I agree IP law is messed up, but that doesn’t mean the idea doesn’t have merit.
Having a temporary, legal monopoly on something that requires a lot of R&D and not much production cost (say, a novel or new kind of asphalt) allows the creator to make back their R&D costs before competitors come out with cheaper alternatives. Without that protection, companies would be less likely to invest in R&D.
We need shorter durations and more scrutiny on scope. Also, patents should generally not apply to software.
As an incentive structure for corporations and “people” purely motivated by avarice, sure.
Most people naturally want to create and contribute as long as their needs and most basic wants are met. A monopoly as an incentive is not necessary.
Without that protection, companies would be less likely to invest in R&D.
There are many ways to motivate corporations to do R&D outside of offering them a monopoly on a silver platter. Incentives are only one half of the equation. Its really all about leverage.
There are many ways to motivate corporations to do R&D outside of offering them a monopoly on a silver platter
The main alternative is offering them a subsidy on a silver platter, but then you’re making everyone pay for that R&D, not just the customers who want whatever that product is, and there’s no protection against IP theft unless the government owns and enforces the patents or something abroad.
I personally prefer the IP law approach, but I think it needs significant reforms, both in duration and the approval process.
With a monopoly, you may very well be making everyone pay for the increased price gouge that comes with monopolies. Not just the customer of that particular product. It depends on the nature of the product.
If it is a component of a more common device or product, basically everyone ends up paying more (HDMI comes to mind). If its an innovation relating to a basic need and gets integrated with the majority of services, basically everyone ends up paying more. If its something that has external implications on the market or wider world that creates inefficiencies, then people functionally make less money because effect people pay more and thus long term this harms spending on a variety of products. If people can’t afford the price gouge and continue using less effective products (assuming they are even available) they likely long term spend more money to make up for the inefficiencies from that.
Monopolies damage things beyond the product that gets monopolized and merely concentrates wealth.
Regardless a subsidy is not the only alternative. That’s still thinking in terms of carrot, and you are forgetting the stick. You can also legislate mandatory R&D in budgets for large corporations based on revenue/profits just as much as you with the punishment of potentially being fined/taxed more.
But outside of that, there is also government contracts. That is, a single payer, (monopsony) generally can get fantastic results out of competing firms. Its largely a major reason why the American Military has historically benefited from such significant technological advancements for nearly a century now.
Not all monopolies are created equal. We’re talking about IP protections, not general monopolies, meaning these are new products, not some existing necessity. IP law on its own can’t kill existing products.
An author having exclusive rights to a work doesn’t prevent other authors from making their own works. A pharmaceutical company having exclusive rights to a medication doesn’t prevent other pharmaceutical companies from making competing medications. Likewise for video games and whatnot.
The problems with Palworld have little to do with IP law as a concept but with how broad the protection of patents is. IMO, video game mechanics shouldn’t be patentable, and companies should be limited to copyright protections for their IP. But IP protection is still important as a concept so creators don’t get screwed and customers don’t get defrauded.
You can also legislate mandatory R&D in budgets for large corporations
Yeah, that’s not going to be abused/scare away companies.
Its largely a major reason why the American Military has historically benefited from such significant technological advancements for nearly a century now.
It’s also why the US pays an obscene amount for its military. Defense contractors absolutely fleece the government because they are generally not allowed to contract with other governments, so they expect a higher profit from their one contracted buyer.
Only have access to this account during work, so late reply.
We’re talking about IP protections, not general monopolies
It doesn’t matter, monopolization at any level has the effect I described.
Yeah, that’s not going to be abused
You’d need to elaborate I’m not clear what you mean by this.
scare away companies
There are ways to force this into not being an issue. We don’t have to suck a corporation’s dick to keep their productivity.
It’s also why the US pays an obscene amount for its military. Defense contractors absolutely fleece the government because they are generally not allowed to contract with other governments, so they expect a higher profit from their one contracted buyer.
It sounds like the military is still getting what they paid for and its worked out for them. They pay obscene amounts to get obscene results.
Single payer also applies to healthcare proposals and is generally seen as a fantastic solution to keeping healthcare prices down.
You can also legislate mandatory R&D in budgets for large corporations
Yeah, that’s not going to be abused/scare away companies.
You’d need to elaborate I’m not clear what you mean by this.
