pixelowls

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your boyfriend looked so nice that we extracted him into bodyshop and we packaged him. he’s available on simfileshare now. sorry

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Y'know, I'm not saying JK Rowling is perfect, but the Hogwarts Game is more than just about her. It's a game for the fans! It's supporting game devs! And the money isn't even going to her anyway.

"Jk Rowling isn't perfect" sure is a weird way to say "Jk rowling is a billionaire using her inconceivable wealth and social capital to fund and support openly white supremacist and anti-trans organisations."

"It's for the fans," except the antisemitic caricatures and storylines in the game (in the very least) excludes Jewish fans.

"It's supporting game Devs." game Devs are not paid by royalties. they're contracted, usually, to develop a game for a one off payment or salary. Game Devs rarely receive royalties or profit from sales., one of the many reasons the industry is experiencing one of the largest unionisation movements in history. Avalanche Software, the company behind Hogwarts Legacy, is currently not unionised which means the developers will not receive a cent made from sales of the game.

"the money isn't even going to her anyway". babe, copyright and licensing laws dictate that ANYTHING using official Harry Potter concepts on a mass scale for profit must pay a licensing fee to JK Rowling because she is the copyright holder. Unless you are buying hp related stuff second hand or fan made, you are putting money back into JKs pocket.

Jk rowling has stated that she considers any support, financial or otherwise, for her work as support of her beliefs. Play the game and justify it to yourself however the fuck you want to, but no amount of lying to yourself will change that supporting this game is providing financial and social support to someone who is actively using that support to harm some of the most vulnerable people in society. next time, just admit you care more about your own enjoyment of a video game than you do about actually being an ally to people less privileged than you and stay out of trans people's inboxes.

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our landlord has apparently gotten tired of waiting for emergency rent assistance to continue to assist us (we signed up in january, they helped us until june at which point every time we’ve asked they’ve said they’re ‘processing’ but they recently started emailing us again so we had hope they were going to help us soon.) and sent us a notice that if we don’t pay $700 by monday morning or move out by that same time we’ll be evicted

we only get a little over $800/month from my mom’s disability and we’ve already spent a lot of it on stuff like the electric bill, our cats, my mom’s medicine, etc

if anybody can help in any way my paypal is azalulu@gmail.com or just please boost this post

we obviously cannot afford to be evicted, we have no car and nowhere to go. we currently don’t even have a fucking phone because the company my mom gets a free one through is being weird about a replacement for hers. my mom and i are both disabled and we have cats to take care of.

i’m so scared i’m shaking rn, i feel ill

please help

[pixelowls]

ATTENTION

If you see this you are OBLIGATED to reblog w/ the song currently stuck in your head :)

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I just. my heart is so sad for Ukraine. If I have any Ukrainian followers reading this, I really hope you and your loved ones are safe and well and that everything is resolved with minimal bloodshed.

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saying "just make the promos/cover art straight for russia! :)" is not the good argument you seem to think it is

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Russia & Wedding Pack: Stop spreading misinformation!

This community is really good at not doing its research and losing its damn mind, so I’m going to take the time out of my day to outline a few things about the wedding pack kerfuffle.

(I know no one’s going to read this because it’s a long one, but whatever.)

This whole mess is all very likely because getting video games into Russia is a massive pain in the ass. The Sims team has shit-all to do with this. If one country says, “hey I don’t want this shit imported here” for literally any reason, then that’s that. It’s not up to the game’s publisher unless the publisher agrees to whatever conditions that country has set to allow the game’s release in their region.

I’ve seen a post going around claiming that Russia doesn’t have any laws against video games entering the country. That is FALSE. Russia does have laws concerning media imports, just like every other country on the planet.

Also, some of you really don’t understand how the video game industry works. Every video game has different regional tweaks based on the laws for media content, marketing, language, and packaging. That means there are DIFFERENT DEVELOPER BUILDS for DIFFERENT REGIONS. Developers are also often NOT the same thing as the publisher OR the distributor. Publishers who can’t afford to open a branch office in Russia will set up business partnerships to help handle marketing and distribution in the region.

Here’s some articles y’all should take a gander at: 

Videogame Law: State of the Art by 2020 (Local Russian Perspective) A local Russian perspective on video game and media laws in Russia.

Selling video games online: Here’s why you must be extra careful A discussion of what it is to market, distribute, and sell video games around the world.

Ukraine tensions: Russia accused of sea blockade

Biden warns Americans in Ukraine to leave…

In brief: media law and regulation in Russia A really interesting read regarding media law in Russia.

