Eh, if you want to play retro games just buy a used console, mod it, play pirated games. Of if your PC is good enough just emulate.
I love how the author of the article says that From Software should put out ports of the old games (and maybe remaster them while they’re at it) but you know when they review the package they’ll give a low score, say the game “really show its age” and “is only recommended for hardcore fans.” Well, the hardcore fans have played the originals and if not, they know how to emulate or pirate old games to use with original hardware.
Unless you are trying to the the ps3 game the ps2 and psp should be able to be emulated on literally any pc.
Hell psp runs fine on most android phones as well.
You literally have to be trying to not find a way to play these games if you say they aren’t easy to play. Fuck legality if the copyright hold is sitting on these games for no fucking reason
Even the PS3 game can be played via an emulator. The tech is still evolving so you still need a fairly powerful computer but it is playable. For reference, I was able to test archiving various PS3 games on my now 11 year old gaming PC which was a medium-tier system at the time of the build.
I totally agree, but emulation still requires tons of unpaid work by enthusiasts. If/when Sony stops selling the PS3, they should turn over the source code and allow the community to make something really great. It’s not like they make any money of used console and game sales.
True but that’s how it’s always been. Most people who make emulators do it for the challenge or because they care about game preservation or both.
And they’ve done some wonderful things. One of my favourite things ever is the Nintendont launcher on the Wii. It lets you play GameCube disc images on the Wii natively. Even lets you use the normal controllers instead of having to plug in the original GameCube ones.
I love how the author of the article says that From Software should put out ports of the old games (and maybe remaster them while they’re at it) but you know when they review the package they’ll give a low score, say the game “really show its age” and “is only recommended for hardcore fans.”
That’s not quite fair - Polygon had good things to say about the Cowabunga Collection for example.
Didn’t they say that about the PS4 just before the 5 was announced? They want you to buy their current console. Nintendo denied Switch 2 rumors right up to the announcement. Same reason.
Also to be fair, we’ve kind of plateaued in gaming performance and demand. Cyberpunk set the benchmark 5 years ago and nothing’s really topped it yet. And now the Switch 2 can run it, and so can Macs built like iPhones with the GPU, RAM, and CPU all on the same chip. My MacBook Air can run it. I run around and there’s no traffic and almost no pedestrians, but it works! (I previously owned the game on Steam. I did not buy it for my Mac.)
It’s more about the console’s lifecycle, rather than it remaining the ‘current generation’. They’re implying that they will continue to ‘support’ the PS5 for another 5 years, whatever they determine that to mean (likely just keeping the online store open, maybe also multiplayer servers, and whatever PlayStation Plus features ).
That makes more sense — and I bet they will, too. If they aren’t still supporting the PS4, they did for a while. PS2, also. PS3, I’m not so sure about, but that sounds like something Sony has done. A game will come out on Xbox, PlayStation, and the previous PlayStation.
PS5 and XSX are both still great for 1080p gaming, despite one claiming 8K (since removed) and the other (still) claiming 4K. I’ve heard the next generation will support 4K native, and this leap in performance will come with a leap in price. I’ve heard the Xbox will basically be a branded PC and run Steam titles (I think this is mostly hopium); if so, I wonder what PlayStation will do to compete. Besides continue to support the previous generation longer. Either way, they’re too expensive now; I can only imagine what the next ones will cost.
Assuming the AI bubble bursts before then, we might actually see somewhat reasonable pricing for next-gen consoles.
A major reason why prices have remained so inflated for so long post-COVID is because data centres have been sucking up every bit of silicon that TSMC has been able to pump out for both Nvidia and AMD.
But that would be honestly a very small upside, compared to what would likely be the Mother of All Stockmarket Crashes. The market cap of the Top 10 AI-related stocks is greater than the current US national debt, they aren’t in a position to be able to reasonably bail out those companies when it all eventually goes to shit, like they do in 2008.
The best way to think of them is as cousins; they are similar - but not exactly the same.
They focus more on higher VRAM and CUDA cores compared to GPUs, while forgoing 3d acceleration capabilities.
But they both come out of the same factories; so when the demand for AI cards is as high as it is now - and Nvidia can sell as many as it produces with a higher margin than GPUs, there is little incentive for them to produce more GPUs and sell them at a competitive price.
So when the AI bubble bursts, demand for AI cards will crater - and there will be no financial incentive to mass produce them in such high quantities. This frees up production capacity at the TSMC factories, incentivising production of lower margin products like GPUs.
Economics is largely a game of supply & demand; when supply outstrips demand, prices fall as sellers search for buyers. When demand outstrips supply prices go up as buyers search for sellers.
