I don’t think I’ve met any Brazilians back in those days; (online) gaming is really expensive there from what I heard, right?
One fun thing in the old COD lobbies was always to teach others slurs and general cursing in your language. I learned how to curse folks out in like 50 languages. Each country also has its own unique style of cursing. We Dutch really like to incorporate diseases for example.
I’m certainly not going to say you’re wrong on that first part. I’ve been online since 1996. At that time, the internet was the domain of white, heterosexual, nerdy, generally well educated guys. And me being a white, heterosexual, nerdy, well educated guy… well… going online felt like coming home. Those were my people. I still really miss those days.
But I also know that the experience of someone not like me would’ve been wildly different. I learned a bajillion slurs on COD lobbies after all. It’s a good thing that more people now feel welcome online, as it led to platform growth and functionality that we otherwise wouldn’t have had if it was just ‘my kind of people’.
The current safe, sanitised, gentrified gaming sphere also has benefits: COD lobbies these days are very pleasant by comparison. You even have to sign a code of conduct to get on multiplayer. It feels more welcoming, less hostile. Of course, companies certainly have been financially incentivized to attract as wide an audience as possible. For example, the very first GTA game sold about 6 million copies. GTA V has sold 200 million. And with ever-increasing development budgets, you can’t afford to cater to a niche, you want to cast as wide a net as possible to recoup those costs.
I miss that era. Companies didn’t mind a bit of edginess and weren’t afraid to market to adults. The console culture itself also isn’t what it used to be.
These days, gaming consoles all need to be safe enough for five year olds to play on them. And it’s caused everything to be just too bland and safe, both in marketing and the console itself. Can’t really have things like Xbox 360 Uno with the live camera feed and no moderation. Or the wholly uncensored COD lobbies.
Well, you certainly haven’t been rushing it so far, considering Fallout 4 released back in 2015…
Well yeah…. They’re clearly developmentally challenged at Epic. In every sense of the word. I’m not exactly surprised that a platform still lacking basic functionality that should’ve been there on day one, has trouble figuring out Linux.
When you can pack the peak amount of players into a decent sized ballroom, that’s never a good sign for your game’s future.
At this point they’re probably better off just refunding buyers and shuttering the game entirely. Doesn’t feel like this is a salvageable situation.
God I’m so glad drinking isn’t my thing. I absolutely hate being around intoxicated people, much less the ‘get blackout drunk and don’t remember half the shit I did’ types. It’s so cringe people do that for fun.
Minecraft in its early days also had the issue of not really having much in the way of actual gameplay and purpose. It was and generally is still very much a self-guided and self-motivated experience.
Me, I enjoy exploring, building a settlement, refining my base with nice architecture and design… I don’t need a particular mission to enjoy it. Other people don’t really dig that - they’re looking for a more linear, guided experience.
Minecraft is what I like to call a podcast game: I’ll put on a two hour podcast and just go and explore or build without a set goal in mind. I’ve spent entire weekends just digging out vast underground networks. It’s relaxing.
Even back in those early days I could see it had potential and would appeal to people like myself who want a nice, open sandbox to play in. But I never would’ve expected it to be this much of a hit.
Same; I was one of the first buyers. Got a few people interested in the game. It’s wild to imagine now, but at that time nobody had heard of it, obviously. Which meant it was an uphill battle to get them to play it, because ‘the graphics sucked’.
I put thousands of hours into it. It’s still the best value for money game, ever.
There’s more of us… but: we are a rare species.
We got a brand new nine screen cinema back in december 2022. They actually run movies in the morning. Not all of them, unfortunately, but you certainly have good options around noon.
I love movies, but people not so much. So I usually pick the quietest showings. Sometimes I’ll see a movie in a completely empty theater. Friday afternoon around 4-5 PM is good for that.
I’ve actually got an unlimited movie pass, so I can see everything when I want. Usually the day or week it comes out. I’m seeing the new Planet of the Apes in… three hours.
Oh absolutely. Frankly I can’t imagine it being any other way.
Whenever possible, I schedule things as early as possible on the day. I’ll take that 8 AM dental appointment or whatever. And it’s not just unpleasant things either. I also prefer a cinema visit as early as possible for example.
I definitely feel like my day is ‘on pause’ whenever I’m doing a thing later in the day. It’s very annoying not to be able to enjoy the rest of your day because of it. So, early it is.
These studio/publisher buyouts and closures are a cancer spreading through the entire business right now. About the last thing you want as a gamer is to see your favorite studio or publisher trade hands. Because 99 times out of a 100, the thing you love gets canned or turned to shit.
As a gamer since the late 80’s, I’ve seen many studios come and go. It happens. But these days, with these huge publishers, closures are no longer single studios but entire swathes of them. Like carpet bombing, with little regard for collateral damage.