The Sims 4′s Latest Game Pack is Banned in Russia

“Gay propaganda” law keeps Sims 4 wedding expansion out of Russia Offers another look into this issue, as well as notes sourced instances of video games being flagged by Russian law.

Now that you’ve (hopefully) at least glanced over the above…

1. EA’s statement on the matter is very carefully worded and most certainly to avoid legal trouble and/or problems with their branch office in Russia. I also want to point out a few bits of their statement that stood out to me:

“ As we moved through our development and brand storytelling process, we became aware that the way we wanted to tell Cam and Dom’s story would not be something we could freely share around the world. “

Specifically this bit: “We became aware that the way we wanted to tell [their] story would not be something we could freely share… “ This is vague, but essentially they’re saying they found out in the middle of development that the marketing for the pack was not going to be appreciated in foreign (read: not North America) markets. This means it was already known in the middle of the project that their marketing would need to be changed. However, even if it was requested that they redo the trailer and marketing–and NOT internal coding of game mechanics–that is STILL likely MONTHS of work that would have to go down the drain for ONE region, AND the Sims team was most assuredly–like most developers do–working with a deadline dictated by their parent company (EA). Bottom line: This problem was known months ago and EA, for whatever reason, decided to go full steam ahead.

2. EA’s statement keeps mentioning “storytelling.” I have to wonder if that means JUST marketing the pack, or parts of the pack’s gameplay itself. This Ars Technica article speculates as much. Bottom line: Whether it was “just a trailer” that needed to be changed, or gameplay mechanics (which would’ve CERTAINLY cost EA months in time and money), we just don’t know. So y’all stop saying it’s ~just a trailer~ when in fact, we don’t know what the fuck needed to be changed, and even if it was the marketing, building an entire marketing campaign from the ground up is INCREDIBLY time consuming and expensive.

3. I’ve seen people asking why it won’t be distributed in Ukraine. Someone I was discussing this with put it better than I could have:

Bottom line: It is not EA’s place to comment on or pick sides in what may become a literal war.  

4. Let me be clear: EA is not innocent here, and make no mistake, this is not EA having principles in favor of the LGBTQ+ community. In all likelihood, they wanted to avoid legal trouble and a monetary loss and/or a delay in the release of the pack. However, it would be completely moronic to blame the Sims team themselves for this. Bottom line: EA is being a company, avoiding unnecessary risk. They are clearly trying to avoid outright mentioning that Russian law is specifically to blame, and by saying they “chose” not to distribute there, they obviously want to avoid an international business embarrassment.

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Basically what I’m saying is: This issue isn’t EA being meanies and personally attacking the people in that region. This is literally a distribution/monetary issue that happened to coincide with what may become a literal invasion. EA is The Worst and we all know it, but do NOT blame the Sims devs, and do NOT whine and moan about EA not giving you the thing when they don’t actually have as much control over this as you think.

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finding cc from ten years ago:

all around me are familiar faces

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there's always gotta be That One Modder who thinks that bc they're decent at modding it means they can be as assholish as they want to and there'll be no consequences for them, huh

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hi i’m posting my paypal link as I have to pay to get a full health check and blood pressure monitor (£60) so I can access adhd meds for the first time! will dl when my goal is met! please share if you can’t donate! here

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we're on the verge of our storage unit in georgia (which has literally half our stuff in it, including family photos and clothes) being auctioned off bc we couldn't pay the bill, so i made a gofundme to make us slightly more financially stable, since i already know we're not gonna be able to pay basically any bill next month with how much we're still overdrawn

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ugh fuck i miss sims 2 so much 😭

[pixelowls]

this is my main tumblr and as you can see i am not doing well! please reblog or donate if you can, thank you friends

hello friends so it has gotten so much worse for us my grandma has been admitted to a rehab/nursing facility and her social security check has gone completely to paying for that instead of being deposited into her bank account which means my mom and i have less than $500 to pay for rent, utilities, food for us and our cats, and our storage unit in georgia that has over half of our stuff in it in total we need at least $1200 by, at the VERY latest, the end of the month

we are both disabled with autoimmune diseases and the usual depression & anxiety and we are entirely dependent on my mom and grandma's social security for survival we need literally as much help as possible i'm so sorry to do this but i have genuinely nowhere else to turn i'm trying to apply for emergency rent assistance but everywhere is obviously slammed (if they're even taking applications) so i don't know if we'll be able to get any help

i've also been trying to get any sort of work but it's been nearly impossible

paypal.me/thettempest or azalulu@gmail.com any help is so so so appreciated! thank you 💕

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can’t wait for f*lixandre and his ilk to make you pay $5.99 to access their blog which links to their patreon where you have to pay at least $5 more to access their patreon-exclusive content 🙃