Game Information

Game Title: Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury
Platforms:

Nintendo Switch (Feb 12, 2021)

Trailer:

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury - Announcement Trailer - Nintendo Switch

Developer: Nintendo
Review Aggregator:
OpenCritic - 89 average - 92% recommended - 62 reviews

Critic Reviews

Destructoid - Chris Carter - 10 / 10

To be clear, I'd still wholly recommend this version of 3D World even without Bowser's Fury. The tweaks are small overall, and Bowser's Fury isn't going to sate the most hardcore of Mario fans looking for a brand new game, but the package as a whole is magical. If you were one of the many who missed out on this Wii U classic, fix that.

Digitally Downloaded - Matt Sainsbury - 5 / 5 stars

An exceptional first release for Nintendo in 2021

GamesBeat - Mike Minotti - 5 / 5 stars

You can play a lot of 3D Mario games on your Switch. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is just as good as any of them. It contains makes the Wii U game feel better than you remember, and the bonus campaign makes the package one of the best ports Nintendo has brought to the Switch.

God is a Geek - Adam Cook - 10 / 10

Despite multiplayer now being online, it still feels superfluous, but otherwise Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury might just be one of those fabled "perfect" games.

Impulsegamer - Chris O'Connor - 5 / 5

Revisit some classic Mario gaming with some added elements to bring it some new life.

Nintendo Life - Chris Scullion - 10 / 10

Super Mario 3D World remains one of the better linear Mario games, and anyone playing it for the first time is in for an absolute treat. Add to that the curious bonus adventure that is Bowser's Fury and you've got a package that provides great value for money. It isn't without its flaws, but most of these (online multiplayer, repetitive missions in Bowser's Fury) relate to the new additions; the main game itself remains as pure and perfect as it was seven years ago. Had it just been Super Mario 3D World on its own, we'd be thoroughly recommending it anyway; Bowser's Fury is just the cherry on top.

VG247 - Alex Donaldson - 5 / 5 stars

Bowser’s Fury is a short experience – it’ll take a competent player a couple of hours to see all it has to offer, and a few hours more to drive it all the way to 100% completion – but it’s completely worthwhile. It has some great surprises, which is why I talk about it in such generalized terms. Bowser’s Fury would’ve made a great download-only, budget-price stand-alone – so as a bonus included with an already excellent game, its value can’t really be overstated.

Atomix - Alberto Desfassiaux - Spanish - 98 / 100

The best way to play on of the greatest Mario's games. Also, Bowser's Fury is an ambitious expansion with a lot of new ideas.

PowerUp! - Leo Stevenson - 9.8 / 10

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury is a showcase of the game design mastery which has made Nintendo the best in the business.

Areajugones - David Cruz - Spanish - 9.5 / 10

‎This is one of the best platforms in history, and its expansion is by no means a minor content, since at some times it shines with more personality than the original title. In short, an indispensable pack has played the video game on Wii U or not, and one of the most essential works of your Nintendo Switch.‎

Cerealkillerz - Manuel Barthes - German - 9.5 / 10

Although Super Mario 3D World is only an implementation for Nintendo Switch, it has not lost any of its charm and ingenuity. The loving optimization for the benefit of the gaming experience, as well as the bonus adventure Bowser's Fury, are convincing across the board and promise fun for up to four players. Even some questionable level designs can hardly tarnish the overall picture.

Nintendo Blast - Eduardo Comerlato - Portuguese - 9.5 / 10

Super Mario Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is a package that offers two different ways to experience one of the best 3D Mario adventure, making it ideal for the franchise’s 35th anniversary celebration. There is no doubt that the game is a two-way diversion, able to preserve elements of the past and paint majestic novelties around it, as Bowser Jr. does with his paintbrush in the new and fascinating Bowser’s Fury.

SECTOR.sk - Matúš Štrba - Slovak - 9.5 / 10

Super Mario 3D World is still great, fun and really rich in content. Bowser's Fury adds new layers of gampleay inspired by Sunshine to enjoy.

The Games Machine - Stefano Calzati - Italian - 9.5 / 10

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury is an explosive pack. 3D World returns with an improved pace, while retaining the stellar gameplay that characterized it when it first launched, and of course being still as hilarious as it was back then. Bowser's Fury takes the lesson a step further, creating a small and dense open world that will put you to the test with a sense of urgency unlike any other Super Mario game. The result, needless to say, is pure, unadulterated joy.

Game Informer - Brian Shea - 9.3 / 10

This package combines tried-and-true gameplay and level design with unique concepts (plus an all-new game) to earn its place among the elite games in the franchise

Hobby Consolas - David Martinez - Spanish - 93 / 100

It´s not one, but two great platformers for Nintendo Switch. One of the greatest Wii U games (with improvement such as online multiplayer and photo mode) and a new Mario 3D game, not as big and ambitious as previous games, but equally fun and full of surprises.

Spaziogames - Valentino Cinefra - Italian - 9.3 / 10

If you love platforming (and cats) this is an absolute gem.

Video Chums - A.J. Maciejewski - 9.2 / 10

Super Mario 3D World is an excellent game so if you still haven't played it or simply want it on Switch, this will make a wonderful addition to your gaming library. Oh, and you also get a fantastic bonus game with Bowser's Fury so how could you go wrong?

Wccftech - Rosh Kelly - 9.1 / 10

Super Mario 3D World shows why Mario is an ageless franchise, with the seven-year-old game providing fresh fun and a delightful experience. Bowser's Fury is the exact opposite, showing just how exciting and experimental the series can be.

Critical Hit - Brad Lang - 9 / 10

Super Mario 3D is a great game to play solo or with friends and shows off some of Nintendo's best level design yet, while Bowser's Fury is an inventive take on the Mario formula that's more generous with its content than it ought to be. Both games make for a fantastic bundle and should be checked out by fans and non-fans alike.

Forbes - Ollie Barder - 9 / 10

Overall, this is a fantastic collection of Super Mario games. From the focused and demanding Super Mario 3D World to the more experimental, though still very well executed, open world take for Bowser’s Fury. Both games have a lot to offer and will keep you very busy unlocking their innermost secrets.

GAMES.CH - Benjamin Braun - German - 90 / 100

Bowser's Fury is much more than just a bonus . Despite it is relatively short, it still feels like a fully fleshed Mario jump and run. Packed with the great main game including the long missed online co-op mode Super Mario 3D World + Bowers's Fury is a must have for every Switch user.

GameMAG - Александр Копанев - Russian - 9 / 10

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury for Nintendo Switch effectively handles two important tasks: introducing new players to the classic game that came from the Wii U, as well as pleasing hungry fans with new great content. Definitely a must-play for all Super Mario fans!

GamePro - Tobias Veltin - German - 90 / 100

Super Mario 3D World is still a real fun package with no signs of ageing, which is made even more rewarding by Bowser's Fury.

GameSpew - Kim Snaith - 9 / 10

Aside from some repetition between the two titles, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is a joy from start to finish.

GameSpot - Steve Watts - 9 / 10

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury packages one of the best recent Mario games with a delightfully odd new experience.

Gameblog - Thomas Pillon - French - 9 / 10

Thans to its many clever tweaks, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury give the player many reasons to enjoy a great 3D platformer, now a little bit faster, and with friends around the globe online. Let's not forget Bowser's Fury, a tiny open world adventure which rightfully mixes gameplays from the Wii U and Switch episodes, and delivers a strong experience with a twist.

GamesRadar+ - Sam Loveridge - 4.5 / 5 stars

Quirky, creative, and constant good fun, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury blends Mario gameplay old and new with great success, creating a title that feels worthy of his 35th birthday celebrations.

Geeks & Com - Anthony Gravel - French - 9 / 10

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury offers much more than your regular Switch port with a brand new adventure that packs between 5 and 8 hours of great new original content. I loved my time spent in this new open world of Bowser's Fury and going through 3D World a second time sure was a blast. Hopefully, this new package gives the game the second life that it truly deserves.

IGN Italy - Mattia Ravanelli - Italian - 9 / 10

Simple and immediate, beautiful to see and fun even in multiplayer, Super Mario 3D World is the "what if" of the history of Super Mario. But with obvious limitations compared to Super Mario Odyssey and the other chapters in 3D. Bowser's Fury tries to beat new paths, without avoiding a few slips.

Metro GameCentral - 9 / 10

One of the best modern Super Mario titles is made that little bit better and accompanied by a brand-new game that bends the formula in new and exciting ways.

NintendoWorldReport - Neal Ronaghan - 9 / 10

If you've never played 3D World before or haven't touched it since the Wii U days, this is well worth the price of admission. Prospects get a little tougher if you're not interested in going through 3D World, because while Bowser's Fury is amazing, it's still approximately less than 10 hours of gameplay even if you do everything. But no matter what: Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury might be one of the strongest Mario games available on Switch. The base game is fun and varied, while Bowser's Fury offers a distinctive, inventive, and superb open-world 3D Mario experience.

PCMag - Jordan Minor - 4.5 / 5 stars

Super Mario 3D World is an incredible and underplayed Wii U adventure that's now available on Switch. But Bowser’s Fury steals the show with its exciting and fresh take on a 3D Mario game.

Press Start - Shannon Grixti - 9 / 10

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury is a fantastic package that showcases what makes Nintendo games so special. Super Mario 3D World is just as good as when it released, and Bower's Fury is a surprisingly good standalone adventure that paves the way for the future of Mario.

Screen Rant - Riley Little - 4.5 / 5 stars

Bowser's Fury adds so much to the Wii U port.

Stevivor - Ben Salter - 9 / 10

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is a delightful double act. Super Mario 3D World holds up well, and offers a unique multiplayer experience that works particularly well on Switch. Its opening worlds are designed to cater for that varied audience, while the second half injects some much needed difficulty and is best played solo. Bowser’s Fury is experimental in nature, and offers something completely different with a fully open world housing plenty of Shines to collect at a rapid pace. While neither quite reaches the dizzying heights of Super Mario Galaxy or Odyssey, it is a double dose of Mario doing things differently, and a fitting finale to Super Mario’s 35th anniversary.

The Digital Fix - Stephen Hudson - 9 / 10

Near-perfect platforming, gorgeous visuals and a joy-filled soundtrack make Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury one of the best Mario titles of all time, and an essential purchase for all Switch owners.

TheGamer - Dave Aubrey - 4.5 / 5 stars

Ultimately, Super Mario 3D World, in this package, is the best that game has ever been, with the increased speed and ease of multiplayer access making it far more enticing than ever before. Bowser’s Fury, meanwhile, is essentially the Super Mario Odyssey DLC that never was. It feels like Odyssey’s level and game design sensibilities, but placed in the Super Mario 3D World game engine, with all of the power-ups and quirks that game has to make something truly unique. Putting both of these games in one package is the best decision that Nintendo has made in a long while, as Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is one of the best Mario offerings available on Nintendo Switch, which is lofty praise given the existence of Super Mario Maker 2. Now it just needs the option to play again, but as Luigi.