Some of those really, really hurt. Knowing that they won’t be able to recreate that magic because the people behind it are scattered like ashes on the wind. If this pace continues, it’s going to cause a big crash somewhere down the line.
Well that’s certainly one way to kill a game. Heck, I HAVE a PS5, and I still would be annoyed as fuck by that.
Sure, you can offer to link an account for things like progress tracking. But it certainly shouldn’t be forced on anyone.
You sneaky fucker. Thank god it’s a song I love.
Also, this exists:
It really comes down to ‘that’s the default setting for most of humanity.’
Here on Lemmy, we like to think we’re all very tolerant, enlightened, liberal minded people. But the outside world really isn’t quite as open minded. And there’s way more backwards troglodytes out there than we like to think.
It really is. I’m going to gush for a minute if you don’t mind :D
I like movies, but buying tickets is expensive here in the Netherlands. Up until last year, I’d usually see about three, four movies per year in the theater. Things that I’d really want to see and that I knew I’d love. We had one movie theater, located just outside our city. It’s expensive and did not offer any sort of monthly pass.
In december 2022, we got a SECOND movie theater from a different chain. I’ve got the most perfect situation possible: the theater is about a five minute bike ride away from my house. Much more convenient than the other theater. They’ve got nine screens, all filled with luxury recliners. And they offer a monthly pass. Which I got shortly after the theater opened.
The pass costs 20,50 euros per month, so about 20 USD. It allows you to see an unlimited amount of movies with basically no restrictions. I can see as many movies as I want, when I want. Want to see five movies in a day? You can. Want to see Ghostbusters six times in a row? Go nuts. They even program classic movies for us movie buffs, they do marathons, exclusive screenings, foreign movies… if you like movies, you’d love this theater.
Since individual movie tickets at that theater cost between 10 and 14 euros depending on the day and time, you really only need to see two movies per month to make it worth it. But I’m not seeing two a month - I’m seeing at least three per week. I see Every. Single. Movie. that I could want.
Movie streaming / piracy can be convenient, sure. But there’s really no replacement for a state-of-the-art movie theater with bangin’ Dolby Atmos system. Not to mention those recliners are so comfy you can sleep in them if the movie’s a bit too boring.
I’m reaaaaaallllly loving my movie pass as you can probably tell.
For me personally, that never really worked. Whenever I was watching a movie at home, I was always multitasking with a game or something else: doing just one thing felt somehow wasteful when I could be doing two things.
But unfortunately I also felt like I wasn’t really enjoying movies like that. So, I got an unlimited movie pass for my local movie theater. I now see three, four movies per week and actually enjoy them FAR more than when I was doing the multitasking.
I also now see pretty much every movie the week it releases, which also effectively makes me bulletproof in terms of spoilers.
That place really went to shit over the past year. Which is hardly surprising seeing how many good people were pushed away from the platform.
Good mods were replaced by power tripping shitheads and good posters and commenters were driven off when they couldn’t use their desired app and the subreddits they liked went to shit or were nuked. Meanwhile, bots are ruining everything else.
And let’s not even get started on the ads, the IPO shenanigans, the AI thing…
Reddit needs to be taken out back and shot. It’s the humane thing to do; we shouldn’t let it suffer like this.
I got to see a total eclipse in the Netherlands back in august of 1999. It was truly remarkable. Most people really only get to see it once or twice during their lifetime - so definitely make it a point not to miss it if you’re in a region where it’s a total eclipse.
Once you’ve actually experienced one, it’s very easy to understand why they had such a profound impact on people throughout the centuries. Eerie doesn’t quite cut it.
I miss forums as well, and I’m actually moving back to them. Back in the early 2000’s, I visited like a dozen forums each day. I was a member of like three watch forums, a camera forum, a Star Trek forum, some gaming forums and others. Just ‘doing the rounds’ kept you busy for a while. People also were insanely knowledgeable on those niche forums, and they all had their own specific culture and flavor to them.
Places like a niche subreddit are… OK at best. They are convenient and easy to visit, but don’t tend to have the level of knowledge and discourse that I generally enjoy. You also run the risk of your sub getting ruined by people who are into the wrong aspects of your particular hobby. For example, on a watch FORUM, the discussions are about design, mechanical features, history, photography, how to repair, etc. etc. On the subreddit, a lot of posts tended to be drive-by posters who ‘found a watch and wanted to know what it’s worth’. or ‘is this fake’. The subreddit didn’t curb that, so eventually I and many others just stopped going there. It was basically too easy for people to post there just because, well, they could. Whereas on an actual watch forum, you can do a bit stricter moderation and the registration requirement weeds out low effort posting.
Some consider that ‘gatekeeping’, but I see it as a valid way of protecting one’s chosen community.