A few ways:
the term “R&D” can be pretty broad, so it’s unlikely to have the effect you’re thinking about - pretty much everything in a tech company is “R&D” whereas almost nothing in a factory is; making this somewhat fair is going to be very hard and will likely end in abuse
companies are more likely to set up shop where such restrictions don’t exist
enforcement could be selective to target companies that don’t “bend the knee” - esp true if the required amount is high enough that it’s not practical
force
Not a word I like to hear when it comes to government. The more power you give it, the more likely some idiot will come along and abuse it. Look at Trump, the only reason he can absolutely wreck the economy w/ tariffs is because Congress gave him that power and refuses to curtail it.
It sounds like the military is still getting what they paid for
Sure, but they’re getting a lot less of it than they could if it was a more competitive market.
They pay obscene amounts to get decent results. I think they could get the same (or better!) results with a lot less spending if the system wasn’t rigged to be anti-competitive.
Single payer also applies to healthcare proposals and is generally seen as a fantastic solution to keeping healthcare prices down.
I think that only works in countries w/o a large medical devices/pharmaceutical industry, otherwise you end up with ton of lobbying and whatnot. I don’t think the total cost of healthcare would go down, it would just shift to net tax payers and healthy people. Look at the ACA, it didn’t reduce healthcare spending at all, it just shifted who pays for it, and it seems healthy people ended up spending more (to subsidize less healthy people).
To actually reduce costs, you need to make pricing as transparent as possible, and I don’t think single payer achieves that. It can be a good option in certain countries, but I don’t think it’s universally a good option.
Not a word I like to hear when it comes to government. The more power you give it, the more likely some idiot will come along and abuse it. Look at Trump, the only reason he can absolutely wreck the economy w/ tariffs is because Congress gave him that power and refuses to curtail it.
So you’d rather give power to corporations. Who definitely abuse their power. Rather than a government, which at least is potentially elected.
I think governmental structures are probably outside the scope of this conversation, but I’ll at least state that the reason Trump is bad is not only that he has power. Its the lack of power that his opposition has because they utterly fail to seize it when opportunity presents itself. Again, it is all about leverage.
Sure, but they’re getting a lot less of it than they could if it was a more competitive market.
They pay obscene amounts to get decent results. I think they could get the same (or better!) results with a lot less spending if the system wasn’t rigged to be anti-competitive.
I think that this is pure conjecture. Going “full competitive” would be at best a double edged sword. A lot of money and risk is involved in highly advanced military tech. Realistically you’d see businesses crumble and merge. Naturally converging into a monopoly.
I think that only works in countries w/o a large medical devices/pharmaceutical industry, otherwise you end up with ton of lobbying and whatnot. I don’t think the total cost of healthcare would go down, it would just shift to net tax payers and healthy people. Look at the ACA, it didn’t reduce healthcare spending at all, it just shifted who pays for it, and it seems healthy people ended up spending more (to subsidize less healthy people).
To actually reduce costs, you need to make pricing as transparent as possible, and I don’t think single payer achieves that. It can be a good option in certain countries, but I don’t think it’s universally a good option.
To actually reduce costs, you increase the leverage the buyer has. Transparency in pricing would do that to a tiny degree, what would do so far better is a monopsony/single-payer system where all the buyers effectively are unionized.
If the market is sufficiently competitive, yes, I trust corporations more than governments. I firmly believe giving more power to governments results in more monopolies, generally speaking, because it creates an opportunity for the larger players to lobby for ways to create barriers to competition.
That’s a pretty broad statement though, and there are certainly cases where I would prefer the government to step in.
monopsony/single-payer system where all the buyers effectively are unionized
I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re making an assumption that the payer has an incentive to reduce costs, but I really don’t think that’s the case. What they do have is a lot of power over pricing, and while that could be used to force producers to reduce costs, it can also be used to shift costs onto taxpayers in exchange for favors from the companies providing the services.
That’s quite similar to the current military industrial complex, the military is the only purchaser of these goods, so the suppliers can largely set their prices. A monopsony means the value of making a deal is massive for a company because they get access to a massive market, which also means the value of lobbying to get that deal is also high.
