One thing I appreciate about the game is the natural enforcement of rules. Usually, in a game we see strict, coded enforcement: You’re not punished for attacking a teammate, you either physically can’t, or you’re removed from the game when it’s demonstrated to be intentional.

In Arc Raiders, if there’s no witnesses, you CAN get away with murdering another player. It comes with risks, for instance people could hear and deduce the situation. I think having that as a possibility actually makes the friendly interactions feel more positive. It’s more of an intentional choice.

There’s perhaps something interesting to say about game design mechanics there - where something exists in the game but is not actively rewarded or encouraged nor punished.

Yeah, but that doesn’t support indie devs.

Do you seriously pirate indie games? Against AAA there’s at least a sense of inflammatory rebellion. What’s the thought process there?

I’m not uniformly opposed to subscriptions as a concept. That almost goes as far as “paying money for products is anti consumer”.

Even when it comes to a smaller sum, I see the attraction to companies: It’s reliable revenue, which makes business and payment of employees more stable.

That said, it relies on the consumer constantly knowing they have the option of leaving without “lock in” persuasion, and the product being decent value. Obviously, we’ve seen hundreds of anti-consumer subscriptions.

There’s certainly been some industry-wide brain drain, especially when it comes to low-level engineering. When you think about the memory-level mastery people exhibited to get things running on the PlayStation 1, it feels incomparable to today.

Those people enjoyed being pioneers and recognized that was the only way to achieve their dream; but they’re also valued so highly today (picture publishers willing to buy out entire other publishers to get hold of a game engine), chances are they will never have a simple job.

Worse, some MBAs don’t even recognize their value; and wrongly believe they can be easily replaced. There’s probably some ecological comparative example where a great oak is central to the ecosystem of a whole country, and a business developer claims “We can bulldoze that for farmland and import fertilizer, right?”

Is that a frequent concern? I know high spec devices sometimes have issues with ultra framerates or wide monitors, but generally between the Lost Planet and RE Engine Capcom has done pretty well making their own engines.

When I played Trails in the Sky, I felt a lot of my FF7 nostalgia coming back. It got a remake which has been very faithful to the original; while you start combat with some dodges/swings in the overworld, most fights inevitably come back to turn-based.

This might be too pointed a memory, but I remember trying a demo for that game, and somehow having the basic attacks involve cat-like repetitive swatting from the chibi characters put me way off.

I also want to feel really intrigued and connected with a story to play a JRPG. “Generic lore” doesn’t do it for me.

Dead by Daylight.

The idea evolved out of turning horror games into multiplayer. As balance adjustments were made over time, the horror element was depleted and most of it is based around pathing between obstacles as a slower character, against one very powerful melee-based character.

It’s certainly fun and bearable in its current form, but: The objectives based around “escaping the killer” tend to result in lopsided results (eg, one player that hid and escaped feeling proud, while a very good chaser gets few points since they died). The game is not accessible to players intimidated by horror, and some effects even trigger certain phobias or bodily resistances (eg, The Plague causes some empathetic vomiting issues to some people) Plus, some players taking the killer role sometimes associate a bit too much ego to their result (they do badly in matches, and blame the game, stating “I’m Michael Myers, dropping bits of wood and puny flashlights shouldn’t phase me”)

I tried the demo for this game, and it was a lot of fun. Capcom is one of few that can still get those basic creative formulas out well.

I could be biased towards it for being a fresh IP in a world of remakes. It’s still hard to justify a $70/$80/$9000 price tag but I may be ready for this one.

Is this Absolution?

Before the World of Assassination trilogy, I think the tone was often very grim and mocking even on the player’s side, eg “welp, gotta murder for a paycheck, that’s how the world is”

For the newer trilogy, there’s still a lot of grim humor, but it’s usually on the part of targets. They’re painted as VERY savage billionaires deserving everything coming their way, and the guards around them less so.

You also get far more tools to be nonlethal, to the point any kind of gunfire is heavily punished and no speedruns really acknowledge runs where you kill non-targets.

I did kind of have that feel that previous games were too grim about a lot of things; ended up enjoying World of Assassination quite a bit more.

HITMAN! The core story/cutscenes form a very serious, grim premise. But, the actual gameplay, and the writing of the many dozens of NPCs in each level, is filled with humorous charm and tongue-in-cheek Bond-eque silliness. Characters will acknowledge 47’s often paper-thin disguises, make silly remarks about excuses to take off early, or alluding to how horrible it would be if some freak accident occurred. Plus, the mechanics can involve things like dropping banana peels for people to slip on, or luring people with a cartoony explosive rubber duck.

It takes a bit of time to get used to how the game wants you to explore, and stop trying to brute-force it like a stealth game. Quite often, some of the main intended ways of going about a mission involve little to no stealth. It’s a lot of fun and very replayable.

I was surprised how much it’s able to hold its laughter to tell a worthwhile story. It makes sense, because every single line just being pure parody/silliness can get really grating.

Something I always had strong opinions about was cameraman intent. Like, plenty of media has very attractive characters, due to author appeal. But when the media’s cameraman, its writers, and costume designers, are all obviously gooner-brained, that can push the idea that I’m looking at a specific person’s intentionally-advertised sexual fantasy, not just letting my own gaze naturally wander.

So yeah; players can, and will, push their cameras up against characters’ asses. The more a media pushes that intentionally, breaking from any in-media fictional premise (like suggesting that Tracer turns tail, since she enjoys people’s attention on her tight pants) the weirder it sometimes feels.

Sounds like trend-chasing. Rushing a game out to meet a current popular genre generally spells doom.

Pass a law that any government shutdown over a week causes all of Congress to be fired, and I may consider it.

Very happy for all the Layton fans, but in looking at old colleagues I’m sad that Ace Attorney has been left in the dust aside from console remasters.

I sold two lemonades at my street corner.

With a DOUBLED sale rate from yesterday, and a continuous rate of growth from the past two days, I’m already looking to internationalize the business and establish 800 new offices!

(Not mocking you, just investor logic)

Uhoh. I have a slim model, will I be okay?

I want to strike the execs who see a halfway interesting project and want the team to get 8,000 more members so they can release by Christmas.

I’d smack them with their secretary as a bludgeon, genuinely tell them to cut funding in half, and point out “CHRISTMAS HAPPENS EVERY YEAR”.

That seems smart.

I do want to allow for more adult-ish games on Steam, but when browsing them, you DO sometimes get review comments stating “Oh, god! This is not at ALL what I expected!” So having a fresh branding plan to subtly prime people makes a lot of sense.