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That game is not the evil loot box monster everyone made it out to be

That's because the backlash was so fucking strong against the attempted exploitation:
https://www.polygon.com/2017/1...
https://www.polygon.com/2018/3...

The problem with AAA games are the mobs of people smearing them online

Is it fuck. People were begging for Star Wars Battlefront, for Red Dead Redemption, for Anthem. They want an experience, they want high production values, they want fun.

What many publishers are trying to deliver to them is a microtransaction hell with gameplay compromised to 'encourage' ongoing revenue. No fucking wonder the gamer demographic is responding strongly.

That game is not the evil loot box monster everyone made it out to be

That's because the backlash was so fucking strong against the attempted exploitation:
https://www.polygon.com/2017/1...
https://www.polygon.com/2018/3...

The problem with AAA games are the mobs of people smearing them online

Is it fuck. People were begging for Star Wars Battlefront, for Red Dead Redemption, for Anthem. They want an experience, they want high production values, they want fun.

What many publishers are trying to deliver to them is a microtransaction hell with gameplay compromised to 'encourage' ongoing revenue. No fucking wonder the gamer demographic is responding strongly.

https://www.polygon.com/2017/1... - charging people 38c for a $1 contribution.

https://www.allsides.com/blog/...

https://www.polygon.com/2019/2...

Last year Second Life had around 600k users.

But Fortnite has over 78 MILLION players (that's from late last year, more now).

What I am talking about is just from observation while playing the game, and knowing how much others play the game - and how they play.

If you think some aspect of what I am saying is incorrect, but there are tens of millions of people nodding their heads...

Seriously, spend some time in Fortnite on Squad mode and talk to the people playing there. Or just watch others play after dying in single player, sometimes they are trying to win but a lot of casual people are doing things for fun. There are countless videos of people building huge structures, or doing shopping cart rides, or stunts with the golf carts, all kinds of stuff that is just enjoying the fun of being there.

You are saying that people should stop complaining about their boss touching their balls and farting in their faces?

No, we're saying that Excluding male players from a panel at a convention is wrong :

https://www.polygon.com/2018/9...

It's not like Riot Games is just a bunch of "Dudebros", there's a bunch of SJW types that work there too, none of this is actually new. Riot Games is a mess. On both sides of the political spectrum. Their game community is cancerous, their internal politics are screwed.

If anything, that "Boss" that was "touching balls" wasn't even a "Bro" to begin with, just your typical Male Feminist Ally, which (made up stat) have higher per-capita rates of sexual assault than normal males.

Well I would recommend a much better value from an independent publisher, Foxhole by independent house Clapfoot Games, got it on discount for a whopping $11. It is based on Unreal Engine with recently overhauled graphics. http://www.foxholegame.com/ The wars go on for a few weeks like a multi-capture the flag, you can follow them at https://foxholestats.com/ . The current war has gone back and forth a few times, now Wardens are starting to womp the Colonials. The publishers have promised no microtransactions or other schemes.

Also the independently produced Rimworld turned out to be the most highly rated game on Steam last year. Understandable due to good game and character design and an extensive modding community (for example you can make a whole complex cannabis industry lol). Note how the fanciness of graphics is absolutely minimal, the characters are outlines with swappable clothes, but their behaviors are unique and relatable and they spontaneously react to stress. Some people have criticized character design decisions in the game, but also modders have made alternative models including for example the Kinsey scale.

https://www.techquila.co.in/ri...
https://www.pcgamer.com/rimwor...
https://www.pcgamesn.com/rimwo...

Disappointing that this post is overrun by snarly anonymous gamergate weirdos. Everyone knows EA is a scam machine, they drove Maxis and Simcity into the ground. If you don't like how a giant corporation tacks on pseudo social awareness then avoid the company.

