
It depends on what you are using placeholder assets for. If you want to use it to gauge how a scene would look before setting out to build it, then placeholders that stand out get in the way. You would need a way of tracking all the slop, but then you could have a build tool track how much slop is still in the game to make sure you catch it all before release.

I agree with you, but using Final Fantasy XIV is a weak example. Steam is one of the smallest platforms it’s on, with most PC players using the non-steam launcher.
As an MMO, it also has the benefit of players being able to see a ton of other people when they log in and the fan base talks about it enough that you never get that “whatever happened to that game” feeling.
Honestly, I think it’s that last thing that drives most of the dead game talk. Some games come out with tons of hype and then you stop hearing about it as much. Instead of looking up what’s going on, people just assume it flopped and no one plays anymore. Or it’s a game they wish had failed and by saying dead game they are trying to will that belief into existence, depends on the context.

They say in the article that reviewers were told about the microtransactions. Then they mention that one reviewer said he didn’t read the notes that were sent by Capcom. Why would this reviewer need to go back and rescore the game? If he enjoyed it without knowing about the microtransactions, they clearly don’t matter to the gameplay.

The negativity is sort of infectious too. I just picked up Runeterra for the first time since last year. Last time I was playing, I was starting to second guess myself about buying the event pass because of all the dead game rhetoric. Why invest any time and money into the game if it turns out their right and the game ends up being shut down?
Streaming metrics are dumb. I love the game, but just thinking about watching someone stream it puts me to sleep.

The series S is the lowest spec console that they are targeting. In order to get the performance they want out of it, they are trying to optimize as much of the game as they can. Those optimizations have decreased the amount of RAM, VRAM, and CPU load the game is using and those optimizations affect the PC version as well.

It does increase the capacity of roads. Two lanes holds twice as many cars as one lane. Four lanes hold twice as many cars as two lanes.
You’re probably thinking of induced demand, but that’s related to traffic congestion and not capacity. More lanes ultimately means more cars are getting places, but any individual car will see that congestion is just as bad as it used to be.

It was always going to happen. Even most games that offer a ‘60 fps’ performance mode are mostly targeting 30 fps, with the performance mode being an afterthought. They cut back resolution and tons of graphic settings and have the time don’t even hit 60. Like Jedi Survivor ran great in Quality mode with nearly no fps drops throughout the entire game (excluding one small area) while the performance mode had tons of issues.
Do not, my friends, become addicted to 60 fps. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence
The game containing public domain images wouldn’t make the entire game public domain. Someone with a copy of the game could distribute those particular assets though. Maybe. It depends on how much human effort was involved; an AI image can become copyrightable if enough effort was done to transform it after it was generated.