I’m the opposite. All the focus on the people and the random facts of their lives and trying to constantly manufacture some sort of sob underdog story around various players is boring.

I can appreciate a good game, one that’s close and exciting and played with skill, but the whole sports culture and focus often feels like celebrity gossip, but for men.

Which is also why esports are boring to me too, despite my love of video games (and even watching people play video games, like let’s plays). Esports just brings that whole sports culture and it’s a huge turn off for me.

Yes! A 15% tip in 1980 should still be a 15% tip today. Not this 20-25% madness that they try to keep pushing.

The problem with humans reviewing AI output is that humans are pretty shit at QA. Our brains are literally built to ignore small mistakes. Digging through the output of an AI that’s right 95% of the time is nightmare fuel for human brains. If your task needs more accuracy, it’s probably better to just have the human do it all, rather than try to review it.

The Internet is for bots now.

Yes, which is why I specifically said I support libraries and want them to be available to those of use.

Which is why I said I support them and want them to be available to others?

Edit: apparently people can’t read as I already said I support libraries and want them to exist for those that benefit from them. This was never a ‘it doesn’t help me so screw you’ type of comment. I was just sharing my experience of liking the concept, but failing to find any personal benefits and wondering if others experienced the same.

I like the idea of public libraries, but honestly I just don’t have a lot of use for them in my life personally. Unfortunately the books I read are primarily published under Kindle unlimited, so they can’t be checked out of a library either in digital or paper form (not that many of the titles ever even have a paper copy). I don’t really watch that much TV or movies, and the ones I do watch are generally acquired from the high seas anyway, which is honestly easier than checking them out of a library. I support the concept and want them to be available to others, I just don’t personally feel like I get any value from them.

Nobody seems to care that WoW expansions get rolled into the base install later on.

The trick is to have the merge happen a lot later. Like 1+ years, not a few months. That’s long enough that anyone who’s a decent fan and actively playing is going to typically shell out the money. It also makes it easy for new and returning fans to jump in. I’m absolutely certain that there are lots of potential Sims 4 players that see the $500+ worth of DLC and just… never start playing because it’s completely overwhelming. Especially when you see the titles and realize stuff that seems basic isn’t included in the base game: seasons, pets, etc

My problem with endless DLC isn’t the cost, but the fragmented result of each ‘feature’ needing to stand separately and not interact with any other DLC feature. You end up with some really janky gameplay where nothing works intuitively and the stuff you can implement is all hurt by those limitations.

Not to mention the sheer code hell that all this results in with an exponential increase in possible install states to account for. Which the devs just give up on and the game becomes a little buggier with every new expansion.

Honestly think they should move to a sort of MMO model. Charge for the most recent expansions and older DLC eventually gets merged into the base game. Cuts down on complexity and most of your sales will happen in the first year anyway.

That’s called Sims expansion game pack stuff pack kit #3452.

Still feels like companies barely know me and their algorithms to suggest new products to me all feel mostly braindead.

I’ve always kinda wondered about this. I’m not an audio guy and really can’t tell the difference between most of the standards. That said, I definitely remember tons and tons ‘experts’ telling me that no one can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p TV at typical distance to your couch. And I absolutely could and many of the people I know could. I can also tell the difference between 1080 and 4k, at the same distances.

So I’m curious if there’s just a natural variance in an individual’s ability to hear and audiophiles just have a better than average range that does exceed CD quality?

Similar to this, I can tell the difference between 30fps and 60fps, but not 60 to 120, yet some people swear they can. Which I believe, I just know that I can’t. Seems like these guidelines are probably more averages, rather than hard biological limits.

Yep. And the good mods take a while to make too. If your game is dead 3 months after launch, who’s going to still be motivated to keep working on a big overhaul type mod?

I think too many people forget that Skyrim was actually popular enough without mods to bring enough modders to the table to fix the rest of it. Bethesda seems to have forgotten that they actually have to deliver a mostly fun and mostly playable game for a proper modding scene to take root.

Same. I want more physics, more depth to character dialogue, more animations, etc. High res graphics are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to making games feel immersive. At this point a bunch of older games feel newer or more modern to me because they actually include this stuff.

I was responding in general to the concept, not specifically this implementation, which as you say is not the worst implementation for sure.

We’ll have agree to disagree on pay2win not being predatory. Again, this specific implementation may not be as bad, but the market as a whole absolutely has examples just as dangerous as slot machines. They’re built on the same psychology.

As for regulation, it doesn’t strictly have to come from the government. Both movies and games have rating boards specifically to avoid government intervention and I think they are failing consumers here. The threat of government intervention might see the ESRB and the various gaming marketplaces adopt more strict rules and warnings. Things like preventing the sale of games with specific, predatory mtx dark patterns and mechanics from sale to minors, stronger warning labels on games containing these sorts of practices and penalizing companies from adding MTX in a deceitful manner (such as after launch). A game would be heavily penalized for adding adult content this way and perhaps MTX should be treated in a similar manner.

Regulation. Bad behavior that can’t be policed by econ 101, gets regulation. Stuff like recognizing the predatory nature of these micro transactions and limiting their exposure to kids and warning labels like we slap on actual gambling. Even higher taxes on profits derived from these sorts games. Maybe they aren’t so profitable when we actually protect the vulnerable and they have to truly rely on just the ‘stupid whales’ and not kids.

AI cannibalization maybe?

I hate that they took away my analyst title. I’m not a software engineer dammit. I don’t even have an IDE installed and haven’t done any programming in 10+ years.

I personally don’t think you’re wrong, but I also feel like Hollywood execs are no longer interested in the type of stories that make good movies. Movies are tight, self contained stories delivered in a couple of hours. Most of the good ones (Critically acclaimed) don’t get that many sequels. Those are infinite cash cows, which is what execs prefer.

Premium series are infinitely expandable and are readily able to adapt larger narrative works. They’re potentially endless wells of money. Seems like the industry wants to move in that direction.