Greedy assholes who came to own Bob Ross' name and likeness have long been slapping it on any old shit they can get away with squeezing a couple bucks out of. It's so unlike how Ross himself lived and would have wanted to be remembered.
I first thought that this was going to be a Rocksmith type game where people would be able to learn creating digital drawings / art through a video game. "You've got 20 minutes to recreate this Bob Ross painting by following these instructions in real time. GO!"
While nowhere near the ongoing existential polycrises we're battling, there is something disturbing about a real person's legacy being used to promote a cash-grab video game that squeezes money from kids. I'm certain Bob Ross would not want anything to do with Epic Games or Fortnite. To have one's existence and fame used in this way is on-par with running crypto scams with deepfakes of a public figure.
I think my point is more, that this is not "Bob Ross." As in "a person." It is a franchise that exploits his name.
The dystopian part already happened. The fact that a company like Epic happily joins that is not surprising, nor anything that is worse than any other capitalistic joint venture.
I think people would not perceive it as dystopian (or even "bad" tbh) if they made a joint venture with Louis Vouitton. However, this also was once a real person. One with integrity who made rock solid suitcases btw. 😄
It looks like painting in a game. And Epic is paying to use Bob Ross as a character. What about this is bad? Or is this some boomerism where you don't like other people using your nostalgia?
The current owners of the Bob Ross brand are greedy little pigs who are happier making money off of cheap bullshit than doing anything remotely positive (or at least not wholly negative) with his legacy. Anything Bob Ross branded that used to be good is cheap trash now, and they've added about 10,000,000 pieces of garbage on top of it.
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