Rundown (9/07/2025) Hot Tax Tips for Digital Content Creators!

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This Week’s Topics:

Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Hot Tax Tips for Digital Content Creators!

Let’s see, how can I kick off this week’s Rundown, get the people going, and excite the masses? …I know! Let’s talk about taxes!

For those not in the loop, I am an Enrolled Agent— meaning I am a federally authorized tax practitioner in the United States. I can file returns, defend clients before IRS, and have seven years of experience as a tax accountant. Specifically a cryptocurrency tax accountant, but loosely half of my work is regular routine income tax returns for normal people. Tax and accounting are my day job and I have a professional responsibility to stay up to date about tax matters, so I can help my clients comply with the law and fund their state governments. (Federal government I’m iffier on for obvious reasons.)

Two months ago I did a primer, first impressions, thing on the latest wave of tax reforms ushered in by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or the Big Bullshit Bill as I call it. However, this past week, a preliminary draft was released for one of the most pertinent changes from this bill, the so called ‘no tax on tips.’ As I explained back in July, this is somewhat of a misnomer, as it really should be called and described as ‘no income tax on tips.’

Typically, people in the US pay three types of taxes. Regular old income taxes, which are determined based on your taxable income, that number at the bottom of your Form 1040 and a tiered tax bracket. State taxes, which run the gamut from state to state and, depending on where you live, may be a whopping zero! And Social Security and Medicare taxes, which I lump together, because they are always lumped together.

For most people, Social Security and Medicare taxes are a flat 15.3% on one’s wages or ‘business income’ up to a maximum that raises each year. This tax is paid one of two ways depending on how one makes money. If one is a proper employee of a company— the type that receives a Form W-2 at the start of the year— half of their Social Security and Medicare taxes will be paid by their employer. While the worker will pay the other half, taken out of their paycheck each pay period, equating to roughly 7.65% of their wages. If one is self-employed, they need to cover the 15.3%, known as self-employment tax, or SE tax, an additional tax not affected by income tax or any deductions to income tax. Meaning it is very possible, especially for people who make less than a living wage, to owe SE taxes, while not owing any income taxes.

This is more complicated, and annoying, than I am describing it, but I don’t want to put you guys to sleep, so I am simplifying things and making some assumptions.

What does this all mean in practical terms? Well, here’s an example. In 2025, someone who is self-employed and makes $30,000 a year will owe something in the range of $1,000 in income taxes, but need to pay $4,200 in SE taxes, with a total tax bill of $5,200. If this person were primarily paid in tips, then under OBBBA, they will not need to pay any income tax, but will still need to pay $4,200 in SE taxes. Now, does this help and benefit this person? Yes. A thousand bucks is a lot of money, especially in these dying times.

That is one example, but let me quickly give you a spread so you can feel how this affects people and how self-employed and employed people are treated differently under Federal tax law.

  • A single self-employed person making $30,000 would owe roughly $1,000 in income tax and $4,200 in SE taxes, for a total of $5,200. An effective tax rate of 17.33%.
  • A single self-employed person making $40,000 would owe roughly $1,900 in income tax and $5,650 in SE taxes, for a total of $7,550. An effective tax rate of 18.88%.
  • A single self-employed person making $50,000 would owe roughly $2,800 in income tax and $7,050 in SE taxes, for a total of $9,850. An effective tax rate of 19.70%.
  • A single W-2 employee making $30,000 would owe roughly $1,550 in income tax and $2,300 in Social Security and Medicare taxes, for a total of $3,850. An effective tax rate of 12.83%.
  • A single W-2 employee making $40,000 would owe roughly $2,750 in income tax and $3,050 in Social Security and Medicare taxes, for a total of $5,800. An effective tax rate of 14.50%.
  • A single W-2 employee making $50,000 would owe roughly $4,000 in income tax and $3,800 in Social Security and Medicare taxes, for a total of $7,800. An effective tax rate of 15.60%.

With that in mind, you can probably imagine how certain workers might benefit from the ability to take tips, saving hundreds of dollars in tax a year, but there are a few limitations. One, only a maximum of $25,000 in qualified tips can be deducted from one’s income. Two, this deduction begins phasing out after one makes over$150,000, or $300,000 if they are married and filing a joint return. Three, it only applies to qualified tips, a term that needed a proper definition, and we just received the initial draft of 68 professions where qualified tips can be received.

