glad I made some more people aware lol

​@@ConnorShawVA Let's just say that Bo got his PAYDAY©

when i was young the first thought i had that made me question cops was: "why can cops speed during chases?" my thinking was that high-speed vehicles around pedestrians was dangerous, but cop cars go speeding by all the same, and the person speeding away would stop being a hazard once they leave it's a simplistic outlook on it, but from there the same logical fallacy has stuck with me. every time a cop gets away with murder, every time a cop gets reassigned for committing a crime instead of fired and prosecuted, every time this gang is paid by the state to act with impunity to Keep The Peace through means of violently oppressing anyone not sticking to status quo, i remember why i hate the fucking police

@@ConnorShawVA Very interesting, while I don't find myself in FULL agreement with what you said, I really appreciate that you actually took the time to type out a proper answer instead of just taking my question as an insult. Thanks for your time and happy holidays.

i built a pimp ass house in stw doe

not me spending ten american minutes on my phone in bed this morning learning about the cut enemy "the hydra" from half-life that, until today, i was entirely certain was just the name of the enemy from blast pit. but no, it's a different infinitely re-spawning pointed tendril coming from a pit. okay. and the pistol makes nice pew sounds, so.

@ConnorShawVA yes. just wanted to point it out of course. mostly because i was confused of the half life 2 beta enemy being mentioned. literally my reaction was "THE HYDRA. BUT THATS FROM THE BETA. HOW- oh the tentacles"

@ConnorShawVA walter is forcing me to use my phone because he want to comment on your reply on the pistol anyways he commented this (yes it make pew pew sounds but YOUR HEATH IS LOWER THE THE CHANCES OF SURVIVAL IN A RESONANCE CASCADE) yes that is what he said now i have to go to the test the barnacle grapple

i've tried several versions of this comment explaining it, but tbh i feel like your question is better answered with "almir does everything somebody else isn't doing" when your company is public facing, doing constant press relations with the community and investors, and is making a product based heavily on community feedback, "producer" and "brand director" (his two major roles for a long time), become very similar positions. it's constant communication with external and internal partners and clients to make sure everyone is on the same page for producing the vision. these games are in *constant* production and rely heavily on their brand and the brands of other companies you have to play nice with. when they ran out of streamers spouting endless praise, he took up the role himself. to be clear: it is not that almir has a meaningless job. it is that neither "producer" nor "brand director" really convey the breadth of what he does. "co-director" is his new role on payday 3, that took effect late this year (i'll talk about it in pt 2). and a "director" of this franchise is a far more accurate description.