And then I see this NES Classic discontinued because ‘we don’t have unlimited resources,’ Nintendo says (Apr 28 2017)

Immediately followed by this Nintendo’s NES Classic will return to U.S. retail stores on June 29 (May 14 2017)

They went a full two months and then capitulated. I guess Q2 next year we will see the systems start to sell again... Meanwhile I paid full price for one and a 5% markup for the other. Worth it? Probably.

-dk

Distorting the facts a bit there. What Ninja actually said was:

If I have one conversation with one female streamer where weâ(TM)re playing with one another, and even if thereâ(TM)s a hint of flirting, that is going to be taken and going to be put on every single video and be clickbait forever

Source: https://www.polygon.com/2018/8...

For that reason he refuses to play with any women except his wife. So not just "strongly political streams" with adult content as you suggest, but in fact a blanket ban on all women.

On the one hand I can understand that he doesn't want the hassle, but on the other it sounds a lot like "we don't hire women because it creates distractions in the office" which is pretty much textbook misogyny.

There is a business opportunity aspect to it, because the way smaller streamers improve their profile is often by playing with more popular ones, and Mr. Ninja only offers that opportunity to other male streamers.

• Fortnite (Switch) online free. Sources:
• Gamespot
• Polygon
• Express UK

I'm willing to bet Epic makes more money off skins than they would if they received a portion of the Nintendo Online subscription proceeds.

Yeah, it's linked in the summary: https://www.polygon.com/2018/8...

It already happened to 4. That's what I'm talking about.

https://www.polygon.com/2018/4...

More like switch it off. Nintendo is known for removing hidden code like this when it's found and not in use. See also Flog.

Honestly it would be funny if someone managed to actually port some VR apps to the Switch, before Nintendo made VR officially supported.

Extra points if they get Dolphin Emu's VR port to run on it.

buy old games at retro-shops, pawn shops, Goodwill, garage sales, e-bay, whatever.

Until other publishers start following the lead of Bethesda in threatening to sue secondhand sellers.

...provided you can still get those thousands of games...

Third, if a game isn't compelling enough to buy after viewing a "Let's Play" then I have to question what value it provided in the first place.

Walkthrough videos reportedly hurt sales of That Dragon, Cancer by Numinous Games.

Source: "That Dragon, Cancer dev calls out Let's Plays for why game hasn't turned a profit" by Allegra Frank

Yes, we'll "deal with it". Many of us "geeks" couldn't give one fuck about what other people think of us. Heck, we didn't care when other kids ostracized of us. And if daily harassment didn't stop us from liking what we like, what's a few click-bait opinion articles going to do?

As for gamer culture, it's pretty clear the real gamers have already won. Steam announced that they're no longer going to try to police content and no amount of SJW screeching will put that genie back in the bottle.

Iron Man is a black teenage girl? So is the new Buffy.

https://www.polygon.com/tv/201...

Steam OS was a casualty? https://store.steampowered.com... Steam Machines perhaps? https://www.polygon.com/2018/4...

> A space MMO based on this data and the exoplanet data would be insanely awesome.

Yes and no.

There are multiple problems.

The #1 problem, as said famously by Douglas Adam, is: Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

Unless you give players:

* FTL (Faster then Light) / Warp Speed ,and
* Multiple reasons to navigate around the galaxy

Exploration alone is pretty boring. One of the primary reasons EVE Online has lasted so long because of POS - Player Owned Structures/Stations, such as Starbases and Citadels

The #2 problem is: What does progression look like?
i.e. What is the end game? What do players _actually_ do that will keep them interested?

If you search for how scientifically accurate is elite dangerous you will come find that Elite:Dangerous already has part of its star map based on real star systems:

Space.com: What's unique about Elite: Dangerous' Stellar Forge?

David Braben: Everything we've got in the game is real. We've got some 160,000 star systems that are from star catalogs, and the rest are created using sophisticated algorithms ...

We've got around 1,000 systems [in the game] discovered each minute by real people, where no one has ever been before. People can equip their ship and just head out into the unknown. But that's still 0.001 percent of the galaxy that has been discovered in the year since we went live.

