Election Day 2024: Dead Game Edition
Last minute gaming endorsements, political analysis, and Switch 2 conspiracies
America currently has a chance to do the funniest thing ever and put a degenerate gamer in the White House. Win or lose, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has established himself as a very likable politician and all-around-not-weird dude. He seems authentic, an ineffable vibe that some people have and others never will, much like the Dreamcast he once coveted and now belongs to a ResetEra poster.
It is hard to keep summoning the energy to be properly freaked out about the latest most important election of my lifetime. I took my 10-month old with me to go vote around noon when the power temporarily went out at my house because the energy company decided to be a petty tyrant over the $150 I still owe them from last month.
Speaking of petty tyrants, I voted against Trump again for the third time in eight years. The weather was beautiful outside my son’s school where my precinct is located. He asked me why he was off today and what an election was. I said it’s when everyone writes down who they want to be in charge of everything.
He said that he hopes they choose me and that I’ll probably win because I’m always writing things down and probably very good at it. I told him we only get to pick between two people. Who are they? You’ve probably seen them while you’re trying to watch your Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom all-bosses runs on YouTube. Oh my gosh you’re right I have!
I’m fascinated with the new betting market around this election, in which political prognostication is turned into a stock market simulator where people get to feel like the main characters of both Succession and the West Wing all at once. Polymarket is one of the exchanges that caters to the growing market for political junkie DraftKings power users and it sounds like a mess.
Despite a neck-and-neck race, Trump’s odds of winning based on Polymarket activity swung up to 60 percent last month an anonymous account boosting Trump reportedly dumped a combined $30 million into the crypto-backed exchange. This person later told The Wall Street Journal “I have absolutely no political agenda.”
He stands to make $80 million if Trump wins, but if Harris wins he’ll lose the $30 million which he described as “the majority of his available liquid assets.” Unfortunately, it’s too late to try and pull his money out. Because he holds so many of the bets, trying to sell them to others would immediately crash the market. But others are apparently still buying in. Other mystery accounts are flooding Polymarket with tens of millions in additional bets on Trump in the final hours of the election.
Big name streamers are also getting in on the action. Adin Ross, who started as a content creator making NBA2K and GTA V videos before pivoting to online white supremist brain rot, placed a $1 million wager Trump’s reelection (he previously gave the former president a Cybertruck during a Kick stream). Ex-Overwatch World Cup star, Félix “xQc” Lengyel, put $700,000 on the convicted felon. It’s essentially online roulette for alt right crypto bros.
Ricky "FaZe Banks" Bengston did not get in on the action but he did make an 11th hour endorsement of Trump, apparently spurred on by an 11th hour appearance of Elon Musk on the Joe Rogan podcast. “Illegal immigration’s gotten so bad that even the people furthest on the left have conceited to it being a major issue,” he tweeted. “You have Kamala Harris, in 2024, before GTA 6, talking about building a fucking wall at the southern boarder.”
Last month, a clip of Hasan Piker went viral talking about the right wing’s content dominance among young men online. This has manifested in pre-election polling showing there is a giant split in GenZ support for Trump between men and women. But not everyone thinks the gamer vote is real or will lead to Harris’ defeat.
GOP strategist Brad Todd said on CNN yesterday that the real threat to the ex-President earning a second term is American’s third-place gaming console. "I like to say that Trump's enemy tomorrow, or his opponent tomorrow, is not really Kamala Harris—it's the Xbox,” Todd said. “He needs a lot of younger men who don't care much about politics—and like video games a little bit more—to go and vote." News anchor Jim Acosta chuckled. “Mom’s basement,” he said interjecting as Todd nodded along. The Xbox tax strikes again.