@ConnorShawVA much tnx for the explanation

2:36:15 and that is going to be a fun footnote in part 2

(I'd like to add, everything I write is dramatic for emphasis and fun more than actual emotion. My ideology likes personality to display depth and cohesion to an otherwise indecipherable amount of untreated adhd, go for the ride, not the emotion, I believe what I say, but I don't have any actual remaining heart of rage as I did as an actually dramatic teenager I was at the time. However I'd be remiss if not incapable to not write similarly to my memories almost out of instinct. Really I'm just speaking for a punkass 16yo me who's been FIENDING to talk shit. I hate him.) I have always seen going back as ultimately giving in to abuse, giving in to worsening conditions in the game industry, worse anti-consumerist practices, and overall? Respecting myself Less, respecting Other People, Less. If I go back, I enable things to worsen for others as much as for myself, there's no reason to jump down an anthole and bring people down with me, just because "it'll be fun!" and likely not even be That anymore. It's impossible, to enjoy games with Microtransactions because as a kid, that shit got me! Like it does EVERY child, and their parent's credit cards. Xbox Points? Oho you best bet I bought every season of American Dad individually at 500 points each halfway before realizing I could buy a season for 700 using my parent's credit card(tm), ON ZUNE. You best bet I made a video dropping 2k on TF2 crates. I'm better now, but it's because the addiction was replaced with Hate that Burned from those Lumps in my chest that OK put there. Yes that's flamboyantly dramatic, I'm high but primarily, my point is Every Industry is trying to manipulate and convince you to back them. They're all hiring charismatic people who finally broke principles out of genuine hardship that needed income, or worse, believe the farts they're sniffin' to be aromatic instead of austere. They stand as the small dog who yipped once at a Great Dane, got scared and ran away, only to come back to yip some more at an empty doghouse. They wanted to be Ubisoft and EA, when people saw them as Valve's cool cousin. They ultimately, wore a mask, and the times we did see their betraying eyes, we assumed it to be the shadows of capitalism guiding their hand, only to see the mask fall, and it was in control the entire time. A lot of words to say: I plain don't think no one person should frankly trust the companies involved anymore y'hear. To stay is to extend a trainwreck, people work at these places, often times un(der)paid and despite being the chefs, are the first to be laid off, and I'd rather them find work elsewhere for their own future sake. If it's just making misery, extending it is cruelty. This isn't admonishment of anyone truly, just acknowledgement of our world and my choices not to further support them. I considered getting PD3 recently, out of morbid disgust, but seeing another live service, soon to be dead game, in my library, just doesn't do it for me, even at 13$ I know I'm getting ripped off, I know that money isn't going back into a bare-bones product. I know the devs are getting dirt for their checks and short paths for a future there and the one's that were veterans left long ago. Live-service, always online, decrepit DLC everything, skeleton crew team, bleeding money, what is there to invest in as a consumer? It being always online means if it fails, you lose your money and The Whole Product, it being live-service and failing means less content, the team has to dramatically reduce scope and QA- No PR team in the world can save the company through consumers becoming investors and repetitively so either. Simply put, they will not be able to prove that 40$mil possibility. With less than a month left, they've got at most, 3k playing at a time. That's not 40mil, even with the already bloated prices they got. What convinced me was a comment that said "Why bother now? It'll be cheaper in the future." And best case scenario, they're right. *wink* oh fuck scurvy- Which sadly means, no matter what, videos like this, those reddit posts reeling against the anti-consumerism, comments like mine, are all that's left of Payday. The only way to recover is years of honest, dedicated work, and they don't even have a month left before, yet another, big shift happens. Let alone be a company someone would want to work that hard for, you'd be joining a trainwreck you have no control over in a failing Series of companies, with the monkey's paw of a diehard, absolutely livid and emotionally detached ex-fanbase/overly-parasocially-attached fanbase, on top of the work environment already being bad coming in, it's only going to get worse as numbers in general plummet. Nobody there can pull the PR machine that was NMS. I'm serious when I say, there really, is no hope for this company, as a consumer, employee, or investor. Sorry to ramble a diatribe, I got inspired to just...process, think, get thoughts in order. That's the kind of content I enjoy most. I'll speak on some critical pieces online of the company occasionally, but really taking the time like this, it's a bit cathartic. You made the words visible for me to form that I otherwise didn't feel comfortable yet in finding, and I needed it, truly. I know it's sappy sentimental, but this game was a Huge part of my formative years, for...well, the better. I feel more confident as a person, as a consumer, because this company betrayed my simple trust so categorically hard I became a hard as shit leftist. It's like they laid out a blueprint of exactly the redflags to watch out for, what was causing me to feel like shit all the time, and I used that to further my own perspectives and philosophy elsewhere. The moment I let go of this game, it was like I could breathe clean air, but never did it feel like a weight was lifted. And your video did that for me. I can breathe, now I can stand straighter. It isn't just me. I'm not the only one who gets Fucking Mad as hell about this storyline of a company, family, and series, I wasn't the only one super invested. I wasn't the only one who had to look at their own principles and decline benefit to the company at my cost, I could've gone down the path every PD2 creator is today, and believe it'd be a variation of my previous problems with anti-consumer monetization, but far more personally involved, given I figured the game would wane hard and cause me further grief. Even the concept of opposing the game publicly, after backlash died down, would realistically only end in my channel being attacked by rabid fanboys. There was No Outlet. Nothing but festering. Mostly though, it's nice to know I'm not alone in that, after all this time, I've not moved on entirely. That something else needed said, someone needs to know to ensure this Stupid Fucking Life doesn't happen to them. A conclusion needs to be made because this car crash didn't stop when we left. With that last lump in my chest, I patiently await the next part, no matter how long it takes, no matter how it turns out, it'll be what gives me complete levity from something I genuinely shouldn't care so much about, but still do. Not due to a belief that your work alone will clarify everything for me or whatever, simply that it'll be the last real video about the series/company that I'd find any weight of purpose in. I have no reason to go back and watch old loadout videos anymore, I've done that after playing older versions lately. I've already relived old channels of the time I watched, and presently I'm watching through the newest stuff, and it's been the future I knew would come since 2015 seeing many of these creator's channels. But without the interest in the series, the company, with the mental blockage that yells "Don't go back" and the consistency in their anti-consumerism, I imagine once this short burst of nostalgia runs thin for me, and I move on, when I see that video, I'll know it's time to move on, to watch it, to know, to absorb, and then, process, and grow from there. That all that truly needed said will have been said. I may go back to the 2 games, it's still a product I bought afterall, but I doubt without the weight of those lumps, will I ever fall back into an interest in the series again even for nostalgia. It'll be for the experience of what I have left, but the passion no longer burns, it no longer harbors any interest as it did, and I think that's just for the best at this point. It was a party. One that formed into a cult, there's alot of lessons to be learned as an aspiring developer, and as a consumer.