So I really don’t trust that a single payer system would actually work in the US to reduce total healthcare costs, it’ll just hide it. If we want to actually cut healthcare costs, we need to fix a number of things, such as:
malpractice suits - providers need expensive insurance plans and hesitate to provide certain types of care (i.e. need more tests even though they’re very confident in their diagnosis)
pharmaceutical and medical device patent system, and subsequent lobbying to set regulations to hedge against competition
backroom deals between insurance companies and care providers where both sides get a “win” (provider inflates prices so insurance rep can report that they’re getting a deal by getting a discount)
whatever is causing ambulances to be super expensive
The problems are vast and I think single payer would likely just sweep them under the rug. We either need socialized healthcare or maximum transparency, single payer would just be a disappointment.
If the market is sufficiently competitive, yes, I trust corporations more than governments.
Competition naturally degrades over time as companies go out of business and consolidate. And capital interests fight tooth and nail against large monopolies being split back up. Its more or less a miracle that it’s ever happened at all and it would be naive to think it’ll ever happen again.
If the market is sufficiently competitive, yes, I trust corporations more than governments.
I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re making an assumption that the payer has an incentive to reduce costs, but I really don’t think that’s the case. What they do have is a lot of power over pricing, and while that could be used to force producers to reduce costs, it can also be used to shift costs onto taxpayers in exchange for favors from the companies providing the services.
Do you think a more direct “medical patient union” would work? Skipping a government intermediary?
socialized healthcare
I mean, I’d prefer socialized healthcare over single payer. Single payer for me is merely an acceptable middle ground. As would having a proper public option next to private care (though admittedly that would slowly erode from lobbying).
Competition naturally degrades over time as companies go out of business and consolidate.
And it naturally improves over time as companies challenge established players and “distupt” the market. As long as the barrier to entry remains sufficiently low, there’s no reason for a net degradation in competition.
Large companies tend to become less efficient. Yes, they have economies of scale, but they tend to scare away innovators, so they switch to lobbying to maintain their edge.
The correct approach IMO is to counter the lobbying efforts of large orgs, and that means stripping governments of a lot of their power. Regulations tend to result in more monopolies, requiring antitrust to fix, and as you noted, that’s extremely rare.
Do you think a more direct “medical patient union” would work? Skipping a government intermediary?
Yeah, that can work. I’m thinking of having your primary care orovider offer your “insurance” policy, and they’d be on the hook to fund any procedures you need. So they have an incentive to keep you healthy, and that agreement could be a legal obligation that the doctor is doing their best to keep you healthy.
I do think we should socialize emergency services though. If a paramedic determines you need an ambulance ride, that should be free.
I’d prefer socialized healthcare over single payer
I prefer privatized care with transparency in pricing across the board, shortened patent durations, and some government assistance for the poor. But failing that, socialized care is probably the next best. Anything in the middle just breeds corruption.
The main alternative is offering them a subsidy on a silver platter, but then you’re making everyone pay for that R&D
R&D for many companies is taking the research done by underpaid graduate and PhD students and using that to create some sort of product or buying out the startups those students created and building from that.
We already live in a system where the majority of costs are publicly subsidized (and that’s not mentioning the myriad of direct subsidies these companies receive, for an especially egregious example look at the amount Pfizer got paid to develop the Covid vaccine) and then the result is patented and privatized.
They usually get grants, and frequently the student will get hired to follow up on that research. A lot of the research ends up unusable to the company as well, at least on its own.
majority of costs are publicly subsidized
I think that’s a bit extreme, but I’ll give you that a lot of R&D is subsidized. The COVID example, however, is an outlier, since the funding was to accelerate ending the pandemic, which was critical for the economy as a whole.
the student will get hired to follow up on that research.
You’re right that that’s an aspect I forgot about, however If the patent system worked as you envision it then those students would own the parent which they would then lease to those companies. The actual situation is quite legally messy because it’s usually the universities which own the IP produced, (which is then leased out via partnerships, grants etc ) and when those individuals lease themselves with the promise of producing more valuable IP they have to take cautions to not infringe on their previous work.
I think that’s a bit extreme,
Not really, using Covid as an example this paper details the pre and post-epidemic funding sources that went into the discovery, testing and production of the COVID vaccine. Do you have any other examples you’d like to use to demonstrate how it’s “extreme”?
The COVID example, however, is an outlier
Yes and no, but it is well publicized and documented which is what I was trying to communicate with that specific one as an example.
it’s usually the universities which own the IP produced
Which is totally reasonable. The student applies for a graduate program to get a degree, not get rich off a patent. Theoretically, any patent royalties retained by the university would go toward funding university activities. I don’t know how much this happens in practice though.
