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I mean steam adds a convenient way to keep your games up to date instead of having to manually patch them. I also was on the anti-steam bandwagon for the longest time until I finally gave in and decided to buy Modern Warfare 2 in 2010. I ended up repurchasing the rest of the Call of Duty games because it was so convenient not needing the discs and not having to locate patches.
Steam is the one launcher I don’t get pissed about having to use because it has so many value add features.
Unlike epic/origin/uplay
That’s a fair point to disagree on. Fundamentally, I see it as a console that can also do PC stuff as opposed as a PC that can be played in the living room.
The price is probably more competitive for those who think of it as a PC first, I just don’t know if that is a market segment that can lead to a profit.
I can understand your viewpoint and agree with it even that Fortnite is overly engineered to sell overpriced cosmetic items to children.
I think where we differ is that one wrong (regular Fortnite skins), doesn’t excuse another, worse wrong (brainrot lootboxes and expensive mtx that can be lost)
The whole operation should be shut down, I think we agree there. Fortnite is actually the majority profiteer in this case, the “experience dev” only gets 34% of the revenue from the sale. Infuriating how hypocritical epic is after fighting apple and google over these practices only to do the same thing.
At least Apple and Google try to protect their users from this kind of thing
Pretty obvious what was going to happen when they decided to go the Roblox route. Fortnite and Roblox are both predatory slop. Quite frankly the developers (even if they are kids) releasing paid “experiences” (aka slop) are just as immoral and predatory.
Talk to your kids about not falling for scams like f2p monetization schemes.
ARC Raiders is an incredibly fun game. Really exposes both the best and worst of human experiences.
When ending the night after getting gunned down by a rat camping extract I can lay awake stewing over it for seemingly half the night. When the opposite happens, and I finish on a really good raid with some high level loot, I bask in the glow for the other half of the night.
Do they charge real money for worthless cosmetics in this game? You think they’d be able to afford to bring the original voice actors back in to re-record some lines for updates, if that’s the case.
Seems kind of ironic for a game that’s about capitalists fucking the earth and leaving to space while the rest of humanity is plagued by AI death machines for generations.
Kids want to play the games their friends are playing more than what their parents play.
I will play Fortnite and Roblox and Rocket League with my son and I’ve never had a skin or a battle pass and have tried to show him you can have fun with out wasting your money but that doesn’t stop a kids FOMO.
Publishers know kids have undeveloped abilities to delay gratification and are susceptible to peer pressure
Really? Your parents never bought you worthless junk meant to be throw away like fart putty or those rubber bubbles you blow up with a straw that barely work or packs of Pokémon cards or baseball cards?
I don’t think it should be up to the parents to tell the kids what’s valuable to them. If the kid wants a vbucks card over a game then you can tell them that’s why they didn’t get a new game.
(I do recognize that the current monetization models have ruined modern gaming which is why I only play games that are 15 years old or older)
I agree with making accessible controllers with special layouts and allowing custom control bindings to accommodate those who are differently abled.
Those can be accommodated without meaningfully altering the game. Changing the gameplay is different however. Not that adding more difficulty options is a bad thing, I don’t mean to disparage anyone by calling it fake accessibility, just that I don’t think it’s the same as other options because it fundamentally changes the experience compared to other options that I considered “real”
Is it not fair for the game developers’ artistic vision to not be accessible to all? Accessibility is nice, expands the potential audience, but if it compromises my artistic vision and I’m ok with giving up reach and money to preserve it, that doesn’t make my game bad or my vision invalid.
It would be ridiculous to call up the bar or the ama and complain to them that becoming a lawyer or a doctor is not accessible to all.
One last addition, adding control remapping, color options, and text to speech are true accessibility. Easy mode is fake accessibility
You can fit maybe 5 games at 100 GBs a piece (which is pretty standard for PS5) on an 825 GB drive, not to mention that you have to leave up to 100 GB overhead just to update certain games plus room for the OS. If you have a family then you literally have a situation like mine where I have 1 game installed to the PS5 and Warzone, Fortnite, Roblox, Rocket League, Fall Guys, and Marvel Rivals take up the rest of the console storage space
User name checks out, I really enjoy your writing. Do you keep a blog?
Games, as much as anything else, is a hobby and are something that people have to have a passion for to stay up with it. Just like the hobby of your coworker, who hits up the car show circuit every summer weekend, can cite every part number for the general Lee dodge charger out of the Dodge parts catalog, might be intimidating to someone who isn’t a car person. Our hobby has time and financial commitments that gatekeep others out too. We love it anyway.
Chasing an authentic or definitive experience, is like going for tops at a car show. A goal worth striving for but not required to enjoy the hobby.
Just like we can talk about how Donkey Kong, or Super Mario Bros. or Doom impacted gaming forever. So could your car guy about thunderbirds, corvettes, or some other third thing.
Equally sad is cars today, like games, are engineered to make as much money as possible and not for repair or longevity. Meanwhile the classics will always have a community dedicated to preserving them even as the stock of parts grow thin and less accessible.
In 30 years no one is going to be able to drive a car from the near future even if they wanted to as they get reduced to required apps to start and LTE connectivity for the on board computer functionality, the same way Fortnite won’t exist even though Super Mario Bros still plays fine on OG hardware
The 80s had some great games. Donkey Kong. Pac-Man. Galaga and Galaxian. Super Mario Bros 1,2,3. Zelda 1 & 2. Contra, Castlevania, Megaman
But the 90s had Mario World and Mario Kart. Super Metroid. Link to the Past. Donkey Kong Country. Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. Crash and Spyro. Sonic. Medal of Honor. Goldeneye. Half - Life.
I’d probably take the 90s slightly over the 80s. Heck even the 00s have Half-Life 2, the GTA series, the good Call of Duty’s and Halos. And the 2010s had RDR2 and GTAV.
2020s haven’t had any super great games yet though.
I’ve been playing more of my old retail games that don’t require any launcher or drm beyond requiring the disc. It’s nice.
I’m not exactly sure if “xfire on steroids” bloat of steam actually adds anything anymore these days. Steam is nice because my library is already there. Even the friends list has mostly been supplanted by discord now.
I use the epic launcher for 1 thing, to launch Fortnite to play with my son. I don’t want more steam features, I’d rather acknowledge its existence less. Start selling games without DRM that only use the launcher to update and it’s better than steam. That’s the 1 feature it needs.
Maybe that’s they point, people want to play Morrowind but they don’t have a platform that can actually play it