Battledield now throwing an error because Valorant is already sitting in kernel memory. Time to buy your EA Battlefield PC but don’t forget your Valorant PC
I mean, it’s like saying Pentagon security can’t work because some skilled hackers can someday find a way to spoof / steal credentials. Security always happens on a sliding scale based on the value of the contents.
I think at the very least, they can take steps that inconvenience hackers sufficiently each update without harming players - they can’t make it impossible to hack on the client side, but they can’t make it feel not worth it for them.
The reason I sort of insist on it is that even with serverside checks for game logic like teleportation and instant kills, game engines still load the data for player positions which allow for wallhacks and aimhacks. Those checks can only happen clientside; you can’t even send mouse positions often enough to look for “snaps”.
At the least, I agree that modern coders have gotten very lazy about having the server verify basic actions. “Okay, player 22 deals 8000 damage to every other player in the server simultaneously? Okay.”
What did James Gunn say about superhero movies? It’s not that the trend is over and people hate these games. It’s that they hate BAD games.
Plus, I’ve been buying plenty of indies that likely don’t feed into these statistics. It’s not even a hipster thing now - a lot of streamers just like playing the newest indie coop like REPO, Peak, Phasmophobia or Lethal Company.
I was able to get around secure boot by installing the beta on my PS5. From then, I had the pleasure of being unable to enter due to broken menus! Can’t complain for having spent nothing and having little trust in the franchise.
Xbox is canceling Contraband, announced in 2021 from Avalanche Studios (Just Cause), after four years of radio silence, sources tell Bloomberg News. This news arrives weeks after a mass layoff in which Xbox canceled several other big titles. - Jason Schreier
This is interesting for a couple of reasons. One is that this is about as much market share as Mac ever had at its peak, and almost twice as much as it has currently. Another is that, if you click the link for the site’s Steam Linux Data Tracker, you can see that English-only Linux market share (a crude way of filtering out...
My issue is that one might be alone on their obscure distro. I tried out Bazzite, but hit a fair number of issues getting stuff to run and my UI to look how I wanted. It contains many emulation layers to run packages made for other distros, but if they don’t quite work out of box, you can’t just look up the tutorial commands built for the other platforms.
My next go might be something popular like Mint or Ubuntu just to make issue searches easier.
I’d absolutely prefer getting away from the command line, but no distro I’ve tried has fulfilled that promise; there’s always something I’d like a certain way where there’s no intuitive UI to make that setting change.
I’m just knowledgable enough it doesn’t scare me off, it just annoys me.
You fell in love with a game and it's characters, sunk hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours into it. It became a comforting, immensely satisfying part of your daily life. Then you heard a sequel was coming and got really hyped but when it came out it was utter rubbish......
In a lot of respects it’s a good game, its fans even love it as a part of this big ongoing series. But it repeated a few tropes and trends that really started to get to me; wherein so many villains are introduced in a Dragonball style of escalating power rather than character definition.
The first two games introduced one supremely powerful hero, but invented mature and elaborate reasons as to why he couldn’t save the world alone - why evil or influential forces need cooperation of everyone to defeat, not a single showy swordsman. Then, later games try to impress you by showing villains that could easily beat this hero; without character definition to make such claims worth it.
They also really sold into the anime gender tropes - where every woman makes shy/teasing comments about the male lead, most girls are lesbian only for the sake of sexual harassment rather than true connection, etc.
I think it’s de-emphasized because part of the GOG appeal is that you don’t need a launcher and can grab direct DRM free installers. The launcher just exists for convenience.
Mastercard and Visa are not the only middle-men; the only “payment processors” involved in making sales.
Next time you check out at a cafe, look at the branding of the tablet/software the cashier is using. Chances are, it wasn’t developed by the cafe owners, or by MC/Visa. That’s a payment processor. There’s some big ones out there that can be hard to avoid.
EDIT: While finding exact point of blame remains difficult, a recent statement from Valve suggests I may be wrong about the card companies being innocent, at least with Mastercard. It’s a long chain and it seems each link wants to forward blame.
I don’t understand looking at Sims 4 as an example. The game has had progressive additions for a long time; it’s basically a live service game, and now comes free.
It’s rare for anyone to feel they want all the DLC - usually it would just be a few things they want and have fun with.
Counterpoint: The really good journalism sites won’t report an issue the moment a rumor comes up. It often turns out a good amount of the rumor is overstating or misrepresenting the issue. They can lose a LOT of credibility if even one statement is wrong. So, they take time to research every fact before putting out a report.
