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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • The other thing is that there was simply fewer games back then so you either continue to play the good games you own or you don’t play games. I loved Ocarina of Time, but I’m not going to pretend it was God’s gift to mankind just because I played it tons in my youth. I played it tons in my youth because it was one of the best games that I owned, and even then I had plenty more options than I’m sure this person had on the Atari for good games





  • To some extent I can understand since they’re expecting a certain ROI on the console which would include American sales, and therefore if American sales drop because of tariffs they need another way to make up that lost revenue.

    That being said I feel like it would be a mistake to make that up by increasing the price of the console for other markets too. In my opinion if American sales drop then they should pivot their focus to other markets until American leadership stabilizes, i.e. stops being an active detriment to the American economy and all the international companies involved in it. Which likely won’t happen until trump/his administration is out of office.


  • Java is the original and Bedrock is the C++ adaptation that came about once Microsoft bought Minecraft. Microsoft couldn’t really justify getting rid of Java edition because that’s what the entire PC userbase was using at the time, and they’ve gotten very used to the features it allows for. Namely mods. However they still wanted to unify the casual playerbase and better monetize the game.

    On the topic of monetization, Minecraft originally had this nasty little clause (for Microsoft) written in I forget either the ToS, EULA, or what, but it essentially guaranteed all future updates to the game for free. I believe it also made some other guarantees about no MTX, should never have to pay for servers, etc but those I’m less certain about. Around the time MS bought the game there was a lot of talk about how the only way they’d really be able to get out of that guarantee to the millions of players who already owned “Java edition” (just regular Minecraft back then) was to make a Minecraft 2.0 that didn’t have that clause. Their approach for that problem appears to have been bedrock edition which they maintain alongside Java edition. Because it’s not the version they bought, they can make changes to the legal agreements including charging for things Java Edition users have a guaranteed right to.

    Those are the two main reasons I’m aware of for the two editions. I believe the majority of the PC playerbase is currently on Bedrock Edition so although they would have some backlash if they suddenly decided to axe it I think the majority of the playerbase would chug on like normal. Afaik the main reason they don’t is because anyone who purchased Minecraft before there was a “Java Edition” would have a legal claim to say Bedrock is clearly the same game under another title, they’re not getting future updates as guaranteed, and are entitled to either updates or compensation. And I can’t imagine MS is interested in litigiously pissing off millions of players.


  • I imagine Minecraft played a large part in popularizing the concept of a player hosted server for survival games. It’s possible that the reason this genre in specific has so many titles where you can do this is because players coming from or otherwise largely influenced by Minecraft see this as a requirement if not just the standard, so devs wanting to appeal to these players may also see it as a standard/requirement.


  • Worth mentioning that some of these earlier titles were built for IPX networking, which is no longer supported by modern operated systems. I get the impression OP is asking for games with LAN gaming supporting to get recommendations, so I feel it’s important to make sure they or others checking lists like this one understand they may need to go through some hoops to get some of these titles to work with a modern machine.





  • Great, you have a simple rule that’s wholely unrealistic and as poorly construed as pretty much everything else you’ve been saying so far. Such a rule could so easily be worked around that it may as well already exist for all that it would matter.

    I’ll again reiterate that I agree with what you want to argue. I agree that I think Steam could probably take a smaller cut, still be profitable enough to stay in business at the same scale they are, afford more smaller businesses a better cut of the money they’re generating for themselves and for steam, and give the option to charge less to consumers. I agree that there are too many mega corporations, making way too much money, screwing too many of their clients, customers, and employees. I agree that too many executives are making genuinely fuck loads of money that are inhumanly excessive.

    I’ll still say again though, that pretty much everything you’ve argued so far is wildly unrealistic, unfounded in reality, barely thought through at all, and comes across as the absurd ramblings of a middle schooler who passed an economics elective.