But it could be replaced by a worse one if Trump wins. 'Is Switch 2 Delayed For The U.S. election?' That was the title of a post from yesterday on the r/Games subreddit by user Quiet_Proposal4497 that I can’t stop thinking about. It linked to a story at Ars Technica looking at how Donald Trump’s tariffs would jack up the prices of everyday electronics like smartphones, laptops, and even video game consoles. The implication that Nintendo might be sitting the most important system reveal in nearly eight years was completely without evidence but tantalizing.
The only basis for the outlandish suggestion was the fact that everyone assumed the Switch 2 would be announced already. What could possibly be keeping the Mario maker from making history? Launch games taking longer than expected? Concerns about upstaging the existing holiday lineup? Eleventh hour supply chain hiccups? A world historic U.S. presidential election that looks like a 50/50 tossup?
The post was eventually removed from r/Games for being “low-effort.” No one was buying it. Commenters responded with things like “Switch fans don’t care how much it costs” and “the U.S. election is not the center of the universe.” One person was more direct. “You are silly if you think that a Japanese company, the king of entertainment around the world, is waiting for the USA presidential election lol,” they wrote.
Except that the UK still has an actual king and when his mom died Nintendo literally altered its plans for the company’s big The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom showcase due to “this period of national mourning.” Prior to that, Nintendo delayed its Advance Wars 1+2 remake for an entire year because of “recent world events” like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
There are a dozen more likely reasons that we haven’t officially heard about the Switch 2 yet but I’m not convinced the election connection is as completely outlandish as some seem to think. Nintendo’s latest earnings report shows its U.S. sales account for almost as much as Europe’s and Japan’s combined.
Trump’s 60 percent tariff plan is full of caveats, including whether he actually even plans to try and do it, but reports cited by Ars Technica estimate they could raise the price of gaming consoles anywhere from 25 to 40 percent. That would make the PS5 Pro nearly $1,000. A Switch 2 with a planned launch price of $400 would shoot up to $500. Imagine the Nintendo of America tweets breaking that news.
“This is Miyamoto. After consulting with Toad, our financial advisor in the Mushroom Kingdom, we decided to move the raise the price of the Switch 2 by $100. My deepest apologies but I promise it will be well worth the wait. We finally got rid of friend codes.”
Patch notes
Enshrouded v0.7.0.1 has its first major patch since the base-building survival MMO launched into early access in January. One of the big ticket items? “The recipe for the rake is now correctly unlocked.”
Starfield 1.14.74 beta update nerfs a classic Bethesda exploit: “Fixed an issue where the player could receive additional credits by extorting the target and then killing them.”
Stardew Valley version 1.6 added a bunch of new content but also some performance issues. “If you are experiencing performance issues in Stardew Valley 1.6, remove all hats from pets,” recommends its creator. “We will address the problem as soon as possible.”
Until Dawn patch 1.06 tries to address a bunch of character performance issues in the remaster. They all read something like, “Fix for Sam's face appearing swollen during the Chris introduction in Chapter 1.”
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 update version 1.13 tweaks a bunch of fighters, including Rocksteady. The TMNT mutant no longer has a bug “Slime Special Down Bombs would not explode upon touching the ground.”
Some light election night reading
Superman is the white whale of video game superheroes (Patricia Hernandez / Polgyon)
Netflix Announces Big AI Gaming Push Just Days After Closing A Studio (Luke Plunkett / Aftermath)
NPC Miles Morales is the street performer of the internet (Ana Dias / Polygon)
A Game Designer Who Wants to See Ideas He’ll Hate (Christopher Byrd / NY Times)
‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ Is Bioware’s Best Game in Ages. Here’s How They Got There (George Yang / Rolling Stone)
The Follow-Up to One of 2024’s Best Games May Never Happen (Megan Farokhmanesh / Wired)
The Vatican’s Anime Mascot Is Now an AI Porn Sensation (Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media)
"Trump’s 60 percent tariff plan is full of caveats, including whether he actually even plans to try and do it, but reports cited by Ars Technica estimate they could raise the price of gaming consoles anywhere from 25 to 40 percent."
Yikes!