Roblox, an online gaming platform that supposedly fosters creativity and connection among children and teens, harbors a darker underbelly that has harmed countless young users for years. Families nationwide are coming forward with stories of how predators, explicit content, and exploitation pervade this digital playground. The...
The article brings up good criticisms, like all the minors getting molested due to the platform being negligent, and manipulative in game spending options. Paying for online content creation work doesn’t seem as bad as that to me though.
For that you would have to completely change how currency is issued and managed. Money is created by being borrowed directly or indirectly from the central bank, and the reason it is possible for those loans to later be repaid is because even more money is loaned out later, so it’s not going to be a game of musical chairs where there isn’t enough money going around to pay them all back, they keep bringing in more chairs. There is always an increasing amount of money in the system, and they make it that way on purpose to keep things running the way they want them to.
Personally what I hate about this setup is, a person who meets the requirements to obtain a business loan can now take this money that was created out of thin air, use it to coerce labor out of people who have no way to get money other than working, and keep the profits. What if our lives would all be better off working a bit less? Too bad, that decision isn’t up to us, how much we must work is indirectly decided by monetary policy, which the average person realistically has zero influence over, and the goal is a high level of “economic activity”, ie. as many people as possible subject to financial coercion.
I have an idea for a game: It’s the usual “a princess is kidnapped by a dragon and a brave knight is on a quest to rescue her” story. But you (the player) plays as the princess, who is somehow helping the knight on his quest....
Here’s an idea: gameplay sort of like Goblin Cleanup, you have various chores you have to do cleaning and arranging the various levels of the tower at night while the dragon is home, and your work has to pass an inspection. Then during the day you are locked in your room, and have some ability to watch a prospective rescuer attempt the dungeon crawl without your direct input. But you can strategically arrange items, enemy spawns, and Dark Souls style hints to try to tip the scales during the chores phase. So kind of like a tower defense game in reverse where you are trying to lose.
Like can we make this a more vocal opinion that Triple-A studios/publishers are like legally required to offer a version… Or what is your take on that, especially if you have a similar opinion with a deviation in execution. let me know why if you dont agree too!...
If we’re wishing for things that probably won’t happen, how about a government agency for game preservation? Source code gets submitted before release, approval for sale is conditional on them being able to successfully build and deploy it. Then 20 years later it gets automatically published to the public domain. That way even online only games will end up being preserved.
The free internet as we’ve known it for the last 20 years is collapsing as the ad market evaporates and corporate media ownership becomes increasingly unhinged in response. As belts tighten and profits dwindle across all media–not just video games–that rising tide could begin claiming more and more sites that even ten years ago would have seemed immortal.
Why is this happening? The post alludes to Google and Meta hogging all the ads somehow, but why would advertising on things resembling traditional media now be worthless? Everyone started using adblockers or is there something else too?
These explanations make sense to me, but they seem to conflict a little with what’s being said in the post, where it’s implied that game journalism sites get a decent amount of traffic but it isn’t worth as much because media business models as a whole are collapsing somehow:
It doesn’t matter how many millions, or even tens of millions of people are reading a website if the means of financially supporting that writing are evaporating.
I disagree about Soma being an isolated setting, there are actually lots of characters, it’s just that they’re all insane cyborgs who mostly happen to have their own personal reasons for attacking you.
I can’t seem to find them, but before the game came out there was a series of live action video shorts made in association with it to help establish the concept and setting, I’d imagine a show being along the lines of those but fleshed out more.
There reaches a point with vaporware projects where it’s like, actually release something or I don’t care anymore, it doesn’t deserve to keep getting press
Even if they tried I don’t think they have the leverage to make that work. What games or publishers are big enough that such a move would go worse for Twitch than it would for them? Most of the time indie games make for better content anyway. Twitch could just ban games that don’t include an unconditional free streaming license in their terms of service and not lose much of any popularity, while the game publishers trying to extort them would absolutely lose popularity.
Nothing more disappointing to me than seeing a game I might enjoy… and then it’s only available on PC on Epic Games store. Why can’t it be available on Epic, Xbox game store and Steam? It’s so annoying, like you have no choice but to use Epic… which I would literally do ANYTHING not to use.
