Brian Barnett | Ribnax

I wrote about the 'killing fields' in my review, but it's even crazier than I thought. In Silver, if someone on the other team goes off & shreds, check their career & they used to be platinum/diamond/GM, and now I've even seen CELESTIAL!

What hope do ACTUAL Silver/Gold players have to rank up?

Let us have this classic look for Torch please @marvel-rivals.bsky.social 🙏

I didn't care about hero shooters until @marvel-rivals.bsky.social

I wrote a review on @skyboxcritics.com that encompasses my experience with the first three seasons

Enjoy 💟

Title screens you can hear 🙌

You have excellent taste 🤝

I gotta shoutout my cousin @brianbarnett.bsky.social he is the one who introduced me to Metroid through Fusion back when I was like 9 years old. I always think of him when I play that game.

I also always think of Lord of the Rings because that was around the time those movies came out.

Frame 1: “I'm all for ending this oppressive system but only if we do it without violence.” Frame 2: “So… by magic?”

i keep thinking about this more and more with each passing day

Dear manga publishers, we don’t want your AI translations VIZ Media quietly added an AI-translated manga to their app and hoped no one would notice. We did and want none of it.

VIZ Media quietly added an AI-translated manga to their app and hoped no one would notice. We did.

Manga deserves better than cheap, soulless automation. This is a betrayal of translators, fans, and the art form.

We don't want your AI translations!

How dare you
(But also, you are correct)

If you see this, quote this post with a title screen that's iconic to you

Which one is this?

Quick play warmup on Marvel Rivals went well 👀

I loved your version of King Kong

Yep 💔

Today, IGN Entertainment announced that it would be laying off eight members of the IGN Creators Guild. This is 12% of our bargaining unit, and comes just days after our sister union, the Ziff Davis Creators Guild, underwent similar layoffs impacting 15% of their members. It also comes just months after our multibillion-dollar parent company, Ziff Davis, instituted a company-wide buyout that shrunk our unit numbers, with the express intent of avoiding future layoffs. And it comes just a little over one year after three of our members were laid off almost immediately after our union went public. The company has told us that the reason for this layoff stems from a Ziff Davis-mandate to cut costs despite several quarters in a row of year-over-year revenue increases, to which IGN Entertainment responded by coming for our members' jobs. This is perplexing to us, as we are told again and again that IGN Entertainment has had a tremendously successful year thus far thanks to their hard work. In just the last few months, our members have been absolutely essential to major events and livestreams, including San Diego ComicCon, Summer of Gaming, and IGN Live. Every single person impacted today was involved in and critical to the success of those events. Meanwhile, IGN Entertainment continues to spend money on costly acquisitions, only to turn around and gut those companies in the same way it is cutting away at IGN itself. For instance, last year, it acquired Gamer Network, and almost immediately laid off a number of staff critical to making those sites successful. The company has not responded to the union's questions about whether its budget for future acquisitions is being reconsidered as a cost-saving measure alongside these other apparently necessary personnel cuts. At a time when it is more necessary than ever to support its creators, IGN Entertainment is choosing to eliminate the individuals who ensure IGN remains competitive as generative AI

threatens our reach. We have been told that expert opinion pieces, original interviews, and work that leverages our staff's deep knowledge of gaming, tech, and entertainment are all essential to combating AI summarization and regurgitation of our work. Management has responded by cutting several individuals who do that exact work, as well as others whose job it is to ensure that these written and video pieces are published in a speedy manner — another component of combating AI we're told is critical. This continued cycle of repeated, aggressive cuts to our staff and being asked to do more with less, only for management to continue to spend on new business it isn't interested in sustaining cannot continue. We will enforce our interim agreement that guarantees better severance and other protections to laid off members, as well as demand additional support for those impacted. We will continue to bargain over our first contract with the aim of enshrining even better protections against further layoffs, working conditions continuously degraded by understaffing, and the encroachment of generative AI. And we won't stop fighting to ensure IGN remains the best destination for trustworthy, original, exciting, and creative work covering video games, entertainment, and tech. While IGN Entertainment management may not value us, we value one another and the incredible work we can do together. Behind the articles, videos, social posts, playlists, and maps of IGN are human beings, not just numbers on a spreadsheet to be pushed around when some number at the top isn't big enough. Without us, there is no IGN.

Today, IGN laid off eight extremely valuable members of our union and workforce via directive from our parent company, Ziff Davis. This, after two incredibly successful live events IGN Live and SDCC, and yet another corporate acquisition.

Please take a moment to read and share our full statement:

If IGN has layoffs, nobody in games press is safe. If Microsoft has layoffs, nobody in platforms is safe. If Ubisoft and Bungie and NetEase have layoffs, nobody in game development is safe. If the Romeros get their funding pulled, no studio is safe.

It's rough out there, right now.

This sucks, man. I'm really sorry this happened to you.

Lots of love dude 💟

If you are a video person who was laid off today and knows how to shoot on location, please email me. I don't have a lot of work, but we will need videographers from time to time and I want to know you.

This freaking sucks 💟

This really sucks. 💟

Twitch Twitch is the world

We're recording Beyond the Skybox episode 8 live!

Come through!

www.twitch.tv/skyboxcritics

"Rob died as he lived"

Beyond the Skybox - Ep. 7 - Nintendo, Donkey Kong Bananza, He Is Coming, Look Outside OR "If I’m Not Gonna Die, I Might As Well Go For A Walk" | Skybox Get more from Skybox on Patreon

Beyond the Skybox ep 7 is available on demand!

Patreon (audio): www.patreon.com/posts/beyond...

YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNfr...

Donkey Kong! Mado Monogatari! Look Outside! Killing Floor 3! More stuff!

Ive been all over the country and Houston is the worst Ive seen

Watching a "making of" thing for The Dark Crystal. And two things:

1. Holy fukkin WOW. The amount of work. The sheer SCALE of collaboration. Just wow.

2. More fantasy movies need to use puppets.

There aren't many feelings as frustrating as being furious and alone (no one to talk about it with)

Another Android 21 enjoyer? I can already tell the piece is going to be good

AI Could Never: Hylics A feature in our AI Could Never series about The Beginner's Guide, a surreal RPG steeped in punk rock.

AI Could Never: Hylics by @broganchattin.bsky.social

"The order of our world is nonsensical and at times inhumane, it is our responsibility to find ourselves within the nonsense and push back against the world, hopefully finding kindred spirits along the way."

Read on:

subscribe to skybox to hear me talk for about an hour and a half (yes, this is the longest into the skybox episode, my bad) about street fighter, AI slop, street art and also a bunch of other shit

thank you for having me on and for such lovely conversation @brianbarnett.bsky.social 💜

YouTube video by Skybox Beyond the Skybox - Ep. 6 - GOTY Talks & Lost Nuance (feat. Gio Colantonio)

Beyond the Skybox ep 6 is available on demand!

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/39m8...

YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=euKW...

We're joined by Gio (@marioprime.bsky.social) to talk about early GOTY and Clair Obscur discourse, Patapon, Everdeep Aurora, and Brian's cursed Don Knotts impression?