TheSixthAxis - Jason Coles - 9 / 10

I can't really recommend Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury enough. Whether you've played the original game before or not, the addition of online multiplayer is a big win, while Bowser's Fury is a testament to just how pure a Mario game can be while still feeling fresh and exciting. Put simply; this is an essential game for Mario fans.

TrustedReviews - Jade King - 4.5 / 5 stars

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury is both a welcome return for a platforming classic and a novel expansion of what made the game so special back on the Wii U. There's a solid chance that millions of players missed out on its excellence back in 2013, so now is the perfect time to take it for a spin.

Twinfinite - Chris Jecks - 4.5 / 5

The real star of the show, however, was Bowser’s Fury, which innovates on the foundations laid by previous 3D titles, to provide some of the most enjoyable, open-world platforming I’ve had the pleasure of playing. This is a must-buy for Switch owners and Mario fans alike and is sure to tide you over the next couple of months.

Everyeye.it - Marco Mottura - Italian - 8.8 / 10

As the title itself indicates, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury proves to be more than just the re-proposal in Nintendo Switch sauce of an exclusive Wii U not particularly lucky: the idea of inserting for once a completely new extra is very appreciable, and you find the ideas inside Bowser's Fury are not lacking at all. While the difference in tone and gameplay between the two games is quite right, the overall superiority of Super Mario 3D World over the new adventure is also evident, which ends up being an appendix or little more. The effect is that of a very solid pairing, which once again celebrates the undisputed supremacy of the Great N in the platforming field.

IGN Spain - David Soriano - Spanish - 8.8 / 10

Super Mario 3D World has aged quite well. It is still a very enjoyable adventure, updated in its rhythm and different enough from Super Mario Odyssey for those who came to Switch without going through Wii U to discover it. The big surprise is Bowser's Fury, which transcends the concept of simple DLC and adds mechanics and novelties of epic dimensions.

AusGamers - Kosta Andreadis - 8.6 / 10

It's also as strange as Mario's team-up with a sentient hat that for some reason lets him Being John Malkovich a dinosaur.

COGconnected - James Paley - 80 / 100

These two titles offer distinct, yet familiar, Mario experiences.

Checkpoint Gaming - Tom Quirk - 8 / 10

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is an excellent case for why Nintendo should be porting more Wii U games to the Switch. With its improved presentation and the convenience of the Switch, this is definitely the optimal way to play Super Mario 3D World, even without much in the way of new features. Bowser’s Fury is also an excellent open-world Mario mini-adventure, which is probably worth the price of admission on its own. Admittedly, the multiplayer features some camera issues, particularly in Bowser’s Fury. However, that should not stop Mario fans of all ages from checking out Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, especially if they missed out on this much loved platformer the first time around.

Cubed3 - Az Elias - 8 / 10

Super Mario 3D World may not have had much added to it aside from an online function that is limited to only saving progress for the host, but it didn't necessarily need much else. Nintendo successfully found a way to evolve the 2D classics without going open world, and the result is one of the most consistently fresh and enjoyable games around, which, despite lacking the challenge of the NES games, has something for just about everyone. The bonus Bowser's Fury solo adventure is an absolute delight with a brilliant core idea that adds a crazy tension to Mario platforming, but it is hard to present a case for purchasing this pack just to play it. Whilst full of great content, it is too short-lived to feel worth the asking price, and really needs a standalone purchase option. When taking both games into account for those that have not played the original Wii U title, though, this is a cracking bundle of Mario goodness that encapsulates what everyone knows and still loves about the moustachioed hero after an enduring thirty-five years.

Daily Mirror - James Ide - 4 / 5 stars

Bowser's Fury offers some great new ideas and is much more than a simple DLC. It's a great Mario game in its own right, with enough to entice those who played 3D World before with a wholly new and compelling experience, as well as offering one of the most epic showdowns in Nintendo history.
Bowser's Fury is a great take on 3D Mario and finally makes Bowser the menacing villain he deserves to be. The game's only flaw is that it left me wishing there was more of it.

EGM - Michael Goroff - 8 / 10

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury is the Wii U port that Switch owners have been waiting for. Besides the inclusion of online multiplayer, 3D World is the same good game that players already experienced on the Wii U, and fans of the series who missed it the first time around will enjoy its hybridization of 2D and 3D Mario gameplay. But the highlight of the package is Bowser's Fury, a scaled-down but surprisingly robust mini 3D Mario game that actually takes some chances.

Enternity.gr - Leonidas Mastellos - Greek - 8 / 10

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury achieves its goal as a package and not as individual experiences

Guardian - Keza MacDonald - 4 / 5 stars

One of the brightest and cutest Mario games with a novel adventure as a side dish

Telegraph - Tom Hoggins - 4 / 5 stars

This Switch remaster of the Wii U outing for Nintendo's famous plumber comes with online co-op and the strangest Mario adventure yet

LevelUp - Fernando Salinas - Spanish - 7.5 / 10

Glyph brings together the simplest form of platforms and puzzles in one package. It is an entertaining experience that shines for its simplicity. Although it falls short in scope, it fulfills the most important thing: is fun to play.

Washington Post - Jhaan Elker - 75 / 100

Even with the Bowser’s Fury miss, the content is worth it. If you want one of the best and most versatile multiplayer experiences to date for the Nintendo Switch, online or offline, go with Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury.

CGMagazine - Jordan Biordi - 7 / 10

I don’t think Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury annoys me as much as it did on the Wii U, since the Switch already has the best Mario ever made on it; and I do think there is fun to be had with these games, even though I find them to be fairly frustrating. I would still recommend them if you enjoyed the originals, or maybe wanted to play them with younger gamers. Even though I might not go back to it very often, I don’t regret the time spent with it.

IGN - Cam Shea - 7 / 10

Two solid platformers in one; neither of which approaches the franchise's most dizzying heights.

Ars Technica - Kyle Orland - Unscored

Bowser’s Fury works just fine as an added bonus packaged with an under-appreciated platforming gem from the Wii U era. If you’ve never played 3D World before, this is a great chance to catch up on a fresh take on 3D Mario design. If you’re mainly interested in Bowser’s Fury, though, maybe wait until the strong ideas get expanded into a full, standalone game.

Console Creatures - Bobby Pashalidis - Recommended

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury might include the same game that was on the Wii U but it's also a title that needs to be experienced by everyone who owns a Nintendo Switch.

Eurogamer - Martin Robinson - Recommended

3D World's feast of all things Mario is joined by a fittingly experimental, hugely enjoyable - if slightly scrappy - expansion.

GameXplain - GameXplain - Hated

Video Review - Quote not available

Kotaku - Ian Walker - Unscored

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is essentially the same game on Switch that some of you may have experienced on Wii U. While there’s no denying that the new hardware can’t keep up with the game’s ambitions at times, this bundle is at its core another fantastic Mario experience.

Polygon - Chris Plante - Unscored

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is a fantastic double feature

A rational (and bullish) take on the current state of GME gang

The descent into GME groupthink: a deep dive

Hi, guys. I know we're trying to limit the old WSB talk, but I've been thinking a lot about the GME threads, and this won't fit as a comment, so I hope it's alright that I post this here. I'm shocked by what the community has become, and I'm sure you're seeing it, too: the onslaught of misinformation, delusion, emotional volatility not unlike GME's volatility, and (since Friday) sells at massive losses and debt... Oof. It hurts to see it. (But I still can't look away.) WSB has experienced massive communal losses like this before, but never like this. How did it go from a simple stocks subreddit to an echochamber of GME hype and conspiracy theorists? The threads from even just a month ago were radically different than what they were a week later, and even more different than they are now. It's fascinating. It certainly raises a lot of questions.
Here's my opinion: The GME community has plunged into groupthink faster than their stock price plunged to the ground (if you're not familiar with groupthink, check this out). But how did this happen so quickly?
Let's take a deep dive.

Forming a collective identity

We'll start at the basics. Formation of a collective identity is a necessary first step; you can't develop groupthink without the group part. From where I see it, WSB as its own collective identity certainly helped speed up the process of forming GME's identity. When the sub boomed, most members were, at first, generally welcoming (if not by old sub members, then by the thousands of new ones pouring in), and the lingo was easy to learn. It was easy to feel apart of the community. Not only that, it was exciting for new subs: GME brought a sense of solidarity. Just check out this thread to see what I mean. Whether their goal was to 'stick it to hedge-funds' or get rich quick, all new subs who didn't know much about investing felt an expectation, and maybe even certainty, in their GME investment: an upward spike was coming, it was only a matter of when.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is very important to a collective identity. It's like an inside joke; other people might not get it, but you and your friends do. I was playing a multiplayer video game the other day, and someone came in the lobby with the username GME. Another player in the lobby got excited when he saw it. He said, "WSB?" and the first person answered, "to the MOOOON!" Instant friendship. Rhetoric strengthens camaraderie. It makes you feel like you're part of the "in" crowd.
This is another reason that the existence of the WSB community probably aided in the rapid formation of GME identity: new subs quickly took on WSB rhetoric. Diamond hands vs. paper hands, to the moon... you get the drift. New investors wanted to feel part of WSB, and rhetoric is one of the easiest ways to do it.
I want to talk specifically about the terms "diamond hands" and "paper hands" for a moment. These are very important terms for the GME identity. Prior to the GME explosion, I think WSB members would agree that diamond hands and paper hands didn't really mean that much. I would even say that diamond hands were viewed somewhat negatively.
Regardless, those terms are loaded with some heavy positive and negative correlations, and without the self-deprecation and self-awareness generally present in WSB, the use of those terms could easily slip into the beginnings of discrimination-- which is exactly what happened when GME took over. To newcomers, diamond hands sounded great! If you're investing in GME, you're not only part of the in crowd: you've got diamond hands. The sellers? They've got paper hands. They suck. You don't want to be one of them; they're gonna wish they were one of you. Now, we're subtly digging deeper into that "us vs. them" narrative.

