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Cake day: Aug 02, 2023

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Sweet! Shapez is a great take on factory games.


The audio in this game really seals the deal. You’re just swimming along collecting resources and hear a terrifying roar. But you look around and can’t see where it came from… Do you keep going or nope the fuck outta there and go take a breather in your life pod for 20 mins while your heart rate comes back down?


Being able to build vertically makes it a very different experience. Using a hyper tube chain to yeet yourself all the way across the map is chef’s kiss.

The blueprints are helpful for mid to late game when you need to set up dozens of the same thing. It’s not a perfect system, but can definitely be a time saver.

The combat is totally different. There’s no raid/defense mechanism. The mobs have a fixed spawn point. They’ll stop respawning once you start building around that point. Once you learn the appropriate attack/dodge maneuver for each type, they’re barely even a nuisance to kill.


This is it. I have a ton from humble bundle and free keys. Very few I’ve paid for and never played.


Bitch please. I ain’t buyin nothin till it’s on sale 60% off on steam.


No. They’re repeating cable history. The great bundling has already begun. Hulu and Disney are being rolled together. You’re going to have fewer options moving forward. You’ll have to buy the netflix-hulu-disney-peacock-hbo-starz bundle or the other one with all the rest. Then they can keep cranking up the price because it’s all or nothing. Prices will go up until too many people choose the “nothing” option, then they’ll start doing a “build your own package” to let you drop half and save 10% just because you want one of the services.


This is exactly it. They’re not building their brand by providing a superior service/experience or driving market prices down. They’re using venture capital to fund giving away games to get you to use their wildly subpar services. They’re trying to buy market position without the services to justify it.



You’re not wrong, but shareholders look at their investment very differently than stockholders. Private shareholders can’t necessarily cash out whenever they want because the sale of private equity is usually tightly controlled by the company. This means they need to be interested in long-term growth and success. While public stockholders can also hold their shares for a long time, there’s much more ability and incentive to buy and sell quickly to make a quick profit.

Anecdotally, I worked for a publicly traded company for 6 years before they got bought and taken private by a private equity group. The way profitability and trends are measured is night and day. As a public company, everything was hyper focused on quarter by quarter results. One underperforming quarter meant a tank in stock prices, hiring freezes, and a general sentiment to the employees of “quit spending money on expenses if you want to have a job next quarter”. Being controlled by private equity, they’re most concerned with year over year growth and the long-term stability of our operations.


Autonauts, Astroneer, Factorio, Minecraft. All great games with excellent replay value IMO.



Recessions also cause a spike in vice and escapism, so it could drive more game sales or at least offset the lack of disposable income.


And then later on…

Generally, open source refers to a computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use or modification from its original design.

Unreal Engine is technically open source, because it’s source code is made available to the general public. But it is licensed under a restrictive EULA instead of any of the normal licenses you’d expect for an open source project (MIT, Apache, GPL3, etc).

This is definitely pedantic, but “open source” is a colloquial term, not a technical one. Most people mean FOSS when they say open source, but the terms aren’t exactly equivalent. The license that governs the code is really the only part that actually matters.


It’s not a myth, it’s called Fiduciary Duty. The board, officers, and executives of a public company have a legal responsibility to put the financial interests and well-being of the company above other personal interests. The article you linked doesn’t deny this, and it also isn’t discussing the legal definition of it. It’s discussing what you might call “toxic fiduciary duty”, or more or less the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. It’s the idea that profit is the primary motive and should always trump all other considerations.

Fiduciary duty is important to create a concrete stance against corruption and misuse of the company’s assets for personal gain. But when taken to an extreme, it becomes toxic and has negative consequences for the company. Employee wages are probably the most obvious example. There has to be a balance between underpaying and overpaying. If you chronically underpay, the best employees will seek more gainful employment elsewhere and the company will suffer from a poorly qualified workforce. If you overpay, like 100% revenue share with employees, the company will cease to make a profit and will be unable to function. A balance has to be struck to retain the best talent in order to drive success for the company; that is the point of the article you linked.

TL;DR extremism is always bad

(Please don’t mistake this for a pro-capitalism rant, there’s nuance to be had here)