Otherwise why would anyone use software they aren’t used to? Steam is really good, they’ve been putting massive resources into making it better for many years, and it has all the network effects.
I am skeptical that this is the main reason (even though it’s true and is a reason). I think people don’t like the idea of having their games library split across multiple services, and don’t like using/learning software they aren’t familiar with, or that other people aren’t using.
Each server would likely have to utilize a payment service.
Yeah but that would mean each server has to take custody of funds, have their own individual contractual agreements with game companies, handle refunds, bear all the legal and tax burdens of this, and get people to trust they won’t scam them. It’s just too much of a burden, these are all things that benefit heavily from centralization and economies of scale, due to the legalistic nature of payments. You would end up with one dominant instance and unused federation, if there was even anyone willing to deal with all that stuff to begin with.
I feel like you could solve this stuff pretty well with crypto, having payment go directly to the game devs, and a no refund policy or something to simplify things, but crypto is too hated so that wouldn’t work right now.
“The current obsession with nostalgia and remake culture is easy to understand when you realize that it’s a symptom of a culture that isn’t allowed to imagine a future.”
But I think the point is, the OP meme is wrong to try painting this as some kind of society-wide psychological pathology, when it’s rather business people coming up with simple reliable formulas to make money. The space of possible products people could want is large, and this choice isn’t only about what people want, but what will get attention. People will readily pay attention to and discuss with others something they already have a connection to in a way they wouldn’t with some new thing, even if they would rather have something new.
I know that’s how it works in the US, but the lawsuit is in Japan, which you always hear about having stricter copyright laws. Not really sure how this one will play out though.
I think framing this as “refusing” to use AI is kind of weird. They believe in doing things the traditional way, great, I think games that use all hand-drawn nondigital art are also cool for going against the grain like that, and making a point of supporting artists is laudable, but it isn’t like anyone is trying to force them not to.
By shutting down a studio instead of selling it off or even letting it buy itself out, Microsoft ensures that no studio it has ever owned can become viable competition.
They benefit by killing off art and culture that could replace or take attention away from the art and culture they already control and profit from. They don’t need to profit from it directly.
you get a lot of publicly traded companies that are in the industry that have to show their investors growth—because why else does somebody own a share of someone’s stock if it’s not going to grow?
I thought the way it was supposed to work was, a company starts out investing in its growth and during this period shareholders get gains from the price of the stock going up, and then when it has maxed out just switch to shoveling the profits into dividends instead? If the industry has stopped growing, I don’t see why there isn’t a path to acknowledging that to investors, what am I missing?
Shouldn’t that depend on the dollar amounts? Why would $X of dividends be worse than $X of stock growth? And if growth just isn’t in the cards anymore, it would be in reality a worse bet as the companies pour resources into a black hole of false hope and self sabotage seeking something that isn’t actually going to happen.
Think about it this way - those 248k people who respond to seeing an article accusing a group of racism with “sign me up”, are not the same people being accused to begin with.
It makes sense financially if the game is expected to have a big spike of sales initially, and after a while have very few sales, so the expected additional lifetime revenue is less than the cost difference between a temporary and perpetual license.
Very rose tinted glasses. I remember horrifying cache corruption bugs that locked you out of certain game areas permanently on that save, random illegal operation exceptions crashing games (no autosave btw), the whole system regularly freezing and needing to be completely restarted, games just inexplicably not working to begin with on a regular basis because of some hardware incompatibility and the internet sucked for finding fixes then and patches weren’t a thing so you were just screwed.
I would say that games not all being written in C and assembly trying to squeeze out every possible performance efficiency with nothing but dev machismo as safeguards is in fact a good thing.
Yes, but they are made by different people and all those bugs have been worked out over time. The people actually making the games are doing so at a higher level with more safeguards and it shows.
I haven’t played for a couple years but from what I remember out of thousands of hours playing I only heard a woman speak a small handful of times, it was always very surprising
Such AI integration will be separated into categories of “pre-generated” content that is “created with the help of AI tools during development” (e.g., using DALL-E for in-game images) and “live-generated” content that is “created with the help of AI tools while the game is running” (e.g., using Nvidia’s AI-powered NPC technology).