A sense of urgency

Throughout the GME boom I saw a lot of people ask, "is it too late to get in now?" The general response: No. But you need to get in NOW.
There was a real feeling of time sensitivity, and there was a lot of uncertainty surrounding it: who knows if you missed your only chance in? Easily-swayed, brand-new investors wanted to get in. The idea of making easy money was certainly appealing, and there was an undeniable FOMO factor. When the young investor became interested enough to ask if it's too late and became spammed with comments to get in now, it probably felt like an easy decision to make. It probably made GME profits feel like an inevitability. Who were they to know any better?
Even if our brand-new investor had a chance to profit on GME, there were a lot of red flags in their decision to invest at all. They were emotionally investing, and there's lots of signs that point to it. And just like any emotional investor, once they were in, the easy-swayed, brand-new investor felt the actual implication of investing actual money like they'd never expected. They might have been certain of GME's upward movement before, but now, they felt the dips a lot more. I don't need to tell you how volatile GME's dips were-- they were bad. Our brand-new investor probably tried not to panic; the diamond hands vs. paper hands rhetoric probably played a large role in their ability to stick around. Our new investor didn't want to be a paper-handed fool. And they probably tried to convince other people to get in with the very same rhetoric, too. They had to! Their money was on the line now, and the end goal was to get enough people to invest so that the squeeze will happen, right? Right??
Oh, the squeeze. The very reason for our GME adventure. Because of its role, there was a lot of information being touted about short squeezes, a lot of copy-and-paste action, and a lot of outdated sources. People relied on a website called isthesqueezesquoze.com without much consideration into who was running it, or if it was updating in real time, or even how it would determine if the squeeze had been squozed. Eventually, the message seemed to become: if other people sell when they want to, then the stock price and volume will go down, and hedge-funds will cover their shorts, and our brand-new investor will be left with nothing. That's not fair, right? We can't even squeeze if people aren't buying on the dips, right? We're all in this together, right, guys??
Uh oh. You see where this is going?

Group polarization

Group polarization, which is a common red flag for groupthink, is the tendency of a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members. You've seen it: that leftist friend you have starts hanging out with other leftist people, and they become even more leftist.
For the GME-community, mid-to-late January was likely the biggest push for polarization. At this time, we had the emergency of more GME-community "enemies:" the mainstream media and big brokers. MSNBC called the GME movement a terrible idea, hedge-funds cried about their losses on air, interviewees suggested that WSB could be considered insider trading, others called WSB's move cheap and illegal. Shortly after the media attacks, Robinhood and other brokers began to shut down trading. The media coverage sucked, but this was a lot worse. Now, it was personal. GME couldn't trust the news, but now, GME couldn't even trust their brokers.
GME was angry. The threads were spammed. The general sentimentality was hurt, betrayal, mistrust, and war cries: how come hedge-funds are allowed to play dirty tricks but we're not? The news is owned by a bunch of rich guys, so of course they would be against the GME movement. The "us vs. them" narrative dug deeper, and now, it had more meaning: we're the underdogs! We'll fight our way up to the top by ourselves! Us vs. them!
The more that the GME-community grew, and the longer that they gathered in their threads, the more they mistrusted the stock market, and the easier it became to blame a lot of things on them. Not only that, but they felt more right. GME will skyrocket. This is getting national attention because we are succeeding. You can literally see the real-time descent into group polarization in the memes they used: "GME $100 is not a joke" became "GME $1,000 is not a joke," and then $5,000, and then $10,000, and then $20,000..... I believe there are some people out there that genuinely thought GME could break 5 digits. A lot of people genuinely thought it would break $1,000.
Stock peaked Thursday morning around $470, but that wasn't enough for GME. Even after it dipped back down to $200 at close, the community was certain it would boom again. GME $1,000 was not a meme. I can't figure out why, but somewhere before or on Friday, a lot of the community began to believe that $320 was the number to hit. The squeeze would happen after they got back up to $320. People went with it.
Friday morning, the stock struggled to go back up. When the market began to close, GME had one goal in mind: close at $320. Minutes before closing, the GME thread exploded, comments rolling in the thousands per minute, filled with the now-familiar GME rhetoric: "hooooold" and "buy guys! we need you to buy!!" and "GME TO THE MOON!" among many, many others. The ticker looked like a tug-of-war.
Market closed at $328. GME won the battle.
This is exactly where it went downhill fast. GME had an entire weekend to fill until the U.S. market would open again, and their win left them glowing all weekend. Here was the proof that they needed; if they could win a battle, they would win the war. Just take a look at the weekend thread to see what I mean. "Be prepared for the fight next week." "The media is going to try to scare me into selling? Nah." Rocket emojis. "Hold the line." Remember, this was an entire two days of celebrating their win: the more they celebrated, the further polarized they became, and the more they mistrusted everyone else. The romanticism might've been strong before, but it was getting stronger. I saw one comment comparing GME-investors to movie superheroes. MOVIE superheroes. Jesus.
In the midst of their celebrating, what did they do when someone said they should sell?

GME-specific rhetoric and the WSB fracture

Now that GME had effectively polarized itself, it needed some new rhetoric. The WSB stuff just wasn't extreme enough for them anymore. Hedge-funds became hedgies. People who doubted GME were spreading FUD. Hedgie-bots were a huge issue. GME needed to "hold the line." Do you notice a lot of the rhetoric became blatantly war-related? Wonder what the benefit of that could be.
But what about the old WSB community?
Towards the end of January and up through now, the ones who sold their stocks and talked about it were downvoted to hell. The polarized hivemind had decided that anyone who sold for any reason at all were weak, paper-handed, they would regret everything. The ones who cautioned others to do the same were even more so. And don't even think about talking about other stocks. What do you think this is? A subreddit for the whole market?
Some studies suggest that online rhetoric is tied to an increase in aggression. When a user feels like they're part of community identity, they'll behave the way they think they're supposed to, and the way that they see others behave. Our new investor sees someone call someone else a paper-handed tard for selling? Well, they'll do the same. Even if they don't feel that strongly about it, they might do it anyway, just to feel like they belong. It's all pretty much subconscious. There's not a lot of critical thought in the beginnings of groupthink.
If you said GME wasn't going back up, you weren't just wrong, you being wrong made them very angry. I commented something about how people should sell GME and one user replied, "you clearly haven't been paying attention at all. That is the most stupid bullshit I've ever seen. You truly are the tippy top tard of all tards." It's the perfect example for this: using the retard rhetoric, full-on aggression, etc.
Old WSB members were a new enemy of sorts. Anyone who said anything against GME were hedgie-planted bots aimed at creating FUD. (See how complicated this rhetoric is getting as polarization gets stronger?) Any other stocks? Distractions. Stupid bot, the hedgies won't fool me into buying anything else. The entire subreddit served only one purpose: GME, and GME alone. Everyone else can get out.
I think it's clear that we've arrived at the end of the line...

The fall of GME

So, the stock market opened up Monday, and GME charged into battle again. But it didn't go as expected: GME went down fast.
People were getting scared. A lot of them had probably invested a lot more than they were willing to lose-- there were stories of loans taken out, inheritances given early, rent and grocery money being spent. Even if they weren't on the brink of financial devastation, the losses were massive for some. That shit hurts. For emotional investors, it might feel like the end of the world. So, here's our brand-new investor staring at some deep red numbers on the screen, maybe more terrified than they'd like to admit being, wondering where to go next.
Well, good thing our brand-new investor had a daily thread to turn to! What would make them feel better than to settle comfortably into their echo-chamber? Here were users calling them brave and intelligent. Diamond hands! Keep up the good work! Tasty dip, get these discounts! There were copy-and-pasted messages. Our brand-new investor was swayed into buying this easily, so wouldn't they feel reassured this easily, too?
Then came the negative brigade. A lot of people came back for their 'i told you so's: get out while you can, stupid bagholders, can't believe you guys are still holding, etc... To the brand-new investor, these negative comments were like a cold slap of doubt-- at this point in the game, with our investor possibly thousands of dollars under on the first stock trade of their life, they can't handle the doubt. They probably can't even process their losses yet; it cannot possibly be real. The echo-chamber was certainly convinced it wasn't... So, these negative comments must be bots. Nobody really has any doubt. If anyone does, they just have paper-hands.
As the stock fell harder, the GME-community got really desperate. They tried to appeal to your pathos. There was a lot of "if you never sell, you'll never actually lose." A lot of "if DFV isn't selling, I'm not selling," ignoring the fact that DFV had sold more than enough to cover his initial investment. It became downright misinformation: Mark Cuban's comment urging GME-holders to keep holding was frequently turned into "if Mark Cuban isn't selling, I'm not selling." The VW squeeze was referenced several times as a comparison. Here's a great list of the misinformation spewed from someone's post earlier.
This was where the delusion really began to set in. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be attributed to the fact that GME was steadily falling. At the end of every day, the narrative changed: the squeeze would happen tomorrow. No, the next day. No, sorry, the day after that. No one can be trusted anymore: the news is fake, the negative subs are bots, and hedgies are cheating! That dip was just a short ladder attack. That dip was just the shitty paper hands selling. That one was the hedgies cheating. Thousands of comments rolled in by the minute. Millions were accrued in losses, many by those who couldn't afford it, and yet, the GME-community lashed out at everyone else for doubting them. Wednesday rolled around and the stock could hardly break $100. But WHO were the idiots? The paper hands. The liars. The cheats. GME will return, they said anyway. The media is wrong. There was misdirected anger. Memes rooted in the thought that GME would rocket.
You guys knew the utter delusion that the threads became. I don't think I could describe it well, even if I wanted to. But here's the most delusional comment I've seen, the one I think perfectly sums up the GME-crowd:
"Stop questioning. You are told to buy and hold. Just follow directions."
Stop questioning. Just follow directions.
That is fucking groupthink.

What now?

I could really get into other contributing factors here. There have been a lot of IRL events that have probably been a catalyst for this; we've been seeing a lot of mistrust of the mainstream media, growing support for the rich vs. poor narrative, and mistrust of the government lately. There's been a lot of conspiracy theories and echo-chambers online.
I don't know the future of GME. I also know that there's some truth to the things that the GME-community has said: I'm sure there were bots in the subreddit. I'm sure there was market manipulation. But, like all truths man-handled by groupthink, it was warped beyond belief. Not everyone disagreeing with GME was a bot. Not all downward dips were market manipulation. But that's exactly what they believed.
So, where do we go from here?
There are many implications this phenomenon will have on an individual investing level and, with WSB, on a group-wide level. I hope that investors burned by the GME movement will learn the implications of emotional investing and FOMO-- we've certainly all been there before. I hope GME doesn't continue to become a massive conspiracy similar to Qanon (the rhetoric has evolved to be something scarily similar).
I'm curious to hear what everyone else's thoughts are. Let me know what you think.

