Zoraptor

The consequences of trying to take down Russia's economy have been far worse for Ukraine than Russia. They now need nearly the entire EU aid package which they had so much trouble approving last year- and projected to last for the next two years- this year. Economic activity is utterly paralyzed; no warehouse space, their main exports cannot be exported- agriculture- or have been destroyed recently (metallurgy etc). Indeed, it was particularly dumb to start the campaign when there was an interceptor shortage, and the Russians had increased capabilities like mass produced Geran4/5s Best indicator of how things are actually going on that front: Zelensky has been begging for an infrastructure/ maritime/ energy truce, for weeks, including today at the UN. The maritime one is particularly ironic, since Ukraine had one until they broke it; and we got a lot of people saying Russia could not enforce a blockade even if it wanted to. Well, that aged like milk. (In terms of Patriot production, even if it actually approved- and personally, I'd be surprised if it were- it's... The thing about the drones is that they can be manufactured in Birmingham or Munich, shipped in by train and then assembled, in a shed, by a couple of guys with drills. And that's only a slight exaggeration. You occasionally see people driving around with medium range drones literally on their utes (ie pickups), not something you can do with a Patriot type missile. The equivalent system to Patriot would be the Flamingo or their domestic ballistic missile (Grom) or their domestic anti ship cruise missiles (Neptune). None of whose production is anywhere near the levels required for Patriot production, because they need large production facilities, which are constantly being hit. Indeed, that will likely be worse for Patriot, because they will need a large volume of them and while you can fire off most of those other missiles from anywhere (well, within reason) in Ukraine most Patriots will be going to defend a static target in Kiev, and that makes tracing their source far easier)

Avowed 2 would surely have been a marginal call, in the best case scenario, since its predecessor didn't sell that well and as that quote implies. If it were to continue being made doing so as A TES Game (ie not 6/7) seems best practical/ realistic case, as much as it may not be what people wanted. As previous, I'd suspect they'll be allowed some leeway for experimentation given MS obviously think Grounded did well; but a TES like game in a setting that isn't TES, and has not sold well enough? That's a hard sell, in good circumstances. Even the more risky/ small scale/ experimental stuff is more likely to get approved is it's got a big IP attached to it. That is the current situation for sure, they're both effectively in limbo. The main positive- and it certainly is only a relative and circumstantial positive- is that they haven't been shut down, so the willingness to divest as working entities from MS appears to be genuine rather than performative. (It would be a lot harder than many people would think to divest, even if they're effectively being given away with IP and in some cases seed money as well. You still need someone who MS trust to take them on in a situation where most studios fail and do a job which is no doubt incredibly stressful. In a sort of magical hand waving world you'd probably return Arkane at least to Raf Colantino; but he already has a new studio. So does Harvey Smith, and you have to wonder if anyone else wants it)

Overall MS trying to solve the Arkane 'issue' is a positive, since the alternative is worse. I don't think there was a realistic probability of Arkane ever making a Prey/ Dishonoured (System Shock/ Thief, or indeed Alpha Protocol type) game again as a subsidiary since the leadership that wanted to do that are gone and big organisations don't do passion projects, especially ones that haven't made significant money. The realistic way that happens is if Arkane goes independent, and to be fair to MS that seems to be their preferred option* given it's happened with other studios they don't want, and they could have simply closed them down. I think we all know what option someone like EA would have already chosen... The released studios have also got most of their IP. Probably not so important for Arkane, unless you were waiting for Arx Fatalis 2, since Prey/ DMM&M/ (Wolfenstein) wasn't theirs and Dishonoured's main series is at least in theory done. The problem may well be that the two obvious people to release it to are already committed to other projects. *not because they're just nice that way, of course, but because it's better PR to be seen to have tried. And if they have negative value on the balance sheet giving them away is a financial positive too.