Elite:Dangerous even "loosely" predicted the Trappist-1 sytem.

You may also be interested in:

* Orbiter
* Space Simulator
* Kerbal space program

I haven't played those so can't confirm their accuracy.

Polygon reports that Pornhub is considering expanding its safe-for-work section for videos with grown-up themes that aren't erotic, such as demonstrations of firearm operation or maintenance.

That said, you could get a VPS and install GNU MediaGoblin as an alternative to YouTube. One drawback is MediaGoblin's lack of compatibility with iPhone and iPad clients, as to my knowledge, iOS supports no royalty-free video codecs. Even once AV1 is final, I don't see it coming to older devices.

At least in PUGB, I've not heard of anybody being banned for stream snipping. I don't believe it's actually against the rules, it's a risk you take on as a streamer.

Lol, wut?

> It was mostly marketing I think, free versions of BSD were appearing at the same time but didn't generate excitement for a variety of reasons.

It was more then just marketing -- it a was a difference in Philosophy and how it was applied.

BSD, while "free", didn't provide the guarantee that the code would STAY free like GPL.

My understanding is that Stallman _could_ have used a corresponding WTFPL, Do-What-The-Fuck-You-Want Public License, aka Public Domain, but he was more concerned about companies "hijacking" the free source code and making it proprietary again.

Sometimes you need to restrict freedom in order to maintain it, ironically.

> The hobbiest already has Linux, the gamers are going to consoles it seems,

Aside from console exclusive games, gamers are all over the place.

PC Master Race is alive and well thank-you-very-much -- especially with the high performance demands of 4K, 120 Hz, and VR. Plus certain games such as Starcraft 2 will never be on shitty* consoles.

* Shitty is the technical term for dog-slow performance compared to PC -- they are great games on both PC and Console platforms.

Destiny 2 is rumored to also be coming to Windows.

That said,

* Sony uses FreeBSD for the PS3 and PS4 hypervisor kernel.
* Microsoft uses the Windows kernel the XBox 360 and and XBone.

> and the generic home user is happy with phones, tablets, and netbooks.

On PC, if the Steam Hardware Survey is accurate:

* Windows is ~96% of the market here,
* OSX is holding steady at ~3 %
* Linux usage, while also holding, is still a rounding error, for the most part, at ~0.76%

Mobile space is different:

* Android, with its 2+ Billion devices in 5 years, uses Linux, making WinCE and Windows Phones look like a total joke.
* iOS is also popular.

Sorry, I don't have stats for mobile.

You can go rather quickly on some modern gams, too

Remember when Nintendo consoles had memory cartridges? I do.

You mean like the Switch has? Yes, I'm remembering that right now, in fact. Doesn't matter, though. You can't move your installed games or game saves from system memory to your SD cards

Seems like he wanted to leave anyway, that tweet was just the thing that pushed him to do it then and there: http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/...

To be honest, if the guy quits over mild criticism (not threats, not demands to have him fired) of a fucking tweet... I don't think the people criticising him are the ones with the problem here. Anyway, if you exercise your freedom of speech, even on twitter, you can't expect people not to react with their own free speech.

I assumed it was, and still couldn't imagine much of a difference re what it ultimately brings to the table.

One of the biggest issue was not having a body. That's a very unnatural experience. Even in dreams you mostly have a body. So I did a search for body in vr and found this -- http://www.polygon.com/virtual...

I'd definitely try that. Still even with that in mind the idea of overwhelming benefits continue to escape me. Hope I'm wrong.

Sony's letting developers prioritize what they do with the PS4 Pro's hardware. I strongly doubt any AAA games will be targeting 4K rendering, but who knows. The Pro is definitely capable of rendering in 4K*, though, since Rez Infinite is already promising exactly that.

*if we want to split hairs, the current PS4 is theoretically capable of rendering and outputting at 4K, since it supports HDMI 2.0a and isn't a total slouch hardware-wise, but the results wouldn't actually be good.

