Game Save #07 | Golden Joystick Awards, RAM Prices, Dispatch Success, & Community Spotlight
Taking a look at news about The Golden Joystick Awards, seeing how high RAM prices have gotten, the unsurprising success of Dispatch, amazing articles for the community spotlight, and more!
Let’s Jump In
Welcome!
It has been a whirlwind over the past few weeks!
I had a fairly restful holiday for Thanksgiving, and was able to enjoy some games that I’ve been wanting to try! If you’re interested in learning more about that, feel free to check out my latest blog post!
In the meantime, there’s been so much gaming news that I’ve been itching to jump into as of late for this Game Save! Some of it is good, some… not so much! I’ll be getting into three different topics today, with them being a bit shorter, but hopefully punchier than normal with the thoughts I have!
Likewise, there’s also been a ton of awesome articles as of late that I’ve been reading, and there were two over the past few weeks that stood out to me that I want to highlight today!
Without wasting more time, let’s jump into it!
Welcome to The Saved Game
First off though, I want to extend my warmest welcome and send my thanks to you for the privilege and honor of your time!
My name is Joe, and The Saved Game is my gaming hub that is a space about video game nostalgia, new and old favorites, and finding ways to rekindle your love for why you played video games in the first place! Read more here about my Substack page and content!
👉 Take a look at my last main article on Dark Souls
👉 Check out my last Game Save article
If you would like to support my work and creative content, then take a look at my Ko-fi page using the button below! Thanks!
My Thoughts from Recent Gaming News
As I mentioned, I have three different topics from recent news that caught my attention, and I wanted to share some thoughts on them! There’s been a ton of news recently, everything from chatter about the Steam Machine’s price, to the leaks from Grand Theft Auto VI, and everything still going on with Xbox!
For today though, I want to focus in on three: The first one, which is about the recent Golden Joystick Awards of 2025! This was the first one I watched live, and it was super fun to watch, and I had a few thoughts on the nominations and winners! I also wanted to take a look at the recent surge with RAM prices, and how that might impact gaming. Lastly, I will be taking a quick look at the success that Dispatch has been getting, and why I find that fairly unsurprising in the current gaming landscape and my hope for the future!
A Fun Experience with The Golden Joystick Awards
I had a ton of fun a couple of weeks ago watching The Golden Joystick Awards!
I was not planning on watching it, but I jumped into Sey’s Twitch stream and caught most of the awards being given out! This was the first one I watched live, and it was super chill to listen along with Sey and the others in chat while the award show played! Definitely check out Good Game Lobby for a chill group on Discord if you’re interested — lots of awesome, down-to-earth gaming folks on there!
There were a lot of winners in the show, and I loved how relatively relaxed the show was!
It was pretty unsurprising to me how Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won the most golden awards for this show, and even tied for the most won in a single show with Baldur’s Gate 3, back in 2023.
There were some surprises for me though to see, with the Best Remake/Remaster going to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered instead of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater. I was also a bit surprised at the Best Indie Game going to Blue Prince, which is a game I’ve been hearing about more and more lately!
It was also a bit comical to me that Grand Theft Auto VI already picked up a couple of awards too. While not out of course, it won the award for the Best Game Trailer with the second trailer they released earlier this year, and it also won the Most Wanted Game. I’m hoping this game turns out good, because the massive hype surrounding it is insane!
Regardless, it was fun to listen in and super chill to watch it live on Sey’s stream and I learned a lot about some new games that have come out!
RAM Prices Skyrocketing
What a sucky time to be looking for a PC 😮💨
I first noticed some talk about RAM prices increasing a month or so ago, and was shocked when I learned more about how much they’ve actually gone up!
The main reason I wanted to bring up this topic is because I’ve been keeping an eye out for a PC in the near future, since I’ve been needing to replace mine for a while now. However, I was not expecting the sticker shock from the huge surge in prices on RAM!
Just as an example, I went through the Wayback Machine to see the price of Corsair Vengeance 2x32gb RAM at BestBuy. Back in July of this year when the last snapshot was taken, the price was $239.99. Now, when I checked this past week as of writing this, the price is $906.99!