Gaming news sites often have slow days, so they’ll take the risk. But several have already had to retract statements on the recent censorship for getting things completely wrong. Example: Many people thought Mouthwashing was just removed from Itch. In actuality, it had been removed long ago for a misstep where they had linked to their Steam page.
Not an authoritative source, but a Redditor claimed that the term “payment processors” is being misconstrued in a way that could misdirect blame. Visa and Mastercard have given some people responses claiming they take no position on adult content, and it’s possible they’re telling the truth.
Basically, payment processors by this guy’s definition are lesser known companies that handle other middle level processing; like Stripe, PayPal, or Heartland, as well as many others you’ve never heard of. And, what makes the debate difficult with them is that they’ve always viewed adult content as a “risky” subject - due to higher frequency of support cases, chargebacks, general frustration, etc. As such, some processor that sell their service to adult businesses may charge higher rates - rates that stores like Steam or Itch are probably less willing to pay for 90% of their library.
Take that summary with a grain of salt as it’s only based on rumors and indirect industry knowledge. Not an indication people shouldn’t complain, since Visa/MC could still choose to take a stance and investigate wrongdoing, and might not be totally honest; but it’s possible the full blame will go to other specific businesses.
I don’t think that’s really the distinction in adult businesses - entertainment companies often use those same dark patterns around trials/subscriptions. Maybe some adult businesses do too, but that’s not unique.
My understanding is that the higher rate is related more to the product and customer behavior, rather than the seller’s behavior. By some trend, customers are more likely to refund a hentai tentacle game than a regular platformer.
Something I’d like in a perfect world is legislation to fight back against general “contact unavailability” of large companies.
I generally recognize that there are lots of people that call for simple stuff that they could’ve checked online. That said, there has to be a legislative median that ensures people with serious concerns can follow some path to contact some sentient person. Heck, even just to serve them lawsuit papers.
Haven’t there been many Cthulu Mythos games? I’m sure they’re able to find veins of storytelling that have some big reveals, but don’t necessarily conclude with successfully defeating the Cenobites.
There could also be secondary antagonists tangentially related to them, right? I thought the antagonist for most of the first Hellraiser was some other kind of disciple that got cast out.
Apologies for YouTuber link - as some of the sources cited are in Japanese, it’s harder to get to a direct English source. The video description includes links to the Yahoo.jp article.
Hopefully you’re referring to Visa/Paypal, not Itch.
One place that comes to mind is Verotel. I barely know them, but supposedly one of their star attributes is their use for adult businesses. Likely someone else knows them better.
If GTA V is allowed, I’m pretty certain most of what we’ve seen from NSFW games is as well. Regardless, a payment company should not be acting as judge for such things, just as media companies should not act as judge on copyright infringement on YouTube.
A) Honest mistake. I appreciated people pointing out the country of origin.
B) While the specifics of my comment were off the mark, even with this group being Australian, this group affects world commerce, and American politics has strong influence on that world in turn. Just like how president of the USA would have a big effect on the levels of violence and cruelty in Gaza. Visa is an American corporation, and they’re clearly quite on board with this censorship influence.
The thing is, I actually appreciate the idea of “de-objectifying” people in terms of fictional design; but I want that to be encouraged as part of the creative expression. A sexy female character with an identity and story behind her is a lot more fun to me than one just created to have big boobs. Heck, those same design principles can help design sexy men that appeal to female/gay groups.
But needless to say, forcing those views as part of these acts isn’t helping anyone. It’s just exerting forceful control, and we know how well that works for art.
That seems like a great idea. Now that so many games are much less demanding on your gaming machine than others (playing a Phoenix Wright game, or Stardew Valley, or Minecraft), holding back a bit of power makes a lot of sense. If implemented right, I imagine you wouldn’t see any effect from this on most games.
I don’t doubt that game studio business models have gotten scummier, but I never liked the phrase “The full experience”.
There’s a few Bioware games I can cite where it was a terrible setup that added story-critical quests through DLC, but most often, a “special edition” or even the season passes tend to add very optional, often-ugly, costumes to games that already offer a number of costumes with the base game.
Saying it often makes people picture that they don’t get an ending to their story, or are locked out of abilities. There are live service games with that issue - the “hero model” being a frequent offender, but in the best of those games, the game’s base price is low and even the guide authors will acknowledge few people should feel the need to buy every character.