I don’t think it will — AI is just getting started, and I think it’s going to get a lot better in terms of what it can do and fooling more of us into thinking it’s real. I think it’s also going to pull more on the AI fence toward it than push them away, though those of us already firmly against it probably won’t budge much.
We’ve been talking about PlayStation, but specific to Xbox, Microsoft wants to bring Copilot to gaming, tapping into guides online (IGN and such) to get Copilot to be able to help you through a game, while you’re playing it. Like Clippy in Word… Copilot in Halo (or whatever). And it’s not going to be free. But we’ll also pay more for the Xbox that can do it, even if we aren’t paying for AI help. But I think Microsoft will try to justify the higher price of the next Xbox (hell, the Xbox handheld is $1000 to start) by getting out of software (game) exclusives, opening it up to Steam, and basically making branded gaming PCs. Yes it’s hopium when Xbox fanboys try to sell it as a sure thing, but, it makes sense. Xbox is porting its remaining exclusives over to PlayStation. But they show no signs of getting out of hardware, and opening up to Steam, especially if PlayStation doesn’t, makes an Xbox a sure sell with gamers, especially if it’s cheaper than building a gaming PC and they don’t want to mod. I don’t see a future for Xbox with neither exclusives nor third-party stores. And I don’t think anyone wants Sony to be the only “game” in town.
I’m not saying AI will go away, or not continue to improve - but we are very much at the tail end of the current mania phase, and we will see some market pullback as AI startups begin to go out of business when all of those lofty promises of AI fail to materialise.
Diminishing returns on ever increasing investment, circular investments based on speculative returns, these are all signs of the tail-end of a stock market bubble.
Why it happened I can’t say, but I know what caused the failed launch - the game has an early access date and release date both in 2016. Steam didn’t send the mail that the game had released when it left EA because from their point of view, it had already released nine years ago.
Other games that have recently left EA have their release date update to the date they leave EA. No clue if it’s something that (should) happen automatically, or if it’s something the devs missed.
Valve contacted the French duo behind the space exploration game this month to tell them that the platform failed to notify the users who had saved Planet Centauri on their wishlists.
Kinda. Same as me, they know why the launch failed - no notifications - but don’t say anything why the notifications didn’t get sent.
Steam has a section for the developers for setting up the release date. It specifically states that you need to be careful with it, because two weeks before that date you start getting visibility on the “upcoming releases” list, and will then show up in the “new releases” section, and once that happens, you can’t change it.
And Planet Centauri is showing their official release date as being “3 Jun, 2016”, not the 2024 date they left Early Access as it’s supposed to. So did they mess that up and the notifications were actually sent, but they went out nine years ago? Or did Steam glitch when this game specifically left EA, not updating the date and not sending the notifications?
If it did, were other games affected?
In an email to Permadeath, Valve said that Planet Centauri’s 1.0 launch suffered from “a bug that impacted a very small number of game releases (less than 100 since 2015) where wishlist email notifications for the launch of a game were not sent.”
From Crosspoint I heard that they even cancelled and shut down the studio making a game (forget the name off the top of my head) that Phil Spencer himself was said to have liked so much, they had to force him to quit playing their demo in a meeting about it. Not to mention the absolute waste of time and money on nearly finished projects that were probably going to sell well.
You know, I'm not surprised about that, and not in a good way. CR is part of RPG culture I'm not good with, and I'm totally unsurprised that people who were part of 5e are joining them.
All I can hope is that seeing Hasbro lose people will draw attention to other systems - or for Hasbro to make a marketing push on the Essence20 system in addition to (or instead of) d20.
The commodification and the desire for mass appeal are the top-level issues I have. I feel uncomfortable when I see the modern D&D branding on stuff in "normal" stores. It takes away the community and puts Hasbro in the central role, rather than the network of GMs who should be the majority influence. If I wanted a hobby with a company in charge, I would play Warhammer.
Now, on the community side, my biggest issue is with things I see as derived from CR. The lack of respect for simple theatre of the mind is a direct issue with the way I've always run and played since I left D&D. The tolerance and even acceptance of paid DMing also pisses me off in ways that make it very hard for me to remain civil.
Those are the big ones. There's also the fact that D&D doesn't seem to have the offramps it had since AD&D1 (and which admittedly went downhill when the Forge went out of the spotlight).
The commodification and the desire for mass appeal are the top-level issues I have. I feel uncomfortable when I see the modern D&D branding on stuff in "normal" stores. It takes away the community and puts Hasbro in the central role, rather than the network of GMs who should be the majority influence. If I wanted a hobby with a company in charge, I would play Warhammer.