That said, there should be limits here. If a patent makes over a certain amount, the rest should go to the student.
it is well publicized and documented
Right, because it’s an outlier.
If you go to the patent office and look at recent patents, I doubt a significant number are the result of government funding. Most patents are mundane and created as part of private work to prevent competitors from profiting from their work. My company holds a ton of patents, and I highly doubt the government has any involvement in funding them.
Did Nintendo get government funding for its patents? I doubt it.
The student applies for a graduate program to get a degree, not get rich
And what’s the big selling point behind why you would want to get a degree?
because it’s an outlier.
Pre-pandemic public funding wasn’t, which is why I linked a source that provided both so you could see how much of an outlier it was/wasn’t.
If you go to the patent office and look at recent patents, I doubt a significant number are the result of government funding.
They all will be to some extent. The hard part is quantifying the extent for each individual patent. I can guarantee that you’re company received/has received some sort of public funding and so yes the government does have involvement directly funding them, even if it isn’t as explicit as with public health funding. Indirect funding is the much harder one to suss out but is likely significantly more.
Did Nintendo get government funding for its patents?
Directly? Probably not, but the whole point of bringing up universities was to show one of the indirect paths. However I don’t speak Japanese in order to actually research but would be very curious to know what sort of subsidies/public assistance it receives, if there exists a thing similar to MEDIA/Creative Europe, etc.
And what’s the big selling point behind why you would want to get a degree?
To work on interesting problems, that’s why most people get advanced degrees, no? I highly doubt most people who get a Ph.D are in it for the money…
Indirect funding is the much harder one to suss out
It’s also rarely directly related to R&D. For example, the company I work for produces chemical products, and innovations in that formulation is critical to our competitive advantage, but not particularly interesting from a national perspective. Our innovations merely help our products stand out from competitors, but competitor products are pretty similar.
If we get subsidies (haven’t checked), it would be for producing these chemicals with less pollution, using locally produced ingredients, or to improve safety of transporting them.
If you try hard enough, yeah, you could probably find some form of government funding. But that doesn’t mean the patents were produced as a direct result of public funding.
If that’s people’s main motivator then why does copyright exist in the first place?
If we get subsidies
If you’re a large enough institution to have as many patents as you claim to then I guarantee you do. I would encourage you to dig into that as well as the why.
that doesn’t mean the patents were produced as a direct result of public funding.
How many transition steps are needed for a precursor chemical to no longer be a required precursor for a product? Is a byproduct that is sold not a product because it’s not the primary intended production output?
If that’s people’s main motivator then why does copyright exist in the first place?
Copyright exists to create a temporary monopoly so the creator can recoup their creation costs and some profit on top, since creating a work takes a lot more resources than duplicating it. Likewise for patents, though that’s more focused on sharing ideas.
large enough institution
We probably are. A quick search shows 100-200 patents, many of which have long since expired. Most of them are incredibly mundane, and I highly doubt a government would’ve been involved in funding it, and I don’t really know how to find out if they were.
How many transition steps are needed
That depends on a variety of things, but in general, very few? Like 2-3?
Let’s say my company gets funding to disseminate OSHA information to employees so they know their rights and what the company is obligated to provide. That has absolutely nothing to do w/ funding the actual production process at plants, even if those plants are subjected to OSHA safety requirements. In fact, it likely runs counter to increasing production because employees in a seminar by definition aren’t producing product at the plant.
So yeah, I would say government funding has to be pretty directly related to R&D to count as “funding” R&D. Maybe there’s an award for the first group to come up with something or a general subsidy to fund research in a given area.
Copyright exists to create a temporary monopoly so the creator can recoup their creation costs and some profit on top
Creation costs like the cost of an advanced degree? You’re repeating talking points like nobody’s heard them before and contradicting yourself every other comment.
How many transition steps are needed
That was a rhetorical question, let me try rephrasing that. If A+B+C=D and D+E=F is A a requirement to get F? Or is it no longer relevant because it’s 2 steps removed?
Let’s say my company gets funding to disseminate OSHA information to employees
I wish I got paid to avoid fines. I understand that is how your deeply corrupt system works but you really can’t understand the financial incentives there can you? Imagine that illegal parking is a huge problem so instead of parking tickets they pay everyone who owns a car to sit through a parking information seminar. Do you honestly think that isn’t going to factor into your decision on whether you should own/drive a car? Is it unreasonable to say that the state is paying you to drive?