[Video Games/Rollercoaster Tycoon] Theme Park Studio: How a developer set exceedingly high expectations and failed to meet them

Tl;dr: fans of a video game are excited about the release of what could be the spiritual successor of their video game. Said developer makes very bold promises and obviously fails to deliver, finally releasing a very disappointing game and alienating most of the community.
I recently stumbled upon this subreddit; I've enjoyed reading most of the posts here and figured I had a few stories to share as well. From 2012 to about 2018, I was active (though with intermittent breaks) in a community of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 players. This was a small community, with no more than a few hundred active members at its heyday and only a few people active now. Despite its small size, there were definitely a few memorable instances of drama. This is one of those stories; it actually involved another game called Theme Park Studio, which – as you may expect from the title – was not what it promised to be.
Background
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 was released in October 2004, developed by Frontier and published by Atari. It was primarily a theme park management game, where players have to earn money and keep guests happy in a theme park by constructing and maintaining rides, shops, paths, scenery and more. There was also a sandbox mode that allowed players to build without any monetary restrictions. A small but active community set out to build roller coasters and theme parks (and occasionally completely different projects) in this sandbox mode and share their results online.
While the game was good for its time and viewed positively by many, it did have some downsides. Firstly, the game used a grid: when placing rides and scenery, you were confined to this grid and had little freedom to place things where you want. Secondly, the roller coaster construction system was limited compared to similar games, and as a result most roller coasters were hardly very smooth. Thirdly, the game was poorly optimized. As an example: the game had a day-night cycle, but the game was basically unplayable at night, so people set the game to only daytime.
Over time, people became more and more ambitious in their projects, and these problems became more apparent. As a solution, lots of custom content (akin to mods in other games) was made by members of the community: custom scenery objects, custom rides and even custom roller coaster tracks. These objects were much more versatile and looked much better than most in-game content. As a result, people almost exclusively used custom content to build their projects. Combined with some smart picture and video editing, almost nothing was still recognizable from the original game.
While custom content brought a whole new level of versatility and arguably kept the community running for a long time, the aforementioned problems still persisted. Because the game was being pushed to its limits, people were wondering when a sequel was coming. By 2012, there was no word yet by Atari on a potential sequel, and many similar games from other video game publishers had failed to offer any meaningful improvement to Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. However, this was soon to change.
The spiritual successor
Enter Pantera Entertainment, a small, unknown video game publisher and developer. In November 2012, they posted a trailer to Theme Park Studio, which presented itself as a theme park building tool. Unlike Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, which had a focus on park management, the focus was on building attractive theme parks and rides. Many of the aforementioned issues were solved in this game: there was no grid-based system that dictated where you had to build, roller coasters could be constructed with much more freedom, and the graphics looked more modern. One major feature was the ability to import custom content. Obviously this was also possible in Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, but only using third-party software. That the developers were now anticipating for this was a good sign.
The community was generally excited about Theme Park Studio: it looked to be the spiritual successor to Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. The staff from Pantera would even visit the forums (at the time, most of the community was active through online messaging boards) and would happily provide updates, answer questions and take suggestions. This left a good impression with most of the community.
Over the coming months, more and more promises were being made on new features and huge amounts of content. The game was looking to become a very ambitious project. Now, it would later be discovered that little development had actually been done on the game: the trailer had really only showed footage from Pantera’s earlier title, Hyper Rails. Nevertheless, the release date was set for summer 2013, and the community was still optimistic for a long time.
In April 2013, a Kickstarter campaign was set up. For the uninitiated, Kickstarter allows for developers to source crowdfunding for a project. Developers set a goal and have a set time to achieve that goal. People can ‘back’ a project by donate towards that goal, and in return receive rewards based on the amount they donated. Money only goes towards the project if that goal is actually reached; otherwise the ‘backers’ receive their money back. Well, Pantera set a goal of $80.000 for Theme Park Studio, to be fulfilled within a month. Backer rewards were ambitious: lower amounts would get you the game for free, both a physical and digital copy, and perhaps some merchandise, while those who backed larger amounts were allowed to suggest or design certain rides for the game, and the highest-tier backers (think $500 or more, which only a few people donated) would get you an invitation to a big release party. Now, keep these rewards in mind, as they’ll become important later on.
It took a while and people feared the goal wouldn’t be met, but thanks to enough promotion and a few generous donations, about $100.000 was raised, and the goal was met. Despite Pantera’s ambitious promises, the community was optimistic. Some high-standing members of the community were even assisting in the development of the game and were offering their custom content – made for Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 – to be used in Theme Park Studio. Unfortunately, as we would later discover, this hard work would never really pay off.
Early access
The Kickstarter campaign offered a release date of September 2013. As time went on, it became very apparent that this was unachievable. The game was delayed several times; first to later in 2013, then to April 2014. Finally, they announced that instead of waiting for the complete game, Theme Park Studio would enter Early Access on Steam in February 2014.
Early Access allows people to play a game before its full release. People can play the game and offer feedback to the developers, who can use this feedback to improve the game and add new content in free updates to the players. In this case, that would mean that Theme Park Studio would first release as a basic theme park builder, and that other features, such as new rides and the custom content importer would be added later.
Early Access is an example of something that works well on paper, but is often butchered in practice. When done well, Early Access is a win-win situation: players don’t have to wait to play the game but can get involved in its development, and developers will receive money which they can use to fund the rest of the development. Unfortunately, it is rarely done well, and there are many games released through Early Access that are flat-out unplayable or clearly unfinished. Similarly, many games never leave Early Access or only leave many years later, because developers have little incentive to improve and complete a game they’ve already received money for.
Well, Theme Park Studio would turn out to fit the latter category. Upon release, the game was... disappointing. Most notable was the lack of ability to build roller coasters: players could only build flat rides (simple rides such as a merry-go-round or a Ferris wheel). The game was also poorly optimized and didn’t look particularly great. Still, many people called for the community to be patient and wait for new updates to come: Pantera had provided a route map for the implementation of further updates to provide some perspective.
This implementation was generally very slow. For example, the ability to build roller coasters – a rather essential part of a theme park construction tool - didn’t come until August that year; even then, people weren’t happy about it, as it was unintuitive and difficult to use, and many considered it hardly an improvement from Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. The community slowly grew divided. A sizeable group defended Theme Park Studio and called for people to be patient, but a growing group had become very critical of the game and its developers. However, besides lacking updates and producing a game of low quality, there were other glaring issues as well.
Pantera loses approval
Now, remember the aforementioned Kickstarter rewards? As time went on, it became increasingly clear that many of these rewards would never be released. Many people complained about not receiving digital access to the game once it was released through Early Access, despite promises from Pantera – and that was the easiest reward for them to fulfil. Even to this day, some people are yet to receive digital access. People were also losing hope about higher-tier rewards, such as physical copies of the game, merchandise and the release party.
Probably the most controversial reward tiers were those that allowed backers to design rides, however. More than 100 people had pledged enough money to have a ride suggestion implemented into the game. It turned out, however, that many of these suggestions would never see the light of day. On the forums, people complained about their suggestions being rejected, while some received no response from Pantera. When eventually an update was released that was supposed to contain rides suggested by backers, people noted that way fewer rides were added than that there were backers. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I think no more than 10% saw their rides actually published in-game.
Now, resentment grew towards Pantera for failing to uphold their end of the bargain and releasing an unfinished, low-quality game. By this time, there was also not much left of the actively involved, feedback-taking staff that represented the game when it was first announced: the developer became notorious for failing to take and accept constructive criticism. Many people had their posts removed and accounts banned from the official Theme Park Studio forum for speaking out against the developer.
Another absurd rule on their forums was their stance on ‘dark rides’, mainly indoor rides based around creating an atmosphere above being thrilling, such as a haunted house. As the name suggests, many dark rides are dark: the atmosphere is creepy or scary, and many horror themes are used. Well, the forum banned the posting of rides containing demonic themes or otherwise being ‘sacrilegious’, effectively meaning most dark rides. This pissed off the community, as quite a few people made dark rides and this was seen as infringement on their creativity. It also spawned a series of memes on rides that were “too dark and sinister for Theme Park Studio”. Another questionable decision by the development team was to add VR support; while becoming the only theme park building or management game to have it, it was generally criticised because it would add very little to the game and so many other aspects of the game needed much more working on. I’m sure there were other decisions made by Pantera that received significant backlash from the community, but these I remember best.
The aftermath
Over time, interest in Theme Park Studio faded away and people generally gave up hope that they would ever receive their Kickstarter rewards. There were still a few avid supporters of the game, but the broken promises, slow progress, disappointing results and bad PR meant most people in the community had changed their stance over the years. The game was forgotten and slowly faded into irrelevance. There was no real way for backers to get their money back or otherwise hold Pantera accountable for the unfulfilled promises, an issue that other failed Kickstarter campaigns unfortunately also have. Amazingly, some of the backers reported actually receiving a physical copy of the game, albeit five or six years after the initial Kickstarter campaign, but similarly there are still people waiting for their rewards to this date.
Theme Park Studio was finally released in December 2016, after many years in development. It released without much fanfare and definitely without a release party that backers had paid hundreds, sometimes even thousands of dollars for; many people didn’t even notice it had left Early Access. The game never took off and its reviews on Steam are mostly negative. The entire fiasco made people much more sceptical of other new games: from 2014 onwards, many other theme park simulation games were announced and released, but people were much more cautiously optimistic about these games (and rightfully so; many of them failed, but those are stories for another time).
Eventually, the true spiritual successor to Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 was released: Planet Coaster, developed by Frontier (the original developers of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3). It was released in November 2016, prompting some to think that the definitive release of Theme Park Studio only weeks later was a hasty attempt to piggyback off of that success. It did almost everything Theme Park Studio promised and offered the possibility to build much more detailed and complex rides. Over time, many people who played Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 switched over to Planet Coaster because of the vast improvements.
People generally forgot about Theme Park Studio, and many people wanted to leave it in the past. It’s hard to find many of the original forum posts on the topic. RCTLounge, one of the major forums on the topic, was closed in 2016 due to inactivity. In 2018, Shyguy’s World, another forum on the topic, actually removed the Theme Park Studios board and deleted all posts to forget about the ‘dark and sinister’ affair. As the forum’s owner said: “The first rule of Theme Park Studio... you do not talk about Theme Park Studio”. The official Theme Park Studios forums are also down and the website is vastly outdated. Most of this post was sourced by memories, the Wayback machine and the few threads I could still find.
Many people agreed that Pantera was probably a well-intentioned company that had simply bitten off more than they could chew. Clearly they had vastly underestimated the difficulty of this project and lost any drive to complete the project as it went on and support disappeared. Nevertheless, all the drama resulted in a bitter aftertaste for many people and changed people’s outlooks on the future releases of similar games.

My husband is currently on a vacation with his mistress & I'm confronting them...

