Games in the 90s were that expensive because it was a niche market. As the market grew so did revenue with economies of scale. Today we are probably nearing saturation and the only way to make line go up is to increase prices.

The video card market I think paved the way for these price increases. First it was bitcoin, then covid, and now AI forces on the video card market that showed manufacturers that people were willing to pay nose-bleed prices. Sadly now that the lamp has been rubbed I don't see video card prices ever coming down. An article yesterday about the 9060xt called it "a budget beast" at $350 fake MSRP. $350, even today is not really budget. $250, maaaaybe $300 if you squint, but not $350.

As long as enough people pay these prices - and they obviously are - there is no going back. I'm always suggesting boycotts on this kind of stuff. If people won't pay then prices will come down. I personally am a patient gamer (excluding a few new indies) and will gladly wait years to get games for $5 or less.

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I'm repeatedly flabbergasted by the amount of abuse people around me will put up with.

In tech terms, and probably a lot of others as well, most people simply don't know there are alternatives or how to configure things to better suit themselves. There is that joke about how there is exactly one generation that can rotate a PDF. The older gen never had to learn how to use a lot of these tools and the younger gen is getting the most watered down exerperience where everything is hidden so they never learn anything beyond the surface.

There have been, for years now, professors complaining that fresh computer science students don't know the most fundamental things about computers - like what a file system is. This, IMHO, dumbing down everything to the lowest common denominator is the root of enshitification. In the endless pursuit of "line must go up", companies are trying to cast a wider and wider net to catch as large an audience as possible.

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While I understand that EGS isn't popular, as consumers we should want them to succeed. More competition and options are generally a good thing.

Steam is great (although not without flaws), but I fear that when Gabe finally retires it will become enshitified like everything else.

Personally I still buy most of my games on steam, but I always check if there is a similar deal on GOG and try to buy there when it is reasonable. Then I use heroic because IMHO all the launchers suck.

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I think MT1 was better than Slay the Spire (StS is still great). The amount of control you had with all the different champions I liked better than the more random StS runs. Then the crystals you accumulated to buff cards also added what I feel like was more control over how your run would play out. Sure there is still a lot of randomness, but I think MT has just the right balance between random and agency.

The studio put out Inkbound last year and though it didn't get glowing reviews I thought it was really good as well. I put almost 100 hours into it and that long in a game is very rare for me.

Anyway, after playing the demo for MT2 I am excited and would suggest it to anyone interested in the genre.

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I don't think Microsoft hates Linux as much as some people believe.

Microsoft isn't dumb. Between the rise of Proton and the fall of Win 10 there are a lot of people that have Linux on their radar now. I know a lot of the Linux proselytizing users are happy about the possibility of the "year of the Linux desktop", but I fear we are going to see a decline over the coming decades.

Microsoft and Google and others already have their hooks into Linux. Linus is getting older every day. Eventually I don't think it is hard to imagine Linux being basically corporate run.

With all the new users that will be asking to make things easier (AKA more like Windows) making up a larger and larger part of the user base, they will more and more get their way. There are already people that complain about things like CLI vs GUI because they aren't used to the former. I really feel like the "normies" are going to show up and basically force their wishes on the preexisting Linux community since the most devs will do what the majority ask them to.

I hope I am wrong, but I can easily see the enshitification of Linux happening as more and more Windows users jump ship while demanding that Linux be more "user friendly" (without every attempting to learn the new Linux way).

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I think that the move away from things like physics/AI is in the 2010's is probably a case of games getting more popular. The people in charge became corp types instead of gamers. The suits want to see things whereas gamers are more likely inclined by gameplay and mechanics that are essentially invisible.

You see the same thing with shiny UIs that have slow and clunky back ends.

In the other thread about the FEAR mod someone made a comment about why the constant push for graphics and I think it is the same. The suits want more flash. Which is insane to me since for the last few years Steam has shown people are playing games that are 5-10 years old more than all this modern "trash".

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I am happy to pay more for games as long as the profits go to the developers and not shareholders.

While I suspect there are some people that would agree with this, I suspect even more would a.) begrudgingly pay more or b.) not be willing/able to pay more.