Most of these are pretty expected professions. Waiters, food service workers, musicians, hospital staff, taxi/rideshare drivers, beauty salon staff, et cetera. However, the list is not only far larger and more encompassing than I expected, it contains one particularly pertinent 21st century profession. “Digital content creators.” This… changes things.

Business Insider put out an article musing over how this could benefit online creators, namely influencers, and highlighted some good points. How the concept of a tip is less concrete, but there are clear tipping analogs. Twitch’s bits, TikTok’s gifts, YouTube’s Super Chats, OnlyFans just calls them tips, I guess. And if creators could treat these sources of income as tips, that would help them save money on taxes, especially if they are a smaller monetized creator. However, what I find most interesting about this concept are things that have not traditionally been treated as tips, but are tips.

So, broadly speaking, what even is a tip? Well, IRS provides a pretty clear set of qualifications on their website, and that’s easier to understand than tax code.

  • The customer makes the payment free from compulsion
  • The customer must have the unrestricted right to determine the amount
  • The payment should not be the subject of negotiations or dictated by employer policy
  • Generally, the customer has the right to determine who receives the payment

The tipper is free to make the tip or not, can set the amount, is not restricted by employer policy, and choose who receives the tip. However, this still does not get at what I consider to be the core of what makes a tip. A tip is not a payment for a service, a good, or a means of upgrading something the tipper has already paid for. A tip is something that someone pays to someone else without expecting much in return. It is something beyond obligation. If one commissions an artist to draw something for $100, but they pay them $120, then $100 is regular business income and $20 is a tip. That much is pretty clear, unambiguous.

So, let’s loosely go through the ways that digital content creators monetize themselves and strike through what can and cannot be considered a tip.

Ad money is definitely not a tip.

Sponsorships are not tips, at all.

Merch sales are not tips, as they come from the sale of goods.

However, there are certain things that are pretty transparently tips. Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee, anonymized PayPal gifts or ‘donations’, these are all clearly tips. Nothing is expected in return for any funds sent to the creator. If a creator had a public wishlist where they allowed their audience to buy them things, that would also be a form of tip. And it would not be a gift, as it is something given to you that is, implicitly, related to their business as a content creator.

As for bits, steamer ‘contributions’, Super Chats, or any derivatives, it is slightly more complicated. People who donate are typically given something in return. They might get a doodad next to their name in chat, their messages might be pinned to the chatlog that people are conversing in, or their messages might be read out loud by the creator.

While I have not found any explicit guidance on this subject, I am inclined to say that these ‘streamer contributor’ are tips. Because while the contributor might get to speak or be thanked for their contribution, that’s pretty much all they are getting. They are part of a group watching an entertainer and are not given any material special treatment. They are not being invited to a private stream or server. They do not get to hang out with the entertainer in the after-hours. They just get attention as someone who gave the performer money. And while you might say that receiving any reward, even little icons around their username, is a thing they are paying for, I don’t really buy that.

Let’s say someone is at a relatively small concert, about a hundred people. The concert is free, but the performers put a bucket at the foot of the stage where people can drop money, and people can, somehow, gauge much money someone is putting in. This means that if someone puts $50 into the bucket, people will notice and recognize that ‘this guy gave the performers $50.’ Was this guy paying for the social clout amongst their fellow concert-goers? No, they were tipping to the people on stage and other people noticed. They went beyond any obligation to thank someone at their own discretion, and if they are thanked or given props for that, that does not change the facts. They made a tip.

Streamer contributions are a similar enough analog that I would consider them to be a tip and not subject to income tax per this emergent law. I would be comfortable signing a return where all streamer contributions are treated as tips, so long as nothing beyond light cosmetics and cultural panache was given to the contributor.

…But things get more complicated when dealing with subscriptions, memberships, or any sort of ongoing ‘patronage’ service.

When backing someone on Patreon, subscribing to them on Twitch, becoming a YouTube Member, or paying for their newsletter, things start to get murky. From a certain view, it is easy to dismiss any sort of recurring subscription as something wholly unique and different from a tip. It is a regular payment that occurs every month. But I do not think that is really the issue. Tips can be recurring and regular. I think the issue is that their ‘tip’ is getting them something. If one is paying for early access to a video or article that will be released publicly a few days later, that is not a tip. Because they are receiving access to something with a perceived value. The access is only meant for them, for their account, and is a clear benefit for the subscribers.