Both are covered by the policies the article talks about, and both were arguably against the rules previously
If you filter out the noise and ignore the omnipresent hate, there’s still cool stuff there. The technology still works. The prevailing narrative doesn’t change that. But the problems were inevitable, for the simple reason that the world is full of pent up financial desperation, and crypto is an incredibly powerful tool for letting people do what they choose with money in a way that isn’t locked down by some payment provider or banking middleman. Borderless, permissionless. So naturally the main thing people went to do with it is competing to take each other’s money somewhere on the spectrum between gambling and theft. It’s non-crypto problems finding an outlet, and no amount of pushback from whatever non money crazed “scene” was out there could have done anything to stop that.
I think it’s more of a votekick problem. There’s always going to be people whining about their teammates regardless of skill differential. People will also find ways to accuse same and higher ranked players of being bad at the game, because it’s more about ego and them being in a bad mood.
I don’t think that’s the reason, I think they’re using the game as an outlet for unrelated frustrations in their lives, but I agree that toxicity still exists in games without votekick. But personally I find it infinitely more tolerable playing a game with toxic people when they don’t have the power to kick me out of the match, because that means I’m not obligated to try to appease them.
This is a sore subject, but I feel it necessary to add to the gaming layoff news: Telltale laid most of us off early September. Status of TWAU2, I can’t say (NDA)....
Well at least they could make a game that expands on the story, since the story is based on the IP, even if they couldn’t use things specifically from the previous game or call it a sequel.
This should be illegal, companies should be forced to open-source games (or at least provide the code to people who bought it) if they decide to discontinue it, so people can preserve it on their own....
Computers might be able to account for every bit with the use of parity files and backups with frequent parity checks
Yes, and this can be done through mostly automatic or distributed processes.
even the most complex system of data storage can fail or degrade eventually.
I wouldn’t describe it as complex, just the bare minimum of what is required to actually preserve data with no loss. All physical mediums may degrade through physical processes, but redundant systems can do better.
but the fact is most people aren’t running a server with 4 separately powered and monitored drives as their home computer
It isn’t hard to seed a torrent. If a group of people want to preserve a file, they can do it this way, perfectly, forever, so long as there remain people willing to devote space and bandwidth.
We live in a world of problems, like the YouTube problem, compression problems, encoding problems, etc. We do because we chose efficiency and ease of use over permanency.
All of these problems boil down to intent. Do people intend to preserve a file, do they not care, do they actively favor degradation? In the case of the OP game, it seems that the latter must be the case. Same with Youtube, same with all those media companies removing shows and movies entirely from all public availability, same with a lot of companies. If someone wants to preserve something, they choose the correct algorithms, simple as that. There isn’t necessarily much of a tradeoff for efficiency and ease of use in doing so, disk space is cheap, bandwidth is cheap, the technology is mature and not complicated to use. Long term physical storage can be a part of that, but it isn’t a replacement for intent or process.
And I am saying complexity has little to do with it and also that a system can exist that will not fail.
it’s not going to last for a thousand years
Specifically why not? What is unrealistic about this scenario, assuming enough people care to continue with the preservation effort? All nodes must fail simultaneously for any data to be lost. The probability of any given node failing at any given time is a finite probability, independent event. The probability of N nodes failing simultaneously is P^N. That is exponential scaling. Very quickly you reach astronomically low probabilities, 1000 years is nothing and could be safely accomplished with a relatively low number of peers. Maybe there are external factors that would make that less realistic, like whether new generations will even care about preserving the data, but considering only the system itself it is entirely realistic.
'Spitting in the face of your international audience': The Alters cops to using generative AI for background text and translations, despite not disclosing such on Steam (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
In a statement, 11-Bit Studios confirms that an instance of AI-generated text appears in The Alters due to an “internal oversight”...
Roblox Accused Of Allowing Sexual Exploitation In Four Separate Lawsuits (www.anapolweiss.com) angielski
Roblox, an online gaming platform that supposedly fosters creativity and connection among children and teens, harbors a darker underbelly that has harmed countless young users for years. Families nationwide are coming forward with stories of how predators, explicit content, and exploitation pervade this digital playground. The...
