These Troubled Times (Drink!). Now that that is out of the way, Sujoy and I decided to develop a stimulus package for the gaming industry to help everyone move forward as a competent industry. Because nothing is recession proof. Before we get to the legislation, we have a translated version of the Preamble of the Constitution to start things off. Every good piece of legislation has filler text that means absolutely nothing, why shouldn’t ours. “We the Gamers of the World, in Order to form a more perfect Industry, establish Competition, insure gamer Satisfaction, provide for common Enjoyment, promote the Uncommon over Ordinary, and secure the Blessings of Common Sense to ourselves and our Publishers and Developers, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the 1337 Hax0rz.”

Be it enacted that all developers and publishers henceforth identified in this document shall adhere to the the following universal mandates before receiving future funds aimed to stimulate and support the future of the Interactive Entertainment Medium:

I) Unreal Engine shall be banned from future development, including but not limited to programmer use, public consumption, and advertising (also known as back of the box bullet points). Until someone figures out a way to deal with the pop-in, brown-hued depressing color schemes, A-Roid inspired character design and hard lighting that makes the earth appear like it were mere inches from the sun, this technology shall be outlawed. A piece of tech that enables a game with ’50 Cent’ in the title to look and play like Gears of War should be ashamed of itself. Even if Blood on the Sand was surprisingly fun.

II) Movie Tie-in games that are released day and date with the associated movie are henceforth banned. Movie tie-in games developed and released independent of the box office date will be dealt with on a case by case basis by an independent gaming commission appointed by the legislature.

III) World War 2 shall be henceforth banned. Everyone loves killing Nazi’s, but even Hitler had to have run out of bad guys to infinitely spawn. The sole exception to this rule is Nazi Zombies, although that does not redeem Call of Duty: World at War.

Furthermore, the following publishers/developers shall receive stimulus funds pending the immediate acceptance and continued compliance with the following conditions and stipulations set forth by the legislature.

EA

• Collapse EA Los Angeles/Dreamworks Interactive Studios. There is no reason to continue making Medal of Honor games (see Call of Duty).
• Fire everyone associated with NFL Street and deport Ricky Williams. Change the locks on the doors just in case he thinks his wedding dress is still inside the building. Of course he’s probably too high to know that anything will have happened.
• Develop a Madden Rockband expansion pack for The Sims and release a new iteration every 6 months, potentially including a Booth Analyst creator with new call signs, one-liners, and fat suits released as paid DLC exclusive to the system that pays the most for the privilege of this exciting content.
• Spend money on game play rather than polish, we’re tired of playing a prettier version of Madden each year. And no more vision cone inspired enhancements, if you don’t have anything for the back of the box worth our time, then you’re not trying hard enough. Create-a-fan anyone?

Activision/Blizzard/Vivendi

• Activision: Cut the Guitar Hero advertising budget. Significantly. We are all well aware of the brand name you have run into the ground. Congratulations. Unless you want to use Heidi some more, we like her.
• Activision: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is STILL among the top played games on Xbox Live, there is no more need for Treyarch to keep pretending it can compete with the big boys. Keep feeding it Spider-man games and other IP worthy of mediocrity.
• Blizzard: Starcraft 2. Get To Work.
• Blizzard: Diablo 3. See Above.
• Vivendi: Give Crash Bandicoot his pension. He had a good run, but that race finished a long time ago.
• All: Pick one name, put them in a blender, or play a crap-ton of darts until you figure something out. Allow us to offer some recommendations: Actizzendi. Blivisendi. Vissarision. Le Conglomerate. Bling Bling. Anything will work, make it happen.

Sega

• Sonic? I don’t want to talk about it.
• But if we must, the only acceptable future release of any game involving Sonic will be HD Remix Style. Improve the graphics, the sound, but keep everything else exactly the same. Only Sonic 1, 2, 3 and if you must Sonic and Knuckles. Then STOP. Sonic Spinball will result in revoking of any geek-cred that may have been previously associated with your company.
• Stop spending money on the Golden Compass game. You missed the boat. Deal with it.
• Your investments for the hardcore on the Wii look promising (See Conduit and MadWorld). Pray that they are successful and keep an eye out for future investments. We the gamer approve of and fully support these attempts to keep the Wii from becoming a fully fledged novelty.
• Bring back ToeJam & Earl? Why not?