If the subscription comes with access to a private member’s lounge, like a patron’s only Discord server, it is also not a tip. If the contributor is getting anything in return more material than a sticker saying ‘I gave X dollars to person Y,’ it is not a tip. However, certain creators have subscriptions that offer no benefits, that are self-described ‘tip jars,’ and everything offered on their donation platform is available for free. In these instances, this subscription should be considered a tip. The subscriber could cancel at any point, the recipient is clear, there are no policies the user is subject to— beyond a monthly schedule, but that’s a platform issue, and they are contributing beyond any obligation. Because there is no obligation.

OKAY! SO WHAT SHOULD CREATORS DO NOW?

I already explained that there can be real tax benefits to recognizing more tip income versus non-tip income. But if one is making money online, as a digital consent creator or influencer, they are kind of making money however they can, and it is hard to justify reinventing a business plan just to save a couple hundred, maybe two thousand, dollars a year. However, I do think that the millions of people making some money as an online creator should keep these tips in mind when it comes time to do their taxes.

  • Include a free tier on your Patreon and figure out how to break down income by tier so you can divide income between tips and regular income.
  • Create a Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee or PayPal gift page and push your fans to give you money that way if a Patreon subscription is too much.
  • Look into streaming and offer people the ability to make contributions during streams as, per my interpretation, they are tips.

Also, I would recommend being aggressive with your approach to expenses.

  • If you are doing stuff on the internet for a living, and are doing it on your own, as your own business, you need to be deducting your phone bill and internet on your Schedule C.
  • You need to be writing off your home office, but only the area specific to your work, i.e., your computer area.
  • Every expense related to what you are doing should be logged and deducted.
  • New cables should be expensed, new furniture that is seen on camera should be expensed (or depreciated if it’s over $2,500, per IRS Notice 2015-82).
  • If you talk about movies or shows, you better be deducting your streaming services.
  • If you do a gaming podcast and bought a game for that, you better deduct that, including sales tax.
  • If you needed to buy a costume or prop or thing that you need to show on screen, you should keep track of it and include it, because every dollar deducted is… like 20 to 30 cents saved or something.

I love my fellow online creators, and while I might not be in the business of making money via stuff I do online, I am more than happy to help them out with tax troubles and keep their money in their pockets by following the rules. If creators have any tax troubles or want to capitalize on these changes in tax laws, I am more willing to help them out with general advice, guidance, or even just doing their returns. …Though, unless I really like you, I will need to charge you something for filing your returns. The tax software is not cheap, and it costs money to send out DocuSigns for the engagement letters and returns.

For all tax related inquiries, you can contact me at TAX at NATALIE dot TF.

Also, for the record the name of this site is Natalie dot TF. Not Natalie TF, not natalie.tf, it is Natalie.TF.

FACT: Consoles ARE Getting More Expensive
(And That’s Why They’re Stagnant)

Akumako: “Jeepers Natalie, can you go one week without talking about the Gamindustri of your childhood dying away as live services and mobile crap take over and blind an entire generation to what games can be?”

Yes. I could go a month without touching this topic. But damn it, when I see an article about this topic, the flame is lit!

Okay, so the latest story that I’m affixing to The Tapestry of Gamindustri Decline is an Ars Technica article that analyzed a worrying trend that have been affecting game consoles for the past few years. …Or, more specifically, the past decade.

To provide additional context, because that’s what I do, game consoles typically saw dramatic price drops over their lifespans. Systems that debuted at $300 or $400 would typically end their runs with MSRPs of somewhere between $100 to $200. This was, by all accounts, a very good thing that made older consoles affordable, accessible, and with depreciated game prices, enabled a new niche in the market to play games and learn to love them. You might not think that anybody was playing the PS2 in 2011 or the Mega Drive in 1998, but that’s probably because you weren’t poor, and your mom didn’t buy you a games console from some musky secondhand shop. Hell, price cuts like this are some of the only reason people in less affluent countries, like Brazil and Qatar, were able to afford dedicated game consoles. The PS2 launched for $300— a steal at the time— but by 2004, you could get a sexier PS2 for only $150. And by 2008, they were selling less sexy redesigned version for $100.

Again, this example is not remarkable or exceptional. Most game consoles used to undergo significant permanent price drops to bolster adoption and expand the user base. Because they wanted their game systems to be everywhere. There was even a pretty reliable formula of game systems undergoing a 50% price drop after 3 to 4 years, depending on a few factors. But that all kind of changed with the PS4 generation.

