That is a distinction without difference. It doesn’t matter what mechanism is used to collect those metrics. The fact is they are there

And, at a glance: Forgejo/Codeberg definitely has stars and watches and fork tracking as well

Which is all fundamentally the supply and demand aspects of consumerism. It is the idea that people can identify what there is a high demand for and work to provide a supply. Which is not at all a bad thing and extends far beyond capitalism.

But it goes back to the previous poster’s comments about how they don’t like that netflix analyzes everything they do and greenlights projects based on that. That extends FAR beyond netflix and well into even open source projects.

Open source/selfhost projects 100% keep track of how many people star a repo, what MRs are submitted, and even usage/install data. And many of them are specifically designed to fulfill a role that industry standard tools aren’t (or are too expensive for) and… guess where the data on that comes from?

The reality is that you cannot escape consumerism in the modern world. You can pretend you are but… you aren’t. What you CAN do is focus on supporting tools and media that you want/approve of and making your own life better as a result.

And a big chunk of that involves actually thinking through consequences.

I mean… depending on how new an item is and what “tier” the restaurant is? They are 100% watching for stuff like that and probably making a note that you got up after eating only a quarter of your burger. Because if the burger were good, you would want to finish it. Is it too sloppy? Did you feel the need to wash your hands mid bite? Did it make you nauseous?

Same with taking out your phone. Does it look like you are telling a friend what a great burger you had? Or are you feeling bloated and trying to digest a bit before you eat more?

This level of market analysis is not at all new. Streaming services just have a much easier time automating it but… give it time until startups are selling cameras to monitor the dining area and automate analytics based on who ordered what and did what.

I mean… that IS how restaurants work. If people don’t order the fish of the day then they buy fewer and fewer fishes until it is no longer a thing. Even the speed people eat DOES matter since restaraunts tend to be designed around each customer spending a certain amount of time dining. Too short and they will never order a dessert. Too long and they are costing you money while they nurse that coffee.

And similar happens with even buying blu-rays. If nobody bought Master and Commander in 4k then you can be sure that experiment would be over. Instead? That thing sold like toiler paper during COVID and we’ll likely see more “prestige” releases with a huge dose of FOMO.

As for up fronts versus long tails? Guess what is motivating all those revivals “nobody asked for”?

Don’t get me wrong. I vastly prefer to rip blu rays to my NAS and watch via plex. But the idea that you are somehow no longer part of the marketing cycle is just… wrong.

Which is why people who actually look at trends tend to compare it more to the Dot-com bubble.

The short version? A few early internet adopting sites (like Amazon…) set up online retail presences. People were ecstatic because you could now do most of the monthly shopping online and even re-buy pants that you know will fit and so forth.

Seeing money, EVERYBODY made an online retailer or service website and EVERYONE wanted to invest in that.

Then the market was oversaturated and companies with no right to exist went bankrupt and it was a bloodbath.

Except… not really. Because while the massively overinflated stock market did indeed “downturn” and a LOT of those scam companies went away, the actual fundamental premise of online first companies was a very sound one. I mean… just look at “Cyber Monday” and so forth.

And “AI” will almost definitely go the same route. Because, yeah, LLMs are HORRIBLE for accounting and finance. But they are actually really good for replacing the early career folk who translate earnings into reports. And ML in general is excellent at detecting patterns which can mean potentially billions of dollars in investing. But, like all things, it is about verification and caution. You actually need a human to read that earnings report before you send it to the investors. And you only give your “AI” a small portion of your portfolio. Same as with any team.

What you are describing is something different… that is “close enough” to Moore’s Law for all but the most pedantic.

The (I forget the proper economics term so) base price of RAM/Storage does indeed go down as new processes and economies of scale are developed. But the cost of a “laptop hard drive” remains pretty steady in the sense that a couple hundred MB was enough back in the day but you REALLY want at least 500 gigs now. The price per byte does indeed drop rapidly but the price per “drive” is far more stable (not fully stable due to inflation and how many people are buying them, but within spitting distance).

Its why a good rule of thumb was to always just spend roughly the same on storage during an upgrade and that would result in faster technologies and larger capacity drives and so forth.

