- 0 Posts
- 15 Comments
Having dual-purposed my 3080 for both work (product marketing renders) and gaming, the cost was actually manageable and I’ve since earned back the costs. But it is what we’ve come to. Enthousiast hardware is only really feasible if you have a businesscase for it. If it doesn’t pay for itself, it doesn’t make sense.
Part of what got us into this mess is that GPUs started to become their own business case due to crypto mining. Which added a bunch of RoI value to the cards, which was ultimately reflected in their pricing. Now that consumer mining is pretty much unfeasable, we’re still seeing ridiculous pricing, and the only ways to make money using a GPU require a skillset or twisted morals (scalping).
If I were to buy something for gaming only, $1k definitely does not make any sense at all. And if that part requires at least $800 in other parts to make a full system it’s even less reasonable. Consoles are the other extreme though, and are usually sold at a loss to get you spending money on the platform instead.
On behalf of all of you in this community, fuck the status quo!
Honestly, this is probably a better solution than you might have guessed. Especially when it comes to fake inflation price hikes.
Companies have this way of shit-testing the economy to see what you’re willing to pay. If there isn’t a significant reduction in turnover rates, then say hello to the new prices!
Prime example being NVIDIA with their bogus GPU pricing. Turns out that their shit still sells at $2000 a GPU, and people seem way to quick to accept this as the new reality.
If we all agreed that $2000 GPUs, $3000 laptops and $1500 phones are bullshit, those price points wouldn’t exist. Unfortunately we live in a world where normies are more interested in fancy features and the general public is incapable of estimating specs based on their needs. Which leaves all of us being played for absolute fools by companies manipulating the supply chain.
Just to be clear, Monster Hunter is 60% boss rush, 30% resource management and 10% gear progression.
Compared to Souls gameplay, Monster Hunter is more grindy and mission-based and you’re always pointed at the next big thing. Beat a monster, collect materials, craft weapons and armour, repeat ad nauseam. And do everything all over again when you hit High Rank.
Don’t go into Monster Hunter expecting a Souls game, it’s a different experience.
That said, I absolutely love the Monster Hunter series and have probably sunk over 800 hours into different entries combined. Definitely give them a go! And if you do, keep in mind that the newer games have some handholding QoL features not found in older games, so keep that in mind when you decide in which order you might want to experience the games.
Well yeah, SONY would probably make the call, but they likely won’t bet on any other studio for porting the game.
And since From Software is currently in deep with Elden Ring content, I’m not holding any hopes for getting the full SoulsBorne catalog on PC anytime soon.
I definitely will not be getting a Playstation though, so patience it is until SONY steps up their game.
Having carried over an account from the original RS2 back in the day all the way over to modern RS3, getting multiple 99’s, and now currently exploring all that OSRS has to offer, I bet I’m one of those crazy enough to grind out all the things in real life too.
I still consider properly implemented progression systems (where you’re always working towards the next thing) one of the more enjoyable and rewarding game mechanics. And I find there are too few games out there that actually implement them correctly. Most prominent examples I can think of are RuneScape and Terraria. There is just something about progressing through the tiers and experiencing all the different shinies that come with them.
But you probably know this, otherwise you wouldn’t be working on this app. :P
Wow, this is awesome! Definitely going to consider supporting this, looks like a lot of fun for just moving around.
As a long time RuneScape player, this is exactly the kind of stuff I want to see more of.
Are you in contact with Jagex at all? They have a history of actually supporting “community projects”, best possible analogy to this being Melvor Idle, which is officially recognised and published by Jagex. And they’re also known for supporting mental and physical health causes. Seems like the perfect game to form some kind of partnership on.
Exactly, and I’ll be ready - lighter and gasoline in hand - to burn bridges if they do.
I like the Wizarding World as a fantasy setting, but that is something not even our fucked up copyright laws can take away from me now. Rowling is going to hell for being a piece of shit, which is just as inevitable.
Just like Star Wars, the original creator started something amazing, ans they can fuck off now, the fans are taking over.
Sadly this world of publishers and royalties does not work this way, but I can at least cherrypick which parts of the material I get my enjoyment from.
Different take:
What we got was a pilot, an experiment to see if it is even worth going all in on the ‘Portkey Games’ route in the future. Sure, there’s young adults out there who played the old school movie tie-in games of the GameCube era. But they aren’t enough of an audience to warrant spending big on something that might flop.
Most of the game’s systems and gameplay are underwhelming, yes. And they could probably have spent some time writing a more compelling story with a lot less chosen one bullshit tropes in it. But they did manage to build a wizarding world that convincingly lets you immerse yourself in it. The game has a real sense of scale to it, unlike the older games, and my favourite thing is just walking around looking at details and letting my own fantasy do the rest.
