I’ve been watching (and playing) Endlight in various forms now for the best part of a decade thanks to it being a regular entry into the IGF. It’s always been an incredible looking thing whatever form it’s taken – it’s a game that asks “how much can we push around on the screen?” and then doubles it for a laugh. It’s frankly obscene looking stuff and videogame witchcraft.
When you get to the videos in a mo you’ll see what I mean (that’s if the YouTube compression hasn’t absolutely slaughtered the game, as it often does. YouTube was not designed to handle Endlight. Nothing was designed to handle Endlight).
Watching Endlight warp, bend and evolve over the course of the past nine or ten years has been an absolute pleasure and genuinely, I’ve looked forward each year to seeing what the latest version would bring. As works in progress tend to be like, not every year has felt like the game nailed it but even when it drifted a tad, it was always, always an exciting sight to behold regardless.
It’s weird to think that very soon, I’ll have to find something else to look forward to getting my grubby mits on as Endlight, finally, has an end in sight. It releases towards the end of July. I know, I know, it’s smashed through (oi! – ed) a number of release dates before now but this looks like the one.
I am ten excited out of five for it. I mean, really, when was the last time you saw a game that looked like this? More games that look like they’ve fallen out of the demoscene dimension, please.
From PC Gamer’s absolutely careless recent coverage around Nintendo and emulation to The Verge suggesting that it’s Valve “poking the bear” earlier today (conveniently forgetting that Valve are a huge business who not only have a working relationship with Nintendo but will -always- prioritise the sanctity of Steam above any developer by default), there’s been so many infuriating words around what’s been happening that I’ve been cussing a lot more lately.
Being old and coming up through channels where negotiating around cease and desists and limiting coverage was part of the territory does leave me extra sensitive to this stuff I’ll admit but still, I have spent so much time wondering what on Earth people are even doing at the moment. It’s been like so many people are forgetting what these companies are, never mind how they will always work. Having been told a few times now that emulation is absolutely legal and there’s precedent for that despite no such precedent existing, gnyah! Frustrating.
The Friday round ups over on gi dot biz are always pretty incisive and thoughtful, this week’s knocks it out the park with an interview that gets to the heart of the issues facing anyone existing in the legal grey area that is a portion of the emulation and retro scenes.
As well as providing a well sourced overview and commentary on the whole kerfuffle, there’s an interview with Jon Hangartner, the lawyer who represented Bleem when they found themselves on the recieving end of Sony’s legal wrath.
The most important points in the article and interview are that there is a difference between what is considered legal and what is just untested in court (emulation exists largely in the latter), that this grey area is preferred by companies in general as it puts them in a position of strength and – crucially – that this strength comes from simply having the capital at hand to keep going, keep making legal threats with a near unlimited war chest, thus meaning the other party will find their time, energy and money exhausted long before the company raising the legal threats ever will. Whilst the grey area remains, they’re free to continue! And they will! And they do!
While the lawsuit itself was a dud, Sony’s legal team did successfully make an example out of Bleem, serving notice that being in the emulator business carries with it the very real risk of being sued into oblivion by a massive company that won’t hesitate to spend a reported $10 million to accomplish nothing more than making your life miserable.
The law is whatever Nintendo says it is, Brendan Sinclair
Up until these past few weeks or so I had (wrongly, natch) assumed that people were generally aware of this and acted accordingly around these things. Whoopsy me! Mr Wrong Rob, esq. Just the PC Gamer coverage alone should have tipped me off on that one.
To be fair, most people doing the work in emulation and retro are aware of this and do see the value in keeping the work ticking along over some numbers but the intensity of recent weeks is enough to make me doubt which way is up, never mind the rest of it.
I am fundamentally not equipped for when the internet gets on one, I guess.
Not really the kind of game I go for these days, largely alternating between games which I can play in 10 minute bursts or games which just leave me alone to pick up some flowers or something, but I’m really impressed with the style Recompile has going on.
There’s a really nice mix of the economical indie style and some grandstanding stuff and sure, it looks nice static. Look at this!
There’s a nice bit of Rez to the digital player avatar and that spider-like whatever thing appears to be some sort of Event Horizon meets the sadly abandoned but should have had a bigger audience 3d tool GroBoto. Yes, this is definitely a look, I like it!
I’d bailed out of last year’s trailer due to an aversion to trailers playing sad songs at me and, as is usual for me, I’d completely forgotten about the game until a post on the PlayStation blog a few days back. The post goes into a little more detail of how the game looks, complete with now obligatory animated GIFs to show off different parts in motion and yeah, okay, it’s a grand job visually alright.
I don’t have a PS5 and my PC has just bitten the dust again so I doubt I’ll be getting round to it anytime soon but given I keep this damn site around to write about things that make me go ooh, this is a game that definitely made me go ooh.
Okay, I’ll admit it. It the glowing particles that got me. I may be old and tired but I’m still me. Just look at the lasers in this! Incredible!
Read This: The Law Is Whatever Nintendo Says It Is (Brendan Sinclair)
By Rob
On June 2, 2023
In Business, Links, Videogames
So. Dolphin, then.
From PC Gamer’s absolutely careless recent coverage around Nintendo and emulation to The Verge suggesting that it’s Valve “poking the bear” earlier today (conveniently forgetting that Valve are a huge business who not only have a working relationship with Nintendo but will -always- prioritise the sanctity of Steam above any developer by default), there’s been so many infuriating words around what’s been happening that I’ve been cussing a lot more lately.
Being old and coming up through channels where negotiating around cease and desists and limiting coverage was part of the territory does leave me extra sensitive to this stuff I’ll admit but still, I have spent so much time wondering what on Earth people are even doing at the moment. It’s been like so many people are forgetting what these companies are, never mind how they will always work. Having been told a few times now that emulation is absolutely legal and there’s precedent for that despite no such precedent existing, gnyah! Frustrating.
The Friday round ups over on gi dot biz are always pretty incisive and thoughtful, this week’s knocks it out the park with an interview that gets to the heart of the issues facing anyone existing in the legal grey area that is a portion of the emulation and retro scenes.
As well as providing a well sourced overview and commentary on the whole kerfuffle, there’s an interview with Jon Hangartner, the lawyer who represented Bleem when they found themselves on the recieving end of Sony’s legal wrath.
The most important points in the article and interview are that there is a difference between what is considered legal and what is just untested in court (emulation exists largely in the latter), that this grey area is preferred by companies in general as it puts them in a position of strength and – crucially – that this strength comes from simply having the capital at hand to keep going, keep making legal threats with a near unlimited war chest, thus meaning the other party will find their time, energy and money exhausted long before the company raising the legal threats ever will. Whilst the grey area remains, they’re free to continue! And they will! And they do!
Up until these past few weeks or so I had (wrongly, natch) assumed that people were generally aware of this and acted accordingly around these things. Whoopsy me! Mr Wrong Rob, esq. Just the PC Gamer coverage alone should have tipped me off on that one.
To be fair, most people doing the work in emulation and retro are aware of this and do see the value in keeping the work ticking along over some numbers but the intensity of recent weeks is enough to make me doubt which way is up, never mind the rest of it.
I am fundamentally not equipped for when the internet gets on one, I guess.
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