Again, what a terrible time to be thinking about a PC right now…
My main question with all of this though was what the expected prices might be for consoles in the future? As of this past year, Sony “made the difficult decision” to raise the price already on the PlayStation 5 consoles, according to their blog from this past August. According to a recent Eurogamer article on the matter, Xbox is reported to have possibly been running low on their RAM reserves, potentially opening them up for possible price increases. That same article placed the blame on panic buying due to AI companies buying up RAM, leading to the higher costs, especially after various memory makers signed a letter of intent to supply OpenAI data centers with their chips, according to an article back in October on Reuters.
Right when I was finishing up this write-up, I came across the news as well about Micron/Crucial ceasing production of consumer-level RAM in favor of AI data centers, according to PC Gamer. In a post by Micron, they said that “Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments.”
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if prices kept rising across the board for RAM itself for consumers, or even for certain consoles. Likewise, I’ll be even more curious now as to what the price of the upcoming Steam Machine will be, or the overall pricing outlook in the next few years!
Dispatch Success — Surprising or Not?
I have loved watching recent gameplay and reading news about Dispatch!
In the past, TellTale games have been amazing from the ones I played. The Walking Dead in 2012 was one that really opened my eyes for that style of narrative storytelling with choice-based decisions impacting the outcome. I played it a lot on my PlayStation Vita back years ago, and I really enjoyed it!
Now, past that, I remember seeing games from TellTale that I had no idea even came out with how much they were developing in the subsequent years — whether it was Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy, or even their Minecraft games. Once the main studio closed, I honestly forgot about them. Game Informer had an excellent article that went over the rise and fall of TellTale if you’re interested. It’s a bit long, but a good read.
Fast-forward several years later, and I knew that Dispatch looked familiar when I first saw it. As you may know, AdHoc Studios was founded by several TellTale alumni, and is the studio responsible for Dispatch.
What has fascinated me the most is the renewed interest in narrative-grounded games like this, and it makes me happy to see many people seemingly enjoying it, with reviews for Dispatch being pretty damn positive, gathering a 9/10 on IGN, a 9/10 on Game Informer, a 89/100 on PCGamer, a 4.96/5 on PlayStation, and Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam so far. Some, such as GameSpot and others that I have read from, have cited that the consequences for choices aren’t as impactful as they might’ve hoped, but have still rated it high with hopes of a sequel.
However, the main thing that I’ve loved seeing was the reaction from AdHoc Studio’s co-directors Dennis Lenart and Chris Rebbert in a recent GameRant article. In this article, they seemed quick to recognize that the support Dispatch has received is likely due to gamers being more interested in good storytelling and non-complicated gameplay. In that article, Dennis Lenart also mentioned that many newer games have just become way too complex and involved, and that they seemed to want players to experience a game “…where they can just jump in and have a personal singular or linear playthrough or whatever it might be that is uninhibited by microtransactions and stuff…”
Especially with the amount of pushback that microtransactions have received in games over the past several years, I was not too surprised to see how well Dispatch has seemingly done and the successes it has had!
My hope is that more games will continue this trend of creating singleplayer titles with a focus on creating a positive experience for the players with excellent storytelling! I really miss the amazing time I had with The Walking Dead back over a decade ago, and I hope that more games come out with their directors publicly having a focus on quality storytelling and skipping the microtransactions.
What are your thoughts on these topics?
Did you get the chance to watch The Golden Joystick Awards?
Have you been looking into a PC as of late and experienced the sticker shock from the price of RAM?
With the release of Dispatch, have you gotten the chance to play it yet?
Community Spotlight
Since my last Game Save article, there have been a lot of write-ups that I’ve wanted to highlight!
The ones I picked out today were ones that meant a lot to me, especially since they made me feel nostalgic and left me with a fantastic reading experience! One about a good chunk of games I grew up with during the 2000s and 2010s, and was super fun to read through. The other one was a super enjoyable read with how much it reminded me of my love for Fallout (and love for food)!
A Very Nostalgic 25 Years
Scanlines has articles that are nothing short of incredible with the amount of work put into them! Ever since I subscribed, I have thoroughly enjoyed what I have read from Scanlines’ Journal, and the write-ups on their publication often make me think much deeper about video games than I normally would.
Scanlines recently published an article on their best games from every year since 2000, and it is well worth taking a deeper look into! There are so many quality games in here that Scanlines wrote about that I felt very strongly for, and the games and writing made me feel deeply nostalgic in the best of ways! I was glad to see how popular this article became, because I’m sure it resonated with many readers, including myself.