To end off: This could've just been a silly crime bank rob haha funny game. Instead it gave me a rollercoaster of emotions that lead to a life lesson that Sounds Obvious but I grew up when this stuff was Just Starting, but Look Around Folks. What happened to me, to everyone who got hyper-fixated on this company, this series. It's Common Now. I've had people add me on Steam over my Resident Evil 2 Remake DLC reviews (guess the thumb color), do /an honest to god/, Library spread, and /Lose/ because I spent So Much as a kid and yet so little as an adult, I still beat their mother's credit card Through Inflation Alone. But this is a larger issue about capitalism and owning capital and how gaming is unfortunately becoming a sort of "third place" in place of "third places" but without any of the local community social benefit and somehow becoming more expensive despite Profiting More Than The Next 3 MEDIUMS of entertainment (music, movies, literature) /Combined/, and yet pay isn't increasing and these kids just want a future man they want to own something and feel proud and sometimes they get a little too caught up in supporting companies because of a parasocial addiction combined with various other addictions like Live-service, premium pass pre-order exclusive microtransactions, because this industry brags about hiring addiction experts to give You and Everyone Mental and Financial Long Term Problems for their benefit kind've like a healthcare ceo for a random example, and man I miss when Payday was a heist criminal game where you went to a place and that was your area to learn and get better at and now they have near open worlds that Just Fucking Suck Man and they spam cops so much I have to get an old mod to reduce their spawnrate just to give Any Impact to a Single Enemy but Noooo they have to spam Dozers and Ya'll I know the old versions kinda suck but man the atmosphere and themes and game-feel oh my god the gamefeel you don't feel like a god you feel like you're Just Barely stronger than your enemies mostly due to teamwork which you can't do because nobody's playin' fuckin update 26 or Beta 4 because why would you Possibly think that would be worth your time especially alone. I don't know. I really don't. But boy the web-series was cool right? Thank you for your work. Thank ya for your personality aswell, it's infectious. I look forward to more. I'm going to bed. edit: _oh YT has formatting..._ *this post would've taken so much loooonger oh my gooood thank fuck I didn't know that til now I am NOT going back to make capitalizations and // look right.*

So! first of all, thank you so much for understanding where i'm coming from about how dehumanizing this presumption of labor due to shared interest in a video game is. it's one thing for a community-collaborative game project to exist on passion, it's another for a company to treat its consumers like friends when the wallet's open and desperately fight to *keep* it open. I have a lot more I could say about it that'll be in part 2. secondly, i'm glad people at the time were trying to highlight the writing on the wall. it seemed so absurd but also structurally important; moderators and community go-between people being unpaid working below barely paid employees working below the *actual* faces of the company the community felt like they were talking to. and sometimes those employees will reply to reddit posts or youtube comments directly and create a nightmare PR scenario for every other person in the chain, who now have to react to whatever whacky new shit Almir just said meanwhile, the community itself tries to interpolate hidden meanings for upcoming *content* out of these posts. they will speculate about *anything* from the tiniest of crumbs. that said, i have to know who i'm talking to here: young adults and teenagers playing a rated M game about clowns robbing banks. so if i'm too hostile in trying to unpack these strange relationships, it comes off as... *banter*. real criticism is nullified by an assumption of exaggeration and benign comments are treated as the next The Secret drop it is very hard to communicate in this community, so video essays it is. thank you so much for your patience, support, and i'd really recommend my 'walled garden' video i posted earlier this year. i talk more about the group-think gamers lull themselves into, as well as more positive perspectives on it you'll have a lot to chew on after part 2, take care. i'm so glad i could help, this is why i keep doing it.