I mentioned IPOs as an example of things making a company take a 180°, from “we luuuv customers!” to “customers are things to be milked, not humans to care about”. There are a thousand other possibilities - being bought by another (and more abusive) corporation, being inherited by arseholes and/or fools, or even a change in the mindset of its current owners.

There’s absolutely nothing preventing all those shitty outcomes. Nothing. And when one of them happens, the suckers who “buy” games through the platform - including myself, and probably you - will be shown a middle finger, and hear a moronic “ackshyually u didn’t buy the games lol you licensed them lmao”.

You can’t trust it.

Remember when Google’s motto was “don’t be evil”? Remember when Facebook was innovative? Remember when [insert any post-IPO platform] was privately owned?

Look at the past and future, not just the present. Corporations eventually go sour, and fight against the very users that they were supposed to serve. Give Steam/Valve enough power and it’ll do the same. We don’t need corporations serving us software; we need open systems.

That said Valve is situationally useful here because it’s eroding Microsoft’s power.

I hope that SteamOS finds more of its way into desktop computers. Sure, I don’t trust Valve; just like I don’t trust any other corporation. But it’s like fighting a big cancer with a smaller meta-cancer, if they hurt Windows/Microsoft I’m happy.

Plus its current relationship with GNU/Linux is symbiotic.

requesting permission to use it if Palworld doesn’t? It’s for a book.

You’re welcome to use this idea for whatever reason you want, mate.

I actually got a good deal for the 6600, only um barão e duzentos pila 1199 reals. I also remember seeing the 6750 XT, plenty times the price was a bit lower than you’ve mentioned. But I bought my GPU by, like, checking Terabyte+Pichau every bloody single day. (I refuse to buy it from Kabum after MagaLu bought it - quality went rock bottom after it.)

If Palworld devs were as petty as I am they’d probably make a Pal that looks like an obese and hostile Pikachu with a Mario hat.

• Name: Renjiyu / レンヂユ; after a really shitty Mandarin joke with Nintendo’s name (basically calling it hell’s company).
• It would make a noise that sounds a lot like uttaeru / 訴える “to sue, to complain” with an incredibly whiny voice
• Drop: meat and sulphur (the in-game sulphur looks a lot like fool’s gold)
• “Utility”: when it’s running around your base, Renjiyu makes your pals drop whatever they are doing to listen to its ramblings. As in, negative utility.

Bonus points if the logo in the hat resembles a pokeball from a distance.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to stop supporting 7 years old hardware.

I think that it is; gimme a decade or so then we talk. Specially when feature-wise W11 is basically W10.

What I’m picking at is not requiring some min HW to run their adware. It’s how much, compared with the development of their OS. W11 is mostly W10+trash.

Thank you!

It was: the dollar will probably get higher here in Brazil in the next year, I got a fairly decent deal for the RX 6600, my other parts are rather new so the GPU was the bottleneck, and the old GPU was a NVidia GTX 580 that I installed in my computer while my nephew was still a baby. Like, I remember him playing around me and my computer as I was building the computer, nowadays the same nephew wears a stubby beard! I wish that I could’ve bought it earlier but well, Latin America, you never have money when you need it.

I caved in and bought a new GPU this month, so what’s more important to me is the prices of AMD GPUs in the next decade.

My sides! That crap is losing ground to older versions, and now they’re lowering the requirements!

Hey, when is Windows going to stop working if your keyboard doesn’t have a Microsoft® approved Copilot® keyboard? It would be damn great!

apt-get moo for you guys.

EDIT: why are yall downvoting this and the_crotch’s comments? Serious question.

I’m typically quite pessimistic when it comes to new games, but I think that I’ll buy this one blind. Stardew Valley has been nothing but joy for me, and the fact that CA stopped working on HC because of SV says a lot about his desire to make good games.

Finally! That’s amazing - and thank you for sharing this link, by the way.

Now it would be a good time for itch.io to rework its search feature, so you can exclude results with a certain tag.

But are they competent enough for that?

Fuck - you’re right, they aren’t.

Nevermind my conjecture then, it’s probably as you said.