That isn’t what is happening with RAM in 2025. A much better comparison is GPUs because… it is the same problem. It is ridiculously high demand from businesses (often startups pouring dump trucks of VC money into their only hope… well, VC money or drug money in the case of miners but they matter a lot less these days) driving this. A quick search didn’t yield an easy graph and I can’t be bothered to go dig through Gamers Nexus’s twelve videos on it, but the price of an “entry level” GPU has drastically changed in the past decade.

But just for two-ish data points?

• The GTX 980 and 970 had an MSRP (probably) of 550 and 330 USD, respectively, back in 2014
• While there is some other bullshit involved, the RTX 5080 and 5070 have MSRPs of 1000 USD and 550 USD in 2025
• Adjusting for inflation, the 980 and 970 would still only be about 753 and 451 USD in 2025 dollars
• And let’s not forget that basically no cards were sold at MSRP back in early 2025…

The last point being what is, by all accounts, going to be the new normal. Barring outside impacts like… RAM going through the roof. Vendors will sell the cards for the ACTUAL MSRP rather than the inflated demand prices. And they will still be considerably more expensive as a result.

All of which is to say… my current card is definitely good enough but having a hard time deciding if I do one “final” upgrade for the decade. But I am an AMD boi so those are at least “reasonable” in terms of price per performance.

1. Prices rarely, if ever, go down in a meaningful degree. Stuff like this is partially necessity and partially a REALLY good excuse to see what the price ceiling actually is… and then turn that into the floor moving forward. Just look at gas prices
2. The “AI Bubble” is likely to be on the same level as the Dotcom Bubble and the like. It is going to be brutal and a LOT of people are going to lose their jobs… and then much of the same tech will still dominate just with more realistic expectations. And that will still need large amounts of memory
3. If the “AI Bubble” really is as bad as people seem to want it to be: A LOT of the vendors who make the parts you are buying RAM to use are going to be gutted. And then RAM production will drop drastically. Which will decrease supply and…

“We are responsible for what we say and what we do, not the interpretation others do out of them.”

Yeah, fuck off with that Steven Universe bullshit. It is fun to tell kids to do what is true to them and to not care about what anyone else says. Until they are an adult who thinks dressing up like a school shooter and making “I identify as an attack helicopter” ‘jokes’ is fun.

Intent is excuses and apologies. Actions are… actions. And if someone’s take is that they totally get why sucker punch bent over backwards to protect chuds (at the expense of labor) and that they clearly don’t give a shit about the massive waves of abuse thrown at a voice actress? I’mma gonna assume they are a chud. And, because I believe in judging people by their actions, I 'mma gonna call them a chud.

Does that mean they are a chud? Of course not. There is a LOT of room to apologize and make it clear they are actually an ally. A half-assed “no, I didn’t do that” ain’t it.

And… if you aren’t an ally, you are an enemy. And a large part of allyship is doing what you can, no matter how small, to make people feel Seen and welcome. And when you have moderators siding with the people who don’t really give a shit what kinds of abuse a genderfluid actress received for daring to exist while making DAMNED sure we understand why the company that left them out to dry is gonna protect the chuds?

So, on that note: Decide where you stand. But, by all indications, you might as well ban me now because I’m going to continue to call out chuds. And I’d hate for that to get in the way of the hype train and posting daily blog posts.

Unfortunately, we didn’t create enough art for Joseph Gordon Levett to sell so Volnutt is forever stuck on the moon and we will never get an aged up Tron Bonne outside of the internet.

I forget a lot of 3. But 1 and 2 didn’t really do mission rankings along those lines and were generally built around having to push through multiple rooms and hallways. Whereas 4(a) heavily emphasized wide open spaces and rushing to get those objectives.

6 was a MUCH better balance where the S rank actually often required a certain number of kills and many missions had ways to justify the ammo expenditure so that it wasn’t just “get a karasawa and then human plus”.

I always preferred the chonky bois of AC1/2, but 4/4a did indeed feel REAL damned good.

My main issue is that everything about the mission structure encouraged just rushing the objective and DPSing it down. Which is fun sometimes but not when it is EVERY mission.

Its also a big reason I genuinely loved Daemon Ex Machina (the first one, at least). You had the blitzes and the arena missions but you also had some truly amazing slogs where you are just fighting nigh endless waves of MTs and are grabbing whatever gun you can off the ground to down a few more enemies.