There’s even an argument that SKG is a good financial motive for studios. Consumer electronics/entertainment spending is down, and it’s not hard to connect the idea that people are less enthused about video games when they aren’t sure they get to keep them. Which are you more likely to buy: Snake oil from a merchant on a turbo-driven truck ready to leave town? Or multiple panel-certified medicine from an extremely tightly-regulated industry.
I just picked up Beyond Galaxyland in a Fanatical bundle. I have not played it yet, so tentative recommendation, but reviews are indicating it may be a hidden gem.
For an older one I really liked: Cosmic Star Heroine. Pixel art, great soundtrack especially for bosses, and fantastic combat mechanics. It’s all very uniquely designed to encourage high-risk gameplay and variety on every turn, pushing moments where you buff yourself up for one or two supremely powerful strikes in a fight, or even sacrifice a character to KO the last enemy (all characters heal to full after every fight)
For even older: As someone who had that same kind of music-swelling nostalgia around FF7, I managed to win back that feeling when I played “The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky”. It’s a two-part game (sold as two units), that begins a giant series of games, but I only played it out of curiosity. Even though I didn’t fully enjoy later games, Trails had both a lot of enjoyable and unique elements to its combat, and a very emotionally written story that occasionally throws in silliness to retain charm. Though the game itself is old, it got a series of patches by a “master porting engineer” at Falcom that adds features like an experimental fast-forward mode to help with long battle animations.
On grinding, one great thing about the games is their XP system. They grant a lot more XP anytime you’re underleveled for enemies, and much less when you’re overleveled - helping to equalize the experience after just a few fights, many of which can be short thanks to fast forwarding. But, the story is still long overall.
You’ll see a Trails 3, which is very optional in my view. Weirdly, it’s a bit more of a “lore dump” for future games than closing off any major plot threads. To me it was a little bit of a signal of them taking their “Marvel universe” style of world a bit too far.
Their other good thing in my eyes is not overextending.
They have been profitable for a long time, and built up a reserve. Shitty CEOs would demand they use those reserves to branch out into a VR division. Make a room-sized toy, a massively online Second Life space, a chain of theme parks. Anything to show they’re hiring, growing, and that the ROI will triple every few years.
Obviously, had they done any of that, they’d be doing a lot more firing now because they’d have no reserves once all those plans go belly up.
So, it’s likely helpful their culture is quartered in Japan where the long term health of the company is treasured and short term gains are not worshipped so much.
The worst bit is reflecting on how the first movie portrayed it all.
A horrific empire, but a secret mysterious force, not believed in by many, that can help you fight it. Classic warriors using heavy swords in an age of laser rifles.
I don’t even really know what the message around the force was in The Last Jedi. I didn’t even bother watching Force Awakens.
I've been stuck at this boss all day, it kinda sucks. There's quite a few undefendable moves. You can't even block when it goes to its third form and takes about 1/2 health with its attack. With a character they pulled out of their butts....
I remember playing the demo for Remake. The guard scorpion took an age and multiple cycles to beat; apparently it’s not meant to, but something about its damage mechanics was just incredibly unclear to me. I was using magic and abilities how it said it wanted me to, but in an action game, those mechanics get much harder to parse. Would’ve preferred turn-taking.
I thought about doing this, but my plan would be to attach a thumbnail on every piece of AI art declaring “Placeholder AI work”. Then release the game for free that way to gauge interest.
Even if it’s literally just “money at stake” some countries would have reason to be concerned - because so many zero-IQ MBAs are pushing industries into a hot crash for short term gains that bankrupt any long term growth.
Gamers having no faith that the games they buy remain theirs is one of many things that can drive down spending; though it will never happen on such a granular scale publishers would take action on it.
I feel a bit of shame that back in the Win7, Xbox Series S era of Microsoft I was sort of cheering them on as an underdog in several markets.
But it does seem like every large company is driving these zero sum efforts now. Anyone that high up is chomping for workforce reduction.
If larger-scale changes don’t prove possible, I still want Elizabeth Warren’s Accountable Capitalism act as a way for majority workforce in a company to declare “No, this way is insane, fire whoever suggested it” earlier rather than later.
I sold my PC yesterday because of financial struggles and as far as I’m aware, I would probably be unable to buy a PC or console ever again. That said, I still want to somehow experience the games I would otherwise want to play on PC. I’m thinking of watching let’s plays but of course, that’s not the same as actually...
