Yeah. I think there’s a problem with the modern development cycle that a fuckton of the budget goes into marketing and marketable assets (i.e. all them graphics that look great in the trailers but nobody’s computer can actually handle, and then the rest of the team’s on the hook to make a game on a shoestring that can actually use all of that content - The only way you can possibly accomplish that with a fraction of a fraction of the budget is if it’s super simplistic and repetitive gameplay that’s stretched over 40+ hours like a peasant on a torture rack.

Think about how many games you’ve played over the last decade, and how many of them were still fun to play after the first five hours, either because the primary gameplay loops were satisfying enough to keep you engaged, or because the game was keeping it fresh with new mechanics that didn’t bungle clumsily atop one another like a raspberry and beef trifle. Making great games is difficult and expensive, and most studios would rather put out something with a guaranteed return than anything that’s fun to play.

Juicero-ass headset.

Half to a third of the U.S. The rest of us know full well how bad this is. I really hope Cali puts its tariff exemptions in place and Oregon and Washington follow suit because otherwise we’re going to see the worst recession in the country’s history

Guy who doesn’t know how to write software uses GenAI to make software that he then puts up for sale, and brags about not knowing how to write software.

People buy his software and, intentionally or not, start poking holes in it by using it in ways neither he nor the GenAI anticipated. Guy panics because he has no clue how to fix it.

God if someone could get in and wipe out student loans, I would be so happy.

People could avoid paying $70 for bad games by not preordering. Like seriously, it takes maybe two hours after release for the criticism to start pouring in.

Yeah no shit not everyone’s onboard. How the fuck does this help anyone except the apple C-suites?

I got one and I’ve been watching old DVDs on my puter

“Creating and Bringing value” = Maximizing our ability to squeeze productivity from the chattel without them knowing how badly we’re fucking them over.

Yeah, the silver lining of the whole gaming industry fallout is that the indie game scene has never been better. I was lamenting the fact that we hadn’t had a good top-down zeldalike in a long time, echoes of wisdom notwithstanding even though the formula is pretty altered. Someone pointed me in the direction of Master Key and it was an incredibly satisfying time. Almost like it would have fit in perfectly between LoZ 1 and Link’s Awakening.

I kind of feel that - I think the issue for me is that there’s a lot going on in each of these games that is tangential to the primary gameplay loop that on the surface isn’t obligatory, so if you find it not to your liking you can choose not to engage, but avoiding the secondary activities locks you out of some rewards for the PGL often and severely enough that you do feel obligated to engage to the point you can get these rewards. Especially in the gambling minigames, I often feel relieved when the points you buy end up being the same points you exchange for said rewards because it means I can just engage in the fighting a little more instead of having to gamble.

Case in point, I’m playing Infinite wealth right now and it feels like a big step up from the first Like a Dragon, but I’m still finding myself pulled into the Sujimon quests even though I personally don’t like monster tamer games. I don’t even know what the rewards are but half of the map icons are raids and trainers, so I feel like I should at least be putting time into maintaining a team with the ones I can catch just from grinding out fights for Job XP.

I mean, I do want cheaper GenAI in the sense that I want people to see that it’s dollar store crap that’s not worth the electricity to run the servers to make it and give it up like they did the fucking Juicero and every other smart appliance a couple years ago. God forbid I hold my breath and people wise up and understand that these people are all grifters looking to tape a horn to a horse and sell their “unicorn” to FAANG or whatever the equivalent is these days, I can’t be assed to rewrite the new poob acronym.

You say that like any of the conservative controlled courts give a single flying fuck about precedent. They will embrace this ruling to foist religious doctrine on people who don’t want it and reject it to prohibit any other material they find unsavory, in the same breath, even. The rule of law has been dead for a long time in the states.

I mean, that’s kind of the point, right? Workers that are well rested tend to be more productive, so 4 10s kind of defeats the purpose of the 4 day week - notwithstanding that you do get the extra day off, you’re that much more burnt out because you had even less time to take care of yourself the preceding 4 days.

Which is entirely intentional on the part of the people who actually run this country. Uneducated citizens who don’t or can’t think critically are very easy to spoon-feed bullshit against their best interests. Republicans have been openly attacking public education for decades on behalf of Rupert Murdoch and friends, and at the same time parents have been foisting the rearing of their children off on educators because they work two or more jobs to support the household. The community mentality has entirely eroded as a result - nobody will step up to take care of neglected children because everyone’s too busy working, educators come under attack from both parents and administration for trying to be anything more than state-sanctioned babysitters, leading to mass resignations, reinforcing the idea that education should be privatized and/or run off of a bullshit voucher system.

America failed a long time ago, it’s just a question of who realizes it and who doesn’t. If you want to live through the next couple of decades, start building your communities ASAP. Mutual funds, community gardens, canning and other food preservation. Unionize, coordinate, run for office if you think you can hack it.

Any of the fallout/elder scrolls series. I remember whiling so many hours away in them as a kid and having a great time, and now any time I pick them up it just feels like a second job, looting and managing inventory ad nauseum.

I think you mean “Straight” person

If I didn’t need to have a profile there for work I wouldn’t. I had two jobs that were kind enough to tell me when I asked that they immediately passed on me because my resume had no LinkedIn or Facebook, and I deleted my Facebook a year ago.

The only thing I use AI for is generating character art for tabletop portraits and when the well is sufficiently poisoned I will probably go back to Pinterest.

SAY IT!