Splatoon 3 Virtual YouTuber Livestream Controversy

Splatoon 3 seems to be a hit on Nintendo Switch as it is as fun as the previous Splatoon games but there happens to be one Virtual YouTuber-related controversy that crossed the line. Nintendo wasn't happy about that controversy that occurred this month that they took actions against several members of a group I don't know of. The members' channels were terminated and the policy of taking screenshots or making videos of Nintendo games was changed as a result. At least, said members of that group whose channels were affected later apologized for their indecent acts.

What those members of a Virtual YouTuber group I don't know of did was green-screening something disturbing on the opponents' ink and covering that ink with their own team's in the game. Whether it's a new way or another way, it's still inexcusable enough that it caused a controversy. Sure, the Switch has a couple of mature-rated games that are also released on other game platforms but most of the first-party games from Nintendo are mainly family-friendly or teen-related games and Splatoon series is said to be family-friendly. However, in this case, the incident that occurred recently had gone too far and I'm reminded of another gaming controversy that happened two years ago in which the game's writer had come up with disturbing Pokemon and Harry Potter related tmaterials prior to working on some indie game. She realized her mistake and apologized but what cannot be scrapped is the consequences when such gaming controversy occurs. At least, it's better to realize the mistakes than to keep defending something extremely disturbing.

There are other Virtual YouTuber-related controversies I knew of like a group of trolls spamming the live chat with disturbing spam messages that caused many Virtual YouTubers' channels to be terminated, an AI software where fan arts of whatever Virtual YouTuber can be produced that may or may not cause some confusion on whether those artworks are actually produced using that tool or not, etc. The former was already bothersome like it's obstructive to business with the latter about fan arts generated using the AI software in a disturbing way being more concerning.

Meta's Horizon Worlds metaverse is so disastrous that they force employees to love and use it

Man, is this a vicious plan disguised as a discipline they've come up with for employees because the employees kept avoiding the app? The employees developing this metaverse app were already feeling disgruntled by that plan after people knew how disastrous the app is. As a tech demo, the showcase was said to be interesting but it turned out the app was poorly executed from the start. The avatars were missing the bottom half like legs for instance and the graphical potential was unspeakably low. Were those avatars intended to be simple or full-fledged to begin with? Even the Playstation Home has superior graphics to Horizon Worlds metaverse, ranging from good looking avatars to scenery having sufficient potential with proper textures, proper water effects and superior shadow effects. Hell, the Playstation Home had some mini games to play through at the time that it gave players the reason to explore various virtual places and interact with other players.

The bigger concerns included the highly expensive Meta Quest Pro VR headset which cost $1000+, privacy concerns surrounding Facebook and Horizon Worlds, and the inferior quality of the metaverse app that the consumers are already better off with other VR apps like VRChat. It's no wonder lesser and lesser amount of people is using Horizon Worlds metaverse. It's like those at Meta came up with Horizon Worlds with business in mind and they expected the employees to use it for the sake of meetings and stuff. Why do you want to buy that super-expensive VR headset as an add-on for video conferencing when you can simply use Zoom or Microsoft Teams, instead?

Upon seeing that video title of this gaming news from Yongyea's YouTube channel, I was already concerned on what other greedy game companies would do after that news broke out. What would Ubisoft do to the game developers who were against NFTs? What would Intellivision do to anyone's who has been criticizing the Amico? Plus, is there such a thing as alternative game engine for Intellivision Amico game development ever since the recent Unity controversy caused by Unity Technologies CEO? If Unity is the only game engine for that platform and Intellivision found out that some game developers were using some other game engine like Godot, what would Intellivision do to them?

From Yongyea's YouTube channel

Indeed, there may be weird and fishy obstacles to whatever criticism we have but it's ridiculous for the employees at Meta to be forced to use and love the disaster that is Horizon Worlds metaverse. It's greedy and vicious that forcing people to use and love something they hate is making them hate it even more. One other thing I learnt is that criticism of a product can happen anytime from pre-release to post-release but I should be careful to find the right time to criticize the product. If there's a backlash surrounding whatever gaming product, it opens doors to rants and criticisms from content creators for instance.

COD MW2 Phone Number Requirement Controversy (A controversy borrowed from Overwatch 2?)

If the phone number requirement for Overwatch 2 wasn't controversial enough and is a feature that won't go away for new players of the Overwatch series, even the upcoming COD MW2 will borrow that feature. That's Activision Blizzard for you which can mean game franchises coming from both sides. The problems Activision Blizzard mentioned like bots, cheaters and other types of gaming misbehaviors still exist to this day but to make use of phone number to tackle such problems isn't going to help a lot in my opinion as there are concerns of the solution's downside like someone using someone else's phone number to do such malicious activities for instance. So, if you see someone doing such malicious stuffs in the game online, you should report that person. Of course, it's not an easy feat from that point on as once that person's account is terminated for their disruptive behavior, they can come up with another account to circumvent the account termination and continue such nefarious acts using it.

It's like Activision Blizzard downplayed the backlash Overwatch 2 caused and they're trying to extend it further with other games like COD MW2. You may wonder if they're out of their minds enough to cause another gaming controversy in a row or something after a series of controversies surrounding Diablo Immortal occurred. It's worse than we thought but again, people were right to be disgruntled and vocal over such controversies like this. And to anyone claiming that people were "entitled" for feeling displeased, disgusted or whatever over the Diablo Immortal gaming controversies, it'll be best to reflect on this mistake.

Overwatch 2 Phone Number Requirement Controversy

What kind of greed would come up with an unusual requirement for playing a game like Overwatch 2? Indeed, there have been cases of bots, cheaters and toxic behaviors plaguing whatever popular game out there but to make people enter their phone number as part of logging in to the game in the guise of tackling those problems is already STEP BACKWARDS. How can THAT be a solution to said problems, anyway? It's like an email address isn't enough to mainly represent your gaming account that the phone number is somewhat the main thing or a required portion of the account information.

It's stupid that Activision Blizzard had the audacity to mandate something like linking/attaching a phone number to the gaming account to play. Sure, if anyone is caught using bots, cheats or even impersonating someone as part of a disruptive and immature behavior for instance, that account of theirs will be banned. Granted, that person may end up making a new account to continue such acts as a way to circumvent the account termination. As long as that person's malicious behavior continues to persist, it's going to be a long fight against it. So, what can Activision Blizzard do to the phone number belonging to the account that is reported?

A bigger problem is that not all players were able to play Overwatch 2 as they happened to use prepaid plans but the lucky thing was that not all prepaid plans were affected and even then, is there an acceptable reason on why the account used to play Overwatch 2 and other games must have the phone number attached? What about the authentication app? Many tech companies have one and it's said to be more convenient for account security.

I don't know for sure if handling over your mobile phone number by attaching it to your battle.net account as required for playing Overwatch 2 is considered a privacy violation or not. Even if it is, the mandation of phone number for playing Overwatch 2 is a NEW LEVEL OF GREED I've ever seen in gaming. How much worse the reputation can be for Activision Blizzard after endless amounts of controversy surrounding Diablo Immortal? There's already a well-known case of some streamer spending huge amounts of money on the microtransaction feature in Diablo Immortal and his acts were financially selfish. You could have spent that same amount of money for a house or something instead.

Yesterday, Activision Blizzard dropped the controversial requirement for Overwatch 2 for anyone who's played the original Overwatch. So, I do have a feeling that the requirement is still there for those new to the series or something.

Currently, the game is in early access and was recently released a few days ago as a free-to-play game on PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Playstation 4 and Playstation 5.