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Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
subdirectory_arrow_right Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 (Game), Cartoon Network (Collection), Nickelodeon (Collection)
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1
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month December 25, 2023
Sunset Overdrive
subdirectory_arrow_right Insomniac Games (Company)
2
In the 2023 Insomniac Games ransomware data leak, a leaked financial document revealed the development costs, sales, and shares for every game Insomniac has worked on for years. Sunset Overdrive, a 2014 Xbox and PC exclusive game co-developed by Insomniac, sold 1,898,433 units for a total of $49,737,133, but only netted the company $567 in profit after costs had been divided. This is a testament to the fact that a modern game has to sell exorbitant amounts for the development studio to make back what it often invests in creating it, possibly being an indicator of why Insomniac pivoted to making games based on financially lucrative Marvel Comics properties.
Fortnite
2
According to a court document leaked during Epic Games' lawsuit with Apple, Samus Aran from the Metroid franchise was considered for a possible guest playable character in Fortnite, but was ultimately rejected by Nintendo. Executive Saxs Persson would later reveal that Epic has tried to negotiate with Nintendo several times in the past to include their characters in the game, but have continuously fallen through, stating:

"I don't know what the word for, like, making diamonds is."

While never outright stated, it's commonly believed that Nintendo's reluctance is at least in part due to their status as a "family-friendly" company, and feared any sort of instance that would reflect badly on the company (i.e. getting shot, performing certain gestures, and appearing on rival platforms).
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month December 22, 2023
Marvel's Wolverine
subdirectory_arrow_right Insomniac Games (Company)
1
On December 12, 2023, a ransomware gang named Rhysida announced they they had hacked internal servers at Insomniac Games and stole upwards of 1.67 terabytes of data, including unreleased screenshots and concept art of the then-upcoming game Marvel's Wolverine, a timeline of upcoming Insomniac releases, as well as HR documents, emails, tax forms, internal conversations, and passports relating to current and former Insomniac employees, with the group posting a selection of this data as evidence of the theft. The group claimed it only took them 20-25 minutes to access the company's domain server and their motive was to publicly hold the stolen data for ransom. They offered to auction it off to anyone for 50 bitcoin, or $2 million USD, so long as the data was not resold by the new owners, with the deadline being a week from then. Reportedly 2% of the stolen data was purchased by unknown parties, but Insomniac did not purchase any of it back, leading Rhysida to release the remainder of the stolen data to the public.
person ProtoSnake calendar_month December 19, 2023
Spider-Man 2 developer Insomniac Games hit by Rhysida ransomware attack:
https://www.cyberdaily.au/culture/9931-spider-man-2-developer-insomniac-games-hit-by-rhysida-ransomware-attack

Sony Investigates Alleged Hack of Spider-Man Developer Insomniac Games:
https://www.pcmag.com/news/sony-investigates-alleged-hack-of-spider-man-developer-insomniac-games

Hackers release footage from upcoming Wolverine game and 1.3 million other stolen files:
https://news.yahoo.com/insomniac-games-hackers-leak-13-million-files-after-demanding-2-million-ransom-102134429.html
Poptropica
3
In December 2023, a Discord user posing as a representative of the developers of Poptropica stated on the server for the fan website Poptropica Help Blog that the game would be shutting down after December 29th. The account first appeared on the server in 2022, and while the blog did not do a complete screening to ensure the account was officially associated with the developers, it was eventually given the role of "Poptropica Creator" after they determined it was official based on its posting history. Many players initially believed the announcement was legitimate after Poptropica suddenly closed membership registrations earlier in the month. Shortly after the shut down announcement, the official Poptropica Twitter and Instagram accounts decried the Discord account as being unofficial, and assured players that the game would still be playable after December 29th, with all memberships up to the end of the year being available for free. The blog posted an apology for perpetuating the rumors the following day, but within the next year, the validity of the rumors being false would come into question.

