While I would normally agree with this argument, this also comes right after they announced that they will stop obfuscating the code to make the game easier to mod. Most other software? Sure, changing the terms after the sale and all is shit. This? Write a mod. It doesn’t take that long if you know some Java. Or play on an earlier version I guess, or put the server in offline mode, etc.
Mojang as well? Because MS employs hundreds of thousands of employees making their own decisions and owning their own work. I don’t see how Minecraft has anything to do with the poor decisions made on Azure.
If you want to say what you want, go ahead. Nobody is required to host that speech or allow that speech to be hosted on their platform or software.
MS is attacking free speech here in the same way that a moderator attacks free speech blocking a Lemmy server. Nobody’s saying you can’t use a modded client to connect to their server if they self-host it, but they’re defederating on the main client because they want no association with it.
While freedom of speech means you can yell whatever racial slurs you want, it doesn’t mean you are free from consequences.
This seems to be the MS stance as well, and they seem unwilling to associate with that kind of speech, so they want to cut that connection off as a consequence.
MS isn’t telling them not to speak. MS is telling them to take their speech somewhere else.
I wouldn’t put it past Blizzard to suddenly decide to axe Hearthstone. As sad as that would be, it already has a pretty dwindling playerbase from my understanding.
Although, to be fair, WOTC has been the best advertising recently for any card game that isn’t MTG, so maybe they’re seeing a surge now.
I think anything that increases friction is bound to cause adoption issues.
If you’re fine with that, then I’d recommend making the price for individual licenses public so people know what they’re getting into, maybe with an asterisk that the price is negotiable (if it is).
There’s a few issues I have with it, but the age transitions isn’t one of them. The modern age, when I last played, felt far too short. I also found that it’s more fun to play with longer age lengths and no crisis.
I already have a few hundred hours into it. If the game interests you, I’d recommend it. They’ve done a lot the past few months to improve the balance.
Meh my biggest complaint about Civ 7 was around unique districts being placed randomly by the AI, making captured cities a lot worse than cities you create yourself.
They’ve made changes to the age system so that more carries over between ages now, but the age system never really bothered me. It’s a more explicit rubber banding mechanic. It’s not for everyone though, and there are a couple things I don’t like about it, but it’s different than previous Civs, and a nice change from the snowballing in Civ 6.
I think their biggest mistake with this game was just changing too much at once. It’s a lot different than Civs 5 and 6, and I’m wondering if people were just expecting more of that instead.
While this would be nice, it’s not that hard to design malware that hides itself in certain environments. It’s actually extremely common for more advanced malware to disable itself in sandboxes, for example.
For other reasons, that might be nice though. It at least enforces some level of quality and playability.
I see no reason someone shouldn’t be allowed to ask for donations. If you want to accept donations, go for it. There doesn’t need to be a special reason to do so.
Donations should come without obligations though. If someone donates, yay, but donations should never be in exchange for something (that would be a payment).
The price of one game is not a problem for the price of another game. Make better games, or learn to market them better. Silksong’s hype is nothing short of a crazy marketing success, and its price is indicative of a dev team that wants people to actually play and enjoy their game.
Also, I think it’s been made very clear that people would have been willing to spend more for it. Make a great game, and you’ll likely receive the same reception. And sure, charge $30 instead, and people will buy it if your game is good.