I don't do platformers because I'm not really into them and anyway I suck. But I like the feel here--it's got that optimistic feel from before movies were all remakes.

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I was always interested in Hard West, but when I looked at the Steam page reviews it seemed like it was very buggy and had some important problems that seriously undermined the good things about it, so I never got it. Hard West 2 has significantly better reviews, so maybe I should have a look.

(I do agree with eldaking's point--it so happens that I like strategy games, AND I often like turn-based RPGs, but they are not the same and half of this bundle really doesn't look like strategy to me)

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I am thinking of taking advantage of the sale, maybe grab a Pangolin. And while I don't expect to use the OS, I'll have that confidence that if it's shipped with a Linux, not only that but one in the Ubuntu lineage, probably when I rip it out and replace it with Mint there won't be any issues.

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Cosmic? Duuuuude.

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So just how Dim are these settlers? :grin:

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Quoting: slaapliedjeWeird, I wonder why they relaunched the Infogrames brand. I don't think it was ever terribly popular.

I may be misremembering, but last time this came up around here I seem to recall someone noting that what is now called Atari was actually originally Infogrames, who acquired the Atari IP and renamed themselves, or something like that. So I figure some of the old Infogrames hands are nostalgic and wanted their original company to exist again.

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Seems nice.

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My subjective and superficial judgement is that the art style makes me feel as if this will be boring despite having no evidence of this being the case.

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Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: DrMcCoyThe problem with Embracer is that they're not in the business of making games, making art. They're in the business of making money. They don't care how. They don't care the games apart from them being their current vehicle of making money.

That's every game company that is (or is owned by) a company on the stock market. They are happy about an inferior product as long as it improves the bottom line.

This describes most publicly traded corporations. Their lifeblood is money. They don't care how they acquire it nor do they care about the non-financial costs incurred while doing so.

And also most private companies, there is nothing in making it public that makes a company more or less greedy.

Well, not more greedy exactly . . . but more reliably greedy, and often more shortsightedly greedy. Activist shareholders tend to want returns NOW, this quarter. There's less room for personal or institutional style or for long range plans. Valve probably couldn't operate the way it does if it went public.
But it's certainly true that many private firms are just as bad. Some of the most destructive, short-term-oriented companies are the so-called "private equity" firms.

Share holders only have a say if they can muster up a majority of the votes. So the risk is actually much higher that you get one greedy new person at a private company than you can gather enough greedy share holders to make a difference in how the company is run.

The man issue is that many companies goes public to use the shares for things (like Embracer that uses their shares to buy game studios) which means that they have an incentive to keep the share price high. But if you don't do that and instead use it for what it was intended for (aka to share the risk) then there are no such incentive.

Aka in the end it's the people that is greedy so we all loose by default :)

Well, in theory perhaps, but I've definitely noticed a shift in corporate behaviour that has fairly closely tracked the "shareholder value" revolution, and which involves a whole lot of share buybacks replacing a whole lot of R&D and other longer term strategies.

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Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: DrMcCoyThe problem with Embracer is that they're not in the business of making games, making art. They're in the business of making money. They don't care how. They don't care the games apart from them being their current vehicle of making money.

That's every game company that is (or is owned by) a company on the stock market. They are happy about an inferior product as long as it improves the bottom line.

This describes most publicly traded corporations. Their lifeblood is money. They don't care how they acquire it nor do they care about the non-financial costs incurred while doing so.

And also most private companies, there is nothing in making it public that makes a company more or less greedy.

Well, not more greedy exactly . . . but more reliably greedy, and often more shortsightedly greedy. Activist shareholders tend to want returns NOW, this quarter. There's less room for personal or institutional style or for long range plans. Valve probably couldn't operate the way it does if it went public.
But it's certainly true that many private firms are just as bad. Some of the most destructive, short-term-oriented companies are the so-called "private equity" firms.

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