Who is going to makes FreeBSD games for < 0.001% of the market?

Let's pretend for a moment that Sony had taken the PlayStation 4 in the direction that Microsoft is currently attempting to take the Xbox One, which can run the same UWP games as Windows 10. Back in May, there were already 40 million PlayStation 4 consoles sold, one for about every 200 people on the planet. A WorkStation 4 that can run both FreeBSD applications and PlayStation 4 games wouldn't have a games problem.

I'm not sure what you're getting at? Do you mean 3 adults or what? If it is a shared household of 3 adults then they can pay for their OWN PS+. If it is an adult and kids, then the adult can decided if they want their kids to have online multiplayer, or not.

I meant either way. A lot of people quote the raw sticker price of a console in arguments but fail to take into account the additional price of online multiplayer, especially in the era of a TV in every bedroom. Do games on either current console even support LAN multiplayer?

But PS+ accounts are per user [etc.]

tl;dr: PS+ on PlayStation 4 covers the user's primary console and other consoles that the user logs in to. Thank you for the explanation. After a bit of research, it appears Xbox Live Gold on Xbox One works the same way, and they call it "Home Gold".

It's been pretty obvious to me that Nintendo's value is in it's IP, not it's hardware. Games on other systems, movies, tv etc. are where the growth is.

It has been suggested before:
25 Jan 2007: http://www.cnet.com/forums/dis...
28 April 2012: http://www.slashgear.com/why-n...
20 Aug 2013: http://www.ign.com/boards/thre...
2 years ago: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards...
7 Oct 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
21 Nov 2014: http://www.polygon.com/2014/11...

http://www.thetoptens.com/reas...

Bubble Bobble is one of the included games in the Mini-NES coming out later this year.

Otherwise, the Bubble Bobble Revolution game for DS also contains a copy of the original NES game. I just played that through and avoided the Revolution game altogether.

I think Microsoft could afford it. and wouldn't it be swell if mean old Microsoft said, "our bad you lucky freaks can keep your game and thanks for buying Xbox over that Sony thing" (and somewhere in Puget Sound, the body of a careless Microsoft employee is slowly picked-apart by the fishes). There, all's well, the universe made right. Would sure make me feel better about buying an Xbox. Instead, Microsoft exercises its DRM muscle to claw back those game licenses that it, entirely by its own mistake, let loose for a few hours. and next time, they'll take your little dog, too.

In other words, the $0.00 price was entirely their problem, their fault. They should man up and eat it. Instead, it becomes everyone else's problem because, you know, fuck those consumers we don't owe them anything fuck 'em. Well, thanks for nothing, Microsoft. Didn't I read something somewhere about a new 4K Playstation?

I backed a set of playing cards on Kickstarter called Asylum playing cards.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
Unfortunately, the project owner, Ed Nash, disappeared with the money and failed to deliver the cards.

After some amount of drama, it turned out his artist had long finished the art for the cards, and nothing should be holding them up. All Nash needed to do was pay USPCC to print them up. Instead of doing that, he stopped tending the Kickstarter, sporadically promising the cards before ultimately disappearing. His artist had no idea what happened.

A backer with a legal background got several backers in Washington state together and was able to bring the situation to the attention of the attorney general. Eventually, a court date was set, and Nash never showed. The state ordered him to pay restitution to the backers in Washington, plus civil penalties, plus court costs. In the end, he came out on the hook for more money than he brought in from the entire Kickstarter.
There are several articles about it. The first one to show up on Google: http://www.polygon.com/2015/9/...
Not too long after that, people started receiving their playing cards in the mail. I think Nash decided it would be cheaper to finally deliver the cards than to risk facing more state courts.

Google for the Star Wars Despecialized release. Found on respectable torrent sites everywhere at high bitrates and resolutions. The original theater releases of the first three, retouched and restored with loving care by fans as disappointed with the Lucas edits as you.