I'd say that's the realistic scenario, for most of their output, rather than worse case. It may not be particularly palatable to Obsidian fans, but if Avowed was TES: Avowed it would have sold a lot more even if you otherwise left 90% of it the same. While that is technically opinion rather than fact I don't see any realistic way it isn't true; and I don't see any way that people in MS management don't think the same. They will want maximum brand return etc etc and not BGS making Fallout/ TES with 16 years between the franchise titles. They did specifically mention Grounded as continuing, and it's a small project to get a specific mention; it's clearly been successful enough to get attention. I'd suspect that as long as their big ticket projects are successful they'll be allowed to do some more experimental stuff as well. The problem, now, is that their recent big ticket projects were not successful. (The wildcard could well be a D&D title, given BG3's success and it not having any sort of real follow up. At this point, a pretty wild wild card though. That would clearly be big ticket, and far more appropriate for Obsidian than BGS even if they had capacity. Not an Obsidian IP either though, of course)

Eh, does that really mean much of anything at all? Obsidian has already made one game under Bethesda*, after all, and it was fairly well regarded. Having one RPG label, one action label, one casual label etc makes sense**; and not just in the world of MBA speak. And yeah, if anyone thought they were actually going to get independent management for Obsidian under MS... well, I have some lovely sea side real estate in Arkansas to sell them, might even throw in a free bridge as a sweetener. I also have very few illusions about Xbox being an absolute disaster financially for MS over pretty close to its entire existence. It was basically never financially viable on its own and was always propped up, sometimes massively, by the profitable divisions. At some point someone was going to decide that was throwing good money after bad. *It is Bethesda Softworks, not Bethesda Game Studios **especially if the next step is selling it off in bits to the Saudis. Which might seem unlikely, but they bought EA and were going to buy Embracer. Buying a failed console in its sunset would be very on brand for their business acumen as well.

They still make non jet Geran(2)s in decent numbers. They're significantly cheaper, fine for unprotected targets, and useful for drawing out and depleting the ammunition of air defence. They haven't had actual factual Shahed's since 2024 though media still refer to them as such frequently. They also have a bunch of air to air kills including at least 2 F-16s, which is not bad for something with zero defensive ability. Given the information war aspects of the terms I'm surprised we haven't had Iranian Shaheds referred to as Gerans appreciably yet.

It's to all practical purposes the same deal as existed previously; and done solely so Trump can proclaim another great victory. Not for the first time by far, almost certainly not for the last.

That is technically true. Practically though, we did have an example of how 'free to leave' countries actually are. To whit, Greece. There was... rather a lot of pressure applied to make sure they stayed even though it wasn't in their best interests to. Or at least, would not have been in their best interests to if it wasn't made clear to them that there would be a coordinated and sustained effort to further torpedo their economy via retributive measures if they revoked their economic vassaldom. Of course, Germany isn't Greece, and if they left the whole entity might well fall apart, and Germany won't be leaving any time soon since their issues aren't Euro related and it's still a net benefit to their economy. Even in the event of an AFD federal victory having a currency they dominate being used by other nations is great from a nationalists' perspective since it gives you massive leverage. They'll just try and maximise the benefits/ minismise the responsibilities even more.

Though Ghost is probably one of the main reasons if not the main reason why they don't/didn't do it like that. While Blizzard could definitely do with a certain amount of hurrying up when it comes to their schedules releasing trailers for the sake of it seems a very, hmm, KPI driven sort of thing. ie a productivity and publicity metric to show productivity and generate publicity, rather than to actually achieve something concrete. Still, at least it wasn't followed by "don't you guys have phones" or similar.

Recent map, but it's already out of date. Dhubab has now been captured, and that's off the bottom of it. Literally at the gates of Bab el Mandeb itself now. Certainly looking like a Gate of Tears for one side. Not exactly a surprise, the Saudis are notoriously useless and the Saudi backed forces were largely ineffective outside of the borders of old South Yemen. And they've fought a nasty civil war within the civil war against the UAE backed South Yemeni separatists since the cease fire with the Houthis, which means both weaker militia and no Emirati support. They will likely fight a lot better for South Yemen proper though- so long as they can stabilise things.