On January 18, 2024, possibly in response to the rumors the prior month, Coolmath Games revealed that they had been in talks with the team behind Poptropica to host the game on their site exclusively, with the game remaining playable on Steam and mobile devices. This would later be confirmed by Poptropica themselves through a pop-up message on their website shortly afterwards. Notably, in a blog post expanding upon the news, Coolmath Games revealed that "the original Poptropica decided to wind down", something that had never been officially stated by Poptropica themselves. This would suggest that there was some degree of truth to the initial hoax as well as various rumors.
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month December 19, 2023
Poptropica Help Blog post about the shutdown claims:
https://poptropi.ca/2023/12/16/is-poptropica-shutting-down/

Official Poptropica statement regarding December shutdown rumors:
https://twitter.com/Poptropica/status/1735509964381372710

Coolmath Games announcement:
https://twitter.com/TheRealCoolmath/status/1748068741743555024

Poptropica Help Blog about the news:
https://poptropi.ca/2024/01/19/moving-coolmath/

Coolmath Games blog announcement:
https://www.coolmathgames.com/blog/poptropica-migration
Baldur's Gate 3
1
In a December 15, 2023 article published in PC Gamer, Swen Vincke, the CEO of Larian Studios, revealed that the Dungeons & Dragons team he initially worked with on the game was now gone due to Hasbro layoffs. The layoffs resulted in a significant reduction in the number of people working on the game, with Vincke stating that "there’s almost nobody left".
1
In 2023, Activision Blizzard was ordered to pay $35 million by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over its failures to maintain proper workplace disclosure controls and violations of whistleblower protections. The fine was imposed due to the company’s failure to ensure proper employee protections against workplace harassment and gender discrimination, which led to many women leaving the company. The SEC used a 2021 lawsuit by the state of California’s Civil Rights Department against Activision Blizzard to launch its own investigation meant to determine whether the firm’s handling of the situation constituted a breach of its fiduciary duty to investors. The proceedings were started after the company’s home state charged it with violations of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act in summer 2021.
Crush Crush
subdirectory_arrow_right Yandere Simulator (Game), Ayano's Lovesick Labyrinth (Game), Dark Deception: Monsters & Mortals (Game), YandereDev (Company)
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1
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month December 14, 2023
Company: Atari
2
Founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney originally wanted to name Atari "Syzygy," only to learn that the name was already taken by a roofing company. Consequently, the pair decided to brainstorm new ideas while playing a round of Go, which Bushnell was experienced in; an issue of Atari's home computer magazine I/O stated that "Their best brainstorming always occurred over a good game and a bottle of beer."

Following this, Bushnell and Dabney decided to name the company after a piece of Go jargon, settling on "Atari," a term used to describe a playing piece that is surrounded on all but one side. "Sente" and "Hane" were also considered as possible names.
person VinchVolt calendar_month December 13, 2023
Donkey Kong
subdirectory_arrow_right Crazy Kong (Game)
1
Crazy Kong was an officially licensed clone of Donkey Kong released by Falcon Inc. to compensate for Nintendo's inability to make enough Donkey Kong machines as there was demand for. However, Crazy Kong was only allowed to be distributed in Japan, but Falcon released the game abroad anyway with Elcron Industries, leading to a lawsuit where Nintendo won.
Company: Ape
1
Ape Inc. was founded as an outlet for new talent in gaming, born out of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi's concerns that the video game industry was at risk of stagnating in its current form. This belief additionally influenced Yamauchi's decision to pitch the idea for the company to celebrity copywriter Shigesato Itoi, who he was fond of. Itoi previously became acquainted with Nintendo when he was tapped to help out with marketing the Famicom Disk System visual novel Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School, and used the founding of Ape Inc. as an opportunity to start work on Mother.
1
Several of DreamWorks Interactive's earliest games opened with dark slapstick situations occuring to the Boy on the Moon in the opening logo, such as being massacred by dinosaurs from The Lost World: Jurassic Park; being restrained and thrown off of the moon by the toy soldiers from Small Soldiers; being attacked by dragons in T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger; and using a malfunctioning parachute in Medal of Honor games. This did not cause any drama from any branch of DreamWorks, even in spite of the DreamWorks logo being based on a real world child, and the animation branch of DreamWorks even provided assets to use in the animations.
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month December 11, 2023
Star Fox Adventures
subdirectory_arrow_right Dinosaur Planet (Game)
1
Attachment One of Star Fox Adventures' most infamous scenes is within the final Krazoa Shrine at Krazoa Palace where Fox McCloud is about to engage in combat with General Scales, seemingly the game's antagonist and final boss, only to be suddenly interrupted by Andross' spirit, who forces Scales to give the last Krazoa spirit to Fox, abruptly ending the fight. Per admitted by developers of Star Fox Adventures during a February 2008 edition of Rare's Scribes, Scales was meant to have a proper boss confrontation, but this was scrapped entirely due to the impending Microsoft buyout that was announced in September 2002, forcing the team to focus on only the Andross boss fight.

