Shameless Scammers, Wise Old Ladies, and Bloated Bureaucracies
The Player Support Newsletter - 6 APR 2025
Noteworthy News
Nintendo Places Hold on US Switch 2 Sales Due to Tariffs - a 24 percent tariff has been place on Japan by the US, which is causing a delay to the pre-order process, which should’ve started on April 9th. The global launch is still set for June 5th.
TikTok Issues for the US Market Get More Complicated - China has declared that all deals to be made for the US assets of TikTok to be sold are on hold due to tariffs. The Trump administration has said that they will extend the deal-making window another 75 days, and that they are determined to work with China to make it happen.
Unity 6 to Support Nintendo Switch 2 - approved developers will be able to access these platform specific optimizations in Unity 6, which they also vow will help companies port their old Switch titles to Switch 2 with ease. We hope our friends at Unity will start to see some recovery to their business with these and other changes.
Introduction: Startup Phase I (Setup)
In the beginning was darkness and out of that darkness came forth legal papers, many legal papers, legions really. Operating in completely foreign markets is not a new concept for me, and I’ve grown to appreciate the truly unique flavors of bureaucracy around the world. If I could characterize a good portion of the earliest days of Player Support in a dish, it would be a mystery beef stew. I love a good beef stew, but why this one has “mystery” in it is because I’m not allowed to know all the ingredients. You see, other people (government officials, bankers, runners, scammers, setup firms, lawyers, locals, expats, and so on) get to put whatever they like into the stew.
And you’ve got to deal with it at the end of the day.
The following is a recounting of the first part of Phase I. In general, my storytelling from work is taken from archived backlogs, journal entries, and recollection. I will try not to romanticise anything, but I will try my best to make it mildly humorous and perhaps even educational.
Getting a Feel for the Realities of Business Operations
I took a two month trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to understand and determine if it was even feasible to start something on my own. The first order of business was to
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