Dreamsettler, the follow-up to early internet inspired browser game Hypnospace Outlaw, has been cancelled (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
How could they do this? angielski
deleted_by_moderator
Game design question : how to make a "trapped" player character? angielski
I have an idea for a game: It’s the usual “a princess is kidnapped by a dragon and a brave knight is on a quest to rescue her” story. But you (the player) plays as the princess, who is somehow helping the knight on his quest....
I want a law for PC games to be offered in physical versions again angielski
Like can we make this a more vocal opinion that Triple-A studios/publishers are like legally required to offer a version… Or what is your take on that, especially if you have a similar opinion with a deviation in execution. let me know why if you dont agree too!...
18+ 'There Are So Few Of Us Left': Even Full-Time Games Journalists At Big Websites Are Feeling It In 2025 (aftermath.site) angielski
Jacksepticeye Reveals He Was Working on an Unannounced Soma Animated Show but It Fell Apart 'Out of Nowhere' (www.ign.com) angielski
Insane headline. I would’ve liked to see what a SOMA show would look like.
I don't tell you how to live your life angielski
Epic sues Fortnite cheater, donates his winnings to charity, forces him to publicly apologise, bans him for life, and all but sends him to his room without dinner (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
They as broke as I am? (lemmy.world) angielski
Beyond Good & Evil 2's troubled development due to "passionate managers" not getting along, says creator Michel Ancel (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
New report claims gamers spend more time watching videos about gaming than playing games (www.gamesindustry.biz) angielski
I hate when a PC game is ONLY available on Epic Games store (lemmy.world) angielski
Nothing more disappointing to me than seeing a game I might enjoy… and then it’s only available on PC on Epic Games store. Why can’t it be available on Epic, Xbox game store and Steam? It’s so annoying, like you have no choice but to use Epic… which I would literally do ANYTHING not to use.
Nostalgia and remake culture (lemmy.sdf.org) angielski
“The current obsession with nostalgia and remake culture is easy to understand when you realize that it’s a symptom of a culture that isn’t allowed to imagine a future.”
The sino-soviet split of the modern age.
cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/3674063...
Nintendo files lawsuit against Palworld (www.nintendolife.com)
www.nintendo.co.jp/corporate/…/240919.html
Sony announces the PS5 Pro with a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and AI upscaling (www.theverge.com) angielski
$700, and the side by sides look barely different, from my perspective. The chat seemed to have the same opinion.
The Star Fox-style roguelite whose dev refused to use AI voices to cut costs is adding an entire "anti-capitalist revenge" campaign about a cat-girl destroying AI (lemmy.today) angielski
Since the Link isn’t working for some:...
The Real Reason Your Favourite Game Studios Are Getting Closed Instead Of Sold (www.thegamer.com) angielski
Phil Spencer blames capitalism for games industry woes: 'I don't get [the] luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business' (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Will Smith Zombie Game No One Has Heard Of Bombs (kotaku.com) angielski
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Spec Ops: The Line permanently removed from Steam and other digital stores (www.theverge.com) angielski
Something something digital ownership
Then vs Now (startrek.website) angielski
God I feel so bad for y'all (lemmy.world) angielski
Valve: Most games made with AI tools are now welcome on Steam (arstechnica.com) angielski
Well shit…
More than 75% of web3 games failed (www.coingecko.com)
I am actually shocked that 25% of those shitcoin “games” didn’t fail
One reason why I play primarily single player games now [OneAndPhony] (startrek.website) angielski
Telltale Games has reportedly laid off most of their staff (nitter.net) angielski
This is a sore subject, but I feel it necessary to add to the gaming layoff news: Telltale laid most of us off early September. Status of TWAU2, I can’t say (NDA)....
Counter-Strike 2 is officially released (www.counter-strike.net)
This should be illegal (lemmy.world) angielski
This should be illegal, companies should be forced to open-source games (or at least provide the code to people who bought it) if they decide to discontinue it, so people can preserve it on their own....