Well I had some free time yesterday so I decided to take the challenge I mentioned earlier. The random number I got was page 118, which ended up having...a lot. Enjoy!
To anyone else who takes the challenge: reroll if you get page ~150 or less, lol. That was way too much bullshit to go through. And it was just one page.
| Tommy's Claim | Reality |
|---|---|
| "I agree that to get the casual Wii buyer... we will need more games like Wii Bowling. Which is a HUGE focus for us. We are doing Wii Bowling type games TIMES 100!" | Currently they are "doing Wii Bowling type games" times zero. (Plus Cornhole. Minus good graphics.) |
| "Wii Sports was nothing more than a tech demo." | Yes, he actually said that (and yes, right after fantasizing about "Wii Bowling times 100"). He also went on to claim that half of Wii Sports' games were "almost unplayable". Have to say: it's pretty impressive that an apparently half-finished tech demo managed to move some 82.9 million copies. |
| "We will be giving [Wii owners] a LOT of reasons to finally put away their 13 year old machine that they never bought a game for (because games weren't created and targeted for them)." |
|
| "Honestly... that is the last crowd/audience we are worried about in regards to getting people on board. They are overly excited!" | "The one thing I don't like about |
| "To give an example... please find someone you know who is a non-gamer or casual gamer who purchased the Wii... then explain what Amico is and tell them what the games will be like (E for Everyone, under $10, no in-app purchases, all games are simple and anyone can pick up and play, every game has a family/couch co-op mode, etc.)... and then tell them the price range... and that they can hook up to 8 mobile devices (for free) and it comes with 2 controllers. Trust me... not a hard sell at all." | My mother was uninterested. |
| "Yes! Everyone who has a RFID is in a special database of folks who will be receiving special e-mail instructions on our 40th anniversary (Dec. 3, 2019)." | This was about Intellivision's "Golden Ticket" sweepstakes, which AFAIK never actually gave anything out to anyone. Of course, Tommy blamed Covid for the many delays in the giveaway until it could disappear from the public consciousness. As for the "RFID database" or "special email": take a wild guess on whether that happened. (Intellivision did publish a generic press release on that date, but that was it.) |
| "Speaking of the [Atari] VCS... anyone else notice how "silent" they've been over the past month or so as they are supposed to be delivering the hardware/system to the IndieGoGo backers in a few week? I guess those "scheduled" Facebook posts finally ran out. On Twitter they have just been retweeting things about other Atari products. You would think there would be a lot more hype and marketing going on a few weeks before release. But as we all sadly know... it's not going to happen." | Oh man, lol. History's been especially harsh to this one, what with Intellivision going "silent" (mostly so they could lay nearly everyone off), and their own hype/marketing levels are currently below zero. |
| "If you read comments on the negative YouTube videos you'll find them everywhere." | One will indeed find negative YouTube comments if one reads them. Not Tommy at his finest, but certainly Tommy at his Ice Cream Koan-iest. |
| "I have literally been compared to Hitler by commenters... and they are 100% serious. Not joking." | I mean, they both really like white supremacists a whole lot, so... |
| "Negativity begets negativity." | True enough. However, I'd argue that telling mass quantities of ridiculous lies and exaggerations to put an unearned positive veneer on everything can be far worse. Nothing good comes out of constructing misleading realities, or burying your head in the sand at the first scent of criticism. |
| "So interesting to watch and so sad how quickly people want to fall in line to please the content creator." | ...he said, without so much as an ounce of self-awareness. |
| "When there is a positive or neutral video done on Amico the majority of the comments will be positive, uplifting and cautiously optimistic or inquisitive. On the flip side... when the YouTube liars, click-baiters and "scammers" themselves put out negative videos... their sheepish followers have no issue throwing gasoline onto the dumpster fire." | Lots to unpack here. Setting aside the debate over whether a truly "neutral" video on the Amico exists (or even can exist), the majority of the "positive" Amico videos debuted in a time when it was natural for people to be "cautiously optimistic" about it, because they figured it would be a neat retro-remaster Intellivision console and that it would be handled realistically and punctually. That's how it works: most people will tend to give something a chance, before they realize what it really is. Crazy concept, I know. "On the flip side", we once again see Tommy lashing out at anything Amico-critical, automatically labeling them (especially as scammers, that's fucking rich) and in general berating them for not being a part of the unquestioning cult. |
