sugar_in_your_tea

sugar_in_your_tea, rok temu

Yup. We limit our kids (2 under 10)to 2hr/day, though they need to “earn” that time by reading, and we give them a free hour each week.

We think that’s fair, and that’s our choice as parents. As they get older, we’ll give them more freedom to set their own rules.

If my local government made the same restrictions as I make, I would totally oppose it. I as a parent should decide what my house rules are.

sugar_in_your_tea, rok temu

Or worse, fill it with microtransactions.

sugar_in_your_tea, rok temu

I don’t pay for microtransactions out of principle, yet I’m sure there’s someone else who will not than make up for me. I honestly don’t get it.

sugar_in_your_tea, rok temu

That’s the excuse those companies give for it. There’s nothing stopping someone like Microsoft from making “Bedrock” and “Java” Minecraft versions play together. Just establish an API and make separate clients if needed.

sugar_in_your_tea, rok temu

And those separate behaviors would be minimized if they supported cross play between Java and Bedrock.

As for cross play and always online, you’re absolutely right that it doesn’t require it, but it makes things a little simpler. If a game requires you to login with the server on startup, that check only has to happen once, instead of happening when you engage with the multiplayer mode. It also makes it so the game can integrate social aspects pretty easily (friend X is online, do you want to play together?).

So if a game offers multiplayer as it’s intended main gameplay, then it can make sense to require always online.

That said, I still hate it. I would prefer companies be forced to support offline play if they offer a significant single player experience. I know it’s something I consider when buying a game (I play with my Steam Deck offline quite frequently), and ideally game stores would have similar requirements as well.