Anytime I see super-smooth transition animations in a demo, or even just gameplay mechanics that seem to work out way too conveniently, it tells me it’s an animated “pre-viz” demo of the game they want to make. That’s kind of the impression I got from Perfect Dark.
Any chance he’s putting the question on social media to convince other stakeholders above him?
It’s possible he was in a board meeting when some novice shareholder suggested “What if you take an exclusivity deal”? And he just didn’t have clear evidence on hand of that being vastly unpopular. Obviously that could be me being overgenerous to him.
When all the decisions have to come rapid-pace, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything notable. It feels like mashing out light or strong attacks and maybe some block/dodges.
I’ll admit that there have been some action JRPGs where I just didn’t understand how the mechanics worked together, even after some explanations, because I had to play it out so quickly in combat. Those games ended up having low difficulty so that people that “weren’t getting it” could still see the story.
I’m still okay at Soulslike games where there’s not quite as many meters and illogical systems. And of course I’m okay with turn-based games having those weird systems because I can process things slowly until I get it, and am taking my turns at full speed.
Has the potential to be very cool! What might be sad is that many horror games now evoke the trope of “They move when you’re not looking”. Game development takes a long time, so I can guess this was not an obvious trend when you started on it. But there should still be ways to differentiate your work.
Today’s game is a game called PEAK. My friend that i usually play games with gifted it to me after seeing it online somewhere. From what i can tell it’s made by the same studio that made Clustertruck (that game about platforming on moving trucks). It’s like a weird combination of climbing games and survival games. You have...
It doesn’t look like Borderlands 4 will make the jump in price up to $80. A visit to the Xbox Store shows that the base version of Borderlands 4 will cost $69.99....
I think the only thing that might get me to go over the $60 line is if a publisher takes a chance on a franchise/concept I’d like to see more of, which these days is rare.
I couldn’t stand Near A Tomato but have tons of hours in SB. I grant it has nothing amazing in terms of story, but it has enough intricacies of combat to keep it fun, even if none of those mechanics were invented here.
Nier seemed to operate off a single attack button a lot of time, and working off RPG mechanics gave so many opportunities for level disparity that didn’t serve the game at all.
Begun the kernel wars have angielski
Battledield now throwing an error because Valorant is already sitting in kernel memory. Time to buy your EA Battlefield PC but don’t forget your Valorant PC
18+ Gen Z Is Cutting Back On Video Game Purchases (www.vice.com) angielski
Battlefield 6 cheats day 1 of early access. Depite kernel level anti cheat, forced secure boot TPM 2.0 (youtu.be) angielski
Xbox Drops Work on ‘Contraband’ Video Game After Four Years (www.bloomberg.com) angielski
Xbox is canceling Contraband, announced in 2021 from Avalanche Studios (Just Cause), after four years of radio silence, sources tell Bloomberg News. This news arrives weeks after a mass layoff in which Xbox canceled several other big titles. - Jason Schreier
Steam Survey for July 2025 shows Linux approaching 3% (www.gamingonlinux.com) angielski
This is interesting for a couple of reasons. One is that this is about as much market share as Mac ever had at its peak, and almost twice as much as it has currently. Another is that, if you click the link for the site’s Steam Linux Data Tracker, you can see that English-only Linux market share (a crude way of filtering out...
What game sequel ruined a beloved franchise or character for you? angielski
You fell in love with a game and it's characters, sunk hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours into it. It became a comforting, immensely satisfying part of your daily life. Then you heard a sequel was coming and got really hyped but when it came out it was utter rubbish......
GOG’s Freedom To Buy Campaign Gives Away Controversial Games For Free To Protest Censorship (noisypixel.net) angielski
Mastercard release a statement about game stores, payment processors and adult content (www.gamingonlinux.com) angielski
EA CEO Says No $80 Games for Now: 'We're Not Looking to Make Any Changes at This Stage' (www.ign.com) angielski
Why did thousands of adult titles just disappear from the biggest PC gaming marketplaces? (www.theguardian.com) angielski
[Megathread] Payments Processors & Collective Shout VS NSFW games angielski
Hi friends,...
Petition to tell MasterCard, Visa, and activist groups to stop censoring legal fictional content (www.change.org) angielski
Some notes based on frequent comments:...
