A Monday of numbers, mostly. Someone counted how long a game takes, someone counted how many copies a four-year-old game is still shifting, and YouTube counted some channels down to zero without explaining much. Games and how we measure them.
Remedy says Control Resonant is a 30-hour game, 50 if you're thorough
Remedy has put a length on Control Resonant, per Eurogamer: around 30 hours for the story, 50 if you're the sort who reads every found document in a building designed to hide them. There are also fresh details on how combat has moved on from the first game.
Thirty hours is a confident number for a studio whose last big game was a rhythm-shooter musical that lasted about a weekend. My read is that this is the number they want anchored in your head before anyone asks about price. A 50-hour completionist run in the Oldest House sounds less like content and more like a threat, given what that place does to people.
The old Final Fantasy 7 remakes are selling "several times" better than expected
Square Enix says Remake and Rebirth have been selling several times better than forecast since Final Fantasy 7 Revelation showed up at Summer Game Fest, according to Eurogamer. Announce part three, watch parts one and two fly off the shelves.
This is the whole business model working exactly as drawn. Reveal the finale, and everyone who bounced off in 2020 suddenly needs to catch up on two games before it arrives. Square Enix has spent years teaching people that a Final Fantasy 7 remake comes in installments; the surprise is that the installment plan also runs backwards.
Buckshot Roulette's creator made a Mario Party where everyone dies
Mike Klubnika, the person behind Buckshot Roulette, has released Machine Party, described by Kotaku as a collection of flesh-mangling micro-games where you run, crawl, chisel and smoke for your life. It's Mario Party if the board was a meat grinder.
The man who turned a shotgun and a coin flip into a phenomenon has now applied that instinct to the party game, a genre already engineered to end friendships. Taking the format that ruins Christmas and adding chiseling for survival is either a joke or a public service. Possibly both.
Retro Game Master is now considering Wii and PS3 as "retro"
Shinya Arino's beloved Japanese show is reportedly weighing whether the Wii and PlayStation 3 count as retro, Kotaku reports, and the audience took it about as well as you'd expect.
The Wii being retro is one of those facts that's technically correct and personally insulting. It arrived, motion controls broke a nation's lamps, and apparently that was long enough ago to qualify. Nothing ages you like a beloved show gently informing you that your first console is now a museum piece.
YouTube pulls major ASMR channels for "explicit content"
Several large ASMR accounts have been suddenly removed from YouTube for explicit content, Kotaku reports, with the platform apparently conflating intimacy and whispering into a microphone. The double standard, given what stays up, is doing a lot of the reporting here.
This is a moderation system that can't tell the difference between erotica and a person softly tapping a hairbrush, and would rather delete both than pay someone to look. Automated enforcement at scale means the machine makes a judgment call it isn't equipped to make, and the creators find out via a deleted channel. There's a real cost to people's livelihoods buried under the absurdity, and YouTube's silence isn't clearing much of it up.
Five stories, and the through-line is measurement: hours, sales, what counts as old, what counts as explicit. Everyone's confident about their number until you ask how they got it.
Sources
- Eurogamer — Control Resonant's story will take around 30 hours, Remedy says, with completionists looking at 50-hour runs
- Eurogamer — As hype builds for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, Remake and Rebirth continue to sell well
- Kotaku — Buckshot Roulette Creator Unleashes A New Black Hearted Mario Party-Style Massacre
- Kotaku — 'Retro Game Master' Shinya Arino Makes Fans Feel Ancient As Wii Games Up For Consideration
- Kotaku — Multiple Major ASMR Accounts Suddenly Removed From YouTube Over 'Explicit Content'
Compiled from 5 publicly published sources, all linked above. Drafted and fact-checked automatically against those sources; corrections welcome — see our editorial policy.