Hello Reddit! Forgive me as I am new to the online community. Just wanted to tell my story and maybe get some input. I [37F] accidentally found out last month my husband [38M] was using 'work trips' as an excuse to sleep with his also married coworker who lives across the country. When I say accidentally; he sent me a screen shot of Amazon purchases for our children and included at the bottom of the photo was a delivery to this woman. So yes, the worried wife in me checked his search history and email. It was all right there! I learned his November trip was a romantic getaway but this current one is luxurious! A spa resort complete with couples massages, couples cooking classes and monogramed bathrobes from etsy. He mailed her a box of gifts a few days ago for Christmas (how sweet), he purchases sexy lingerie, sent her money on venmo and even started planning a January trip to Las Vegas. I was furious when I learn all this but I kept my composure.
My plan: He left this morning for his 'work trip' but before he left I gathered all evidence of his affair. I spent 4 weeks collecting emails, credit card statements, reservations and confirmations. I wrote him a 10 page letter, put it in an envelope and taped it inside the lining of his suitcase. I plan on sending a group text to him and his mistress right after check in telling them to enjoy their trip. I will also inform them that a letter is in his suitcase and that I want a divorce. I wrote a special section just for her and I want to make sure she sees it so I will be emailing her the letter as well.
He is currently in the air. My group text goes out this evening. Stay tuned...
UPDATE!
His flight landed 1 1/2 hours ago. He told me he would text me when he landed and he has yet to do so. I have text him twice, they were delivered but not read. I checked our phone records and he text both me and her during his lay over. His email shows no Uber receipt from his final destination airport to his hotel. She must have picked him up. Something I probably should have clarified in my OP. She lives in the state he is visiting. So he flew alone.
I will be sending a group text to both him and his mistress in 2 hours as that will be 4pm their time and check in.
UPDATE #2
Sent pictures of our children and he did not respond. FYI he is in the middle of the desert.
My texts are going through green which puts a monkey wrench in my plan for a group text to him and his mistress. Need suggestions. Should I call the hotel? Connect right to their room. I worked so hard for this, it has to be tonight. HELP!

UPDATE #3
Thank you to everyone standing by and waiting. My best friend has come to my house to help me through this. It seems my texts are going through green (undelivered) but when my friend tried it is blue and delivered.
HE HAS BLOCKED ME! I guess that helps his guilt.
The plan now is to call the hotel. Will wait a few minutes after check in to make the call. Very soon. Please stand by.