Creation costs like the cost of an advanced degree?
No, copyright has little to do with advanced degrees. The creation costs are the time and resources needed to produce the book, movie, software project, or other work, which can be substantial.
There’s a better argument for patents, but still weak.
That was a rhetorical question
Right, and rhetorical questions by definition don’t have good answers. There needs to be a reasonable limit here, and what’s reasonable depends on what specifically we’re talking about.
For example, I benefitted a lot from my public education, but I can’t really quantify the impact to a a dollar amount, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to say my career success is due to public funding.
For me to accept that an innovation came from the public sector, I’d need to see a direct link between public funding and the innovation. Just saying a company got a tax incentive to put an office somewhere doesn’t mean all innovations from that office is government funded.
Is it unreasonable to say that the state is paying you to drive?
Yes, that’s unreasonable.
Driving is heavily subsidized by the state. For example, a lot of the funding for roads comes from income taxes instead of direct use taxes like registration and gas taxes. Even so, I don’t consider that to be paying me to drive, but it is an incentive to drive.
The government does pay me to have babies since I get a tax credit if I have kids. The difference is I have to do something proactive to get the benefit, whereas the roads will be funded whether I drive or not.
If a company gets a tax incentive to put an office somewhere, that doesn’t mean all inventions made there are publicly funded unless that’s specifically called out in the incentive deal.
Maybe this is me just being jaded after Nintendo’s fall from grace, but this is the first time I’ve seen a feature and wondered “why”?
If mouse control is important then just let people connect a bluetooth mouse. They’re easy to get ahold of and most people can probably chuck one in their bag if they don’t already have one.
Hell, if you feel the need, just make a “Switch Mouse” with a control stick on the side if you need to. No need to have one controller to rule them all.
This enables unique gameplay experiences not usually possible on a standard PC mouse setup, such as the ability to use two mice to play games.
I mean, this isn’t illegal or anything. It’s just so situational I’ve only seen it done once (World of Goo for multiplayer). Most people can’t effectively use mice with their non-dominant hand anyway.
An example of this is in Drag X Drive, where the player uses a mouse in each hand and moves them forwards or back to mimic moving around in a wheelchair.
Isn’t this just motion controls? The same concept could have been done with the Wii and two wiimotes. Only this time you just wear out the rubber pads on your joycon.
The addition of HD Rumble in the controllers also means players can experience force feedback while using a mouse.
… How does this even work given that a mouse is a precision instrument? Surely the rumble would just cause the mouse to shift around or become less accurate. I think there’s a reason nobody has tried to put rumble in a mouse.
Overall I can see it being a nice emergency feature for if you need a mouse but don’t have one on you. But the fact that they seem to be pitching it as a flagship feature feels odd to me.
Or maybe I’m just being grumpy and this ends up working well.
i think it makes sense to be skeptical. they’ve shown one game for it that seems neat but not revolutionary. I think this is just a case of “the switch 2 has to do something that the switch can’t do, besides running prettier games.”
I’m willing to bet that most games that use mouse mode will have to use the face buttons and control stick on the mouse con. Metroid prime 4 apparently does this. So its not replacable with a standard mouse.
I think the joy con can also sense rotation of the mouse which is used in mario party and probably never again like the ir sensor from switch 1 joycons. I guess a hypothetical 3d mario maker could let you rotate blocks with it, but that could be done in many other ways.
Maybe it’s that the card has both arms in addition to a wing instead of it replacing an arm like the original? I personally don’t think that warrants an article, but hey websites gonna click bait.
Both arms was my first take too considering he’s specifically named the one winged angel because of the one black wing replacing his arm, but he does have a whole extra head visible behind the text, in the same way Bizarro Sephiroth had a big Sephiroth and then a tiny Sephiroth on top - the topless, black wing form sits on a cloud that sits on top of another bigger Sephiroth with white wings instead of just having 6 wings replacing his legs. And there’s still more werid shit going on behind that text that I can’t make out. With how they brought Bizarro Sephiroth in Rebirth, they could be doing the “multiple teams attacking different sections” take again.
Good point. I didn’t see behind the text without opening a bigger image. The article mentioned it was drawn so the front and back image stacked for the full picture. When you look at it from that perspective it could also be regular sephiroth holding something up between the two of them.
