The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for popping to the corner shop and buying a Lion bar. Before you tuck in, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).

Over on Eurogamer, Caelyn Ellis becomes an Elden Ring detective. The difficult art of recreating someone else's save file, which I'd never considered before. And in a game as rich as Elden Ring nonetheless.

Sellen was offering to pay someone to recreate their Elden Ring save, but without the unfortunate death of poor Jar Bairn. I can totally understand why, as young JB is an adorable little example of Elden Ring's fascinating pot people. Paying someone to play a game for you may seem strange, but after chatting with them privately, I discovered that they were both busy folks with little time to play games. While they'd only played the game for sixteen hours or so, that represented a couple of months of shared time that would be hard to get back. Intrigued by the challenge recreating their save presented, I accepted the oddest commission of my freelance career so far.

For The Washington Post, Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Julia Mio Inuma, and Shiho Fukada visited Studio Ghibli's long-awaited theme park. Interesting to see a theme park that's less about expelling your lungs on a rollercoaster and just like, lapping up the sweet atmosphere. Not much to say other than, "Yes, I'd like to go".

Clusters of soot sprites, or Makkuro kurosuke, hidden in corners. Individual contracts signed by those whose names were stolen by Yubaba, or Granny, before Chihiro entered the spirit world in “Spirited Away.” A sleeping Totoro tucked in a nook in the kids’ play area. The realistic expressions of the raccoon dogs from “Pom Poko.” Acorns stacked along the walking path in Dondoko Forest. The fully functional gas stove in Nishi’s antique shop. Water droplets the size of your hand as you view the world through Arrietty’s eyes.

On Polygon, Jacob Linden investigates whether Link is wearing pajamas in A Link To The Past. A light-hearted dive into a serious question, with some extra tidbits of history thrown in for good measure. Polgyon's running a Video Game Fashion Week, if you're interested in other articles like this.

A manga created for the game that ran in Nintendo Power suggests a different sleepwear design, with Link waking up in a red shirt with a popped collar. He also has an alternate nightshirt in this art for the GBA release. Sure, the simplest and most boring explanation is that the game developers didn’t find it necessary, or have the resources, to show Link choosing between wardrobe options in the intro. You could even argue that this choice makes the time you finally get an armor upgrade more impactful as a result. But we can take this deeper. What if Link is sleeping in his armor as a hidden aspect of Hylian combat training?

For Bloomberg, Lucas Shaw wrote about Netflix's search for a new Netflix. A look at how Netflix's relaxed ethos has meant some careful backtracking as competition has ramped up and their subscribers have fallen.

By the end of 2021, the numbers couldn’t be ignored, and executives needed to find an answer. In March, Neumann, the CFO, let loose a trial balloon at an investor conference. Netflix wasn’t religious about advertising, he said, adding, “Never say never.” A month later, as the stock plunged, Hastings made the move official. He said Netflix would experiment with advertising in the next year or two. The comment blindsided most of his employees, especially old-timers who saw a lack of advertising as central to the company’s mission. But once Hastings decided to go for it, Netflix wasted no time. After selling no ads for 25 years, it would now build an advertising business within the next seven months.

On Eurogamer, Ishraq Subhan drew attention to your console's energy usage when video streaming. A quick news post which has convinced me to leave streaming to my Smart TV instead of my PS5.

Analysis from FlatpanelsHD found that video streaming on a PlayStation 5 consumes up to 25 times more energy than a Chromecast, while an Xbox Series X consumes up to 18 times more. To put those figures into watts, the PS5 and Xbox Series X consumes up to 80 W and 57 W respectively when video streaming, compared to just 3.2 W on a Chromecast or 4 W on an Apple TV.

Music this week is Strangers (feat. A$AP Rocky and Run The Jewels) by Danger Mouse & Black Thought. Here's the YouTube link and Spotify link. From the album Cheat Codes. Turn it up loud.

I'd also recommend Belize (feat. MF Doom) and Aquamarine (feat. Michael Kiwanuka) from the same album.

That's it for now, catch you next week folks!