UPDATE #4
Like most of you predicted he does not care, He had zero answers for my questions. That was. the mot hurtful part. But guess what, I have all the emotional support and economic support so i'm not mad. Every question I asked he had no response because his mistress was sitting there. I suspect when he is home alone with me, his answers will be different. I have made sure that he will not emotionally and financially fuck me because I have secured support from family and friends. He can go FUCK himself!!!!!!
UPDATE #5
Called his hotel room. Talked to his mistress and finally lost my shit. He ended up calling me a few minutes later and had zero empathy. I'm shocked, but I'm not. He said a divorce was in order and fought me on nothing. I expected him to be sad, he was not, but thats ok. I started packing up his shit, I have some great friend who helped me put everything in the garage. Good riddance? I guess so...
The Morning After
I wake this morning broken. My house is in shambles as I went on a rampage yesterday ripping photos off the wall, throwing his stuff in piles on the floor and breaking random objects in anger. Now that I've had a nights sleep I feel that I am a bit clearer in my thinking as I analyze the 'conversation' we had yesterday. He was different on the phone. That was not the man I know, but who was the man I've known? Because everything was a lie. The only thing he cared about on the phone was getting the kids. Which is perfectly ok, he should want to see his kids. But he refused to answer any question I had or admit to anything. I personally feel his lack of remorse was because he was sitting in front of his mistress. If I confronted him at home this would not have been his reaction. When he comes home Monday night I expect to see a different man. Also, in my conversation with the mistress I learned she is recently separated.
I called my mom. That was hard. While she and my dad have always been loving and supporting it was hard to make that phone call. I felt like a failure. I know it wasn't my doing but to admit that I made a poor choice in a spouse was difficult. Was this all because of a mistake I made 13 years ago? Honestly it doesn't matter. I have 2 days to empty my house of his things.
Who do I tell? Do I call his dad? Do I tell his mother? Best friend? Work buddies? I wish there was a manual on how to do this because I'm lost. Even with all my preparation I'm still humiliated.
Luckily he did not take his house keys when he left. So no need to change the locks, I'll be removing his keys and sending him on his way. I don't plan on seeing him when he gets home Monday night. Doors are locked, everything you own is in the garage, have your people talk to my people and I'll see you never.
Preparing for the Return
My friends and family have been wonderful. I am so fortunate to have such great people in my life. Yesterday they came to help me move all of his clothing to the garage. His collectibles were all packed up and sitting here, waiting to be appraised. It took a very long time and I was exhausted afterwards; but it was necessary. I honestly don't think he expects me to have gone to such great lengths to remove him from my life. Because I was so emotional when I confronted him there is a chance that he thinks I will want to reconcile. Fat chance, buddy. His flights lands a little before 10pm tonight. When he Ubers back home the doors will be locked. He told me on the phone he was just getting his car and leaving. I will be holding him to that. Something I should have mentioned earlier, the house is in my name only. He had no credit when we first started looking so everything is in my maiden name and purchased by me. Health insurance, car insurance, cell phones, utilities are all in my name. The only thing his name is on is his car. I think he realizes now that could all come back to bite him. I don't want a messy divorce, I'm willing to listen to his demands and try and meet in the middle on as many things as possible. He obviously doesn't care anymore so I'm going to do my best to not care and treat this like a business deal.
Update late tonight on his return. Thank you to everyone following and showing support. You are appreciated.
The Dust has Settled
It's been a few days since his return. For a man who so diligently planned a secret retreat with his mistress he took no time to plan for his return 'home.' He has been living in the basement since Monday. I allowed him to watch the children open gifts on Christmas but he has since returned to the basement. We have contacted 3 mediators and have appointments next week to start the mediation process. It's obviously over. We had a conversation/argument upon his return and he actually asked about reconciliation. I laughed. I laughed uncontrollably. Of course he pushed blame stating that our marriage has been over for a long time. Well, that's news to me. His actions of an affair were selfish and avoidant. He didn't want to have that hard conversation with me about counseling or divorcing and this route was easier and a lot more fun. Let's face it, he likes the attention of 2 women loving and pining over him. Well, I'm not longer playing that game. She wins, and oh what a prize he is! I have been amicable about talking about the terms of our separation. My biggest hang up is her. He may continue seeing her and I have questions about her character. What kind of woman/mother cheats with a man she knows is married and knows has children? When I confronted her on the phone last Saturday and asked her that question she was silent. I asked if she was 'sorry' and it was as if the line went dead. That kind of person I do not want around my children. People who show no remorse, especially when they are in the wrong, are not kind people.
I have found solace in friends and family and thank you to everyone's recommendation of ChumpLady. I'm half way through the book, read through the website and find it so helpful. Thank you again to everyone. I can't believe the outpouring of support. To the trolls, sorry you think I'm an unfit and inattentive wife, but cheaters cheat because they want to. Thank you again to all, not sure if you want a mediation update or if my story is over. Either way, I'm happy to have 'met' you all.
Where is the 'fault'?
If you listen to the books and advice always given about cheaters it all says the same thing: It's not you, they made a choice. MY STBX insists things were bad. While I don't think we were Pam and Jim or Lucy and Ricky, I think things were good. This process has made me review who I am, who I've been and who I want to be. Could I have made changes? Yes. Was I perfect? Absolutely not. But my decisions and actions were never detrimental to our marriage. They were more like sacrifices. And now I'm having those sacrifices thrown at me and I'm being called neglectful. Is all this about attention? A narcissistic need to be the apple of someone's eye? Him and the AP are now blissfully in the honeymoon stage. Vacations, late night phone calls like teenagers, present buying, etc. But what happens when the other shoe drops? What happens when she sees that he has very little patience with children? That he will walk past a a sink full of dishes completely blind to them? When he doesn't pay the phone bill for 2 months because he is spending money on silly gadgets? What then? While it's not my problem, I'm sure his AP will take issue with these things. Perhaps then she will be put in the situation I've been in for a decade. Should she be the glue and hold it all together or should she neglect responsibilities for his neediness? I've been told by him ( someone who is having a relationship and spending large sums of money on someone else) that I'm at fault. Perhaps, but what about the decades of cleaning up your messes? Maybe if I would have had 2 hour conversations with him every night things would be different, but to be honest, I'm happy I'm here. Now reflecting back I see how under appreciated I was. How neglected I was. All these year I thought I was helping but I was really being taken advantage of and this affair is no different.
Just a word of advice to all the mess cleaners, excuse makers, and spouse sheltering people reading this. Stop. Stop now. I've learned that all the 'helping' is simply them learning how to manipulate you. Draw that line in the sand. Prepare for an uncomfortable situation when they start to stumble under the pressures of real life. But don't lose yourself. I lost myself years ago and it's not a place you want to be.
Mediation & The Move.
We had our first mediation appointment via Zoom yesterday. It was very amicable, but only because I don't want to fight and I just want this to be over. He apparently wants nothing. Not the house, not the furniture, not what he's entitled to of my pension; he just wants to be done as well. As I've been packing up things in the house to declutter I've been offering him things, but he wants nothing. I suspect the moment our marriage is dissolved he will be packing up his collectables and clothing and driving across the country to live with her. I guess I should be ok with this as I don't want to be married to him anymore. It just kills me that he will be moving in with her and helping her raise her 2 children while mine are fatherless. It makes me so angry. Seething. The man who was abandoned by his father is now doing the same thing. Something he said would never ever happened because of the mental issues it has given him today. Well, it looks like that, as well as mostly everything else, was a lie. Again, I take solace in the fact that their honeymoon phase will be short lived. Reality will smack them both in the face and she will realize that he can be more hurt than help.
While I wish him well and hope the best, our kids deserve more than a Christmas/Easteone week in the summer father. No dad at basketball games, cub scouts, birthday parties and school plays. Meanwhile AP will have him and her children's biological father. I guess nothing in life is fair and my boys will have to learn that lesson early than I had hoped.
He's Gone.
My STBX left yesterday morning to visit her. I told him to go. I didn't want to spend NYE with him and our COVID circle friends who we celebrate with have zero interest in seeing him either. He booked a flight 30 minutes after I told him to go. My only stipulation was that he is back for this weekend as it's my birthday and I really need a day to myself. I've watched the kids for 3 weekends now while he went to see his mistress, I thought I at least deserved my birthday to relax. He text me while he was boarding that he won't be home for my birthday. Well then... He claims when he booked this he booked a return for the evening of my birthday. When he tried to change it he was put on standby, it would cost $1000 to change, it was a red eye etc. The excuses kept coming. He apparently does not realize I have access to the internet as well and flights are less than $300 with the airline he flew. I told him this and he said those flights weren't there when he booked (lies) and he will take care of it. I just want him to be honest. If you don't want to be here for my birthday, just say it. If you don't want to spend the day with your children, just tell me. I can't force you to be a parent. I told him the flights were available and affordable, it's his choice to rebook. Ball is in your court. That's all I can do, right? Stay tuned for an update on his return this weekend..
NYE Nightmare.
It was 12:40am on NYE and there was still no call from him. I was angry for no other reason than I explained to the kids that even though daddy wasn't with us he would call at midnight to talk to them and wish them a Happy New Year. I was made to be a liar. So, I text my STBX and his excuse was, 'they are with their friends, I didn't want to bother them'. Excuse me? Bother them? You mean you didn't want your kids to bother you is what you are really saying. If I was across the country on NYE without my kids I would have called and done the countdown with them via facetime. I think most parents would. But not him. He said, "If you would have told me that you told the kids I'd call then I would have." He tried to spin this on me, that I created this mess. Why do I have to tell you that you need to call your children at midnight? This small act said a lot to me. Our children are not a priority. I guess he didn't want to ruin his perfect vacation at his new girlfriend's house with her children. He has a nice new family now. Today is my birthday and he returns this evening. I told him in my NYE text that I will speak to him on the 12th, our next mediation meeting because I'm done. I tried to be civil for the kids but he is not putting forth the effort for them.
Liar Liar, Pants on Fire.
The past few days have been strange. We rarely talk (a decision on both our parts) and when we do it's about mediation, plans moving forward, or the kids. We have been civil and communicating well about those items. We are also friendly in front of the children as not to upset them. The situation is strange because we are getting along, there is no arguing, it's a shared focus to just get through mediation and divorce. That's fine by me. Last night while I was cleaning the kitchen I heard him on the phone in the basement. I guess he didn't realize the door was left open by one of the children. Not wanting to be a part of the drama anymore I went to close the door. At that point I heard him tell her how 'crazy' I have been acting. Excuse me? We don't speak and when we do it's very civil. How is that crazy? Well, he proceeded to tell her about a conversation we had and he lied about everything. While the conversation part was true he told her I exploded, I was in a rage, I was crying etc. None of that was true. He explained how he laughed in my face at my rage, also not true because there was no rage. I had told him awhile back before the NYE debacle that I would start dating eventually and he proceeded to tell her that I was bragging about guys I'm meeting. So far from the truth. I slammed the basement door. I'm sure he knows I heard. So I ask, 'Why the need to lie and make me a villain?' We aren't staying together, I have no reason to fight with you anymore, that's why we are paying a mediator. Why start lying to your new girlfriend that you love? How is that a good way to start a relationship? I don't know what is happening here...
This is my concern: This woman and him are in love and want to start a life together. Ok, thats fine, God bless and congrats. But, this woman only knows me by the stories (which I'm assuming are all lies) he has told her about me. If he does move across the country to be with her, how can I trust a woman who hates me because of misinformation to treat my children properly? I don't care if she hates me personally, I'll still sleep fine at night, but now I'm worried about sending my kids in the summer to stay with them. I want to confront him about this but I know I can't. Maybe it's not that I can't, but I don't know how. Also, he has told no one we are separated and definitely has not told people why. How come? You initiated this, you cheated, you are happy now, so why can't you tell people? He told his father that he was bringing the kids alone to visit him because he and I 'weren't seeing eye to eye at the moment.' What?! I would assume he's afraid to face the music or is just finding comfort in the little love bubble he has created. He chooses to not face reality. He has yet to look for an apartment for when the divorce is finalized but has booked another fight out to see her for Valentine's Day. He is refusing to face reality and it's so frustrating.
We have mediation on 1/12 to discuss custody and hope that we can settle everything and get the paperwork moving. I'm having a scheduled phone conversation with a lawyer today to discuss what I should ask for in terms of physical and legal custody when he moves. Update you all (if you want it of course) on mediation after the 12th.
Mediation and Empty Promises
Yesterday was our second mediation appointment. While it was amicable, there was some obvious tension. The tension was not on my end but more on his. Let me explain... During our first mediation we brought up the topic that he might move out of state. At yesterdays meeting I asked what we would do about custody if he moves to this particular state. When I mentioned the state by name the mediator was confused. This prompted her to ask him why this state that is so far away. His answer? "Well......." Then silence. He couldn't put into words the fact that he was leaving to be with his girlfriend. I had to finally chime in realizing we are paying by the hour that he was moving to be with his girlfriend. I realized later that was the first time he had semi-confessed to having an affair and a girlfriend to anyone. If you love this person so much why can't you just say it out loud? That whole situation confuses me.
Anyway, when it comes to dollars and cents I will be fine. He will also be fine. He will have enough to do what he needs and so will I. We have agreed to a physical custody scenario that allows him weekend and dinner visits. Fine by me, I want my boys to have their father. But, the situation becomes a bit more difficult when he moves. While he said yesterday he plans to stay here at least a year, I doubt that will actually happen. When he does move across the country he wishes to return for one weekend of every month to see the boys. Again, I'm fine with this scenario but where will he stay that weekend? He has no family. Will he just be taking the boys to a hotel? Again, I don't think he actually thought this through. This is a problem I/we will tackle when he does decide to move.
Lastly, the mediator said it could take about 2 months to finalize everything. He and I spoke after the session to go over some facts and figures and I brought up the tentative finalization date of our marriage. I told him how 2 months is a good amount of time to save some money and find an apartment to which he agreed. I also reminded him about his promise to not return to visit her until our divorce is finalized or he has a place to live. He quickly became frustrated telling me that he knew and tried to shut down the conversation. I told him I'm happy that we are on the same page but I'm not budging. If you leave while you still live here you can not come back, that is something we both agreed to.
Now the big question remains; Who does he break a promise with? Obviously it's a win win for me, stay home and help me with the kids while you save $500+ and move out quickly or leave to visit her and I get you out of the house sooner. I'm happy with either decision. I just want to move on with my life and enjoy my moments with my children.
Out For A Swim
When I took this dive into the Reddit community I had no idea where I would land. I thought my feet would hit shallow ground and I would be ankle deep on the banks in an uncomfortable swimsuit all alone. But to my surprise this deep ocean of Reddit readers have engulfed me into their warm waters and I am surrounded by a sea of support. For this I am thankful. I am also so touched by the droves of people who have reached out for advice or offered their own experiences as lessons to be learned. To the ones seeking advice I tell them, I am not an expert swimmer. I am merely doggy paddling through this sea of hurt and confusion. Please don't use me as a sign of strength. Because the truth is, I am not strong, I am you. I am the woman who reads because they are suspicious of late night phones call her husband takes. I am the spouse who has shouldered the entire family and is in desperate need of support. I am the woman who misses affection from her husband who is next to her in bed every night. I. Am. You. To those people who have yet to catch their partner cheating but are suspicious, trust your gut. Cheating is a coward's choice so be braver than them and face the truth. To the spouse who is 'the fixer' and takes on every challenge, take a step back. When you help (even with good intention) you are actually just hurting yourself. To the spouse who has tried everything to receive physical attention from their partner but to no avail, their affection is probably going somewhere else. These are lesson I wish I could have told myself months, if not years ago. Listen to me. Or just listen to you.
To the sharks in water who call me a 'bad mom', 'a crazy bitch', 'fake' or even just think I'm out of my mind, you will find no blood in this water. So it's best you move on and find a thread where the OP will chum the water for you. It's so very easy to read and judge, this I understand. I just hope that if this ever happens to you that you will be as brave, logical and composed as you expect others to be. If not, you will find sharks circling you as well. So I hope you are as strong of a swimmer as you claim to be.
If you are still reading, my saga/survival continues. Our final mediation papers will arrive this week. We were able to settle everything at the last meeting on 1/12 and the documents just need our signature. After that, the divorce papers need to be served and filed with the county. Then we await our court date which will be done via Zoom. Yes, a bit anticlimactic, but it will still serve its purpose of divorcing. He has started (finally) to look for an apartment but nothing is to his satisfaction. Maybe he is being picky or maybe he is comfortable living in the basement. Either way, once the divorce papers are stamped he needs to be gone. He has started making phone calls to her during the day and I can hear him giggling downstairs. I'm happy he is happy, I really am. That isn't passive aggressive. I know I will be happy one day too, he just got there first and that's ok. I feel like my life is in limbo right now. I can't move forward because I'm chained to the past. I'm hoping his move will be soon. I suspect he wants out for February 1st so he can go visit her for Valentines Day. I hope for his sake (and mine) that he makes his deadline. I will update again after I receive the mediation paperwork and divorce papers are served. I'm sure that will stir up a lot of thought and emotion so I'm certain it will be a doozy. Till then, I'll keep doggy paddling.

GME - possible scenarios, FOMO and exit plans.

TL;DR - No. You will have to read this one. It took a lot of research and typing to prepare this for you. But personally I'm a GME believer and it WILL fly 🚀.
So you bought GME shares because strangers online told you to and you begin to ask yourself if you are retarded. The answer is yes, yes you are. But there is a good chance you are a lucky retard. If you are FOMO guy you have to decide which scenario is more likely and enter if you believe in happy endings.
There is a lot of noise regarding GME and there is barely any good DD anymore. This is why I decided to put this together. You have to keep in mind that I am a retard myself and not an OG GME gang. I entered GME in January at $19, paper handed in worst possible moment at $32 because I thought squeeze has sqoze. I am now back in the game and reinvested my profit and more back into GME. Only reason why I feel competent to do this is because a) I read a lot about GME and shovel through all the noise to find meaningful info b) apparently no one else is willing to do it properly.
So here it goes from the worst case to the best. All possible scenarios I can think of. If I miss anything or I messed something up, please let me know and I will update this list. This is not a financial advice. You have to make up your own mind and if you can actually read, do your own research.

"WE ARE FUCKED!" scenarios:

Ryan Cohen played us all (EDIT: it appears this scenario is impossible. Leaving this up as another proof that I am indeed retarded.) In this scenario RC sells or already sold his shares. We have been duped and it all has been pump and dump. We are all royally fucked.
For this scenario:

RC, despite what you can read around here, is not your actual daddy. He is a business man looking to make profit.

Against this scenario:

RC is fucking rich and if he wanted, he could already retire.
It would ruin his credibility.

How do we know it is happening:

We learn through official paperwork that RC sold his shares, price reaches near 0 within minutes.

My personal opinion:

Near zero chance this happens. But if its does, Price Target (PT) is very low.