Regardless though I gotta take it with a grain of salt. Someone on the design team back before the first remake launched said to pay close attention to the game’s key art and we’d find something interesting. If I recall it was only a black feather or some other mundane feature that didn’t reveal anything spectacular even after playing the game. It was just marketing to get people talking.
I can’t help but think this is similar. Fun stuff to think about while waiting for the game but probably won’t amount to much even when we’ve seen the final product. I’d love to be wrong though and this is actually hiding a new twist. Time will tell.
This game looks fuccen sicc. So whatever else is in store, the artists know what’s up at least. Don’t see a reason to hate on this as bald chicks are a huge part of that aesthetic. I better only see bald and half or partially shaved heads.
tbh it seems okay except i’m not sure where the ring and pinky fingers are supposed to rest. The dual-mouse possibilities are very intriguing, but i remain cautiously optimistic. this vid didn’t change my feelings one way or the other.
and none of it matters, cause they have literal legions of fans that will ride their ride, no matter how much it costs, no matter how poorly made it is, no matter how much nintendo spits in their face.
So Nintendo sees no significant economic repercussions from their behavior, and thus has incentive to change.
I was one of those but they were losing me more and more every year… But 3 years ago it became way too much, and I got off the bandwagon. Screw that lol.
I hope they don’t make as many sales as they expect… But you may be right, too many people who will buy their crap however expensive and how much they’re being mistreated by the company.
All of my friends who are less pissed off at Nintendo than I am are not even considering buying a Switch 2 because Nintendo basically priced themselves out of the market. All of my friends who have a Switch 1 will not be buying the Switch 2, that’s pretty significant IMO, but I guess we’ll see.
I agree, they definitely priced themselves out of several demographics including casual gamers, parents of young children gamers, and “I guess I’ll get a switch as a second device” gamers. These people aren’t going to look at a switch that’s roughly the same price as the ps5 and xbox and think “yeah let’s grab that one”.
The wii u showed their demographic of “die hard fans that buy no matter what” is actually really small compared to the rest of their sales. And I think we’re going to see a repeat of that.
I bought a WiiU refurbished directly from Nintendo shortly before the Switch came out. I did it purely because the first big hax was released and I was able to easily port my GC\Wii hacked HDD to it AND also have WiiU games hacked games available. WW and TWP were also a big part of that purchase decision for me.
I got a Switch and BotW ultimate CE on release, but will be skipping the S2 for some time. Likely until the next Zelda comes out if the Steam Deck can’t easily emulate other S2 titles by that time. I’m bummed I’ll be missing the new DK game (only 10GB file size though so not very big) and Hyrule Warriors game as the last one was amazing, but it’s a basic beat em up so no love really lost there.
Lemmy constantly falls into the same social trap as reddit: that we think we’re some monolith of consumerism and when we believe something we think everyone else will be on our side.
Go on YouTube and look up the hundreds of videos from the past few months alone of scalpers and other Pokemon buyers getting into actual physical fights, buying literally 10+ of those huge box sets, and camping out at those vending machines and buying literally everything in them the minute they restock.
I’m a vendor at comic and anime conventions here in the US. I did a show last month that was literally 99% Pokemon cards and merch, and everyone was buying that shit up regardless. There were actually maybe five booths including my own that weren’t selling just Pokemon stuff, if at all.
Lemmy constantly falls into the same social trap as reddit: that we think we’re some monolith of consumerism and when we believe something we think everyone else will be on our side.
I dont know why you are whinging about this when literally no one is making this claim. In fact, we are talking about the exact opposite of it.
Go on YouTube and look up the hundreds of videos from the past few months alone of scalpers and other Pokemon buyers getting into actual physical fights, buying literally 10+ of those huge box sets, and camping out at those vending machines and buying literally everything in them the minute they restock.
I’m a vendor at comic and anime conventions here in the US. I did a show last month that was literally 99% Pokemon cards and merch, and everyone was buying that shit up regardless. There were actually maybe five booths including my own that weren’t selling just Pokemon stuff, if at all.
Yes, thats the legions of people we were talking about, before you came in with this weird tangent.
I was agreeing with you with my anecdotal experience.
The comment you replied to said Nintendo is going to lose customers over this, while your comment said Nintendo fans are still gonna be their dumb shitty selves by buying multiple of the same system or even game. Where does my comment diverge from that line of thinking?