Right, because a hacker getting vengeance for those abuses totally isn’t the narrative people would prefer.

Maybe, in the short term. But as people feel like the vengeance was successful, the topic gets its emotional conclusion. Then the focus shifts from how that leak popped up to the contents of the leak:

• code and map editors for really old (more than a decade old) games
• tidbits of info that might excite people about new games

Of course, I might be 100% wrong, and the leak might be actually the result of someone getting undue access to that content, or some insider getting pissed and leaking the info that they had at hand. I just think that Nintendo+GF+TPC are scummy enough to forge being leaked for their own benefit.

It does! And it would be damn great fuel for the ROMHacks that Nintendo has a burning hate against.

Summary:

• Gen10 is on the works
• Switch 2’s internal codename is Ounces
• GF and ILCA are co-producing a MP battle-focused game, codenamed Synapse
• source code for HG/SS and B2/W2, plus map editor for R/S/E were leaked

Conjecture: I wouldn’t be surprised if the TeraLeak in question wasn’t planned out by Nintendo and Game Freak, to distract people from the fact that Nintendo is trying to harass a competitor out of the market and suing emulators back and right.

it’s a tool that various apps can use to run Windows games on Linux, acting as a copy of the Steam Runtime Tools and Steam Linux Runtime that Valve uses for Proton to allow Proton to properly run outside of Steam.

I’m installing this now because I didn’t know that I needed it.

Those studios have been pouring huge amounts of money on graphics under the assumption (i.e. idiocy) that better graphics = more sales. Tim Sweeney is shifting it towards yet another assumption/idiocy: that more forced socialisation = more sales.

And they still don’t get the picture. People won’t buy your games if they’re boring, if they’re too expensive, or if they think that you’re an arsehole. Roughly in this order. That’s it.

It’s pretty clear that democratically speaking, we do not object to companies arbitrarily removing access to purchased video games. Only a minority objects to it.

It’s more like “people don’t know about the issue, or how it affects them, as they’re busier with their everyday lives”. This happens a fair bit.

Additionally, the graph shows that the movement had huge fervour at the start but then lost steam. So:

• Is the movement well organised?
• Are there people actively asking others for new signatures?
• Is the movement able to recruit more people to proselytise it?
• Which areas of the EU have proportionally less signatures? And why?
• What’s the public image of the movement? And what about the cause itself? (People do realise that legislation to not kill games makes it easier to pass legislation to not screw with customer goods after they were bought, right?)
• What caused that peak in the 7th of September, and how to replicate it on purpose?

EDIT: can someone convince PewDiePie to at least talk about the campaign?

Yup! Frankly it isn’t a really great visual novel, but the soundtrack is fire.

Every time that people talk about Chrono Cross’s soundtrack (it’s great by the way, I agree with you), this reminds me a little SNES game called Radical Dreamers. The soundtrack - largely shared with Chrono Cross - is perhaps its biggest selling point.

Well, even if you’re forced to do the right thing, it’s still the right thing. (Thanks for the context!)

The words “update” and “agreement”, when found in the same sentence, usually prompt me to roll my eyes and say “oh look corporation found another way to stab customers”.

This is not the case - what they’re doing is sensible and fair. I don’t even know how forced arbitration is even legal for some countries, it’s basically “we expect you to give up your legal rights”.

He reminds me Marie Antoinette, the last queen-consort of France. It’s said that, upon hearing about bread-less and starving peasants, she would’ve said “let them eat brioche instead”. The historical accuracy of that is dubious…

…but come on, this muppet is literally doing that dammit. Spend a year on the beach if you’re fired? He could’ve literally said “sucks to be you lol” and it would be less abrasive.

And as most people here probably know he’s outright lying when he claims that it was not caused by greed.

The video is great. A shame that it’s getting downvoted.

In fiction there’s the concept of suspension of disbelief. Wikipedia describes it better than I could, but to keep it short - when you’re reading/watching/etc. a fictional story, you avoid applying your critical thinking and logic reasoning to certain story elements, in order to enjoy it.

I feel like a similar but not identical principle operates with game mechanics. I’ll call it here suspension of scepticism. That suspension of scepticism makes you willing to trust that the information provided or implied by the game about itself is factual, accurate, and relevant.