The PlayStation 4 launched for the ideal price of $400— the price it needed to be— but only saw a price decrease with the release of the PlayStation 4 Slim in 2016, which retailed for $300. And while the PS4 had numerous sales in the following four years, they never really fully dropped the price of the console after that. While the PlayStation 4 Pro, also launched in 2016, retailed for $400, but never underwent a permanent price cut.

…Oh, and the Xbox One was also there. It launched for $500 because it came with a dumb spyware camera called the Kinect. Microsoft realized that nobody who bought it liked the Kinect, so they released a version without it in 2014 for a trim $400. Then they dropped the price of the Xbox One to $300 with a redesign in 2016 before removing the disc drive and dropping the price to $250 in 2019. The frustratingly named Xbox One X was positioned as the PS4 Pro equivalent and retailed for $500 in 2017, before reaching $300 in 2020.

The price history for these systems around 2020 and beyond is opaque due to pandemic supply issues. Maintaining MSRP, let alone stock, was rather difficult, and both Sony and Microsoft were quick to move onto their new consoles, the PS5 and Xbox Series. Consoles that launched for a max price of $500, and now, almost five years later, have gone up in price. This is something unprecedented, fitting for these unprecedented decades in the making, as when looking at the history of how consoles have historically undergone price cuts, everything should be half as expensive as it currently is. Instead, adjusted for precedented inflation, consoles in 2025 are about as expensive as they were in 2020.

This, more than whatever inflation calculator you can pull up showing the launch prices of game consoles really captures why people find gaming to be so expensive. Because the buy in price is really expensive for a lot of people. Wages are stagnating and things are just not going down in price. Definitely not at the rate they used to.

In terms of video games, the reason for this can be attributed to factors such as the consumer technology pipeline being disrupted by the pandemic, preventing the mass manufacturing of goods. Hardware innovation has slowed, and we are not seeing the same technical gains as we were in the 2000s. The Trump’s tariffs— a disproportionate sales tax decided by a bunch of dullards who think using ChatGPT makes them smart— have made any price drop for anything, period, seem like a distant fantasy. And good old fashion corporate greed has clocked into overdrive.

At this point, it is clear that every major hardware manufacturer is content with the current stagnant user base for consoles, and thinking that, if they keep their course, roughly the same amount of people will continue coming to them. And… they’re not wrong.

Game companies like Sony and Microsoft have continued to sell tens of millions of their consoles. They have diminished their retail presence and associated costs in favor of the far more lucrative digital distribution model. And with the numbers satisfactory, with them forecasting that permanent price drops would not improve sales as much as temporary promotional sales, they just aren’t cutting the price.

In the short-term, this is fantastic for these companies, who are probably making money on each console sold at this point. Nintendo Switch sales have probably staggered at 150 million-ish, but that’s damn impressive. PS5 sales look like they can top 100 million. And Xbox… anybody who buys an Xbox nowadays may as well be buying a “Rape All Sand N***rs (Especially Them Kids)” T-shirt.

Akumako: “You keep referencing that slur…”

I originally saw it being referenced by an Egyptian teenager, but I don’t think White Ethnostate Supporters know the difference between an Iranian and Libyan, much less a Palestinian. They just think if it looks brown, bomb it.

In the long-term, this is exactly the type of approach that will lead consoles to become a niche subset of the broader gaming industry. One propped up by enthusiasts, old people, lazy people, and those who covet the aesthetic of luxury. Actually, I would say that the damage was already done in the 2010s. Computers were getting better, getting cheaper, and more capable of playing quality games if you were willing to take a performance hit or only play games a couple years old. Which was… not normal. PC gaming has always run the gamut of affordability, leading developers to often design games for less powerful systems so they could sell more. It’s why so many PC RPGs in the late 90s used pre-rendered sprites and backgrounds. Because not everybody had a voodoo card or whatever.

However, buying a decent gaming PC became far more economical and practical during the early 2010s. PC gaming was having a renaissance due to the success of the Steam experiment. There were an influx of console ports that, while not perfect, were not made of problems, leading many people— like me— to become PC Game Players 4 Lyfe. And the PC was the only platform for many burgeoning live services like Legaia of Leggings (2009), Defending Our Tactica A2: Riftry Grillmore (2013), and Caucasoid Terrorism: Gambling Obsession (2013). Combine this with additional factors like computers becoming a necessity for students— except me, I missed that shit by a year— and the fact that computers are just… better than game consoles, and it is little wonder why console sales have been stagnating.

