Burrito of Peace wrote on Feb 13, 2025, 19:17:
Nothing will get me to not buy a game faster than the words "live service". I know that means the game will disappear at some point forever.

^^^^ THIS! But this is the direction of all software these days it seems. Not only games, but all software, all movies, all music. All of society it seems want to keep the blue collar "person" working forever and only rent people things that they can never own.

"Sad but true-ewwww,ewwww"....(que up James Hetfield's guitar)!!!

@MeanJim,

First off, you're being mean to me.

Secondly, I was making a more "general" point about the state of affairs as I see them in the world today, more so than anything substantial about what this article contains.

I was simply looking to start an honest and open discussion on the subject. I get the laws of supply and demand but even they seem to have theoretical limits.

Take credit cards for interest, err, instance. They used to be able to charge as high an interest rate as people would be willing to "accept" as terms of the credit card use. I think the government had to step in and put a cap on that because it just got to the point of ridiculousness.

This comment was edited on Jan 15, 2025, 14:19.

"https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/15/24344325/john-deere-repair-right-ftc-lawsuit-tractor"

Ummm, okay, let's see, how many other companies need to be sued now, in light of this decision, for 'unfairly' raising costs on fill_in_the_blank? I see lots and lots of fill-ins here.

If the laws of supply and demand dictate what's legal and not legal then I don't really see how/why the government is even involved?

But if we are going to have some fun, I want add to anything related to upgrades/repairs on real estate these days. Thank You!

* REMOVED *

This comment was deleted on Jan 14, 2025, 16:49. Reason: Completely Random woke complaint

Zerg wrote on Dec 10, 2024, 21:51:
I suppose at this point it's the best we, Legacy of Kain fans, can hope for.

Perhaps a new Legacy of Kain game would just hurt the series. Maybe much like Half-Life 3 it could never fulfil the expectations of its fan base.

Still, happy to be able to play this with better graphics. Truth be told, the PS1 graphics were a bit ... aged.

The release window of Half-Life 3 has pretty much come and gone so that expectation could never be fulfilled but why not the others. If they deliver a good game, it's all the same to me. But I'm not in the hardcore camp who has been clamoring for the 3rd game in the series. I've been too busy enjoying everything else being released/remastered versus focusing on what "hasn't". *shrugs*

Case in point: Soul Reaver Remastered 1 & 2? I didn't even know this was happening until I read the news post. This is the way to live life.

Cutter wrote on Dec 8, 2024, 15:48:
I've never even heard of any of those people. I honestly don't know why they warrant a mention more than any one of the people who die every 2 seconds of every day on this rock.

I think someone needs to explain to the Senator how 'buy low sell high' works. It's amazing how issues like this only ever come up with those in power when it personally affects them.

I've found that true of most apples these days. It's getting so I rarely even buy them anymore. Golden Delicious has always been my apple of choice but for a long time now they generally are no longer golden or delicious. Fortunately an Asian supermarket opened up about a 10 minute drive from me and they have excellent produce all around including golden and delicious Golden Delicious apples. Beyond that I'll never understand why we have such a limited variety in North America when there are over 7500 varieties of apples that exist. Whenever I travel I'm always on the lookout for an apple - or other fruit - variety I've never seen or tried before.

28 million for a pair of fucking shoes. And this is why the rich deserve to be executed. A new Red October is long overdue.

Your comment about apples is very interesting. I think it comes down to patenting a specific flavor of Apple and being apple to reproduce that. In other words, I'm guessing the reason comes down to, yes, money.

This stuff should be released publicly after so many years anyway. It's a decent balance between teaching new generations how to build 3D engines and it's old enough now that the technology is probably not all that appealing for using in new games in the year 2024.That's an assumption on my part but it seems to make some sense.

A game that was originally developed for portable devices being ported to Windows? That's a mind boggle. If anything developers should probably start with the best assets and then scale everything down when going back to portable devices. Have any other PC games been successful when going in this backwards direction?

HeadsUpJC wrote on Nov 20, 2024, 18:42:
Within a minute of taking control of your character, I got unhappy: on SeriesX, movement is like you're on ice or wheels. Also, if you simultaneously look round and move (both thumbs ticks), let go/stop, he keeps moving a second more. Basically, I turned off the game as that's annoying. Game Pass.

Isn't that a possible indication that your system is lacking in power? That is annoying, it happens when I play games too but I use Vega 7 Graphics so....it's expected.

Aren't these developers getting support from Epic Games Store though? I mean, they aren't just giving these games away for free. They' probably getting pennies on the dollar from Epic so that they get money and extra exposure for their work.

The only game I've gotten from Epic Games Store for free that I actually finished was a game called 'Inside' from the makers of 'Limbo'. It was pretty cool.

