I think the storytelling alone it manages to get across makes it top 3.

That said I always liked this one:

Swords Bard/Swashbuckler Rogue, I’m finally going to be able to make my favourite swordsman.

I am so psyched for Swashbuckler, oh man.

Oh wow, I just checked and mine turned 21 today! 🎊

Jesus Christ my steam account is old enough to drink in the US.

What is a standard by your definition?

Human beings don’t come in ‘standards.’ 105 men are born for every 100 women, does that mean women aren’t ‘standard’ or ‘normal’? You’re using an appeal to definition, still. That isn’t how we talk about people. There are more common things, but there is no ‘normal,’ ‘standard,’ etc. We have imposed standards, through a patriarchal system, which I feel Ursula K. Le Guin can explain far better than I.

So when I was born, there actually were only men. People were men. They all had one pronoun, his pronoun; so that’s who I am. I am the generic he, as in, “If anybody needs an abortion he will have to go to another state,” or “A writer knows which side his bread is buttered on.” That’s me, the writer, him. I am a man.

No, you seem to still not get the point…

I honestly have no idea what your points are. I still have no idea what:

“I say its a interesting change when put into the context of the Internet “LGBT” people being toxic and don’t listen to anyone not LGBT many do identify as bisexual wich in return makes actually Bisexual people looked down upon by LGBT people”

That means. I get there’s a newspaper article about what happened to that poor woman, and I don’t doubt it happened, it’s not as systemic as implied. Seriously, please slow down, and explain this:

the Internet “LGBT” people being toxic and don’t listen to anyone not LGBT

What does this mean? Listen to straight people about what?

Most Gen Z LGBT are bisexual

So being bisexual is ‘normal’ then, is it? Does that make you abnormal?

I say its a interesting change when put into the context of the Internet “LGBT” people being toxic and don’t listen to anyone not LGBT many do identify as bisexual wich in return makes actually Bisexual people looked down upon by LGBT people

I’m bi and have never experienced that, nor has anyone bi that I know, but I also have to ask… do you know what the ‘B’ in ‘LGBT’ stands for?

into the context of the Internet “LGBT” people being toxic and don’t listen to anyone not LGBT

The invented context of what? How do ‘LGBT people not listen to anyone not LGBT’? For what? What the hell are you talking about? Is this a ‘Gay Agenda’ thing?

So just so we’re clear, in your chart here, every single age group, from Gen-Z to Traditionalists, has increased every year.

Huh, it’s almost like… these are numbers of openly LGBT people… and the more they are accepted, the more come out. And given that 1/5th of Gen-Z are already identifying that way, what will the number by in 2030?

You are using an appeal to definition and look absolutely childish.

I’m non-binary, and even my parents were shit about it when I came out. If you’re ever feeling dysphoric because of, oh I dunno let’s create a scenario: Some moron online tries to use right-wing junk-science make you feel lesser or abnormal because they feel powerless and all they can think to do is punch down like the cowards they are…

Then listen to this song, and know that I’m here, listening to it too, right beside you. Don’t let these bigots get to you, because that’s how they win, they make you doubt yourself. You know who you are, they know shit and they aren’t fucking psychics.

Smash the patriarchy, punch a Nazi, and surround yourself with love.

I may be a trans girl but as far as most people are concerned I’m a normal girl

Girl what the fuck. You are a girl, there’s no “concern” to it.

EDIT: To whomever downvoted me, one day they’ll come for someone you do care about, and you’ll remember this moment in shame and self-loathing.

I mean, yeah, basically.

Seeing him setting himself on fire while taking on three chargers brang a tear to my eye.

It’s brought, not brang. Sorry this is physically painful for me, and I need to get better about it, but I had to say something. Otherwise agree 100%.

Very few games, let alone FPS’, have stories that hit Me like Marathons. I loved their idea of AI being created through boredom and insanity.

They were throwing temper tantrums over the owner of Kotaku telling them that they needed to write more gaming guides/articles instead of the social culture outrage garbage they had been spewing that tarnished their reputation.

So these attacks are gamergate garbage, thanks.

Before I left the industry in 2022 this is exactly what we did. Only it’s more often when a project is finished.

All games like this have massive daily player drop offs a few months after release.

This makes me feel super old, because I must have played Quake 1 daily for 8 straight years. Same with Counter-Strike. I’m still not used to people changing games every few months.

Till they stop making money off skin/etc sales.

I was in the industry for just shy of 20 years, and it hit me seeing that list just how many studios are missing from it.

It was nice though to see New Blood do this, and I honestly don’t expect them to run one with all of the studios because frankly that would take hours to show.

I don’t think I’ll ever go back to games, but know that the people who make games: QA, design, art, etc, are leaving in droves, which is for the best. Microsoft is struggling to hire people in Vancouver. Why? They’ve lowered pay for many positions, fired almost anyone with over 2 years of experience there, and hire part time. A friend of mine was offered a Lead position… For 14 months.

If they don’t believe in the games they’re making, neither should you.

Yeah the comment felt like bizarre astroturfing – Why would ‘gaming journalists’ specifically not want Xbox to succeed, but want Playstation to? Like somehow a Sony monopoly is great for… journalists? A very strange take.

XBOX has been underwhelming for a while and journalists will report on that, and they will focus on those bad parts and certainly also sometimes make it sound worse than it really is, because it brings in clicks.