…Oh, and mobile also fulfilled casual game-likers needs and ate up a good chunk of the people who bought a Wii or DS for a handful of games, while replacing handhelds as people’s first ‘video game system.’ If a phone costs $300, a Chromebook costs $400, and both let a kid play games, why the HELL would a parent even think to buy them another technological doodad they can stare at as they forget what the world looks like?

Akumako: “Wait, so are you saying this would not happen if game companies dropped the price of their consoles and made them cheaper?”

…No, this is actually just inevitable. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, what they are doing sucks. It makes people who want to buy certain consoles unable to buy them. They just cannot save up enough working their part-time job and cannot find a second job to afford it like millions did with the PS3.

Akumako: “Uh, Natalie, very few people actually did that. The PS3 had lackluster sales during its first two years on the market.”

Point is, if you’re only making $11 an hour, and 15% of your paycheck goes to taxes, you gotta work over 50 hours to afford a Switch 2 (plus sales tax).

Akumako: “So, what’s your actual conclusion here?”

Uh, games consoles have decided to transition themselves into being big ticket products that need to be saved up for, defying a promise decades in the making, and companies are enjoying the extra revenue on each system sold, keeping their financial statements pretty and their stock prices on the green! However, it is also important to note how the demographics of the people buying consoles must, by extension, also change. If children are not playing or enjoying game consoles, if the median age of a console purchaser keeps going up, we will eventually reach a point where these people just kind of… stop gaming. Their hands will go to crap, their reflexes will decay from senility, and they will just die.

I think that technological innovation, the cheapness and power of computers and phones, has kind of removed the need for game consoles. The Zoomies and Alphers have already ingrained themselves into the PC and phone ecosystems, and I think they will just stay there, not really wanting to leave.

Akumako: “…What about dedicated handheld systems?”

Huh? We’re talking about consoles.

Akumako: “You were just talking about the Switch, ya dumbshit.”

I think dedicated handhelds are going to be fine. They’re portable, easy to use, can be arranged in your teensy little 9 square meter bedroom, and theoretically cheaper. Unlike a phone, handhelds have buttons that go clicky click, are not bogged down with social media and other guff, and are a good way to lock in and focus on a game, without getting bored and pulling up a feed every 15 minutes.

Akumako: “Do you think the future of consoles is just to become dedicated handheld systems rather than garish boxes?”

…I want it to be that honestly. I think that we have truly reached a point where graphics cannot impress people any further, and now the next frontier is to hardware that can run an Unreal 5 game at 4K and 120fps.

Akumako: “You know Cassie can’t even run ARK at a steady frame rate and she has a 5090.”

Cassie plays games at 4K ultrawide. But yes, after she is able to achieve that with the release of the 7090 in… four years, then I hope we will have reached a point where games do not need more power, meaning things can just transition to becoming phones, handhelds, and PCs, which is everything we need. No more consoles, and no more need for them, because everything they could do could be achieved on a PC or handheld.

Akumako: “See, everybody keeps thinking that tech will just plateau, but then they decide to make everything unoptimized for shits and giggles. Literally why, literally how, is Obsidian— a note-taking program— currently using up one gigabyte of memory on our computer. Twenty years ago, you could run fully 3D games on one gig of ram, fullscreen. And now, you cannot even get a fucking text editor to do that!”

I KNOW! It makes no bloody sense to me that everything just keeps eating up more and more memory, that games that look as good as 360 titles just take up four times the power to run. This inefficiently, this lack of optimization amongst software, that is what’s going to prevent us from getting to this goal!

Akumako: “…Weren’t we talking about game consoles?”

Yeah. I said my piece, and we drifted into this complaint about why modern tech is so frustrating to use. Because it’s like every developer on the planet is trying to force people to upgrade to better technology, only for the performance boost to be a fraction of what it seems like it should be.

Natalie Hyperfixates on A Niche Re-Release Again!
(Another Excuse to Gush About Falcom)

PURPLE EYES FTW!

Okay, okay, let’s try to make this definitive, and say it right.

