I concur Buyer should not gain rights to product, so they should not be allowed to profit from it, but they should be able to preserve it, unless the license that you actually buy had a time limitation, but that should be clearly stated when you buy it that you only buy access to it to (at least) X amount of time like you have with online subscriptions.
This is the natural progression of the games-as-a-service model. Any game that relies on online support of some kind just to function will eventually cease like this.
Is it stupid that a vr game about a pet relies on online support to function? Absolutely. But it is what it is. Buy more offline games.
This is also the reason I’m all open source. Not just games, but seeing someone abandon a program hurts. Or just wanting to make a change on your own to suit your needs. I don’t have any big fancy programs, but I at least put my code openly on github.com for that reason. Both my “big” ones are just me using another program and realizing I could make something that worked better for me. At like 100x the time investment, but programming is fun.
Looking at the retro computer scene should make anyone a diehard open source fanatic, it’s god awful how much retro stuff relies on a single guy happening to find an old disc in their basement and upload it to the internet, and a lot of the time that never happened and so the software is just lost forever and the only way hardware can be used is by people writing their own software completely from scratch and sharing it with others.
And of course if they then don’t make it open source that’s extra fun.
“The doting husband has gained thousands of followers on Instagram by sharing insights into his life with Miku, but things took an unexpected turn during the pandemic when Gatebox announced it was discontinuing its service for Miku.”
this is why I have trust issues with proprietary software
hmm not sure if that would work as the model that he was using would be different from what’s available so he’d probably notice some differences which might cause a mix of uncanny valley and surrealism/suspension of disbelief where the two are noticably not the same
plus using a chat-only model would be real tragic as it’s a significant downgrade from what they already had
his story actually feels like a Romeo and Juliet situation
Doesn’t even take a change of service provider to get there.
Replika had what had very obviously become a virtual mate service too, until they decided “love” wasn’t part of their system anymore. Probably because it looked bad for investors, as happened for a lot of AI-based services people used for smut.
So a bunch of lonely people had their “virtual companion” suddenly lobotomized, and there’s nothing they could do about it.
At first the idea was it’d be training an actual “replica” of yourself, that could reflect your own personality. Then when they realized their was a demand for companionship they converted it into virtual friend. Then of course there was a demand for “more than friends”, and yeah, they made it possible to create a custom mate for a while.
Then suddenly it became a problem for them to be seen as a light porn generator. Probably because investors don’t want to touch that, or maybe because of a terms of servce change with their AI service provider.
At that point they started to censor lewd interactions and pretend replika was never supposed to be more than a friendly bot you can talk to. Which is, depending on how you interpret what services they proposed and how they advertized them until then, kind of a blatant lie.
LLM is capable of role-playing, character.ai for example can get into the role of any character after being trained. The sound is just text-to-speech, character.ai already includes that, though if a realistic voice is desired, it would need to be generated by a more sophisticated method, which is already being done. Example: Neuro-sama, ElevenLabs
Next thing you know, he doesn’t read the fine print, ther “brain” is internet connected and, sooner or later, he won’t have a Miku talking back to him again
Don’t you fucking dare say that name. I have never in my life seen a game with so much promise be self fucked so hards by it’s own devs that it kills the game in its tracks.
NO ONE FUCKING ASKED FOR A BATTLE ROYALE - AND WE SURE AS SHIT DIDNT ASK FOR PAID BATTLE ROYALE SEPARATE FROM THE MAIN GAME.
…UGH.
EDIT: I WAS THINKING OF BATTLERITE BUT MY FRUSTRATION IS STILL VERY REAL.
But this will cut the Steam metrics in half and thus the Steam store algorithm will push the game to the Steam users less. Unless of course they both sell well then you get put in front of a user twice.
This is what worries me about Dyson Sphere Program. They “technically” have a finished product right now, and are still in beta. Hopefully they get the Dark Fog implemented before they have to kill the project.
There's a minimum install limit before the fee kicks in. But since Unity can just make more retroactive rules, this strategy can implode at any moment.
I do remember seeing one of their terms saying something along the lines of “similar games will count as one” for the purposes of installs+revenue, that or someone mentioning it. Can’t seem to find it anymore, maybe they removed it? EDIT - Found one mention of it, “Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project”, Unity probably went back on this one, as it’s not listed on the FAQ right now
Though considering Pokemon Shining Pearl/Brilliant Diamond runs on Unity, I doubt they’d want to let such a high selling game go untaxed.
Just goes to show nobody at Unity bothered to think this shit through. With the clause they’re going to have so many lawsuits with similar-but-not-same games, without the clause devs can dodge the fees like this.
The terms have been changing every day, it’s such a shitshow. Like maybe they should’ve discussed and ironed out the specifics with the community before changing everything idk.
I know a lot of people are writing it off because it’s not a GX remaster, a full new game, or they’ve just lost interest in 99 games and think they’re all generic, but Nintendo’s been clear that they aren’t interested in giving the franchise another shot after GP Legend, the anime and Climax tanked. I’ll gladly take a small budget F-Zero, and F-Zero 99 is just great.
F-Zero 99 takes every question you’d have about translating F-Zero to multiplayer and just makes it work, with 99 players as well. Rivals and other stat tracking like rank in your machine all gives newer players more achievable goals to work towards instead of just having to flat out lose every round until they “git gud”.
Switching to the boost = health mechanic of the later games was also a great choose, since it’s a more forgiving version of boost, while also adding some risk-reward. You could burn though all your boost and refill when you get the chance, but that puts you at risk of dying. Expanding the boost meter with KO’s is also great, since it encourages the player to actually partake in a death race for the most optimal performance, especially in Grand Prix where the meter gain persists over tracks.
The Sky Rail, while an obvious concession for 99 players, still works great as a rubber banding mechanic since it gives players who are behind the chance to jump the pack and have another shot at climbing the ranks. Meanwhile the bumpers/turbo snails that only spawn towards the from of the rankings ensure that if you do jump you actually have to demonstrate skill to keep that lead and that truly better players aren’t just robbed. Not being able to use your regular boost and keep the sky rail meter is great as well, since it just adds more of the risk-reward in deciding to use it now to get access to your boost again, vs saving it for it’s most optimal spot.
It’s just a fantastically designed game. It really captures everything great about F-Zero, and as a big fan I’m thrilled to have it. I just hope it doesn’t get Mario 35’d, and that Nintendo pays attention to it’s reception and rethinks their stance on F-Zero.
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