ETA: the consumerism claim was just something that I’ve noticed between reddit and Lemmy. Reddit might have thousands of users in one sub, while Lemmy only might have a few hundred. Both sites/whatever you call the collective of Lemmy, constantly think that people will go along with their beliefs about boycotting certain games/not buying certain products for whatever reason; when the fact of reality is that both of these places are actual echo chambers full of common denominators, and we need to face reality.
I think they will lose customers over this, sure, but nowhere near enough to make them reconsider being the biggest a-holes in gaming (take that 2nd place, EA)
Now look at switch game sales, scroll past their major IPs and pokemon games, and once again the sales show around 13 million or less.
On wii u mario kart had 8 million sales, and not one other game passed 6 million.
The wii, wii u and switch all had around 3 million sales in their first quarter and didn’t really pass that 13 million mark in their first year.
If only die hard fans that buy no matter what buy it, I think it absolutely will be a problem for them. And I think it has a real chance of happening. Half my casual gamer friends didn’t even know switch 2 was a thing, and the ones that did know about it said they haven’t seen any reason to get it yet, especially at the prices they’re seeing.
The reality is, the family and casual markets are what carried them whether they like it or not. Not the rabbid fans. And like with the wii u, if they don’t appeal to those markets properly, they won’t sell well.
This lawsuit is so stupid. In my opinion, patenting, copyrighting, or trademarking concepts or mechanics in video games shouldn’t be allowed at all. The nemesis system in the Shadow of Mordor games was so cool, but we’re never going to see anything like it again. Warner went through the trouble to copyright (or something idk I’m not a lawyer) that system, and then let the series die out.
I’m waiting to see the headlines that any other games with a shooty thing that goes bang is illegal, and the concept of shooting a gun in a video game is going to be owned by either Rockstar/Take Two or the collective mob of Call of Duty developers. If the world is gonna get that stupid, I got my fingers crossed that Bubsy 3D owns the rights to jumping
Edit: Thought about it for 10 more seconds and I have questions. Is it specifically gliding using a creature that Nintendo has a problem with, or is it creature-assisted traversal in general? Can they sue Skyrim since you can ride horses? Palworld made the change so that you need to build a glider to glide around. BOTW and TOTK used gliders. Is Nintendo gonna sue them for that now too? I fucking hate all of this so God damned much
I’m unconvinced that the Nemesis system would have worked well in too many other settings, but one game patent that had a tangible effect on the industry was Bandai-Namco’s patent on loading screen mini games. Remember how you could make the Soul Calibur II characters yell stuff while the match loaded? Funny that we didn’t see it again until Street Fighter 6, isn’t it? Conveniently after a patent would have expired. We went through an entire era of games with load times that could have benefited from mini games, and by the time the patent expired, we had largely come up with ways to get rid of load screens altogether.
Well saying the nemesis system wouldn’t have worked well in other games is almost assuming that it wouldn’t be changed or evolved to fit other genres. People forget that the real damage some patents/copyrights do is not in their explicit existence, it’s the sphere of influence they exert on related concepts entirely. We weren’t just robbed of the nemesis system, we were robbed of anything even slightly resembling it.
And I feel like once you understand that you realize it can be adapted to greater things. Spider Man games could have used it. Assassins creed would have been an amazing place for experimentation with those ideas. Could be adapted to Star Wars games, dragons dogma, yakuza, borderlands. And it doesn’t need to be a central focus of these games like it was with the WB games. But even the concept of having enemies that kill you be leveled up in some way is now tainted.
Maybe it is a lack of imagination on my part, but that mechanic seems to rely heavily on characters that can be killed and come back to life with a vengeance on a regular basis, which I don’t think makes sense in any of the settings you listed except for Borderlands, with its New-U stations, funny enough. You could adapt it into something where both you and an enemy are defeated non-lethally, I suppose, but that’s a concept that strangely doesn’t have a common template in video games.
Horizon Zero Dawn would have been awesome with a nemesis system, especially if it was applied to the robo-dinosaurs. You could have the in-universe justification that a particular robot uploads its consciousness upon death and downloads into a new body, and now it remembers how you killed it before and it will adapt accordingly. Start having epic robots that know you, and you have to keep an eye out for them, but also upon being destroyed they could dispense better scraps.