Houthis apparently capture Mocha in Yemen. Apart from the obvious threat to my favourite type of coffee that means they control basically the entire Yemeni Red Sea coast again. True, if reductive. By definition it's just unserious analysts saying it, since it obviously isn't true and never was. Just a shame those unserious analysts include Trump and Hegseth, eh. Sheesh, that's incredibly weaksauce even for you Bruce. Why doesn't Iran exclusively target things we'd like them to hit instead of hitting stuff we don't want them to??? Verily, a mystery for the ages. US military bases are legit targets; and they're extensively defended. If they weren't the US would not have fired off that 2 months worth of Patriot production yesterday. If Jordan doesn't want to be hit they shouldn't be host to a belligerent party, and the one that started the war. Seems those two hits in empty country got 9 planes, given the video of what actually happened not much a surprise; and given the claims of 'light damage' early to those refuelers which included one quite literally missing its central third it may well be eight F15s written off rather than the one basically obsolete A10 claimed.

Day 194 of Iran not having a military. 2 months worth of interceptor production burnt through, in a day, dealing with the presumably phantom missiles emanating from Regions Unknown between Iraq and Pakistan. OK, 2 months blown, on the biggest salvo in ages from Iran, but still. I don't think anyone except from Trump and Hegseth think that represents anywhere near maximum strike size potential. Didn't even stop all the missiles, you can watch at least 5 impacts on airbases in Jordan. Not technically incorrect of most press to repeat Jordanian claims of 18/20 intercepted with the 2 hits in open country without comment, but they absolutely have to know that the Jordanians are lying through their teeth. Not great news for Ukraine either, that's another two months it will take US stockpiles to recover, so if they were expecting a delivery in January it'd now be March. Hence Europe checking if any PAC2s have slipped down the side of the sofa, one suspects.

When it comes to anything non mothership/ PDS* there is very little to be enthusiastic for about Paradox full stop. Consistently bad publisher, consistently bad owner, and have been for 20 odd years. Good thing their core products have a consistent market. They even managed to catastrophically mess up the one big success story they had with Cities: Skyline. Is the sequel functional even now? *even then, you have to have a tolerance for their dlc policy, which would be best described in dairy farm terms. To be fair to them; if you like their games it can still work out at 20c/ hr and you aren't going to get that value for money many places.

Dunno about that. Any successor can just blame Trump for any problems. Some sort of 'committed to our commitments, even if we disagree we must honour them to maintain the integrity of other agreements' sort of spiel. These things tend to have a great deal of inertia. Would a future President be willing to pay out all the investors? Or would they try and force Venezuela to do so? What happens if Venezuela repudiates the deal (and it can hardly be claimed it hasn't been signed under duress)? Ironically, the only recent President who ignored that sort of inertia is Trump himself, who'd have no problem leaving precipitately if it were Obama or Biden's pet project. In a similar vein, even if Obama Somehow Returned to the White House it seems unlikely he would be able to change the Iranian situation. Because much as the Iranians might trust ('trust') him personally compared to Trump there's no trust for the US as a whole. You can't unpop a balloon. (The agreement will commit Venezuela to protecting US interests, so the expectation would be minimal US boots on the ground and, they would hope, minimal bad publicity in the form of US troops shooting civilians/ people disgruntled about their natural resources being 'stolen. That would be done by the fine upstanding chaps in the Venezuelan police/ army. Yes, the same army and police who a few months ago were villains suppressing freedom etc. There is also, per above, the appeal of obligating Venezuela to buy overpriced and irrelevant military gear to do the protecting. All of those factors will make it far from a foregone conclusion that even a new D President would change tack significantly, as opposed to trying to dress up the neocolonialism a bit better)

At current production rates the stated royalties would be pretty decent (30bn raw value, 8bn royalty pa). At projected production rates though, and in what should be a surprise to absolutely no one, awful; even if you take into account most of Venezuela's oil being rubbish and hard to extract. Plus you'd expect there to be a lot of, hmm, 'catches' in the royalty payments like having to buy helicopters specifically off US companies for 500mn a piece. 16 of them, and you have no royalties left. One might think that is cynical, but given the people involved thinking otherwise is far more likely to be hopelessly naive. Such is the life of a colonial adjunct and enslaved state. Will be interesting to see if the 'deal'* and occupation outlast Trump or not. *I'd make a Star Wars reference about praying deals aren't altered further since Delcy Rodriguez has a passing resemblance to Lando Calrissian, but I'd feel a bit mean comparing Darth Vader to Donald Trump.