    I’ll also point out the hypocrisy of you attacking Steam (and to your credit other distributors retail or otherwise) but defending the publishers that by your arguments simply must charge more or else they don’t make money back on their investment. Your argument defends AAA publishers such as EA churning out games year after year with the exact same code just different stats for sports games (FIFA, NBA, whatever the current football games are), games exploiting gambling addictions (pay to win, FOMO, loot boxes), and games exploiting the efforts and attention of children (Roblox).

    Also “something must be broken in your brain for you to defend them instead of your own interests” is rich coming from the person who’s very visibly experiencing double-think seemingly genuinely arguing “of course publishers aren’t going to charge less for their titles on other digital marketplaces because if they need a $49 RoI on Steam then they’re going to charge the same $70 price on other platforms” at the same time as “well if Steam didn’t charge a 30% cut then you would pay $50 for an otherwise $70 title!” as if you don’t believe in your own argument that they would charge the same exact price on Steam as they do elsewhere.



  • Oh is that because Steam exists in isolation and can’t be compared to any other platform? If so, tell me what about Steam makes it an apples to oranges comparison with Epic, GOG, Origin, and Battle.Net? If they’re up for discussion then why is it that physical game distribution isn’t allowed to be talked about? If an average consumer is only really concerned about getting the game then why are some forms of getting their game not allowed for discussion? Why should retailers be exempt from this discussion?

    You also didn’t seem to mind slashing their cut percentage in half, but how can we know that’s a feasible percentage if we’re not allowed to talk about other distributors and see if they’re able to make 15% work? If we’re not considering other distributors at all then who’s to say if 30% is unreasonable? Should it be increased or decreased and by how much?

    Suppose we were instead talking about Nintendo selling games for too much, how would we decide it’s too much if we couldn’t compare it to other studios, distributors, or platforms that demonstrate they can still run a business and charge less?

    Face it, talk about and comparison to any other distributor or distribution method is fully relevant and required if you want to have any meaningful discussion. You just don’t seem to want to discuss retailers because they’re hurting your weak argument.



  • I find it absolutely wild that you seem to think Steam’s 30% cut is the sole reason AAA games cost $70. Have you ever looked into how much it costs to sell a game at a retail store? From what I’ve seen Steam takes roughly the same cut as most retailers do and then the publisher still has to produce the physical copies and distribute them. They would make the same amount on Steam if and only if they printed, burned, packaged, and distributed their physical copies for free, not to mention the promotional materials they’re sending out to retailers.

    Everything I’m seeing indicates that compared to a physical copy (which is given for a majority of AAA games) a major publisher would earn far more money per copy on Steam than at GameStop, Target, Walmart, or any other retailer where they’re charging the same $70 price at. But Steam is the real problem that’s hurting their RoI, apparently.

    I’ll agree I think Steam’s cut is high and they could earn a lot of favor by turning it down a bit, but your argument seeming to insinuate that their 30% cut is the sole reason games cost $70 is absolutely wild to me.



  • Apparently “W” was originally written as “uu” as early as ~600AD, hence the name, however it still used Latin/Roman letters which hadn’t yet distinguished between u and v as letters. For at least 700 years, u and v appear to have been considered the same and interchangeable (so "Double U " could look like “uu” or “vv”) but it depends on your language whether it was verbally called a “U” or a “V” until the first recorded distinction between the two in a Gothic era alphabet written in 1386. The two apparently did still see some overlap in use until about the 1700s with the turning point appearing to be when the distinction between their capital forms was accepted by the French Academy in 1726.

    tl;dr: “Double U” predates the distinction between “U” and “V” so it’s up to chance which letter a language called it before it stuck.



  • Eh, at least as far as the combat goes I liked doing the Net Runner thing: hacking cameras left and right and killing off enemies before they ever saw me. That being said I put the game down when it became too much of a chore to get much anything upgraded. My combat style may have been suboptimal but I had fun with it.

    I also didn’t have any issues with bugs or graphical issues, but I also first played it pretty far into its life after they could fix plenty of things. Don’t remember exactly when it was, but it was after the anime was no longer super relevant but before that big 2.0 update. I also know I played using some mods, and I can’t remember if there was a mod that fixed a bunch of issues.


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