Now, on the community side, my biggest issue is with things I see as derived from CR. The lack of respect for simple theatre of the mind is a direct issue with the way I've always run and played since I left D&D. The tolerance and even acceptance of paid DMing also pisses me off in ways that make it very hard for me to remain civil.
Those are the big ones. There's also the fact that D&D doesn't seem to have the offramps it had since AD&D1 (and which admittedly went downhill when the Forge went out of the spotlight).
The lack of respect for simple theatre of the mind is a direct issue with the way I’ve always run and played since I left D&D.
What do you mean by this?
The tolerance and even acceptance of paid DMing also pisses me off in ways that make it very hard for me to remain civil.
Why? Running a game is work, and not every group that wants to play has a good GM. How is it any different than commissioning art of your character or buying an adventure module? Don’t get me wrong, I prefer unpaid friends, but I’m blessed with multiple potential GMs in my group. Not everyone is so lucky, do they just not get to play? Or are they forced to nominate a GM who won’t enjoy it and won’t run an enjoyable game?
I mean that every time I've tried to run a game, either on tabletop (exceedingly rare now) or online, the demands from players are ridiculous compared to my expectations and what I set out as my intentions. I am not a voice actor. I'm decent at improv, but sometimes do need a moment to contemplate. I do not use images, music, battlemaps, miniatures, or any other equipment. Just dice, words, and imagination. This has gone from being the standard mode of play in the communities I'm accustomed to into a very niche thing that no one seems interested in anymore.
[Defense of Paid DMs]
At best, we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm going to address the points I think I can without overcoming apoplexy first.
There are hundreds if not thousands of GM guides available. If you cannot or will not put in that level of investment, then run something GM-less, or work together to GM the game. Gary called DMs 'referees', and I think that model still holds up - no ref in a game is responsible for the whole field at every moment. Real referees switch up and have things like VAR or other systems. If one guy in the group is good at designing traps, let him design the traps and run them. If one person is good at storytelling, let them present the story. The person who knows combat best should adjudicate it. This is a game of cooperative fun. So, cooperate. Either that, or try something like Fiasco, Shadowrun Anarchy, Microscope, Space Bounty Blues, or something like that, and then move into refereeing a rules-light system like The Black Hack or a PbtA. Don't be hemmed in by modern D&D (note that this ties into the 'D&D has fewer offramps' point above).
As far as the paid DM part, it's very simple: This is a creative hobby. This is the time we have free together as friends, and RPGs have been some of the very few things in my life that has been an escape from the soul-crushing burden of working and money changing hands for every damn thing. Paid DMs turn it into a business, not a fun experience, and I consider their existence toxic to the community. Because after all, if some other schlub is making money doing a thing, why shouldn't I charge money to do that thing? Why should I be the one doing free labor? And that's the problem. It turns what should be creative, cooperative, storytelling with guard rails into a discussion of labor and capital and investment and all the crap that I want to avoid in the world via the escapism of RPGs. That paid person isn't my friend anymore, he's a paid service provider. But what KPIs is he measured by? 'Fun' isn't quantifiable (much to Friend Computer's chagrin), so, what? XP per session? Loot? Some other valueless measure which inevitably means nothing?
In short - no. I will reiterate, I believe that paid DMing is toxic to the community as a whole. It turns what should be an exercise in building and developing friendships into building and developing a business. It takes the party away from being a group of friends or fellow-travelers into a group of customers receiving shared service from a provider. It's no different from the people you meet at the big table of a hibachi restaurant.
That's before we get into how incredibly elitist it is by definition. Paid DMing takes away from the grassroots elements of the game. It puts a paywall between the player and the game. Any of the paid DMs I've seen have their players basically sign non-compete agreements, so they can't just turn into a normal group without that DM - which means those players don't join the larger community. So in every way I can oppose it, in every way I can hate it, I do.
I don’t despise paid DMing as much as you do, but I agree that it’s negatively shifting the expectations of hobbyist/enthusiast DMs and commodifying what was originally a personal investment into a social group.
In addition, a paid DM is more inclined to make conditions favorable for the players… as they do not want to get fired from that role.
It’s true that DMing can be hard work and that the DM will spend many more hours on DnD than anyone else in the group, but last time I DM’ed, my friends ran a food rotation (usually big macs or taco bell) and I always ate for free :)
Burgers won’t make me fudge dice to keep the party happy, but a paycheck sure would.
