Random Dent

I assume this is the same reason why they want to ban TikTok but not Facebook - it’s not so much that they object to the data harvesting, they just object to non-American data harvesting that they can’t readily influence.

When they announced Steam Machines the first time, I thought it was a great idea because it would give PC devs a sort of baseline system to aim for, and then I was surprised when they launched and they were all sorts of different system specs. I’m still convinced that’s at least partly why they failed - if you buy a console like a Playstation or XBOX, part of the appeal is that you know exactly what you’re getting and what will run on it. If it says ‘PS5’, it’ll run on your PS5.

So hopefully if they try again it’ll be something along those lines, kind of like the Steam Deck.

It’s harder to measure of course, but I wonder how that compares to the amount of sales they lose from people who just don’t bother buying the game when they find out it has Denuvo? I know I recently lost all interest in two games (Civ VII and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II) when I found out they were launching with Denuvo and I assume I’m not the only person who does that.

Yeah V and VI (even even IV I think) are still perfectly fine and playable, so I’m happy to wait pretty much indefinitely lol.

Yeah this is me with Civ VII too. Normally I’ll pick up a new Civ game on day one, but since the new one has Denuvo and it’s nearly $170 CAD for the full version, I guess I’ll just be picking it up in a Christmas sale in like 5 years or something.

Done! I told them this is the first Civ game in a long time that I have no interest in picking up at launch, because of Denuvo and that the price is wildly unreasonable. Nearly $170 Canadian for the full edition!

I was a teenager in the 90s and there was a whole pirate video game ring going around our school that worked this way! Someone would buy a game, and everyone would bring in their blank floppies and it would get distributed around the computer lab. Also a separate ring of banned VHS movies taped off Swedish TV for some reason.

I think that game is the third best Alien movie lol

I thought the new one, Romulus, did a pretty good job of keeping the retro look going. I actually didn’t like the movie itself very much, but props & costumes did a good job lol.

Especially for Star Citizen lol. Like what are they gonna show? Given their track record, at best it’ll be some half-baked new mechanic that doesn’t work properly and will eventually be tossed and replaced anyway.

The whole game right now is just a series of those duct-taped together, as far as I can tell.

It definitely is lol

Those are my two current ones as well lol

I dunno what to tell you, friend.

Should be fixed now!

#Balatro (Steam, iOS, Android, Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One/X/S)

A deck-builder card game where you make poker hands, but Jokers and other cards give you crazy power-ups. I probably didn’t explain that very well, but it’s absurdly addictive. It’s like the perfect Steam Deck game.

I think they’re falling into the same trap Bioware fell into, whereby they have a couple of critically acclaimed franchises under their belt and are universally praised and all is well, but then obviously that can’t last forever so as soon as the wheels start to wobble a bit, they start over-thinking, over-developing and over-managing their games because the next one needs to be a massive hit, but then what inevitably happens is they end up sabotaging development as they keep throwing out ideas and polishing all the rough edges off. So you actually end up with something that feels under-developed and bland because it’s all designed by committees and middle-managers, and built by underpaid devs on a crunch who just want to be done with it.

Also Microsoft bought them in the meantime, which can’t be helpful.

Yeah that was my first thought too. While I kind of get the spirit of it, in practice this is so absurdly dangerous IMO. Even if someone has the best possible intentions, there are so many things that could go wrong with this, especially if you include things like long-term effects that aren’t immediately apparent, or interactions with other drugs, especially if you’re taking other home-made pills with potentially unknown ingredients. While it can be frustrating to hear about a promising new medicine that won’t be available for years, there’s a reason why they spend so long testing these things.

IMO the better (but much more difficult) solution is reforming the medical industry so that it’s easier for people to see a doctor and actually afford to get medicine. I’m not usually a fan of big government stuff, but medicine is one of those things that just needs to be kept under supervision I think.

The A is for “Actually this game is $90 now instead of $60.”

I could, but even the base version here is $90. I’m good to just wait, honestly.

Yeah I feel like you could tie these crises into player actions pretty organically - like if there’s a war and a big enough percentage of Civs get involved, then it triggers a World War crisis, or they could tie something into the global warming mechanic from Civ VI, or have a Cold War come up from excessive espionage actions, stuff like that.