For example, if it shows you a six-sided die, you treat it as a fair die, and you treat your odds of getting a 1 the same as getting a 6, a 5, or any other number. You won’t save the game, throw the die a hundred times, and see if it’s actually fair or not.

Those “design lies” use that suspension of scepticism to deliver a better experience. And it works - for the reason mentioned in the video, it makes playing more enjoyable.

However just like the suspension of disbelief can be broken, so does the suspension of scepticism. It’s OK if the game designer is a liar, but he must be a good liar; if you lie too often or too obviously, the player will smell the lie from afar, and the suspension of scepticism is broken. And with it, the enjoyment of the game goes down the drain.

Interesting detail: note how it does not mention or even try to explain what would be allegedly violating the families program eligibility. This is likely part of Google’s procedures to tire the devs down.

If the dev is smart they should be capitalising on that nice, nice Streisand effect. “Google uses its monopoly over app store to remove competitor Organic Maps”. Remember - against Google you don’t need to pull your punches, you can go all out.

I also hope that the dev uses the opportunity to advertise F-Droid. BTW I’m installing this right now.

4LS still exists??? Wow. I thought that the members moved on to their own projects.

I’m pleased to see Katawa Shoujo is still alive. It was perhaps my first VN, and although it does contain sex scenes, you don’t play KS just for the smut, you do it for the characters.

And, even if the name of the novel is literally “crippled girls” (a mix of a red herring and a “tomato on the mirror”), it avoids really well defining the love interests solely by their disability - something that would boring, flat, and stereotypical.

Ditto. It isn’t just a matter of watching Paradox to get rekt (although the idea gives me warm feelings), but also that the engine is… bad. As in, we’re in 2024 and it has codification issues, pathfinding is awful, and I’m almost certain that part of the EU4 fort woes are caused by the devs working around engine limitations.

[Wester, Paradox’ CEO] “amid the well-deserved self-criticism, it is worth reminding ourselves that we have solid footing, because the foundation of our business is doing well.”

No, Wester, you don’t have solid footing. Stop fooling yourselves.

The solid footing for a game developer is the players’ trust, something that Paradox has been using as toilet paper since 2016~2018 or so. At this rate you’re only waiting for other companies to release grand strategy games - or even tweak their 4X games into GSG - and you’re done, since you’re still living off the CK/EU/Vicky series.

IMO Wube (Factorio’s devs) is a lot like ConcernedApe, when it comes to not violate the players’ trust. That’s why for example Factorio never goes on sales - because the people there believe that it would be disrespectful to charge a larger price to some than others, simply because the others delayed buying it. (Cough Paradox Interactive aka Hipsters’ EA cough cough)

They also have the decency to offer you a demo so you can make an informed decision before buying it, in a clear contrast with certain companies that expect you to buy it blind.

About the DLC: I’m one who typically pirates games, mind you, but I’m probably buying it, just like I did mit the base game. The base game isn’t incomplete or anything like that; fuck, people compare it with crack for a reason - it’s functional, polished, and fun to the point of addictiveness. And the FFF (devlogs) clearly show enough content to be worth it.

The sad part is that the idea behind DLCs (to develop further content for a game already released, in exchange for additional money) is reasonable. Or it would be, if shitty developers didn’t abuse it to the point that it stopped being “downloadable content” to become “dumb and lazy cashgrab”.

I also think that CA isn’t just being benign with this statement, or his whole “let us not be arseholes” approach towards development. He’s being smart; player trust might be hard to measure but it has direct impact on word-of-mouth advertisement and piracy, so it’s basically the difference between “everybody knows it, plenty bought it” and “the few ones who know it pirated it”.

Damn, that’s a shame. :/

[Warning: I don’t use Heliboard]

It’s clearly spellchecking for English, when you need it to do so for Swedish. Based on that, I think that it is missing the Swedish dictionary, that you’ll need to download separately.

This official page confirms that Heliboard does have support spell checking for multiple languages, and explains how to download and install a dictionary. To keep it short:

1. download the Swedish dictionary
2. Go to “language” settings, click on “Svenska”, then the “+” next to “dictionary”. Then select the file that you’ve downloaded.