Lmao bro wut? The majority of gamers is in their 20s…found the neckbearded cheeto whose gonna boot lick for that switch 2 that’s weaker then a 1050ti and an Xbox series S lmao
Nintendo’s target audience is often young adults, with a large share of Switch players falling between 20 and 25 years old. And then 40 year old
I have already boycotted Nintendo, but nice try? I’m on PC and steam deck.
Also a lot of these concerns were not major issues when the switch 1 came out. So I don’t really go off the switch 1 ownership results since Nintendo seems to have done some serious damage to themselves in the past 1-3 years alone.
most consumers don’t care, that’s why they’re consumers. Switch 2 is gonna sell gangbusters and no amount of frivolous lawsuits is going to put a dent in that.
Plus you still have people mad at Palworld for no reason other than they think it “copied” Pokémon, like the guy getting downvoted into oblivion.
It’s the using a creature to glide that’s the specific problem this time. Not the “using a creature” per se, but “pressing a button to instantly summon a non-player-controlled game-creature to allow for gliding, which is instantly dismissed once the player touches the ground” or something like that in the patent
Yes, the more you read the patent the more you just want to grab whoever approved it and force them to explain how and why it deserved it, despite lots of prior implementations.
As far as I understand patent law, if nobody has actually patented something someone can just say “mine lol” and scoop up royalties and block shit for spite.
As described in the patent, yes. You press one button, you start riding said mount. If it’s glider mount, it automatically changes to the stag once you touch the ground OR to the fish if you fall to the water.
Palworld never had this “automatic change from one mount to another”, at best it was the glider pals that you didn’t have to manually summon in order to glide and went away once you touched the ground or water. I’ve skimmed the patent a few times, but I don’t recall it having a case for going from creature-assisted-gliding to back on foot
Iirc sony has a patent on an input device having two separate data streams. It seems you write the most general thing you can on patents and patent offices don’t care
Unfortunately, at least in the US (and from the sound of it, probably Japan), the patent office has the viewpoint of ‘patent everything and let the courts sort them out.’ The courts, on the other hand, defer to the patent office because ‘it’s they’re job so they must know what they’re doing.’
patenting, copyrighting, or trademarking concepts or mechanics in video games shouldn’t be allowed at all
It’s not allowed at all in board games. There’s a known issue that someone could completly copy the mechanics of a board game, and as long as they don’t copy the art or the exact text of the rulebook there is no legal means to stop it.
Boardgamers are aware of this, and agree that it is better for development of future games than if someone could own the idea of “rolling a dice”, so if knockoffs do come around they tend to quickly get called out and not purchased.
I don’t know how videogames managed to get different rules.
I don’t know how videogames managed to get different rules.
A lot of people in those offices really don’t understand the technical mumbo jumbo that can be summed up as “doing something that already exists, but on a computer”
Like scanning a document on a printer and immediately sending it as email. That was patented
I have a feeling that it’s going to flop like the Wii U. It’s nearly the same as the OG Switch and in both the looks and performance departments. 4K 120Hz support, my ass
It’s got less than 10% the CUDA cores of a 4090, a GPU that can’t hit 120 FPS in any modern AAA title without DLSS. The console won’t even come close to hitting 120 in any title—period—not unless Nvidia creates a DLSS setting more extreme than Ultra Performance.
As always with Nintendo, It’s all going to come down to the games, and given that they have been slapping a fresh coat of paint on the same games since the Wii, I doubt anyone but the most hardcore fans are going to be willing to drop $80 on them. A good chunk of the Switch’s top selling games are literal re-releases from the Wii U. Tears of the Kingdom is literally the same game as BotW, even has the same map. Laziest sequel ever. It should have been a DLC.
The same thing happened with the Wii U but it still flopped. Nintendo’s hardcore audience believes that the company can do no wrong, so they will always be lining up to be the first to get their latest system.
For the console to succeed, Nintendo needs to sell to more than just their core fan base. They need to convince the every day, casual gamer that their machine is different enough from the last one for them to even notice the Switch 2 isn’t the same thing as the Switch. It already happened to the Wii U. Most people who aren’t following this shit thought that it was just an addon for the Wii. I think it’s going to happen again.
They also need to convince console and PC gamers that their system is unique and powerful enough to hold its own, and they’ve already failed on both fronts.
That’s why I think it’s going to flop. I hope I’m right.
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Aktywne