Now here’s the thing. They did a succesful little experiment: They made a game that isn’t outright hated and lives up to some of the dreams we had as kids playing the original movie games. And they managed to do so without defaulting to the shitty loot box practises so many publishers are known for this day and age. Especially WB stuff. It all depends on what they do next.
From here they can go one of two ways: Either take the easy route and create a carbon copy of this game, rake in some profits and watch as people start seeing the cracks and slowly lose interest. Or take it seriously, spend the extra attention and actually improve upon anything this game has to offer and stand to gain even more revenue.
Chances are they take the first path and everything comes crashing down, and they’ll blame fans for losing interest. If they do opt to go the second route there is a lot of work to be done. Interested to see where it goes either way.
Which is exactly why my first sentence explicitly states “product leadership”.
I agree, we don’t need any more games that prolong a shitty experience just to use collective playtime as a metric of success.
The correct metric could be play time AND experience rating: If I manage to put 300 hours into a game, none of it feels repetitive and I’m still having fun I’d be willing to spend more than if I get a couple hours of amazing gameplay and a giant “collect all these flags” middle finger for 100% completion.
Ultimately we need publishers to stop their short-term value strategies and start investing in long-term value from reputation, popular IPs and games that will be remembered.
This only works if you spin this with a product leadership strategy:
Shovelware games that don’t offer a solid chunk of hours or any kind of replayability should be priced lower, and proper games should be priced normally.
The thing is, this is not at all how pricing works if you’re building a business model. Prices are always heavily influenced by what the consumer is willing to pay, or in this case what they’ve been used to for years. For as long as I can remember “full price” has always been $50 or $60.
Special editions with marginal bonus content, $10 price increases on the base game and shitty DLC (horse armor comes to mind) are all examples of corporate shit tests, designed to see how far they can take it.
History has proven though, that changing consumer expectations is among the more difficult things to do in a market where alternatives are rampant. Though the whole franchise loyalty thing kinda ruins that, but I’ll be damned if I have to pay $200 for a game. That will promt me to just play something else instead.
The free games are 80% shovelware not worth playing, 15% indie experiments that have the potential to become a full game with another development iteration, and 5% AAA games that can be bought on sale for a fiver anyway.
I doubt much of their Fortnite money is actually being spent on licenses for these games. They likely negotiate some kind of “do it for the exposure” deal with the smaller developers in order to keep the flow of free games going.
Chances are the games given out for free will end up in a Humble Bundle at some point anyway. Which is when you acquire a steam key anyway.
I’ve identified good progression systems as the main thing I like about games with crafting. You make something which enables you to get the next best thing, repeat.
Notable examples are Terraria, (modded) Minecraft to some degree, Runescape (no bias towards OSRS or RS3), Monster Hunter series, various MMO’s, Subnautica, ARK and Forager.
I take issue with some of the statements here. First of all:
I find this whole “right to repair” really pointless endeavour pushed by repair shops wanting to retain their outdated business model.
Right to repair is definitely not just being pushed by repair shops. If you take a good look at the rate Framework is selling devices at (batches instantly sold out until Q1 2024), you’ll see that consumers want this more than any other group. We, as the consumers will ultimately benefit the most from having repair options available. Right to repair is not meant to halt innovation, it is not about forcing manufacturers to design products in ways detrimental to the functioning of said products. It is about making sure they don’t lock third parties out of the supply chain. If you replace a traditional capacitor with a SMD variant, someone is going to learn to micro solder. If you convert a chip from socketed to BGA mount, someone is going to learn how to use a heat plate and hot air gun to solder it back in to place.
The main problem is manufacturers demonstrably going out of their way to prevent the feasable.
The second part I take issue with is this:
It is probably better use of our collective resources to focus on researching technologies that will help us deconstruct these tiny components into their constituent matters
From my 12 years of experience in design of consumer goods and engineering for manufacturing I can tell you this is not happening because no one is going to pay for it. The more tightly you bond these “constituent matters” together, the more time, energy, reasearch and money it will require to convert them back into useful resources.
There is only one proper way to solve this problem and it is to include reclamation of resources into the product lifecycle design. Which is currently not widely done because companies put profits before sustainability. And this model will be upheld until legislation puts a halt to it or until earth’s resources run out.
In terms of sustainability the desireable order of action is as follows:
- reduce: make it so you need less resources overall
- prolong: make it so you can make do as long as possible with your resources. this part includes repair when needed
- reuse: make it so that a product can be used for the same purpose again. this part includes repair when needed
- repurpose: make it so that a product can be used for a secondary purpose
- recycle: turn a product into resources to be used for making new products
- burn: turn the product into usable energy (by burning trash in power stations for example)
- dispose: usually landfill
NVIDIA shareholders hate this post!