The humor and wit that Scanlines mixes in with their work is always hilarious, and my favorite part of this article that gave me a good laugh had to do with the honorable mention from 2017 with Super Mario Odyssey:
“Armed with Cappy, you control Mario through a series of endearingly realised kingdoms collecting hundreds of Power Moons and assimilating poor creatures like a family friendly version of The Thing.”
I laughed way too much at that last part, and it’s all a fantastic write-up with so many older/newer games that were listed, many of which gave me memorable and nostalgic feelings when I read through them all! I would highly recommend taking a long look at this article if you haven’t already, and be sure to check out Scanlines’ other excellent work!
An Amazing Fallout Cookbook
In my latest blog post, I went over a few thoughts I had on the Official Fallout Cookbook that I recently picked up!
While I was working on that blog post though, I noticed a new and recent article from Savvy Gaming Network that I immediately clicked and opened based on the title: Oops! Almost all Fallout!
This write-up was all about a fun recap for November from Savvy, but I was uniquely interested in the article that Savvy included that went over a detailed review for the Fallout Cookbook on Savvy’s website, and they showed some of the amazing recipes being made from that cookbook!
It was super fun to read because I had just picked up the same cookbook! I am blown away by the quality of the book too, and Savvy showed a lot of the recipes being made and some tips about them! It was super fun to read, and I have been super tempted to make some of the Fancy Lad Snack Cakes because the ones Savvy made looked so good!
If you are at all a fan of cooking, good game writing, and/or Fallout, then I implore you to take a look at Savvy’s write-up and check out their review for the Fallout Cookbook! It was such a fun and enjoyable read, and I was left hungry afterwards! There was also a great article in there about Savvy’s trip to the Fallout Fan Celebration that was really good too, and absolutely worth checking out!
Substack Updates & What's Next
Since my last Game Save article, I’ve started up my weekly blogs here on Substack, and have been having a much better time hosting them here compared to Ko-fi!
It’s been much better to get everything consolidated here, and not having to worry about switching things up all the time between different platforms! I’ve been chatting about life, games I’m actively playing, and other ramblings! Right now, I’ve been playing a ton of Detroit: Become Human for the first time, and I’ve been writing some about that and will definitely have more thoughts next week!
Next week on Saturday the 13th, I plan on also releasing my next main article. This is an article I’ve been wanting to write ever since I first started up here on Substack, and it’ll be on a game that’s meant a lot to me for the past 20+ years. It’s a game that I played a lot growing up, and I still load it up on my PC to play nowadays too at times when I’m feeling nostalgic! I’ll have more info on this write-up next week, and I’m busy working on it now!
Other than that, feel free to check out my schedule for December to see upcoming articles that’s linked down below. I am still considering a switch-up to my schedule to move my main articles from Saturday to a weekday, but I will of course give plenty of notice before I do anything, and it would likely be after the first of the year!
I’m also planning out a paid subscription here on Substack in the future for exclusive articles. As I’ve said in the past, I want my main content to remain free, but I would love to have something to post, maybe once every other month, that is more in-depth on a gaming topic from the past. I’m still giving thought to this, but will let you all know in the future about my plans for that!
Thank you for the honor and privilege of your time! It means a lot that you’re here, and I appreciate your readership!
If this article meant something to you and you enjoyed it, then please drop some love on it down below, share it with some friends or foes, and let me know your thoughts! I always appreciate the feedback 🙌
See you all next time,
Joe
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Man, that's a serious price jump on that! I haven't built a PC since a year that began with a 19. Used to really enjoy it, though. A while back I did some upgrade surgery on an old MacBook Pro I had (09). I put in a SSD and increased the RAM. Unfortunately, these days you can't just jump in and out of a MacBook Pro like you used to, so you have to plan and buy accordingly.
I need to grab that Fallout cookbook. It looks interesting. I have three kids, two old enough to enjoy the novelty of cooking from game-inspired cookbooks (even if they don't specifically play those games). We have done LOTS of recipes from the Elder Scrolls cookbook. One of my favorites is the Festival Hand Pies.
I haven't really ventured out to far into the world of "new games" except when a franchise I love drops a new release. I've been "game-hungry" for a long time now! haha. I really enjoyed Detroit: Become Human, though when it dropped. The premise was enough to lure me away from Skyrim, Fallout, and Far Cry Primal.
Thank you for the spotlight, I'm so honored! I hope you share the recipes you make on your blog, I would love to see them!