GME is practically bankrupt It turns out that RC comes in too late. GME is bankrupt in few months.
For this scenario:

That was shorters play from the beginning.

Against this scenario:

According to DD posted by people on WSB, GME books look good.
New console cycle, stimulus money, post COVID optimism all point that GME should be afloat longer then we need them to.

How do we know it is happening:

We learn through official paperwork that GME is in a very bad condition.

My personal opinion:

Very low chance that this happens due to againsts. But if its does, Price Target (PT) is 0.

Shorters pull a fast one on us In this scenario institutions find a way to squeeze margin positions, outplay options and wait out long positions.
For this scenario:

They have written the rules of the game and honestly, they know much better how to play it then us.

Against this scenario:

If they could do it they would probably have already done it instead of loosing almost a billion in options last Friday.

How do we know it is happening:

Serious price drop on Tuesday despite short restrictions.
Price falls in following days below $20 per share and refuses to come back up for a very long time.

My personal opinion:

Non-zero chance this happens. It is possible. But IMO unlikely because I believe that if they could save their options they would have done it already. PT: uncertain but definitely below $20. $10-$15 if I had to guess.

Neutral scenarios:

We are in a deadlock aka. "neutral but actually bad" In this case old shorts are actually covered and we have new shorts on our hands. Price volatility and actual price slowly decrease. Both sides play a waiting game. RC and GME are radio silent for few months.
For this scenario:

Institutions has already proven that they are committed to their shorts. And they will not admit defeat.
Shorts have more money and patience.
If shorts are replaced by new ones, they will not bleed (but that's unlikely).
We believe, but a lot of us have paper hands and/or can't afford to keep cash frozen to wait this out.
Hype will die down and with it our conviction.

Against this scenario:

If the price settles above $30 or even better above $35, shorts will bleed money.
If the price remains low ($30 or below), there may come other large investors for a long position after they realize that this is a good value investment. This would trigger good scenarios.

How do we know it is happening:

Price volatility decreases over next week or two and settles probably somewhere between $25 and $35.

My personal opinion:

Honestly I'm mostly afraid of this scenario. But at the same time it's not very likely that shorts are replaced. Then again, if nothing major happens relativly soon, this is still a likely scenario. PT: $25-$30 for months to come until one side wins.

We are in a deadlock aka. "neutral but actually good" In this case price volatility slowly decreases, and both sides play a waiting game. RC and GME are radio silent for few months. But in this scenario we overcome our collective retardation and show how strong we are through our unity. Price slowly rises over next months as shorts slowly close their positions.
For this scenario:

If the price settles above $30 or even better above $35, shorts will bleed money and will be covering their shorts.
One should never underestimate autists.

Against this scenario:

United retards with diamond hands? Retail investors are market makers? I want to believe that we have that power but lets keep it real.

How do we know it is happening:

Price volatility decreases over next week or two and settles probably somewhere between $25 and $35. But the trend will become upward after that.

My personal opinion:

Hard to say. I think some actually good scenarios are more likely then this one.

Good scenario:

Slow and steady short squeeze We win! Shorts are out of ammo, Friday dip was their last hail Mary to stop loses on their puts and are forced to close their position. GME begins it's burn to the moon!
For this scenario:

Shorts are already kind of fucked.
Big investment firms have proven many times before that they are arrogant and they can be very wrong.
GME is shorted into oblivion and unless it declares bankruptcy in next weeks or months they will HAVE to exit.
Any good news will make this only more likely (like new investor reveals that they are getting involved for a long position).

Against this scenario:

Like I said before, we don't exactly know what shorts could have up their sleeve.
If shorts are replaced by new ones they will not be forced.

How do we know it is happening:

Price jumps on Tuesday and continues the trend more slowly later even without short restrictions.

My personal opinion:

It's likely and this is my bet. PT: very hard to say but could be anywhere between $60 and $200 or even way more in next weeks or months.

Mother of all Short Squeezes

We make history It turnes out RC actually is your father. In next few days or weeks he reveals his master plan and shorts are royally fucked. They will sing songs about us.
For this scenario:

All of the "good scenarios" fors, but the good news is actually something big RC or GME reveals that sends shorts running for their life.

Against this scenario:

RC signed a document that prohibits him from acquiring more then 20% shares and while float is low compared to shorts, it's not enough for MOASS.

How do we know it is happening:

Price opens at $200 or $400 and only goes up. Sorry FOMO guys, the rocket missed the Moon is already past Jupiter.

My personal opinion:

I and many others dream that RC drops a bomb before Tuesday, but I honestly give this maybe 10% chance of happening. PT: a random number between $420.69 and infinity.

Dear FOMO guys

If you decide that GME hype is not empty and that the Moon is within reach, please buy non leveraged shares. Margin, leverage or options could fuck you up short term even if in the end we win.

My position:

254 long shares at $35.90, 205 leveraged shares at $36.48 (most protected down to $23, considering protecting them even more). Don't judge me, I am europoor.

35 life lessons I wish I learned years earlier

My name is Jared A. Brock. Having just turned 35, I sat down to reflect on everything I’ve learned so far and made a list of the things I wish I learned far sooner. None of these are rules or commands for you to follow, just personal reflections from a decade of journaling. I hope they save you a lot of time, energy, and struggle:

1. “Save the best for last” is terrible advice.

A French monk taught me this one. Every morning, I put on the newest pair of socks in my drawer. Why wear the rattiest pair? When I sit down to eat, I eat the tastiest bits first. Why let them get cold? After every shower, I put on my favorite clean t-shirt. I have a great bottle of 10-year-old Laphroaig scotch in my cupboard, but I probably won’t drink it for months because I received two bottles of reactor-aged Lost Spirits single malt for Christmas.
Why? Because life is hard enough and we aren’t promised tomorrow. This doesn’t mean we should throw caution to the wind and “live in the moment” at all times, but it does mean we should try to find the golden middle and glean a little bit of pleasure from every day we’re blessed to live. “Save the best for last” is poverty-mentality thinking. It expects worse in the future. Enjoy the best right now — in your marriage, parenting, work, travel, faith, friendship, contribution. Keep all the chips on the table. Be ready at all times to leave without regret.

2. Tools use us.

A hammer literally cannot hit a nail without using a human. A saw cannot cut through a board without using a human. A phone cannot deliver ads without using a human.

3. Avoid false dichotomies.

When given two great options, choose both. When given two horrible options, choose neither.

4. Failure is overcome by one word.

“Next.”

5. Ambition is ruinous for your happiness.

Most goal-setters (myself included) live much of life in anticipation of tomorrow, and when that day arrives, they’re either disappointed by their failures or underwhelmed by their successes.
Instead: trust the process. Whiskey, pasta, bread, beer, and cereal all require just two ingredients — wheat and water — but the outcome is completely different based on the process. Identity precedes action. Determine what you want to be, then find the process that will get you there every single time.

6. Forget what the market wants.

Listen to your gut. Your body knows the difference between good and great. Someone said you should never record a song or code an app or write an article unless it makes you laugh, cry, or orgasm. If an idea doesn’t move you, it won’t move an audience, no matter how “commercial” you think it is.

7. Give yourself a shove.

The best way to eat more candy, drink more vodka, and smoke more cigarettes is to leave them in the middle of the kitchen counter.
You get it. Willpower is useless. Instead, line up a series of little nudges to automatically get you through your day. If you want to work out, leave your shorts by the door or your cleats in your fridge. My blue diode glasses rest on top of my laptop so I have to protect my eyes before logging online. I can’t not see my vitamins when I brush my teeth, or chia seeds when I reach for the Brita. There’s a book beside my bed, toilet, desk, and car’s gear shifter.
Line up enough nudges and you can shove yourself in the right direction.

8. Grandma didn’t use toilet paper.

She used pages from the Sears catalog. Splinter-free wasn’t available until 1935. The Romans used sponges. The Greeks used clay. Francois Rabelais recommended using “the neck of a goose.” Arabians used their left hand.
Never assume our extremely unique cultural moment is “normal.”

9. Ninety-nine isn’t enough.

Water boils at 100 degrees Celcius. The difference between 99 and 100 is the difference between zero and one. Not-boiling, boiling.
Corollary: 101 doesn’t make it any more boiling.

10. Old people know better.

Honoring our elders is one of the most underrated practices in our newness-obsessed society. Sure, there are a ton of old crazy far-right conspiracy theorists, but there are also good people who have survived four wars, six recessions, and twelve presidents and are somehow still smiling. Get to know them.
Also: meet your old-person self. I try to invent a new word every week — one of them is preflection. To ponder the present through the eyes of your future self. Take an hour in silence to listen to your eighty-year-old self. They might know something you don’t.

11. Fire all your employees.

The employer-employee relationship creates an unhealthy power dynamic between humans that simply didn’t exist when we worked cooperatively to feed our clan or village. I love my work life so much more now that I only work with independent entrepreneurs who are my equals. For me, it’s either a one-man show (my writing business), an equal partnership (my film company), or a co-operative endeavor. Life’s too short to be a boss or be bossed around.

12. Accept that you are a voracious locust of doom.

Nail a roll of paper to the wall and write down everything you consume for a year — food, toilet paper, electricity, car fuel, movies, music, social media content, other people’s time, everything. See what I mean?
Saint Augustine said that the human heart can only fully be satisfied by one thing aside from God himself: everything. All the sex, all the money, all the power, all the possessions, all the glory. All of it. Nothing short of everything could ever fully satiate the human heart. We are wired for more.
Understanding this truth is the first step toward real contentment.

13. Awkward is awesome.

My best friend says that The Office gave society a beautiful gift: the ability to embrace cringe. When you meet someone new and it’s slightly weird, pretend you’re Michael Scott. Just glory and bask in the discomfort.
You can awkward-proof your life by being bold: Ask for discounts. Ask for refunds. Ask for phone numbers. Ask for pay raises. Ask inappropriate questions at inappropriate times. Lather yourself in awkward and pretty soon nothing sticks.

14. Happiness isn’t the purpose of life.

Hitler really was following his bliss by offing millions of Jews. I’m sure Jeffrey Dahmer genuinely enjoyed the taste of human flesh. Bernie Madoff seemed content to bilk charities for decades.
Happiness isn’t the purpose of life. It’s not even in the top ten. Happiness is a seasonal fruit, not a foundational root. Find firm and fertile ground.

15. There is no ugly.

My grandpa re-proposed to my grandma on their fiftieth wedding anniversary and called her the most beautiful woman he’s ever known. Old wrinkly grandma? Yes. Because we choose our definition of beauty through our thoughts, disciplines, habits, and patterns, be they conscious or otherwise.

