Astrolabe Digest: 060324

Hey, hi! Welcome to Astrolabe Digest. This is a new column for paid supporters1 aimed at keeping y’all informed about the best stories in Astrolabe’s orbit. Think of it like a levelled-up version of Quest Markers.

Astrolabe Digest isn’t here to replace main Astrolabe issues (I’ve got a couple cooking and they are doozies!), but to supplement them by bringing you more goodness while the big stories bake.

With freelance games journalism becoming more and more untenable, I’m looking at diverting my time and energy toward providing more value for paid Astrolabe supporters, as a way to keep doing what I’m doing. So, if you appreciate my work here or elsewhere, consider a paid subscription.

Those Nintendo leaks? Blame Google

• A recent database leak at Google, obtained by 404 Media, has shed some light on the method used by the online video game community to leak news about upcoming releases weeks or months ahead of their official announcements.
• "Individually the incidents, most of which have not been previously publicly reported, may only each impact a relatively small number of people, or were fixed quickly," explained 404 Media's Joseph Cox. "Taken as a whole, though, the internal database shows how one of the most powerful and important companies in the world manages, and often mismanages, a staggering amount of personal, sensitive data on people's lives."
• The database revealed that in 2017, a Google employee leaked the existence of a new Yoshi game after accessing the content on YouTube. Thanks to internal notes in the leaked database, 404 Media revealed that Google knew of the breach: "'Google employee deliberately leaked private Nintendo information,' the entry in the database reads."
• Confirmation of video game leaks originating within Google verifies a long-standing theory that many major gaming leaks were not internal at places like Nintendo, but rather originated with Google employees abusing admin privileges on sites like YouTube where companies like Nintendo upload press materials and trailers early.

• Prominent Nintendo leaker Pyoro has obliquely denied a connection to the YouTube-related leaks:

• Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson reported on the nature of game leaks:

Sony’s recent State of Play was a big eye-opener for me and the most recent example I can give about how widespread this new YouTube leak culture is. Within around 18 hours of the State of Play being scheduled on YouTube, I had four different individuals send me the complete game list. Some game names were slightly different from others, likely because of different regions and the rush to jot everything down to be the first, but they were all generally spot on. One such individual even told me that the information was sold to an undisclosed person for a small three-figure amount, who then told him to spread it to more people for validity.

Is a game built on Doom tech the next great FPS?

• Last month, I read John Romero's fascinating memoir, "Doom Guy," and a major takeaway was that id Software's decision to provide open access to Doom's development tools, map editors, etc. helped not only fuel its popularity at the time, but launched one of the longest living games in history.
• Three decades later, Altered Orbit Studio's Selaco is here, and it might just be the best FPS of the year. Oh, and it was build in GZDoom, an open source Doom engine based on the tech created by Romero, John Carmack, and the rest of the small id team in the early 90s.

Save 10% on Selaco on Steam

Selaco is a brand new original shooter running on GZDoom, featuring thrilling action set pieces, destructibility, smart enemies and a fleshed out story taking place within an immersive game world.

STEAM

• Altered Orbit describes Selaco as "a brand new original shooter running on GZDoom, featuring thrilling action set pieces, destructibility, smart enemies and a fleshed out story taking place within an immersive game world."
• "What’s most surprising about Selaco isn’t that it’s developed in GZDoom, but that it might be one of the best shooters I’ve played in years," said Kotaku's Zack Zwiezen. "While it’s cool and impressive that it was built using Doom tech, this is so much more than a retro throwback. It’s its own thing, and one of the best shooters in 2024."
• Though Selaco goes well above and beyond what the Doom engine could do in 1993, it's a testament for the game design and vision of the original Doom team. To see its foundation's tools still producing brilliant games decades later illustrates that video games are about more than technological advancement.
• "Selaco is one of the most polished games I've ever seen tagged as an Early Access game," wrote CNET's Tyler Graham. "The enemies are sophisticated, the core gameplay systems are intact and functioning correctly, and I didn't run into a single game-breaking bug during my playthrough."
• For more Doom-related fun, watch this archived stream of John Romero playing 2023's phenomenal MyHouse.wad. It's a psychological horror conversion of Doom II, and I guarantee that whatever you think's coming next, you're wrong.

Scavengers Reign hits Netflix... and needs your help

• Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner's Scavengers Reign, a science fiction epic that calls to mind the artwork of Moebius and Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with a decided tinge of horror, has arrived on Netflix, and its future lies in the hands of viewers.
• Polygon's Joshua Rivera reports that Netflix is considering a season two renewal (it premiered on Max last year) based on its success on the platform. "Though what a favorable run looks like isn’t terribly clear," Rivera continues.
• Over on io9, Justin Carter shines a spotlight on the problematic mandate streamers place on viewers to save a show that's already proved its popularity and quality:

Netflix wants Scavengers’ arrival to feel like an event and a chance for fans to give their favorite show a brighter future, but it likely also picked the show up because it knew folks had taken a shine to the show. It’s an odd bit of parasocial manipulation that’s been part of the TV ecosystem for some time, made even more annoying because fans often have no clue what milestone they’re even meant to strive for. Netflix has canceled plenty of shows for reasons that often come off as arbitrary, not helped by the fact that it has frequently jacked up subscription prices and spent hundreds of millions on disposable movies.

• "It just sucks that Scavengers Reign, like so many other things in entertainment today," Carter continues, "has to fight for its existence right from the start instead of being given time to grow and catch audience attention."
• Aftermath's Luke Plunkett is a fan. "To sit through Scavengers Reign is to be introduced to dozens of types of animals you could never have previously conceived, and that is its own little joy," he said. "It's 2023, I honestly would not have thought, in this age of streaming metrics and focus-tested banality, that a place like HBO would have given money and space for a Moebius-ass animated series about a bunch of colourful little Murder Muppets."
• Much to my chagrin, Scavengers Reign is not on Canadian Netflix, so I can't be part of the problem or solution. So, here I am living vicariously through other culture writers like Plunkett, Rivera, and Carter.

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