  • Independent emulation and ROM distribution will always be a vital part of games preservation due to the realities of business, international copyright law, and technological innovation.
  • Re-releasing games via a subscription service, like Nintendo Switch Online, PlayStation Plus, and AntStream Arcade is fine, but it is not and cannot be any form of true preservation.
  • To really preserve something, it needs to be in a form where it can be maintained for the foreseeable future, ideally as a DRM-free file that can be stored, copied, and maintained in perpetuity.
  • While standalone repackaging of games, effectively just ROMs and an emulator, is a nice gesture, it lacks the poise and design to make them feel like a substantial re-release.
  • In the modern storefront ecosystem, it feels a lot better to buy a collection of related older games. It gives the developers the opportunity to include bonus features like interviews, concept art, a soundtrack selection, and different versions of the same game. Things that make the games feel more significant by proximity, like you are experiencing gaming history, rather than something from 30/40 years ago.
  • All re-whatevers of games should strive to maintain a version of their original in some way. It can be as another title playable in the package, another release on the same system or storefront, or a series of options to make the new version sufficiently identical to the original. If a re-release features new visuals or voice actors, there should be an option to use the old ones. If there are mechanical or balance changes, there should be an option to play the game as it was originally released.
  • The quality and options of emulation should approximate what a reasonable game-liker would like to see from a re-release of an older game. If a game is in 3D, a re-release should strive to include widescreen support, antialiasing, and options to adjust the internal resolution, all standard emulator features for 10+ years. If a game is 2D, it should feature various filtering options, and borders, to fit audience preferences.
  • Remakes can be whatever the hell they want so long as the original version is still being sold. If the original is not being sold, that is a far greater problem than the remake not being sufficiently faithful.

I think that covers most of the points that I feel the need to always bring up when talking about re-whatevers. It took me like 12 iterations of the same basic story, but I think I finally learned.

Akumako: “Woo-hoo!”

I think I like collections the best, as they are an opportunity to release these games in a package that enhances them as games via the power of emulation, but also makes them feel more significant. It feels less like you are picking out a random game and more like you are experiencing part of the legacy of a developer, a series, all in a neat package with bonus features rendered with tender loving care. Plus, it encourages people to try out new games. I mean, who would buy most of the games in Saudi Arabia’s SNK’s 40th Anniversary Collection? Not many. But make it a collection, and now the games mean something greater! Accordingly, I tend to perk up whenever I see a new collection of some neglected facet of gaming crop up, especially if it is something I feel is oft forgotten or neglected. And that is definitely the case with the story that slid onto my desk this past week.

Edia, the company responsible for Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Collection and Cosmic Fantasy Collection, announced that they have entered into a licensing agreement with Falcom to port some of their older titles to modern platforms and to international audiences. But rather than make it a series wide collection, they are instead just bringing over a collection of seven games, all for the PC Engine CD-ROM-ROM.

  • Ys I & II (1989) for PC Engine CD-ROM²
  • Ys III (1991) for PC Engine CD-ROM²
  • Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys (1993) for PC Engine CD-ROM²
  • Dragon Slayer VI: The Legend of Heroes (1991) for PC Engine CD-ROM²
  • Dragon Slayer VII: The Legend of Heroes II (1992) for PC Engine CD-ROM²
  • Dragon Slayer VIII: The Legend of Xanadu (1994) for PC Engine CD-ROM²
  • Dragon Slayer IX: The Legend of Xanadu II (1995) for PC Engine CD-ROM²

Why is it just a collection of PC Engine CD games? Probably due to technical reasons. They just need one good emulator for the package, and the rights might be system specific. …As for why it lacks other Falcom games released for the PC Engine CD like Popful Mail, Sorcerian, and Brandish, I have no clue! All of them seem like they would be great inclusions, but maybe some publishing deal with “NEC Home Electronics, Ltd.” and “Victor Musical Industries, Inc.” muddled things.

Okay, so, why is this significant? Well, because of three reasons. One, this is an international release and only three of these seven games were ever given an official English release. And, uh, they weren’t exactly great English releases. Two, the PC Engine CD is a deeply fascinating console that represented an alternate version of what early CD gaming was, featuring gorgeous anime sprite art, voice acting, and CD quality audio, in the late 1980s. Three, this is an example of Falcom digging through their history and making it widely available in an official capacity. Which is something I REALLY wish they would do more aggressively, as Falcom really is one of the most important developers in codifying what a Japanese RPG is. Bowl of Lentils has a stellar video on their history that I would recommend, but I’ll try to give a more narrow retelling here.

Akumako: “Oh grief. Does that mean it’s storytime?”