... clearly none of you have even tested a build of win10 because you are still whining about non-existent issues.

As someone who has a Windows 10 box, I'll agree that it's not a dream OS for stability, but it still has a large number of issues that people keep hammering. Not convinced? Here are a few articles about Windows 10 data collection from PC Mag and ComputerWorld. How to regain some privacy at Polygon and Techtimes. Finally, that Microsoft doesn't see (or care) about the privacy risk for all this data collection. Nor have they explained what is being collected, for what purpose, how it is being stored, and who has access to it. I had to add rules to my home router to block traffic to MS's servers, something I doubt the typical user would do.

On top of that, there's plenty of issues even with games. MS took down GFWL in favor of their store. However, older GFWL games will install the old software automatically, and give you some interesting crashes (SSF4:AE and SFxTekken both crashed miserably and forced a reboot). Other games require reinstallation or reacquiring of assets through Steam (Saints Row 4 is one). Some are unable to play fullscreen (Xeodrifter is one example). Some will simply only run when the planets are aligned (DmC: Devil May Cry starts as a service for some stupid reason... I rarely get the actual game).

Even though places like Kickstarter really try to make it look like some sort of store the projects are all gambles. There are a few areas that seem to have it down right (books, comics, etc) and I have had success, but tech stuff? *low whistle* You have to approach those different.

Neal Stephenson's 'Clang' comes to mind. https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/...

Kickstarter has a reputation to maintain as well. While they may not promise anything in the fine print, if enough people get screwed and request a chargeback form the credit card company then the card issuers may decide to stop serving KS; even if no money gets refunded. In auditor, at some point a court may rule that despite KS' declaiming any responsibility they indeed do have some and order them to refund money.

Even though places like Kickstarter really try to make it look like some sort of store the projects are all gambles. There are a few areas that seem to have it down right (books, comics, etc) and I have had success, but tech stuff? *low whistle* You have to approach those different.

Neal Stephenson's 'Clang' comes to mind.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/...

The idea of OUYA was to put indie games on a screen big enough for more than one person. It failed as a product but succeeded in getting competitors such as Sony Computer Entertainment to open up more to indie companies.

Actually, Microsoft and Nintendo did that.

It wasn't.

Since there have been at least a dozen confirmed bomb threats where GG has had their talks

Confirmed? Where are the police reports?

A dozen bomb threats doesn't appear to be true, but I did find three bomb threats against GG meetings: in Miami, Melbourne, and D.C. Now, those aren't police reports, but those appear to cost money from the DC police, at least.

Sarkeesian and Quinn both got more harassment than they deserved, for sure. Sarkeesian is a shitty game critic (and has stolen other people's game footage) but she shouldn't have gotten nearly that much attention. Quinn appears to have been emotionally abusive, and may have gotten more publicity (not a review, it seems) from a relationship, but again, those don't justify harassment either. That being said, apparently GG has still been doing stuff this whole time, but the actual harassment seems to have mostly gone away.

Poor people can't have as much as regular people.

Intentionally limiting your audience by using an image codec that is less fit for purpose is bad for business.

Deal with it.

Adam Orth's "#dealwithit" quip is the sort of attitude that drove prospective eighth-generation console customers to PlayStation 4. And even Microsoft's backpedaling on Xbox One's always-on requirement still didn't temper Sony's early lead.

NY Times (All Time High): 1M Digital Subscribers

World of Warcraft (Nine-Year Low): 5.6M Subscribers
(Source: World of Warcraft subscriber numbers)

Thats "one" persons opinion

Everything is one person's opinion until it's tested in a court of law. The article I linked states that such a case has been decided for board games, but not for video games.

Look, the only company that really doesn't care for streaming is Nintendo, goes to show just how stuck in the past they are.

From the article I linked: "Capcom can make you get a license for the 'public performance' of the game. In fact, that is exactly what Capcom does with for-profit tournaments" with games in the Street Fighter series. Blizzard likewise has tried to use copyright to give one Korean TV network exclusive rights to StarCraft II . Sega at one time did a massive takedown of its Shining RPG series on YouTube.