| "It's interesting how many 'internet' folks constantly spew hatred at me because I'm talking about a system that isn't even coming out til 2020." | You mean because you're lying, and making a thousand-page thread filled with delusions of grandeur, over a system that, even today, has no path even to manufacturing yet. |
| "They say I'm desperate, I don't know what I'm doing, I only show colors of the console because we don't have anything else to show and it's clearly going to be failure, etc., etc., etc..." | ✅ |
| "Yeah... I'm sure it's nice to be established like Sony, Microsoft & Nintendo in the market and have every press person, YouTuber and fan waiting for your every bit of news. That isn't us. We need to create that from the ground up and because we are the 'new kid on the block' (even though we've been around longer than most)... because we are such a disruptor and so different from everyone else..." | Setting aside the fact that the Amico is only a "disruptor" in the furthest reaches of Tommy's imagination, I like how he internalizes his bullshit even as he's spewing it. We're the new kids on the block, yeah! Err...well, not literally (or in any other meaningful way). |
| "For anyone to think we're just making this up as we go along... couldn't be more wrong and naive." | NARRATOR They were making it up as they went along. |
| "Keep in mind... Atari made their public announcement about their machine a few months before us (even though we had been working on it about 6 months before they made the announcement)... And... uh... how's that working out for them?" | I mean...it released. Meanwhile, the Amico is still floundering and in various engineering phases in 2022. Taking away a controller from the base model and raising its lowest SKU price to near-Xbox Series S levels...how's that going to work? |
| "Or what about Google? The biggest data collecting corporation on the planet. All of the financial and data/marketing resources in the universe! Clearly they have a huge advantage with launching the Stadia. Again... how's that working out for them?" | Again: Stadia could be way better and more widespread than it is, but it's also a thing that exists and works. |
| "I love being the underdog." | Stealthily one of Tommy's biggest lies on the page (and, arguably, from him in general). Tommy absolutely, utterly loathes being ANY kind of "underdog". He is constantly desperate to make himself appear like an industry rockstar, with a résumé more padded than a high school book report, and a litany of meaningless, purchased Guinness records which he flaunts at every opportunity. |
| "And although there are many disadvantages... there are also some great advantages as well. I'm ensuring that we use all of those to our advantage." | What? |
| "Here's a great book I read over the summer. It's called 'Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders' I liked how they put Shark! Shark! on the cover. :)" | I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that book is actually full of helpful advice to startups, and that Tommy basically either ignored it or completely distorted what it was trying to say, because the alternative is that the book tells people to basically act like Tommy — poorly — when faced with any kind of hardship. Or setback. Or criticism. Or anything. That is not Shark Shark on the cover. |
| "It's interesting how the hardcore gamers HATED the design of our controllers, the console itself, etc. They compared it to things like a baby monitor and foot massager. Um.... EXACTLY!!! And who buys those products? Hmmmm????" | *sigh* This is of course part of Tommy's biggest of delusions/cons: that there's a completely untapped audience of 3 billion people out there (apparently, the demographic who play mobile games but who don't own consoles), and that his $280+ box will be a near-effortless sell to said people. They actually led with that point on their StartEngine campaign [!!!!] and I'm still laughing about it. |
| "But there are also curvy Ferrari design elements in there as well. So although it's easy for hardcores to 'hate' the look of it (btw... for true gamers... who the hell cares what it looks like!" | Again, Tommy can't help doing some accidental internalizing here. It looks cool and sleek, like my Ferrari! But who cares how it looks! Huh? |
| "I can't tell you how much market research we did when coming up with the outer design." | I can. |
| "And the best part is... there is something major about the design and shape that we haven't even revealed yet! And we aren't going to until right before the console launches. A definite 'game changer' for the way consoles are looked at and thought of." | A classic line in con artistry to keep the marks strung along: always promise them that something mysterious and wonderful still awaits, but if only they stay invested. Then when the time comes for said reveal, you either come up with some bullshit or improvise on the spot — or, of course, you've left town a while back. (And...hey, we haven't heard from Tommy in a while. Anyone seen him?) |
To anyone else who takes the challenge: reroll if you get page ~150 or less, lol. That was way too much bullshit to go through. And it was just one page.
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