I Saw Three Images and I’m Enraged – Editorial

I am incensed.
I am bewildered.
I am awake, well beyond my bedtime, unable to calm a mind poisoned by confusion.

I was in the eShop, minding my own business, trauma-dumping dubious products into the Nintendo World Report Discord (join today!). I consider this a form of ablution; I behold the inexplicable, and I then cleanse it from my mind by delivering it to you – our unsuspecting readers.

This is a positive relationship dynamic, where I unload my mental plaque into your unbraced eyes. Again, join the NWR Discord. I gain serenity and you…

You.. you should join the NWR Discord!

Today I confronted Hentai Horrors, European Excretions, Lousy Logos, and games that even a thorough reading of the description and pursual of the included images fails to yield even the slightest hint as to what the game is. It is reading a long dead language, who’s speakers recorded the totality of their society’s combined knowledge by stacking pebbles. Their handywork we recognize, but it is utterly inscrutable.

Do you know what this is, because I sure don’t?

Sometimes two of these dubious products can create a sort of exhibit hall of the ill-defined, ill-conceived, and ill-intent.

But not today.

Today’s stroll through History’s Worst Art Gallery did not present me with yet more AAA Clocks. No, behind the glass case, away from the crowds trying to use flash photography on art behind Lexan, was a Tragic Triptych of Technological Trauma. And now, as your curator, I must pass this trauma to you.

This just makes me want to go to sleep.

There is nothing normal happening in this image. Conditioned as I am, eyes passing left to right, my neurons are exploding as I scan the page.

After doomscrolling through about one-hundred rows of eShop refuse, my eyes had assuredly started to glaze over. It was the faded middle image that paused my scroll wheel. I assumed that this washed-out image was an accident by the publisher, something that should be unthinkable, but we live in a world where this eShop thumbnail happened.

This is how you depict your game?

Nothing is unthinkable.

From there my eyes were wrenched leftward, examining a pool party image that is below stock photo quality. The guy on the bottom right is pogging.

THE GUY ON THE BOTTOM RIGHT IS POGGING.

Pog online poggers.

Some faces show joy, some show fear, there’s a guy with a lawn flamingo. Every time I look at their faces, I see new emotions. But that man always pogs. Two Joy Con with straps. I assume this is some Wii Sports style beach party, but maybe it’s a survival game set at a haunted pool. Only the terrified woman in a donut innertube knows for sure.

That. Man. Is. Pogging.

Comparatively, the washed-out Cooking Tycoons 3: 3-in-1 Bundle was absolutely banal. Generic mobile game-looking art of people doing vaguely food things. Everyone is hands on hips, hip out, present food also there’s a building made out of candy I guess. Boring game left in the sun too long. Colors faded, symbolism inescapble.

Continuing rightward it’s that damn cat again. She Wants Me Dead releases seemingly every week, with some new decorator on top. This week it’s “Ultimate Edition,” I’m sure next week it will be “Deluxe Edition” or “Extended Edition.” Oh, no those already happened.

She’s not alone.

So far, this trio was only mildly bewildering, until the last small detail pulled my heart from my chest. “Out of Stock.”

Cooking Tycoon 3: 3-in 1 Bundle, a digital-only product, is out of stock.

Sold out?

Out of stock?

OUT OF STOCK!

I can’t with this. Why are digital products allowed to be “out of stock?” Did we run out of bits? Someone had to program this stupid flag. Did they know the outrageousness of their ask? Were they told? Was it manifestly obvious? I simply cannot with this.

Am I supposed to believe the demand for Cooking Tycoon 3: 3-in-1 Bundle so outstripped supply that they’re now unable to meet the needs of a frothing market? No, they’ve decided to stop selling this particular bundle. Why not simply delist it? Is this some kind of reverse-psychology Cartmanland “and you can’t come” stuff?

Why is this badge even a thing? I don’t understand.

ENHANCE!

On review, it seems this isn’t even our first sighting of this pointless logo! That damned cat also has an “out of stock” free soundtrack. But this? This is the actual game.

It’s one thing for AAA Clock to do twenty releases, or for the eShop to insist on showing DLC like they’re actual games, or for the same game to get 11 premium SKUs – drip-fed out each week to stay at the top of the “Recent” list. It is entirely another for a digital product to have sold out.

I am the pogging man, finger extended in warning, aimed directly at the heart of the out of stock banner. My face, contorted in shock and horror.

This. Man. Is. Pogging.

…and I refuse this.