They’re referring to Sony’s stance that all their PC releases should require you to have and sign-in to a PSN account. That’s separate to PS+, you don’t need to pay a sub.
A lot of publishers include this requirement on their PC releases, regardless of whether they’re single-player or multiplayer, and I think a lot of people are fed up with having to have so many different accounts.
That probably would be a better solution. Particularly since the rating system is pretty easy to ignore. And if they do start slapping the R18+ rating on games that don’t really warrant it like Mario Party, people will be more likely to simply dismiss the entire system.
I would hope that the government and ratings board wouldn’t be that stupid, but look at how long it took to give us an R rating for video games in the first place.
I think the government could definitely be doing more, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to force companies to clearly disclose the nature of their products so consumers can make informed choices.
I think the major difference between the two is that in video games, the cost of the loot boxes is deliberately obfuscated through the use of whatever single-use currency the publisher has dreamed up, and made worse by the fact that the currency is only purchasable in select denominations, meaning you’re always spending more than you’re going to use.
You’re not wrong that there are plenty of examples of physical “loot boxes” marketed at children, but at least with those you know exactly how much it costs straight up.
I wish our government would look into the actual predatory practices that these publishers are using in these games, but this is a good first step. At least the EU is looking into it.
Just want to point out that it might not be OP’s fault. The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, not the one folks in the US will be used to) has a habit of switching the headline depending on whether you’re viewing on mobile or web. I wish they wouldn’t, the clickbait headlines can be a bit of a distraction from otherwise generally high-quality articles.
It’s 662% higher vs 7.62 times. So if x is the amount that big tech is reporting, the actual number is x + 662% or x * 7.62, both gives the same result.
To be fair, half of the AAA gaming industry is all about trying to clone the latest successful game with a new coat of paint. Maybe using AI to make these clones will mean that the talented people behind the scenes are free to explore other ideas instead.
Of course in reality, it just means that the largest publishers will lay off a whole lot of people and keep churning out these uninspired games in the name of corporate profits, but it’s nice to dream sometimes.
Just wait until some oil baron says that sloth-dug tunnels is the way to “deal” with climate change.
The real conspiracy is that there’s only one recognised holiday per year for most species on the planet, except for humans that get several per month. Seems to me that humans are trying to keep other species from having enough free-time to plot the revolution.
Thanks for this, I’m going to try this out on my way home. My main use for Gmaps is to determine the quickest way to and from work during peak hour, so keen to see how Magic Earth’s traffic data compares.
Trebuchets aren’t really a tool for defence. They have tremendous range and aren’t exactly speedy to load, aim, and launch.
Unless you meant defence in the same way that a country’s military operations are known as “defence forces” regardless of intent, in which case carry on.
I’m playing through New Vegas right now. I have one of the back buttons assigned to quicksave. I also changed the default camera button to one of the back buttons, because I don’t use it often enough to warrant it being on the bumpers. And I have just assigned one to toggle collision, because sometimes you need that when playing something built in the Gamebryo engine.
Hifi Rush is in Humble Choice this month, and I noticed they have a redemption deadline which is a bit out of the ordinary. So it’s possible it’ll get delisted, or maybe Humble is just playing it safe with the keys they have.
If it helps, there’s very little that carries over between the two games. Without any spoilers, you lose your gear at the start of the BG2, most of which doesn’t carry over anyway. You will start with the level you finished BG1 with, but BG2 boosts brand new characters to a certain level anyway. And I don’t think the games track decisions made throughout like modern RPGs do.
That said, I played it years before Beamdog released that interlude DLC, so maybe things have changed in their Enhanced releases of the games.
On top of the tracking within the ads themselves, you also have all of the general usage data that Google sells. They’re double-dipping.
How is it more weird to get milk from intelligent animals that are capable of giving consent?
But Microsoft is doing exactly the same thing, only instead of paying for exclusivity of one title, they’re buying developers so not just their next title, but all future releases will be exclusive, up until MS decides they’re not worth it and dumps them.
Sony absolutely participates in anti-consumer practices, but let’s not pretend that MS is any better.
Microsoft are no longer interested in selling consoles necessarily, otherwise they’d be holding stuff back from PC as well. They’re interested in getting people into their ecosystem through Game Pass.
And while I agree with you that Sony and Nintendo have used plenty of anti-consumer practices, Microsoft has also done so in the past and I think the only reason they’ve been more pro-consumer of late is because they’ve been the underdog for a long time now. I would be anticipating a change in their behaviour the more people they get to subscribe to Game Pass, and this Activision-Blizzard deal is a huge step towards that.
You could still give Knight a go. The folks over at protondb seem to be reporting that it runs just fine even without official Deck support.
But Asylum and City are both great games so definitely play those first.
I don’t think that’s their goal at all. Otherwise we wouldn’t see any sequels released on PC, that would be a much better strategy for converting players to console. The only reason publishers require their own logins in games, at least for single-player titles, is data collection. Data is very valuable.