I got into it a few years back and nearly finished ARR. I found the storyline and cut scenes really engaging, and felt like I was a part of something. But I tried to pick it up and start fresh about a year ago and the bastards oversimplified my class (Summoner), and I swear they even further nerfed the low-mid level difficulty, making me feel most days as though I was playing on creative mode. For those who don’t care, though, the storyline, world and music (holy fuck, Limsa at night and Ul’dah at night are absolutely soul stirring) are really something special.
I will likely try the game again with the upcoming graphical upgrade, but I fear I will always feel too behind on the story and won’t be a part of the entirely new storyline/age that is slated to begin with the next expansion. That graphical upgrade will be huge, though. I play a ton of old games myself, but sometimes FFXIV feels like it’s running modern character models over PS2 environments and grass textures. It deserves to cast off some of that jank and show how beautiful it’s natural world can be.
Unchecked “free market” capitalism, if I had to guess.
Companies should never have been able to run outside of a very tight yoke. Yeah sure, capitalism. But not unchecked and especially not unchecked-across-borders so they can start escaping shit by moving legal entities around. Oh and speaking of that, maybe “corporations as entities” is another really really big one we fucked up, allowing the people who make the truly shitty decisions to shirk responsibility for them.
TL;DR: the way it was supposed to work is that entities that wanted limited liability were granted corporate charters in exchange for providing some large, tangible public benefit (and very much not just “shareholder value”, BTW). This post-Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. world where corporations are essentially mandated to be sociopathic is an absolute 100% perversion of what incorporation was meant to be for!
In case you are wondering this because it seems children actually prefer subscriptions to owning games, they don’t. Out of what is offered to them, the most desired choices happen to be subscription models of some form. If those games were something you just bought then the desire would be for games that were purchased in full.
This type of games are free to play. So a bunch of kids who are friends can start playing at any time even without money. If some of them like the game, they’ll stay as a group for the social aspect.
I don’t see any wrong in it. Its just different of what I did 30 years ago.
I’m gonna have to disagree. As somebody who was an Overwatch addict, these games are designed to effectively be like drugs. They are not meant for children and shouldn’t be purported as such.
These are casinos playing in simple.
In fact, it’s much less incentivized for a game that is one and done, even multiplayer titles if they are a paid game.
Not teaching kids thr value of money imo is the main one. They dont understand the cost of subs because its not their money they are spending.
I have a half brother whose on the sensible side of buying games. He doesnt get a lot of money, hell he got a 20$ steam card from a friend, and hes saving it for an indie game that doesnt even release till 2025.
Evil genius marketing, working as it always does. The kids don’t know any better, so they are being exploited and conditioned to think the horrible new normal is just the way things have to be. And most parents are too tired and busy to find better alternatives.
It’s simple, the games that appeal the most to kids require some form of subscription. If those games didn’t, then they wouldn’t want ones with subscriptions.
Putting it like that makes it sound that this is incidental, but the conditioning techniques baked into the design of these games are included for the sake of selling battle passes and virtual items. If they didn’t have subscriptions and virtual currency, they would have been built entirely differently.
That’s because I am not speaking on the corporate point of view here, I am discussing the kids’. Every time I see this subject come up there seems to always be people who think that the move to subscriptions are due to a preference of access model upon the consumer, naively ruining their own capacity to own things, namely kids/young people, thinking it’s just the modern, and thus better, more convenient, way to go.
Even the article’s headline is written in a manner that suggests that kids prefer the subscription model it’s self, not that they are choosing based on the game without thought to the access model.
I see what you mean. Far from me to want to blame the kids for it, but I don’t think we can just overlook how corporations are deliberately funneling them towards these models through marketing and manipulative design. The kids’ perspective is one of just being excited for things they want in these games, but this happens due to habitual conditioning of a neverending threadmill of virtual rewards and Fear of Missing Out. Not to mention semi-organic peer pressure among kids, over who has the fanciest or default cosmetics. Which wasn’t deliberately created by the corporations, but they are definitely benefitting over it, and nobody is dissuading that from happening.
The kids are not at fault, but I don’t think this is a “just let kids be kids” situation. They are being exploited.
It did. I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying, or adding more to it than there is.
Children do not desire subscriptions as a superior model to owning games. The model of access is not something they are comparing and contrasting. They are simply going for the games they prefer, which get locked behind subscriptions. I never implied that games popular with kids aren’t intentionally put behind subscriptions, I was arguing that the subscription model isn’t actually preferred by kids.