Fun times in Capetown, South Africa. If anything, the thumbnail understates how close they got to a stadium with 55k people inside. StreamableWatch merged-1788020730987 | StreamableWatch "merged-1788020730987" on Streamable.

Mystery Meat turns up while wild horse herds are being culled. Whatever could it be?

Funny thing about economically right wing political parties: they're almost always worse than the left for running up debt. Mostly because they've collectively gone for a approach which has quite literally never worked once in 'austerity' and all the phrases they desperately use to try and avoid saying 'austerity' now that it's tainted. What you get is always a variant of stagflation, with increased debt. The belief that you can cut your way to growth is basically religious- and like a lot of wacky religions, predicated more on capital B Belief that This Is How Things Should Work than anything objective. Most of the left wing parties are still basically Keynesian- spend out of recession, pay down debt in good times. Which is basic common sense really, when you've got debt at governmental interest rates. And so long as you do pay the debt down in the good times. Right wing ones stifle growth by cutting then use the dead cat bounce to justify tax cuts for themselves. They never actually pay down the debt as any surplus has to be 'returned to the people'. Or their large donors. Cut jobs--> take money out of the actual economy where people go to restaurants, see movies etc--> be surprised when nobody has any money to spend and all those businesses go bust and their employees can't spend --> things get worse. But hey, have you seen the numbers on the sharemarket? (Same thing will happen with AI, all those enthusiastic politicians getting bungs from lobbyists to promote that snake oil will be amazed when the economic benefits don't eventuate. Or, at least, 'amazed')

Every issue Heroes had could be traced back to the last episode of the first season. Even the writers' strike only exacerbated the existing problems. They had to at minimum kill Sylar off. Instead, we got season after season of storylines about him that made no sense, went in circles and were massively contrived.

I hadn't paid much attention to that and assumed it was stuff coming out about the carrier that had spontaneously combusted a few months ago (ie USS Ford) rather than a completely different one (Lincoln). Can't wait to see Hegseth claim that sailors are literally jumping overboard in the hope of getting to grips with the enemy, which shows that morale is so high, so very very high.

That's as shocking as the sun coming up or it being a day ending in the letter y. Even before she left for maternity Trump made it clear that the problem with Iran- and multiple other issues; so far as he was concerned- was that his message was not being accepted because it was not being communicated effectively. Which was Leavitt's job to do. He also went through rather a lot of press secretaries during his first term. If anything it's surprising she came back at all after having the baby. Obviously, the actual communication problem isn't hers any more than it was Spicer's, Sander's, Grisham's or McEnany's from the first term but has a different common factor.

They'll want more money for Bioware than they're worth. Even if they chuck in the IP, which for Mass Effect isn't a given. Sadly, a very good candidate for going the way of Bullfrog/ Maxis etc into the big EA dumpster in the sky. Few years ago MS might have been interested at least. Or maybe Greg and Ray will buy it back for a pittance.

That's not a downside, when the alternative is getting prosecuted for something else. In the end, that's the fundamental problem with weaponising hearings if you actually want to get to the truth of what was done right and what was done wrong: you aren't going to get that if you're actually actually trying to just get someone in trouble to score political points.

The proper question is probably why not take the 5th in that situation if it's available, rather than why take it. Doesn't really have any downsides. The only people who are going to be upset about it were rabid covid truthers beforehand who will remain remain covid truthers after, whatever is said. You're neither going to change their minds, nor do convince them of anything else. At this point, why even bother.

No doubt, though with that amount money would definitely have filtered down. No doubt Infantino knew that many assoc heads would see that as a lump sum offering, to them personally, to vote as Infantino wanted. The whole idea for the lump sum was that the proposal would likely be wildly unpopular in certain sectors- the richer confeds- and if wanted it to get through he'd need to make it popular in others. The people who it was popular with are if anything more likely to vote for him now though, and less likely to vote for a UEFA sanctioned alternative if they put one forward.