However, looking further into Dinosaur Planet and Star Fox Adventures' development cycle, one can see a more complex story going on in regards to the notion of General Scales having a boss fight. The Dinosaur Planet condensed story promises a true final confrontation between Krystal and General Scales within the Desert Force Point Temple, as she places her final SpellStone. After Scales' defeat, the King EarthWalker would barge in and tell Krystal to take his belt (that was provided by Drakor), but then it would turn into stone, resulting in the player into having to swap over to Sabre's story, who takes it to the mutant Shabunga in Willow Grove to help reactivate it, which allows him to enter Dragon Rock unharmed.

However, the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet features no such boss fight for Krystal's final visit to the Desert Force Point, instead having a cutscene where Krystal, Scales and Kyte are teleported outside of the temple after the former places the final SpellStone. Krystal plummets into a nearby pond safely, but Scales falls onto a rock and breaks his back, completely incapacitating him. Instead of the King EarthWalker, it's the BoneHead SpellStone guardian who first appeared in CloudRunner Fortress that instructs Krystal to take the Kamerian belt to Sabre so he can have Shabunga revitalize it, as Scales whispers that he'll have his revenge as he passes out.

When Dinosaur Planet was being transitioned into Star Fox Adventures over on GameCube, unused voice clips and also hints found within the 2002 E3 kiosk indicate that Rare planned on revisiting Scales having a boss fight by essentially doing a rematch against his flying galleon like in the game's prologue, though instead of playing as Krystal flying on the CloudRunner, it'd likely would have been Fox in his Arwing. The voice lines reveal that Falco Lombardi would actually appear earlier than in the final game and assist Fox in taking out Scales and his galleon. After Scales' defeat, Fox would land in Krazoa Palace and partake in the Test of Sacrifice, which is where the General Scales "boss fight" occurs in the final game.

Curiously, the 2002 E3 kiosk shows that the dev team had later hoped to include a 1-on-1 fight on-foot against Scales. The fight is very incomplete and Scales is strangely smaller in size than usual, but he will actually attack the player in this version instead of simply walking towards Fox and assuming a fighting stance. He has a number of unique attack animations which aren't used in the final game, though these attacks don't connect with the player. He can be attacked without immediately activating his defeat cutscene here, and will block most of the player's attacks and recoil when an attack is successfully landed on him. His health doesn't seem to decrease, so there doesn't appear to be a way to end the fight.
person Dinoman96 calendar_month December 9, 2023
Dinosaur Planet condensed story:
https://rarethief.com/dinosaur-planet/

Dinosaur Planet: Desert Force Point Temple Final Visit:
https://youtu.be/P2Ayhp06k7Y?t=407

General Scales 1-on-1 fight in SFA E3 Kiosk with unused animations:
https://youtu.be/x-Kh5OiO0jE?t=14
https://youtu.be/RQirn2H0qYU?t=42

The Cutting Room Floor article:
https://tcrf.net/Proto:Star_Fox_Adventures/E3_2002_Demo#Sub-Pages

Unused SFA voice clips:
https://youtu.be/lMe05NE8Ock?t=85

Star Fox Adventures General Scales "boss fight":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEQ4Wd1CCvE&t=1s

