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Doubtful. I already own Echolyn’s “Mei”. Hard to believe there’s any song I’d like more.
That being said, I’m always on the lookout for new music. I’d love to find a song better than “Mei”, despite how impossible that seems to me.
Doubtful. I already own Echolyn’s “Mei”. Hard to believe there’s any song I’d like more.
That being said, I’m always on the lookout for new music. I’d love to find a song better than “Mei”, despite how impossible that seems to me.
My old job doing systems design for a predatory mobile game. I quit that job, moved half a state away, and got a job that pays half as much in a company with integrity. Best decision of my life.
The toys-to-life trend ended, as it wasn’t making enough money. The games remain playable, but they have no support and are old enough they they require hardware that I no longer have.
Toys-to-life video games. I went on a Skylanders spending spree less than a year before it officially died. $5-$15 figurines got sold at garage sales for $0.25-$3 each.
I had tons of fun getting into it and I was young enough that I could afford to waste the money, so I regret nothing.
This is the right answer. Hatred just breeds more hatred. If you approach with love and understanding (or at least a desire to understand), you’ll have a much better chance of changing hearts and minds. Try to meet in the middle and you might be able to point them in the right direction.
Are these insanely rich people?
Oh, yes. Emphasis on the insane.
The assumption around the office always was that they were Saudi royals or kids of oil barons.
Very right. As a content/systems designer, it was my job to carefully balance a feeling of progression with a frustrating lack of progression at key points, thereby pushing players to spend.
The first few levels are easy and free, then progression starts to slow, but you’ve already gotten to level 10 easily enough, so you can take a bit of extra time to get to level 15. By level 15, you’ve invested enough time that the sudden valley of progression from 15 to 30 convinces you to make that first purchase; after all, why not spend just $5 to instantly double your level when you’ve already spent a few hours in the game? Progression speeds back up from 30 to 45, letting you feel like you’re in control of your leveling, then another valley hits and you’re now even more invested, and, since you’ve already spent $5 to get from 15 to 30, what’s another $10 to get from 45 to 80?
Rinse and repeat, steadily increasing the cost of each purchase while seemingly improving the in-game value per dollar spent.
Our biggest whales were spending over $10,000 per day on that disgusting “game.”
I had to get out. My next job, one at a prominent console/PC game studio, only paid about half of what I was making at the mobile game company, and I loved it. No more panicked 2 AM meetings because our revenue dipped 10% over the last hour. No more convincing myself that players enjoyed wasting thousands of dollars on an endless treadmill. No more 28-hour shifts.
Rant over.
Bonus: I’ve since become a dad, I’m actually proud of what I’m making now, and I’m excited to share it with my child when they’re old enough.
Oh, console/PC without a doubt. Mobile development, at least in my experience, is a constant struggle for relevance and a nonstop sense of urgency. Creativity is only allowed if it answers the question “how can we better trick players into giving us their money?”
Console/PC development, however, is focused on making a good product that will last. Nobody ever asks “how much money will this feature make us?” At worst, the question is “how much will this feature drive engagement?”
I’ve only worked for major companies, so my experiences don’t reflect what it’s like at indies.
I wasn’t upset to begin with. Was it not obvious that I was making a semantics joke? I mean, sure, the post I was replying to could be perceived as racist, since it was itself a reply to someone calling out racism, but it was clearly directed at wealth horders, not white people.
One extremely important factor that this article neglects to address: Valve is a private company - it’s not publicly traded in Wall Street. That is the reason Steam has remained the best in the business; it’s not beholden to shareholders’ short-sighted meddling. It’s also the reason Steam is effectively immune to enshittification.
My GPU is a GeForce RTX 2700S and my CPU is exactly the minimum spec, an AMD Ryzen 5 3600, and I’m able to play at a stable 30FPS with only occasional stutters when loading a new chunk in a big city. In my 50+ hours played, I haven’t once had performance negatively impact my experience.
Edit: With the latest game update, I now get 60FPS while exploring and 40-50FPS in cities.
Looks like the game still performs better on high-end PCs than consoles; you just might get some sub-60FPS dips in high density situations, while consoles are stuck around 30FPS, with some sub-30 dips.
AI art is very easy to learn, but has a lot of intricacies and extra functions that can take a while to learn and master. The only free and open source one, Stable Diffusion, has a lot of resources online. Here’s a beginner’s guide to get you started.
I recommend running locally if you have the hardware for it. You generally need at least 8GB of VRAM for reasonably fast generation, though I’ve heard of people being fine with as little as 4GB. Check out Civitai for additional resources.
That show was jawesome!
So excited for this! I bought into the beta about a decade ago and have been reading the dev logs on secretsofgrindea.com every so often since then.
It’s a top-notch classic-style isometric RPG with tongue-in-cheek writing, great character building, and a roguelike mode.
So true, especially when paired with Miyazaki. They’re the Japanese Williams and Lucas - a real filmmaking match made in heaven.
If you really want a fresh experience and don’t wanna spend more time modding than actually playing, I cannot recommend more strongly Wabbajack. It’s a fully automated modlist installer with a huge gallery of available lists.
Some of the available modlists are foundational, giving you just the essentials (Engine tweaks, HD assets, community bug fixes, etc.), and some are total conversions, turning the game into a fully-realized modern third-person action game, with controls, animations, and graphics as good as any modern game.
It does everything for you, from installing Mod Organizer 2 to creating game launch shortcuts, and everything in between. All you have to do is log into Nexus (and whatever other mod sites your modlist of choice might use). It’s worth getting Nexus Premium at least temporarily to speed up the process.
Here is the Skyrim Special Edition modlist gallery.