Konami

• Continue pandering to fanboys. We’re looking at you DDR, Castlevania, Metal Gear, Silent Hill, and Yu-Gi-Oh.
• Cloning Hideo Kojima can commence if he is able to explain the plot of the entire Metal Gear series. Additionally, Konami executives will receive $1,000 for every minute they manage to keep a straight face.
• Due to a bleak future, invest in development of new games or merge with Namco Bandai to form some sort of super outaku/fanboy publishing machine. Who doesn’t love Japanese Schoolgirls.

Capcom

• Plan your next Klan meeting in a less obvious place.

Loafyloaf050 (9:19:28 PM): seriously. did you have any issues with the initial trailer?

Dr Fnk 3000 (9:19:32 PM): yeah

Loafyloaf050 (9:19:33 PM): i could see where people would flip shit

Loafyloaf050 (9:19:41 PM): but i think they were just ignorant

Dr Fnk 3000 (9:19:51 PM): i remember muttering “..kinda racist” when i saw it

Loafyloaf050 (9:19:51 PM): i think they really just didn’t know/understand

Dr Fnk 3000 (9:19:58 PM): but then again

Dr Fnk 3000 (9:20:00 PM): like you said

Dr Fnk 3000 (9:20:11 PM): i didnt know the background of the game

Dr Fnk 3000 (9:20:14 PM): nor the context of the scene

Dr Fnk 3000 (9:20:24 PM): it should also be noted

Dr Fnk 3000 (9:20:28 PM): that i find everything racist

Loafyloaf050 (9:20:30 PM): HA

• Dead Rising is good, just not on Wii.
  Keep making balls-crazy 2d fighters with no context and 18000 selectable characters. I’m a fan of seizures, and the PS2 is still selling, for some ungodly reason.

Atari

• hahahahahahahahahahaha jk

Ubisoft

• Jade Raymond is cute, more of her please.
• Editor’s note: Despite general apathy for sequels, Ubisoft has a somewhat solid business plan. Kinda hard to poke fun at them. But we still have some brief thoughts for some notable sequels in the pipes.
• Beyond Good and Evil 2. By the will of Odin, Don’t screw it up.
• Prince of Persia. No Godsmack in the sequel. Please no Godsmack.
• Splinter Cell. Still in development right?
• I don’t think we have enough games with Tom Clancy out on the market, better get to work on that one.
• Give everyone at the Montreal Studio a raise, they know what they are doing.

Square Enix

• Final Fantasy 7 for PS3. Just get it over with.
• Call off acquisition of Eidos. As tantalizing as the idea of a Lara Croft: Crystal Fantasy from Beyond the Chosen is, the Tomb Raider license by itself isn’t worth taking on an 18 year library of crappy games thanks to Eidos’ infertility.
• Stop using average RPGs to beta test game play reception for Final Fantasy 13. Infinite Undiscovery, and The Last Remnant deserved better.
• Speaking of, do you have any notable games that are NOT RPGs or “-RPGs”? I’m just saying.

Take-Two

• Rockstar has carte blanche, they have free reign to do whatever they want.
• 2K, stop feuding with EA Sports over exclusive rights to various sports. its like a Cold War with no threat of nuclear winter. “Oh No, is EA going to get exclusive NHL rights?” STFU and work on making a solid game. EA is stomping you out right now (See Michael Strahan, and his gaped teeth)
• GTA is in a good place, but if we could recommend some other locales for future development for you to consider we recommend: GTA: Dust Bowl, GTA: Gold Rush, GTA: Louisiana Purchase, GTA: Wyoming – The Lost and the ……Lost, GTA: Utah – Joseph’s Edition.

Additionally, the gaming behemoths Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have specific recommendations for future business development that shall require immediate response. Funding is contingent on the continued adherence to the detailed policies below.

Microsoft

• Give Bungie whatever they want. They’ve earned it. You owe everything to them.
• Mandatory Hard drives for current and future consoles. Stop playing around.
• We the gamer WILL NOT tolerate another RRoD debacle for the Xbox 720 (or whatever you call it, hopefully you’re not considering calling it the 720. That’s lame.)

Sony

• See Square Enix Provision #1.
• PSP2. Accept your failures and MOVE ON.
• Stop assuming everyone automatically knows how to develop for your platform and help a brother out. You wouldn’t just give your kids the keys to a Ferrari and assume they know how to drive stick-shift. Or would you?

Nintendo

• It has been determined that Nintendo is not eligible for stimulus funding due to the fact that everything with “Wii” in the title and all iterations of the DS print money beyond calculation. Besides whatever We The Gamer recommend we know you will ignore anyway. Enjoy your gold plated gold.

So say we all.

This Bill was co-sponsored by a man with a Doctorate in Funk