Removed by mod

It was literally a joke about wondering if the killer would be named “mario”. It was far tamer than what many of the chuds have said.

It was sheer and utter cowardice and abandoning the people who actually make the games that got them there. And when even god damned paramount reversed course with kimmel, the head of Sucker Punch doubled down on standing by their actions.

As for Ishii: “Social media was being social media” sums up how much you care on that front.

And THIS is why GTA6 will sell like hotcakes no matter what happens.

Part of me thinks that this is going to be the one where no one fucking gives a shit because of all the BS that R* have been doing since GTA5,

Zero chance.

Sucker Punch fired one of their senior devs for a mario and luigi joke when kirk got got. EVERYONE was angry, the studio heads came out to say they stand by their decision, and plenty of people were keyed in to the hell that Erika Ishii has had to put up with on social media for daring to portray a female character in a video game.

Ghost of Yotei comes out. Metacritic of 86 and just about every outlet had to cover it and talk about how much they love it. A few of the more independent outlets stood true but… there are just so few video games that come out in a given year that you can’t possibly dare to deprive yourself of something over things like workers rights or politics. I mean, what else could you possibly play in September of 2025!!!

More or less all companies (that are legally allowed to (and some that aren’t)) send anti-union propaganda. Whether it is outright villification or just “We are your friends. Talk to us. If you form a union it is you saying we failed”. That is kind of just the nature of the game.

What matters is what happens when the workforce decides to unionize anyway. You can either respect it or do everything you can to slaughter your workforce.

Sleeping Dogs (aka “Sleepy Dogs”) is basically GTA in Hong Kong but inspired by HK crime dramas rather than tarantino stealing his ideas from them. And it was REALLY good and shockingly holds up (did another run late last year). Arkham Batman style combat on foot but you also have guns and cars (with Total Overdose style shenanigans to leap from car to car). Technically a sequel to True Crime LA but nobody cares about that.

Also… Emma Stone is in it for reasons nobody understands. And it is still unclear if she actually knows she was in it either.

But it also highlights the issue. Taking GTA and moving it to another country would, by and large, lose the purpose of the game. Modern day Rockstar is very much an American company and all of their points of reference are American cinema (or what few foreign films take off here). That was very noticeable any time Nico began referring to “the old country”. To transplant that to Russia or Thailand would just be an American movie set in Russia or Thailand.

Whereas… if you enjoy HK crime dramas than you will LOVE Sleepy Dogs because it 100% understood the assignment. United Front clearly worshipped the movies and it very much showed… while also making sure Wei Shen had spent most of his life in the US to account for any weirdness there.

And if you’ve ever spent time in Hong Kong? Okay, it isn’t quite as good as RGG and Kabukicho or Yokohama. But you very much get all the right vibes in a way that the GTAs often fail at with LA and NYC. You aren’t going to be able to navigate Wan Chai just because you beat up some fools there (unlike how you can 100% navigate Kabukicho after any modern Yakuza…) but you are going to feel “at home” on the streets in either form.

It really doesn’t. Because now that is lost revenue for a month/quarter for no reason at all.

Eh, fuck it. I have no need for more “douche and a turd sandwich” “both sides suck” humor in the 2020s and I have zero desire to give rockstar any money after their blatant union busting.

Yeah… that is the other aspect where… labor is already getting fucked over massively so it becomes a question of how many jobs are even going away.

Exactly, as I don’t expect QA done by something that can’t think or feel to know what actually needs to be fixed

That is a very small part of QA’s responsibility. Mostly it is about testing and identifying bugs that get triaged by management. The person running the tests is NOT responsible for deciding what can and can’t ship.

And, in that regard… this is actually a REALLY good use of “AI” (not so much generative). Imagine something like the old “A star algorithm plays mario” where it is about finding different paths to accomplish the same goal (e.g. a quest) and immediately having a lot of exactly what steps led to the anomaly for the purposes of building a reproducer.

Which actually DOES feel like a really good use case… at the cost of massive computational costs (so… “AI”).

That said: it also has all of the usual labor implications. But from a purely technical “make the best games” standpoint? Managers overseeing a rack that is running through the games 24/7 for bugs that they can then review and prioritize seems like a REALLY good move.