd.”

As of press time, Pierce had closed Genshin and was watching a Let’s Play of The Last of Us 2 on YouTube.

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