TheWarpickle

[TheWarpickle @thewarpickle]

@Tyrant_UK

[Pirat_Nation 🔴 @Pirat_Nation]

Huge win for gamers and consumer rights!
The California State Assembly just passed AB 1921, the Protect Our Games Act.

It passed on the floor by a vote of 43 to 16.
The bill would force video game companies to give players a heads-up before they shut down the servers for a game.

It would also make them provide a way for people to keep playing afterward, like adding offline mode or letting community servers take over.

Quick recap of what the bill does:

>60-day advance notice before any server shutdown or major service change that would make a game unplayable in its “ordinary use.”

>Companies must then provide a workable solution so players can keep playing, usually an offline mode/patch, community server support, or (in some cases) a full refund.

>Applies to digital games first sold or substantially re-released in California after January 1, 2027.

>Does not affect subscription games, free-to-play titles, or games that are already permanently offline/single-player.

>Enforceable by the Attorney General or district attorneys.

In short: If you buy a game, you should still be able to play it even after the company moves on.
No more “purchase” turning into a rental that expires when the servers die.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

When Ludovic Mbock, an expert Street Fighter player, was detained by ICE office in Baltimore, a network of video game players located him and raised money to retain an immigration attorney, who was able to have him released. https://t.co/yqy1apAyom

[Fight Your Rival Lehigh Valley FGC - April 25 @fyrallentownfgc]

OWOWCOW FUNDRAISER
Thursday, May 28 | 5-9

Get a sweet treat while you bring the heat! We'll be playing games and scooping ice cream at Owowcow Creamery in Easton, PA.

Come out and support! All proceeds will help us continue to maintain and support operations for bigger events!

[Dexerto @Dexerto]

Famous racehorse Gold Ship’s daughter just had her debut race and seems to have inherited his unpredictable personality

Jajamine finished 14th, had to be calmed down by her jockey mid-race, and was seen wearing a red ribbon that warns others she is prone to kicking

[Katsuhiro Harada @Harada_TEKKEN]

I think it was around the third or fourth year after the show that used to be called CES became known as E3.

Back then, someone from the event staff asked me something like, “Some American celebrities are here ! do you want to meet them?” But I was just a hardcore game developer and self-built PC nerd who had absolutely no understanding of the value of meeting celebrities. So instead of paying attention to famous people visiting our booth, I only remember running straight to the Half-Life booth and the pre-release Baldur’s Gate booth.
(Actually… I still wonder what celebrities were even there.)

At that E3, NVIDIA’s RIVA TNT graphics card was an absolutely massive topic of discussion ..at least among people like me ,,and I remember standing there staring at the demo endlessly.
I think my body temperature was probably three degrees higher than normal at the time.

And younger people today may not know this, but back then there was a video card called the Voodoo2 that every PC gamer in the world knew about. I was completely obsessed with the idea of buying a second Voodoo2 card at a Fry’s Electronics store in the US.
I needed that second card. The meaning was a bit different from what people today think of as SLI, though.
but at the time almost every PC gamer belonged to the “Church of Voodoo.”
Eventually I converted to NVIDIA later on, though.

Honestly, my head was so full of “I need to get to Fry’s” that I barely even remember the reaction to our own game titles. In those days, unlike now, our schedules weren’t packed from morning to night with interviews.

Every year back then, I’d run around to other companies’ booths, play demos, stare closely at the technology, and then head to Fry’s the next day. I remember once going there to buy a Santa Cruz sound card, and seeing an employee casually put what appeared to be a returned product right back onto the shelf. I was genuinely shocked by how different that was from Japanese retail culture.

Also, in the 1990s, arcades still barely survived in the United States, and there was still a real arcade versus culture there, so I used to go watch it. This was something I did from the very beginning. What always surprised me was that, unlike Japan, players in American arcades often played sitting directly side-by-side on linked cabinets. I would always think, “These guys are sitting this close to each other… how are they not constantly getting into fights?”

In Japan, the players usually sit facing each other with two arcade cabinets physically separating them, so if someone gets angry, the most they can really do is throw an ashtray or kick the cabinet to indirectly express their frustration.

I also used to visit stores and tournament organizers who were running major events, bringing posters, small printed character CG posters, and Japanese prize goods, telling them, “Please use these as tournament prizes.” It was a very grassroots kind of support activity.

And speaking of memories from those days …I remember seeing Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Namco and the company president at the time, bringing Japanese instant udon with him on business trips to Los Angeles. After seeing that, I started copying him and did the same thing for years.

I guess those are the kinds of memories I have from that era.
AH!! I just realized something ….apparently even at this age, I’m still the same hopeless game nerd at heart.
The moment someone asks me even a small question, I immediately start rambling on forever about tiny details nobody even asked for.

[TheWarpickle @thewarpickle]

@Tyrant_UK

[TheWarpickle @thewarpickle]

@Tyrant_UK Good thing they put up those velvet ropes to keep the public safe.

