Welcome back to Five Points, a weekly feature that finds ways to try and avoid being weekly. Now, the delay could be from the tragic death of David Bowie. Or from the recent results in New Hampshire and Iowa. Or from the crushing weight of reality. But let’s be honest; I’ve spent the last two weeks playing XCOM 2, missing a 97 percent success shot, and proceeding to throw one of the various devices near me out the window. That being said, that is no excuse for not being weekly, which is why we will not talk about XCOM 2, not even once. Though, if they somehow get involved with Konami, all bets are off.
The Long Point: Dominion Mode Shut Down:
Remember how League of Legends had a mode other than pushing lanes and killing towers? No? Well, it won’t anymore anyways, so there’s that. According to Riot, 99.5% of players didn’t bother playing Dominion, and the company is quite certain that a good portion of that half percent is bots. Which essentially means that Dominion mode was like the plot to the movie “War Games”.
Essentially, the bots were playing each other over and over, slowly learning and countering each other’s play. Eventually, in the movie, the robot learns that the best move is not to play. Well, in this instance, it’s quite clear that the AI learned the same thing, and thereby shut itself down. Which, in turn confirms that Riot is run by robots. I think we’ve discovered a conspiracy. That, or it was kinda an un-controversial news week. It’s a coin toss, I think.
The Other Point: Cookie Clicker Version 2:
In other extremely important news, smash one-week hit “Cookie Clicker” is releasing Version 2.0, which introduces new buildings, upgrades, and a whole bunch of other stuff that makes literally no sense to all the rational people that stopped playing back in 2014. I’ll just be honest, how is there still development for this game? Better yet, if there’s development, there’s still some people playing it, and all I can ask is, why?
What is the appeal to that game after nearly two years? Same thing goes for all the clones and rip-offs that pop up on Steam. It was an interesting thought experiment, by which I mean it was funny how stupidly simple it was, but I can’t understand the long-term appeal of such a thing. Not only that, but you have to imagine someone has been playing, or leaving it open in a tab, since it launched. Is there a limit to how many cookies you can have? Come to think of it, everything about this is fascinating. Except the game of course, which is actually quite stupid.
The Utility Point: The New Ubisoft Milking Cow:
Watch Dogs 2 is happening, and it’s coming out this year. It’s not quite the ridiculous development time of “Assassin’s Creed”, but for a game that had numerous issues and was generally perceived anywhere between a mediocre game and a letdown, this is hardly good news. When they released it, Ubisoft was talking about turning it into another yearly franchise, and certainly it looks like just that is happening. While the game is not being released every year, the first came out in 2014, it’s disconcerting to see just how quickly a sequel to a troubled game is coming. You’d think the developers would need a lot more time to rethink the core issues “Watch Dogs” had, but it seems like all of that has been ignored in favor of Ubisoft pressing it out as quick as they can. I can’t wait until they complain about sales.
The Funny Point: Toy Company Essentially Confirms Titanfall 2:
Yea, maybe I should have saved “Cookie Clicker” for this one. Whatever, it’s still pretty funny that the most solid date on “Titanfall 2” has come from a toy company. By the way, it’s this winter. I don’t know what it is, but “Titanfall” has always seemed like a game destined to fail, and it kinda did. Now, the sequel only seems like more of a mess. What is the sequel even going to be, come to think of it? Considering how few people play the first one, how is the second even going to regain the interest of the many who lost interest? Well, I have no idea, but maybe we should ask the toy companies, as they clearly seem to have a grip on the inside leaks.
Company of the Week: I dunno, Mad Catz?
Listen, not much is happening that really stands out right now. That’s why Mad Catz, a company I almost never think about, wins the “award” for worst company of the week, solely because one third of their staff is being laid off. I don’t really have any sharp insight or cutting analysis on this one, really. They had record sales apparently, so it must’ve been extremely inflated projections, I guess? Maybe they were taking a page from the Ubisoft book, but whatever. They win this prize because they fired people. Best of luck to the former employees, and hopefully something interesting happens soon so we never have to talk about Mad Catz again in this feature.