Quoting: PenglingIndeed - hell, credit cards were barely even a widespread thing, at the time.

Still, I assumed that the numbers were due to kids spending their own money (and if it is, that average is still a lot higher than I got back in my day :tongue:), and hadn't even considered the issue of them using credit cards without permission!

It's not exactly "without permission." The kid's account (or the parent's account if it's a shared device) gets access to the payment method for getting the game in the first place (or other applications if it's a F2P). The parent doesn't notice, and the kid has no idea - they just press the "get more jellybeans" button. Maybe the parent will notice come the end of the month, followed by a firm talking to, but perhaps not.

Game publishers have exploited this inexperience ruthlessly. Platform holders try to intervene and regulators try to curb the excesses, but there are fresh victims every day and there's money to be made.

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Quoting: Pengling

Data shows that children in Europe are spending on average €39 per month on in-game purchases.

Good lord, I never even got close to being given that much pocket-money in a month when I was a kid! :shock: That's a lot to spend on items that don't exist!

That's because, back in your day, you'd have some money that you'd be given or save up, and you'd spend a fixed amount of that in exchange for specific goods at the toy shop or sweet shop or wherever. You wouldn't have had invisible obfuscated access to your parents' credit cards for ephemera.

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Quoting: ElectricPrismThis man is a shark and should step down as CEO and all the other executives should get checked for corruption for letting this happen.

Wrong guy.

John Riccitiello was the CEO that killed trust in Unity. He's already gone.

Matthew Bromberg got rid of the Unity Runtime nonsense, as described in this article.

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The “Optimizing Game Files” screen has been optimized

That tickles me.

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This is a really weird thing to do.

It's still listed for sale on GOG and Steam. If you were trying to stop people getting your game anywhere but Netflix, you wouldn't remove it from the place that no one goes but leave it up where everyone is. Itch has the best costs (you can choose to pay Itch nothing if you want) and the best developer upload tools (you can throw essentially any file type at it, and Itch will take care of everything). Not putting your game on Itch can make sense because it's not going to generate a lot of traffic, but they already did that - they only need to do nothing and have some amount of money trickling in.

This is a PR own goal for absolutely zero benefit.

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Quoting: Vortex_AcheronticIf they make a Steam Deck 2 I am really keen to see how they will adapt the Steam Deck verified system. Because there are games not supported on Deck simply because they do not perform so well but might do so on a SD2.

It's a bit of a pickle, but I think it could be done with just one extra icon.

Most of the criteria - text size, controller layouts, and so on - are going to be exactly the same whichever generation it is. So just keep testing with the Deck 1, and if it hits the 720p/30fps target there no worries, give it the green tick. But if it can't run on the Deck 1 and can run on the Deck 2 then they're going to need another rating. Possibly a yellow "2" icon or something like that, so it's a warning that you need the Deck 2 for it.

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I don't think this'll be in the Deck 2. The Deck is still ramping up as a platform - Valve want to wait as long as possible before they disrupt that. This chip will be useful for the annual-release also-rans, though.

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Quoting: BladePupperSomething I don't get is the need for a 1080p display. I get making it still run games well when docked with a 1080p external display, but on the device itself I don't understand.

There are advantages. You've already identified that you're ensuring that the hardware can handle 1080p, but that also means that when you're plugged into an external display you're either 1:1 or a simple upscale to 4K without having to change the game's resolution in the settings. And game devs probably are already testing their games and interface at 1080p, but probably aren't testing them at lower. But, yeah, it's likely mostly driven by "bigger number is better" marketing.

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Cool. The original was an interesting idea, but the implementation was super janky and unresponsive. Hopefully the reimplementation can squeeze a fun game out of the idea and framework.

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Quoting: tfkWhat's a nitro blaze? Sounds like a fart after curry...

It's when your weed makes you laugh.

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