February 13th 2008 Rare Scribes:
https://www.raregamer.co.uk/scribes-february-13th-2008/
Company: Nintendo
3
Despite Nintendo's current image as a family-friendly company, their initial success came from ties to organized crime. When the company was founded in 1889, hanafuda, which Nintendo manufactured cards for, was becoming increasingly controversial due to it being one of few betting games not covered by the Japanese Empire's anti-gambling laws, resulting in it becoming popular among the yakuza. While other companies were slowly exiting the hanafuda business as a result, founder Fusajiro Yamauchi pressed on, resulting in Nintendo becoming the country's most successful playing card manufacturer thanks mostly to strong sales among gang members.
Franchise: Jurassic Park
subdirectory_arrow_right Atari Corporation (Company)
1
Atari Corporation lead Larry Siegel attempted to sell main Atari CEO Jack Tramiel on the idea of making a Jurassic Park game for the unreleased Panther hardware before the book's movie adaptation even entered production. They would've also gained royalties for merchandising and the eventual movie, but Tramiel turned down the offer due to the cost being too high. Siegel claims this is how he "realized that [Atari] would never spend the money to have an anchor title."
Half-Life: Decay
1
The game was originally planned to release on PC and it even had a completed port. However, this didn't happen. According to Patrick Deupree (one of the game's programmers), this was "due to powers beyond our control".

A fan-made recreation was released in 2008.
Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind
subdirectory_arrow_right Bubsy (Collection)
1
Accolade's marketing department attempted, and failed, to get Bubsy to wear pants.
Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind
1
Prior to the creation of Bubsy, Accolade tried to encourage Michael Berlyn to use Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah instead of creating a new character for the game, but Berlyn convinced them by pointing out how creating a new character would be cheaper than licensing out an established mascot.
Millipede
subdirectory_arrow_right Stargate (Game), Joust (Game), Balloon Fight (Game)
2
Attachment The Nintendo Entertainment System versions of Defender II, Joust, and Millipede were all conceived as part of a failed deal between Nintendo and Atari to distribute the Famicom internationally. Development was outsourced to HAL Laboratory, who decided to publish the games themselves in 1987 after Nintendo took international distribution of the console into their own hands two years prior. One additional title was put together as part of the Atari deal, but it was never released, with none of the parties involved revealing what it was.

Because of the circumstances behind their conception, the Japanese versions of these three games all feature title screens reminiscent of Famicom launch titles, with the copyright information uniformly reading "COPYRIGHT 1983 ATARI". When Nintendo of America exported the games to North America in 1988, the title screens were made more elaborate and the copyright info was updated. The ways of accessing the game's modes are also changed in the North American release; instead of having them all available on the title screen, the player must press Start in Defender II and Millipede to bring up a menu (itself displaying additional copyright information). In Joust, pressing Start skips the menu and automatically begins Game A; the player must press Select in order to access the menu.

The development of Joust as a launch title for an Atari-distributed system would have a prominent knock-on effect on HAL and Nintendo's future. The game was one of the first titles to be programmed by Satoru Iwata, who would go on to become a vital asset to HAL thanks to his coding skills before becoming Nintendo's president in 2002, and his experiences developing Joust would help him program Balloon Fight.
person VinchVolt calendar_month November 28, 2023
Rampart
subdirectory_arrow_right Iguana Entertainment (Company)
1
In the Sega Master System version of Rampart, there is unused text that reads "Jeff Spangenberg is a weenie", referring to Punk Development's founder. Coder Kevin Seghetti would explain this quip in an interview:

"I was in the middle of doing Rampart for RazorSoft at Punk Development when Jeff [Spangenberg] and I had a disagreement. I was helping Scott Statton debug the latest Genesis development system boards which had just come back from fab, and Jeff told me to get back to work on Rampart. I reminded him that I was doing Rampart under contract, I wasn't his employee, and he [didn't] get to tell me what to do. After a few more rounds of comments, which included him standing directly in front of me (he is quite tall) in an attempt at physical intimidation (which ended with me saying, "Go ahead and hit me, I could use the money"), he took the only action he could, which was to tell me I was no longer welcome in the Punk Development offices. So I packed up my stuff and moved it home and finished development of Rampart from there. So that comment is just a good-natured jab at him."
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