How you worded this makes it seem like “if those games didn’t” refers to requiring subscriptions.
I would suggest editing it to “If those games didn’t appeal to kids” or similar; if what you meant was that kids just plays what appeals to them, and those games “just happens” to be subscription games.
I was talking just today with some coworkers about how having subscriptions instead of owning is what is normal to kids now - not just games, but things like Netflix and Spotify. So this doesn’t surprise me, but does depress me. Technofeudalism is the new normal.
In my teen years I spent a large fraction of my disposable income on music. A Spotify subscription is a vastly better value than buying whatever I could scrounge from a used CD store. Back then it was common for me to read about some semi-obscure recording and just have to wonder what it sounded like, because I had no hope of finding it in a store, and a special order was way out of my budget, especially for something I had no idea if I’d even like. Now I can listen to damn near anything that’s ever been published for less than I spent as a teenager. I find new music by listening to personalized recommendations instead of local radio stations. It’s just better in every way (except probably for the artists, but music has always been a cutthroat business so who knows).
A lot of subscription services suck and are just a way to milk customers, but streaming audio and video are not in that category.
I keep hoping–perhaps naively so–for a major backlash against this. Sometimes consumers have power, and sometimes they don’t. But maybe we’ll all get fed up with this bullshit and start just dropping any and all unnecessary subscriptions from our lives. The big problem is when a brand becomes synonymous with a product (like fucking Adobe and ProTools, for two examples).
F*** big gaming and their microtransaction/subscription/pay to win bull****! Indie and retro games are way better than overpriced AAA titles at his point anyway.
Well. This isn't going to end well. I mean there's a tiny chance they'll be bought by someone who knows well enough to be hands off, but more likely they'll be run into the ground and then have their staff slashed as a cost-cutting measure. Hopefully things turn out all right for the people working at these sites.
That’s shitty. I hope Valve goes down in this law suit but Gabe specifically asked for a remote deposition because he’s old and obese. Two serious factors for COVID or really any illness. Apparently that wasn’t enough to get them to allow remote deposition. What a really shit situation to put a person in.
It’s not even a valid excuse any more at this point. People can get vaccinated at their leisure against the current variants no problem, and other fat old dudes don’t get to bail on an uncomfortable situation either, this is just special treatment for the rich. Also all the accommodations that are already being made with everyone wearing masks. Also I’m sure they can open a fucking window or so for some fresh air
I might be more inclined to agree if there was some benefit to having him show up in person, but I don’t see why he can’t just attend this remotely. People get sick after being vaccinated too. Maybe is a minimal risk, but it seems like a pointless risk nonetheless.
It’s a court of law. People appear in person to ensure they are who they are, their answers are theirs and they fully own them, they aren’t being coerced or manipulated, and so on. FaceTimeing in from the bathroom at his home isn’t cutting it.
Why do the courts require an in person attendance? How is it okay for our government services to ignore technology? Imagine we still went with God’s will as proof of a crime. This is just the ignorance of the judge making someone take a day to come down and give their side. This whole thing could be done via text message. We just have a government that isn’t utilizing technology.
cause you would then have to dispatch a 3rd party audit to make sure Gabe isn’t reading from a teleprompter that his lawyers prep to answer any questions on the fly. You can prep your script “before” but not during, once you are on the stand you are on your own, subject to the court rules, etc.
Anything they haven’t been prepped on is just answered with I don’t know. So the end result is just who is the better actor? Who memorized their lines the best.
Did you followed the Debb vs Heard one? I know it’s kinda special case with lots of video and court recorded footage etc. Gabe isn’t exactly a celebrity that expose their private life, but if internal emails is on the table for discovery then it can also be very different. Cause they will just tell you “you said/wrote make a decision here from this email” then start off that. Like you said who is a better actor? Can you suddenly remember details with which “partial” quote are referenced without context from email 6 months ago for your argument? And then suddenly don’t remember any details making a decision 2~3 weeks ago? From neuroscience, our memory is pretty unreliable as we can fill the gap all we want. But it’s court case just how the judge/jury believed what part they saw/hear.
I hope you understand the principle of putting down names and/or title in email for paper trails is a thing, you don’t really think Valve is a “flat” structure as marketed, right? I’ve consider myself lucky that I didn’t run into much political or ethical drama thing for my career, but simply put names down and confirm the decision in writing dodge me quite a couple big bullets.