[Side note: your sample text made me crave some coffee. I didn’t.]

I’m not currently playing the game (lots to do and, well… it’s Cracktorio, you know), but I’m wondering about the impact of those changes on my typical playstyle. It’ll be probably neutral or positive.

The key here is that I only use the fluid mechanics for short-range transportation, and even then I’m likely to force a priority system through pumps; in the mid- or long-range, I’m using barrels all the time, even for intermediates.

Perhaps those changes will force me to revaluate the role of pipes, that would be a net positive. If they don’t, the changes will be simply neutral.

I’m reading the excerpt from the article in the original context. It’s funny how well it shows that:

• Microsoft is a piece of shit. Honest people don’t use euphemisms, such as calling strong opposition a “clear signal”.
• The feature is likely trash from the PoV of most of its customers.
• If the feature is still being pushed through, it means that Microsoft - not the customer - gets something out of it.
• Based on the above “listening to and acting on customer feedback” is either a lie, if not a “technical truth”.

Case in point the spyware is still being installed in your system, it’s just not turned on by default. Expect a lot of “oopsie it turns itself on by default, it’s a bug!” or annoying pop-ups that boil down to “I don’t understand, why are you user too stupid to understand simple concepts like obedience? You’ve been told to use it”. Simply because Microsoft has already a huge backstory of doing it.

If the destruction of an ally would happen regardless of another government’s actions (because, as you said, China will get weapons from elsewhere), then concerns like “we shouldn’t profit off its destruction” are solely moral and/or ideological in nature. Thus being irrelevant for the sake of Realpolitik:

• sell to China - you got some profit, but lost the ally
• don’t sell to China - you got no profit but you still lost the ally

And it’s clear that USA follows Realpolitik when it comes to its foreign policy.

I also don’t think that the PRC even needs to weaponise itself further to annex Taiwan. What’s keeping the PRC at bay seems to be international repercussions, that are better addressed through soft power, not hard power.

Because of both things, I don’t think that Taiwan plays a role explaining those policies. I think that USA is trying to protect its internal industry against competition.

I know that this is a gaming comm so I apologise for the intrusive politics. It’s just that both China and USA are far enough from me that I can watch their trade war from afar, without too much emotional involvement.

All those tech-related measures that USA is currently taking against China - banning the export of chips, banning TikTok from its own territory, heavily tariffing imported Chinese cars etc. - smell like desperation. And they’ll likely backfire.

The presence of common commercial partners makes them at most a deterrent, when it comes to innovation sharing; USA could push other governments to a “you eithurr chrare [trade] with Chir̃a or with us”, to avoid those common commercial partners, but the answer wouldn’t be pretty:

China is nowadays a more valuable partner than USA. Curiously even in some countries where the population mostly speaks English, like Australia.

Another possible outcome is USA economically isolating itself. That’s like migrating a few fish from a big global pond to a smaller local pond. I’ve seen Brazil doing this through heavy tariffs, and the result is not pretty either - the larger fish starve, and all that you’re left is a bunch of medium fish that, if placed again in the large pond, are quickly eaten by the others.

Even if I take Gelsinger’s position as Realpolitik from USA’s PoV, that “magic line” he talks about is just a hallucination. Lessening the restriction on exports does lessen the pressure for the local development of technology, but it doesn’t eradicate it. That pressure will exist even at no restriction, for ideological reasons (governments often babble about sovereignty, and China is no different.)

EDIT: I got to admit that I’m rather amused at the downvotes.

If they were being issued due to it being intrusive politics, they would “leak” into the TheOneCurly’s child comment*; if it was due to some reasoning flaw, or some incorrect statement, people would be quick to point that flaw out; and, if it was due to my usage of eye dialect, it wouldn’t “leak” into the grandchild comment.

So, here’s a question. How many of you are “shooting the messenger”, since what I said would have obvious implications towards your living standards? “If you don’t talk about it, it’ll magically stop happening” style?

*nor I think that it should. I disagree with what the other user said, but they’re contributing to the discussion; there’s no reason to downvote their comment.