16. We are what we consume.

The statistical average American is a walking bodybag of sugar, alcohol, caffeine, porn, pills, and digital stimulus. Imagine how different life would be if our only inputs were nature, sleep, sunlight, organic food, and embodied human interaction?
Guard your inputs carefully.

17. We’re going to die quite soon.

Make sure you live first. Practicing memento mori will help.

18. Fame is poison.

One in four Gen Zers thinks they’ll be famous by age 25. One in 3.9999999 Gen Zers are going to have a miserably disappointing life.
Why do people desire the attention of strangers? Because we all need to love and be loved, to know and be known, but are too afraid to risk personal heartbreak to seek it out. Attention is not affection. Influence is not intimacy.

19. Boomers are to blame for half our troubles.

The Me Generation took a free ride at the planet’s expense and are hellbent on taking the rest of it with them. They’re statistically low on empathy — blame the lead, asbestos, and hairspray if you must — but at least acknowledge the reality that life is hard for everyone, and no one has it easier.

20. Children are dope.

Kids are the blood transfusion in our sick system. We need to stop manipulating, brainwashing, colonizing, and propagandizing them, and learn from them instead.

21. It doesn’t have to hurt.

Joy is a choice.

22. Watch comedy before calls and meetings.

Five minutes of gut-busting laughter will prime you for even the most tedious conference call. Your co-workers and customers all have tough lives like everybody else, so brighten their day by pre-brightening your own.

23. No ragrets.

Tattoo it on your neck. Most people play it far too safe. Instead: optimize your life for the least number of regrets and the most amount of selfless contribution.

24. There are better ways to vote.

I’ve manned several local voting stations, and I’ve also hob-nobbed with politicians in Canada, America, and the UK. The reality is that they don’t work for us. They work for their corporate sponsors and private interests.
Democracy isn’t dead. It just hasn’t happened yet, with all attempts to date being stillborn or aborted. Democracy = one voice one vote. Athens wasn’t a democracy — women, slaves, and tenants had zero say. America isn’t a democracy either — no representative system is, because it’s far too easy for private interests to buy politicians. The charade of voting is illusory. All elections are sham elections.
So what to do? Vote with your money and time and attention. One sham vote every four years versus tens of thousands of dollar-votes each year? It’s a no-brainer. My wife and I haven’t stepped foot in a Walmart in more than a decade because thousands of its suppliers are based in China, the billionaire heirs are anti-democratic tax-avoiders, and they treat their employees like indentured servants. Vote for pro-democracy third-party candidates if you must — just understand the game, and vote in the ways that actually matter.

25. Everything easy has already been done.

So run a little further.
And if it hasn’t been done, it won’t be as easy as it appears. The question to ask is: what’s been standing in the way this whole time? Achievement is all about knocking down obstacles. Just make sure what’s on the other side is rightly worth the effort.

26. Broccoli still tastes terrible.

But you’re not a child anymore. Adults do hard things.

27. Fixed-order scheduling > fixed-hour scheduling.

Discipline is great, but it’s also subject to the law of diminishing returns. Life is just too dynamic to schedule with military precision. Free yourself from the tyranny of “only people who wake up at 5 AM are successful.”
All hours are not created equal. It depends on your sleep drive and chronotype. Know yourself. Unapologetically get more sleep, then do your best work at your best time in your best state.

28. “Freedom” isn’t freedom.

America wasn’t founded on freedom. America was founded on violent autonomy.
The ancient Greeks had an entirely different definition of freedom: it was the ability to choose the right regardless of circumstance.

“We talk about freedom all the time, but we’ve stopped talking about freedom a long time ago. Now we’re talking about autonomy. Freedom is different than autonomy. Freedom has boundaries. Truth is one of those boundaries. And morality is one of those boundaries. Autonomy is the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want in whatever way you want. The problem is this: If I’m autonomous and another person is autonomous, and I have preferences and those matter more than the truth, and that person has preferences and their preferences matter more than the truth, when two autonomous preference-seeking beings come together and their preferences don’t match, who is going to win? If truth is on the bottom shelf, truth won’t decide. What will decide will be power. And isn’t it ironic that in our quest for “freedom”, someone gets enslaved?” — Abdu Murray

29. The Marines were right: slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

As teenagers, my friend Tyler and I were in a hurry to get somewhere quickly so we drove 120+ miles per hour for forty-five straight minutes before nearly crashing when the speed burned a footlong gash through the tire. By the time we replaced it with a spare, we were late to our destination by more than an hour.
But nevermind driving. Pump the life-brakes sometimes, or at least, let off the gas. You might get there faster, with less wear-and-tear on the engine.

30. The quest for wealth is destroying life.

We’ve commodified land, water, shelter, clothing, art, time, and nearly everything else. Very little remains, and it’s amassing into fewer hands.
We need a shared global vision. My invented word for it is benevitae: the sustainable flourishing of all creation. Our collective goal should be socioenviroeconomic sustainability. Where to start? We’d do well to let biology determine ecological sustainability and real democracy to determine economic fairness. Our current trajectory is worse than the Space Shuttle Challenger.

31. Most “leaders” aren’t leaders.

Celebrities, politicians, and book-hocking business gurus all call themselves leaders. They’re not.
Real leadership is influence that serves. True leaders are selfless and servant-hearted. They put the best interests of others ahead of their own. Politics and media, by comparison, attracts sociopaths like flies to firelight. Never give power to those who seek it. Nearly everyone worth following is dead.

32. Divide-and-conquer is a business model.

Near the end of high school, dozen friends and I binge-watched multiple seasons of LOST in our friend Mike’s basement. It was one of the most hilarious, riotous, enjoyable experiences we had as a group.
And it was the last show we ever watched together.
People used to go to restaurants in large numbers, to the movies by the dozen, climbing over each other for one of the limited video game controllers, packing out our churches, cheering on our sports teams by the busload. We were almost never alone, and we were far happier. Now we order in, watch Netflix, stream Minecraft, catch the highlights, watch porn, and go to bed. It’s killing us.
Resist the urge to be alone. It’s too easy, and it’s the exact opposite of what we really need. The #1 thing that’s correlated to human happiness is human togetherness.

33. Self-improvement won’t save us.

The great lie of individualist-consumerist culture is that we can improve our way to personal perfection and communal utopia. But it’s incrementalism at best.
It’s just chasing infinity.

34. We know nothing +/-.

On the scale of all that is known, and all that is knowable, our individual understanding is essentially mathematically zero. The entirety of human knowledge is a rounding error.
This is the beginning of humility.

35. The sun is not on fire

I was at an observatory in the Davis Mountains in Texas, and it was the first time I’d paid attention to astronomy since grade school. For three decades, I’d wrongly assumed the sun was a giant ball of flames.
But there’s no fire in space because there’s no oxygen in space. (It just looks like fire because of how our eyes perceive light through the atmosphere and prism.) As I stared at the real-time image of the sun on the observatory wall, I nearly wept. The sun actually looks like a giant, boiling, grey brain.
And then it hit me: I have so many assumptions to set aside and so much left to learn. So pay attention. Don’t worship the “question everything” mantra, but instead spend your life seeking truth, and wisdom, and understanding.
You know what you need to do to get where you want to be.

"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)

I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.

Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

"The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
- "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
"For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
- "We're spread way too thin."
"If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
- Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
- ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
- Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
- Widespread match fixing
- The Pandemic
  - "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
  - "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
    - "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
    - "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
    - "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
- RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
  - He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
- He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
  - He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
    - He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
  - Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
  - RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
  - Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
    - "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
- "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
- He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
- "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
- He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
  - He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
- He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
  - RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
- "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
- "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
  - "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
  - "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
He also says their rankings are a joke
- "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
"ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
- "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
- "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
  - Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
    - Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
- "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
  - "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
- He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
  - Also says more coaches being banned are coming
  - He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
- "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
- "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
  - "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
- On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
  - "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
    - He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
      - He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
      - The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
      - "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
"All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
- He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
- "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
"Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
- Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
  - They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
    - "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
      - "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
"There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
- "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
"It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
- "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
- "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
"I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
- RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
- He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
- He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
  - They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
  - When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
  - "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
  - He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
- He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
- He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
- Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
- He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
- Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
- A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
- RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
- RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
- They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
- Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
- RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
"It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
- Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
"We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
"There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
"Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
"The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
- He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
- "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
  - "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
"Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
"This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
"You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
- "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
- "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
"I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
- "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
"I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

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(GME DD) One DD to rule them. One DD to find them. One DD to to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Ok retards listen up. Been seeing lots of cucks writing small DD pieces of bullish or bearish shit. You cucks need to read this cos this is the whole fucking thing.

1. GME is a fucking steal regardless of squeeze. Buy now or be left on a dying planet while we head to alpha fucking centauri.

2. Now some analysis on the short squeeze and some technical data on puts and calls and ortex data.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury - Review Thread

Game Information

Critic Reviews

Video Review - Quote not available

A rational (and bullish) take on the current state of GME gang

The descent into GME groupthink: a deep dive

Forming a collective identity

Rhetoric

A sense of urgency

Group polarization

GME-specific rhetoric and the WSB fracture

The fall of GME

What now?

[Video Games/Rollercoaster Tycoon] Theme Park Studio: How a developer set exceedingly high expectations and failed to meet them

My husband is currently on a vacation with his mistress & I'm confronting them...

GME - possible scenarios, FOMO and exit plans.

"WE ARE FUCKED!" scenarios:

Neutral scenarios:

Good scenario:

Mother of all Short Squeezes

Dear FOMO guys

My position:

35 life lessons I wish I learned years earlier

1. “Save the best for last” is terrible advice.

2. Tools use us.

3. Avoid false dichotomies.

4. Failure is overcome by one word.

5. Ambition is ruinous for your happiness.

6. Forget what the market wants.

7. Give yourself a shove.

8. Grandma didn’t use toilet paper.

9. Ninety-nine isn’t enough.

10. Old people know better.

11. Fire all your employees.

12. Accept that you are a voracious locust of doom.

13. Awkward is awesome.

14. Happiness isn’t the purpose of life.

15. There is no ugly.

16. We are what we consume.

17. We’re going to die quite soon.

18. Fame is poison.

19. Boomers are to blame for half our troubles.

20. Children are dope.

21. It doesn’t have to hurt.

22. Watch comedy before calls and meetings.

23. No ragrets.

24. There are better ways to vote.

25. Everything easy has already been done.

26. Broccoli still tastes terrible.

27. Fixed-order scheduling > fixed-hour scheduling.

28. “Freedom” isn’t freedom.

29. The Marines were right: slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

30. The quest for wealth is destroying life.

31. Most “leaders” aren’t leaders.

32. Divide-and-conquer is a business model.

33. Self-improvement won’t save us.

34. We know nothing +/-.

35. The sun is not on fire

"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)

Intro

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

North America