As we prepare to enter the eighth generation of gaming consoles with a waning economy and a previous generation built almost entirely around motion controls and shitty gimmicks it’s arguable, depending on how you see a half-glass of water, that the video game market is doomed to crash again. In 1983 the market for video games became inundated with loads of worthless crap and consumers literally gave up on caring. After letdown after letdown from Atari due to the likes of E.T. and their Pac-Man port alongside the dubious quality and massive quantities of competitor consoles and shady third-party software consumers just said “to hell with it” and Atari ended up burying their trash in a New Mexico landfill.
Not pictured: Kinect, PS Move, 95% of the games for the Wii.
Having to cower away and bury your trash in the ground is about as ultimately defeated as you can get. Nobody even does that anymore these days, but they should (on principle, we can be less environmentally destructive than that today). What’s so different about Americans from the 80′s compared to today that prevents them from saying “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore“? Why is it that something as deceptively simple as a small handful of trashy games from a leading video game company can cause a market crash in the eighties yet in today’s world Nintendo has free rein to greenlight more trashy shovelware than we have trucks to carry it all to an unsuspecting landfill? WHY?
The Wii may be the gold standard in ninth-rate garbage “video games” but their portfolio of shame is nothing compared to these five current business practices that are destroying the market and in some abstract form have got to be some kind of illegal.
2011 was a pretty big year for GatorAIDS. First and foremost the site was forced to re-open on June 1 after I was laid off from my job with Miniclip SA. Not long thereafter we were able to bloom into a community that I am pleased to say is still more alive than ever today in this, the final year of the world as we know it. Immediately following the layoff GatorAIDS was needlessly attacked by a handful of retards from Miniclip’s community which caused us to become ineligible to use Google AdSense as well as having false DMCA violation reports to be filed to Jelsoft, who provides our forum software, resulting in our site globally being down for a few days pending an explanation of the misunderstanding.
"From Miniclip with love."
And through all of this we are still alive today as a testament to just how resilient a group of old friends can be when banded together. We came forward and put on a live performance (CFMM: In 3D). We released a book (Nintendon’t). We were featured on industry-leading gaming blogs (Bitmob). I would like to extend a personal “fuck you” to each and every person who attempted to put us down and assume that we would stay there like beaten dogs. We are more than that, and despite adverse launch conditions we laughed with one another and produced dozens of memorable articles to share with the world. We are GatorAIDS, and we are here to stay.
We’re looking forward to 2012 with open minds and eager hearts. We’ve had six months to get our things together and we’re ready to go balls-out this year. In the meantime, here’s the best of what we produced in 2011. If you’re new to GatorAIDS or looking to share our site with your friends & family this update is the place to start!
Ever come across one of those thrift store finds that just screams out “BUY ME”? Maybe it’s a Hot Wheels car that seems a little pricey but you have a good feeling it’s worth a fortune or it’s the complete X-Files TV series on VHS but either way there’s a good chance you’ve seen something in a shop once before and immediately knew it was a good deal. I had one of those moments myself recently; I bought a Sega Saturn game console for $20.
Pictured above: One J-Note well spent?
Yeah, I totally just referred to a twenty as a “J-Note” in that picture caption. Speaking of J-Notes, I probably should have just kept it in my pants. Hilariously enough, “keeping it in your pants” is also the mantra that would have prevented me from getting banned from every alligator and snake farm in South Texas. (Required sidenote: Having said that it is also important for me to point out that I am not the father of the monster depicted in the new film Creature.)
Long story short, this $20 Saturn was a nightmare. Now that I’ve spoiled the bulk of the story you don’t have to read this article, but you can if you want to. I guess.
We close out our 2010 season of GMO2 with a Christmas special. Every show out there has a sentimental message about the holiday season, and ours is no different. GMO2‘s special tells the timeless tale of generosity, zombies, and time travel. Right up there in the annals of Red Ryder BB guns and shitty faux claymation snowmen we have a Christmas story sure to become a steadfast inclusion in the collective mentality of our culture.
Or, you know, it’ll just be a one-off special that is promptly forgotten about on December 26th.
vaporware (vay – poor – where) n. A term used to describe massively hyped or advertised software that is excessively delayed and ultimately never released.
Game not included.
Yes this is an article about a dragon-related computer game, and yes I am actually satirizing it. Just because my name is “Dracophile” doesn’t mean that anything with dragons in it instantly gets five gold stars and a Dracophile Seal of Approval. Quite the contrary, actually; I have taste in what I like. Simply dropping a bunch of random dragons in front of me actually won’t keep me occupied unless you managed to find what I like. DragonPlay, a game that can best be described as “a complete Club Penguin rip-off with dragons” and worst described as “Yahtzee with letters on all the dice”, does not fall into the category of things that I find pleasing.
I was going to originally wait until next month to publish this article, but once the true weight of this piece made its presence clear in my head and wouldn’t LEAVE I decided it would be best to go ahead and write it. On Friday November 12th, 1999 a very peculiar event took place. A movie came out, actually – and no – I’m sorry Kevin Smith, this article is not about your movie Dogma even though it is quite hilarious; this article is about none other than Pokemon: The First Movie.
Perhaps I am not properly enculturated in the world of how to be a MANLY MAN. I’m not a fan of football (or sports for that matter), I could care less about NASCAR, I think hunting is pointless, and any kind of outdoorsy activities bore me to hell and back. UFC (or Ultimate Fighting Champion-something-or-other) is the latest “craze” amongst overly aggressive men and how they choose to spend their weekends (and Pay-Per-View credits on Dish Network). UFC has been around a while, but it’s only recently gotten popular as the “in” thing to do. Spike Network adopted the series into their programming lineup and since then they’ve also produced a crappy reality TV show akin to “The Next Greatest UFC Fighter” or some other pointless manufactured nonsense. You know the kind of show I am talking about.
If you’re this far into GatorAIDS.com and my articles you may have picked up a subtle hint that I’m a dragon fan. Actually this is still a pretty new website so maybe you haven’t been able to really read into this place yet, but regardless of that my penname is Dracophile so that has to be worth something. If I told you I didn’t have the gayest man-crush ever on Spyro the Dragon then I would be lying to you completely, and liars go to Hell. When The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon was released in 2008 a bunch of various merchandise tie-ins came out with it including a couple of theater-sized poster prints of Spyro the Dragon himself. I wanted those posters. Really bad. Various online retailers and sellers on eBay had some for sale but at the time I didn’t have the funds to acquire them.
When I finally had the disposable income I had put away specifically for “super smexy dragon posters” I found that not a whole lot of people were selling them anymore, which was depressing. I dug around and then I finally found a seller on eBay who had not only both of the posters but had them at a few bucks cheaper than I remember them being. I was floored when I checked out the listing; it seemed like everything matched up and that I was going to get those nifty Spyro prints I wanted.
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