Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company’s headquarters

But they contended that Thursday’s event was similar to other Microsoft-sanctioned employee giving campaigns

Seems like employer approval is an important piece.

But I think the most interesting part of the article is

Nasr said his firing was disclosed on social media by the watchdog group Stop Antisemitism more than an hour before he received the call from Microsoft. The group didn’t immediately respond Friday to a request for comment on how it learned about the firing.

Exclusives are anti consumer

I’ve been having trouble putting my finger on what it is about it like that. I waited a little bit past the hype to play, and when I started I was completely hooked. Then I got busy for a few days and couldn’t play it, but never really felt like picking it up again

I wonder if it’s because it has a lot of different mechanics, but they aren’t particularly deep? So it’s addicting as you keep discovering new ones and how they interact, but then dies off?

I was confused at first, I thought it was trying to say whether the driver defaults to the Nvidia proprietary, and I thought that was already the case

Exactly. I was extremely disappointed in the community reaction when Steam was going to implement the option for modders to get paid. Instead of focusing on the legitimate issues with the proposal (pay ratios were off, mod dependencies and ripoffs need to be addressed) it boiled down to “rah, I don’t want to pay for things I didn’t used to, rah. Real modders give me stuff for free.”

I think we’re missing out by not having this as an option. Modding can provide a good stepping stone into full game development, and if people can earn money for their work, they can justify spending more time on it or potentially even doing it full time.

That math doesn’t work out

The 79,900 games available on steam vs 7,200 on PS 4/5.

Not really, and I’m guessing it’s part of their decision here since it could open them to possibilities they don’t like if they say that an account is an asset. It’s also probably fairly complicated, legally; they need to understand how estates are settled in every country they do business, open themselves up more to scammers, etc.

I doubt they’re going to enforce this if you were to give your credentials to someone else. They’re just not going to voluntarily provide the credentials for you.

Yeah, I think all indications have been that Microsoft is getting out of the video game business. Or, if they were planning on staying in, why would they close a bunch of studios, including successful ones like Hi-Fi Rush’s Tango games.

I really disliked the ability to get lost combined with the challenge in Dark Souls. In most games, if I come upon an area that’s extremely hard, it’s clear that I’m not supposed to go there yet. But with Dark Souls, I know it’s supposed to be hard and had a harder time gauging if there was somewhere else I should be going.

Yeah, I feel like the article would be more persuasive if they gave any examples of what research they are doing which requires these specific old games.

I disagree with one of their points

Network firewalls can also be configured to deny inbound and outbound traffic to and from the physical interface. This remedy is problematic for two reasons: (1) a VPN user connecting to an untrusted network has no ability to control the firewall and (2) it opens the same side channel present with the Linux mitigation.

Sure, they can’t control the network firewall, but why would you do that when you can change your local firewall? Set an iptables rule to drop all traffic going out the physical interface that isn’t destined for the VPN server. I’m 70% sure some vpn clients do this automatically.

For your specific case, sure, but for that quote, I haven’t had those issues in years. I’m also running Mint, but on a desktop and have had zero issues. Mouse “just works,” extra monitors “just work,” and (most surprisingly to me), printer “just works,” games on Steam “just work” with all they’ve done with Proton. I switched to Google docs a long time ago, so at least for me the Office thing isn’t relevant. It natively supports discord, my password manager, Spotify, everything I’ve wanted. I switched my wife’s Mac to it years ago since it had gotten slow from bloat, and she’s been just fine despite not being very tech literate.

Saw that response coming. I’m just saying maybe don’t assume everything is American before asking a question like that, and especially don’t do it for a website with “euro” in the name

Are we really not going to talk about how the website is EURO gamer?

Facebook is literally the fifth most hated https://www.axios.com/2023/05/23/corporate-brands-reputation-america

I agree, but I think AA also exists. I’d put Remnant From the Ashes in that category

My thought was that it was going to be just about WiFi internal to the house and it was an issue with interference from neighbors (which then gets shut out in the rain).

Good video on some other drawbacks to licensed game dev https://youtu.be/SdJCrgSXAW0?si=qtdrhzSFXmQPaUjC

“How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man?”

The industry should’ve already learned this lesson from the MMO crash, of everyone trying to replicate WoW’s success and then later realizing that a business model of investing a ton of money to try and compete for both consumers’ time and money is a bad idea.

Damn, that actually sounds cool as hell. Loved Star Wars Bounty Hunter

“We’re hoping soon, though, it is very high on our list, and we want to make SteamOS more widely available. We’ll probably start with making it more available to other handhelds with a similar gamepad style controller. And then further beyond that, to more arbitrary devices. I think that the biggest thing is just, you know, driver support and making sure that it can work on whatever PC it happens to land on. Because right now, it’s very, very tuned for Steam Deck.”

https://www.pcgamer.com/steamos-on-handheld-pcs/

From listening to Gabe’s early interviews about the Deck, I actually think they sell the hardware at a loss, with the intent of bringing in new customers.

I’m sure the $10 billion they make from Steam plays a role

Just wanted to plug in case you weren’t already aware, isthereanydeal is a pretty great one stop shop for looking for sales across a ton of storefronts. Pretty easy to import a steam wishlist to it as well.

I get the sentiment, but don’t really agree. Humans’ inputs are also from what already exists, and music is generally inspired from other music which is why “genres” even exist. AI’s not there yet, but the statement “real creativity comes solely from humans” Needs Citation. Humans are a bunch of chemical reactions and firing synapses, nothing out of the realm of the possible for a computer.

The context for this was them deciding to take the time to finish the game properly even if they were no longer going to get paid to do it (the publisher would stop funding).

https://youtu.be/TbZ3HzvFEto?si=7g4Dylj_zaAeeos_?t=28m28s

I mean, it’s hard to steer me away from regular old stupidity and incompetence. I’d like to understand the logic for why he would intentionally run his $44 billion investment into the ground.

I thought they jumped to it because ancient, poorly made software would check for Windows 9* to cover 95 and 98, and could now potentially catch windows 9 as well

The list grows

You say it like there’s some hypocrisy going on. Yes, I donate money to charity, no, I don’t leave all my money on my porch. Hot take: people should be allowed to sell their creations.

I was just about to post this. I’d used it for the occasional one-off of a game I’m interested in and only recently learned I can sync my wishlist with it.