Yes! If I am going to talk about Falcom, I need to explain the history of Japanese RPGs, which involves going back to the prehistory age of Japanese PC game development. PC games have been developed for about as long as personal computers have been a thing, but early personal computers had a number of limitations. Like only being able to display text, having a hugely limited screen size, being prohibitively expensive, being infinitely harder to use than a modern smartphone, and having no true standard. These limitations also made it hard for companies to localize computers to certain markets, as different languages had different needs, and recognizing the complexity of the Japanese written language, Japan worked on their own wave of computers. Sharp’s X1, NEC’s PC-88, ASCII’s MSX, et cetera.

These were different animals compared to the IBM compatibles, Commodore 64s, and Apple IIs spread across America and Europe during this time, and led their PC game markets to develop in parallel during their early years. Game development was also harsh back then, often putting one person in charge of programming, designing, and creating the art for a given game, all in BASIC or C or whatever. As such, there were not a lot of people making PC games, many who did just sold floppy discs in baggies at local computer shops, and very few people knew anything about what was happening on the other side of the pond.

As such, when the oft cited RPG juggernauts like Ultima and Wizardry were making their debut, it took a few years for word about these games to travel to Japan, and they were mostly inspiration for specific developers. They looked at these games, looked at Dungeons and Dragons, and what other people in the scene were doing, all building on top of each other in rapid succession.

Arguably, the RPG genre really found its footing in Japan in 1984, where there were a bunch of titles that built upon this foundation. Henk Rogers’s The Black Onyx was a scenario based dungeon crawl that took inspiration from Wizardry more than anything else, but just looking at gameplay of the original PC-88 version… that is the groundwork for all Japanese dungeon crawlers. Hell, I cannot look at the ‘battle screen’ without thinking that this was the direct inspiration for Final Fantasy’s battles.

Namco’s Tower of Druaga was a real-time action dungeon crawler that could be thought of a way to adapt the thrill of a game like Wizardry to an arcade audience. With character upgrades, a slew of enemies, winding paths, and unambiguous western fantasy trappings, it served as millions of people’s introduction to the look and feel of an RPG by being a widely circulated arcade game. And if you never heard of it, that’s because it came out in the North American video game no-no years, and the game was not officially localized until… 2009.

T&E Soft’s Hydlide, while a punching bag for American angry reviewers and sex pests, was similarly a hugely inspirational game that served as the first typical ‘adventure-driven’ RPG in this nascent genre. It did a lot that was never done before, laid an unambiguous template for everything from Zelda to Dragon Quest, and attempted to blend the action of Druaga with a stronger emphasis on a journey, taking cues from the burgeoning graphical adventure game genre. You play as a knight going through a fantasy world, finding fairies, and saving a princess, fighting slimes for EXP to level up, infiltrating castles to get various doodads, and getting new equipment.

I deeply adore people like Basement Brothers for spreading word about old Japanese PC games to an English audience.

Between these releases, Falcom entered the scene with their real-time action RPG Dragon Slayer. While Falcom had been around for a few years as a computer shop and purveyors of various eccentricities, Dragon Slayer was where they really kicked things off, delivering a game that… seems like its from another timeline. In Dragon Slayer, you play as a warrior venturing through a world full of pushable bricks, myriad treasures, and also monsters to kill for EXP before healing up at the protagonist’s house. …Which is also a block that you can move. It’s one of those games that I feel I won’t understand until I actually play it and—

So, I played Dragon Slayer for 10 minutes. Specifically the Game Boy version because I don’t know how to emulate PC-88 games. And I still do not get it, at all.

Still, Dragon Slayer resonated with the PC gaming audience at the time, made Falcom a semi-notable developer in this niche, and then they released Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II the following year! Xanadu was the biggest PC game in Japan when it launched, selling over 400,000 copies, and there is a saying that every PC game player in Japan had a copy of Xanadu. (This was back when people just copied floppy disks willy-nilly and handed them out to friends and family.) It was easily one of the most influential and important RPGs in the entire genre’s history— no Japanese prefix needed. Afterward, Falcom continued blazing all sorts of trails with their Dragon Slayer series, doing something new with every game, and often bopping between genres while retaining an RPG core.

Falcom, like many other companies of the era, was not afraid to mix and match concepts, change up what RPGs could be, and would routinely throw things at the wall to see what sticks, and the approach worked pretty well for them, especially when they started licensing ports for the Famicom. While I have not personally played… really any of these titles, I still have a lot of respect and reverence for them and what they did. Though, if I wanted to, I could purchase many of these legendary games viaProject Egg.

