/dons_conspiracy_theorist_hat

IMHO all this payment processing for adult content is the thin end of the wedge to eventually lead to the complete linking of real ID to digital identity. "If you want to buy adult games, provide your online ID to prove you are 18+." This is the old "think of the children" tactic, and sadly I bet it will work.

Fast forward a few years and it will be normal to have you digital ID for everything under the sun.

Is this really hard to believe given all the digital ID stuff that has been cropping up coincidentally at exactly the same time as the payment processor hoopla?

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> As stable as Arch can be (so, not really stable).

Is anyone else here running Arch and if so, how is your stability? My current PC is 5 years old and I am on the same Arch install from day 1. There have been maybe 2-3 times where it required manual intervention, but it is exceedingly rare. I simply don't understand the whole "Arch unstable". Is it just a meme?

Heck I have Arch on an old thinkpad that I only update maybe once a year and that hasn't even given me any problems. That has probably been running longer than 5 years.

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As I mentioned in the rumor article yesterday, and I repeat myself since no one mentioned this, Saudia Arabia is probably going to use this as an attempt to make themselves appear more appealing to the youth. They have been big into esports for the same reason. Everyone assuming there will be insane monitization might be right, but SA might very well be happy to lose money (or at least make minimal profits) if it means improving their long-term image.

While I wouldn't bet big on it, I'd suspect EA to improve under this new management. Not that EA has anywhere to go but up really.

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While I'm no fan of any of the involved parties - politics aside, this will probably be good for the games.

Saudi Arabia has been doing a lot of PR to make them look better with the younger people. They were hosting some big esports tournaments and such. If we assume this is in the same vein, they will probably try to (no guarantees though) make games that are more appealing to gamers in an attempt to gain favor among the huge global gamer demographic.

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I think this is how the #stopkillinggames should work. If the company doesn't want to keep the servers running the community should be allowed to run their own servers. You don't need the company to release source or anything at all. The community can reverse engineer basically anything. The only thing stopping them is legal action. If you aren't supporting the game, you shouldn't be allowed to take legal action against these kinds of projects.

The real "problem" isn't that this is being done it is the fact that, and the stats show this very clearly, people are playing older games way more than newer games. If we could play our old games indefinitely, how would the poor corpos make ever increasing profits shipping slop? Won't someone think of the shareholders!

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Personally I think some of the games that got removed deserved it though, actually, probably most of them.

Imagine if something you like gets banned because some busy-body thinks it "deserves" to be removed. If we allow this to set such a precedent, it is only a matter of time. First they came for the porn games and I did no speak out because I wasn't a gooner. When they came for *my interest* there was no one left to speak out.

You can't legislate (this is even worse - it isn't even legislation!) morallity.

People have different preferences/interests and as long as none of it is deemed illegal, all of it must be allowed.

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Hot take: as linux is adopted and the mainstream crowd shows up, you won't see improvements as many people predict. My bet is that if/when the non-technical users outnumber the technical users linux will end up following the same enshitification path we've seen time and time again.

Further, the more popular linux becomes the more ripe for corpo takeover it also becomes. If you look at the corps already paying for linux development it is quite shocking.

It won't happen overnight, but I'd wager that in 10 years linux will be more adopted and shittier.

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Makes me wonder, if it's starting with virtual smut, how long before they start deciding other types of activities aren't permitted with their system. Paypal decides political activists are problematic? Suddenly patreon can't host anyone campaigning for climate change or other issues, etc. Could happen.

The "conspiracy theorists" have been saying for years that digitial currency (this is more on the side of digital product, but in the same ballpark) in its various forms would lead to exactly this. They even claimed it would start with fringe stuff being censored/removed.

First they came for the hentai (I think it was similar incest/underage content specifically) and I did not speak out, then they came for the porno games and I did not speak out...

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What's the rationale here?

The idea is that always online games can be turned off. If there are people happily playing Skate and Skate 2, we need to make it so they literally cannot continue to play (while they aren't doing that, they are planning that for skate. and future games). This way we "force" them to buy new games.

I honestly think it is as simple as this. Even if there is only a slight chance you buy another EA game, it doesn't matter. If all/most of the companies do more/all online, the forced churn will simply bring more people to the buying market and EA or any other corpo will get some of those sales.

And if the game is doing great? They can keep milking the micro transactions.

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This looks like an almost 1-to-1 copy of Dicefolk, which I thought was a pretty decent game. It is more puzzle than deck/dice builder IMHO.

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