18+ A Hellraiser video game. What do you all think? (youtu.be) angielski
[VIDEO] Japan Sanctions Visa after the Censorship of Anime and Manga (youtu.be) angielski
Apologies for YouTuber link - as some of the sources cited are in Japanese, it’s harder to get to a direct English source. The video description includes links to the Yahoo.jp article.
Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader dev Owlcat comes out swinging in support of Stop Killing Games: 'Every player deserves lasting access to what they’ve paid for' (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Ubisoft's annual report dictates that the consumers are the problem (www.youtube.com) angielski
Rumor: Star Wars Outlaws Sequel Canceled By Ubisoft (gamerant.com) angielski
First they came for steam, then they came for itch.io . angielski
Source.
Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors (itch.io) angielski
The group responsible is “Collective Shout”, the same org has targeted Steam before....
PS5 update introduces Power Saver option with a trade-off | Polygon (www.polygon.com) angielski
PS5 TDP options someday?
Microsoft concedes that 'The Outer Worlds 2' retail price was too high — Xbox says it "will keep our full priced holiday releases at $69.99," with refunds incoming (www.windowscentral.com) angielski
Stop Killing Games is facing a complaint in the EU that uses nonsense logic to accuse the movement's founder of failing to disclose financial contributions he never made: 'It's not paranoia if they re (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Looking for a "classic" RPG with solid plot (Steam Deck) angielski
I’ve always been a sucker for RPG games. When I’m feeling down I tend to play Final Fantasy 8 or Final Fantasy 10, they’re like my comfort games....
Nintendo touts high employee retention rate after loss of Microsoft jobs rocks Xbox Game Studios (www.notebookcheck.net) angielski
The Star Wars Outlaws flop - Guillemot blames waning interest in the franchise (www.gamereactor.eu) angielski
I really want to like the new ff7....but it's just so buggy. angielski
I've been stuck at this boss all day, it kinda sucks. There's quite a few undefendable moves. You can't even block when it goes to its third form and takes about 1/2 health with its attack. With a character they pulled out of their butts....
7,818 titles on Steam disclose generative AI usage, or 7% of Steam's total library of 114,126 games, up from ~1,000 titles in April 2024 (www.totallyhuman.io) angielski
European Commission preparing token gesture for angry gamers and game developers (www.euractiv.com) angielski
Romero Games reportedly met with Microsoft just a day before the publisher pulled funding for the studio, and there was 'no mention' of the decision that put over 100 people out of work (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Microsoft has never been good at running game studios, which is a problem when it owns them all (www.polygon.com) angielski
For people who want to play their favorite games but are unable to, what are you currently doing? angielski
I sold my PC yesterday because of financial struggles and as far as I’m aware, I would probably be unable to buy a PC or console ever again. That said, I still want to somehow experience the games I would otherwise want to play on PC. I’m thinking of watching let’s plays but of course, that’s not the same as actually...
Microsoft is closing down Xbox studio The Initiative, with Perfect Dark killed as well — joining Everwild and ZeniMax's new IP, and other unannounced projects (www.windowscentral.com) angielski
Subnautica's Original Creators Have Been Removed From Unknown Worlds "Effective Immediately", As Krafton Makes Concerning Leadership Changes (www.thegamer.com) angielski
Kerbal Space Program 2 vibes... I'm suddenly less optimistic on subnautica 2.
Randy Pitchford asks fans if they'd swallow future Borderlands exclusivity deals, almost 10,000 people say just put your damn games on Steam (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Square Enix acknowledges Expedition 33 success as inspiration for next Final Fantasy as turn-based is still beloved by gamers (www.videogamer.com) angielski
Do Mannequins scare you? I am making a horror game inspired by Fatal Frame in FPS where your only weapon is a Polaroid Pictures! (lemmy.world) angielski
Day 338 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing angielski
Today’s game is a game called PEAK. My friend that i usually play games with gifted it to me after seeing it online somewhere. From what i can tell it’s made by the same studio that made Clustertruck (that game about platforming on moving trucks). It’s like a weird combination of climbing games and survival games. You have...
Borderlands 4 Price Has Been Confirmed (insider-gaming.com) angielski
It doesn’t look like Borderlands 4 will make the jump in price up to $80. A visit to the Xbox Store shows that the base version of Borderlands 4 will cost $69.99....
Stellar Blade on PC Hit 1 Million Sales 19 Times Faster Than on PlayStation 5 (insider-gaming.com) angielski