I’ve brought this up before, but Project Egg is a venture by D4 Enterprises that can be thought as a facsimile to GOG, at least when they were a vehemently retro storefront. They exclusively sell emulated versions of games for old-ass systems like the PC-88 and MSX, and I respect them for what they do… …But I really wish they actually supported the English language. Anybody even trying to launch an online gaming platform gaming software these days needs to make sure it support English and Chinese. …And Spanish.

Fortunately, Project Egg has branched out in recent years by releasing old Japanese PC games on Nintendo Switch via their EGGCONSOLE brand. But these releases are generally untranslated, merely contain how to play instructions, and are meant to be faithful renditions of the games with a few extra options for the sake of accessibility. Like a translated digital manual. Still, better than nothing, and a great way to play stuff like the original Ys (1987).

Falcom’s history is full of interesting little marvels, and I think it is fantastic that, over the past 15 years, so many of their 21st century titles have just been localized and released in on PC (the eternal platform). However, there are a lot of gaps between the preserved early history by Project Egg folks and the likes of Zwei (2001) and Xanadu Next (2005). Such as their early Windows games and reissues, released during the dark era. However, not all of Falcom’s games were on PC, with their console releases, conversions, or enhanced ports often being better in a lot of ways. Better game feel, better visuals, more refined designs, and great features like CD audio or voice acting.

Which is why I actually think that a re-release of Falcom’s PC Engine CD output is a genuinely cool choice. Because all of these games are true to their original version. Three of them are the original version. And all the others have an original version you can buy on your Nintendo Switch.

Also, literally who else is re-releasing PC Engine CD games? I know not many people played with that thing— I’ve never seen one in person— but that does not make it any less cool!

Akumako: “Natalie, we need to have an intervention one of these days, because you just cannot keep going on these tangents every week.”

What? But the people need to know! They need to know the history! Nobody else is gonna do this! So I gotta!

Akumako: “You gotta finish your dumb unplanned ramble about a 12-year-old Pokémon game and get back to playing Hundred Line so you can finish your damn review of it.”

Fiiiinnnneee! I’ll cap this Rundown after just three segments.

Progress Report 2025-09-07

I wish that I had the time to deconstruct Linkara’s little freak out at the tail-end of this milestone video, as he manages to succinctly capture a lot of the unproductive rage that I have been feeling towards my output over this past year or so as my works kept getting longer while I’ve been unable to work on things I desperately want to work on!

…But rather than develop these endslate thoughts for now, I’m going to get back to writing my next Ramble, and hopefully I can get something done sometime other than these gosh dang Rundowns.

Maybe I can do it when reflecting on the year-end Ramble for 2025.

2025-08-31: Busy with more Pokémon Y! This was a mistake!

2025-09-01: Finished Pokémon Y, wrote 3.5k words on a Ramble about it before getting brain farts.

2025-09-02: Wrote 2,500 word Rundown preamble, mostly while working, because I was on standby, and I was writing about TAXES! Wrote 2,100 word bit on consoles. Wrote 1,400 words for the Pokémon Y Ramble.

2025-09-03: Busy day at work! Basically 11 hours, but one hour was spent helping my mother with stuff and doing dishes. Wrote 2,500 words about Falcom before Scrumptious ate up what would’ve been an hour of prime writing time. It just sorta happens.

2025-09-04: Another day of worky work. Had to head over to the grocery store and make some dinner since my mother’s on a vacation. Wrote 1,400 words for the big Pokémon Ramble, made some cursed header images, and edited this clownfish.

2025-09-05: Okay, final 2,500 words for the Pokemon X and Y Ramble were written, and I will edit it tomorrow, because I don’t LIKE editing something the day I finish writing it. Editing may be more involved, as I did not have a proper outline in mind, but whatever. It will go live on Tuesday, because 9/9 is a funny date.

2025-09-06:Did the cleaning in the morning, had work in the afternoon, edited the X and Y Ramble in the evening, grabbed the screenshots, and talked to Missy some more, because Missy is fun and a chatty Cathy, not to be confused with Cassie Cathy Wright. After showering, it was past midnight, so I decided to resume Severance and do some Pokemon related spreadsheet guff, because I wanted to hyperfixate.

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