[Ty @ EVO Las Vegas @Tyrant_UK]

Introducing Full Bar!

A new SF6 focused FGC show hosted by @jav1ts and myself where we'll discuss the latest news, tech and findings from the community.

Debut show is 6pm Eastern on https://t.co/Kprht35duu see you there!

[Katsuhiro Harada @Harada_TEKKEN]

LOL hahaha. Of course.

Here’s the reality: video game nerds like us spent our weekend nights inside games.
When we were young, after school or work, we weren’t just “playing” ..we were living in arcades, battling for high scores, dissecting strategies. Every year brought new massive cabinets and motion-based machines, and that raw excitement was irreplaceable.

Unlike the normies, gamers like us were grinding gold and coins long before crypto and digital wallets became trendy buzzwords.

Back in the early internet days of the 1990s, farming items, gold, and platinum in Diablo, Ultima Online, and EverQuest was busier than our actual day jobs.

And the first moment the world truly connected through online games? That was unreal.
On Ultima Online’s official launch day, players were introducing themselves by country, saying things like:
“My grandfather and yours fought in WWII — and now we’re playing together. How insane is that?”

That was the first time the world genuinely felt connected. The virtual world outshined real nightlife districts by a mile.

This was the narrowband era. Servers were fragile, and just putting an image on your homepage could get you treated like a criminal. Early Ultima Online? One step could take minutes. No exaggeration.

We weren’t using undersea fiber from Japan to North America. Japanese players literally signed contracts with American AT&T providers and dialed by phone line all the way to Lake Superior servers. The lag was borderline unbelievable but no problem at all because fun.

Going out to real-world parties? Not even remotely an option.

When EverQuest hit its peak, anyone who invited you out on a Friday or Saturday night was friendship-ending. If you had time for nightlife, you clearly weren’t camping rare named spawns.

Why go drinking when you could go dragon hunting?
And yes.... the excitement was bladder-bursting level. We literally couldn’t leave to use the bathroom.

Then PC performance went insane. Overclocking, benchmarking, higher resolutions.. nonstop.
Then came story-driven shooter campaigns like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty, plus multiplayer games that simply never ended once you started.

At some point, our lives even turned into nightly virtual bank robberies.

Gamers were absurdly busy. There was zero time for old men’s social gatherings, elite banquets, or brain-dead club parties.
The truth? Video games completely surpassed real-world entertainment.

When my wife first came to my place, she was horrified and asked:
“Why is there an arcade table cabinet in your living room? Does it cost 100 yen per play?”
“Why is the next room filled with towers of empty boxes, CDs, and DVDs?”
“Why are there so many screens and PCs ,,,, are you trading stocks?”
“Why are hoses filled with green liquid running from all these PCs to giant metal towers on the balcony?”
“Why are arcade controllers everywhere?”
“Why are PC parts literally covering the walls?”

Because at night I was being a blacksmith, a cute elf, a soldier, a bank robber, and a world saver —
then going to work to make games, talking games, “researching” games by playing them, rushing home, and staying busy landing headshots.

How long do you think it took before that finally made sense to her?

I’ve lived a life that was insanely busy! and incredibly fulfilling.

I’m proud. I’ve experienced every kind of place, moment, and community in the game world... and traveled the real world too, talking about games with people everywhere.
It’s been an overwhelmingly fun life.

There was no time wasted in decay. Every second was converted into XP, coins, or skills.

And yes,,, even within the same game industry, there are plenty of people who have never written a line of code, drawn a single pixel, composed a bar of music, or written a line of specs.... yet somehow stay busy burning entertainment budgets with outsourcing vendors and license holders.

They still love saying “when we made this game,” dropping the word "made", while bragging about nightlife war stories like that’s an achievement.

For the record, those fake “industry guys or producers” (and there are a lot of them) live in a completely different world from us.

[TheWarpickle @thewarpickle]

@Evo @Tyrant_UK this is your doing, isn't it.

[TheWarpickle @thewarpickle]

Finally finished Cyberpunk 2077. Holy shit @CDPROJEKTRED this is one of the greatest video games I've ever played. You should be proud of sharing this one.

[TheWarpickle @thewarpickle]

New @Coheed single really making me feel feelings man. Definitely a full circle moment.

[TheWarpickle @thewarpickle]

@ElChakotay @takaNakayama @StreetFighterJA @StreetFighter Ingrid mentioned

[yokotaro @yokotaro]

2025

[Ultima @UltimaShadowX]

HAPPY 30TH ANNIVERSARY TO THE HARDEST LINE IN CINEMA HISTORY

[Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite & Beyond @MVCI_Beyond]

IT'S TIME!

Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite & Beyond has officially launched. Download links are available on https://t.co/YBMjEz5nCC.

We hope you love it!

[MA - Orioto (Open to commissions!) @Orioto]

I saw that trending, why not ^^'''
#artvsartist2024

[MA - Orioto (Open to commissions!) @Orioto]

Happy 15th bday #FFXIII #finalfantasy with my art!