That’s definitely another workaround, for sure! I think our supermarkets here carry Steam gift cards - for example.

Though I imagine that those same payment processors could threaten to pull out of stores that carry Steam gift cards, and we’d be back to square one.

Additionally, it puts more burden on the end users to have to physically shop somewhere ahead of time - lowering convenience. Ultimately, as Valve themselves put it - piracy is a service problem. Any additional hurdles will deter some potential customers.

So in order for people to be able to spend their own money how they see fit, we need a new player in the field - either fiat (eg. via the EU) or reliable, low/no fee stable coin(s).

100% in agreement; those are the factors that I was alluding to when I said it would be too much for end users to deal with…

…and that’s all before we even begin to take into consideration regional pricing!

True, the best bet currently would be to stick to a ‘stable coin’ to avoid the drastic price fluctuations - but even having to deal with that will largely be a bridge too far for most would-be customers, I fear.

Not the Yoshi’s Island 2 we deserved, but the Yoshi’s Island 2 we needed.

Still won’t give Nintendo a cent of my money, so I look forward to emulating this at some point in the not too distant future.

All good, I’m currently lodging a patent on lodging patents for a system for summoning a character.

See you in court, Nintendo!

P.S.: I’m also lodging a patent for a system of pirating every single game on a Nintendo platform (past, present and future), however I will be opening that one up to the public once granted.

I’m ok with there being a conversation on this topic, even if the arguments devolve to ‘waaah’ vs. ‘git gud’.

Ultimately though, I agree that a small dev team shouldn’t have to focus on a game-mode outside their vision - and any such demand for an easy-mode or other additions can and should be left up to mod makers.

It’s a single-player game, so in the end how the individual user wants to play is how they should be able to play.

Activision/Blizzard have frequently had game launches where their servers were unavailable due to demand.

But that’s probably more due to terrible network infrastructure, than overwhelming demand!

Can’t; you are objectively correct.

As a bit of a thought exercise, I went through every mainline GTA game using that website to get an idea of each title’s respective headcount:

• GTA : 86 people (DOS)
• GTA2 : 170 professional roles (Windows)
• GTA3 : 185 professional roles (PS2)
• GTA:VC : 688 professional roles (PS2)
• GTA:SA : 780 people (PS2)
• GTA4 : 1,333 professional roles (PS3)
• GTA5 : 3,686 professional roles (X360)

So while the general headcount growth over time tends to track, as each generation of platform requires more and more people to churn out higher fidelity content, I can’t help but wonder what portion of that headcount is just there to churn out micro transaction and Games-as-a-Service garbage.

I don’t get how/why it’s still profitable for them to keep working on it - but I’m in full support.

It’s not to dissimilar to Minecraft in a number of ways, in a sense - there’s not really any drive to do anything in particular, it’s ultimately up to the player to do what they feel like.

It’s a literal sandbox, rather than a narrative experience. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, that’s perfectly fine!

According to the Diablo IV credits, over 9,500 people worked on that title in some capacity:

https://www.mobygames.com/game/204085/diablo-iv/credits/windows/

…and so it fucking should; the more pain average Americans feel, the better - honestly.

We are less than 8 months into this administration, and they are already doing their damnedest to rat-fuck the elections in an effort to fully seize power for at least a generation and remake the nation in their own twisted vision.

The last chance left to stop this takeover is the 2026 midterms, and the GOP are already pulling out all of the stops to stop that from happening:

• Gerrymandering the absolute shit out of Texas
• Closing polling booths in locations likely to vote against the GOP
• Imposing voter identification laws to further disenfranchise ‘undesirables’
• Rail against mail-in ballots to further suppress turnout

Hopefully the dam breaks and inflation well and truly begins to run away - so that the majority of the population feel the impact of this President’s policies to their wallets, and vote out his lapdogs and lackeys.

If not, then the nation and its people are truly lost and more expensive consoles are going to be the least of your worries.

That’s awesome to see!

Print media is basically dead here in Australia, though I did just discover Edge is apparently still a thing - I adored that publication back in the pre-WoW days.

Which magazine? I’m legitimately surprised that (m)any have survived, to be honest!

I wouldn’t hold my breath, but at least a port to ARM would also give Mac users access to Elden Ring - and God knows macOS is in dire need of more natively compiled games in order to be taken as even a semi-viable platform.

That’s definitely a significant bit of it for me too.

I remember a while ago coming across a YouTube video on how racing games have become less interesting, as graphical fidelity has reached a point where it’s actually harder to distinguish what’s going on, and differentiating between backgrounds and obstacles.

Additionally, game worlds were smaller and easier to memorise back then. I can still navigate GTA3’s Liberty City as well as Vice City largely from memory - but there’s no chance I could do the same for GTA6 when it releases.

The other last benefit of older titles is getting to experience everything without missing out due to inaccessible DLCs, battle passes and whatnot.

Ask yourself what niche do you want to fill, and what is that space like already? What would set you apart from others already there? What is your unique selling point, in order to get eyeballs on your videos?

in the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity

Rockstar have been leveraging controversy to their advantage for over 20 years now, with great success.

While I’m paranoid enough to believe that they’re behind it all, I definitely do think that they do subtly help amplify such messages towards their favour.

At a cost of $20 USD/EUD, you’d better fucking hope not!

e pluribus anus