I mean, this just seems really gatekeepy. You’re obviously allowed to play however you like, but I don’t see how the way others play affects you.
the demands from players are ridiculous compared to my expectations and what I set out as my intentions
That sounds like a communication issue. I’ve played fully tactical with battle mats and set pieces, and I’ve played fully theater of the mind, and I’ve never had an issue with player expectations as long as I communicate my intentions pre-session zero.
As far as the paid DM part, it’s very simple: This is a creative hobby.
So is art, so is adventure design. I still don’t see how it’s different from commissioning art of your character or buying a module.
Why stop at DM? Every group should invent their own system, carve their own dice, design their own adventures. It’s not very grassroots to use a system designed by an elitist corporation.
I’m into 3d printing. When the hobby started, there were not commercial printers, you had to build one from scratch. Are we supposed to hate manufactured printers to preserve the creative integrity of the hobby?
I just don’t see the rationale of your preferences for how you like to play metastasizing into hatred. You’re allowed to play how you want, so is everyone else.
You’re absolutely right. D&D past AD&D1 should never have been the center of our hobby.
Oh I switched to GURPS years ago. I don’t think D&D is a particularly good system for anyone with any real TTRPG experience, but 5e is actually pretty accessible as an introduction to the hobby. Plenty of canon content to work from, or just buy modules from, and it’s fairly simple to play. Plus D&D is the OG, so it’s the default TTRPG in media.
And I’m fine with media. I like media, temporarily. It introduces the hobby to people who might otherwise remain at a perpetual distance, and while a lot of them aren’t really right for TTRPGs, some of them are, and I’m happy they were introduced to it.
The reason I don’t mind paid DMs is because the people that want them are new to the hobby, probably a whole group worth. The alternative is that they elect one of their own; personally I’m down with sharing the GM’s chair, but I don’t think it’s practical for most newbies without an experienced GM present.
Now someone totally new has to figure out how to run a game, and odds are they’re going to suck a bunch, and that’s going to lead to a game that sucks a bunch, and everyone’s going to think D&D actually sucks, and all TTRPGs as well by extension. Players who might, under an experienced GM, see what it can be, will see it instead as a trainwreck.
The market for paid GMs is newbies, and I don’t mind it. This isn’t the 80s, there’s other stuff to do if their first campaign sucks. I don’t mind paid GMs as the starter to get a group moving. Once they get a little wind in their sails one of them will step up and adopt the mantle.
Especially since I assume a decent GM is probably in the neighborhood of $100/session, so about $25/person for a party of four. I think that the instant one of them feels confident to give it a go, they will have that conversation.
Sure, there might be a bit of an expectation adjustment, as you said, but that actually seems easier to accommodate. It would be obviously unreasonable for the party to expect, for free, the same experience they were previously paying $25/person/session for.
And even if they don’t, and they keep the paid GM, it’s not like WOTC has a DM Uber app. Those aren’t corporate stooges, they’re experienced enthusiasts like yourself getting a little kickback for the years of development they’ve dedicated to their craft. I’d reckon a fair segment of the people who would take the job are veteran GMs with no parties to play with. They benefit doubly.
I just think new players in the modern age benefit more from a good first impression of the hobby, and the cost provides a natural incentive for the unpaid alternative to evolve.
I actually think this brings up a good point. Artists they hire for these tabletop game jobs will end up using AI to create a base image or backgrounds and edit it for the project one way or another. They'll do it to increase their own output and income.
Edit: And guys like this will pay you less to extract more profits from you with that in mind of course.
There’s some overlap in customers, sure but the vast majority of people who buy a Switch 2 aren’t the types who would buy a Deck. Switch 2 will sell tens of millions more units to a mainstream consumer. And that’s fine. Deck can still be a successful product in its own right as long as Valve is making a profit off of it through Steam software sales.
U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is calling for Valve to pull the controversial game Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which has players acting as a Palestinian resistance fighter, from gaming platform Steam.
The game, created by Brazilian developer Nidal Nijm, has already been removed from Steam in several countries, including the United Kingdom, following a request for removal from the U.K. Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit, 404 Media reported. Nijm also said that the game is blocked across the European Union due to EU violations flagged by the French government’s cybercrime unit. In an email from Valve that Nijm showed to Polygon, the violation is of Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2021/784, which addresses the “dissemination of terrorist content online.”
I think the funniest thing here is that this game was made by a Brazilian and it went relatively unknown until some skrub said it was anti semetic after Oct 7, despite having been published since 2022.
Good interview. They didn’t let them off the hook, but weren’t pushing an agenda either.
This is going to be a moving target that someone is going to pay big bucks to figure out in court. International laws are not up to speed on what is or isn’t ok here, and the ethical discussion is interesting to watch unfold.
polygon.com
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