I think I’d put it this way - I like adventuring, exploring, and finding my way through an immersive world. I don’t like when I can’t seem to stumble into the exact right clue or secret passage or interactable and waste up to possibly hours scouring the same locations over and over.

That said, metroidvanias are my favorite videogame genre. I just had to accept that it’s okay to look up a guide or wiki before I get fully tilted.

So, kinda. “Steam Machines” was the old initiative from 2013(?). The idea was to build a coalition of 3rd party machines with a branding and hardware guidelines for Asus, Acer, etc to build a ton of console-likes. Basically trying to replicate the PC market of diverse hardware from a bunch of OEMs to create a new market segment in the console space.

The difference here is that Valve is allegedly building a console themselves, fully 1st party with their own hardware and software, like they did with the Steam Deck. I imagine if this one has enough market traction (as determined by Valve), they’ll iterate on the software hard for a couple of years (and possibly the controller, too), then expand with guidelines for OEMs to make their own versions of the console using SteamOS. Basically, just follow the Steam Deck playbook and hope it works like last time.

Yeah same, but I only have a 1440p monitor, and I can barely tell the difference after 90hz, anyhow.

I’m still rocking a 2070 and doing great. Turns out the games that I like rarely depend on graphical fidelity, but rather on good visual design and game design.

But yeah if graphical fidelity is your bag, or if you need every possible frame for competitive reasons, then your options are much more limited and far more expensive. Sucks.

My 2070 is still treating me pretty well!

Some people really do just like the repetition. I have a couple friends that regularly log into multiple games to do their dailies. Like it’s a chore that just has to be done. But like completing chores in real life, it may not feel satisfying in the moment, but there’s a certain kind of satisfaction you get from completing a task, marking it off the to-do list. If that sense of satisfaction can be granted and wrapped in a pretty package with maybe even a reward that will finally net you that thing you’ve been eyeing in the cosmetic shop and saving up your gold to buy.

I don’t get that sort of thing. But I’m also shit at IRL chores.

The same functionality that you use to take screenshots can be hijacked by bad actors to get access to your stuff. It’s especially bad if they can see your MFA apps or other sensitive info.

Not saying the functionality is always used for the best of intentions, but there are many situations where I see it as necessary.

Iirc, when the ADL put out their guidance on Pepe, it was during the 2016 election when Pepe was being actively coopted by alt-rightera and neo Nazis. One of those "take something innocuous and poison it by using it as a pseudo secret signal to other bigots.

I vaguely recall them saying that Pepe was a hate symbol only insofar as it was being used for that purpose. I wonder if that changed, or if this investigation is ignoring that nuance to hamfist a “hate speech” argument.

Yep. I was in the primary market for it back then, and even I was like, meh.

Remember Battleborn? FPS MOBA from Gearbox that came out in like… 2018 or thereabouts. Never got off the ground and got completely shuttered in like, a year, iirc

I have no idea what genre of videogame, if any, could replicate the experience of One Piece multi-site battles on absolutely wild and varying scales of power, speed, and size.

But if any genius game dev out there wants to make it happen, I’ll take ten.

I was a child with an NES and virtually every Nintendo machine thereafter. Parents said my first language was Nintendo.

I still played outside all the time. I regularly rode my bike all over town. I didn’t have to be threatened to play outside. I dunno, people and situations are different, I guess.

That said, it’s certainly harder for kids now. I have a hard time imagining letting my kid ride a bike all over town, mostly because of traffic and stupid drivers. The free public places I used to hang out with my friends are largely gone now. Plus, like you say, the games are now designed to be addicting specifically in the ways that regularly extract more money from players. It’s just kinda bad if you’re not versed enough in the gaming ecosystem to know what’s a worthwhile experience and what’s a cash grab.

Pseudoregalia is a PS1-eta low-poly aesthetic 3D metroidvania with really, really slick movement mechanics. It’s the kind of game that really could’ve existed back then, had developers just known all the little quality of life design choices we have these days.

I’ve paid for Discord Nitro for at least a few years now. Primarily I wanted to do my part to stave off exactly this sort of thing.

This feels bad. I don’t like this whatsoever.

It does make it different by virtue of sheer scale and efficiency.

A single human artist, no matter how good and fast they are, could ever singlehandedly damage the livelihoods of millions of other human artists. But a machine can. That’s a meaningful distinction.

Granted, your point is valid in its purest sense. If we lived in a world where everyone could benefit from AI art without the real-world downsides, I’d agree with you, full stop. But we do, and those ramifications matter.

Vermintide 2 didn’t hook me. But I’ve already got over a hundred hours in Darktide.

Good stuff.

True.

But the point is the lock-in is similar from a social perspective, just hardened even further by tying the messaging platform to specific hardware.

“Hey let’s use XYZ instead of iMessage” and “hey let’s use XYZ instead of WhatsApp” will be met with the same typical resistance to any sort of change. But in the case of iMessage, there’s added elitism and othering due to Apple’s using iMessage as a lock-in to their hardware.

I think the big difference in the US is that iMessage was leagues ahead of SMS well before there were any good, popular 3rd party mobile messaging apps. iPhones also dominated here, and still do, largely due to that early market dominance.

This is the line of reasoning I used with my parents as a kid. Dollar per hour entertained.

But I think differently about it these days. I’m looking for maximum value per hour, with an eye towards minimal hours, and with a definite end point if applicable.

And value in this sense could be raw entertainment, but it could be something else, like exposure to new ideas and novel perspectives on life etc.

But I suppose that’s what happens when you get older and you’ve got less and less free time to fill.

Oof, hard disagree there. It’s a subjective preference, of course, but you are objectively wrong and I will die on this hill.

You can patent a specific implementation of a technology, but not usually the principles behind that tech. Nintendo had patented this, too, but that likely has little to no effect on other hall effect joystick manufacturers.

Nissan cars bad? Is that a common US complaint? The others I hear all the time (as an American myself).