Other than that, yeah, I have claimed about 100 freebies, installed and checked out maybe 5-10. Just no way to keep up with how fast these DDS's are giving these games away.

@Prez,

It's not boring, it sounds like a very interesting life you have led. I've seen "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, probably watched it a minimum of twice and maybe 3x through now. I've never seen the movie with the 'Smaug' character but now you have me curious. I'm guessing that's 'The Hobbit' series or something similar.

@Prez

You asked your parents to write you out of their will? That is some pretty deep stuff man. That request would prove that money is not your God but at the same time they maybe should give it to you for that very reason. Some people can handle money and some people can't. I think Johnny Depp said it best (at least I think he said this, who knows), but the saying goes that "Money doesn't change people, it reveals who they really are". Which kinda sounds about right to me.

Maybe, you're not giving yourself enough credit. Maybe you could do lots of good with the money. And have yourself a few good meals in the process.

I'm saddened to hear it all. Because it seems like the patch has fixed things up quite a bit. And if they worked on the DLC for almost a year, that is a lot of hard work for naught. I hope they can resolve the issue and get the DLC released at a later date, somehow.

@Squirmer,

1. Did you finish the game before the final patch was released? It sounds like you did but I just wanna confirm.
2. If you did, would it be worth a replay on the final patched version?
3. So, that DLC that was cancelled before release. Who owns that intellectual property? In fact, who owns the rights to the IP RedFall game at this point?

It sounds like Microsoft wanted to push the game into a subscription state where 'always online' is a requirement to play. I hate that XXXX!!!!!

Anybody know the history of this game. I'm guessing they released it in a very buggy state and they've patched things up to where people are happy with the game now?

RogueSix wrote on Jun 22, 2024, 16:09:

DukeFNukem wrote on Jun 22, 2024, 15:45:
Ah, so the words 'de-facto' were used here to represent the implication that Valve's Steam service is in fact a monopoly in spite of it not being officially recognized as one by the United States government. Or any other government for that matter, at the moment, I guess.

Which raises the question of how that is even possible since our U.S. Government is usually on top of these things. *shrugs*

A monopoly is not illegal per se. The "US government", or its subsidiary institutions rather like the FTC, would only have to be "on top of these things" if Valve would be illegally abusing their (de facto) monopolistic status to further diminish or squeeze out any competition.

This is not even necessary for Valve because of their humongous army of fanboys and elitists (see exhibit Kxmode ). Valve can maintain their de facto monopoly without (almost) any dirty tricks, or at least no tricks that are dirty enough to trigger any substantial legal action, though as some people pointed out around here, Valve did get some slaps on their wrists in certain isolated cases so it's not like they are totally immune or the innocent saints and angels as their fangirl army wants you to believe.

I didn't know this. I've been 'sk00lL3d' so thank you. Monopolies aren't illegal, monopolistic practices/schemes are what's illegal. I got it!

Ah, so the words 'de-facto' were used here to represent the implication that Valve's Steam service is in fact a monopoly in spite of it not being officially recognized as one by the United States government. Or any other government for that matter, at the moment, I guess.

Which raises the question of how that is even possible since our U.S. Government is usually on top of these things. *shrugs*

Thank You for the numbers. It's very good data to know about. Although, I wasn't disputing the idea of Valve not being a monopoly. I was asking what the word 'defacto' adds to the meaning as I don't really know what that adds. I've just never heard it put that way since most people already know what a monoply is. Microsoft has held that title for many moons now in the area of operating systems.

RedEye9 wrote on Jun 22, 2024, 11:06:
You are putting too much thought into this.
You should throw your back out instead, mindlessly carrying water for a defacto monopoly.
It's easier that way.

I'm confused. Are you for or against Valve and their Steam platform? The gap in pricing is a very interesting topic. Maybe, it's a strategy on the Developer's part since Valve isn't the one setting the prices anyway. And if my theory is, in fact...true, then 'MyRealName''s comment doesn't make any sense. But let's verify the theory first. Why would Valve be the one setting prices on a developers property? That's not for them to do. 1. Developer set's price 2. Valve takes their cut (30%) 3. End of story

So my guess goes something like this:
1. Developer knows Valve is more popular than 'The Beatles' and 'Michael Jackson' combined.
2. Developer sets price high on Steam where everybody checks the price because it's what people do.
3. Developer sells massive keys to other digital companies at lower prices knowing people will see this and make purchase outside the Steam ecosystem at a rate much higher than Steam purchases.
4. So, they get what they wanted in the end anyway, in a round about sort of way.
5. And the $30 sales on Steam are just icing on the cake, if someone is dumb enough to purchase at that price

I'm not sure about the emphasis on the word 'defacto' either. It's causes more confusion than clarity for me.

This comment was edited on Jun 22, 2024, 12:39.