While stock prices and GDPs have been rising over the last decade or so, this does not reflect the true economic conditions of the working man. As you say, shareholders, and the executives, etc are the ones reaping the rewards. What we sometimes collectively call the 1% or 0.1%. If you look at net worth, those at the tippy-top's wealth has exploded while most people have stagnated (or even lost ground in terms of the working poor). And every excuse to cut jobs or raise prices will be used to maintain that trend it seems.

I don't think the answer is to ask for the profits to go where we'd like, but to instead punish the companies that engage in tactics we don't like. A general boycott is what I've called for for years now. There have been a lot of boycotts going one way or another toward specific companies, but almost every single corp engages in this, what I can only call expoitive behavior. The customers are the only one that really have the power to stop it but simply not buying products/services produced in a manner that we find unacceptable. And letting the corps know why we aren't buying. What that level of unacceptability is, is up to the individual.

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I always liked Monster Train more than STS, but STS is still a good game. I'll get this for sure.

Also, from what I understand STS2 is made in Godot. Not really relevant except that it is nice to see "big" games breaking away from the Unreal/Unity duopoly. Halls of Torment and Dome Keeper were some recent indie successes that used Godot and were really good games.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: eggrole

Quoting: hell0But in general "shoot first, check second" is sadly the most efficient way to protect people from scams, phishing and other bad stuff.

To play devil's advocate: why do people need protecting? Who's job is it to protect them? If these protectors constantly try to sanitize the internet, the users will never be exposed to scams. While this might be a good thing, consider your immune system. It gets stronger by being exposed to everything and anything. If you get scammed, like touching a hot stove, you might be more sensitive to scams in the future. Over years and decades people would be *forced* to learn to avoid scams.

I suppose my point is that there is so much nanny-ing in the current world that I fear we are actually doing a great disservice to most people in not giving them the opportunity to fend for themselves. I think we can see this manifesting in the younger generations that got participation trophies and were never faced with failure. When they got out of uni and into the "real world" they often times melt (ala snowflakes).

Good devil's advocate. I would reply that in times past when there was no such thing as "public health measures", not only did plagues regularly sweep the land killing large percentages of the population in horrible ways, but in general cities in normal times had death rates so high they had to be replenished with ongoing in-migration just to stay the same size. When people live densely packed past a certain point, it would seem the disease organisms evolve faster than people's immune systems adapt. There is no point where people have toughened up and the result is better than having the public health measures.

Going back from the analogy, I would say that if you do nothing to stop cyber attacks you don't get to a state where people are attack-proof, you just continue to have a state where lots of people get successfully attacked.

Well, replace the idea of a stronger immune system with the knowledge of hygiene. It wasn't "public health policy" but more that people gained an understanding of how to get less sick by sterilizing things and washing their hands. You could put vaccines and medicine in general in the same category. The health policy likely was a proponent of good hygiene in such the same way that a policy today could help teach how to prevent getting scammed. Either analogy still falls a bit short because we are talking about death versus losing money.

I tend to agree that doing nothing would result it more successful attacks, but I simply am not sure at what cost. Giving an organization or government power to shut things down they deem as scams feels like the greater evil than "allowing" some people to get scammed. It probably comes down to a liberty vs security argument and there will be valid points on both sides.

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Quoting: hell0But in general "shoot first, check second" is sadly the most efficient way to protect people from scams, phishing and other bad stuff.

To play devil's advocate: why do people need protecting? Who's job is it to protect them? If these protectors constantly try to sanitize the internet, the users will never be exposed to scams. While this might be a good thing, consider your immune system. It gets stronger by being exposed to everything and anything. If you get scammed, like touching a hot stove, you might be more sensitive to scams in the future. Over years and decades people would be *forced* to learn to avoid scams.

I suppose my point is that there is so much nanny-ing in the current world that I fear we are actually doing a great disservice to most people in not giving them the opportunity to fend for themselves. I think we can see this manifesting in the younger generations that got participation trophies and were never faced with failure. When they got out of uni and into the "real world" they often times melt (ala snowflakes).

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