I worked at Microsoft and I can assure you, they deserve every bit of hate they get. And it really is that bad. There was a point with the Xbox One where Sony was beating ‘us’ in every single market we were actively tracking except specific parts of the US. Yet we had directive after directive for clearly nonsensical ideas like targeting Japan for console sales.

I also worked (third party) with Sony and they aren’t much better, but they at least understand how to get their consoles bought. Microsoft hasn’t known how to do that since the 360.

I get journalists hate Xbox, but Xbox needs to exist as a consumer option.

I don’t understand, is this a thing? “All journalists hate Xbox” I mean. I’ve never heard this before. Like there’s a mandate that journalists have to hate the Xbox?

EDIT: I’ll eat the downvotes, I just want to understand what the fuck they’re talking about

As someone with an avatar of the Q from Quake 1, I can avidly say that writing was not better in the past.

Just off the top of my head from the last decade:

-Baldurs gate 3 -Firewatch -Return of the Obra Dinn -Disco Elysium -Tyranny -Shadowrun Dragonfall -Red Dead Redemption 2 -Witcher 3 -Hellblade Senuas Sacrifice -Life is Strange -Prey (2017) -The Red Strings Club

Seriously, go check the story to Perfect Dark. Hilarious? Yes. A “good story”? No.

There are myriad issues in gaming now that weren’t there in the past, but good writing is (thankfully) still around.

Laid off workers don’t have the ability to choose these options though. You’re talking about management/marketing decisions.

Remember that the people actually doing the work don’t decide who to make deals with.

Ok, I still don’t understand the ‘hill you’re dying on here.’ I don’t think anyone truly believed that Oblivion was the First Video Game Ever ™ with Microtransactions in it, I’m not sure that was the point, I’m fairly certain the point was how ludicrous it was to force people to pay for Horse Armour in their First Person game. It set off a series of discussions about whether or not this should be the way forward, people acquiesced, and it became standard.

Thus: “From the comments here I can see we learned nothing from Horse Armour.”

Because people are still defending predatory practices in the industry with ‘yeah but you can just grind to get…’ or ‘but you don’t have to…’

I will die on the hill of “Oblivion’s horse armor DLC was not the beginning of micro transactions”

Because it wasn’t. There were micro transactions for games long before the hore armor thing.

Such as? Are you saying you could pay a small amount for something in a game before this? Sure, it’s possible.

Also, horse armor was a one-time purchase for that mechanic.

Ok, and? As in it’s a small amount (micro) purchase for a thing?

I’m not sure exactly what hill you’re dying on here. That there was a game somewhere that had buyable things for small amounts of money before Oblivion? Sure, there may have been. And?

From the comments here I can see we learned nothing from Horse Armour.

I refuse to spoil anything, but I think I took a screenshot every 30 seconds on the last map. It helps you manage to traverse every single square foot of space in the map over the course of completing it.

I highly recommend Amid Evil. I wasn’t even a big Hexen/Heretic fan, but it’s fantastic. It has the record for highest screenshots->playtime of any game I’ve played on steam.

No one with even the bare minimum Sec+ cert would call it a rootkit

That’s what it’s page on wikipedia says.

nProtect GameGuard (sometimes called GG) is an anti-cheating rootkit developed by INCA Internet.

Yes.

nProtect GameGuard (sometimes called GG) is an anti-cheating rootkit developed by INCA Internet.

I still can’t look past the rootkit anticheat for a goddamn co-op game.

This started happening when studios got bigger and marketing controlled release dates. By the 2010s or so, the actual devs had zero say. So some idiot owner would promise a game in 18 months, half the ideas would be removed due to time, and a rushed product went out.

“Games as a service” was just corporate speak for how to streamline putting out a game with less components and then adding them over time.

Unfortunately it worked, and players bought in.

The terms have changed a bit over time, but generally “AAA” now means (in the industry) a large studio makes a game with a large marketing budget. If you think of those games that are published by EA, but made by one of their smaller studios and has a smaller marketing budget, that’s “AA”.

Much like “alpha” and “beta”, the meanings are changing so quickly it’s hard to keep up with what the industry means and what players mean.

I’m so old when I started in games “alpha” meant a feature complete game with a few crash bugs, and beta meant no (25% repro, or whatever the studio chose) crash bugs and all assets added and working.

Now it’s basically “alpha” means a demo, and “beta” means they’re buying time for GM release.

Yeah exactly, my first thought was “Doom is still in the public discourse.”

Not to mention, oh what’s that game that broke earnings numbers on steam, oh yeah, Cyberpunk 2077? Rough launch aside, the game literally printed money, and is a great RPG and a great FPS.

I’ve talked nine people out of the games industry.

When I have friends telling me they’re glad they went to the movie VFX industry from games that says something.

To be blunt, if the owner sets the company up for sale, all the seniors in the company start sending out resumes. Always, always villainize the owner(s) who did the selling.

You got it. Lay off the Seniors, get the kids straight out of college.

It absolutely blows my mind to see ADOM refered to as “modern”. Thank you, I feel less old.

Worked in it for almost 20 years. Two people from my first (real) job in it still work in it. Almost everyone went to software instead.

I have managed to convince a good dozen people to go into software instead of games, though.

I just go by reviews, usually from people I know. The only real difference between AA/A and Indie titles now really is marketing budget and size of team. Not much else is different. You also run into issues about what counts as indie now: it used to mean without a publisher, but it seems to have morphed into ‘a smaller company.’

But yeah, just look up reviews. Games like FTL, Hades, and so on tend to become known by word of mouth.