Yes but again what do those names do? They simply point a stake holder. You may put them on there stand but everyone has the ability to their 5th amendment rights. So again it doesn’t really matter and comes down to whose better under pressure which seems like an unfair justice system. Specially considering it’s a form of interrogation to force someone up on a stage and ask them a bunch of questions with tons of pressure.
I didn’t design that system, and I think it is this way because in the past without forensic evidence, the witness role basically put the burden to people who are testifying or on the stand for questions. That’s why nowadays when the suits wants to push shady things they go off record cause they don’t want to keep any evidence. It’s up to the minions to smart up to make sure you cover your own ass.
And, sometimes company make or break during trials. I don’t want to see value flop, but I also think 30% is a lot if you don’t even use steam features. (here I mean you only publish on steam, but you don’t use their DRM/Friend/Matchmaking, workshop, lobby, etc. But if a dev do indeed use those backend service I think it’s justified. )
He’s required to wear a mask. He can’t wear one while giving the deposition though. A remote deposition isn’t different than an in person one. So this argument falls flat. Why require a person to travel if we have the technology to not? Why did we even do all of this Internet building if our government services won’t use it? Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. The 80 year old judge is clearly behind the technical times and doesn’t want to learn a skill that should be required at this point.
Counterpoint: Cardinal George Pell tried to pull the same move in a child sex abuse case. Here’s Tim Minchin’s Come Home (Cardinal Pell) for your viewing pleasure.
I have (and still do) use EG for most of my news, but that has taken a slide in quality over the years. In general, they’re not receptive to developmental feedback either - though I’m not prepared to leave the blame at the editorial or mod staff door on that one when you’ve got a company like ReedPop coming in with a clear agenda to make more money, and leaving so soon.
My main concern is for DigitalFoundry - genuinely one of the best, most entertaining, and in-depth spin off channels out there.
I wish we lived in a universe, where these platforms can exist on their own, without falling into the trap of needing financial support from literal satan, in companies like Fandom
that universe requires people to pay money for content rather than having advertiser funded content that people will just block anyway. which in 2023 isn’t going to happen
If these were all getting financial support from a large company, why did they all switch on more ads, newsletters, anti-adblockers, and subscription prompts at basically the same time? Must’ve been only crumbs, I think they will move on and be better off. A few less click-bait titles in the aggregators are all that is lost I suppose.
The games “news” coverage system is a-changin’ again, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Large companies are driven by one thing and only one thing. Shareholder value. So they and their subsidiaries will implement policies that drive shareholder value at the cost of everything else.
I wouldn’t say its that bad. Various forms of collectibles/cards have been around for a long time. Asking for gametime for a game like WoW isn’t exactly a new phenomenon.
I think it’s just that there are a few specific examples that stand out. Some aspects of Roblox can be pretty concerning.
But if a kid just wants some money for a skin for Fornite, or to buy a specific world setup for Minecraft, I don’t necessarily see that as some scary new thing.
While I hate slippery slopes, this is an historic trend. They squeeze in little ones that don’t seem so bad. I accept no games with these predatory or greedy models and I’d argue that kids shouldn’t be subjected to them.
Just dropping a gift recommendation for younger kids with a Nintendo Switch. Kirby and the Forgotten Land. A few years old at this point, but my two younger kids still play the heck out of it. It’s wholesome, and doesn’t have any in game purchases or online subscription.
My parents refused to enable me to get into the glorified gambling of trading card games and frankly I was better off for this. I’ve seen people waking up realizing they had spent hundreds to thousands on cardboard designed to be replaced and deeply regretting it. That is while having cardboard to regret buying. Imagine what happens to these kids if the game they spent all their gift cards on closes down and takes it all down the drain.
Meanwhile there were gifts like games and D&D books that let me have fun for a long time as complete packages without needing additional expenditures to enjoy.
There are things kids can like and dislike, and we should keep that in mind. But as adults we should also take some responsibility for cutting through the bulshit of manipulative marketing. They aim these things at children because children only see their immediate excitement and wonder, but not the sleazy business behind it.
Meanwhile there were gifts like games and D&D books that let me have fun for a long time as complete packages without needing additional expenditures to enjoy.
I see that kid-you never got into the world of gaming accessories.
When I bought dice sets there was never the risk of missing out on the Ultra Rare d4 and being unable to use Magic Missile because of that. I might not have always gotten everything I wanted, but I got what I needed and I didn’t need to pay a subscrption to continue playing.
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