Streaming is built right in to the PS4 and Xbox One.

From the manual: "For some games, there might be scenes in which video cannot be recorded. The maximum 15 minutes of gameplay that are saved as a video clip do not include scenes in which video cannot be recorded. An icon is displayed in the upper left corner of the screen at the start and end of these scenes." This Ars Technica article agrees. Is a licensee allowed to designate the entire game as such a scene? Apparently so, according to this Polygon article and this reddit post.

Found this http://www.polygon.com/2015/8/...

"First Patrick Jean gets to watch them violate his work and now they're claiming that his work violates theirs." No, Patrick Jean isn't being violated at all - he licensed the movie to Happy Madison: http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/...

You seem to forget that the people on "her" side of the argument also made death and rape threats. There's even an entire website dedicated to it.

http://gamergateharassment.tum...

"KingofPol just got sent the emergency services to his place, someone used his doxx to send a false alert for a suicide attempt"

"I hope you all die of bone cancer"

"I'm going to kill you misogynist fucks"

She isn't special just because people threaten her over the internet. You know how many times I've received "personal" death threats? it isn't unusual in the slightest. The difference being is that I don't take every single idiot on the internet seriously to the point of being scared some keyboard warrior is actually going to show up on my doorstep.

And you call me the paranoid one? Go look in the mirror.

Oh, and I don't tweet bomb threats to people I don't like.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/...

I never said death threats weren't wrong, so stop trying to misrepresent what I'm saying. Both sides have done wrong. BOTH SIDES. That doesn't make it right, but sitting in the corner pretending to be the victim when you're just as guilty is laughable.

If I'm mistaken Lode Runner was one of the first games to include a level editor.

Sadly Doug Smith passed away last year. :-(

http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/...

Not only are they becoming more super, their super power seems to be "invisibility"

That's why in video games, any halfway decent "AI" has to be handicapped so it doesn't beat the living crap out of humans...

Uh huh. Is that also why that any game where you're doing an escort mission the AI you're having to escort is doing some of the stupidest stuff to get itself killed? Aim bots aren't intelligence either. It's nothing more than a variant on a frick'n raycast rendering engine applied to actor positioning. AI drivers in racing games? I've played plenty, and programmed a few (rFactor allows screwing with the Robot Driver scripts), at what you consider to be "above human performance" The AI isn't doing anything especially smart, it just knows EVERYTHING about the rest of the variables in the simulation... And that right there is the crux of why you can't say AI is ready to completely take over from a human.

If an "AI" in a game is impossible to strategically defeat in a game (and not because of Ultra high HP, or it's carrying a 1 hit kill mega gun) it's never because of any real intelligence that's been programmed in. It's because the "AI" knows exactly Every. Single. Variable. of where Every. Single. Actor. is in the environment... including the Player's actor(s) and actors that aren't even visible to the player yet. You cannot take that same AI and expect it to function as well in the real world, because it can only ever have as much information as the human does.... and it has to be programmed with situational experience to know how to react to ever changing variables that it cannot pre-read like it could in the simulated world that it controls every aspect of.

As someone who has played around with various AI technologies in the past (Ultra HAL Assistant being one), I can tell you that it took a hell of a lot of time to get my computer to "understand" certain basic concepts that my 3 year old mastered before he was 2. AI is not ready to take over for us, not by a long shot, and anyone who would use video games as a demonstration of the "powah of teh AI" has no fucking concept whatsoever of what Artificial Intelligence really entails; and yes, that includes you as well, drinkypoo. Also as an example for whatever it's worth given that it's a paper and Proof of Concept done by a CIS student, if you take a computer program outside of the simulated environment and measure its performance... it doesn't quite measure up to the level of skill a human player has in the same games. I'm not saying it's impossible for AI to get to a point where it's good enough...we're just not even close yet.